Guy Berger

Mingus, Changes Two (still haven't been able to establish whether this is in print, but amazon has it in stock)

Ear of the behearer for sure..! I just hear his sound as pretty mainstream...However much he played around with harmony, however adventurous from that point of view, it just sounds a bit safe to me... Less so in his earlier stuff, for sure - e.g. Gee Baby... from the Messengers album on Impulse. Hmm, I don't know...maybe I should have another concerted go at Shorter - I guess the thing is, the less keen you are on someone's playing, the less time you spend with it, and the less likely you are to 'get' it...Oh well! I'm with Rosco on this -- I find your comment to be a real head-scratcher. And if anything, I think Wayne became less conventional as the 60s wore on. Sorry about hijacking the thread! Guy

Thanks for all the great bass playing, Al. Guy

As I pointed out above, in 2005 they were 36-20 through 56 games. Afterward they went 18-8. Not a huge difference between the two seasons. FWIW, I used to think Larry Brown was overrated as well until last year's finals. Guy

I'd heard of the recordings you mention -- for some reason I thought they were unofficial. Have you heard them, Mike? Guy

link This is about a year before Keith's first official recordings (w/Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers). His playing isn't as strikingly individual as it would be a year later and he's in a much more orthodox "hard bop" mode. Interesting! (His solo after the bass solo is definitely quite Jarrettish, though.)

D.D. posted a link to these on rmb, here it is.

Your memory is playing tricks on you in this case: Record before Rasheed Wallace came in (2004): 34-22 Record through 56 games in 2005: 36-20 Guy

This is arguable, of course, but Popovich's teams have been much better talent-wise than Brown's, with two of the most dominant big men of the past 20 years and strong supporting casts. Brown took the Clippers above 500 (as md pointed out) and won 56 games with the 76ers in 2001. I will agree that Pop is probably the most underrated coach in the league, probably because he hasn't changed teams in a long time. Guy

Is it possible to drive to the Mosaic "facility" and pick these things up in person instead of having them shipped? Guy

I'll admit upfront that my knowledge of this group (in both phases) is pretty low, but given what I've read about them and heard, it's not obvious to me that they "compromised artistically" in the early 70s -- unless you're going to call their entire career up to that point one long artistic compromise. They made groove-based, earthy jazz in the 60s and continued to do so in the early-mid 70s. I think Jim made this point more articulately upthread. Guy

My brother got me 4 SNL best-ofs for my birthday: Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Mike Myers and Will Ferrell. I've seen most of the Ferrell before, but last night I watched the Carvey one and part of the Hartman. The Carvey was excellent. I wish they'd included more Perot and Bush impersonations, but other than that... I didn't remember how versatile the guy was -- he did a lot of great stuff besides his stock characters. I'd never seen the Church Lady drum solo -- that was awesome. And one the John McLaughlin Group skit (how many of these did they do) was genius. WRONG!!!! I didn't get to watch the entire Hartman, just skipped around. I'd forgotten about the Anal Retentive Chef, which was easily the funniest skit I saw on either DVD -- I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. Guy

Made an order at alldirect earlier this week. I'd had a few of these on MP3 but nice to be upgrade to "legit" versions: Keith Jarrett, My Song & Koln Concert George Russell, Ezz-thetics (no s?) Thelonious Monk, MONK Wynton Marsalis, Black Codes Charles Mingus, Tijuana Moods (2 cd version) Roland Kirk, Rip Rig and Panic Stan Kentzon, City of Glass Charles Lloyd/Warne Marsh, The Flowering/Warne Marsh

RIP... can't imagine those early and mid-period Weather Report without him. Guy

That's funny -- my jazz dreams are totally different. I don't play an instrument in real life aside from noodling on guitar, but I've had dreams where for some reason reason I get up on stage and have to play an instrument I don't know how to play. (One time it was piano, another time it was soprano sax.) The crazy part is that once I start playing, it sounds great*. Anyway, those were good dreams. *I've never been unfortunate enough to dream that I was in the audience listening to myself playing an instrument. Guy

That's wishful thinking by New Yorkers. Cleveland will surely sign him to a long-term max contract once he becomes a restricted free agent at the end of next year. Guy

The weather.com forecast usually includes an hourly probability of rain, 0%, 10%, 20% etc. My question is whether this probability is hourly only. So for example, if for each hour for the next 3 hrs it says "20% probability of rain" does that imply that the probability for rain sometime over the next three hours is 48.8%? (1 - [0.8*0.8*0.8]) Or is that just short hand for "20% probability of rain for the next few hours"? Guy

He's still one of the 2 or 3 best coaches in the NBA, ergo great. Probably even good enough to take a shitty team like the Knicks to the playoffs. Guy

I just read the article -- it looks like only half of the engagement is being issued, and the best performance ("Creation") is not going to be included. It won't include a great performance of "Impressions" either. Verve, you suck!

No, you are right. I think the only tune on the Laserlight from 1965 is "Song of Praise". (And stupidly, the same track appears twice on that CD, once under the name "Brazilia".) I'm not sure how they will be able to fit all four Half Note dates on two CDs -- it'd be a shame if they omitted anything. Guy

Tubular Bells sucks! Hopefully this album is better... Guy

Parts of it have been available on a semi-legit (ie find it at Tower) Laserlight reissue, but I imagine this one will be with much better sound. The music is incredible. Guy

Eicher always admitted he got the trio record with Peacock from Bley as it was issued, as an album ready for release, produced by Bley himself. The sessions for this overlap with others IIRC. ← Is the Bley with Peacock album a reissue of the Savoy sessions? Guy

I've bought KoB only once (the 96 version) and Giant Steps twice (the original CD issue, then the deluxe edition). The only CD I've acquired more than twice is IaSW -- the original CD version, the box set, then the remaster. Guy

I read in a Time magazine article that this joke was told by Abraham Lincoln: