Music Nights 2025 My year in live music - opera, jazz, chamber music, indie, folk, all sorts - and forays into the CD/vinyl collections. Four years of listening to music without M, and I still feel it's somehow a shared thing. I don't spookily 'sense his presence' but what I listen to and how I…

Music night. Honouring the late Terry Reid, listening to his 1973 album River. It's a jazzy, funky, folky album, all his own material, and v fine it is too.

Music night. 25 years ago we lost the wonderful Kirsty MacColl. Her music is part of my life & always will be, lovely & funny & fierce & tender. One hell of a singer, one hell of a songwriter, one hell of a woman. Listening to her tonight. So many wonderful songs (should have been more, obvs).

Music afternoon. Xmas Spotify playlist. So far, Chet Baker, Norah Jones, Jeff Buckley, Tracy Thorn, Dexter Gordon, Supremes, Pet Shop Boys, Richard Hawley, Booker T, Fairport, Huntertones, Irma Thomas, Sparks, & the Brian Setzer Orchestra. Almost ready to watch It's a Wonderful Life. Almost.

2025 On Screen – the Second Half Film None of the films below were seen at the cinema. This is not normal, and I need to do something about it. Apart from anything else, I should be getting more value from my Showroom membership than I have for the last six months! I like the whole experience of…

Music night. Robert Wyatt - Nothing Can Stop Us. 1982 compilation of covers (1 exception), singles and B-sides. Diverse material with a strong political thread. His voice always gives me goosebumps.

Music night. More vinyl - Ellington - The English Concert. Strictly speaking, 2 concerts, the Odeon in Bristol, 22/10/71, and Birmingham Theatre, 24/10/71. This was one of the first Ellington LPs we bought & we loved it. Wonderful to rediscover it now.

Music night. Another forgotten vinyl treasure - Esther Phillips' Capricorn Princess, from 1976, the 2nd phase of her career. She died in 1984 at only 48, as a result of longterm heroin use. No info on the sleeve re who wrote the songs. Fab voice, funky tunes.

Music night. Just back from a lovely festive concert. First up a vinyl album I'd forgotten we owned, A People's Carol, recorded in South Yorkshire pubs, and featuring a specific local repertoire, not found in the usual carol collections. These recordings were made in 1973.

The publisher can deliver by hand, on foot, to any Sheffield address (postcodes S1 - S18), and we're happy to gift-wrap books, if you like, at no extra cost. Orders received by 23 December will be delivered on or before 24 December.

Music night - more Booker T, this time McLemore Avenue, their 10th album & their response to Abbey Road. Released Apr 1970 so a pretty quick response. 926 East McLemore Avenue was Stax's address. Seems apt as I'm rewatching Beatles Anthology & Abbey Road is poss. my favourite Beatles album.

Music afternoon: Sara Mohr-Pietsch's Music Map (R3) followed an interesting path to its destination, Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. WSS is the best musical ever, & I adore it. En route I esp. loved Ellington's Star Cross'd Lovers & Solveig Slettahjell's The Winner Takes it All.

Music afternoon. Putting the Xmas tree up, so tradition dictates that I listen to Xmas-appropriate music. BBC Music's Christmas around Europe - seasonal music from Slovenia, Germany, Spain, Finland, Poland, Czechia & Sweden, by Hindemith, Sibelius, Rodrigo et al - fits the bill nicely.

Music night. Bit of a change from Schoenberg. Honouring the great Steve Cropper (RIP) with Booker T Greatest Hits.

Music night: Schoenberg Music for Solo Piano - Glenn Gould, recorded 1964, inc. the Suite fur Klavier (Op. 25) that Tim Horton played a few days ago @musicintheround.bsky.social and which he urged us all to listen to again. Before I get to that, there's Op 11, Op 23 and Op 19, & finally Op 33 a & b

Music afternoon - Philip Glass, Complete Piano Etudes, played by Maki Namekawa. A couple of these (2 and 9) were played by Shani Diluka in her brilliant concert linking Bach with the American minimalists, a few weeks back @musicintheround.bsky.social

Music afternoon: Paul Lewis, Haydn Piano Sonatas Vol. 2, inc. the E flat major that Tim Horton played the other night @musicintheround.bsky.social. I have tried to but don't love Haydn's symphonies (excommunicate me if you will) but these I can and do love.

Music afternoon: Marcin Wasilewski Trio (Wasilewski piano, Slawomir Kurkiewicz bass & Michal Miskiewicz drums + Joakim Milder tenor sax) - Spark of Life (ECM, 2014). I recall we heard these on J to Z or Jazz Record Requests at some point & really liked them & I can hear why.

Music afternoon: Chitinous Ensemble, feat. a pre-Third Ear Band Paul Buckmaster & a pre-Nucleus Ian Carr amongst others on a v lengthy cast list, comprising almost every jazz/orchestral instrument you could think of. I thought it was going to just be squonky but it's more Centipedy (a good thing)

The always excellent Tim Horton excelled again tonight with Viennese Masterworks - Haydn, Brahms, Schoenberg & Beethoven - and a pre-gig talk that helped us to see how Schoenberg wasn't an iconoclast but saw himself as part of that lineage. Brilliant evening @musicintheround.bsky.social

2025 Reading: The Second Half Fiction The usual caveats. I haven’t included absolutely everything I read – if something was mediocre to bad, I wouldn’t bother reviewing it unless that in itself was newsworthy, e.g. it’s by someone who I know to be capable of being much better than that.  Crime and…

Music afternoon and night

Music night - in honour of Mani, it's the Stone Roses' eponymous debut album from 1989. Fondly remembered from the time, & packed with great tracks. #MusicSky

Music afternoon: a BBC Music compilation from Estonia - Part (the Britten Cantus) + symphonies by Villem Kapp and Eduard Tubin. Thinking ahead to a visit to Tallinn next May.

Music afternoon: following Schubert with Chopin, Ballades & Impromptus, played by Makiko Takeda. Always love the Ballades perhaps above all other Chopin. #MusicSky

Music afternoon: Schubert’s Death & the Maiden, played by the Caspar da Salo Qtet. Heard this by the Dudok Qtet recently via @musicintheround.bsky.social and it’s so wonderful I wanted to listen again #MusicSky

These handsomely crafted books make excellent Christmas presents and, being rectilinear, they are very easy to wrap

#MusicSky Music night - paying my respects to the late Gilson Lavis, with some classic Squeeze, East Side Story, always one of my fave albums. So many great songs.

#MusicSky music night. Nigel Kennedy Quintet: Recital (NK violin & celeste, Rolf Bussalb acoustic guitar & 12 string, Yaron Stavi bass, Krzysztof Dziedzic drums; Barbara Dziewiecka 2nd violin, viola). 4 Fats Waller tunes, + Brubeck, Bach, Kennedy & others. Reliving his recent Sheff gig.

#BookSky current reading, plus Rebecca West’s Black Lamb & Grey Falcon on Kindle

#MusicSky A wonderfully uplifting evening of music that ponders mortality, from the Doduk Qtet - Terra Memoria by Kaija Saariaho, pieces by Gesualdo, Mussorgsky & Liszt arranged for string qtet, & Schubert's Death & the Maiden. @musicintheround.bsky.social

Music night. Re-listened to the Ravel String Qtet in F major that I heard the Piatti Qtet playing last week at @musicintheround.bsky.social. And have now put on a compilation of Bernard Herrmann Hitchcock scores, starting with the brilliant Psycho Suite which was on the same programme as the Ravel.

Music night. Gong, in prep. for seeing them live at Crookes Social Club on Wednesday. Starting off, obviously, with Camembert Electrique, from 1971. Sold by Virgin Records for 59p, the price of a single. Tu veux le camembert?

Music night

Music night. Laura Jurd's latest album, Rites & Revelations, following on from last night's gig. It's brilliant stuff - a great line-up of trumpet, accordion, viola, percussion & electric bass, with folk elements, a touch of klezmer, & definite Third Ear Band vibes, I'd venture to say.

Music night. Prompted by hearing a track on the wake playlist to listen to the vinyl copy of Working Week's Companeros, which I haven't heard for a very long time. It's their 2nd album, from 1986, songs perhaps not quite as strong as on Working Nights but lovely.

This time four years ago, M's funeral service was underway, & it was full of music. Beach Boys, Miles Davis, Ellington, Bowie (via Glass), Hendrix, the Beatles, Gerry Mulligan (My Funny Valentine). Then at the wake we heard just a few hours of the epic playlist that I've fired up again today.

Music afternoon - something to combat the dreary, rainsodden skies... Nigel Kennedy, who we saw live a few weeks ago, an early album of Bartok & Ellington, & now from 2003 with the Kroke Band. Taken together they give a real flavour of his musicianship & his eclecticism.

Loved that Laura Jurd gig so much that I had to buy the album - they’d run out of CDs so bought the vinyl.

Absolutely loving the Laura Jurd Quintet live at Sheffield’s Firth Hall - another brilliant evening of music from Sheffield Jazz.

A great evening with @musicintheround.bsky.social - this time cinematic music with the excellent @piattiquartet.bsky.social: Bernard Hermann's Psycho suite, a piece by Jonny Greenwood for There Will Be Blood, Glass's music for Mishima & Ravel's Qtet in F Major, used for Royal Tenenbaums. Fabulous.

Music night. Winding down with Pentangle, live at Berkeley Community Theatre in 1970, because it's gorgeous & in tribute to the late Danny Thompson, whose double bass skills are very much in evidence.

Music night. Quite a change of style & pace, Soft Cell - The Singles, in honour of the late David Ball. And what cracking singles they are.

Music night. Billy Marrows' chamber jazz collective Grande Familia with Penelope, and the album was created for Marrows' mum Penelope who had pancreatic cancer, & completed & released after her death, in 2024. Thx to @thestubbseffect.bsky.social for the gift, & to Grande Familia for the music.

Music afternoon. An old favourite, Egberto Gismonti - Danca das Cabecas, from 1977. With percussionist Naná Vasconcelos.