Guy Berger

Obviously this a personal thing but I really wish Ascension had been a "concerto" for Trane rather than a blowing session. My favorite parts of each take are the ensembles and Trane's solos. But at this point in Trane's career I'd gladly trade all the other soloists for more of his playing. There's a reason I put on Meditations or the '65 quartet recordings much more frequently than Ascension. My other beef is tied to something that Mtume said about the '73-'75 Miles Davis band. He said something along the lines of "the band was like an extremely compressed balloon, with a lot of intensity at the beginning of a concert and turning it down as the concert progressed." I get the same feeling listening to the album. Coltrane's solo, and the two ensembles sound like a sleeping giant waking up, but as the balloon deflates I become less and less interested until I'm completely zoned out for the rhythm section's solos. My favorite soloist besides Trane is Pharoah. He's awesome here. Guy

I'm not sure what you mean by "not interesting". This band was an exciting unit with four world-class improvisers. They did the material differently every time. Guy

Great news! Jan Lohmann posted the following to the Miles list:

Great choice! Looking forward to discussing this. Guy

Assuming we are sticking only to official releases, some favorites: John Coltrane, 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings John Coltrane, A Love Supreme live Miles Davis, Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965 Miles Davis, Live at the Fillmore: It's About That Time (March 7 1970) Weather Report, Live in Tokyo

I think the Fafblog obituary sums things up nicely: :rsmile:

The Magic City is a real mind**** of an album. I remember putting it (I'd already heard Atlantis and Space is the Place) on for the first time while driving to a student council meeting in college. Upon hearing that wheezy organ, I was hooked. But that collective improv section still cracks my head open like a walnut sometimes. In a good way, of course. The shorter pieces on the album are also excellent if not as mindblowing as the title suite. They're similar to what he was doing on both volumes of Heliocentric Worlds. Guy

By the way, anybody else like Mingus's tune of this name much better than the Bobby Timmons tune? That baritone riff just kills me. Guy

Keith Jarrett, "There Is a Road (God's River)"

The Miles Davis "jungle band" -- it's finally starting to dawn on me why people consider Agharta and Pangaea works of genius. I've always kind of liked them but never really scratched the surface. I'd left "Theme from Jack Johnson" (which is either "Ife" or "For Dave") in the car, and when I came back after a few hours it sounded completely otherworldly. Dark Magus is pretty cool too (I like Liebman better than Fortune), but the rhythm section hadn't completely coalesced yet. And rhythm is what these albums are about. I know I bash Thom Jurek a lot, but his AMG review of Pangaea has a perfect quote: "Davis seems to be pushing an agenda of 'What the hell is melody and harmony?' " I also like the amazon review which says, "This is what Godzilla really sounded like trashing Tokyo." :rsmile: Also, a Gateway live recording from '95 sent me back to the original Gateway album and John Abercrombie's Timeless. Two excellent albums. I have to go with Gateway simply due to Holland's presence as a player and composer, as well as the greater dose of freedom, but Timeless is stupendous. The title track has some of the best synthesizer playing I've heard in a jazz context. Beautiful. Guy

I really like Jarrett's Birth. Early stuff from the American quartet, unfocused and rambling but a lot of fun. Guy

"Isle of Java" is such a sweet tune. A perfect vehicle for Jackie's playing. Guy

Lon, I'm in the same situation. I had a backlog of almost 40 CDs at the end of July and I've cut it by half since then.

I like this one better than the other pre-Let Freedom Ring Jackie Mac BN's. Some of those have a bit of hard-bop-genericness, but here there's a strong combination of interesting, original compositions and terrific performances. Guy

September 22, 2004 was the 50th anniversary of Thelonious Monk's original recording of "Blue Monk". A classic performance of a classic tune. Thanks Thelonious! Guy

Ichiro is now only two hits away from Sisler's record... Guy

Coltrane's final work (Expression, Interstellar Space, Stellar Regions) have a sort of "finality" about them, though I'm not sure if Trane actually knew he was going to die at the time. Also, Beethoven's final works have a sort of valedictory, "looking ahead to the next world" aura. Guy

Happy b-day. Thanks for sharing some of your collection on easytree and stg. Guy

By the way, as relating to Joe, I think the JH in Japan album (which I really like) is a great example of how NOT to use the FR in jazz. I look forward to hearing this new one. Guy

I completely disagree about the bolded statement above. Listen to any of the live dates from 1969! Chick is laying down some amazing, unbelievable stuff on the Fender Rhodes. His solos are fabulous and the instrument gives a fascinating, unique slant to the collectively improvised sections on "It's About That Time" and other tunes. He's not just treating it as "an acoustic piano with a different sound". (Which I think is the problem with a lot of electric piano playing in jazz. It's a different instrument!) The spring 1970 stuff is more mixed -- it's too heavy on electronic effects at times, obscuring the amazing stuff that Chick is doing on the instrument. But for every crazy, over-the-top keyboard freakout, there's ten times as much stuff that blows my mind every time I hear it. Chick's solo on the April 9 "Spanish Key" stands out in my mind. So does his playing with/against Wayne on the March 7 "Directions" (second set). I agree that once Keith joined the band, the band frequently suffered from keyboard-freakout overload. Supposedly Keith and Chick couldn't hear each other. Once the band returned to the one-keyboardist format things improved. Guy

Let us know what you think! The collective improv between "Directions" and "This" is a real trip. Guy

I believe it is this gig, 10/27/69 in Rome. Corea, Holland, and DeJohnette replace Hancock, Carter, and Williams. The version you are looking at is truncated by about 10 minutes from the original. Nevertheless, it's an incredible performance by an incredible group and if it weren't otherwise available I'd tell you to pick it up immediately. HOWEVER... sometime in the near future (ie as soon as Guy gets to work) we'll be generating a tree or vine of some sort to distribute about 25 Miles Davis boots, and this complete show will be part of it. So depending on how eager you are to hear it, you might want to wait a month or two. Guy

The tune "74 Miles Away" is really incredible! Cannonball incorporated avant-garde ideas into his style very effectively during the mid 60s. Guy

It was in the beginning of my 2nd year of grad school. We had a class at 9 am in the morning and I'm not sure about the exact sequence of events, but one of the other students ran in and said that a plane had crashed into the WTC. At the time I thought it must have just been a small plane. Anyway, the truth gradually unfolded during the day. All of our classes were cancelled. I watched much of the coverage at the Hall of Graduate Studies (they had a big screen TV), then later on my neighbor's tv. I was sure I'd wake up the next day to find out there'd been more attacks. It was an awful day, though I can't imagine it being nearly as horrible as for anyone who spent it in NYC. It's odd -- I haven't spent much time thinking about 9/11 over the past two anniversaries. Thanks for letting me share. p.s. I liked Belle Waring's reflections on 9/11.

I'm starting this thread to discuss Wayne as a saxophone player (rather than as a composer). What tracks feature your favorite playing by the man? Mine: solo "Time of the Barracudas" (from Et Cetera) w/Art Blakey "Arabia" (from Mosaic) title track of Free for All w/Miles Davis "Iris" (ESP) "So What" (from Plugged Nickel, 12/23/65) "Gingerbread Boy" (Miles Smiles) "Masqualero" (Sorcerer) "Mademoiselle Mabry" (Filles de Kilimanjaro) "In a Silent Way" (studio version) "Directions" (second set, 3/7/70) w/Weather Report opening of "Vertical Invader" (from Live in Tokyo) "Elegant People" (Black Market) w/others "Message from the Nile" (Extensions -- probably my favorite Wayne-on-soprano)