A Lark Ascending

Yes, Charlie Haden's 'Ballad of the Fallen' has that 'raggedness' that I love in her early records. The arrangements are just too smooth for me from the late 80s, the jokes too well rehersed.

I somehow doubt whether Nikki Iles will mean a thing on this board, Andy. I'm not sure she has a profile ouside of the UK. Having seen her a number of times I'll count myself as an admirer. A beautiful CD from a couple of years back ('Veils' with Stan Sulzmann and Chris Biscoe) and a lovely trio CD from 2004. She also plays with Tina May - a very nice CD from about 6 or 7 years back. There are supposed to be recordings with Tony Coe and Norma Winstone in the pipeline. I first came across her playing piano in a Mike Gibbs orchestra in the early 90s.

Dave Liebman is playing the Cheltenham Festival over here in late April with Ellery Eskelin, Tony Marino and Jim Black. One of the events I've booked for.

Anyone heard this soundtrack recording also released recently?:

Escalator, Tropic Appetites, Dinner Music, European Tour '77 and Social Studies are all huge favourites of mine. There's an oddball eccentricity to these discs; the arrangements are strange with a certail Kurt Weillish feel in places. I have a number of her discs from the late 80s onwards and find them far less involving. More conventionally 'big-band' which I'm not a great fan of.

Bev, the title of that album is 'Carnet de Routes' not Le Querrec. Le Querrec is that great photographer Guy Le Querrec who was the official fourth member of the group during its travels thru Africa. He was playing with his cameras. Did another great job of his! I can never work out the title. Both CDs carry the words 'carnet de routes'. Where the 1999 disc has Suite Africaine, the 1995 has Le Querrec. Both, as you point out, list the photographer alongside the trio. The thick booklets of photos that come with the CDs are an added bonus. Maybe 'Carnet de routes' was the title of disc 1 and they decided to use it as a name for this particular trio, thus explaining its reappearance on disc 2. Whatever the names the music is absolutely stunning. I came across the group on a BBC broadcast in the mid-90s. It kept me company on a long drive from London and I got the first CD soon afterwards.

Yes, I was enjoying 'Vivre' in the car today. My only reservation with it is the shortness of some of the tracks. The opener is a real stormer - 13 minutes or so of real energy with fabulous playing all round. I could have done with more of that. I really like 'Strings Spirit' - a very different feel to the other albums. I like the way the srings are not made to gush like so often on strings backed recordings. I still think this one is an absolute pearler: Some very beautiful tunes, that unforced slightly African feel to some pieces and the wonderful Bojan Zulfikarpasic throwing in his unique way with piano improvising - very eastern European. This is another beauty - I suspect this will be the trio in the concerts:

I actually think 'Le Querrec' from (1995) is the stronger of the two. Not that there is much in it. I just play it more often! Label Bleu is one of those labels I keep my eye on. Always interesting.

So we have Easy Jet and Ryan Air to blame for flying droves of them over from Saxe Coburg International Airport to fill the streets during the Queen Mum's funeral and the whatever Jubilee a couple of years back?

I'm never too sure where all the supporters of the monarch live. Whenever we get to the purpose of the monarchy in citizenship lessons I find 14 year olds excel themselves with their complete and utter contempt.

And this is the other one:

I havn't. But I noticed today that the Birmingham concert is the first day of the Easter holidays so I've booked to see him then. Would be a pity to miss a rare visit by a player who has become a real favourite of mine on CD. Sebastien Texier is more than just a famous son. I find him a really absorbing player.

Superb player as is his son, Andy. Chase down 'Mosaic Man' by his Azure Quintet or the two CDs he did with Louis Sclavis and Aldo Romano. Muscular, energetic yet also melodic. I believe in this tour he's with his new Sextet and a trio both with his son. Two good recent recordings from those units too. Sadly he's playing Nottingham on a night I've got a parents' consultation evening. Bloody inconsiderate of them (the parents' that is!).

'Litania' is stunning. The line-up: Tomasz Stanko - Litania - The Music of Krzysztof Komeda Tomasz Stanko trumpet Bernt Rosengren tenor saxophone Joakim Milder tenor and soprano saxophones Terje Rypdal electric guitar Bobo Stenson piano Palle Danielsson double-bass Jon Christensen drums I love 'Leosia' and I'd add 'From the Green Hill' as front runners. The two recent discs are beautiful but I think there's a danger this group could eaily become a formula like EST. I'd like to see Stanko in a completely different setting on his next ECM - no piano, some edgy horns perhaps.

I have it on good authority that Her Majesty and Brian May had a blazing row degenerating into serious mud-slinging over whether hollow guitars were better than the solid-bodied variety. Apparently Richard Thompson was there somewhere too - http://www.richardthompson-music.com/catch..._day.asp?id=346. This is just the archaic way we promote industry in the UK!

I have frequently waxed lyrical (and nostalgic) about Ogun. In the mid-70s it was my first crossing point into jazz from the aforementioned King Crimson and the Soft Machine. There's not a great deal of the original catalogue on CD but Hazel Miller (Harry Miller's widow) has done her best to get some things back and to get new discs out. The Harry Miller box set issued a few years back is excellent, especially 'Family Affair' by Isipingo with Miller, Tippett, Osborne Griffiths and Moholo. Ogun reissued a great two-on-one last year - Osborne's 'Border Crossing' with 'Marcel's Muse'. I love both 'Frames' and 'Spirit's Rejoice' and would throw in the two Dean 'Ninesense' records, 'SOS' and the Dean Quartet's 'They All Be on this Old Road' as highpoints. The one I'd love to hear - I recall it from the radio at the time - is the Tippett/Charig 'Pipedream'. ********** Two more recent Ogun's worth tracking down (both available on CD) are the two Dedication Orchestra recordings, celebrating the Blue Notes with a large orchestra. Louis Moholo played a couple of great sets at the recent Jazz Britannia shindig. I'm expecting any day at all the new Stan Tracey/Louis Moholo CD 'Khumbula' to drop through the door (contact hazel@cadillacjazz.co.uk for details). Hazel Miller was at a Louis Moholo interview at that event; she told us that Ogun were currently putting together a boxed set of Blue Notes recordings. I'd imagine it will include some of the material in Blake's post. ********** This blogspot I stumbled on last year is quite informative on the Ogun label recordings: http://nostudium.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_n...um_archive.html

Now which dance craze was this? 'The Hucklebuck'?

I must admit I'm a bit vague about it. Memory tends to telescope events. I'm convinced I saw the assassination of Robert Kennedy on TV in Ireland in early 1968. He actually died later that summer. I think my brain confused MLK's assassination with the later one. Fox was a great broadcaster. I started listening to him in 1977. My particular memory is coming in from work when I first started in 1978 and hearing him in that Tuesday afternoon slot. Whereas Peter Clayton played everything from Trad to Kenny Wheeler, Fox pushed on to the more 'out' recordings. I recall being puzzled by Anthony Braxton and India Navigation LPs on his programme. It's one thing I think (well one of many things) the BBC is lacking at present - a regular programme covering jazz releases. The Saturday afternoon Claire Martin slot does this a bit but is pitched at a more centreground audience. There needs to be a more ambitious programme fronted by someone as knowledgeable as Fox. Classical fans get all Saturday from 9.00 to 1.00 for record releases. Can we have an hour?

He can certainly play Mah Jong.

Agree with you 100% about Citadel. I remember the first time I played it and that BBC signature tune leapt out (I've a feeling it was Peter Clayton's Sunday late night programme that used it...Fox's 'Jazz Today' used Stan Sulzmann's 'On Loan With Gratitude'*). I'd always loved it He was still playing with jazz-rock a bit then but the whole recoring comes off superbly. It's worth trying to find a copy of 'Love/Dream and Variations' which is similar to Citadel but loses all the the jazz-rock. The bit of 'Duke' he played at the Barbican was the theme that runs right through the 80 minutes, getting a full treatment in the last 12 minutes or so as 'Music Is..." * One of these used the Loose Tubes tune 'Yellow Hill' as an opener for a time. Another one I couldn't trace, stumbling on it when I bought the album.

Cricket?

Far from an 'authority'. But definately an enthusiast with a lot of his records. As chance would have it I've just been making a CD-R of my vinyl copy of 'On Duke's Birthday' this morning. Well, worth getting if not (to my mind) in the top league of his output.

My memory of Exeter is very hazy - I've only been back a couple of times since the 70s. I recall the shopping centre (there's probably 5 shopping centres now) with...I think...a church or old medieval building stuck in the middle. I recall where the Cathedral was. ***** I just checked a map and can see where you mean. I think I might be thinking about the Guildhall. Noticed Paris Street - there was a great record shop there where I bought some of my first jazz records. Might have been called something like 'The Left Bank'. I'm long overdue for a reconnection with Devon and Cornwall!

I love bluegrass - in an odd way it connects my love of jazz and UK folk music. I recall hearing a programme a few years back where it was claimed that 'scientific tests showed' that it was the genre of music that generated most brain activity. Probably means nothing more than 'they play fast'. But I thought it was interesting given the way the music is often parodied in the UK - the non-too-bright, slow of speech, inbred Appalachian playing a banjo on the porch.

Your order, sir: