Guy Berger

Recently picked up both of the Snakeoil albums during their performance at the Jazz Standard. So far only listened to the 1st one. Very good

Yes... love his work on this instrument - the ballad "Past Is Past" on TJitL.

Agreed with Bev. At first I was underwhelmed with the Remember Shakti albums (I've only heard the 2-disc and The Believer) - they are more reflective, less in-your-face than the self-titled live album - but they grew on me a lot.

The arms race of ever-high-alcohol beers is not really surprising given human nature, but I would guess this novelty doesn't taste particularly good.

Silly question, or maybe not. I have been itching to pull the trigger on the Muhal Richard Abrams BS/SN box for a while. But on Amazon it is consistently more expensive than nearly every other box in this series. For example, a new MRA box can only be purchased for $43.08, whereas a new Dixon box can be purchased for $31.72, a new Braxton box for $28.40 and a new Pullen box for $24.87. Is there any place to get the MRA box for a lower price?

The difference is you save your money to buy something else which does go to the artist or a high-quality reissuer.

The new one is as good as the best by him: Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street. I recently listened to this one for the first time (I bought it from the now-extinct yourmusic.com a long time ago). Wonderful record. Probably not for those who want "jazz".

Time Out was one of the first straight-ahead albums I ever got. But assuming we're excluding that, as well as stuff like Birth of the Cool, Way Out West, Mingus, Getz's West Coast Jazz, JImmy Giuffre's Free Fall and the MJQ, my first full-on encounter with this music was the Chico Hamilton Mosaic. After that I picked up the Mulligan/Baker 2CD set and a few Shelly Manne OJCs from the early 50s. I like everything, or almost everything, I've heard from this scene, though I'll also admit few if any of these fall recordings fall into my "top top top favorites" list.

I buy some of these sets, so I'm probably just honoring in the breach, but I am 100% behind this sentiment. Especially when it comes to PD labels who put out a low quality product.

Jon, I think it's a tribute to the quality/worthiness of your reissue program that you've encouraged friendly bickering among board members about what you should reissue next!

I finally read John LeCarre's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, which I loved, and naturally jumped to Night Soldiers next. Fantastic. The section in Civil War wracked Spain was particularly amazing. Now onto Dark Star. And it looks like, per Bev's recommendation, I should also check out David Downing.

Agreed. I'll take the Miles albums (and unofficial recordings) recorded with Wayne during 1964-69 over the Wayne BNs, easy. But I like the latter a lot too.

Life's too short to watch a video of this guy. Can some kind soul share the text of whatever idiocy came out of his mouth this time?

I had to check the calendar to make sure this wasn't an April Fool's joke. I will still assume this is a joke until confirmed otherwise. (Though, given the creation of Restoration Ruin and Spirits, not entirely surprising if this is not a joke.) OK: apparently, the forthcoming existence of this release is not a joke, whatever the jokiness of the musical contents.

I doubt there is any new music on the new box sets (though wasn't there a screwup where they cut off the beginning of "Rotation"?). But people craving more from this group should search for their unofficial recordings.

He did 8 albums. However, Fort Yawuh (live at the Village Vanguard) is expanded to 2 discs. Essential music.

"Droid" is a marketing term used by Verizon for a line of their Android phones. If it's not on Verizon, it's not a "Droid". "Droid" and "android" are used interchangeably in common parlance to refer to phones running the Android OS.

This discussion made me dig out Third. Great album. I think it's an "imperfect" masterpiece; not a criticism, I would say much the same about many of Miles's electric explorations. And yeah, the Nicholson book is definitely worth reading because his "eclectic origins of jazz rock" seems right to me (though in retrospect he probably should have spent more time on the cross-pollination between R&B and jazz during the post-WW2 era. (When was IaSW released in the UK?)

First off, Ed, I hope your healing process is going well. Second, I have been road cycling for about 5 years now. My first bike (aside from ones I had as a kid/teen) was a Specialized hybrid I picked up when I started doing triathlons. I wasn't sure at the time that I really wanted to be a road cyclist and wanted something versatile. After a few races I realized I liked road biking and got a Trek (the 1.2, which I think is the most basic model). I even got my fiancee into it somewhat, she has a low-end Specialized road bike and joins me on occasion. I'm not a fanatic cyclist (never done a century - not sure I am motivated enough to do it), but I do like to do one 20-mile ride every week during the warmer months. That's one thing I miss about living in the southeast US - I used to be able to bike almost year-round (or at least, from February through November). Here in NYC it's really an April-October proposition. I usually do loops around Central Park. Unfortunately we recently moved to the southern half of Manhattan which makes it a pain to get to the Park - it's actually pretty terrifying. My biggest weakness as a cyclist is that I'm usually not that motivated to push myself hard, I do the CP loops at an overly-leisurely pace unless I'm with one of my more hard-core cycling buddies.

I don't think it's an amazing version (or a bad version), but I love Lee Morgan's "Yesterday" (on DELIGHTFULEE) just because we get to hear Wayne on it - was this the only time he soloed on a Beatles tune? I think generally speaking, post-1980 jazz interpretations of Beatles material are better; 1960s jazz musicians didn't always have a great rapport with this music, and their interpretations sometimes came off as commercial pandering.

I have the Live Trane box so I have this music in that format, and it's great!

1stpress, are you more interested in music that explores the adventurous end of freebop (much like the mid 60s Coltrane quartet) or in music that's directly/obviously influenced by Coltrane's mid-60s group? These overlap somewhat but I think they could lead you in different directions.

...vs music sold through amazon or other outlets? I assume the answer is yes, but just wanted to verify.

The phenomenon this article describes rings true to me. When I lived in a largeish city in NC, the city orchestra's repertory concerts had a very elderly audience. I think it will get into progressively deeper trouble as they pass away. That said, I didn't really understand the point of the article beyond that. The southern orchestra I mentioned was extremely conservative in its repertoire - playing something like Bruckner or early Sibelius was as adventurous as they got. I'm not saying this isn't worth preserving, but let's also not romanticize it too much. So what if they do various pops concerts or try to reach out to a wider audience. For what it's worth, audiences at NYC classical concerts tend to be younger than in NC (though still older than jazz audiences) but also project WEALTH. So it is a pretty narrow cross-section of society.

Yeah, well, if Joerg's a good promoter/supporter (and not just a smart business person), he should try and place such stories, maybe, rather than hitting the face of the youngster (and damn, I said it in 2001 and I still say it, she's a darn fine drummer) that does get a story. I found Tsahar's reply mostly very moderately and sensibly worded, I was kinda expecting a shitstorm but not there (and I don't like Tsahar's music much better than Ware's so that's nothing to do with my perception here). Agreed.100%, Ubu. Joerg and co. were pretty sleazy here.