Guy Berger

IMHO enforced masking indoors makes sense temporarily in places where COVID risk is elevated. Whether that's a realistic plan, I don't know - most of the hardest-hit areas are also those with a stronger aversion to masking. Places where cases and hospitalization remain very low, especially in the presence of high vaccination rates, don't need mask mandates IMHO. Re your second point, it's hard to tell - immunity (both via vaccination and infection) clearly plays a role, and maybe also voluntary risk minimization. Each one of the prior waves burned out. I wouldn't assume that this wave ending means there won't be future ones. With luck they'll be much less harmful than their predecessors, as the British one has been.

I'm curious how folks are processing the delta wave that's surging through most of the places where we live. The "good news" is that for vaccinated this is much less dangerous than previous waves. (But more terrifying than before for those who are not.) The bad news is that COVID risk *is* going up for everyone... it is probably safer to be an unvaccinated person in a very low case area than a vaccinated person in a very high case area. (Of course, it's even worse to be an unvaccinated person in a very high case area... yikes.) I'm also feeling the challenge of psychological adjustment from "this is an extremely serious illness and I have to take an immense amount of precautions" to "vaccination provides powerful protection against the worst risks so I can do more than before". This was very easy when cases were super-low around here, but harder now.

So after a long time of being aware of this guy, I finally checked him out on NY Midnight Suite (Clean Feed, 2004). Really good, enjoyable music in the post-Ornette vein. I have a few of his other Clean Feeds lined up and am excited to dig in.

Not yet, but in prior cycles we would have seen the surge in hospitalizations and deaths happening by this point. Not something I would have said pre-vaccine but... we're sort of reaching the point where COVID really is comparable to the flu in places where vaccines are widely available. I think vaccine passports coupled with a differential restriction regime are a good idea (especially when/where there is a lot of community restriction), but the odds on this gamble are much more favorable than they were in the past. What are vaccination rates in the Netherlands?

For example Britain has seen a huge surge in cases but, unlike prior COVID waves, no meaningful pickup in deaths.

Cases seem to be rising across much of the country due to the Delta variant. Seems to be worse in relative low vaccination states though seasonal effects may also be playing a role. If you haven’t gotten vaccinated yet, it’s a good idea to do it ASAP. The good news is in high vaccination areas caseloads should be lower and less dangerous.

IMHO the presence of relatively low key band members like Laird and Jerry Goodman is part of what made the 1st MO lineup the best one

Music from Another Present Era is solid, but I like Distant Hills and Winter Light better. Towner’s 1st album on ECM also features his Oregon band mates and is very good.

These guys have a new "single" - a 53 minute track titled "Solar Drone Ceremony". Enjoyable.

I didn’t realize he was 84!!!! Really interesting musician who creatively developed an important & previously undervalued strand in Miles Davis’s electric music.

Yup I think there are politicians trying to lever this question toward their agenda, unfortunately, and to some degree it is also feeding into anti-Asian-American racism here ni the US

There is a big difference between “it is possible that” and “almost certain”. (Worth reading this NYT article) Not unique… pre-COVID vaccine skepticism in the US was lower than in many continental European countries. Maybe it’s different this time, maybe not.

I’d worry less about that small Petri dish and more about the massive Petri dish of billions of unvaccinated people in developed countries that couldn’t afford to line up vaccine supplies early. Getting them jabbed is essential to reducing future mutations

My understanding based on Israeli data is that vaccine-based immunity is lasting longer than anticipated - ie at least a year. But that doesn’t take into account the possibility of increasingly evasive variants.

I think that's probably part of it - looking at vaccination rates only without considering prevalence of prior infection leads to underestimates of immunity in the population. This is true even if vaccination provides better immunity than prior infection. (Which I believe there is evidence of.) *However* - I'd be careful about drawing really strong inferences from the current decline in cases until more time passes. We have positive weather effects (maybe finally winding down as folks crowd into air-conditioned indoor spaces in the South). There has been a lot of unexplained variation in the ebb and flow of COVID that has defied explanation. Two more comments: 1) If you look at the states with relatively high and rising caseloads, they are mostly states with low vaccination rates (MO, NV, UT, AR, AZ). And if you look at the states where very low and falling caseloads, they are mostly states with high vaccination rates (VT, MA, MD, CT, DC). 2) The combination of vaccine and infection immunity is a partial "equalizer" in the near term. But over time, some areas of the country look set for very low caseloads (due to repeated vaccination) and others look set for endemic infection (due to immunity fading over time).

The music on the box really clarified the link between Hemphill and some of Tim Berne’s music (especially Bloodcount) in a way that I didn’t appreciate before.

Have listened to two more from my acquisition spree: Chris Lightcap, Epicenter 5/5 (excellent songwriting and playing; stronger than the Fresh Sound albums) Ken Filiano, Dreams from a Clown Car 5/5 (I really enjoy this one - a nice contribution to the 2-sax + bass + drums genre)

I’m curious based on that interview (and knowing I am touching a live wire) - how have Anthony Braxton’s political views changed over time (if at all)?

One other observation is that Joni Mitchell’s best and most popular music is closer timewise to the classic standards era than to our present day. Not really “new”!

IMHO the relationship between jazz and popular music that created the body of work we called “standards” doesn’t really exist anymore, for better or worse. Pop music is more fragmented; jazz is more fragmented and less “culturally relevant”. I do think the fact that certain post-1970 popular music has gained some traction among jazz musicians is interesting and worth talking about, but not the same thing. IMHO contemporary pop music rhythms and recording techniques entering the jazz world are maybe more significant than the songwriting.

Sad. But musicians are like any other group of humans, who tend to be pretty susceptible to kooky ideas. Cassandra Wilson is a Q fan, right?

Isn’t this just a fundamental problem with any mature art form? For better or worse people prefer “the old stuff”.

I agree they’re an exception, but it’s also conceivable that their steady state fanbase, while large, will be much smaller than their current one.

Can’t answer that question properly without thinking of the “legit” boxes that WOULD have been issued in the absence of PD boxes. To some degree the latter drive out the former. That said, there does seem to be some money in “legit”/ethical, smaller-run premium reissues. Maybe what we’ve observed, as in other aspects of our society, is just the disappearance / hollowing-out of middle-of-the-road mass market and it’s displacement by budget options and premium options. Agreed. At the very least I wish we had compulsory licensing. What percentage of the Beatles’ fanbase is just aging baby boomers? The value of that intellectual property could drop dramatically in the next few decades.

Agreed, I wrote something silly and that’s why I deleted my post, fortunately you’ve preserved my doofus moment for eternity 🤣🤣🤣