A Lark Ascending

This may not be wise. The only thing I have any knowledge of is England 1640 to 1658.

7 (As a kid I was never much good at sport. When it got to about 15 minutes into any game I'd get bored and run away with the ball).

-5

Then... 11

Why have you offered '1' and '10' in the poll when the requirement is to pick any number 'between' 1 and 10?

Last Saturday's Bath Festival concert is due for broadcast tonight - 11.30 pm UK time. Also archived for a week by the BBC for internet listening. Details here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/jazz/jon3/jon3coming.shtml Believe me, you'll want to hear this.

Over-rated in relation to what? Does it need to be rated?

Health! (Shut down private medicine) Education (Shut down the public schools and bus the Etonions into comps like the place where I work). The buggers wouldn't put up with underfunding for very long if they had to experience what most people do! Seriously, the point I see behind public funding of painting, music etc is based, as I said before, on the premise that diversity is beneficial to society as a whole. Leave it all to market forces and you are in danger of getting a very narrow diet. I'm not arguing for an increase in funding of these areas; just a fairer distribution. And one of the consequences of that redistribution would be the collapse of places like Covent Garden. Their existence is based on inequality. Agree entirely about the BBC. And believe me I've put my two penny worth in there more than a few times over the years. Maybe when I get that knighthood they'll listen!

You are spot on, David. I would include folk, reggae, country, pop and whatever else in my calculations and would not expect jazz to get preferential treatment from public funding bodies. We live in a country where some public monies are used to fund music, theatre, painting etc. I would hope the bodies responsible would use those monies to support musics which have a following but not to the degree that more popular musics do. Some musics can function on market forces alone; others struggle desparately. Now I know that leaves the big question of which musics or musicians do and which don't get the funding. But I'd say that deciding to fund 'those that are Art' is a pretty ropey measurement to be used. It's the measurement that has been used for decades and the clique that make the decision consistently decide that Opera is more Art than jazz. I just think the idea of 'Art' is a hopeless tool of measurement. I don't feel I over-rate jazz at all. I know I prefer it to other types of music (whilst loving plenty of other types to). But at no point would I argue for jazz alone to get special treatment. I'd just argue that for a healthy cultural life overall (very small c on 'culture') it is in the interest of society to foster a diversity of music, painting, theatre, cinema etc. So lets shut down Covent Garden (the penguins can all go to Glyndebourne) and distribute the vast sums that get sucked away there to the less obvious jazz, reggae, folk, country, rock, pop, classical etc musicians on some degree of parity. I'm sure the business world would rapidly bail out Covent Garden so there continued to be a fine place for the well heeled to parade their fine frocks and their love of 'Art'.

Not at all. Just don't play by their rules. Call it music. I never understand why music, painting, theatre etc needs dividing into 'Art' and 'Not-Art.' Whetever you call it I think the audience is out there for jazz and jazz related music, even if it is unlikely to ever to be that big. There is such a power in improvised music that I just don't see it dying like some people worry about. And people will want to hear it at home as well as at a concert. Which is why I think jazz recordings will continue to get to us...maybe not in the way we are used to. I've never found it easier to find a vast range of jazz CDs as I do today and I've been buying since the late 70s. Now maybe the range was bigger before that. I somehow doubt it.

So change the equation. Make them see it as art - and not just art, but some of the greatest and most substantial art of this era. Which is what it is. Then they'll be stuck. Simon Weil This reminds me of the old argument of the upper crust that aiming for an egalitarian society is ludicrous; we should be trying to raise the working classes into the upper crust. Yeah, they meant that too. The term 'Art' is a means of exclusion.

Here's how subsidy works in the UK based on 1999-2000 JAZZ £0.25 OPERA £12.75 CLASSICAL MUSIC £2.26 Compare with the relative audiences. Opera 4% Orchestral Music 13% Jazz 7% [Research surveys of Great Britain Ltd prepared research for the Arts Council on Arts and Cultural Activities in Great Britain. 1 Their research produced the following figures on the percentage of the population who listen on the radio to opera, classical music and jazz.] That strikes me as a healthy audience for jazz (I know it says nothing about record buying habits) which is not being reflected in its slice of the promotional cake. Who knows what might be achieved in increasing the audience if things were more equitable. (To be fair the Arts Council have increased spending on jazz in recent years...but the gap is still enormous). Source of the data: http://www.jazzservices.org.uk/ex/report/jinuk.htm

The recent UK reissue sounds great. The extra tracks don't add anything to the album. I've not heard other CD versions of this but this recent version sounds excellent to me. Inexpensive too over here!

David, I wasn't thinking about the number of reissues. I was thinking about the amount of new music coming out. That strikes me as quite staggering for a music with a shrinking audience. Jazz Services did a survey three or four years back to estimate the support for jazz in the UK. The figures they came up with had jazz as equal with opera and not far behind classical in general. The difference is that opera and classical are widely regarded as 'culture' by the Old Etonions who run things in the UK so they get the lion's share of the subsidy. One of the reasons I loath the whole concept of 'art' (to refer back to an old argument!!!!). I'm pretty sure that the majors (shops and record companies) will give up on jazz completely in time. The idea of improvised music is so strong, however, that it will get out somehow...probably through the likes on Enamen.

I was there for that concert. I'm afraid it left me completely unmoved. I really wanted to like it...I think Phil Robson's a great guitar player and love his solo album, 'Impish', but I just can't get anything from Krantz. He's clearly a great player and seems a very nice man...but I'm left with no impression of his musical personality (I've seen him a couple of times before in power-trio format). I'll just have to put him in the box with people I just don't get (he's in good company - Verdi, Brubeck...). I know the overall reaction to that concert was ecstatic.

Yes, I saw that in my local supermarket this evening. But having spent a fortune on CDs this month I showed restraint. £13 for 3 CDS is pretty amazing though!

You are clearly a sensible man who does not carry his credit cards with him! I know what you mean about the Pavilion*. Not a bad venue but you do expect them to ask you to move the tables aside so you can do-ci-do your partner!!! The only other venue I've been to in Bath is the Guildhall which I don't like at all. All 18th C stucco and faded paintings. The whole vibe is of a very stuffy chamber concert! My favourite festival venue is the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham. Beautiful sound, great sightlines. Perfect for acoustic jazz. *Incidentally, you were lucky to have a Pavilion. A couple of years back I was eating a meal in the cafe whilst reading a book when I smelt something odd and looked up to see my book on fire! I'd somehow got it too close to the candles they seem so keen on there!

After a brief flirtation with Deep Purple and the single of Paranoid I turned away from the heavy stuff (I'm a mild sort of chap!)...but Led Zeppelin were always a richer brew and I still play them today. I'll be tracking down that DVD. [Having said that I'm more than happy to skip around the kitchen to the grungier moments of King Crimson]

Does seem a bit daft to be there and not say hello. I admire your restraint, David. I spent a fortune - two LJCO's, an Italian Instabile, a Lol Coxhill and a Trovesi. Well, it's so hard to get them elsewhere....

Could not agree more. It's great to discuss why we like one recording by a player over another. Or why one player is more to our taste than another. But when such debates degenerate into 'X is crap compared with Y' (sometimes the initial post starts with such a premis!) then we've lost sight of the big picture. Keith Jarrett or Miles Davis or Mike Westbrook or whoever may have made some albums which don't affect particular listeners; all of their output might be irrelevant to some listeners. But we need to show respect for the overall outstanding musicianship. And the willingness to take risk in doing things which might not come off. I've always felt that the difference between a good and a bad recording lies more within our own perceptions than within the music itself. But then I'm a Fundamentalist Relativist!

I think calling AAJ grey might just be a case of perception. I find both boards useful but with very different characters. This board seems to have a very close group of contributors who go back a long way. Their interests seem to focus on American jazz and, to a lesser extent, the avant garde from across the board. Comments are thoughtful and based on a lot of listening and experience. I suspect one reason for the 'house style' is that the very name of the board makes it less likely for the casual surfer to find it. AAJ by contrast clearly gets lots of people stumbling on it with various degrees of jazz interest and experience. It is more likely to get the spoiler or not too informed spouting forth. Where it does score is that it has more people with active interests in jazz from Europe. I'd point to some particularly useful threads on UK jazz which have alerted me to sources I did not know existed - and given advance warning of a major reissue programme of 60s UK jazz that seems to be forthcoming. The 'greyness' is nothing more than discussion of items that are of lesser interest to the majority of people here. I think its marvellous we've two boards doing a good job. Long may may their contrast continue.

That's really interesting, sidewinder. I'm really pleased to hear his enthusiasm for the Anglo-American Band. I'd wondered if the band was merely a result of economics - we can't bring over 20 Americans so we'll make up the numbers with Brits. It's good to see he enjoyed playing with the Brits. It was interesting to see Denys Baptiste in the band. I saw him three weeks earlier premiering a suite based on Martin Luther King's 'I Had a Dream' speech at Cheltenham with a slightly smaller band. Very enjoyable but much more standard in its voicings and arrangement. I wonder what impact playing with Hill and hearing a much more sophisticated way of writing for jazz orchestra will have on him? There's a fantastic number of jazz musicians that have grown from the Afro-Caribbean community in the UK over recent years. It was wonderful to hear so many of them in this environment.

Like the rest of you I'm more or less forced to buy most of what I want online. I have to go to the very big cities to see anything like a range beyond the standard Verves. One straw in the wind in the UK. I overheard the owner of a jazz shop (remember those?) on Saturday explaining how HMV stores in the UK were changing their buying policy and that all stocking will be done centrally from now on with no discretion from local managers. Now most Brits will say 'Isn't this what they do anyway?' given the weak place of jazz in most of their stores. But currently there are a few HMV stores with reasonable selections - I travel to Leeds about once a month and can generally find something of interest there. That is clearly going to change. However... I don't feel too much gloom about jazz CDs drying up. Have you seen the release schedule on alankin's site? For a music that is supposedly dying there is an immense amount of product...much of it obscure, specialist...pouring out. Most is destined to only sell a few copies yet still it comes. This is what puzzles me. If jazz is selling so little why is there so much out there and continuing to pour out? I've attended two very well attended jazz festivals in the last month. At the end of every gig there has been a rush of people wanting to pick up a CD by the performer. I somehow think that is what will change. We will probably see jazz marginalised in the high street. We'll see the majors get less and less interested. But we'll probably also see an increase in artists making their own CDs or small labels handling a select number of people; and a few specialist shops and on-line sites. Which might make the music more difficult to obtain...but will actually mean the musicians will put out what they intend, not what the record companies require in the hope of a crossover hit. The state of the majors and the high street stores might be frightful...but when I see just how much jazz is still being made I find it hard to be pessimistic.

Many thanks, Use3D. My shame is covered! (I've already written it out 100 times!)

I've just checked my free booklet! Yes. The name was there. It was dark! My eyesight is going....