hooray!
this cold, despite doing its worst, has failed to lay me out (though it is bad enough to have scored me a sneaky day off work) - and what has arrived today to lift my spirits and aid in my recovery? the very album named above, of course... a four-cd box set which was dangled before my collector's nose recently, when another listener asked a third for recommendations among the recent recordings... when the requester announced that he'd found an absurdly cheap offer from a seller in the u.s. for this, i was unable to resist the temptation of following suit (seller has now more than doubled the price, must have been a mistake!), but i have since had to endure the recent postal strike and had no idea when the box would actually arrive.
what do i do with it? open it, obviously... but do i allow myself to listen to it, so far ahead of schedule, so well and truly out of sequence? in the end common sense prevails and - without enforcing the self-discipline of an actual listening session i put on cd1 as soon as mrs cent takes off in the car.
sure enough, just being in the same physical space as the music makes me feel better :)
so far i managed just the first two discs, i.e. the tentet's rendition of comp. 286 (92 mins total) and i had to endure several interruptions - including a phone call from my mother-in-law, yet even that was handled with ease, such was the prevailing excellence of my mood (despite my currently having a dehydrated mask instead of a face)... notwithstanding my generously giving myself full permission to zone off, wander in and out of the room etc, many details still leap out at me. mainly the total commitment of the assembled players - to each other, to the composer, to their own curiosity as individual interpreters - is what comes across unfailingly, what makes the music such a happy place in which to reside for an hour or so.
so... any takers? i notice i seem to have frightened off all our readers over the last week, or am i just imagining it?!
this cold, despite doing its worst, has failed to lay me out (though it is bad enough to have scored me a sneaky day off work) - and what has arrived today to lift my spirits and aid in my recovery? the very album named above, of course... a four-cd box set which was dangled before my collector's nose recently, when another listener asked a third for recommendations among the recent recordings... when the requester announced that he'd found an absurdly cheap offer from a seller in the u.s. for this, i was unable to resist the temptation of following suit (seller has now more than doubled the price, must have been a mistake!), but i have since had to endure the recent postal strike and had no idea when the box would actually arrive.
what do i do with it? open it, obviously... but do i allow myself to listen to it, so far ahead of schedule, so well and truly out of sequence? in the end common sense prevails and - without enforcing the self-discipline of an actual listening session i put on cd1 as soon as mrs cent takes off in the car.
sure enough, just being in the same physical space as the music makes me feel better :)
so far i managed just the first two discs, i.e. the tentet's rendition of comp. 286 (92 mins total) and i had to endure several interruptions - including a phone call from my mother-in-law, yet even that was handled with ease, such was the prevailing excellence of my mood (despite my currently having a dehydrated mask instead of a face)... notwithstanding my generously giving myself full permission to zone off, wander in and out of the room etc, many details still leap out at me. mainly the total commitment of the assembled players - to each other, to the composer, to their own curiosity as individual interpreters - is what comes across unfailingly, what makes the music such a happy place in which to reside for an hour or so.
so... any takers? i notice i seem to have frightened off all our readers over the last week, or am i just imagining it?!
6 comments:
still reading -- waiting for '74 to hear yr take on braxton/bailey *royal vol. 1*
how do you know i'm going to do that one? ;-)
actually i did say elsewhere (somewhere or other...) that i was planning *not* to do collabs, sideman gigs etc as a way of cutting the list down to manageable levels... but when it comes to bailey... i am probably still open to persuasion...
I'm please you mentioned this one - I have been listening to the 2005 Ulrichsberg 4CD set on Leo and would strongly recommend that as well - composition 323a is extraordinary.
an excerpt from that piece was played on radio 3, iirc... that's a strange release, isn't it? some very different groupings for the compositions. (i recorded the excerpt so i will dig it out later)
Hi Cent.
You probably know me as Ray. But I have morphed into zenkojiman, by the looks of things.
I am knackered from getting even to this point.
Music is what has always driven me. At various times, I've set projects, where I've set myself to do comparisons, say, of different versions of the same Bach cantata, or Wagner's Ring even. And I'll get a little way in, but then think, 'Hell, no, I've got to go and listen to Hounddog, or On Green Dolphin Street, or whatever.
In the last couple of years it's definitely free jazz that's been at risk of obsessing me, but it hasn't always been that way.
This stuff is interesting, because you're almost treating it as in part about the experiencing of the music. So it's got that dimension.
For me, I'm more of a basics guy. Tell me what your ten best are, and I'll check out whether I agree sort-of-thing. Morton does that in the Wire essay I mentioned on the R3 site.
I can see I've rambled on a bit. If I do any more comments I'll try for a bit of brevity maybe.
Cheers, Zoot/Ray/Zenkojiman
hey z :))
thanks very much for dropping by... i shall do likewise!
and let's be clear here, i am the last person who could complain about the prolixity of others...
i can't give you a ten best *now* and may not ever feel like doing that - i *used* to be mr lists when i was younger, a habit i carried into my thirties but have gradually ditched in the last few years. i tell you what, though... i will post asking for peopel's favourites and we'll take it from there...
more personal stuff on the complete '71, disc 2 post below (strasbourg cathedral) - btw if you're unable to get a copy of that album let me know, braxtonhead@gmail.com
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