Guy Berger

This is the kind of stuff that I had in mind. Music that lands in the same place as the Miles 2nd quintet, Coltrane’s classic quartet, the music that Shorter/Henderson/McLean/Hill were recording for Blue Note… it’s telling that these guys never included guitarists in their recordings prior to 1968. Someone mentioned Larry Coryell upthread - good callout. I’d put him in the same bucket as Szabo, Zollar.

Hendrix was not a jazz guitarist. Benson was a soul jazz guitarist, and Beck also strikes me as a fairly conservative player. Sonny Sharrock was an avant-gardist. Two folks who do fit into the bucket imho are Atilla Zollar (sp?) and Gabor Szabo, but they were relatively marginal in terms of importance.

Congrats!!! A few quick reactions to reading this thread. 1) he recorded a lot of music for Blue Note! A lot of his contemporaries would have dreamed of that opportunity (though I am guessing it might have been low-paying, high volume) 2) For a guy with his “stylistic comfort zone”, he got to record across a very wide range of contexts! I don’t think they were holding him back in that respect. 3) His batting average over a very large number of recordings is quite high Fwiw, it’s interesting that until John McLaughlin came on the scene there was no big-name post bebop guitarist, in contrast to other major jazz instruments. GG was the guy that BN chose to experiment with that space. Don’t we have more recorded evidence of GG in adventurous contexts than WM? I think it’s telling that WM quickly left JC’s band, it’s hard to imagine him fitting in with most of their post-1960 recordings.

He’s great on Tim Berne’s Diminutive Mysteries.

I recently picked up McHenry's 3 albums w/Ben Monder, Reid Anderson and Paul Motian. They're very good. One thing that stands out - especially on Roses and Ghosts of the Sun - is how much this music revolves around Motian's idiosyncratic style. It's just really hard to imagine what this music would sound like with a different drummer. McHenry has a great sense for avant-garde drummers, given his subsequent partnership w/Andrew Cyrille.

Wilkins plays on a few excellent tracks from that superb Julius Hemphill box set that came out a few years ago.

How much of this do you think is just an “early career” thing?

Was listening to the 2nd Big Satan album, Souls Saved Hear. Better imho than the first - just wonderful, compact anarchy. Marc Ducret is so good.

what’s it going to take for a record label to make another Bennie Maupin album? These two were excellent - the guy has a track record!!!!

Moraz had zero impact on the trajectory either way. The band was starting to run out of ideas by the early 1970s. Fair characterization. A huge contributor to their sound, which coupled w/Justin Hayward and John Lodge’s superior songwriting made the early MB albums worn so well. There are a few instrumentals by him on the early MB albums that are awesome.

This is very good! Thanks for the recommendation.

Dang. One of the most important non-musicians in jazz over the past 50 years.

There was lots of griping at the time about his “productivity” but I am glad we have so many recordings of him There’s a new one forthcoming on Intakt in the next month or two

Terrific! Even though I’m pretty behind on actually listening to this music 🤣

Btw I ended up exploring the albums from the debut through Arthur, all on Spotify. I was able to also explore a lot of the great non album tracks. Personal taste but I’d rank in terms of quality: Face to Face (4.5 stars) Something Else (4.5 stars) Village Green Preservation Society (4 stars) Arthur (3.5 stars) Kinda Kinks (3.5 stars, largely on the strength of the 1965 singles which are bonus tracks on the Spotify version) Kink Kontroversy (3 stars) Kinks (2 stars)

So I’m finally getting around to listening to Volume 1! Very good music, if you like Horace’s music you won’t be disappointed - though it’s not the best HT I have heard.

This one and Early Reflections are both incredibly good albums. Wish Benny would record more.

RIP. Added a lot to some good recordings.

They were indeed great. They played a Hemphill tune and Berne told a funny story - he’d seen Hemphill playing this tune with Lester Bowie and Don Moye in a venue with 3 people in the audience - Berne, Marty Ehrlich and one other person. This was the first time Berne and Ehrlich met.

Tim Berne, Greg Belisle-Chi, and Tom Rainey trio

Mine arrived. I’m a little confused about the numbering but I think so far we have 1, 2, 6, 8, and 11?

I first got into jazz and had the same experience. I mostly “knew of him” because my dad (who wasn’t a big jazz fan) liked him.

Good take.

Not interested in this book, but definitely interested in more Unicorse content

Imho the best seasons are: 4 (this is the Producers season) 6 (the Seinfeld reunion one) 7 (the one that partly takes place in NYC) i haven’t watched the newest season, and found the last few to be disappointing (though certainly they have their moments)