Guy Berger

The only stuff I don't have is the Cosmos stuff that wasn't issued with Asante and the unreleased stuff. I hope the session with Wayne, Vitous and Mouzon sees the light of day! Guy

Ditto on the former, but my Jarrett pick would be NUDE ANTS, where the live setting brings out the energy (dare I way warmth?) in Jan's playing that is often more or less just implied on the studio stuff. His solo on "New Dance" is surprisingly robust and gutsy! Guy

Usually their reissues are unavailable elsewhere on CD, so you can't avoid 'em. Guy

Interesting that Holland left ECM -- he was one of the most veteran artists on the roster. Guy

Best stuff, after about a week of listening: "Osmosis Part III", title track, "Dance", "Harmony" (Lovano is really outstanding on this one), "The Bag Man", "One in Three". The second half of the album is really where it all comes together. Guy

Triptykon (w/Arild Andersen and Edward Vesala) is really good. I'm not a huge fan of the guy, though -- he's a little too anemic for me. Guy

Besides Afro-Bossa, are any of these essential? Guy

It's hard for me to tell exactly what happened, but it seems to boil down to a clash of egos. You can dig through the Miles-L archives and try to figure out what happened. Guy

Am I the only one who hears a slight similarity in Wayne and Sam's sounds around this time? That dry, abstract melodicism. If that makes any sense. Guy

I like it, a lot. It's not in-your-face, but I like the combination of great tunes and laid-back playing. Very tasteful. At the same time I can understand why it would rub people the wrong way -- it fades into the background at times. Also if you don't like Americana-stuff... Also, check out our own Nate Dorward's review on amazon... it's a good one though I think Nate's a little cooler on the album than I am. One more thing: I'm apparently the only person who likes Robin Holcomb's singing on this album -- it provides variety. Guy

Question -- if you order the box on yourmusic, does it count as seven months' worth of orders? Guy

Do it dude. It'd be cool if Late did Ear of the Behearer as well. Guy

If you're willing to be a little patient (a week or two depending on where you live), DeepDiscountCD.com will ship them to you for $9.97 apiece. No shipping charges. In a few months alldirect.com will have them for $7.99 apiece, no shipping for orders>$99.

It Should Have A Long Time Ago, but I finally got this in the mail. Great stuff! Will post more reactions later. More reactions later: Very nice. It's odd how they programmed the slower stuff at the beginning and the feistier stuff near the end. Lovano's playing is really beautiful; it's always weird to me when people call him the weakest link in this trio. Guy

The '65-'68 material is a bit toward the challenging end of "straight-ahead, small group" jazz, so keep that in mind. The Prestige and Miles/Trane boxes might appeal more to her tastes, as would the Blackhawk box. The Plugged Nickel box also has outstanding music but I'd get it only if she likes the '65-'68 box. Guy

It would be pretty cool to get a copy of Basra in Basra. I hear the RVG series is a bit hit in the Gulf. Though I'm worried that some of the more fundy Shia types would get a little angry about the photo of Tyra Banks. Guy

I think people are a just a little angry because they were really excited about this reissue. Once things calm down the "blame the artist" line will fade away. Guy

I just read the explanation -- this is so ridiculous. However, if it does get released under a different name, I vote for the cover with Tyra's picture. Guy

The logic behind subsidizing education is that there's a positive spillover from getting your fellow citizens educated even if you're not getting educated yourself. I think that logic differs from that for road taxation, which is not unlike the logic for utility fees -- in general, if you use electricity or gas or cellphone minutes or whatever you pay for it. I'm not sure exactly how the cigarette tax fits in with the other two examples... explain. Guy

I guess I don't see this being that big of a deal -- in fact, it makes a lot of sense. You use the road, you pay for it. Why should people who don't drive on the roads subsidize those who do?

BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They are available on CD, as standard-issue Sony Legacy releases. Guy

Keith Jarrett plays some bass recorder on The Survivor's Suite, and maybe on a few other American Quartet recordings. It's actually a little annoying, IMHO -- nothing against the recorder, but I don't like the new agey vibe it adds to the album. Guy

It also looks like the Miles Davis in Europe reissue won't include "Bye Bye Blackbird" from that engagement. Any other live tracks on the box that won't appear on the individual reissues? I'm not interested in all the studio alternate takes, but I might have to grab the box instead of the individual reissues. Guy

I like Thrust better than Headhunters. Guy I like Mwandishi: The Complete Warner Brothers Recordings better than both of them. Yup. Sextant on Columbia/Sony is also excellent. Guy