Guy Berger

I listened to the whole thing and my opinion: The studio stuff on disc 1 is OK The live stuff on discs 1, 2, 3 is great; even the Horn stuff at the end of disc 3 is quite good. "Fast Flute" and "Caravan" are especially good. Things start heading south on the "music of Fred Katz" stuff. Yawn. And they get really bad on that South Pacific nonsense. I think the Ellington Suite is better with Eric Dolphy than with Horn and Collette, though the latter is better than the South Pacific material.

I like his playing in this group, but haven't heard anything that's made me want to look for CDs under his name. Guy

I'm pretty happy with my iPod 20 gig. I almost never listen to CDs anymore -- only in the car and at home. Guy

I did see him, with Mike Stern's fusion group, in 2000. Any recommendations for this guy? Guy

Anybody else in the NE get some crazy thunderstorms early this morning, c. 5:30 AM? It's cool when they happen in the afternoon or evening, but sucks when they wake you up. Guy

I would have dropped all those tracks and put on Out to Lunch

Thanks, Ubu -- I was thinking the same thing -- as soon as I download this stuff from the Underground Trane seeds I'll put my own "Complete Stuttgart" together on my ipod. Pete -- I still have the files on my computer but I've never seeded anything -- I'll try to reseed it sometime soon. As ubu said, the current Underground Trane includes the entire concert (but in worse sound quality than the excerpt I described above). Guy

No, this is a live version from about 2 months earlier. Trane's solo is about 20 minutes long, half of that dedicated to a duet with Elvin. Good call from the Wheel about the studio "Pursuance" -- hard to choose between that one and the live version... Guy

I'm listening to a torrent I downloaded a long time ago from EasyTree -- the John Coltrane quartet playing in Stuttgart, West (?) Germany on November 4th 1963. I think these live recordings from '62 and '63 are interesting because they puncture a big hole in the "Trane all of a sudden went avant-garde in 1965" myth. (Not an original Guy thought -- I'm borrowing this from Ed Rhodes.) You listen to the sax-drums duet on "Impressions" from this gig and then something like "Vigil" (or "One Up One Down" from the Half Note gig), and it's not such a huge leap. It's a shame there aren't any live '64 recordings (AFAIK) to bridge the gap. Anyway, the gig -- it's a real shame they didn't include it on the Live Trane box -- the sound is stupendous. It's not the complete concert: Afro Blue, I Want to Talk About You, Impressions, My Favorite Things. I've only listened to this concert once so far. I Want to Talk About You has a (typically -- I am not familiar enough with the non-Birdland versions to rank this against the others) beautiful unaccompanied coda. It starts out really lyrical, then gets more intense and verbose as it progresses. The unaccompanied codas on versions of this tune always remind me that Trane was an incredibly logical, cerebral, methodical improviser. Impressions, 29 minutes long -- par for the course at this point. Great McCoy solo opens it up for 5 minutes, then Jimmy Garrison has a longish solo (8 minutes or so) that calms things down. Elvin comes in near the end of the solo, then Trane and McCoy reintroduce the theme. Then Trane begins one of his incredible improvisations around 15:30 or so... frequently playing around with the melody, or at least fragments of it. After about a minute, McCoy drops out. The interplay between Elvin and John gets a lot more intense, wow. Lots of those high-low register jumps at some point. At just under 20 minutes Jimmy drops out and high-level Trane-Elvin insanity ensues. Wow wow wow. This mayhem lasts for over 7 minutes, getting especially intense near the end, before Trane slips back into the melody and McCoy and Jimmy return to bring us back to planet Earth. Guy p.s. I just realized that there is another version of this circulating with three more tunes: "The Promise", "Every Time We Say Goodbye" and a 36 minute version of "Mr. P.C." Gotta get that!

A few years ago a dude on the Coltrane list posted his favorite solos. I haven't heard all of these, and haven't heard some of them enough to know whether they are favorites, but I thought I'd post the list to get a discussion going. What are your favorites? Personally I'd add "Straight No Chaser" (from Milestones), "Blue in Green" (from youknowwhat), "Someday My Prince Will Come", "Ole" (not a nut about this album, but Coltrane's solo near the end is one of my favorites), the studio "Acknowledgment", "I Want to Talk About You" (from Live at Birdland), and "Serenity" (from First Meditations). Also, #41 and #43 on the list (as well as the honorable mention at the end) are truly phenomenal -- can't wait to hear the cleaned up versions on the upcoming Half Note release.

I'm in the same boat -- my box-set allergy went down a lot since I started listening to music via iPod. Guy

Definitely helpful -- thanks Marty. It looks like I'll get this one after Rush Hour. Guy ← Glad I was of help but just out of curiosity, which one are you getting? ← Whoops, I'm getting On This Day sometime over the next five years. Guy

Definitely helpful -- thanks Marty. It looks like I'll get this one after Rush Hour. Guy

Marty, Moose, Jazzbo -- Out of the two nonet projects (On This Day, 52nd Street Themes), which is better? Guy

Lakers won 3 championships in 2000-2005; Spurs have won 2. I'm guessing the Spurs will win at least 1 more through 2009 (Duncan/Ginobili/Parker all in long-term contracts and will be 33/31/27 years old in June of that year). I have a hard time seeing the Lakers contending for another title any time soon though a miracle big-man signing could turn things around. Guy

I guess I don't really hear this at all. I'm guessing Lovano will never be considered a "giant" (though who knows?), but people will probably look back at him and say "interesting straightahead saxophonist that was a versatile player, couldn't straight-jacketed into any format, and made some good music." Whether that makes him a "blip" or not depends on the definition. Your suggestion that Lovano is a phony is ridiculous IMHO. Guy

From what I understand, CD-storage is actually more dependable than hard-drive storage anyway. I'm thinking of burning 20-25 CDs with my iPod files after reading this thread. Are there any good programs for bringing tunes from the iPod back onto my computer? Guy

I agree -- they need another guy besides Billups who can consistently provide offensive firepower. Hamilton is too limited. Guy

Was it maybe the first encore? Was "Last night When We Were Young" the bossa nova at the end of set 2? Guy

Yup, sounds pretty good to me. Especially the intertwining guitars on "War Orphans". Guy

Let's see a domestic (aka US) release of this disk. ← Given that ECM has been axing a lot of their US titles, I don't think this is going to happen. Guy

David, can you say when in each set these tunes were played? I'm trying to construct a setlist but my standards knowledge is lacking. Guy

I'm not a Lovano nut, but I do like his playing quite a bit. The above album, especially the disc with Harrell, is really nice. I also really enjoy his work with Motian and Frisell. Guy

The crazy part is that Duncan is only 29, Ginobili is 27, and Parker is 23. If they don't win at least one more title over the next 5 years, I'll be shocked. Guy

Bob Blumenthal mentions CS's Japanese popularity in his RVG liner note. I love the album and all, but it's weird to think of it as "very popular". Guy