Guy Berger

Another example of why the Chambers bio is bad

Imho Lloyd in his stronger moments is a more interesting instrumentalist than Mann.

Haven’t seen “Hat and Beard” mentioned! Sacrilege Honestly there are so many good ones “Back at the Chicken Shack”, “Cool Struttin’ “, “Zoltan”, “Message from the Nile”, “Passion Dance”, “Inner Urge”, “Idle Moments”…

Discovered this recently and am really enjoying it. Not for people who love subtlety in their free jazz.

I’ve been enjoying this. Not a classic by any means but I’d rank it above Motian’s Garden of Eden or Time and Time Again. Stylistically in the same ballpark.

RIP. I love Blow by Blow and his work with the Yardbirds. (Though I am pretty indifferent to the Yardbirds aside from his playing.) on the minus side, he helped vault Rod Stewart to stardom 🤢

100%

Some more I’ve been listened to: Lightcap, Epicenter 5/5: amazing album, maybe the best I’ve heard from this label Steve Lehman, Manifold: 3/5 some good music on here but wasn’t passionate about it. Will revisit. Jonas Kullhammar, Basement Sessions Vol 2 4/5: solid, relatively straight ahead saxophone trio

I’ve gone through phases when I’ve been more/less interested in newly released music. More broadly it’s not surprising to me there’s a larger fanbase for pre 1970 jazz (of any style), it’s normal for any mature music

There are two separate ~45 minute recordings of Miles and the Lost Quintet from the Blue Coronet, probably from late June 1969. The music is outstanding and is noteworthy for one of the earliest recordings of “Miles Runs the Voodoo Down”. Most of the repertoire is from the 1965-68 quintet. The performances are free wheeling, but not as radical as the October/November ones from Europe.

Like others my assessment of this has improved since I first heard it, but only from “lame” to “ok”, ie I’ve gotten over the disappointment of expectations set up by the lineup and can enjoy the music but don’t find it compelling. I like the Ray Charles tune! IMHO despite a similarity in “mood” it falls far short of Idle Moments

The ECM archival release When Will the Blues Leave (w/Peacock and Motian) is really excellent - highly recommended.

I’ve been listening to The Call and man… Lloyd’s playing on these 1990s ECM and Atlantic albums is probably the best of his career. Very little of the shakiness that soft noodling shows up in the later 1960s stuff or sometimes in the past 2 decades

This is indeed a great track. But it isn’t an extended, focused improvisation by a single soloist, unlike “Blue 7”

Yes these are really good. And the two albums w/Cannonball. That’s funny, I think he sounds less like Trane in these early recordings than from the 1980s onward - the influences of Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman were much more obvious early on

Probably won’t be picking it up any time soon, but did listen to it on Spotify and enjoyed it for what it was. The live concert is easily the best part of the set.

This is an outstanding album. I love hearing Lloyd with a hard bop rhythm section. He tears it up on “Blues for Bill”.

Miles Davis is not really comparable here. I don’t think anybody would contest he was (1) a significant contributor as an instrumentalist (2) the major creative force shaping the music of his bands. He wasn’t just the employer, he was the *architect*. Replace him with any of his peers during that period and his bands would have sounded different and, on average, worse. Lloyd was never (2), but at his best he was definitely (1). Jim’s point is that as the quartet w/Jarrett and DeJohnette progressed, he wasn’t really 1 anymore either. Really obvious in 1968, somewhat apparent in 1967. The example of Mann is interesting here because I think he was a weaker and less interesting instrumentalist than Lloyd, but maybe had more of a creative, shaping vision.

I picked up this set and listened to the 1st disc. IMHO this won’t change any minds, it’s not the best Lloyd but also quite enjoyable if you like his other 1967 recordings.

Muhal’s big band recordings are my favorite of his output, Mama and Daddy is the first entry in that amazing run

Same. I’d put the session w/Rollins and Silver from June 1954 in 3rd place, followed by the two “odd” 1955 albums (quintet/sextet) and Musings of Miles, followed by the 1951 Dig session

Link This looks interesting - a septet (saxophone, guitar, three bassists, two drummers) playing one Motian tune, and several tunes inspired by him.

There are a bunch of other recordings in that period where they don’t play it. (Though the recorded evidence is patchy and biased - maybe they played it more often than these recordings indicate.) JSngry - you’re totally right that the very slow intro thing goes back at least to 1964 (and continued through 1970).

We don’t have recordings of them playing many ballads - to my knowledge only “I Fall in Love too Easily” and “Round Midnight” (and “Sanctuary”, I suppose). Both of these opened as Chick-Miles duets, at a slow rubato. Something the 1967 quintet did too. Though “Round Midnight” shifted to a fast tempo when Wayne’s solo came. What makes “Flamenco Sketches” unique is the approach to improvisation on the original recording - each of the soloists cycles through a series of scales. Miles repeated that technique on the studio recording of “Spanish Key” (though not, IIRC, on “Neo”/“Teo”). That kind of very “scripted” approach to improvisation was not something that Miles did in concert.

Not that unique. Of the 1959-68 studio tunes that Miles ended up performing live, almost all were either ballad standards or tunes that had fairly simple or open structures for improvisation. That rules out “Blue in Green” and “Flamenco Sketches”. “Freddie Freeloader” is a straightforward blues and “No Blues” fulfilled that role in concert.