A Lark Ascending

The last track on 'Glorious Fool' is a beautiful song called "Don't You Go"...very apposite in the current troubled times.

Anyone know this series of trio recordings? There seem to be discs based on the music of Bartok, Mompou and Monteverdi. I like the sound of them.

Oh, that 'Poinciana' is superb. If I ever get to make my CD-R of feel good tunes this track will be there! Sheer joy!

Well I just played 'Sunday's Child' and 'Grace and Danger'; the former sounds as wonderful as I recall. But I was really taken by the latter. I think my coolness to Martyn at this time was connected with my general disenchantment with the rock world which seemed to have abandonned all its subtleties (and not so subtleties...thank you Mr Wakeman!) for the standard three minute thrash! Martyn's replacement of his distinctive acoustic sound for a standard rock band seemed part of the general retreat from imaginative rock (to my taste). In retrospect the record sounds splendid - the tunes are as rich and dreamy as ever but with electric piano and fretless electric bass. I'll give 'Glorious Fool' a go in the next couple of days.

I have a particular liking for 'The Cure' and 'Standards Live'. But all this recordings have their riches. The Blue Note set is superb. If you feel like jumping in the deep end you can do so with confidence. But give yourself a real treat and buy 'Facing You' as well - still my favourite Jarrett disc (The 'Bremen/Lausanne' 2CD (used to be 3LP!) is my favourite of the more expansive Jarrett solo discs).

An Albion Band recording I forgot: Battle of the Field - first released in 1976 though recorded three years earlier by a version of the many prototypes that went under the title 'Albion Country Band.' As well as Hutchings you get Martin Carthy, John Kirkpatrick, Sue Harris and Simon Nicol. A wonderful recording, worth it for the glorious tune 'Battle of the Somme.' I saw this line-up in 1973...my second ever rock concert! No wonder my tastes got wierd!

David's recommendations are spot on. 'One World' was where I started getting disappointed - the tunes didn't linger, the rhythm got stiffer. I've actually got a little more time for 'Grace and Danger' and 'Glorious Fool.' After that... I'll throw in three more high points from 'Inside Out' - 'Ain't No Saint' which builds up a tremendous head of steam with tabla accompaniment; and 'Beverley' and 'Make No Mistake', Martyn at his most intensely romantic. Sunday's Child also boasts some wonderful rhtmically slippery pieces like 'Lay it All Down' and 'My Baby Girl' (very jazzy). I love the way "The Message" slips into the traditional 'Marie's Wedding.' And the closing 'Call Me Crazy' is another one of those glorious open ended Martyn tunes that could go on forever.

Buy 'Solid Air' (in the recently remastered version). The rest will follow!

Patty's 'Mountain Soul' is indeed a great pleasure. If you like St. Emmylou's 'Roses in the Snow' you'll enjoy the Loveless. As to her mainstream country records they all have that glitzy pop-country sound with rather 'paint-by-numbers' rawk guitar bits and anodyne fiddle; but the songs stay in your mind and her voice is very affecting. I strongly recommend 'Long Stretch of Lonesome' - the duet with George Jones ('You Don't Seem to Miss Me') is a spinetingling bit of harmony singing. For other more bluegrassy or raw recent country seek out the great Gillian Welch, the consistently excellent Julie and Buddy Miller and vocalists like Heather Myles and Kelly Willis.

Probably not, Mike. I think the tape I had was recorded c.1972 or 1973. I recorded it off on of the BBC 'Sounds of the Seventies' programmes that used to go out on weekdays between 10 pm and 12 pm...those were the days!!!! By 1977 I no longer had any form of recording off the radio. Yes, I know the Islands have been CD-ised by Island - but like much first generation CD the quality of transfer has been variable. In the last few years they've been working on properly remastered versions - thus the recent Fairport reissues going into their second CD incarnation. ********** Danny Thompson has been on most of Richard T's discs since Mirror Blue where he gives a marvelous pulse to 'Easy There, Steady Now.' He also did a joint project with him around the same time called 'Industry', a not particularly successful project based on the decline of British industry (now there's a great rock'n roll theme!), mainly instrumental. He's on RTs most recent disc, 'The Old Kit Bag.' I strongly recommend a live 2CD set available from the RT website called 'Two Letter Words.' I think Danny Thompson has freed up a great deal of RTs music in recent years - he seemed to lock into some fairly metronomic beats in his late 80s/early 90s discs, especially in the faster stuff. Danny T seems to allow the music to breath again. Look out for the 80s discs by Danny Thompson's band 'Whatever' that mixed jazz with British and Eastern European folk.

What chance the next one being opened in Worksop, Notts, UK? Just think! Spend the day touring Robin Hood country, the night listening to great jazz! It's got to be a winner. I'll be happy to man the bar!

I thought 'The Woman in Me' was a great pop-country album. I was less impressed by the one that came next but could understand its popularity. I havn't heard the recent one - the odd song I've heard on the radio hasn't really drawn me in, probably because of all the reservations mentioned above. If you want great pop-country female vocals go for Patty Loveless - whoever does the quality control on her song choices rarely lets you down!

Live at Leeds is wonderful...not brilliantly recorded, but still wonderful! A pity the BBC have not released some of the stuff he recorded in the mid-70s for them. I used to have a tape of a session where they did absolutely marvellous extended, spaced-out versions of things like Inside Out. Martyn was struggling with a crude piece of modern technology thereby producing extraordinary and individual sounds. The rise of the synth may have made making wierd sounds easier but it ultimately ended up sounding much more bland. Sorry! I'm a complete reactionary where synths are involved! ********** I hope Island take on that classic Martyn catalogue in the way they've spring cleaned the likes of Fairport, Free and Traffic. I have crackly old vinyl of 'Bless the Weather', 'Inside Out' and 'Sunday's Child', the latter being especially battered. They did a good job on 'Solid Air' a year or so back. Finish the job please!

Many thanks, just gone on the favourites list.

Swinging Swede did an absolutely superb survey of pre-war jazz recommendations for the novice a few years back. If anyone still has that it should be put up in its own thread here. I'm sure there are lots of people like me whose centre's of gravity are much later but who would love a way into that fascinating world. Do you still have it saved, SS? Get it online again!

I've never tried Cadence - I like the sound of that CD. Can you post the link for Cadence please, John. I used to have it but have changed computers and...

I agree entirely about Pentangle's influence. I suspect the different reactions to Pentangle might be a subtle difference of what music you were listening too then, and perhaps the result of a difference of a few years in age. I first started to listen to Fairport in 1971 when I was about 16 and coming from an exclusively rock listening background - Fairport connected to that totally; whereas Pentangle came across as a bit too wispy. I suspect anyone who had come from a folk background, perhaps listening in the mid to late-60s would hear Pentangle very differently. One example of this is Jansch's guitar style - I am forever hearing about how innovative it was yet I cannot hear anything special in it. Now I'm not saying the claim is wrong - I totally accept the view of people who know far more about guitar than me. It's just that by the time I was listening that style was absorbed into the folk/acoustic tradition (and rock...thank you, Jimmy Page!), so I find it hard to hear what was clearly so distinctive in the mid-60s. ******** I really liked Danny Thompson playing with John Martyn - that run of LPs from 'Bless the Weather' to 'Sunday's Child' would have lost much of their magic with an electric bass - Thompson is one of the reasons for the fluid, watery sound of those recordings. I saw the pair twice - once c.1975 and again at a reunion in the late 80s. Both occasions were highly memorable. Especially the last as I'd not heard anything from Martyn that really appealed after about 1976, and here was that jazzy sound again! Danny T is also a great character, with hilarious stage chat (they used to use him as compere for the Fairport reunions). He also led a pretty wild life in the 60s/70s apparently! He's been touring and recording with Richard Thompson a great deal in recent years, a perfect match. ********* P.S. Another great electric-folk recording from this era you should hear is 'Bright Phoebus' by The Watersons. The Waterson's are a North Yorkshire family who came to fame in the 60s singing unaccompanied songs in a very earthy, rural style (no Peter, Paul and Mary there!). Yet they were also absorbing the fun of the pop and rock world and in the early 70s came out with this astonishing record of self-composed material. Very dark, very wierd, with lyrics that sound hundreds of years old. Yet with arrangements that were totaly contemporary provided by the usual folk-rockers - Richard Thompson is simply outstanding throughout the disc. Several of the tunes have gone on to become 'standards' in the folk world, most noteably 'Fine Horseman' and 'The Scarecrow.' If that appeals then there is a wonderful word of non-electric British folk revival music out there. Guarenteed un-twee people include Martin Carthy, John Kirkpatrick, The Dransfields, June Tabor and Dick Gaughin. The Watersons are gone as a group (Lal Waterson died a while back) but the spirit is kept on through Waterson-Carthy - Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson and their daughter Eliza who has become something of a folk-babe of recent years with her own career mixing traditional songs and tunes with contemporary pop/rock styles.

This is one of my favourites too. The opening of SDMPWC and Coltrane's entry are wonderful moments. Also the gorgeous 'I Thought About You.' I suspect the fact that it does not have a consistent line-up across the discs makes it harder to pigeon-hole. The Miles discs that get frequently raved over tend to be those where a fixed body of musicians are in for the whole disc...well, until the electric period!

There's a very nice trio CD from last year by Abercrombie, Kenny Wheeler and Marc Copland called 'That's For Sure' on Challenge. Very understated but a very nice listen if you enjoy the quieter side of jazz.

Pentangle never really caught my attention in the late-60s/early-70s when I came to love Fairport/Martyn/Drake/Thompson etc. I've got hold of a compilation since and have a few Jansch and Renbourne CDs and have warmed to them more; they are a lot jazzier than Fairport. I still find Jacqui McShee's voice a bit twee for me. I strongly recommend Colin Harper's book, 'Dazzling Stranger', about Jansch. Even though Jansch is not a musician I really warm too I found the book enthralling about how this music came to be. I too find Steeleye a bit of a disappointment - once Hutchings had left they got increasingly glitzy and never had the distinctive instrumental soloists that Fairport and Pentangle could boast. Anyone who loves this era should check out the early 'Albion Band' recordings, the group Hutchings formed after Steeleye to play a more 'English' style - the folk of the above bands was more Scottish and Irish based. The Albions were running in one form or another for nearly 25 years and did little of great interest after about 1980. But prior to that the produced a number of stunning recordings: No Roses - a collection of traditional songs with just about everyone from the folk-rock world on board! The Prospect Before Us - a very nice dance tune based collection. Rise Up Like The Sun - a truly wonderful album, very close to the dizzy heights of 'Liege and Lief' Lark Rise to Candleford - music from a stage show of the Flora Thompson book, gorgeously evocative of late 19th/early 20thC England. There's also a great record by an offshoot of the Albions called 'The Home Service' called 'The Mysteries' - again music from a stage show based around the medieval York Mystery Plays that tell the nativity and passion stories. Marvellous music. *********** Fairport enthusiasts should note that Island have just remastered and released 'Fairport Convention', 'What We Did On Our Holidays' and 'Unhalfbricking' with additional tracks. Well worth getting.

Some of Abercrombie's most beautiful playing can be heard on two Kenny Wheeler discs - 'Music for Large and Small Ensembles' and 'The Widow in the Window' from the early 90s. If you want to hear him with Hammer try 'Timeless' from the mid-70s. I'd also support Jazzhound's 'Homecoming' recommendation. His recent discs on ECM are also impressive - 'Cat'n Mouse' and 'Open Land'

Let me add my support for Brahem and Rabih Abou-Khalil. The latter has produced a string of gorgeous albums on Enja (with beautiful covers), putting the oud into settings with all manner of instruments. If you want to hear the oud unaccompanied try his most recent disc 'Il sospiro.' One for hot, sultry afternoons! And a HUGE recommendation for Alan's last choice, Charmediterranean - one of my favourite discs of 2002. This is what I like jazz orchestration to sound like!

I think you are oversimplifying. 'The blues' IS a particular style of playing in the same way that baroque is a style. To play the style without the feeling does miss the point. I can play a rudimentary blues with even my limited guitar abilities (and believe me, they are limited!) but they come nowhere near hitting the point. But self-expression is not the blues (even though the blues requires self-expression). The last movement of Mahler 9, the third movement of Vaughan Williams 5, Liam O'Flynn playing a lament on the uillean pipes, Emmylou Harris singing Boulder to Birmingham - they all access exactly the same emotional spot that a deeply felt blues song hits. But they are not the blues. The blues is that power within a particular style (though the great players are able to manipulate the structure with grace and audacity). I think what Harris has decided is that if he tries to reach that core of feeling via the 'style' of the blues he is only going to be able to produce second hand music - it's not an idiom that is natural to him. So he's going to go for it through other styles or means.

My thoughts exactly, John. a) 'The blues' can mean deep feeling. b.) 'The blues' can mean a particular musical means of expression, a code of notes, harmonies etc. Black music in the 19th and early 20th Cs found an incredibly powerful way of doing a) by evolving b.). But a) can be achieved without b.) - John's Beethoven example fits perfectly. And if it could work in the past, it can work in the future. The recording that is having the most powerful effect on me at the moment is a CD by an Italian group called the Simone Guiducci Gramelot Ensemble - very little blues (as in b.) influence, acres of deep feeling drawn off Italian, Spanish, Eastern European folk music. Schoenberg once commented words to the effect that there was still plenty of good music to be made in C Major. I'm sure there's plenty of good music to be made within b.), expanding, developing but keeping its essence. But some musical will inevitably move beyond. Now whether it should be called jazz or not is another matter. And that depends on who has the power to do the labelling. The blues-less (and often swing-less) improvised music that I hear still sounds like jazz to me! (Beware - putting a b followed by a ) produces a smiley face - B) - rather than the b ) I'd intended!

Very interesting responses. Growing up in the UK (and Singapore!!!) in the 60s in a household where showtunes, light classical and MOR music was the norm I actually disliked blues based music to start with. Soul, blues always sounded formulaic which was why I was attracted to prog-rock (yes, I know, they wern't formulaic; and it normally was!!! It sounded different then!). I learnt to like the blues as an ingredient in music as a consequence of coming to jazz; jazz taught me how to enjoy them. Though I'm still not a huge fan of soul. So my background is different to those of you to whom the blues was central from the start. I can see exactly why jazz without blues might seem somewhat deficient. I think being exposed to a great deal of European jazz gives a different perspective; Simon mentions free jazz but European jazz in general, though it might touch on the blues, increasingly references elsewhere. I'd say the further it has moved away from the traditional blues and swing ways of operating the more independent it has become. European jazz today is the distinctive force that it has become because it has recognised the blues as not necessarily an idiomatic language for Europeans. It also begs the question as to whether US jazz might not take off in an unexpected direction of more musicians were prepared to leave that zone. So Harris' comments make perfect sense to me. I was struck by them coming from a young, black musician. I do not mean to disparage the blues or deny their centrality to the jazz tradition of the past; or their continued relevance as a ingredient of choice for the future. But I fall on the side of the fence which believes that jazz (or improvised music) can continue to grow as a rich music without the blues. And I'm considerably older than Harris!