A Lark Ascending

Hints have been dropped by Universal, after the success of the first 'Impressed' compilation of 60s UK material earlier this year, that they may see fit to putting out a batch of whole albums from the period including a whole bunch of Ian Carr/Don Rendells and Michael Garricks. I'll believe it when I see it but here's hoping (Harry Beckett's 'Flare Up' did escape a few weeks back and was well worth the wait). There is a second volume of 'Impressed' due after Christmas which should allow a few glimpses into this long buried era.

Listen very carefully between numbers and you'll hear me clapping! About six tables back, slightly to the right of centre of the stage!

Every now and then I'm just stopped in my tracks by a tune from a familiar recording that has never really stood out before. Driving to work last week I had Art Blakey and the JM's 'At the Cafe Bohemia Vol II' playing and became totally absorbed by 'I Waited for You.' A lovely tune that I know in other forms (including Gillespie's) but this interpretation strikes me as absolutely gorgeous. A wonderfully stately presentation and rumination on the melody by Kenny Dorham followed by beautifully melodic solos from Mobley and Silver. I've had to play it several times on its own since! If it's never really struck you before dig out the album and give it a listen!

Quite. Heavily influenced by where we're coming from and what we're currently listening to. I have to say that despite Shorter's elusive, rather oblique style I actually find him highly emotional. Those ballads, for example, seem full of warmth, to these ears anyway. It reminds me of a couple of aunties of mine (both, sadly deceased). One was always there for you but did not express her emotion openly...yet you always felt it; the other was one of those overbearing, smother-you-with-kisses types - equally honest but rather frightening to a young kid. Shorter strikes me as out of the former mould. I think I might have found a somewhat disturbing psychological reason for my preference! Having said all that I picked up 'Leeway' in one of those sales yesterday. Found myself just wallowing in the disc this afternoon, especially 'The Lion and the Wolf.' I've never really got past 'The Sidewinder' with Morgan but this disc just seemed wide open and engaging. So maybe there's a place for auntie no.2 in my life as well! Late, Just to show how muddled up my ears must be when I was listening to AA this morning one saxophonist who did come to mind was Getz. Maybe I'm thinking of the Getz of the 70s - the one who recorded Live at the Montmartre including a couple of Shorter tunes! As a total non-player myself your comments about the different ways Shorter and Getz approach their sound are very interesting.

That's interesting. It's the abstract, serpentine approach that attracts me. Whereas with the 'more swinging and emotional' approach I find I have to almost suspend my disbelief...make an effort to get into the mindset of the time and try and hear it as it might have sounded then. I suppose years of hearing the 'swinging' approach watered down by countless UK 'mainstream' (swing or hardbop) imitators has built up a crust of resistance within me. I'm rather enjoying breaking through that personal prejudice (luckily many of the Blue Note and OJC recordings that document at least some of that type of music can be got for the price of a couple of pints in the various UK sales on the go at present).

This one has probably been discussed a thousand times before but I've recently heard it for the first time and am hugely impressed (sorry, but I broke the embargo and bought the copy controlled Euro version - seems to play in my machines!). I already knew the title track and 'Footprints' from the old BN Shorter compilation. What has really drawn me in are three tracks on the CD. '502 Blues' and 'Teru' are absolutely exquisite ballads - oblique and smeared yet very, very affecting. I keep going back to 'Teru' in particular. But the track which has intrigued me most is 'El Gaucho' - I love the way the main 'head' is built...that strange pause between each line where the piano almost but not quite upsets the flow. Then the way the soloing rides over that strange structure. Apologies if this is old news to the many BN experts on the board but this music is quite revelatory to me. As those of you who have read my posts know, I 'hear' jazz from a very different direction than most people on this board (European jazz, UK jazz, going back to the sources; rather than the usual core jazz repetoire working outwards). I've always loved Shorter on the mid-to-late 60s Miles recordings but found the solo Blue Notes of the mid-60s a little less involving. They've always seemed less adventurous, more traditionally based (in the hard bop sense). But this one has really made me want to go back to 'Speak No Evil', 'Soothsayer' and Ju-Ju' and listen more carefully. Who knows, I might even make sense of 'All Seeing Eye' (which, I'll admit, is a long way from traditional hard bop!).

I have visions of Napoleon and his generals, having successfully dug all the way under the Channel and advanced into Kent suddenly drawing to a halt and looking perplexed whilst gazing into this ditch: "Quelle dommage! What will we do now! How can we explain our enforced return to Paris to the people expecting our great victory!" British military genius strikes again!

Well, I've agonised over this all week...the Pepper/Byrd? or the Jones, the Pepper/Byrd? or the Jones. Anyway that Goofy figure on my shoulder with the horns and a tail (remember the old Disney cartoon?) got the upper hand and I just ordered both!!! He convinced me that I'd save on postage! Very much looking forward to these. The Chambers Select has had me on a field trip through the Blue Note recordings I have, many not played for a while, and its been enormous fun. Just discovered the joys of 'Hub Tones' this evening which I've had but not really paid great attention too over the years. Wonderful music.

I'll be giving this one a listen. Gary has kindly offered to do me a copy and send it on.

I seem to recall some unsympathetic reviews of 'Hymns to the Silence' revolving around that grouchiness. 'Professional Jealousy' in particular. I don't believe it! Van Morrison, the Victor Meldrew of rock!

No it's not! It's 'American Football.' Football is a game played by manly types using their feet alone*. a round ball, a proper pair of nets, oranges at half time and...most importantly... NO BODY ARMOUR AND CROMWELLIAN FACE MASKS!!!! *goalie and throw-ins excepted.

I'm a mild mannered chap but I know what I'd like to do with those bloody fields of barley which seem to have been taken over by some vast collective run by folk singers!

I'd have liked Keith Tippett! Then we'd be talking about moving away from the comfort zone.

When I become dictator of Britain Mr. Sting will be the first one rounded up and carted off to the football stadium! My irrational loathing of the man and all his works knows no limit!

I absolutely love I, II and III. II and III were records I bought in my first year of record buying and I still play them - great tunes, good arrangements and enormous variety (III just goes everywhere fom blues rock to soft country to folky stuff...'Hour in the Shower' has stupid lyrics but is a wonderful performance. I lost track then and by the time I noticed them again they had mutated into an AOR stadium band. I bought V a while back which seems quite good. I also recall hearing a track I really liked in about 1975 but can't tell if it was on VI, VII or VIII. If I see those cheap I might experiment. After that I'm not interested. I'm pretty sure Chicago were one of the factors in me getting an ear for brass instruments and saxophones - an important part of my jazz pre-history.

Now, sort something out for me here. I heard 'Wayning Moments' on a radio broadcast a few weeks back and thought 'Oh, I like that!' When I checked up which album it was on it seemed to be on two. One called 'Wayning Moments': 1. Black Orpheus - (take 4) 2. Devil's Island - (take 8) 3. Moon Of Manakoora - (take 2) 4. Dead End - (take 8) 5. Wayning Moments - (take 2) 6. Powder Keg - (take 5) 7. All Or Nothing At All - (take 3) 8. Callaway Went That-A-Way - (take 3) 9. Black Orpheus - (take 3) 10. Devil's Island - (take 7) 11. Moon Of Manakoora - (take 1) 12. Dead End - (take 7) 13. Wayning Moments - (take 3) 14. Powder Keg - (take 1) 15. Callaway Went That-A-Way - (take 1) and one called 'Wayne Shorter': 1. Down In The Depths 2. Black Orpheus 3. Moon Of Manakoora 4. Powder Keg 5. All Or Nothing At All 6. Calloway Went That A-Way 7. Peaches And Cream 8. Dead End 9. Wayning Moments 10. Mack The Knife 11. Black Diamond 12. Seeds Of Sin 13. Scourin' Just what is going on there?

Get behind me, Satan! That's another money-spending idea planted in my head! You will be hearing from my bank manager!

Thanks both of you. The Kelly/Chambers now goes out of the running. I'm not sure I'm ready for a whole box of Byrd yet. I think I'll sample him more elsewhere first (though I like the idea of Pepper Adams, another player I know next to nothing about who I enjoyed on the Chambers Select). The Elvin Jones becomes the favourite. Expensive, undoubtedly. Baked beans for a couple of weeks!

I tend to go for quieter, more reflective stuff, partly for fear of waking the neighbours! My favourite Sunday morning disc is Zakir Hussain's 'Making Music.' I'm also partial to early 20thC English pastoral composers at this time - Vaughan Williams, Holst etc.

I'm probably in completely the wrong thread for this but... 1. Arn't Mosaic good? Ordered the Chambers' select on Sunday; the delivery people tried to deliver on Thursday (I was at work); got it Friday! That's quick. 2. What a hugely enjoyable set. Unusually I've been playing each disc twice before moving on to the next. Have just listened to disc 2 for the second time and am just loving it all. Donald Byrd is someone I've never really paid attention to - I think I became aware of him in the 70s when he was associated with jazz-funk and I'd always assumed he would not interest me. But after buying 'The Transition Sessions' earlier in the year (Thank you Jazz Record Requests for alerting me to that!) and now hearing this I'm very taken by his exceptionally melodic solo style. Clifford Jordan is another player I've heard in various contexts but hardly noticed. I'm very drawn to his warm playing on disc 2. 3. I'm gradually building to a desire for a full Mosaic box (havn't got one in my collection). The Chambers/Kelly is still in the running...I might just get past those alternate takes. But front runner at present is the Elvin Jones set following on from the George Coleman discussion elsewhere and then seeing Richard Cook's lavish praise in his Blue Note book. So much music, so little time...

The track I heard on the radio last week had a wonderful John Taylor piano solo at the start, then became more ordinary. I've never found myself absorbed by Tommy Smith's playing. He's clearly a fantastic force for getting things done - all sorts of projects, unusual concepts etc. But whilst I'm often excited by the ideas when it comes down to listening to the end result I hear a tenor player not unlike a few score more. I'll probably buy this to hear Taylor in a different context and hope to have my view on Smith (and Lovano come to that, another player who has rarely moved me) changed.

And so to my favourite theme...how we all have very different ears and should be careful trying to 'nail' recordings or performers into their place in an imagined hierarchy (I'm not saying anyone here is doing that, far from it!). Here is a 5 star review in Friday's Guardian by John Fordham, arguably one of the UKs most informed and well balanced critics: http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayrevie...1054185,00.html I still havn't heard this. I scoursed Nottingham for it on Saturday but there was not a sign of it. Maybe its release date has changed in the UK. Or the name appeared too obscure to be stocked!

This was what saddened me at the time. It just seemed like people who had a character all their own were forced to adopt certain approaches in a vain attempt to stay 'relevant'. The young punk/New Wave/New Romantic or whatever scene of the 80s I could happily accept even if it left me stone cold. After all that's what happens; music moves on to something else and the previous generation finds it hard to keep up. But there was something of the 'Embarrassing-middle-aged-uncle-strutting-the-latest-dance-styles-on-the-wedding-reception-floor' about 60s and 70s stars going synth. Shame on you Joni! You really hear this in the Clapton 'Crossroads' box. 3 1/2 discs where Clapton plays to his strengths within his characteristic style. And then half a disc of 'staying relevant' which just sounds over-cluttered, over-produced and far too desparate.

Something I was thinking about. It is common for jazz enthusiasts to evaluate the success of jazz in terms of 'emotion.' Music is often dismissed for being cold, passionless, lacking 'soul.' Now if you move across to the visual arts the idea that a painting must have emotion or 'soul' is pretty 18th-19thC. Much 20th C painting would set as its goals, and be evaluated according to its ability to present interesting patterns - creative use of colour or space or form. I just wonder if musical listeners also respond in those different ways. Some are looking for that supposed 'emotion' in the music whilst others can be satisfied by something considerably more abstract. Of course most music contains elements of both. But as a generalisation it could be argued that traditional blues based jazz seems to vere more towards 'emotional' expression whilst much ECM music, for example, seems to be more focussed on the 'sound painting.' When certain listeners express disquiet with the 'chilly' soundworld of ECM perhaps its because they are listening to music performed for reasons very different to their own expectations. I suspect I'm more of 'patterns' listener. Someone running through a set of blues chords, however 'passionate', is likely to lose my attention because the structure is so familiar. Whereas a Bobo Stenson or Tomas Stanko or Eberhard Weber recording strikes me as having much more interesting colours. I'm not trying to draw firm barriers here; I like music from both sides but I'd say I vere towards the 'interesting sounds' rather than the 'heartfelt emotion.' I mention this because it strikes me more and more both here and on AAJ that many of us are listening to jazz with very different ears. I wonder if our very different reactions to particular recordings might be tied in with our very different expectations of what we want music to sound like. This would certainly seem to be the case with those who find something missing in contemporary jazz which they hear in spades in the recordings of, say, Art Pepper.

I had a total aversion to New Wave being a child of the 60s/70s era. The loose, freewheeling nature of the best music of that era seemed to be replaced by a sort of hyped up, rhythmically four-square approach that sounded as if it had been recorded in an aircraft hanger. One area of influence which irritated the hell out of me was on Richard Thompson. For a time - from 'Across a Crowded Room' - you had these jittery numbers with clipped backing vocals and toy organ sounds. Always sounded like Thompson-goes-New-Wave to me. 'You Don't Say' was the first offender. Much of 'Daring Adventures' was weakened for me but that same tinny sound. A lovely ballad like 'Jennie' (fortunately recorded more sympathetically elsewhere) is spoilt by a 4 square new wave beat, the sort of thing I associated with the mass invasion of the synth/drum machine of the time. To someone who grew up on the liquid sound of John Martyn or Little Feet the New Wave thing seemed most unattractive. As a consequence I spent most of the 80s getting to know classical music.