Guy Berger

What happened is the range of musical possibilities opened up, and Konitz took wonderful advantage of them!

I picked up the Covina disc via band camp & mail order. Looking forward to hearing it. Not gonna get vinyl

I must be in the minority - not crazy about this one relative to either the 1964 Dolphy recordings or the 1964 Monterey performance. Handy’s playing is my favorite part.

Konitz is one of those pre-NewThing musicians who really benefited from the new musical horizons that opened up in the 1960s.

What do folks think of the ECM Birdland album with Mehldau, Haden, and Motian? I enjoy that one quite a bit, especially the “Oleo” that closes the album,

Still enjoying this album more than a decade later. My opinion was very positive back then, and it holds up well IMHO, especially the majestic version of “Soul Eyes”.

Pim, I really love this body of work. You got me interested in a bunch of Waldron I’d never heard of 👏👏👏

I agree, the existence of this commercial niche IS interesting. I guess Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and the Mwandishi musicians undersupplied the market! I’ve also listened to some of the more recent recordings in this vein. They’re fun but also mostly empty calories. What about Ray Charles, Horace Silver, Jimmy Smith, Cannonball Adderley, Bobby Timmons? I think it’s interesting and a little odd that many discussions of spiritual jazz almost entirely discount music that was heavily influenced by the Black American church.

Evan Parker, absolutely

Yeah. Ware’s sound comes more out of Ayler and Rollins but the scientific/mathematical/architectural approach is Coltraneish

Interesting to read this thread. Red was a unique stylist who brought a great flavor to the Miles Davis quintet and made some nice albums with John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins, but I don’t have much of an appetite for his trio work.

Rhino is apparently releasing a 2 CD deluxe version of this album. Am I correct that except for 2 tracks nothing on here is previously released?

Amen.

What?

There are non-trivial differences across and within states. A lot of the existing problems of income and racial inequality are also manifesting in vaccine uptake, plus attitudes toward vaccination are politically polarized. Take a look here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html I think that's exactly right. There's some areas of the country that within a few months will be close to herd immunity due to high vaccine uptake, and other areas where the illness continues to circulate for a long time.

A 2dary front of the 80s/90s jazz wars involved an aggressive and somewhat ridiculous denial of the obvious links between “real jazz” and smooth jazz

This is BY FAR my favorite Weston album (that I’ve heard), and really one of the best jazz albums of the past 30 years - the combination of compositions/arrangements and high-caliber soloists is really hard to match. On the opposite side, the duets w/David Murray are disappointing. I’m not sure why those two didn’t click.

I think this is the right analysis. IMHO most of the most irritating day to day restrictions will be removed pretty soon. I'm not certain about the persistence mask wearing; I suspect that depends a lot on local social norms, plus context (I'm likely to keep wearing it on public transit for some time but may abandon it when walking the dog), how prevalent cases are once vaccination uptake reaches certain levels. (Per JSngry's comparison to the flu, we could see a seasonal surge for at least a few more winters). I follow public health experts on social media pretty closely and, while they aren't super happy about the regional surges we're seeing in Michigan and the Northeast, they're far less worried about them than they were about the prior 3 waves. You already see in the data that hospitalizations among the elderly (the most vaccinated group) aren't rising in 4th wave areas. I agree with this general analysis. While vaccination rates are still pretty low (which will be true in the US for a few more months, and in continent Europe somewhat longer), masking is a good norm to keep up even for the vaccinated. (I guess you have the option of walking around unmasked with your vaccination card taped to your chest.) There's growing evidence that (as expected) the vaccines are pretty clearly showing signs of reducing transmissibility as well as symptoms - public health messaging on this ("we don't know...") is proving to be overly cautious, though it may still serve a useful public health purpose for the time being. i.e. in areas with high vaccination rates, a vaccinated person will have zero need to wear a mask, and mask wearing norms will not be necessary. Common sense behavior might be less clearcut for the unvaccinated in high-vaccination areas or the vaccinated in low-vaccination areas. My guess is at least part of the reason we're hearing more and more about sick young people is because the other, even grimmer story (older people getting killed by the virus) is becoming fortunately less frequent due to vaccination. I actually think it WILL ironically be a major part of the story - that the US and Europe basically chose to tolerate a lot of avoidable deaths due to personal inconvenience.

This period of the band was so great, and (these days) overlooked. A must for anyone who likes Miles Davis's recordings around the same period.

Sanders is like Stan Getz, his sound is so magical it’s worth hearing him in almost any context.

So far I've listened to the first 3. My quick takes: Lay-Up has some fun compositions and the band is great, but a bit generic. 3 stars out of 5. Big Mouth is much stronger, especially in terms of memorable compositions. 4 stars out of 5. Deluxe is great. Great compositions, and Taborn's presence lifts things to a higher level. 5 stars out of 5.

The vaccination doesn't CAUSE clots. They just crop up periodically in a very large population, just like all sorts of other medical phenomena. Check out this tweet on reported side effects for AZ and Pfizer in the UK, side by side. I'm not sure what the right decision here is from a public health perspective. On the one hand, delaying vaccinations will result in a lot of extra deaths. On the other hand, having vaccines that are available but are not used due to distrust will result in a lot of extra deaths. And I am not sure whether the temporary suspension helps or harms that 2nd consideration. (i.e. does the suspension improve or reduce trust in AZ?) I really hope that European vaccination gets back on track soon. Too many people have died of this horrible illness. On a happier note, I'm happy to see so many fellow board members getting vaccinated!!!

I probably like ECM more than the average jazz fan and it is an interesting/impressive body of work, but imho that article felt a little too hagiographical.

Also, I like Charles Lloyd's flute playing, but I might be in a minority

We really lucked out (!!!) that this pandemic is a relatively slow-mutating coronavirus and not a fast-mutating influenza virus. Experts seem to be quite confident that over time vaccination boosters will keep up with the new variants.