Guy Berger

What about the liner notes where LP passively-aggressively trashes Coltrane?

I felt like I'm a hypocrite here since I tend to think like Iverson, but that felt like a series of contrarian and often self-contradictory views slapped together as a gripe about post-1960 jazz. What's the core thesis?

RIP. "Backwoods Song", "Timeless" and "East Virginia West Memphis" are among my favorite jazz, period, and his playing is a core part of why.

What do folks think of this recording? I recently listened to it for the first time and found myself enjoying it quite a bit! I thought it might be a little too abstract for my taste, but I was wrong.

Yup. Amazing. (The show has in general gotten much better along all dimensions over the past few seasons.)

Great movie!

I agree with Dan.

THIS IS EXCITING

Yes. Like any other sound it depends!

Vijay has a new one titled FAR FROM OVER coming out in late August on ECM - a sextet recording with Graham Haynes, Mark Shim, Steve Lehman, Stephan Crump & Tyshawn Sorey.

I saw Gateway at Yoshi's in the summer of 2001. Not sure if there's been anything more recent.

RIP Geri. One of the finest pianists of her generation.

That sucks. Hope she recovers quickly.

How was this album? The lineup looked promising.

I saw Potter + Virelles playing material from the album earlier this week. Ben Street and Dan Weiss were on drums. Outstanding, one of the best jazz concerts I've seen in the last few years.

I heard one track from this - "Avian Kingdom" - on Pandora. Wow! Reminded me of those great Vesala albums from the late 80s/early 90s. Maybe I'll check out the entire album. Guy

This is a great album, but it's not a bossa nova album re the Cannonball recommendations - it's not my favorite Cannonball, but it's quite good and certainly far better than the allmusic rating suggests

Re Japan, I think "bloated" is closer to my thinking than "dense". (Though I prefer "unfocused" or "diffuse", and probably like it better than Scott.) I feel like there is a lot of wandering when nothing is happening, like the group wasn't caught on its best day(s). Re Seattle, I also think it's a mixed bag. The opening track is magnificent - the raucous saxophone choir on top of the burning Tyner-Garrison-Jones rhythm section is thrilling. A great glimpse at a path-not-taken. Some of the longer performances I'm less crazy about. The "Creation" track that JSngry posted - from the Half Note, 1965 - is one of the best Classic Quartet tracks out there, full stop. I'm in this camp too. I don't mind when he's playing, but would trade that in a heartbeat for more Coltrane playing. And I find Pharoah's playing with Don Cherry around the same time to be more satisfying, probably because Don provides more contrast. So I've agreed with you thus far, Scott, but this is a road too far. When I listen to SUN SHIP or FIRST MEDITATIONS, I hear a rhythm section that's 100% engaged and committed to making very radical music. If they're uncomfortable, I don't hear it. I'm not sure if Elvin and McCoy would have hung around if Coltrane had kept exploring in the quartet format, but it's not inconceivable.

I had my doubts about this before I picked up Steve's solo album Invisible Paths and they were quickly dissipated; as a musician he has such a strong sense of rhythm. On the other hand, I did find his first two Pi Recordings a little disappointing because of the light rhythmic feel

The main reason I'm skeptical is that it's hard to imagine recordings that exist in those archives that don't already circulate unofficially.

I've barely scratched the surface in this genre but the Coleman (INVISIBLE PATHS) and Lacy (ONLY MONK) are outstanding.

Isn't this "completeness" a function of the inclusion of spuriously-attributed works? As an aside, I'm not really sure anybody genuinely *needs* a "complete Mozart symphonies" cycle. You certainly need the final 6 symphonies (35-41), should probably hear the 4 previous ones (31-34), and there are some genuine gems among the Salzburg symphonies (#29 is a personal favorite). Everything with an Kochel catalogue number below 100 is skippable.

Pinnock is great!

He made more bad Bond movies then anyone else - not his fault, though in his anti-defense he collected the paychecks

Potter's new quartet album with David Virelles and Marcus Gilmore The Dreamer Is the Dream is very good!