"april is the cruellest month"... well, it was an unusually hot month here in the u.k., day after day of bright blue skies and brilliant sun; and if the last few years are anything to go by, this may actually have been the british summer over and done with early - but quite apart from that, from my point of view it was a month of more or less continuous frustration. if it wasn't something to do with the computer, it was problems with the internet: one damn thing after another, so that several posts i'd hoped to get sorted out remain at the planning stage. i do still intend to get these done... there's a list of 'em coming up below.
before i forget - those discog links i needed to get changed... not surprisingly, i haven't got any further with those for the time being. it wasn't the sort of thing i was gonna sit and do in the library, and since we got the computer back, i confess that i forgot all about doing it. it will get done! it hasn't exactly been top of my list of priorities, but it doesn't sit too well with me to leave a bunch of dead links up here, and i am going to get round to it sooner rather than later.
one thing that has happened recently: the resources page at tricentric now has a link to the blog. yes, i do feel somewhat validated by this development and no, that's not entirely an ego thing (though doubtless there is an element of that). i am trying to do serious work here (as time and my own lack of discipline permit), and it is gratifying to feel that the work is being recognised where it most counts... if not in many other places ;-)
- oh, and following the acquisition of the friday night sets from the knitting factory, november '93 (as detailed here), mcclintic sphere fixed me up with another one, this a single set, dated the 14th and purporting to be the "last quartet performance". i don't know if this is actually true, but it is my understanding that the great quartet was disbanded for good in that year (at least until last june's one-off reunion), so it may well be the case that a short residency in NYC was how it got sent off... it didn't seem to make much sense that the band would have played two sets each on thursday and friday without sticking around at least for the weekend, so i'm happy to believe that there will be recordings from the saturday and sunday out there somewhere as well. for the time being, there is only this one extra set that i've managed to get hold of and i don't know much about it... and indeed i haven't yet found the time to listen to it; but what i can say is that it is definitely not the same as any of the four sets i already had. this one begins with comp. 40b, which was not played on the 11th or 12th... the bitrate is rather lower than those others, so i'm not sure yet whether it will be worth sharing it here, but i will check it out very soon.
ok, so the planned posts, as mentioned above... some of these were already alluded to (hurriedly!) here, but there are more besides those, and of course i am still trying to get the next phase of the braxtothon launched, though it never quite seems to be ready. anyway... here is the list of what is in the pipeline:
- a re-examination of the châteauvallon 1973 recording, complete with some downloadable sound clips (*)
- a quick write-up of the hamburg 1975 gig, following on from antibes
- a gap-filler covering this time
- something or other regarding vocal music, specifically this recording
- and possibly some other stuff! but let's not get too carried away here... given my track record, it'll be something of an achievement if i manage to get all that lot posted in the near future... i am on it.
and that is that, for now... peace out, as they say... c x
* see comments
5 comments:
the recording in question (one track from a solo alto performance, plus a complete concert by the "lost" quartet) was posted at huppes & hyalites, which is of course long defunct... i have a master copy burned on cd-r, but my own copy of the mp3 files is long gone, lost when my old desktop got eaten by viruses... bearing in mind that the sound was pretty lo-fi to begin with, i am certainly not about to offer a complete re-rip for download here, since further compression would definitely result in grotty sound... but some short clips for evaluation purposes will work ok, i reckon...
C - you who were with me in the ships at Mylae. What happened to the book? Has it begun to sprout?
The old haunts are long gone: no more fighting in the captain's tower - but your road goes on forever.
Best wishes,
R
z-man/r,
what a sudden pleasure to read you here! i have thought of you often and wondered at times whether we would speak again; whether indeed it was advisable for us to do so - yet this seems perfectly natural and well-aspected :)
those days seem long gone, huh? don't i know it... my road? the book..? well, the book a this stage would be a multi-volume work, the first volume of which was effectively finished (bar secondary notes etc) last august, and the second of which... has yet to materialise. it's on its way... yes, on and on; there's no intention of stopping nor temptation to do so.
and how are you?
very good to hear from you,
c x
C - I've wanted to drop you a line for a long time. I just decided one day to go silent in the old place, but a lot of water has flown under the bridge since then. My wife is no longer with us, but I still am, for reasons I may never tease out. I pop in here from time to time; probably more often than I listen to the great man, if the truth be told.
So, my love to you too man, and just because I go silent again, don't think it doesn't mean we ain't listening.
z, sorry to hear about your wife.
i'm glad to have you here. i had wondered whether you might still be checking in, from time to time. it is very interesting that you should finally do so at a time when i was precisely reviving topics long since not discussed: standards and singers, etc etc. (i don't know if you have seen the most recent post yet, it was still being written when you left your comment!)
be good :)
h / c x
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