A Lark Ascending

Saturday, November 22nd. BBC Jazz Line Up Live from the London Jazz Festival To include performance by Jamie Oehlers. A chance to hear this player who is getting a great deal of attention. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/jazz/jazzlineup.shtml Wonder if George W. will be attending?

1. Secular Humanism (100%) 2. Unitarian Universalism (98%) 3. Liberal Quakers (83%) 4. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (79%) 5. Nontheist (72%) And I thought I was a Fundamentalist Atheist!

I always feel its better to get four or five discs of music from now. There's oceans of marvellous contemporary jazz out there. Present it as a living music. The riches of the past can come later. After all, if a reluctant reader asked you to recommend some fiction to get him or her interested in reading would you really recommend Chaucer?

Excellent. I really look forward to this one. I might even guess a few! Maybe! Hoping for a few Germans we might not know of. A Friedrich sleeve will be mandatory!

Actually, Bev, I'd love to hear a disc of all British artists. I subscribe to Jazz Review and I've often wondered what some of the artists they write about sound like. I'd welcome a disc like that. I won't promise an all-UK disc, Brad. I suspect, though it would be largely non-American; not out of dislike of US jazz but merely in the interest of variety...and a little crusading spirit! It would also be likely to stretch the definition of 'jazz' somewhat!

A good point - but solvable by breaking down into smaller webs. It would not make sense for, say a European to send out to 30 US addresses - might get ver expensive. But if the European sent discs to volunteers 1 to 10 who in turn agreed to burn and distribute to five people each...well you've got 50 discs out. I've got my two so via Gary.

Yes, Jim. Like #7 of test 1...though sadly I missed that disc! Tip of an iceberg! I think we just need to take the risk and go with whatever each compiler choses. It's up to each listener to approach each disc in an open minded way and if it's not to their taste, wait happily for the next one. In the end I trust people to want to put together something varied. I can't imagine anyone putting together a disc of all Andrew Hill tracks. Or something all British, for that matter!!!

I think this is an excellent idea. I've enjoyed the two discs so far because they've confronted me with types of American jazz I've normally overlooked. The guessing part has been of little importance to me (though I was thrilled to pick out Louis Stewart...only to have me excitement quashed when JSngry got there first!). I'd hope that the majority of posters who live in the States would be equally intrigued by what European (or Antipodean!) posters might put together...be it European (or Australasian) jazz; or American jazz chosen from a non-American outlook. I think they'd be in for a few surprises.

My younger brothers and sister still rag me about having LPs with pictures of a sock on by Henry Cow.

There used to be an Irish band based in Nottingham, UK called Patty O'Doors and the Sun Loungers. I alwas though Hatfield and the North was an odd name - the band were named after the first sign on the M1. And one for the medieval history buffs that I've mentioned before - an English folk reggae band (seriously...dub meets morris dancing) who called themselves Edward II and the Red Hot Polkas. Sadly they changed this to Edward II and more recently EIIK.

I love 'Henry' - the songs all sound about 300 years old! I suspect it was too low-key for its times. I was just getting into Fairport when it came out - I bought Sandy Denny's 'Northstar Grassman' but passed Henry by for some reason. It went OOP after a short while. Then I kept hearing versions of various tracks and pining for it. Finally got a copy c.1980. I'm not sure the record cover helped. Thompson's choice of art work has always puzzled me. 'Sunnyvista', 'Amnesia' and 'Mirror Blue' have particularly awful covers.

I assume that's a euphemism for onboard entertainment between master and cabin boy!

Rumour has it that the Cage Estate have found a missing 57 second segment from the original version of this piece. It might well be the centre piece of the forthcoming Mosaic multi-box set that claims to contain all the alternate takes. Now that really should be worth playing LOUD!

Does the film have 15 minute segments where someone explains the technicalities of rigging, sails and masts in great detail? Without this the film cannot possibly get the authentic feel of the books...well, the one O'Brian I got a third of the way through, anyway!

John Cage. 4 minutes 33 seconds

Absolutely. Where Celtic Feet, John Rae's own group, wear their Scottishness very much on their kilt (and I like that too!) this record handles it much more subtly. It'll be on my favourites from 2003 list. And well done to Caber. A marvellous roster building there.

Well worth the chase. High octane, muscular trio jazz with a strong eastern European flavour. Some gorgeous ballads too. The up-tempo stuff is in a McCoy Tyner sort of vein but taking the occasional exoticisms of the latter much further. Even on what sounds like a fairly straight ballad like 'Sepia Sulfureux' Zulfikarpasic goes on runs that are clearly based on scales you don't normaly get in jazz recordings. Try 'The Joker' for the hell-for-leather piano trio in full flight side. 'Bulgarska' or 'Z-Rays' for the strongly Balkan-tinged approach. Colley and Waits are superb too! To my ears the most interesting jazz pianist around at present. Have a look here: http://www.bojanz.com/sounds.html Can be got here. Just put Bojan Z in the search engine: http://www.jazzos.com/articles.cgi About $21 once the postage is thrown in. Very good vendor.

Here's a disc for those who want something a bit unusual. Colin Steele is a Scottish trumpet player whose music is very much jazz but who uses themes (all self-written) that are inspired by traditional Scottish music. Not folk music with add-on-jazz but jazz built round folk inflected tunes. A quintet - the great Julian Arguelles (on of the UKs best kept secrets, a player who has explored English folk music a la Surman on his own releases) on tenor/soprano, Dave Milligan on piano, Airdan O'Donnell on bass and John Rae drums. A little reminiscent of some of Mark Isham's work; the sheer melodicism of the disc has me in mind of the Jarrett European Quartet - 'My Song' specifically. Two examples: 'Lament for Miles': a ballad, with Miles-ish muted trumpet. The theme sounds like some ancient, keening lament. You can hear it in your head on the pipes; or sung by an unaccompanied folk singer. A great moment where Arguelles uses his vibrato to imitate the pipes. 'Reel Deal': Absolutely exhilarating. The sound of a dozen fiddles at a sweaty island fling approximated by the trumpet and sax swirling round one another in a manner that seems to have more to do with early jazz than contemporary. Special mention for pianist Dave Milligan who reminds me, strangely enough, of Bojan Zulfikarpasic - must be the folk based harmonies. If you need your jazz to break through to the next frontier this ain't for you. But if you like gorgeous, exciting, melodic jazz with a totally distinct flavour then give it a try. Highly recommended to expatriate Scots. More details (and lots of reviews): http://www.cabermusic.com/ [p.s. I don't work for Caber. Just bought this with my own money after hearing a track on the radio !!!] [p.p.s. I like this from the review in the Independent by Sholto Byrnes: "It’s also far more openly optimistic than most jazz and distinctly non-urban, the harmony painted in bold, major keys that are a real balm to the troubled soul." Not sure about the last seven words but the rest of the description is spot on!]

Here's another worth your time: A million miles away from standard hard bop. Piano, bass, clarinet with a very Italian feel. You could imagine some of the themes as operatic arias. Reminds me a little of the chamber music of people like Poulenc - with a jazzier edge.

Brussel sprouts! It's all in the cooking. Boil for a few minutes so they're crisp and still bright green - delicious. I grew up hating them because my parents used to do them in a pressure cooker - mushy and colourless. Dreadful! Totally agree on liver and all forms of offal. Steak and kidney pie. What is that about?

It's the front cover of Fairport Convention's 'Unhalfbricking' - I believe it was taken by the house of one of the band's parents (in the foreground, band behind the fence). That would make the church a bog standard north London job. Does look like Salisbury though.

Grated Haggis topping?

One of the reasons English people refuse to stray north of the border to Scotland is this: Deep Fried Mars Bars for USA The media giant AOL Time Warner is sending a TV crew to Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire to make a film about deep fried Mars bars. The "delicacy" is said to have originated in Stonehaven and the Carron Chipper says they sell 200 Mars bars suppers (with chips - French-fried potatoes) a week in the summer. They also deep fry Snickers and even Cadbury Flake. The Food Network who are making the program say that is a "really interesting way to cook food and something quite alien to us. It seems to have developed a cult following with tourists coming back from vacation in Scotland." So that's who's buying all those deep fried Mars bar suppers... Just as well Mick Jagger didn't know about these in the late 60s!

The ballads on your debut are absolutely gorgeous. This one is way off beam but I've always felt Nick Drake's 'Things Behind The Sun' (from Pink Moon) is a natural for a jazz treatment. I can hear Organissimo playing it in my head now!

A Wilner I don't know (I swear by his Disney record...an all time favourite. Sun Ra and 'Elephants on Parade'...outstanding!). If you don't know it track down Pieranunzi's 'Plays the Music of Wayne Shorter.' Exquisite. Another recording in similar vein: Sat listening to this on my walkman on a hot day last year in the amphitheatre in Verona.