Guy Berger

To take this discussion off on a tangent, in Space Is the Place John Szwed says that Pink Floyd were influenced by AMM. I've never heard AMM (though I have heard of them), so does anybody care to expand on this link, and perhaps Floyd's link to other performers of "legit" free improvisation? I'd be interested in reading more about this. Guy

No. You've got Sonny & Philly doing "Surrey", and before that, the Bird/Max break on "Koko". Probably some others that I'm not thinking of right now. Yikes, I forgot "Koko". Guy

This was my first Coltrane CD as well. I was kind of disappointed at the time -- I was still making the transition from early fusion (Mahavishnu, In a Silent Way) to straightahead and something so bebop-oriented didn't sound that interesting to me. I got A Love Supreme shortly thereafter and that made a lot more sense. Anyway, I also like Coltrane's Sound the best out of the Atlantic albums, but this one is really good. It catches Trane at the tail end of the "Sheets of Sound" period and maybe looking ahead to the music of 1960 and 1961. The very distinctive SoS sound that appears all over his '58 playing is used more sparingly here. It's also, IMHO, the period in which Trane was starting to play and record "really great music" on a consistent basis. On Blue Train and the Prestige sides, he's still working mostly within established formats, here less so (or so it sounds to me). Three other thoughts: 1) Is the opening of "Countdown" the first saxophone-drum duet to appear on a jazz album? It's interesting to compare this one (w/Art Taylor) to "Vigil" (w/Elvin Jones) and "Mars" (w/Rashied Ali) -- three totally different drummers, and Trane at various stages stylistically. You can throw in the Newport '63 "Impressions" (w/Roy Haynes) as a bonus. 2) Interesting to compare Trane's playing here to that on Kind of Blue. 3) Two of the tunes on this album were mainstays of Trane's setlists. We have over a dozen live vesions of "Naima". Trane doesn't solo on the original, and let Dolphy do the soloing. I think the earliest recorded Trane improvisation on this tune is from '63 (or '62?). And then the final version, from the Village Vanguard in 1966. As far as "Mr. P.C.", there are many versions through 1963, including the 36-minute juggernaut from Stuttgart. There's one known live recording of "Cousin Mary", from 1963. Guy

A little, but not much. You have to figure someone was listening to "Head Hunters" before part VIII of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" was written. I think it's interesting that this album included Rick Wright's last major contribution to the band, both as a player and composer. Some really interesting keyboard work throughout the album, and especially on "Shine On". Cocaine really killed him creatively. Guy

Strange... I'm listening to WYWH right now and remembering how good of an album it is. Animals, on the other hand, hasn't dated that well from my teenage years. Guy

Yeah, this is the only one I have and it's pretty cool. Though that poem on "The Bird Song" hasn't dated that well. Guy

rip, John more: My first recollection of him is seeing a PBS special on the 2002 (?) Newport Jazz Festival. Bill Cosby's big band was on and the tenor player was really tearing it up... it was Mr. Stubblefield. Guy

What about Ray Bradbury? I haven't read that much of his stuff, and none recently, but I remember The Martian Chronicles being well-written. (and very enjoyable!) In high school I went through a Star Wars nut phase and read a ton of the novels. Most of them ranged from mediocre to terrible (I realized this even at the time -- you know that's a bad sign) but the Timothy Zahn trilogy that kicked off that craze was really, really good. Not "literature", probably, but definitely worth reading. Guy

Yeah, but the Martians have had a whole century to come up with tripods that can fire anti-aircraft missiles. Guy

Not a bad idea. Rachel, your treat! Guy

This title looks very interesting, "who on it?" I've enjoyed Dewey's playing with both Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett also his other solo recordings. ← This Ed Blackwell discography says: Haven't heard it, but the combination of Red & Black is usually a good sign. Guy

Good news... AOL has now chopped up the performance so you don't have to sit through Robbie Williams to hear Pink Floyd. Finally saw the entire Floyd performance. I was surprised by the degree that Roger was willing to take a back seat to Dave, and also by how much Dave seemed to give him the cold shoulder. Also, wasn't it a little strange that they almost completely ignored Rick Wright? (Who looked a little coked-out. Is he on drugs again? Who dug him out from the cemetary?) Nick Mason gave the solid, near-metronomic performance we'd expect out of him. Nice to see those guys without all the excess musicians and singers that have crowded the stage on the last two Pink Floyd tours. I'd dig a reunion, bigtime. And dedicating WYWH to Syd was a nice touch. I watched one tune from the Who set -- "Won't Get Fooled Again" -- and it was lackluster by comparison. Still, a pretty good performance. Guy

Chris, have a safe trip. Guy

Been a long time since I could say that! ← Which part... "under certain conditions" or "draw the line"? Guy

Yup, it's ghastly. I can drink bud or coors under certain conditions (PB Block Party), but you gotta draw the line somewhere. Guy

That's a GOOD'un! ← I take it that the 1.5 rating from AMG (not BMG as I wrote originally) should be ignored? Is the live 1966 date with the same lineup as Mercy Mercy Mercy? What is the tracklist, if you know it? Guy

Thanks for the rec, Peter. I'm about to drink one of these:

And to get a perspective on an even weirder set of beliefs (politics forum link).

What would bother him more, the "cool" or the "electric" part? Somebody should suggest this to Paul Motian and the Electric Bebop Band, btw. Guy

I guess unlike a lot of other people I really dug the first Batman movie (saw it about 10 times when I was 11 or 12). Didn't like the other ones at all, 3 and 4 really sucked. But I agree -- just came back from the theaters and this was definitely the best one out of the 5. One of the best action movies I've seen in a long time and it was nice that after the Schumacher movies they brought the darkness back into Gotham. Guy

How was the Pink Floyd reunion? I wish I'd watched it! Guy

As long as we define "support" loosely -- sometimes what the soloist needs is a good kick in the ass. Guy

The Onion had a wickedly clever parody of scientology a while back. It's behind their subscriber firewall now, but I found a link.

My memory may be playing tricks on me, but I don't think Trane solos on this -- he just plays the melody. Guy

Listened to Art of Rhythm again last night... a really, really nice CD. Harrell's arrangements are interesting with a lot of variety across the disc. My favorites are the first tune -- a beautiful but not cloying arrangement for clarinet, flugelhorn (sp?), acoustic guitar and strings ("Petals Danse") and the trilogy of tunes featuring Dewey Redman ("Oasis", "Caribe", "Doo Bop" -- he's the reason I picked up the disc). "Oasis" reminds me a lot of "Pharoah's Dance" -- that chugging, polyrhythmic stew and dissonant piano playing. Besides Dewey and Tom, other noteworthy performances are by Greg Tardy, Danilo Perez, and Romero Lubambo. Guy