Guy Berger

I think you’re right. Some of the institutional barriers, especially against women playing traditionally “masculine” instruments, are probably fading somewhat.

Henry's previous album (Old Locks & Irregular Verbs) was also released early in some format. Anyway, this is wonderful news. Anybody have a tracklist?

A loss to all of us.

I'm putting this album on for the first time in a while... so amazing. One of my entry points into jazz, almost 20 years ago

Sigh. He was a really wonderful guy; I enjoyed his contributions to this board. RIP Bruce

Not totally unfair. I think I like it better having Mobley present rather than not, but he certainly isn't the highlight - nor is it among the highlights of his career. And yeah - I think it's interesting to detect the roots of MD's mid- and late-60s playing in these recordings.

So 3 newsies that I really enjoyed this year were Tim Berne's INCIDENTALS, Vijay Iyer's FAR FROM OVER, and Chris Potter's THE DREAMER IS THE DREAM. In terms of new-to-me, some highlights: I spent a lot of time discovering Muhal Richard Abrams's Black Saint recordings (most of these were new to me), Art Ensemble of Chicago's FULL FORCE & NICE GUYS, Monteverdi's later madrigals (books 5-8), and David Bowie's albums from STATION TO STATION through SCARY MONSTERS.

I have most, not all of this, so I'll pick it up. Classic music.

Yup

Rhythm x - it's in the mosaic clifford jordan box so you can make it reappear

I've been working my way through Blythe's Columbia albums via the 2 BGO reissues. LENOX AVENUE BREAKDOWN is easily the best of the 5 albums I've heard so far, though they're all worthy. One question: the track that opens ILLUSIONS, "Bush Baby", sounds a heck of a lot like the music Miles Davis was making in the mid-1970s with the Pete Cosey band. Is this a case of influence, or convergent evolution?

underrated album!

Some gross stuff spilling out into the open within this thread

Perfectly stated.

yeah. though once you look past shock value, i'd say that some of the most awful offenses described in the piece are described by people who didn't agree to be interviewed

More generally I loved the interview...

Zoom in on a map and there are always new, interesting geographical details to be discovered, but you probably won't find new continents

Let me reword my question - If you were going to invest record company $$$ in more WR reissues with an eye to maximize ROI, is this box set what it would look like? Is there still a lot of demand for recordings from the MR GONE or NIGHT PASSAGE period? I have no idea, but one thing for sure, that demand has shrunk a lot more than demand for recordings from the SWEETNIGHTER or BODY ELECTRIC periods (though given a higher base, maybe there's still more hunger for live versions of "Young and Fine").

So I'm not sure I would make this argument in those words. But yes, I think people who are pretty deep into one corner of something will tend to overestimate how meaningful variation/details within that corner are to the world at large.

So here's a serious question. 35 years ago, maybe even as recently as 20 years ago, the audience of people defined by "I like Weather Report" preferred the group's Jaco Pastorius period. People that preferred earlier work were almost certainly a minority. A WR archival release program, if it had been around then, would have thought the 1978-81 "legendary live tapes" to be a no-brainer. As the group fades into history, is that still be the case? Or does whoever is in charge of the WR reissue program have a misconceived notion of what the fanbase looks like? Maybe the fanbase has atrophied/matured into "music geeks who like esoteric, retro music + people who like flashy bass players"

We should rebrand energy music as "the old thing"

100% agreed

So sure. But I think you could say this for pretty much every style. I think it's pretty clear that Wynton Marsalis for instance, was also exploring directions in which the art form can/will go. Even mature art forms - whether straight-ahead or free or whatever - aren't necessarily creatively exhausted.

RIP. A giant. I discovered a lot of his music over the past two years.

This is the show released officially as BLACK BEAUTY