Guy Berger

I also have this box set, and this is my sentiment as well.

We saw this quintet (Soundprints) last night at the Village Vanguard: Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano, Lawrence Fields (piano), Linda Oh (bass) and Joey Baron. Very good. I was actually most impressed with Douglas, who I hadn't listened to much prior. Joey Baron was also great as usual. I didn't hear a lot of connection to Wayne's music - not a criticism, I appreciate the fact that it wasn't a repertory group. Worth checking out if they come to your neighborhood.

One possible suggestion is to cap the thread after a certain number of pages and start a new thread under the same title [Funny Rat Part XIII etc]. JCS does this and I think it's useful for keeping things manageable.

I've heard 3 of the four albums here - Inflation Blues being the exception (so I'll be getting the box!). The first, self-titled, album is an absolute classic. Tin Can Alley and Album Album are both very good though not flawless. According to Steve Lake over at Jazz Central Station, ECM is also on the verge of releasing a 6 CD box of Paul Motian's early ECM albums: Conception Vessel, Tribute, Dance, Le Voyage, Psalm and It Should've Happened a Long Time Ago. I believe Ethan Iverson is writing the liner notes.

Somewhat - but that album is very heavy on In a Silent Way/Bitches Brew material. In the summer/fall of 1969, the band was still playing a lot of material from earlier in the '60s (Footprints, Masquelero) and even some tunes from the '50s (Round Midnight, Milestones, No Blues). Even those tunes get pretty abstract, though. There are other differences to my ears. Chick wasn't using the heavy processing on his electric piano yet, so it sounds like a "clean" electric piano sound. Airto is absent. The rhythm section has a lighter feel. And generally speaking, the "new" tunes are approached in a much less rock-oriented way during the 1969 concerts - "It's About That Time" and "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" were vehicles for free improvisation, especially after Miles's solo. This is probably oversimplifying things grossly, but the 1969 quintet played free jazz with electric piano. The sextet that played the Fillmore East in 1970 did some of that, but also more groove-oriented music. As 1970 advanced, Miles's live groups cut down on the amount of free music and increased the amount of groove-oriented music.

RIP.

The live shows are indeed where so much of this stuff was fully realized...and I don't know that the music was made to be exalted per se...I think Miles had gotten all that out of his system and wanted to challenge the popular culture (which is not the same as Pop Culture) for personal reasons at least as much as he did musical ones - but still on his terms, with his "flavor" still intact by the time it was all said and done. Agreed 100%. The argument that "it will never undergo the same re-evaluation as the 70s music" is a total straw man, re-evaluation is not a binary choice between "this is commercial garbage" and "this is amazing, innovative, classic music".

It was a Mosaic of a bunch of BN sessions under Joe's name, a lot of them with Wayne Shorter on tenor. The last one in the box was an Ascension style large-ensemble jam session. When I woke up and realized none of this music actually existed, I was a little sad.

This is an interesting discussion. It seems to me like there has already been a fair amount of re-evaluation of the 80s music, especially as more live recordings have circulated. I don't think we will ever see it exalted at the same level as the 70s music for multiple reasons, but (for example) I would guess its reputation has held up better than that of the music W Marsalis made during the same period. By the way, "Jean Pierre" was included in the recent Murray-Waldron duets disc. Any other examples of 80s Miles entering the repertoire?

The comment to Dave might also have come later. Between the Nov 1969 concerts in Europe and the Mar 1970 concerts at the Fillmore East, the amount of vamp playing in Miles's live music increased a lot.

Looks like we got off relatively lucky on the UWS (though who knows when/if our power will go out). I walked around with Henry the dog and some trees were knocked down along with various scaffolding, etc. I didn't see any major damage. Hope people in harder-hit areas are OK.

To be fair to the "other guys", Jimmy and Elvin played together for 4 years.

Lots of wind where we are (upper west side). Our dog is terrified. Stressful experience, crossing our fingers for those people who have lost power and/or are suffering from flooding. Hope board members in south Jersey, Delaware and Maryland are OK.

I was a little embarrassed for Carter when I read that. ethan iversion ron carter interview

I made this point earlier, but worth repeating. Let's say you have a storm that has 40% chance of doing $10 million in damage and killing 1 person, 30% change of doing $100 million in damage and killing 10 people, 20% of doing $1 billion damage and killing 100 people, and 10% change of doing $10 billion in damage and killing 1000 people, a good weather forecaster should place significant emphasis on the 10% catastrophe scenario even though there's a 70% chance that it will be only a moderate disaster. This is important to understanding why so many people in the aftermath of a such a storm think "overhype." In fact, 9 out of 10 storms will be milder than the worst-case scenario. Storms ARE "overhyped", but for sound reasons. (The specific numbers here are made up, but the logic is not.)

I'm surprised neither of them pointed out that we're all brains in vats, anyway.

Brilliant.

I have this one in the "yet-to-listen-to" pile, but I would think Wayne's tenor playing would almost make it worth hearing even if everyone else was just playing fart noises.

Yes, no doubt. Disaster porn.

I've had difficulty determining why this is going to be a particularly horrendous storm. In NYC it looks like it will pound us with ridiculous amounts of rain and some intense, though most likely sub-hurricane force winds. I Obviously people who are in areas vulnerable to flooding are in much bigger danger (lots of leaves clogging gutters given the time of year). Power could get knocked out in lots of places. My perspective as an economic forecaster... as human beings we tend to focus on the mean/median scenario, and that's what forecasters usually emphasize. Unfortunately, we have a "nonlinear loss function" here - the extra damage if things turn out (a lot) worse than expected will be (many) orders of magnitude worse than if they turn out in line with the most likely scenario. So it makes a lot of sense to warn people about bad, or REALLY bad, scenarios, even if relatively unlikely.

RIP. I saw him live once (or maybe twice) with Matthew Shipp, William Parker and (I think) Guillermo Brown. Really enjoyed it. I also have three albums, one of which I think is fantastic (Dao). Anyway, I liked his playing. I checked him out right after going on a major late Coltrane kick and noticing his name mentioned in this context. He had a very striking tone - it was big, harsh, and brittle - without the softness that Coltrane retained in his final music. Reminds me a little of Hawk, now that I think about it. I also enjoyed the "rigor" of his playing. Condolences to his family.

I remember reading this and really enjoying it. My only miniquibble was the ratings scale which I thought was silly.

I may eventually upgrade to the Mosaic, but the 4cd columbia set is fantastic.

When I first started listening to jazz in the late 90s, I read this kind of commentary on a regular basis. And I still think it's out there, unfortunately.

Great article. Shifting tastes amd demographics are doing the same thing to smooth jazz that they previously did to other jazz subgenres.