Very encouraged by Mark's entry on what he and Ed have done with the material I carelessly threw down onto the track at Frakctured Cybercentre.

Its an intersting technique - using Cubase in that way - and I have meaning to write about it - not least a propos Night Blooming Thing on Robin's latest. She sent me the track and pointed to a section where the song grooves over two minor chords three semitones apart. I had some sync problems on the portable PC but I finally got to a point where I could put the flute down on a left track and with a sync track on the right. I also managed to get some "angles" on the sequence that I liked - in that way I was able to give Robin a fair amount of material to work from. With her producer's skill she was able to take out just a few bars to drop into the centre of the big mix of the song. I am really happy with the way it worked out - and if pushed could give an account of how the occurence on the flute sound at that point reinforces the semiotics of the piece.

By coincidence I have had the Shure plugged into the back of the big PC here in Gfd today - working on an emergent piece. There are a lot of new techniques that you can employ doing this - Mark mentions some of them. Anyway's today's piece - I think - reflects listening to that Ornette Coleman this week.

Stuart Nicholson's book on Jazz Rock is just magnificent - over 400 pages of information and lots of good critical observations. Jazz rock is the only really significant innovation in 20C jazz where European musicians have made a major impact, for example. The power of Claptons phrase building in the long free sections of Cream live recordings.

Charles Shaar Murray was on Radio 3 this evening talking about Charlie Christian. CSM was right to say just how modern Christian sounds 65 years after the event - it is just astonishing. I think he was too hard on Benny Goodman though - some of the Goodman stuff he played stands up in totality not just because its got CG on board. Its easy to mock Goodman but he is a very interesting figure.

It was good seeing Nick Totton last night - the person who made Carless Love happen. I bought the book which editted on the strength of the article in the collection. I think along with Fred and one or two people at Edinburgh U he is one of the most original thinkers I have ever met. He was kind enough to say that he liked Bodyspace Lament - I gave him copies of 10SS and Plundafonix.

I also had a chat Ian Patterson who taught C Bell prac crit and was on the team when Ridgers Wheeler Totton and Pheasant did the first Stoney Ground at the Edinburgh Festival a zillion years ago. Two of his sons are now bass players. Ian has written some highly praised criticism of J H Prynne who Paul W cites as a major influence on his writing. Ian teaches English at the College where Geoffery (bassplayer HORN and S Pheasant bebop 5tet) studied it.