A Lark Ascending

Just add to... ...and stir...

If they look close by they might find the skeleton of an Ice Age man standing on one leg! (there's a challenge for the computer graphics masters at Organissimo).

Tell that to the Irish! I think you might have just put the final nail in the coffin of the peace process! There's also a Swede there somewhere! Hey, I'm an American. What do I care about peace? One of those smiley things!

My favourites: Coope Boyes and Simson - 'A Garland of Carols' Coope Boyes and Simson - 'Fire & Sleet & Candlelight' ('Can We Have Christmas Now?' Sari & Mari Kaasinen) ************* Individually two tracks haunt me: 'Shepherds Arise' off the album 'The Mysteries' performed by various people in the Home Service/Albion Band. 'In the Bleak Midwinter' - an absolutely exquisite version of Holst's tune from Henry Lowther's Stillwaters disc, 'I.D.' One of my favourite discs with this lovely little carol tucked away at the end.

After reading the 'Jazz-aholic' thread I feel quite modest in my purchases!

Tell that to the Irish! I think you might have just put the final nail in the coffin of the peace process! There's also a Swede there somewhere!

Boden Ulrika - Ratt Nu Ar Det Pa Tiden (Drone) Border Collies - Unleashed (Border Collies) BrassMonkey - Flame of Fire (Topic) Bridge Frank - Oration etc - Hickox BBC NO of Wales (Chandos) Bridge Frank - Suite for Strings etc Hickox BBC NO of Wales (Chandos) Carthy Martin - Waiting for Angels (Topic) Danu - Up in the Air (Shanachie) Greaves John - Chansons (Le Chant de Monde) McKeown Susan - Sweet Liberty (World Village) Moore Christy - The Box Set 1964-2004 (Columbia) Mozaik - Live at the Powerhouse (Hummingbird) Waterson/Carthy - Fishes and Fine Yellow Sand (Topic) Winwood Steve - About Time (Sanctuary) Plus the Planxty reunion DVD!!!! FairportConvention - Angel Delight (Island) Soft Machine - Somewhere in Soho (Voiceprint) Soft Machine - Live in Paris, 1972 (Cuneiform) Thompson Richard - I Want to see the Bright Lights Tonight (Island) Thompson Richard - Pour Down Like Silver (Island) Thompson Richard - Hokey Pokey (Island) Thompson Richard - Henry the Human Fly (Island) Various - Seoltai Seidte (Gael Linn) Watersons - Mighty River of Song (Topic) A very good year, indeed.

Very hard to get to five as I've enjoyed so much this year. Acoustic Ladyland - Camouflage (Babel) An album that is something of a showcase for the younger generation of UK jazz players who are taking the country by storm at present. Hendrix tunes remade and remodelled. Live they are absolutely electrifying. Carrothers Bill - Armistice 1918 (Sketch) The concept album is alive and well! A 2CD project based around World War I using tunes of that era and originals as a jumping off point. A very moving experience. Laubrock Ingrid - Forensic (F-IRE) German sax player who lives and works in the UK in a variety of contexts (including a band playing Brazillian music). Her first two albums were excellent but still inside a hard bop/post-bop framework. This one pushes outside the boundaries whilst remaining melodic. Free and elastic, think Wayne Shorter in the late-60s before electricity, Steve Lacy. Schneider Maria - Concert in the Garden (Artist Share) Exquisite! I'm not much a fan of traditional big-band music. Schneider writes for jazz orchestra and does so beautifully. Jazz drawn from Gil Evans, de Falla, Debussy, Ravel rather than the BBC Big Band! Somogyi Arnie - Improvokation: Star Mountain Sessions (Forged) Probably my favourite recording of all this year. UK bass player of Hungarian extraction explores his roots and teams up with an Anglo-Hungarian band. Themes based on Hungarian folk music, improvisation based on jazz. Life-enhancing music.

Yes, I'm speeding off to that one too...in Manchester in my case. The BBC Radio 3 Jazz Legends programme did Tony Coe yesterday. I only heard the first half driving home from work. Am about to listen to part two. A part of Windmill Tilter was played early on in the programme. There was also a track from Coe's 'Zeitgeist', a major 70s work that hasn't been around since then. One I'd like to see return. Can be heard online until Friday, 17/12/04: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/jazzlegends/index.shtml

The last thing I heard the following were being considered for Feb/March: Joe Harriott/Amancio D'Silva - Hum Dono Neil Ardley- A Symphony of Amaranths Michael Garrick - Heart is a Lotus New Jazz Orchestra - Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe Mike Taylor - Pendulum I can vouch for the Ardley and the New Jazz Orchestra discs as being excellent. The other three I don't know.

Expect UK jazz to get a big boost in the new year. Around February a TV three part series is due to be screened tracing the roots of UK jazz - 'Jazz Britannia'. There's also a two night celebration at the Barbican in Feb to tie in. I have my tickets! Another batch of 'Impressed Repressed' discs are due early in the new year too.

I bought 'Kind of Blue' on the strength of hearing 'Blue in Green' on Jazz Record Requests one afternoon in Jan or Feb of 1978. I suspect I normally buy recordings based on hearing only one track - there's so little opportunity to hear anything more, given the limited broadcasting of jazz. Why, I buy many recordings without hearing any tracks. A review, an interesting line-up, a recommendation on a bulletin board... If I only bought what I was certain of liking then I'd be far richer and have more wall-space. But I can't imagine I'd get anything like the pleasure from music that I get from roaming free and wide, being able to constantly stumble on something quite unexpected.

There's been a very lovely duet album between Charlie Haden and John Taylor this year. In his relaxed, romantic mode with a tremendous pianist.

Gosh. He was never a favourite of mine, but I do recall seeing him in a concert once. He was renowned for working himself up into a fit of anger on stage, a fair few years before punk. I recall him hurling a chair across the stage which then flew into the audience. I hope his later years were more peaceful.

God I feel old. I don't know the music of any of these popular beat combos!

I can't speak for your side of the great divide, Bev, but over here we just don't allow such things anymore, or at least try hard to kill them whenever possible. Radio like that just isn't around anymore, at least here... The amazing thing is that he survived so long on Radio 1 (the UK's 'pop' station). He was one of the original DJs from the 1967 setting up of the station (something the BBC mandarins did through gritted teeth, it would seem). From the off he was totally unlike any of the other DJs, most of whom were out to become 'stars'. It would appear the administrators had their knives out for him and he was very lucky to make it through the first few years. He didn't seem to change. He stuck to his way of doing things and won an audience...well, a new audience every few years as his interest in new pop/rock music went ahead of his existing audience...that was there to the end. The side of Peel that people outside of the UK are unlikely to know is the 'Home Truths' John Peel. Over the last decade he made an alternative career as a champion of the ordinary and often eccentric lives of the regular (and irregular!)family. He had never been shy of talking about his wife and family but this programme brought out just how much it all meant to him. His abilities as an interviewer talking to an adult about their experience of bereavement, child abuse or other horrors were second to none. He created a whole new audience who did not know his Radio 1 show. And then a couple of days later he'd be playing the latest 23 second thrash metal opus! An amazing chap.

I suspect so. His 'Impressions' programme in the 1990s always had a heavy 'avant' slant, especially in the sessions; though he always played a wide range of jazz. I think the BBC thought it was too highbrow and replaced it with the current 'Jazz On 3'. I enjoy the latter and commend its commitment to live music and contemporary music; but I miss Morton's approach.

I agree that the quality control has become dodgy over the years; it's almost as if the Penguin has become a routine chore alongside their other jobs. I'd love to see them rope in three or four other writers to freshen it up a bit. I don't think a 'book' will ever address the problem. They need this on a (subscription?) website or CD-ROM where things can be added too rather than replaced. US reader probably have little awareness of Cook and Morton as individuals. Cook I've always found rather unappealing - his editorials in Jazz Review are a bit superior, rather conservative. I attended a talk by him a few years back at a festival. He didn't seem too enthused about anything very contemporary - Eric Alexander was the name he gave us for a modern musician who he enjoyed! Morton, by contrast, is someone I've always enjoyed as a broadcaster. He fronted the best, to my mind, jazz programme on the BBC in the 90s. He had a terrible run in with the BBC a few years back. Apart from reviews in Jazz Review I've not heard much of him since. He has a book on jazz slated for the near future but it keeps getting pushed back.

Yes, I saw that one. He also did some nice bits on that 'Grumpy Old Men' series.

Is it fair to compare Penguin with 'The Essential Jazz Records' (either volume)? The latter very deliberately selects a very limited group of records and subject them to sometimes intense, donnish analysis. At the other extreme you have AMG which attempts to cover everything (well, everything American!) whether in print or out, yet often in a cursory way. Penguin falls in between. It's not hardcore criticism but a very personal reaction from two enthusiasts, trying to give some sort of guide from a very subjective viewpoint. I find all these guides useful, but I don't go to any of them to have my views verified [Cook and Morton's reaction to Bill Frisells record with Dave Holland and Elvin Jones bears no resemblence to mine...I just conclude they completely missed the point to the CD]. Their reaction to the Blue Note 'classics' merely reflects two enthusiasts with different interests/priorities. It might be a particularly Europen perspective - I have to say that I find a lot of that music to be rather meat and potatoes. But then that's probably me missing something. If I find any serious fault with Penguin it lies in certain lack of humility in its introduction. They could do with making more of the subjective nature of the opinions; less of the 'there's only so much time to listen so we're going to sift and throw out what you don't need'. There's an arrogance there, something I don't associate with Morton as a broadcaster. Where I always find the Penguin useful is when exploring a new musician - it can give you a place to start listening, which CD to try. If that connects I'll try something else (all the time checking other recommendations from other sources) and then gradually move away from the Penguin and end up with my own take on things. I do like their humour. But I can see this might be infuriating to others. Penguin has been under assault from some quarters since it first started over ten years ago. I'm still waiting for the critics to produce their volume(s) that correct its faults. I'd buy one!

To the end Peel would go through piles of tapes sent in by hopeful bands looking for something new, something different. He had a habit of moving past bands once they'd made it, using his shows to expose new bands rather than give more publicity to those already established. He had little time for jazz, but even after I lost interest in the music he liked I could still appreciate the spirit of his approach. Why has he been followed by so few radio presenters prepared to put together musical programmes (of whatever musical genre) with such catholicity and integrity?

John Peel shaped my musical taste! I first started listening to his shows in 1970 and was a regular listener until about 1976. To his credit he went on playing the new in rock music when my abiliy to keep up slacked off and stopped. I just remember the early 70s when you could listen to his programme and hear the most amazing range of music - The Faces next to Martin Carthy next to Stone the Crows next to Billy Pig next to Pink Floyd next to Elton Dean next to Ivor Cutler. Thinking back I'm sure my fascination with music crossing genres is rooted in Peel's programmes. In latter years he had a parallel career running a programme called Home Truths, a magazine programme exploring the idiocyncrasies of family life - some hilarious, some tragic. He gained a whole new audience, most of whom wouldn't have known Captain Beefheart from the Archies. Without doubt the best music radio broadcaster I ever came across. Unpretentious, down to earth, real. A huge loss!

Take Kenny's advice. There's a whole new area of jazz (well, new to Northern hemisphere ears) coming out of Australia at present. Some of the most rewarding jazz I've heard this year.

Well done, Duchamp. Exactly what I think of whenever someone starts banging on about 'Art'.

I always take my walkperson and some CDs on trips and find the conjunction of particular music with particular places very affecting. A few examples: Maria Schneider's 'Concert in the Garden' which I played whilst sat in the magnificent gardens in Seville, Cordoba and Granada this year. A few years back I spent a rather dead Sunday afternoon strolling through the streets of Florence with 'We did it, We did it!' by Tiziano Tononi in my ears. Magical! Last month I spend an hour strolling through a very damp, Autumnal St Stephen's Green in Dublin with a Kenny Wheeler/John Taylor disc evoking the mood quite perfectly.