Guy Berger

Wow, Chris, thanks for posting that -- it was really cool. Guy

Jazzkat, When you check out WBGO on the web(wbgo.org, I think), also give a listen to WKCR. They don't always have jazz on, but they do have some great jazz programs. If you search around here, there's at least two threads about WKCR in the lat month. KCSM is also available online, and it's a great station. One of the things I look forward to every time I visit the Bay Area. I have my radio dial currently tuned to some station in the lower 90s where they play lots of offbeat stuff -- techno, Latin, whatever. I don't really know the station name because I almost always play CDs in there. But a few months ago I stepped into the car and heard the DJ say, "...and that was John Coltrane with 'Sun Ship'. " Guy

I didnt notice it on the radio. The two worst albums for cymbol overdose are Coltrane, and The Waiting Game. If Elvin's the one giving the cymbal overdose, I'll take it. Guy

Nah -- most of this stuff has been on there already or even comes from there. This is for people on this board that don't have access to easytree. Guy

I just put together all my live '67 stuff in FLAC format (which is everything the band made that year, I believe) and it will be treed/vined here soon. It's just as good as the Antwerp gig, though not always in such high quality audio. Guy

Seconds on the Monk's Cafe recommendation. I am Philly born & bred. The usual things people complain about Philly: it's old and dirty and redevelopment is proceding in a pretty weird fashion in the downtown area--there are still wastelands 5 minutes from the most expensive real estate in the city. The town kinda looks drab in many ways because a) the city has never gotten its act together on presenting itself well to visitors and b) it's an eighteenth century town and it's just hard to do a lot of things the twenty-first century demands. So there's a feel to it similar to say, New Orleans or the older parts of London. It seems decrepid. Myself, I LIKE that. But I also used to play in a junkyard. Eric pretty much explained above what I didn't I like about Philly. To be honest New Haven (which is a 120K town, not a metropolis) is nicer, and I'm not the Haven's biggest fan. On the other hand I grew up in suburban CA from the age of 10 and my tastes are tainted accordingly. Guy

I'm on it Senor Moose!!!!! Or maybe we should take it to the Chick Corea thread. Guy

I saw him a few years ago and really enjoyed it. On the other hand, my experience with a few albums (Flight of I, Dao, Cryptology) is that he goes for a somewhat claustrophobic, relentless ensemble sound and listening to them all the way through gives me a bit of a headache. (FWIW, I don't have this problem with most of Trane's later music.) Guy

A question. Currently I'm ripping some boots I have using EAC and then converting the resulting WAV files into FLAC files using FLAC FrontEnd (w/verify option). Is this process 100% reversible -- in other words, if I did the reverse steps, would the CD I burned from the WAV files be 100% the same as the original CD? I think I'm just paranoid. Guy

Those are cool recordings. Had those European fans even heard Giant Steps at that point? Because what Trane is playing is way beyond that, he's already looking ahead to "Chasin the Trane". Guy

Sorry to offend any residents of this city, but I visited it in January and thought it was terrible! There's a great Belgian beer bar downtown that's worth checking out, though -- Monk's Cafe. Only bar I've ever been to with a tapestry on the wall. Guy

Steve Nash! Guy

I thought there was way too much Corea on "Black Beauty." And the guy really doesn't have a lot of taste - he's not a believer in "less is more." Try to get a hand on the live '69 stuff (which I will be tree-ing soon here). Chick's work on those dates is unimpeachable. I can understand why the electronics on Black Beauty would be off-putting to some, and at certain points goes over the top. The March date from the Fillmore East (Wayne's last gig) isn't as excessive either. But Chick is still doing some incredible stuff on Black Beauty -- his solo on "Masqualero" is awesome. Guy

If you warm up to Sextant, be sure to pick up the 2 CD Complete WB Sessions. Agree with Jim about Thrust, for some reason (Mike Clark's drumming, maybe) I like it better than Headhunters. Guy

I agree that either guy alone is better than both, but Chick's work with Miles up until Jarrett joined the group is superb. Guy

Has anyone else done the Echoes/2001 sync? Much better than the Wizard of Oz thing, IMHO. :tup Guy I've done the Wizard of Oz/Darkside sync, but have never heard of the Echoes/2001 sync... Do you start the song at the beginning of the movie (as you do on Wizard of Oz)? No... you start it exactly when the last sequence ("Jupiter and Beyond") begins. It's very cool, because the tune and the sequence are exactly the same length and each has three different (and synchronized!) sections. Guy

Has anyone else done the Echoes/2001 sync? Much better than the Wizard of Oz thing, IMHO. :tup Guy

I like Atom Heart Mother as well. Not perfect but fun to listen to. "Fat Old Sun" is a cool song. Guy

It's funny... I meant to start a thread about this group last week. I've downloaded two shows that were seeded on EasyTree (and might be available elsewhere), 5 CDs total. My conclusion is that I need to get the officially released stuff ASAP. My preliminary verdict is: it's great music, and they're tackling it in an interesting way that doesn't exactly replicate the '72-'75 band. But at the same time, it's missing a certain Milesianness that makes albums like Agharta and Pangaea so otherworldly. Yo Miles! is about having fun with this music, but those albums aren't about "having fun". Guy

First, before I forget -- gotta second Mark's sentiment re: "Bike". Never dropped acid to it or anything, but it's such a great tune. The Wall was the first CD I ever got, when I was 15. (Actually, maybe I owned Rush's Moving Pictures first... I don't remember.) I listened to it non-stop. These days I can't really listen to it -- side 1 ("Mother", "Goodbye Blue Sky"!) and side 3 are really good but most of side 4 (after "Run Like Hell") is just awful and I don't like side 2 that much either. It was the perfect soundtrack to teenage angst. A couple of months later I picked up Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, and A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Momentary Lapse isn't such a bad CD, though I think the Division Bell (I saw the tour, and played the CD obsessively) is better. I slowly filled in the gaps -- Animals, Meddle, The Final Cut (which these days I'd rather listen to than the Wall). Umma Gumma was the first "weird" CD I got, back in high school. One of my friends called it "halloween music". In college I picked up the pre-Umma Gumma albums and Relics, which has some nice music on it. ("Biding My Time" is underrated!) "Saucerful of Secrets" is such a cool tune. I don't really listen to the band much -- in fact, I don't know if I've touched one of their CDs for a few years. But still, Dark Side and WYWH are incredible albums. "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" still blows my mind every time I hear it -- that incredible organ swell near the beginning, under Gilmour's guitar... definitely recommended "in a certain state of mind." Then that bell-like guitar riff, and the definitive Gilmour guitar solo (yeah, it beats "Comfortably Numb"). It's funny when you go back to the music you listened to as a teenage and you appreciate things you totally missed back then. I used to think that parts 8 & 9 of Shine On were totally boring. I was an idiot... that funk section is kinda cool (1975, after all) and Rick Wright does some beautiful synth things in the coda. Whew... just wrote a lot about Floyd. I have to say that despite digging the Final Cut, I can't stand Waters's post Floyd solo stuff. Guy

LittleLee -- we recently discussed the trio's most recent recording, I Have the Room Above Her, in the "new releases" forum. So you might want to search for that. Also do a search in the live music thread over the past few years; people have reviewed their concerts. I think you'll find many people on this board agree with you. Guy

Plus, they're heating up at just the right time. They could potentially beat any team except the Spurs in a 7 game series. A 2005 Bulls-Celtics series would be a parody of better times. Guy

Mike Shrieve was one of the most musically interesting members of the band... I think he was the guy who introduced Carlos to the music of Miles & Trane. Guy

It looks like private-sector space travel is finally starting to take off (excuse the pun), so the whole issue of NASA funding will probably be moot within a few decades. Guy

I think it's interesting that Jarrett was the last "major" keyboardist Miles used in the 70s. (There weren't that many in the 80s, either.) Cedric Lawson and Lonnie Liston Smith were in the band before Miles took over the organ, but both of them were pretty inconsequential in those bands (and for that matter, not especially consequential in jazz history relative to most of Miles's previous pianists/keyboardists). A lot of time it's explained by the fact that Miles's new conception after On the Corner didn't open a big role for virtuoso keyboard playing, but I wonder if after Herbie/Chick/Keith he simply ran out of gifted keyboardists to hire. Guy