Guy Berger

Cool. Aside from Solomon's Daughter and Spirits of Our Ancestors (as well as some live performances I attended), I'm embarrassingly blank on post-1973 Pharoah.

Is this a good album?

WHAT?!?!?! 50 hours of remedial listening to Blues & Roots, post-haste [your Antibes comment suggests you are talking about the Atlantic years more broadly, not just the 1970s Atlantics]

Listening to the first disc right now. Really good music, in the same tier and stylistic universe as live releases by John Handy and Charles Lloyd from the same period.

Have they shipped anything from the subscription series yet?

No disagreement with the assessments here. A useful calibration is to take your personal rating of The Giant Is Awakened, dock it 0.5-1.0 stars, and you’ll have a good idea of how much you’ll enjoy this reissue. Imho TGIA is a 5 star album, one of my favorites by Tapscott, and so I’m really loving this one too.

Enjoying this. I don’t think this is the BEST Tapscott I’ve heard but it’s very good. (Also I have a blind spot in that I am not a huge fan of Dwight Trible’s contributions here… I know that is a minority opinion.) ”Ballad of Deadwood Dick” is terrific, and “Breakfast at Bongo’s” is a Horace Silver type composition in a hard bop style that I don’t typically associate with Tapscott. Among the 3 Dark Tree HT releases, I’d rank this below the Covina Sessions but above Why Won’t You Listen.

Last night I saw Steve Lehman, Damion Reid and Matt Brewer at SFJazz. A mix of Lehman’s originals and some Anthony Braxton compositions. It was great. Brewer and Reid are an amazing combo. Apparently this trio plus Mark Turner will be recording a tribute to Braxton. (On Pi, I assume…)

Yea it’s a classic

I caught a reconstituted lineup of Miles from India at SFJazz over the weekend. I enjoyed it quite a bit, especially the first set - they just sounded great playing the late 1960s Miles stuff. The Indian music was not super well integrated but it didn’t really matter. The band did have a weird vibe though - the soloists didn’t really seem to be enjoying the music, and the saxophonist (Javon Jackson) left partway through the second set to catch a flight.

Love it! What a story

Mine arrived!

100% agreed

I’ve heard the first 5 albums on this box. imho the two Changes albums are must-hear. Don’t love everything on them, but a lot of it is classic music and the band is great. The best 1970s studio Mingus I’ve heard, by far. I’d rank Cumbia Jazz Fusion next. It’s fun, though not classic level. Mingus Moves and Three or Four Shades of Blue are fine. Nothing bad but I would be ok with not hearing them again.

Yes, spectacularly good set. Among the best jazz I’ve heard from that period.

The Pi albums are an exceptionally strong run. This would be the 11th, right?

I had COVID for the first time back in December. My symptoms were unpleasant, but not the end of the world. Like a mild flu or an extremely bad cold. I was tired, slightly feverish, cough and congestion. Was able to manage symptoms with regular strength advil. My wife didn't get it. My kids did; my older one (5) had symptoms like mine for 3 days and then rebounded, my younger one (2) was asymptomatic the whole time. I did take paxlovid and it was a miracle drug while I was taking it (almost entirely eliminated the symptoms) but I was unfortunate to get the "paxlovid rebound", which happens to 20-25% of the population (my symptoms returned after I took it). I don't know if I would do it again unless I was higher risk. (But if I was, I would definitely take it, even with risk of a rebound.) I had only a minor metallic taste side effect. My vaccines were fully up to date - I had the bivalent booster back in the fall as did my wife. My kids both had the under 5 vaccine. Vaccines don't 100% prevent you from getting COVID, but they almost certainly reduce your chances of getting COVID in any given circumstance. Especially if you're up to date on boosters. Recent prior infection, especially with omicron variants, also has this effect. This just isn't true. Vaccines and prior infection provide some, albeit imperfect, protection from infection. Unclear whether it's more or less than a good mask, but it's much better to be "up-to-date vaccinated but not masked" than "masked but not up-to-date vaccinated". (And a lot of masks people wear are not particularly effective - it's really silly to see people wearing surgical masks or cloth ones. You need a well-fitted N95.)

This is… a fair assessment of his strengths and weaknesses? He’s great at a lot of things but wasn’t well suited for WR’s post-1972 music. Also a fair assessment (along with “serial bullshitter”)

Listening to this on Spotify. Was not what I expected - fairly adventurous freebop.

There is at least one track with a spoken word section. But it’s brief and I like it!

Listen to the music on Spotify or another music sharing service - that way NimbusWest gets at least some of the money. NimbusWest should consider asking people to “donate” money for releases they’ve purchased….

What mjzee said. Wayne’s playing with WR in concert was generally more robust than that on the post-1972 studio albums, at least on the 1973-75 concerts I’ve listened to. We’ve talked a lot about Wayne’s solo albums, his work w/Blakey and Miles, WR - I want to call out his work on McCoy Tyner’s albums Expansions and Extensions. “Message from the Nile” has one of the greatest soprano saxophone solos I have ever heard.

Finally got around to listening to A Night in Copenhagen. Good stuff. Lloyd’s playing was really strong in the 1980s and early/mid 1990s - assertive, less noodly

The guy that comes to mind when listening to Lewis in this context is David Murray - though “cerebral technique” is a bigger part of Lewis’s style than Murray.

He plays on Henry Threadgill’s Double Up Plays Double Up Plus