Guy Berger

I have two -- Sam Rivers and Chico Hamilton, both of which I picked up because the music was unavailable elsewhere. (Most of the Rivers stuff has been reissued since then.) I'm completely indifferent to the aesthetics and they tend to be pricey. I wish they included the original liner notes and artwork! Because of the "completeness" factor, sets sometimes contain music that's not that great. (At least, that was my experience with the Chico set.) I'm also a little leery of box sets in general, unless the music is uniformly of high quality. That said, the recent trend toward Selects is to my liking and there are also a few of the big boxes that I want to get. Guy

Chuck is actually the owner of the Russian record store that Delay visited out there. I heard some cash exchanged hands... Guy

Mike, I disagree... this isn't a thread about why Jarrett makes noise or whatever, it will hopefully be a useful guide to prospective, not unlike rating live recordings for "sound quality". Guy

Rating his albums for grunts is hard enough work without having to figure out how many there are! I see Sidewinder has already contributed. Keep 'em coming! Guy

I've had this half-joke, half-serious idea for a while and a suggestion on RMB pushed me to get the ball rolling. A lot of people bitch about Keith Jarrett's noisemaking on various albums, something that puts off a lot of Keith Jarrett newbies but clearly varies a lot from recording to recording. So my challenge to the other board members is: go through the Keith Jarrett recordings in your collection (incl. sideman appearances) and rate his grunting on a scale from 1 (not obnoxious at all) to 5 (extremely obnoxious). I guess 3 would be "mildly irritating". If you don't have the patience to rate everything, rate as much as you can be bothered with. I think a lot of prospective listeners might actually find it useful. What won't be especially useful to Jarrett neophytes is a debate on Jarrett's grunting. We've had those a million times before, search the archives. Some people can't stand it at all, others aren't bothered a lot by it, and some people actually like it! If you find it extremely obnoxious everywhere, then rate all his recordings "5". Also, this isn't a thread about the guy's music. Some of his albums might have great music but level-5 grunting, others might have little noise but bad music. We care only about the grunting. Some criteria: frequency, volume, and general obnoxiousness. Looking forward to peoples' responses! Guy

Wow... this is terrible news. I'm glad I participated while it lasted. Guy

I think that's exactly what it means. Both New Jersey and Indiana would've done the same thing to the Lakers. The Lakers last year were playing on their reputation and the Spurs bought into it and got psyched out. Same thing with the Kings two years before that... sometimes the better team doesn't win. The Clips finally passed the Lakers in the standings. By the way Baron Davis was insane last night. 40 pts, 13 assists. If he's healthy the Warriors will be really good next year. Guy

You know it's going to be a rough night when you have 59 pts at halftime and are trailing by double digits. Guy

Interesting that the group chose to perform only Monk tunes, given that he hadn't experienced the Riverside breakthrough yet. I remember listening to this and being somewhat disappointed after all the hype. Hopefully the Miles performances from '66 and '67 will see an official release one day -- they're smokin'. Guy

You're all going to laugh at me, but I want to see the last Star Wars movie. I don't expect it to be very good, but as long as it's as decent as the last one, I'll be satisfied. Whoops, I'm an idiot... Lon put this on his list. So please. laugh at him first.

I think this comes down to how closely you share Lon's feelings about the music. If you love the sound of this group (and they play very well here) then this is essential music. For what it's worth, the "box" replicates the two sets, so you might just want to go for one, see how you like it, and then later on pick up the other. The price differential is small -- in fact, when I picked this music up, buying the 2-CD sets separately was cheaper than the box! Guy

I think the Spurs were overall a better team and choked. Guy

I agree what happened to the Lakers was pitiful. I was glad to see them lose. But what you're saying (Pistons>Lakers & Lakers>Spurs => Pistons>Spurs) doesn't make sense. Just because the Pistons had a much easier time with the Lakers than they did with New Jersey and Indiana doesn't mean that New Jersey and Indiana were better teams than the Lakers (and ergo, the Spurs). It just means that luck often plays a role in these series. Sometimes the worse team (Detroit in the championship, Lakers in the conference finals) wins. Sometimes the better team can't get their act together and doesn't really try. And this isn't intended to diss the Pistons' achievement -- they outplayed the Lakers in that series, by a mile. I think they're about as good as their record. I agree that they're a contender in that their chances of winning aren't 0. Assuming that they make it past Miami (unlikely), they have a very small chance of beating the Spurs or Suns. They're not an overwhelming underdog against the Mavs.

I saw these guys performing with the Hungarian folk music ensemble Muzsikas last year. It was interesting but I wish the quartet would have played on their own.

I think the Pistons are a little overrated. They're about as good as their record suggests. Some of this is a decline from last year, but I think f the Spurs had made it to the finals, we'd have a different champion this year. Though I agree they will probably push the Heat to seven games. I think I'm going to get Che'd if I keep going on this thread. Jim, have mercy! Guy

I think they'd beat the Pistons easy. Heat, a little harder. Spurs very tough. Guy

I think the Suns can win it all, but they seem like one of those teams that can't withstand the postseason. The Mavs-Suns 2nd round series could be entertaining. Guy

How did those "chumpions" do against the Lakers last year? So much hate for Detroit. They completel dismantle a team with 4 hall of famers, and now they are about to get their 4th straight 50 win season. But they are still chumps? I guarantee not a single team wants to play the pistons in the playoffs. And you will see them beat miami in the ECF. Hey dude, it's cool... SS1 always calls them the "chumpions". Guy

Stated very eloquently, Chuck! Guy

Tom, I went back and listened to this today and I think you're right -- Sam holds back just the right amount or close to it. He's more aggressive than I remembered. It's a shame BN didn't have a more "progressive" guitarist on their roster at the time so they could follow upthis album with a feister Sam-Larry-Elvin/Tony-guitarist album. Guy

Couldn't agree more. I have mixed feelings on this. Who decides what is racist or discriminating? (Well, obviously Jim and Use, but you know what I mean.) I understand the feelings, but I also fear the results... While I understand and respect people's sensitivity about this kind of stuff, I think the board benefits from people bringing aboard stupid views and getting castigated by the other members. Deleting the more controversial Che threads would be unfortunate because any rational person reading them would see intelligence triumphing over stupid bigotry. Guy

A snoozefest. Any clue how long Rashard Lewis will be out of commission for with his "deep bone bruise"? The Sonics look pretty tattered coming into the playoffs and either Sac or Houston could pull off an upset. Another one of those cases you'd prefer a #6 over a #5. Guy

I'm resurrecting this thread because I've been listening to the alternate takes on Keith Jarrett's Shades in-depth for the first time. There's a really great alternate of "Shades of Jazz" (a great tune, IMHO!) with both Dewey and Keith offering great solos. I think they canned it because Dewey comes in late for his solo. Guy

Yes, che was on the active users list just before I posted this, and what shall I make of the fact that the newest registered member (no posts yet) calls himself Fidel .....

Sam's a really nice guy. I saw him with Jason Moran 2 or 3 years ago and went up to have autograph one of the Mosaic CDs. He seemed pretty psyched when I told him I really liked the music. Guy