Guy Berger

I certainly didn't come in via straight-ahead jazz. My first were Mahavishnu, electric Miles, Weather Report... I thought Kind of Blue was boring when I first bought it. People come in via all sorts of routes. Back in the mid/late 90s there was an influx of Sonic Youth->free jazz entrants. Phish/MMW and the jam band scene were another path. I don't know what the parallel is today, but surely it exists.

Questions I have when I read something like this: *Can* jazz be saved? *Should* jazz be saved? What does “saving jazz” even mean? Who cares? That said this is a wonderful music, if Jeff Goldblum leads one person to discover Louis Armstrong or Albert Ayler that strikes me as a win.

neither could i

coupon: https://twitter.com/PiRecordings/status/1066456243928211456 I picked up: the first Liberty Ellman album (Tactiles) Roscoe Mitchell Song for My Sister the two Braxton/Wadada duet albums the Iyer/Ladd In What Language AEOC, Sirius Calling & the Meeting the first Fieldwork Album Leo Wadada Smith, Year of the Elephant [the recommendation for the Rivers/Holland/Altschul reunion is right on, but I already have it and forgot to mention ]

Hi all, Pi Recordings is holding a 30% Bandcamp sale for Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, so I’d love recommendations. FWIW I own the following already, all of which I’d recommend: 7 Steve Colemans (personal fave = Synovial Joints) 9 Henry Threadgills (personal faves = This Brings Us To volumes 1 & 2) 3 Muhal Richard Abrams Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green, Apex (great one)

Niswanger is leading a fusion (?) band called Mae Sun rn, I am listening to their album on spotify and it is quite good.

Ironic that a quote I gave about cyber security has led to a thread about paywalls

Out of curiosity I compared air quality here and in Beijing - comparable

So I've been enjoying the Berne JMTs over the past 8-9 months and here's my assessment for anyone who's thinking of diving in. FRACTURED FAIRY TALES is absolutely the best place to dive in and will give you a flavor of whether you want to explore further. A few of the trends that make Berne's later JMT albums somewhat daunting (>70 minute albums and >30 minute compositions) are mostly absent here. And unlike the 2 excellent Miniature albums, you get exclusive focus on Berne's compositions. After that, I'd go for DIMINUTIVE MYSTERIES just because the combination of Julius Hemphill's compositions and Berne's ensemble is so good. It also isn't dominated by extremely lengthy compositions. (Though in Berne-land, I'm categorizing 20 minute epics as "moderate length".) Once you have those two, I'd start with MINIATURE and just move chronologically. By the time you get to NICE VIEW (the second Caos Totale album, which IMHO is excellent) you'll get a sense of how much you love "lengthy composition Berne". I'm still finding the 3 live Bloodcount albums difficult to digest (but also anticipate that will change over time). I also acquired three other Berne albums: BIG SATAN - the first album by this trio, on Winter & Winter. I'd view this as a natural coda to the JMT years. If you like those albums, you'll like this one too. INSOMNIA - on Clean Feed. I may re-evaluate but, while not bad, I thought this one is a little disappointing, particularly given how well Berne works with strings on the early JMT albums. THE SHELL GAME - on Thirsty Ear. This one is really great. Makes me eager to explore more stuff with Berne + Taborn. A very different flavor than the JMT stuff though - less humor.

David Sanborn, Thomas Chapin have both played sopranino

Yes but unlike all the examples i mentioned, Gerry Mulligan’s quartet wasn’t clearly influenced by Ornette’s quartet

Masada (John Zorn + David Douglas) MILES SMILES when Herbie isn’t soloing john Carter + Bobby Bradford American quartet when Keith was playing soprano (also when he was playing piano, but connection is more literal when he’s on the horn) Joe Lovano + Tom Harrell + Anthony Cox + Billy Hart

RIP

Is dissonance common in elevator music?

This is a real downer. Some seriously bad judgment here.