Guy Berger

Hey all, I’ve been eyeing a 4 CD Steve Coleman box on Okeh - a series of concerts recorded in the mid-90s. The AMG reviews are mostly negative but I don’t take those too seriously with this kind of music. Worth picking up?

I don’t dislike Bill Frisell, but he wouldn’t be my first choice for an trio featuring Leo Wadada Smith and Andrew Cyrille. That said... if his presence helps finance such encounters, more power to ECM.

Tesla seems very mismanaged to me based on conventional indicators, but the market apparently disagrees.

That said, the interview is highly recommended reading. Most of us are sufficiently sophisticated to filter out Kofsky and focus on Trane.

I recently listened to THE PARIS CONCERT for the first time and... it was much better than I anticipated! Not sure why I was so pessimistic coming into it - maybe I internalized negative comparisons to CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS. While it’s not any of the participants’ best work, it’s a great listen. I love this period in Chick’s career; he and Anthony B made a great pairing.

It's comprehensible to me, culturally, why someone would pick 1964 as *the* core year in Wayne Shorter's career, but it kind of requires ignoring what happened in 1965 and after

We’re lucky to still have him around and actively performing. 🙌

I may check this out!

I still have SANKT GEROLD in the "listen-to" pile, but can vouch for TIME WILL TELL. I really like Evan Parker's versatility and range as a player. It elevates him above many of his peers and acolytes. Using late Trane as a jumping off point, he went in a wonderful and creative direction.

Yes, but in my experience they nevertheless tend to get underrepresented in this context for a variety of reasons

LPs didn't exist for the first 31 years of recorded jazz; a lot of the greatest recordings by Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and Duke Ellington were not made in the "album" format and any list like this would eliminate them.

Keith Jarrett's unaccompanied piano introduction to "Roads Travelled, Roads Veiled" (FORT YAWUH, 1973); also, his introduction to "InFlight" (BACKHAND, 1974)

Some favorites: John Coltrane, "Blue in Green" Wayne Shorter, "Message from the Nile" (McCoy Tyner's EXTENSIONS) - probably my favorite solo on soprano Wayne Shorter, "Directions" (2nd set March 7 1970, released on Miles Davis's IT'S ABOUT THAT TIME) Wayne Shorter in the first few minutes of Weather Report's LIVE IN TOKYO Charlie Parker, "Ko Ko" Ben Webster, "Cottontail" Ben Webster, "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" Charles Lloyd, "Durga Durga"

I never really thought about it but Red really did record almost exclusively for Prestige and its sibling labels during the 1950s. The Miles Davis recordings are the big exception, there’s also the 1 Art Pepper album, something on Status. That’s it. More generally - did listeners kind of forget about Red after he left Miles’s group? His style might have been too quirky for many.

I like it a lot. The first track (“Svantetic”) is harder hitting than what I would expect on an ECM Stanko album. RIP.

McCoy was influenced by Red, wasn't he? I have to imagine that appealed to Coltrane.

Depends on what you call straight-ahead. You're right - there isn't a lot of hard-core avant-garde stuff on there. But there also isn't a lot of stuff that would have been considered "mainstream" in pre-1960 jazz.

You guys are amazing. Thank you.

About 20-25 years ago, people were having 100% this same debate about Medeski Martin Wood. Their music had genuine and obvious links to the jazz tradition (including some relatively adventurous strands) but was perceived by many hardcore jazz fans as being watered down. They definitely reached out to non-jazz audiences which was viewed as a mixed blessing. What do people think of their albums now that the controversy has melted away? When I revisit their albums I find them very enjoyable; I think they stand the test of time as very good music. It's hard to fairly assess KW's albums right now because of the hype, especially for hardcore fans. That said, I think long run assessments will probably be positive.

If you go back and read the history of media/propaganda/news... this is a recurring feature of human existence. Technologies facilitate misinformation and fuck up our ability to discern the truth, then we eventually "evolve" to filter through it. (Though at the cost of tens of millions of lives during the 20th century...)

Are Coleman's Label Bleu albums available anywhere? I love RESISTANCE IS FUTILE but am also interested in the other 3 (LUCIDARIUM, WEAVING SYMBOLICS, ON THE RISING OF THE 64 PATHS).

Hi all, I'm interested in recommendations on this insanely prolific label. I know it's been discussed in the Funny Rat threads but those are challenging to wade through. So far I've picked up: Tim Berne, INSOMNIA And I am definitely planning to pick up the two Chris Lightcap records (DELUXE, EPICENTER) and the Sclavis/Taborn/Rainey album. Any other recommendations?

I'd say the substance of Monk's style was pretty much there by the first BN recordings. What happened after that is distillation, a process that continued into the 60s. How much you like that distillation is probably directly correlated with how much you like the post-Riverside albums. re Rouse, I do think he adds value to the Monk albums he's on. Not necessarily a LOT of value but the recordings are better than they would be if there was no tenor saxophonist. I'm also not sure whether Monk could have worked long-term with a really distinctive, individual stylist.

One thing I've noticed about southern Florida - 5 or 6 years ago, winters used to be pretty pleasant. Lots of highs in the upper 60s and low 70s. Now temps are routinely in the mid-80s, hot and humid. Not my kind of place.

I'm in line with the modal (haha) opinion here - prefer the tenor to soprano (for Trane, Wayne, and more generally), but not so lopsidedly that the existing recorded output seems out of whack to me. I'm glad we have the soprano recordings we do. I do think it's interesting that he abandoned the horn in the studio after "Living Space". (Which is one of my fave Trane-on-soprano tunes - and not a waltz!) Interesting to ponder whether, had he survived, he would have re-evaluated that decision. (Also, tangential, but Wayne's soprano solo on McCoy Tyner's "Message from the Nile" is my fave soprano solo by anyone.)