Guy Berger

Most people make livings without owning/selling "ideas", and everyone did a few hundred years ago. For musicians, it can be performances, services, recordings..etc. None of these require the ownership of ideas or the selling of them. Yep. You can already use the ideas. If you want to buy what you already have just because you want someone else to have a more "comfortable life", good for you, but that doesn't mean you should make everyone else do it. The ability to sell ideas only comes about by getting cops to attack other people for commiting thoughtcrime. Unlike a piece of physical property, you can use their ideas while they're using them, and so can everyone else. Ownership doesn't need to take place, and selling doesn't need to take place. ← Are you arguing that composers shouldn't get royalties? Guy

He whispered something similar in my last seance, but it was more like "fuck owner rights, Teo". Guy

I like English Settlement, but seem to remember a lot of filler. Guy

I liked M better than Metropolis, though I was positively surprised by both films. (I'd recently seen both Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, both of which hadn't aged very well.) Guy

It takes work to create ideas. Maybe giving people ownership of their ideas for some period of time is the best way to make sure that people put in that work. Guy ← Or maybe not. I don't think Einstein ever owned the idea of relativity theory, yet he created it anyway. Maybe it's also a good thing that he didn't have to first write a check to each 'owner' of the previous ideas he used before he could create it, or maybe he wouldn't have bothered. ← I'm not sure what academic publishing norms were like in the early 20th century, but I'm guessing that somebody (his publisher, I assume) did "own" his published papers for a time, and that anyone who used his work in their research had to cite them. Guy

It takes work to create ideas. Maybe giving people ownership of their ideas for some period of time is the best way to make sure that people put in that work. FWIW, I still am not convinced by your "financial suicide" claim. The overwhelming majority of jazz fans are indifferent to the fruits of taping. Guy

Never underestimate a good seance. Guy

What about Japan? I assume NZ and Australia count as "United States, Canada, and Western Europe"? Crazy! Guy

I wish I could make it to this... but my students are having a midterm on Wednesday and I have to give them extra office hours. Hope everyone has fun at the gig. Guy

Well, we are talking about Apple so I wouldn't be surprised. Guy

Why? It predates the copy protection scheme in question. It's the responsibility of the scheme to work around iTunes, not the other way around. Yeah, but this way everybody with their fancy Apple toy and ostentatious white headphones can feel trendy. Guy

I guess my advice is "play what you want". You're not trying to put bread on the table and though you're going to have to make compromises for the rest of your life, now's probably the best time to play the kind of music you want to. None of this bears on others' excellent advice to "learn the basics" -- this is good advice no matter what music you play. Guy

I think you are overestimating the number of fans who will ever be interested in collecting large numbers of live recordings. Guy

Been really digging this set again. "The Fire Within" coda to "I Fall in Love too Easily" is a pretty amazing improvisation, no? A little too new-agey for some, I wager, but with a lot more substance than that genre. Guy

I agree that artists can benefit from embracing this kind of stuff*, but "financial suicide" is extreme and unrealistic. Guy *Though conversely, there are gains from monopoly power over live recordings.

My opinion comes from an AAJ he did when the recent ECM album came out. So he might have changed in the interim. To jump back to akanalog's point, I can see what Zawinul was getting at, even if some of his criticisms seem over-the-top. JZ wanted Weather Report to move to a much funkier sound, and to some degree MV wasn't interested in or capable of doing that (as he himself admitted). Guy

After a few years of eyeing it, I finally picked up Live at the It Club. Though I probably won't get around to listening until the New Year. Guy

I think Zawinul could give Vitous a run in the egoism department. Guy

My first order took forever to arrive. Then I realized that I had put my email address as my mailing address and they were too stupid to notice. Guy

Aside from a few "saints", we all probably owe various apologies for our behavior here. Bad behavior is easy to lapse into on the internet. Very classy to acknowledge one's mistakes without expecting reciprocation! Guy

Wow, I'm psyched, I really wanted to pick up both of these. I've heard some of the Gustavsen -- if you like Keith Jarrett's 70s European quartet records I think you will like this too. Guy

Also, I just made it through the 8th dvd of The prisoner. "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling" and "Living in Harmony" really threw me for a loop (especially the second one) though on second thought I think that if I watched them again I'd conclude they are two of the best episodes in the series. Only 3 more episodes to go!

For people that aren't hell-bent on actually "owning" the physical media, I wholeheartedly encourage piracy and illegal dissemination of any copy-protected CDs. If the artist is still alive, send them a check for what you would have paid for the CD. Guy

Not as big as the Monk/Trane or BirdnDiz, but what about the discovery of Chico Hamilton's Original Ellington Suite w/Eric Dolphy? Guy

Wow, Claude, thanks for posting that. Fact is sometimes stranger than fiction. Guy