Guy Berger

Not only that, he aggressively edited their compositions.

Perfectly written. The marketing pitched the guy as some sort of demigod but the boring truth was that he was just really, really, really good. BTW one weird thing with Branford’s assertion is that the albums Wayne, Herbie and Tony recorded during that period without Miles are out there, they’re public record! Miles’s albums sound quite different. (And FWIW, more adventurous than Wayne and Herbie’s.) Regardless of whether you think the Miles or sidemen album are better, it’s pretty clear he wasn’t just coasting on their contributions.

I think this is a case of BM taking a genuine fact the Miles mystique sometimes downplays (that after 1955 he had the luxury of hiring THE best talent), and twisting it into something 100,000,000 times more ridiculous than the mystique.

bad e-manners

I'd put GRASS ROOTS ahead of DANCE WITH DEATH, if we're talking AHBN Phase 2

I'd be curious (if you're willing to share) what your age is, relative to the median ages of the US (~38)

I think most people, listening to it, would almost certainly say "that's old people music" or maybe "that's old white people music" (not to say Anglocentric!)

When I was a kid I was into Transformers (the 80s animated show + Hasbro toys) and got really mad at my mom when she told me that they would eventually be forgotten by our culture.

My guess is both sound equally dated to most listeners today. An 18 year old when The Wall came out is 58 years old today. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A lot of the pieces that entered Pink Floyd's "book" in 1967-69 were avant-garde space rock jams (though I'd say that only by 1969 did they start doing justice to them) - barebones set pieces that gave the band plenty of room to experiment with sound and noise in a non-melodic way. These guys might have been influenced by free jazz, but the links that were explicitly cited were to Stockhausen and to European free improv (specifically AMM). I'm not a huge fan of watching movies of concerts, but I actually think LIVE AT POMPEII (from 1972), and the lengthy versions of "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" and "A Saucerful of Secrets" - give you an interesting perspective on why they weren't just influenced by avant-garde music but by avant-garde performance art more generally. Also, the guitarist is David Gilmour. The same guy who is known for tasteful, melodic, bluesy guitar solos on their megahit 1970s albums. Yes!!! The UmmaGumma live album is a convenient, "widely distributed" way to sample this music, and is far from bad, but that if you want the *best* live Floyd from this era, that's not the place to go. I like these versions fine, but they are both vastly inferior to the versions of this song the band was recording in 1969-70.

I think this is a good place to start Or this (especially the last three, lengthy tracks)

If you try acting sad, you'll only make him glad

Would be interesting to hear modern-day Murray in this kind of space...

Yes, especially live music from 1969-72

Oh no! Heal quickly Pharoah!

🙌🙌🙌

How do people feel about the analogy of 1950s west coast jazz : bebop :: downtown jazz scene: avant-garde jazz ? Yes! Please say more

Hi all, I'd be interested in people's wisdom/recollections regarding NYC's "downtown jazz" scene of the 1970s-1990s; including but not limited to its links to other jazz streams of that and future periods - i.e. AACM, BAG, the 1970s loft scene, "Nonesuch jazz", "ECM jazz", MBase, British free improv, 2000s/2010s downtown jazz (is this distinct?), the edgier side of straight ahead jazz... At the time it might have been overhyped (I imagine race might be a factor?), but a lot of interesting and influential musicians came out of here, some of whom have had big ripple effects elsewhere. Bill Frisell, John Zorn, Tim Berne, Joey Baron, Medeski Martin & Wood, there are lots of people worth mentioning here. FWIW... When I started listening to jazz back in the 1990s, coming in as a prog-rock listener, downtown stuff was often mentioned to me as THE future in jazz and THE natural heir to THE JAZZ TRADITION (often in direct distinction to / criticism of Wynton Marsalis and the Young Lions, but via omission also a criticism of contemporaneous African-American avant-gardists too). I feel like now that this scene is "ancient history" we can maybe evaluate it a little more calmly/fairly.

Santana has been "discharging an obligation" for a long time, long before Cindy Blackman joined his band. She's an excellent drummer, not sure why we'd compare her unfavorably to, of all people, Graham Lear I'm not sure you can blame Santana's post-1976 shark jump on any single person but if you had to choose just one personnel change, Lear replacing Shrieve is a top candidate

Fortunately we still have the late 60s / early 70s Santana recordings to fulfill that longing

I’ve heard some of this stuff on Spotify and it was pleasant.

My recommendation to any family of any public figure, even a relatively obscure one like Ira Gitler: for the love of God, don’t search the internet for opinions about your deceased!! re: Gitler, as a guy who often expressed strong opinions about the work of others, my guess (or hope) is he could take it as well as he could dish it out, especially if expressed as mildly and politely as on this thread.

SPIRIT OF EDEN and LAUGHING STOCK are amazing albums.

Remember when you reviewed a new Lee Konitz album cover w/ “If I didn't know who they were and saw that photo, I'd still think it was a bunch of crazyass old men. And I do mean that as a compliment.”

I don't think this thread is in any way out of the norm for this board; I have seen some far more negative. And within this thread, even the "negative" aspects have all come in the form of posts that are generally positive. Also, let's be honest about relative importance: Gitler was an interesting asterisk in the history of this music. He was a very articulate "super fan" and sort-of-critic. He wasn't one of the "creators".