At last some improvement in the condition of my mouth � it had felt like I was going into slow decay. Well slowly decaying faster than before. I am enjoying reading Morton Feldman�s collected writings in all kinds of ways.. Straight comprehension isn�t one of them to be honest. I see his written material as traces of an era of great excitement and upheaval when it was clear to those close to the epicentre that something really unusual was going on round and about. Feldman felt that the creativity in the visual arts just had to be carried across into his own medium. In doing this he deliberately looked around at what others are doing or had attempted and tries to calibrate his approach against theirs.

MF had the greatest respect and affection for John Cage and built his own approach via some of Cage�s shifting ideas. Sometimes seemed to be as baffled as anyone else by some of the twists and turns in his mentor�s path. But he also talked provocatively about working his way towards an approach that was close to randomness and close to an independent natural world of sound - just a step away in terms of deliberation and control.

I read an article yesterday by Kyle Gann which explained that MF fell out with Philip Guston, the Absex artist that he was very close to in the 60s and 70s, when PG shifted towards his realistic cartoon style. The portrait that PG did of MF and is on the cover of the collected writings is in this later style and was done after the estrangement and in fact expresses the gap between them. Gann thinks it ironic that MF is the only one of the New York School of composers to be admitted into the �academy� after his death.

MF�s writing is a series of imaginative leaps which makes it quite hard to follow. Its as if he can�t keep the creativity which surfaces in his configuration of musical resources out of his use of language. So in one sense its like reading poetry where you are not surprised if the meanings don�t fit together in the normal way. I don�t read much at a sitting but the process of reading opens the mind.

I feel reluctant to explain much about the day-job. There are issues and tasks moving forward but they seem to be arcane. We are peering into the future trying to make out the institutional landscape and anticipate the way certain issues are going to unfold so that we can position ourselves better to benefit. There are links with some of the things that Robin has written about today.

Last night I went to see Keith Emerson in Leicester at the De Monfort Hall. I have only seen him once before with the Nice. The Hall is relatively small and I was sitting in the front of the balcony looking over Emerson�s shoulder. The first half was with two members of the original Nice � Lee Jackson and Brian Davison � with younger guitar whiz Dave Kilminster. I decided to go the show after persistent lobbying from my colleague who is an ELP completist.

I found the first half hard to get hold of � the sound wasn�t well balanced for me and I couldn�t really get what Kilminster was up to. The second half started with a couple of piano solos from Emerson on acoustic grand, an impressive song by Kilminster and then Emerson bought on younger musicians on bass and drums and they played Tarkus. In simple terms the second half was a lot better than the first and it became clear that Emerson was using the evening as a kind of career review. As he spoke to the audience more he much more likeable and his reputation for excessive flash began to subside. I also became aware that in the 90s muscular problems with his hands had curtailed his activities. He seems to have been provoked into this tour by hearing Carl Palmer�s band do the ELP version of Fanfare for the Common Man.

I think maybe KE is trying to sort out what he made of the Nice � he hasn�t polished presentation of the material to the same degree as the later stuff. I think the original band was a lot more tight and that there was a creative conflict between KE and the original guitarist Davy O List which may have helped power the outfit.

They played the Tim Hardin song, Hang On To A Dream and it occurred to me that this is a 30 bar tune � although in one sense it is a fairly typical minor song with a descending bass line from the 60s it has a late entry for the melody � beat the three of the first bar (in triple time) and the first (repeated) phrase is seven bars long � obsessively progressing down towards the dominant seventh. But the completing phrase repeated four times is modal � I think it works back to the major.

So quite a package of interesting features here which might well read across to the work of another introspective songwriter of the period. I am thinking of the close integration of musical devices and lyric sense. One might even look at Things Behind the Sun, Hang On To A Dream and I�ll Be Back as a cluster in which major/minor/modal ambiguity is used to push lyric ambiguity and image/reality dissociation.

Emerson had a big old monophonic synth in his rig � I guess it must be a Moog � it looked like a telephone exchange and I began to think about his approach to constructing the line on this instrument. There were six pieces from earlier this year that I did that relate a bit to what he was up to with this device.

All good fun but I am a bit knackered today. Late posting: "For a brief period in the years 1966-67 a case could be made for Tim Hardin being the greatest singer / songwriter in the world. His innate sense of melody, the poetic quality of his lyrics and the all up grace and beauty of his work stunned fellow musicians and writers." - Keith Glass

Like Tim Buckley, Tim Hardin was a 60's era folk rock musician who was sucker punched by drugs. The only time I saw Tim perform was on New Year's Eve 1979 in Seattle. He was a last minute booking at a small, now defunct neighborhood bar; seeing him was an easy decision as it was too late to get reservations anywhere. But his deterioration at that point was painfully clear. He performed none of his own compositions that night, nor did he perform anything else except "Georgia On My Mind" over and over again. He would be dead within the year at age 39.

Fortunately, his work during his most creative period is now being reissued on CD. As a result, many younger music fans are discovering him. And many of us older music fans are truly re-discovering him, as in his own time he was regarded primarily as a songwriter, with others, especially Bobby Darin, scoring hits with Tim Hardin penned songs like "If I Were a Carpenter", "Lady Came from Baltimore" and "Reason To Believe".

It's hard to find much written about Tim, but he does have a chapter of his own in American Troubadours: Groundbreaking Singer-Songwriters of the 60s

Tim appears one tape one of the Director's Cut of the Woodstock movie, but not while he was on stage. The interviewer comes upon him while he is tuning up and singing to himself. DVD and VHS.

Similar artists: fans of Tim are likely to also appreciate Nick Drake, Fred Neil, Pearls Before Swine and Eric Andersen."

Draw your own conclusions.

(The TH page also links to Jackson C Frank and the Files)