skeith

Can't this thread be moved to New Releases? isn't that where it really belongs? I don't know how to do it.

have to agree with you there Alexander!

Is anyone able to get the booklet back into the jewel box after you take it out. Man that's one fat booklet - did we need all those comments?

One other thing I just remembered. That event where Dylan got the Tom Paine award and Scorsese gives us Dylan insulting the audience, particularly the old people and the hair challenged folks. The most important thing to come out of Dylan's appearance for that award was that Dylan made a comment at the ceremony, coming just a month after the Kennedy assassination, that he could see where Oswald was coming from. Several other Dylan documentaries have included this. Marty airbrushed it!

That's the comparison I was making while watching as well. The Beatles, as far as I interpret it, were just as caustic and insulting as Dylan in their press conferences. They just covered their insults with humor, and the press didn't get it. Dylan seemed genuinely amazed at the bullshit that the press would ask and too stunned (or tired, as this film led us to believe) to play along. ← I tend to disagree Moose, and like Mike, I think the Beatles could be irreverent, but they did not personally attack individual members of the press the way Dylan does in No Direction and Don't Look Back. The nastiest Beatle comment I remember to the press was when Lennon and McCartney were being interviewed about the opening of Apple and a reporter asks why do this and Lennon says something like "so that people who want to make music or a film don't have to crawl on their knees in someone's office, probably yours" but that pales in comparison to Dylan's shtick. I think of the reporter who yelled out to the Beatles just after their arrival in NYC "when are you going to get a haircut" They all laugh and George just says "I had one yesterday". Can you imagine Dylan's reaction? Lennon was more than a bit contrite in an interview he gave after the we are more popular than Jesus comment. Again, imagine Dylan? So while I love his music he does come across as a bit of an asshole. The other thing is that Dylan basically refused to answer almost any serious question and the Beatles in a number of interviews entertained serious questions from the press, even the uninformed press. Now I am not saying the Beatles are better than Dylan or that Dylan isn't important as a musician or a songwriter or whatever you think he is, I just said what I said and now it's all this.

I also wanted to say that during the closing credits, there is a some written language that appears on the screen that said something like: After 1966 Bob Dylan continued to write songs and perform. this cracked me up. Who did Marty think was watching this film, the Rotary Club?

I tend to agree that those were Dylan's greatest years, but even so the Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 material got comparatively little attention. And to not even discuss Blonde on Blonde is borderline criminal. That album came out in 1966 if I remember correctly.

This thread should probably be in New Releases, since this material is previously unissued, right?

I agree about the drums and frankly on first listen, but only a a Discman portable cd player, I wouldn't say the sound is really nice. Much better obviously than the Naima 5 Spot recording.

Not sure why Scorsese should get so much credit for merely assembling a lot of great footage shot by Lerner and Pennebaker. I had no idea that this film was stopping in 1966 and as the program was grinding into its 3 hour last night I found myself thinking isn't Marty going to get to Blonde on Blonde and more electric Dylan - he only has a half hour left? In the interview afterwards he says the documentary was intended to stop in 66, I guess because there is little or no footage after that, but the viewer watching up until that moment has no idea. I had a couple of other major beefs: 1) I think that Dylan's move to more, for a lack of a better word, "stream of consciousness" type lyrics as opposed to "topical" or protest songs was as radical as going electric and he did it before going electric. The reason for this change was not really explored. I guess cause Dylan still hates interviewers, even if they are Marty, and hates discussing his music. 2)There is discussion of how Dylan influenced rock and roll- he says the rock groups started doing his songs- but little discussion of how rock and roll influenced him. I think he has said before that the Beatles caused him to go electric. To leave this out of the documentary seems a major flaw. As a film I much prefer Don't Look Back to No Direction Home.

In my opinion, it was not as good as I expected, maybe because my favorite Dylan years are to come tonight. Not sure what Scorsese was doing last night with interspersing the clips from the live British performance (electric) with the folk era Dylan. Not sure what he want us to do with it or What he feels is the significance of that. Finally, while Bob is amazingly lucid and coherent compared to other recent interviews I have seen such as that disastrous 60 Minutes one, he still seems rather guarded. some great clips, interviews and of course great music, but bottom line is that I didn't learn much I didn't already know about Dylan last night and for some reason wasn't as riveted as I expected to be.

any thoughts by others on the "In Tokyo" cd?

I don't have the "At the VV" cd you mentioned medjuck, but I am pleased with the placement of intstruments on the box.

Guy, Frankly and this is a surprise coming from me, I have always found the tokyo disc a bit of a disapointment, but I haven't listened to it in a decade so maybe I would change my mind.

Glad you enjoyed them LWayne, I did too. Hey Guy you mean that Monk himself is soloing on Paul Motian Trio albums by way, what live PMT albums exist other than "Sound of Love" (that's the Vanguard one) and "Live in Tokyo" - I am not aware of any others

Interesting Medjuck, I find that the noise level of the crowds differs significantly on the different sets. Generally it does not bother me except for "Porgy" which is maybe the worst. Interesting how much crowd discussion compared to today at the VV, where during most sets there is NO discussion at all. One more thing, I actually find the crowd noise to be less prevalent in this box, than on other versions of the same recordings.

thanks couw for posting this

And who the hell was that woman who is laughing so much during "I Loves You Porgy"? She certainly was a casual fan - noise is one thing, but that tune is so beautiful and sad, particularly if you know the words to the song. Perhaps like the dancing woman at Newport, this one deserves a footnote in jazz history - but with my foot on her neck

Ron, I haven't done the comparison you are looking for, but the box and each cd within the box says 20bit K2, but I am not sure the sound is identical to the single cd issues. I guess this is not much help.

Agreed Lon, In all the above fracas it was easy to forget the contributions of LaFaro and Motian, which are stellar! This was really a trio where everyone gets to shine and the interaction is almost telepathic, for white guys that is.

that will teach me to say goodbye! Did Gopnik have any such prefatory statement? Again I don't have the whole article.

Well Jim, You may be very right about what you are saying about the Evans fans you encounter. BUT, while i don't understand every phrase in Gopnik's sentence, bottom line is I really don't think he is saying, in that sentence, that Evans's music is superior. He is saying it is different. If the rest of the article leads you to that conclusion, then show us the language. I do not necessarily think that music which is "pure emotion" is better than other music. But it may not be fair to label Gopnik as one of the delusional Evans fans you seem to encounter. I have edited some of my above posts to speak to the specific words in Gopnik's sentence which may clarify what it mean. And now I Will Say Goodbye.

Actually I don't think Gopnik is saying that. I think he is saying that the performances ON THIS RECORDING reach a level of pure emotion that is very high. I would guess he might allow that this would not be true of other Evans performances.

Ok, I want to take another look at this language. I wish I had saved the whole article because one sentence can appear a bit out of context. So Gopnik describes Evans's playing as close to "pure emotion" "without impediments" "as exists in music" That says to me that there is other music he considers to have such pure emotion. He does appear to compare it to bebop which he calls an "entire self poured out with inhibitions'" that is not clear what he means by that, but it also sounds to me like emotion, but if that is his definition of bebop well I disagree. But by saying that Evans's music on this record is "not at all the same thing" as bebop does not necessarily say to me that he is saying it is inferior. I mean if I said that the "rocking" music on the new Rolling Stones Cd is "not at all the same thing" as the new Sonny Rollins cd, can you tell which I like better? I guess Jim you see Gopnik using "bebop" as to represent black music as opposed to the Evans band, which is white? Is that where you are coming from? Hence your initial reaction of racism.

to be fair to you JSngry, I should clarify. I read Gopnik's review when it came out and don't remember thinking it was racist. As for the portion of his article that you quoted, it does not appear to be racist and I don't remember him comparing Evans with any black musicians on the issue of "emotion" or whatever. If there is a portion of the article that appears to put black musicians in a bad light, I may have to retract my comments, but I did not see it in what you quoted. Now, as for other musician/fans you encounter who are Evans fans that find Evans superior to black musicians, I can't say that's BS cause I don't know who you run into, so I wasn't saying BS about that. As an aside, I can't think of any fans/players in NYC who think Evans has a monopoly on feeling or expression over black players- but that doesn't mean you don't encounter them in Texas.