Guy Berger

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

I like Thrust better than Headhunters. Guy

Kind of surprised no one has mentioned this one:

Anybody who bashes George Coleman's playing with Miles needs to have their ears examined. Guy

That's good, because we have a special thread dedicated to making fun of you. Guy

I believe Bill Evans shared your opinion The opening chords/vamp are the same ones that Evans used for Leonard Bernstein's "Some Other Time" which developed into Peace Piece. I think Blue in Green is the one he claims authorship of. I think the improvisation idea in "Flamenco Sketches" -- the cycle of five different scales, "played as long as the soloist wishes" -- is just as important as the vamp, and I'm not aware of Evans claiming credit for that. (Interestingly, the idea pops up again on "Spanish Key" ten years later. I was listening to BB over the summer and it blew my mind how much of it reflected stuff like KoB, Porgy & Bess ("Prayer" vs. the rubato section of "Bitches Brew"), and Sketches of Spain (the orchestration on "Pharaoh's Dance", Miles playing over the vamps on "Solea"/"Miles Runs the Voodoo Down".) I own the plain vanilla mid-90s version that's speed-corrected. Favorite tune? Not sure. I'd have to go with "Blue in Green" simply because all three soloists are so inspired, but every other tune is mindboggling. And I feel like I should have said "Flamenco Sketches" or "So What". Here's another question -- who's your favorite KoB soloist? I think Coltrane takes the prize -- his playing on "So What" (that part that makes Bill Evans so agitated) and "Freddie Freeloader" is out of control. And "Blue in Green" has to be one of his most poignant ballad performances. "Flamenco Sketches" too. Guy

It's relative. Compared to, say, what Hank Mobley was recording at the time it's pretty adventurous. It's definitely not hard bop. But it's not really much wilder than what the Coltrane quartet was recording in the studio in the early 60s. And compared to some of the more obviously "avant-garde" playing from '67 (say, the stuff Trane, Sun Ra and Cecil were doing) or even the Miles from the same time it's conservative. At the same time you listen to the stuff that Joe, McCoy and Elvin are playing, and as you say it's obvious they're filtering a-g ideas. Anyway, it's a great album though I like Extensions due to Wayne Shorter's presence. Guy

You guys are killing me! I pre-ordered this from DeepDiscount, hoping they would ship it a few days early (as most other places do). Unfortunately they didn't ship it until WEDNESDAY which means I won't hear it until next week. Guy

I haven't made it through all of them, but click on a few and I'm sure you'll laugh. http://spamusement.com/ *** SECURITY ISSUES *** If you love her you'll look Who cares if it hurts I flew to London from $75 roundtrip

Weird... I haven't really noticed anything. Guy

Good thing he was in his underwear. That has to win the award for "most obscure Tolkien reference". Guy

No... this isn't the gig I'm talking about. There's a Half Note broadcast from two days earlier:

There's one other session, with a monster version of "One Down, One Up" and another tune I can't remember offhand. Off the tunes you listed "Untitled Original", aka "Creation" is the jewel of the bunch. Though the live version of "Song of Praise" is also incredible. Guy

I think the oldest living tree is somewhere in the southwestern United States and is about 5 or 6 MILLENNIA old. That's older than Egyptian civilization, for chrissakes. edit: Whoops, the Bristlecone Pine I'm thinking about is only 4,767 years old. So it doesn't predate Egyptian civilization, though it is older than the first pyramids. Guy