Guy Berger

Yes, welcome.

I should explain what I meant by this statement: while there are probably lots of "first time" responses to Monk in the jazz press from the 40s and 50s, there probably aren't many reviews by people listening to his Columbia and Prestige/Blue Note without knowledge of the historical context. Guy

This seems to be the consensus... Haven't heard it myself. Guy Get it while it's cheap. I paid $11.99. It'll be even cheaper on BMG in a few months. Guy

This seems to be the consensus... Haven't heard it myself. Guy

OTOH Monk was already 30 the first time he set foot inside a studio for a leader date... the Blue Note/Prestige/Riverside period captures him in his thirties and early 40s. Exactly. The music WAS fresh (in the historical sense) on the Blue Note and Prestige recordings. On the Riverside recordings, not so much. Whether it was fresh (in the musical sense) is obviously up to debate. I really wonder how much of our attitude on the relative "freshness" of Monk's music is a function of our knowledge of history. I wonder how someone without that knowledge would assess the music. Guy

You're kidding? The Olatunji stuff is SO badly recorded it is virtually unlistenable. Too bad, it's smoking hot stuff, but really - how many times will anyone listen to it? Well, personally, I've listened to it a bunch of times. I know I'm not the only one. And yet six years after the release of the Olatunji concert, Verve continues to reissue Coltrane material unimpeded. Guy

What about the '65 Juan Les Pins performance? You're kidding? Guy

I hope Ed Rhodes doesn't mind that I dug this piece out of the Coltrane-L archives, but I thought it was fascinating. Lots to chew on:

No need to take such a nasty tone. The '61 Newport performance was in fact recorded, supposedly with excellent sound: setlist: My Favorite Things/Naima/Impressions (announced as "So What") personnel: John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, Art Davis, and Elvin Jones According to David Wild and Ashley Kahn, the 1961 Newport performance was NOT recorded by Impulse, to whom Coltrane was under contract to at the time, so as I said earlier, it is NOT reasonable to expect Impulse to be able to issue it. OK, I'll take that as an implicit concession that the 1961 was in fact recorded. Verve has released Coltrane material not recorded by Impulse several times in the past few years, so I guess this comes down to a definition of "reasonable expectations". Not sure what you mean by "privately held" -- wasn't it seeded on one of the torrent sites a while back? There are definitely multiple copies circulating. Guy

There is an intro by Coltrane previously edited out as well as Tyner's solo. At the beginning there is an intro of the band causing the first track to be longer now. Instrumental intro, or a verbal introduction of the tune/band? Thanks for the info, Robert. Guy

My family spent about a year and a half in the States in the mid 80s. During this period I became a Transformers fan. We moved back to Israel in the summer of '86. I was extremely pumped when, shortly thereafter, Israeli TV started airing the show. Better yet, it was translated with subtitles rather than overdubbing. Guy

Not quite unreleased -- but previous versions were edited. Now that you've listened to it, what was taken out on previous issued versions? Is it just bass and drum solos, or part of Coltrane and McCoy's solos? Guy There is a comment in the liner notes that the bass solo was for the most part so badly distorted on the tapes that it's not usable, so most of it is edited out. according to the notes, that's all that's missing, purely because it couldn't be rescued. So the bass solo isn't in the newly released version either? What's the substantive difference between the two versions? The old one is 15:52, the new one is 23:30. edit: Apparently "I Want to Talk About You" is over a minute longer on the new release as well. Is this just crowd noise? Guy

No need to take such a nasty tone. The '61 Newport performance was in fact recorded, supposedly with excellent sound: setlist: My Favorite Things/Naima/Impressions (announced as "So What") personnel: John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, Art Davis, and Elvin Jones

Not quite unreleased -- but previous versions were edited. Now that you've listened to it, what was taken out on previous issued versions? Is it just bass and drum solos, or part of Coltrane and McCoy's solos? Guy

Not sure I understand the logic unless you place a high premium on RVG's remastering. New Soil is widely available, Tippin' the Scales is not. Guy

Apparently, this is not quite true. Guy

Definitely true. I'd be glad if someone would tackle this point. Guy

Huge improvement. All of the boxes Concord has produced of the Fantasy-owned material have been exemplary in terms of concept, remastering, packaging, and price. This is a public service announcement: FUCK CONCORD!!! Now back to regularly scheduled programming. Guy

Eric Kloss also has a really funky version of this tune, with Chick Corea, Pat Martino, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette. Jack is just great on this tune. Guy

Yeah, I'd only call Hendrix a music genius. American popular music tastes are so low that the "genius" label is tossed about casually. I don't think it's just in music. I also don't know if this happens just in America, though I suppose it's possible. Guy

A wise man. Guy

How familiar are you with the WSJ editorial page? It's very different from the rest of the paper. Guy

In Chris May's AAJ review of The Thelonious Monk Trio (a classic, must-hear album), he writes: Now, it is an indisputable fact that Monk slowed down as a composer. (This happened well before 1960.) It is also a commonly held opinion (though not a consensus) that Monk's pre-Columbia music is better than his Columbia music. There are lots of interesting explanations for why people hold this opinion and it's fully worthy of discussion in a different thread. But what I'm interested in is the argument that Monk's playing deteriorated in the 1960s. While I've only heard a few of his Columbia recordings, I don't hear it. This may be because I'm listening to the wrong recordings or because my amateur ears aren't discerning enough to pick it up. On the other hand, May might be wrong. It might be simply a case where the knowledge of history (he knows what came first) biases him toward Monk's early playing. Or worse yet, he's simply letting the conventional wisdom about Monk's music leak onto his assessment of Monk's playing. Anyway, enough babble from me. Those of you in the know -- is May right or wrong? Did Monk's playing deteriorate in the 60s? Guy

Happy bday, Robert. Guy

I got this last fall but only listened to it this week. A very, very good album. Guy