Jimmy Webb busking Wichita Lineman on R4 Today - he complained about the loss of form in contemporary songwriting. Yesterday I went to meet Peter C and Karl in Balham. I got out at Clapham South where I used to live in the 70s. It has changed a great deal since then. Peter has had a lot of work done on his house and has put the work space into a new third floor. We have risen to 660 in the Reverbnation alternative charts. I am not sure we ll be able to hold that position. At Balham we spent about two and half hours discussing a possible project - then we went to the local pub to eat - I had mushroom risotto and we shared a decent bottle of Rioja. Dr Z has got back to Cairo but has decided to leave with the US flights out. I put vision and the riddle onto the news stream on FB - they use the spoken word quite a lot - their bio just says that they have been at it for ages. They are the bunch on Rn who seem quite close to us. I mailed AK on FB. I listened to Vanessa Daou on Rn.

There s a lot to say about the Hhancock transcriptions. It is mostly standards - taken from the early years of the 2nd great MD 5tet ie 63 and 64. At this point Miles was playing the same repertoire as he had been using with other groups in the late 50s and early 60s. But the new rhythm section of Williams Carter and Hhancock were subjecting the tunes to ever more radical treatment. The tunes selected are from the Miles live album from the a jazz festival in the south of France and the 1964 live concert in NYC - 2 records which some consider to be the greatest live jazz recordings ever. There is also a version of Sorceror in the book. It would be nice to have some transcriptions of ESP which was the first album from the 5tet where they started to do original material but I can hardly complain. Actually those MD recordings didnt have Wayne Shorter so strictly they arent the 2nd 5tet. George Coleman is on tenor but he sets others off well.