... a national muse?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

[first; apologies for trespass but it ain't jazz nor classik, but etc...]

P J Harvey wins the Mercury Prize for Let England Shake ...

i think and listen little to the stuff that mercury prizes are made of but find this album truly exceptional .... there is a new national anthem on it somewhere ....

[Mr Pee]

Haven't got a clue what you're talking about......and care even less.......

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

how kind of you to tell us what we already knew Mr Pee

[Al R Gando]

[first; apologies for trespass but it ain't jazz nor classik, but etc...] .... there is a new national anthem on it somewhere ....

That should flush the Empire Loyalists out of the woodwork in apoplexy...

[Lateralthinking1]

.....as featured earlier this year on "The Verb". See post 36 there for the review. Not bad but maybe time to revisit and reassess.

I am in no doubt that it was the right decision in a poor year. They so often get it wrong. Apposite politically. And by giving the award twice to the same artist it also somehow gives a bit of shape to the history of these awards.

Not entirely sure who all the judges were. One was Corinne Bailey Rae. She doesn't impress me much.

Funnily enough, I was looking earlier at the list of all of the nominees since Mercury started to see what had been there beyond rock and pop. There is quite a lot of it.

Even some jazz there Calum - what do you think of the ones included since it began?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_Prize

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Mseleku was a loss, another national muse ....


Barker, Tracey, Pine, Surman, Kinch and Kit Downes i wouldn't argue about any of them, not heard the latest Simcock [Stan T is the man tho]

[Lateralthinking1]

My knowledge of jazz is just ahead of my knowledge of classical music. The average member of the public would see me as well-informed. The aficionados would rightly see me as an ignoramus. It is bits and pieces of the pure form collected in the memory over years and a lot of coming at it from other angles - things "with a jazz influence".

You mention ST. One of my pure jazz cds is "Under Milk Wood" funnily enough. I love Starless and Bible Black which I probably heard first on Desert Island Discs. I know Soweto Kinch because I investigated the cd following the Mercury nomination. I got into Portico Quartet in the same way before seeing them, and enjoying them, at Womad.

I keep renewing a library book "Jazz from New Orleans to the New Jazz Age" edited by Ronald Atkins. I really like it and am learning a lot from it. If R3 doesn't completely renege on its commitments, I hope to learn a great deal more.

[eighthobstruction]

I've been following PJH since the early 90's....odd flat period mid 00's when she went US but allways a couple of gems on every album and collabaration....often a couple to run across the room to stop too....

[Globaltruth]

[first; apologies for trespass but it ain't jazz nor classik, but etc...]

....

no probs - worth it just for the Mr. Pee post.

Besides her new album does appear to feature Turkish lamenting and a kanun on one track, so this is deffo the right place....

[Paul Sherratt]

>>>worth it just

Mr. Pee the artist ?

Anyway I wouldn't have been remotely curious about any prize winner ... but now Calum has spoken I'd like to know where I can
get a free sample of PJH.



Didn't they used to give out samples of PLJ ? I bet Mr Pee would know.

[Chris Newman]

Yesterday Mr Pee wrote on the "Stormy Weather" thread

"Force 8 gusting 9 all day down here in Chichester Harbour"

.

Hmm. Sounds as if his wind problem is blowing this way.

[Globaltruth]

I'd like to know where I can
get a free sample of PJH.

.

Wake up England is, of course, on Spooter.
'England' is the track I was referring to.
I prefer the idea of her to the reality, but no doubting of her worthiness (and hard work)

[johncorrigan]

Wake up England is, of course, on Spooter.
'England' is the track I was referring to.
I prefer the idea of her to the reality, but no doubting of her worthiness (and hard work)

I quite liked this song but was struggling to take the whole thing seriously - oh I know she doesn't need to wear jeans and a t-shirt but honestly PJ, cut out the KB look willya?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGlbVPdxC60

[Serial_Apologist]

I quite liked this song but was struggling to take the whole thing seriously - oh I know she doesn't need to wear jeans and a t-shirt but honestly PJ, cut out the KB look willya?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGlbVPdxC60

I thought she had a dead crow on her head. THAT, everybody, got the Mercury Prize?????

[Lateralthinking1]

I got very confused with all this. Started to watch the clip again - that says something in itself - thinking of the comment "I prefer the idea of her to the reality, but no doubting of her worthiness (and hard work)." Recalled how you and I had exchanged notes to that effect earlier this year GT. We agreed. I still do. Then it was "She seems to emerge as the Dorset clay like XTC are the Wiltshire chalk". Obviously I quickly thought better of it. Wouldn't ever write that crassly for the generalised public.

A short time then for thinking how her recent poetry classes in Bridport had obviously helped her. There followed some puzzling about a no doubt really ignorant blank spot over JC's reference to KB. Ah, just got it, yes, I was being thick there. And finally to cap it all, I just couldnt see how the thing on her head could possibly look like a cow. Now I re-read it, I see that s_a said "crow". It all makes much more sense now. It is a kind of elegant glumming and yet still mythically very immediate.

I do like her though - I think it is only the voice that leaves doubt - because she is a very rootsy, no, perhaps unusually organic, phenomenon. I also enjoy her words a lot, even if she does detail to the point of verbosity as I do overly sparse one-liners. Rarely. Was it the last cd where she became so ethereal it was just like listening to a vanishing oil lamp? This one is much better. I hear military thorns, rattling jewellery, farmyard wagons and five dancing spoons. Perhaps best of all, she isn't Bat for Lashes.

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/pjharvey/letenglandshake.html