A Lark Ascending

What sort of angles is he going to come up with to do with obsession? I'd imagine we'll get the Church of John Coltrane thing. Jazz fanaticism is ripe for a bit of fun-making just like train-spotting. Some listeners obsessions with their heroes can get well out of proportion. Let's just hope that he can say something interesting and positive rather than turning it into another reality TV show about peculiar people (The man with ten thousand Coltrane records instead of the man with ten thousand Elvis suits!). I'm not holding my breath, however!

And on BBC1 too! Imagine... Wed 16 Jun, 10:35 pm - 11:15 pm 40mins Saint John Coltrane On the 40th anniversary of John Coltrane's most famous record, A Love Supreme, Alan Yentob examines the life and work of the legendary jazz saxophonist, whose obsession with music is matched by an equally obsessive following all over the world. You can then flip to BBC4 at 11.15 for: Coltrane: Sounds of Jazz A rare chance to see this classic 1959 US TV Jazz performance featuring Miles Davis, the Gil Evans Orchestra and the legendary John Coltrane. All at the top of their game at this point in their careers, they perform So What, The Duke and Blues for Pablo. Wed 16 Jun, 23:15-23:40 25mins Stereo Widescreen

Which goes to show how much lies in perception. I can enjoy odd Who songs ('Won't Get Fooled Again' is great) but as a whole they do little for me. The Who sound very much of 'Swinging London'. Whereas those Byrds harmonies still sound fresh to me. I think it's accurate to see those Byrds records as collections of individual tracks rather than coherent 'albums'. But The Byrds were at their peak before the idea of the album had really caught on. Those bitty albums were the norm in those days.

Even though I've been listening to jazz for over 25 years I've never been a serious listener. Jazz makes me happy! Too many other things to be serious about.

Hard to pinpoint. There were jazzy things happeing in rock that attracted my interest from about 1971. I bought my first Jarretts in 1975. But maybe 1976 should be the start where I consciously decided to investigate jazz more fully through Mike Westbrook, Stan Tracey, S.O.S. (Surman, Osborne, Skidmore), Ralph Towner and Miles Davis. Coltrane rolled in the following year, Ellington the year after. And then there was no going back.

John Surman (though I don't think he plays it much these days). Gianluigi Trovesi

My dad was in the RAF (he joined just as the war ended). I spent the first 21 years of my life either on RAF bases, near them or travelling to and from them during university vacations. I was raised on the whole Battle of Britain mythology. To this day the sight of a Lancaster or a Spitfire brings a lump to my throat.

Glorious, Tony. Where is that? Looks like the vale of York. It's certainly been a gorgeous day. Sadly a week late. I could have done with this weather in Wiltshire last week. Instead I've had a day of fractious overheated children in poorly ventilated classrooms!

I've never been to the Normandy sites, but have visited the First World War battlefields in Flanders many times. Every time the places get to me. Its also extraordinary going to these places with parties of schoolkids who are always taken aback by the scale of the suffering. I wish it was possible to get every schoolkid there once! Watching the various programmes yesterday made me want to visit Normany in the near future. One rather sad thing I heard today. We have local and European elections coming up on Thursday. A couple of 20-somethings were saying how they couldn't be bothered to fill in their slips (we're experimenting with postal voting in my region). Yesterday we have men running into the face of murderous machine gun fire to defend a democratic way of life. Today some can't even be bothered to tick a box and post a letter. As I said before, we have life very easy!

Marvellous 2 hour drama-documentary about the lead up to D-Day and the day itself just went out on BBC 1. Very moving and a fitting tribute. This is the sort of the thing that the Beeb can do so well. Popular TV at its best. As has been commented on throughout the day one of the most moving things has been the sheer humility of the veterans.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned here but these two marvellous mid-70s recordings on the great Ogun label have just been reissued on one disc in the UK. The Oguns are very slowly seeping back.

Very moving to watch the veterans commemorating the Normandy landings this morning. At a time when news of just one death in the current conflict chills you it is hard to imagine a time when casualties could happen in their thousands on a single day. The courage of those who fought is something way beyond my understanding. The resilence of the populations at home (wherever home was) when every day was likely to bring more grim news. Brings home to me just what an easy life I've lead.

HMV online has both Impressed II and the 5 reissues slated for 21st June. However, they've been listing Impressed II for some time and kept moving back the dates...I seem to recall April 1st being the initial date!!!!!! (clearly some wag in the offices!) The fact that there are half-page colour adverts in the press would suggest that this time its real. I'd imagine there'll be some sort of high profile campaign in the shops that sell jazz. I'm just hoping they keep it going long enough to get all those Garricks out. The history of UK jazz reissue series seems to parallel some of those magazine partworks that do so many issues and then give up for lack of interest. Let's hope Impressed has generated enough interest.

Aaahhhh!!!! Note "You could argue that jazz is all swing." I've no wish to box jazz into 'swing' but there are plenty of jazz fans who'll tell you that it don't mean a thing... My point was merely that 'Fusion', 'Swing', 'Bebop' etc are useful, general labels to denote a significant trend in jazz at a specific point in time.

The five initial 'Impressed Repressed' reissues are now being advertised in the UK magazines alongside Impressed 2: Mike Taylor Trio - Trio Michael Garrick - Troppo Amancio D'Silvia - Integration Neil Ardley, Ian Carr, Don Rendell - Greek Variations Mike Westbrook - Celebration. Please everyone go and buy one copy ove each. That way we're more likely to get the next five!!!!

I always found this 'foreign' release strange:

Enjoyed the Martyn programme, though he seemed in a bad way. Not just from the leg op. It seems all those years of excess have really hammered his health. A unique talent in the 60s and 70s. That point when he was mixing his folky past with the echoplex guitar weirdness was sheer perfection. The drift towards a more conventional rock style from the mid 70s seemed to lose all his individualism. Yet I saw him play with Danny Thompson in the mid/late 80s and it had all the power of the early 70s!

I don't much like the idea of 'rating' players. Strikes me as a job for bean counters. Interpreting the title as players who are only noticed by a few and could be enjoyed by many more... Harry Beckett Henry Lowther Pino Minafra

Beware. It's a long, long way to Reno, Nevada, it's a long, long way to go... ************** I'm having a couple of weeks between Seville, Cordoba and Granada doing Moorish Spain. Then a week taking my parents back to my mums home in Ireland. Expensive summer!

Funny you should ask. I just put one together this evening for a younger colleague at work who wanted to hear some interesting saxophone music. This is what fell together. Named by the saxophonists rather than the leaders: 1. Stan Getz (ts) - Manha de Carnival (1962) 2. Charlie Parker (as) - Ornithology (1946) 3. Sonny Rollins (ts) - To a Wild Rose (1974) 4. Gianluigi Trovesi (as) - Verano (1998) 5. Jan Garbarek (ts, fl) - Nimbus (1975) - [Ralph Towner's 'Solstice'] 6. Ben Webster (ts) - My One and Only Love (1956) - [Art Tatum] 7. Lester Young (ts) - When You’re Smiling (1938) [Teddy Wilson, Billie Holiday] 8. Hank Mobley (ts) and John Coltrane (ts) - Someday My Prince Will Come (1961) [Miles] 9. John Surman (ss) - Tess (1983) [Miroslav Vitous] 10. Jackie McLean (as), John Handy (as), Booker Ervin (ts), Pepper Adams (bs) - Moanin’ (1960) [Mingus] 11. Iain Ballamy (ts) - Danny Boy (2004) 12. Wayne Shorter (ts) - El Gaucho (1966) 13. Coleman Hawkins (ts) – Crazy Rhythm (1937) 14. Evan Parker (ss) – Variation Four (2000) No attempt at making any historic point. Just 14 tracks that seemed to go nicely together and provide a way in for a newbie. Track 14 might be a bit of a shock but it's less than two minutes long!

You could argue that jazz is all swing. But that doesn't negate the use of the label 'Swing' to denote one of the phases jazz went through in the 30s and 40s. In the same way, all jazz is fusion but 'Fusion' is a label that denotes a particular phase it passed through in the late 60s and 70s. The term was not greatly used in the UK except later in the day to describe the American version of what we called jazz-rock. Where the boundaries were? Who cares. Swing, Fusion, all grist to the mill. Had its good bits, had its bad. Had its bits that one lot of jazz fans loved whilst others didn't care for. All part of the great jazz salad. Worth revisiting? I'd say yes. I think it got chased off the stage before it had even begun to realise its possibilities. So when I hear Douglas or Roney or Gerard Presencer or Martin France embarking on 'fusion' projects I'm intrigued.

If you look closely at Tony's Edinburgh castle shots you can see several of the bodies from Ian Rankin's books! Arn't digital cameras amazing. Point, click! Just like an old instamatic. Slip straight back in your pocket. The results come out better than the cumbersome SLR I had in the 80s that needed several sherpas to carry the lenses!

No intention to decry funk...even though personally I like it in very small doses. It's just that by the late 70s it became the overpowering flavour of most fusion/jazz-rock/electric jazz. I always felt there were 1001 other options. But very few of the musicians seemed interested in exploring them, prefering to stay safely in that groove. Fair enough. It's fun. But surely just a few people could have tried electric jazz without the funk? (a few did - Weber's Colours discs mentioned above; Ralph Towner's 'Solstice'; some of the later UK Canterbury bands like National Health could be said to fit in there. Maybe I'm just an ECM child at heart!) Miles certainly did some interesting and unique things within the genre in the 80s, well away from the commercial side of things. But was there anywhere else to go after Pangaea/Agharta without letting slip of the moorings of funk? His 80s discs, however enjoyable many may be, suggest to me that there was no-where else to go but round and round that funky groove. Fun some of those discs were but a development into something new from the mid 70s maelstrom? Hardly. I like chilli in my food occasionally. I don't like it on my cornflakes, in my tea, on my salads or in my beer. Flavours work best when used sparingly. By the late 70s the funk element in fusion was smothering most of the other options. As a student in the mid-70s I recall being constantly irritated by bands playing the university gig who promised the latest jazz-rock either bludgeoning us to death with power chords and million mile an hour solos (with free orgasmic facial expressions from the soloist) or exhorting is to...ahem...'get down.'

Not exactly sci-fi and from the latter days of the Cold War but around 1984 a drama went out on UK TV called 'Threads' - an imaginary account of a political crisis between the USSR and USA that escalated to full scale nuclear war. The film showed the situation via the city of Sheffield and dwelt on the nuclear winter that followed. It terrified me in 1984 and was finally rebroadcast a few months back. Despite the low budget Dr. Who like special effects it chilled me once more. It took a good 48 hours before the haunting of it wore off. I'd quite forgotten how threatening those times were - Afghanistan, the boycotted Olympics, 'Protect and Survive' (the much ridiculed UK advice on civil defence), Reagan/Thatcher brinksmanship.

My Mum's from Athlone smack in the middle of Ireland! Going back for a week in August with her. If you ever get the chance to visit, jump at it. There's a lovely old Irish folk song called 'The Verdant Braes of Skreen'. Says it all. http://website.lineone.net/~cewhitehead2/skreen.htm