Guy Berger

Enjoying this album over the past 2 weeks.

What’s the story behind Eckemoff, out of curiosity? She has top notch musicians on her records, but to my knowledge doesn’t perform as a sideman.

Do these labels typically have a backlog of recorded sessions? It might simply be that they don’t have much to release.

Nope. Roy, Smith and Khalil Balakrishna left the band just before the 1973 Japanese tour. The photo would have been from a US gig between January and May 1973, during which the 10-musician lineup existed.

It was a good movie, and I enjoyed Connery/Slater, but it was much worse than the book, which is brilliant. Re Umberto Eco and Dan Brown, at some point Eco was asked about The DaVinci Code and he said:

Dan - masks aren’t perfect. Being in an enclosed space with an infected person over an extended period of time is a high risk even if both people are wearing a mask. (And wouldn’t they take off their masks to eat?) can you get a different caretaker, at least for a short span of time? Have you considered offering the caretaker a $$$$ bonus not to attend that gathering? If not... make sure you get them both KN95 masks. Have them spend as much time as possible outside. Leave the windows open to the outside. Might be a good idea to get both tested daily until the 2 week window is over.

This kind of thing is as American as Apple Pie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paranoid_Style_in_American_Politics

Agreed on the 1st one being a classic, but the next 4 are not far behind. An impressive body of work!!!

SUMMIT CONFERENCE with Workman, Sam Rivers, Julian Priester, Andrew Hill and Pheeroan Aklaff is really good. IMHO Jazz at Massey Hall is good but falls far short of any participant’s best work.

Also interesting that once Wayne joined, this duality became much more fluid. both horns could wear both hats

I strongly agree w/JSngry's thesis that race in America and our attitude toward it has a lot to do with soul jazz getting overlooked in most jazz discourse. It was music closely connected to 1940s-1970s African American popular music that was either ignored, or looked-down-upon, by the people writing about and talking about jazz (now and then). Some artists like Horace Silver, Jimmy Smith, Herbie Hancock, Cannonball Adderley achieved crossover success within "straight ahead" jazz and have been treated more kindly, but these are relatively rare. (For that matter, think of the "white" artists drawing upon this style since 1990 - John Scofield, MMW, Soulive, etc... interesting story in itself.) I really liked the Gerald Early interview. I wonder how much of Baraka's reaction reflects Cannonball's genesis. He was from a relatively middle-class, Episcopalian background, right? Haven't read this book but seems indicative of how "mainstream" jazz historiography approaches the style - "soul jazz was something straight-ahead jazz musicians dabbled in"

Have listened to these 5 so far. I'd score them: Dresser, Nourishments 5/5 (great quartet, great compositions; love Denman Maroney's prepared piano) Dresser, Sedimental You 4/5 (I thought this one was a little lethargic relative to Cyber Coup) Dresser, Cyber Coup 5/5 (love the Arthur Blythe tribute that opens the album) Ehrlich, Frog Leg Logic 4/5 (nice but didn't grab me) Ehrlich, Trio Exaltation 5/5 (really great playing by Ehrlich and his trio)

In general I'm pretty supportive of strong public health restrictions but IMHO we had the opportunity to safely reopen in-person schools (especially for younger and at-risk kids) and screwed it up - either by doing it unsafely, or by not doing it at all.

I was a little underwhelmed by Eternal Spirit but really enjoy Shades.

In Israel the 2nd wave was definitely initiated by schools but... was that also the case in France? In Spain, from what I understand, there are just a lot of bars and restaurants open... i.e. they're getting a 2nd wave for the same reason that Florida/Georgia/Texas got hammered.

This wonderful album and a lot of other items from the Palmetto catalogue were just added to Spotify.

We also do exclusively delivery (and occasional pickup) rather than restaurants, but worth noting that eating outdoors is MUCH safer than eating indoors. And bars seem to be a lot riskier than restaurants.

Doh. Of course! Can't believe I forgot about that.

Jim, can you say more about the timing around this? It's interesting that neither SEARCH FOR THE NEW LAND nor TOM CAT included a "Sidewinder" knock-off, but then the next 3 albums (RUMPROLLER, GIGOLO, CORNBREAD) all did... and all 3 were recorded before the 1965 World Series. So clearly Morgan and Lion thought they had a winning formula on their hands before the Chrysler ad aired. I'm curious whether anyone has done "census" of these "boogaloo" type pieces and around when they started becoming a feature on straight-ahead jazz albums. Was "The Sidewinder" a cause or a symptom?

If Crouch had come of age as a public figure today instead of 40 years ago, we'd call him a troll or "shitposter". (I'm chuckling imagining him creating memes.) That's not all he was, but it's a pretty integral part of his career. The call Larry K described upthread reminds me of a teenager prank call.

Strong agreement, though I would add: 1) They're variable in quality. 2) I don't think any of them make it to the top tier of Miles recordings. Roughly comparable to the 1950-53 period IMHO. 3) Miles was arguably better live than in the studio during this period, and the officially released live albums aren't necessarily the best documents either.

I didn't realize Crouch outed Cecil Taylor. That was a real asshole thing to do and I imagine he never apologized.

QQ... has anyone tried ordering from Europe lately? how long does mail typically take to arrive? I ordered a bunch of CDs directly from a European label back in early August and they haven't arrived 6 weeks later. The label told me mail to the US is taking much longer than previously, and that I should expect it in about a month... I'm fine waiting longer, too. But am just curious at what point I should assume the package is totally lost.

Condolences to Crouch's loved ones. I liked Iverson's obituary. I guess the first thing I'd say re "speaking ill of the dead" is that Crouch was a provocateur and liked causing controversy... if there's an afterlife, he's probably a little disappointed everybody is being so nice to him right now. When I first started listening to jazz in the late 90s, I was listening to fusion made by mostly white guys - and so the Murray/Crouch/Marsalis ideology was really frustrating to me. I know that frustration existed in other corners of the jazz world - the avant-garde, European jazz, MBase, corners of US straightahead that the ideology downplayed in favor of Marsalis. My antipathy softened a lot over time. Maybe Crouch and Marsalis became less antagonistic over time, maybe they just became less relevant. I dunno. I also found I enjoyed some of Stanley's writing. Once you got past the confrontational style you found he could be pretty nuanced. The last thing I'll say is Stanley's bullshitting sometimes got the best of him. I'm thinking of this interview:

Really loving this magical music again, 16 years later.