Guy Berger

I think this one is a little better: (Though if you eventually decide to spring for the Impulse box set, some of it will be duplicated.)

I've been a fan of these guys for a few years -- the album Gateway is one of my favorite ECMs. A nice mix of fusion and outside playing with interesting compositions -- Conference of the Birds meets "The Noonward Race". Gateway 2 isn't quite as good, I like Homecoming (though not as much as the first album), and In the Moment sounds like new age noodling to me (but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise). The bootlegs (from 75 and 95) I've heard are good. I also saw them at Yoshi's in 2002, and they did a burning version of "Jumpin' In". Guy

FYI -- For those interested in discussing the politics of the tsunami, Maren just started a thread in the Politics forum. Guy

Though obviously Sri Lanka, Indonesia and other areas in SE Asia were by far the worst hit, there were also victims in eastern Africa. Guy

Well, that's Chris's choice. I encourage every other thread participant not to follow his example. Guy

Can we keep the politics out of this discussion, please? It's too bad that people have to turn a human tragedy into a political football match so soon after the fact. Guy

Just got back from a Warriors game with my dad and brother; they (barely) beat a crippled Nuggets team. With this latest three game winning streak they creep up from awful to respectably bad. Guy

For people who wish to donate money, there are some links here. Guy

Happy birthday, Mark. Guy

I suspect the post-disaster death toll might be even worse than the initial count. This is the kind of thing that breeds humanitarian disasters. Bangladesh in particular is vulnerable because the country floods very easily. Guy

By the way, I eventually picked up More Party Time -- a great CD! I have mixed feelings about Bobby Timmons's playing but he's terrific on this album. Guy

An amazing site. Guy

Thanks for posting that, Brownie. Always interesting to read interviews with "Mr. Weird". Guy

And finally, where I live now. A snowy day in New Haven, about a year ago:

Sorry for the low quality photos... I'm fulling around with my photo editing software for the first time. Here is the sun rising at my friend's condo in Santa Barbara:

San Francisco during Sunset, as seen from Twin Peaks:

Here's the Golden Gate Bridge from a year ago. As far as I know it still looks like this.

Not my town, but I took this picture just before landing at JFK International Airport. Guy

I agree with the others -- it's worth preparing for the exam. I took it on my computer and wasn't used to the format, so I didn't do as well as I wanted the first time I took it. If graduate chemistry is anything like graduate economics, then your score on the verbal section won't matter very much. They'll be impressed if you can SPEAK English. Guy

Not sure what it's like these days. When I took it five years ago it still had the analytical section. Guy

Alright, time to get this thing started. ...and the Modern Jazz Giants is maybe my favorite pre-Kind of Blue Miles album. It's also the album that really turned me into a Monk fan. The December 24, 1954 session (half a century!) is pretty legendary. You can read Ira Gitler's liner notes here. There was a lot of tension between Miles and Monk, to the point where later tellings of the story claimed that Miles punched Monk! You can hear some of Monk's frustration bubble out during the first take of "The Man I Love". Here's what Gitler says: Anyway... the music. The contrast between the three soloists -- Miles, Monk, and Milt Jackson -- is terrific. Each of them blues-based and brilliant in their own way. Plus Miles and Monk had such different approaches to bringing space and silence into their music, and both of them stand in stark contrast to the more verbose Jackson. My favorite stuff on here is on both takes of "The Man I Love". Miles has some beautiful open horn ballad playing in the intro and ending. The guy really hit his stride in 1954 -- that clear tone, the amazing understanding of "every note and silence counts". And the blowing section in the middle has that incredibly brisk-yet-laid-back swing that Miles perfected with Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke in those '54 sessions. Monk's solo is so eccentric -- he plays the melody in slo-mo. And then on the second take, he does the same thing but stops in the middle. Miles comes in to "wake him up", and Monk fires back with an amazing, incredibly lucid solo. Jack Chambers's discussion of this (p. 196) is pretty interesting: Monk's comping is amazing on all of these recordings. No wonder he drove Miles nuts, though Milt doesn't seem to mind! Guy

I wouldn't work too hard. Pete Losin's sessionography says: I wonder why Miles (and the band?) started stating the theme more frequently in June than he had in '69 or early '70. As for the paring down of themes, the April '70 versions of "Footprints" and "Paraphernalia" are pretty interesting in that regard. Guy

Alright, I've kept this a secret for long enough but it's time for the truth to come out. I'm Johnny Hartzfield. Guy

This thread has languished a bit. Anyway, I think Keith Jarrett's Mysteries box (Impulse recordings 1975-76) has going OOP. Also, it seems like a lot of ECMs are no longer available domestically. (I encountered this problem when looking for copies of Triptykon and Gateway 2 Guy

You can read this extremely interesting article here.