Guy Berger

I went on a somewhat crazy CF binge this week, ordering: Mark Dresser, Nourishments + Sedimental You + Cyber Coup Marty Ehrlich, Frog Leg Logic + Trio Exaltation Dennis Gonzalez, NY Midnight Suite + Idle Wild + Live at Tonic Chris Lightcap, Deluxe + Epicenter Herb Robertson, Elaboration + Real Aberration Steve Lehman, Dual Identity + Manifold Sclavis/Taborn/Rainey, El Dorado Trio Jacob Sacks, Fishes Tony Malaby, Tamarindo Ches Smith, Hammered Pharoah and the Underground, Spiral Mercury more acquired since: Tony Malaby, Incantation Suite Tony Malaby, Somos Agua Tony Malaby, Scorpion Eater Tony Malaby, New Artifacts Dennis Gonzalez, No Photograph Available Ralph Alessi, Wiry Strong Tony Malaby, Novela Tony Malaby, Tamarindo Live Vinny Golia, Sfumato Eric Revis, Sing Me Some Cry Eric Revis, Parallax Eric Revis, In Memory of Things Yet Seen Michael Attias, Live in Greenwich Village Ken Filiano, Scenes from a Clown Car Michael Attias, Renku in Coimbra Michael Attias, Nerve Dance Michael Attias, Twines of Cohesion Angelixa Sanchez, Wires & Moss Michael Attias, Credo Tony Malaby, Voladores

Chuckling at the thought of "hot air" and ECM in the same sentence. I'm guessing Manfred Eicher would regard the controversy positively, as amplifying the label's "brand" I'd say 1-4 depending on the day. There's a lot of music on the label that I really love. I also think criticism of the label is often on the mark, and it's probably overrated relative to its peer.

A new list, 13.5 years later Still on the list: Charles Lloyd, Canto Paul Motian, I Have the Room Above Her Jack DeJohnette, Special Edition Abercrombie/Holland/DeJohnette, Gateway Dave Holland, Conference of the Birds New to the list: Bennie Maupin, The Jewel in the Lotus Billy Hart, One is the Other Art Ensemble of Chicago, Nice Guys (the entire late 70s AEoC trilogy is great) Eberhard Weber, Silent Feet Edward Vesala, Lumi (love this guy's work) I've lost a lot of interest in the Jarrett trio stuff over time, it's kinda bland, despite great respect for the musicians involved.

Horrible

Somewhere upthread an individual argued that excess all-cause deaths, which are much higher than official COVID deaths, are actually due to lockdowns causing deaths (whether through suicide or loneliness or...). This is almost certainly false. Official COVID deaths by state are extremely correlated with excess all-cause deaths.

This unusual recording popped up on bandcamp the other day and might appeal to some other people here. A weird, intense mishmash of prog rock epic, heavy metal, free jazz, electronic music: https://daily.bandcamp.com/album-of-the-day/neptunian-maximalism-eons-review "Accordingly, there are times when Éons roars like a herd of shaggy, stampeding beasts. But there are also sections of the album that evoke a fire-lit religious ritual (complete with chanting and ceremonial drums), and others that sound like Ascension-era John Coltrane enveloped in a bewitching swirl of black magick. The clanging lurch of “Lamasthu” brings to mind drone-metal masters Sunn O))); one track later, “Ptah Sokar Osiris” offers up a healthy dose of freewheeling, horn-charged groove that’s more aligned with a globally inspired band like Goat than with most drone music. It’s that dichotomy that makes Neptunian Maximalism so interesting: one minute, they’re a hulking ship scraping its metal sides on the way out of the harbor, and the next, they’re the weird interstellar dance party happening down in the hull. Perhaps calling them the Sunn Ra A)))rkestra is a little too on the nose."

Interesting to go back and read this thread. Vandermark's career has taken such a turn-toward-low-key over the past 10-15 years, I wonder if he's due for a reappraisal.

RIP to a very underrated musician.

Late Bill Evans = Weekend at Bernie's of jazz?

This is one of the funniest posts in the history of this forum.

I have recently discovered Liberty's first three albums for Pi: Tactiles, Ophiuchus Butterfly, and Radiate. IMHO each one is better than the prior one. The first one is relatively straight-ahead, but MBase and Henry Threadgill influences become increasingly pronounced thereafter.

I think the "died with COVID / died because of COVID" debate is ill-served by being too binary: A person has pre-existing condition X. Getting COVID significantly increases the chance of somebody with pre-existing condition X dying. When we look across the population we see a lot more dead people with a pre-existing condition X. For any individual dead person who had pre-existing condition X, it might be hard to 100% attribute their death to COVID vs. pre-existing condition X.

I think you're misunderstand Ghost's comment. Dead bodies are dead bodies. There are a lot more of them piling up now then before. There's no cause attribution involved in this measure. The extra number of dead bodies in the United States since significant community spread began in late February is much higher than the historical baseline. The timing of these deaths is super-correlated with the official COVID death count. This phenomenon is apparent across the world, not just in the US.

Same

OK, if Sleepy Night is an illegitimate label, let me emphatically urge everyone: 1) Download this music for free. 2) Instead of spending money on a sketchy bootleg, spend it on a legitimate recording by a label that supports artists.

“Lost Septet” isn’t a thing, but marketers gonna market. Is Sleepy Night a legit label?

Listening to this spectacular gig again today - I’ve heard every single live recording of this band and IMHO this one is the best. One particularly favorite part is Wayne’s incendiary tenor solo on “Directions”. On the version I downloaded, shortly after the last notes of “Masqualero” are played, a BBC announcer exclaims “WOW.”

Dan, thanks for doing these polls. In the SF Bay Area things have definitely gotten worse over the past 4-6 weeks, but we don't seem to be doing as poorly as the southern part of the state. Crossing my fingers that renewed restrictions by the governor tamp down on the current flareup within a few weeks. However, we have been on the receiving end of a pretty big f'up - there is a huge outbreak of COVID in San Quentin Prison (Marin County) when they transferred a lot of COVID-positive prisoners from hard-hit Imperial County. It's really sad and horrible

The good news is there are a lot of high quality data collection efforts that IMHO are superior to the CDC, for instance COVIDtracking.com. But yeah, my assumption is that this is a ham-handed cover-up. It won't work, people notice when they or those around them get really sick and die.

If true, that's not the end of the world, though it would generate long run compliance problems... we know flu vaccine uptake is not great.

That seems way too pessimistic, based on what I've read from public health experts. I'm pretty confident we'll have a reasonably effective vaccine. I'm more worried about widespread adoption, given prevalence of anti-vax insanity.

I don't understand what you mean by that, but my calculation is: 330M Americans 50%-60% eventually infected before herd immunity reached => 165M-198M Americans eventually infected 0.5%-1.0% infection fatality rate => 800K-2M Americans dead of COVID

Why do you say that?

It's a sad story. I feel bad for anybody who dies from this dangerous illness, and for their loved ones. But worth reflecting on how we'd process this story if this was a story about drunk driving instead of COVID. We probably won't ever know for sure if he infected anyone, but there's a decent probability he did since he enthusiastically engaged in high-risk-for-transmission behavior. At the very least he put people at risk, much like a person who frequently and enthusiastically drives drunk. 0.5%-1.0% infection fatality rate.

50%-60% infected Americans => 800K-2M dead Americans