Guy Berger

Recently listening to Trio Fascination. Fantastic session, Elvin is on fire here.

Unfortunately, that's only true of the second disc of the "Last Savoy Sessions." I'll be darned. I had an unopened copy of the Savoy set and had assumed it was redundant. But now I'm glad I have it. Though I am sure one of the European labels will cover this eventually and obviously it's available on MP3 as well.

Eh. This album has its moments for sure, but I think the band was past its creative prime by this point. The experimental edge was almost entirely gone as was Rick Wright's creative input. I'd compare it to some other late 70s prog rock albums like Going for the One and Wind & Wuthering. Nice albums, but not on the level of their earlier work.

Just get the Fresh Sound "Yusef's Mood" 4 CD box - it's in print and includes all the material in the Savoy sessions box, and a lot more.

I've been slowly making my way through the 4-cd 1957 sessions box, in particular I've listened to the two sessions which generated Jazz Mood and Jazz for Thinkers, and Ubu is right, they are brilliant. Some of the very best Lateef I've heard.

This reminds me of the story about how on his first British tour, audiences were shocked to hear Muddy Waters playing with an electric guitar and a pounding beat. (Didn't he go acoustic-only for his second tour as a result?)

I loved this movie too. Much better than the overrated "Artist".

Jarrett's on record saying that as a budding jazz pianist he loved Bley's trio recordings.

I don't see how the "revelation" that players "shoot to kill" (so to speak) shatters any "illusions" created by staged prayers, flyovers, martial music, suffocating corporate miasma, whatever. Hell, it just reinforces them. America loves shoot-to-kill and America loves to sentimentalize it. Organized savagery is the wave of the future if the present social/economic trends continue. The illusions are the reality. Having said all that, I still love a good football game. But not like that. In many ways this is similar to steroid usage in baseball. It's all part of the spectacle that fans want.

Not surprising. It's a violent sport.

Without haggling over what does or does not qualify one as an anti-Semite, it fits pretty comfortably in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion tradition.

Speaking of irony, it puts him in a similar role within the history of western anti-Semitism that Eric Alexander plays within the history of jazz!

You gotta remember, Baraka was a "radical", musically and socially. His patience for the status quo was next to nil, and having real, viable options at hand just made it more so. No, I don't think the timing explains it. Sorry. If Blues People had been written in 1959 I think he would have been just as dismissive of the genre. Even before the free jazz era, Baraka was looking for musical rebels, and the hard boppers definitely weren't that. I'm not an expert on Jones/Baraka, but he writes very warm liner notes regarding Gene Ammons's Boss Tenor. While the album doesn't fit into the hard-bop genre, if anything it's more traditional. Guy

Tim, thanks for taking the time to offer your thoughts on this board.

He's also on Passing Ships. And Jaki Byard's Lennie's at the Turnpike albums. I'm surprised nobody's mentioned his work on Chick Corea's Tones for Joan's Bones, which is brilliant.

I've been recently exploring the Lloyd back catalog - Of Course Of Course, Notes from Big Sur, and Acoustic Masters I. NfBS is prob my favorite of the 3, and my opinion one of the best from the ECM run, but the other two are excellent two. Acoustic Masters is a nice example of Lloyd playing in a relatively mainstream setting - Cedar Walton is an interesting contrast to the more "modern" pianists Lloyd has played with on ECM. Guy

Just listened to Ode to the Death of Jazz for the first time last week. Great album. Another one I heard for the first time last year was Satu (from the 1970s). I now know what would have happened if Charles Mingus and Gil Evans had moved to Finland and raised a baby together.

I've been going through the Penguin History of Britain series (currently on the volume covering 1066-1300) but unfortunately the volumes covering 1715-1900 have not been published yet and I would be interested in an alternative. I'd like something that combines both political/military and social/economic history, preferably not political-agenda driven.

The advanced age of audiences at classical music concerts is something that I fortunately don't see at jazz concerts.

I saw Oscar as part of a Motian group in 2011 - an interesting lineup with Bill McHenry, Russ Lossing, and Eivind Opsik. I liked his playing. WIll check this one out.

Maybe a better idea would be to post a link to the ECM website, or alternatively to start a different thread titled "ECM press releases".

I don't know how much this will apply to the two records in question, but on the most recent Motian album (which I liked a lot) there was a highly unrepresentative selection of performances, tilted toward (surprise surprise) ballad tempos. So the ECM aesthetic, whatever you feel about it, can sneak into live recordings too. That was NOT the ECM aesthetic. That was the Motian aesthetic. It has a very different feel than albums recorded under Motian's name for Winter & Winter, or for that matter the live performance I caught at the Vanguard around the same time (with Greg Osby subbing for Chris Potter). Again, this is not a criticism, just a fact.

I don't know how much this will apply to the two records in question, but on the most recent Motian album (which I liked a lot) there was a highly unrepresentative selection of performances, tilted toward (surprise surprise) ballad tempos. So the ECM aesthetic, whatever you feel about it, can sneak into live recordings too.

Can anyone clarify what's in the Pharoah box for those of us who can't watch the video?

Amusing bit of trivia I found in Losin: