Guy Berger

I thought this one was pretty cheesy. Guy

While I might give the sextet with Yusef a slightly higher overall grade based on YL's playing, Cannonball, Joe and Nat were much more interesting/exciting players at this point. Plus, Joe was entering his peak as a composer around this period - the breadth of his work, from shamelessly populist to utterly experimental and everything in between, is impressive.

The 1969 Cannonball recordings from Europe are awesome. Guy

He also played the Hammersmith Odeon in 1969, and then the Royal Festival Hall in 1971. I didn't realize he played London in 1967 - too bad it wasn't recorded. Guy

Over the past few years I've engaged in a semi-demented quest to acquire all officially-released Monk recordings. That said, as far as live recordings I have the 1957 Carnegie Hall, the 1958 Five Spots, the It Club, the Jazz Workshop, the two big band releases, and the Tokyo. Basically there are a few I haven't picked up yet. Are these worth getting, or are they "more of the same"? Monk at the Blackhawk Monk in Italy Monk in France Newport 1958/1963

Hey all, I was trying to burn an audio CD using itunes 9 and all of a sudden my burner started creating coasters after no problems previously. The initial error I kept getting was "4251". I tried several fixes - rebooting, reinstalling itunes, slowing my burning speed, I also tried installing an alternate program and burning with it (cdburnerxp). None of them worked - I'm still generating coasters (though the errors have changed somewhat - most recently I got a 4260). I assume this is a hardware problem - I've been using my burner a lot recently, and maybe it just crapped out (though for goodness sake - this computer is less than 2 years old!). If this IS a hardware problem - should I send the computer for a replacement burner drive, or buy an external? Thanks for any and all advice. Guy

Thanks guys. This has been another great birthday... sleeping a lot and vegging by the pool. In a few hours I'll be going to get cajun food with friends.

Why can't you blame him? He's been the failure the last two years, not them. Anyway, one more reason to root against the city of Miami.

Any thoughts about this guy? I heard a few clips on youtube a while back and enjoyed them - seems like he inhabits the area between post-bop, free, and jazz-rock. He also recently recorded some music with Robert Fripp. Seems worth investigating.

For what it's worth - it gets all of these guys out of the way. So we're not going to get to collectively groan again for Branford and Wynton separately.

A serious contender for the Nobel Peace Prize, in my opinion. I'm genuinely surprised there's opposition to this... Guy

The live performance of A Love Supreme is among the most essential live Coltrane out there... I'd even put it ahead of the Vanguard box.

While the discographical snafus in the box were unfortunate, there's no denying there is plenty of amazing music here (particularly on the last 3 or 4 discs.) Guy

The Cannonball is awesome, one of my favorites among his pre-Yusef records. Note sure if I'd call it "essential", but it's always a very pleasant surprise. The Silvers are nice - not essential within his body of work.

Never knew that. Perhaps I should look for those. Is one of them "Symphony for improvisers"? MG Yes - classic album. He also played on the very good Where Is Brooklyn. Guy

Thanks Ubu.

I've been burning some live Cannonball onto CDs and noticed I have two broadcasts of the sextet from the Half Note (Feb. 1965), both downloaded from the site which must not be named - one supposedly from the 2nd of February and another from the 5th of February. Both have the same set list. I assume it's the same gig but haven't had the pleasure of listening yet - anybody able to verify? Guy

This is all pure speculation, but nobody says it can't be fun. I think Pete C's suggestion of greater Africanisms in Coltrane's music post-1967 is in the right direction - that was a major thread in avant-garde jazz. As far as going electric, we know that Trane owned (and endorsed in an ad!) a varitone and practiced with it, though it never appeared on record or live. Given Trane's interest in exploring new sounds and textures, I think there's a pretty good chance he would have played with electric instruments - plenty of avant-garde artists did after he died. And I think there's also a good chance that at least some of his music would have incorporated rhythms from popular music - another common thread in a lot of 70s avant-garde jazz. None of this is fusion, mind you. And finally, I think that some of the radical bent of his music may have faded over time. I don't mean that he would have reverted to playing hard bop, but simply that many other avant-garde artists of the 60s and early 70s de-edged their music as time went on. But of course, who knows.

"I'm not just saying this to be amusing: To be even as bad as I am, you do have to practice every day," says Allen, with a small, almost imperceptible chuckle. "I'm a strict hobby musician. I don't have a particularly good ear for music. I'm a very poor musician, like a Sunday tennis player." ... "If I don't practice for a day for any reason, which is really rare, I feel so guilty that it's not worth it to me," Allen says. "If I was able to practice a lot more, if I was able to practice five hours a day, I would never be great. It's not in me."

I like Misterioso a lot but thought One Time Out was a dud.

That was a very interesting thread, actually, despite generating some heated discussion. I've probably only heard about ten recordings with Murray (as either a sideman or leader), but have liked his playing on pretty much all of them. I don't really get the passionate hostility he seems to generate in some listeners, but we all have different ears. Guy

The LeBron propaganda machine is trying very hard to shift the blame away from him and toward the rest of the team.

The 1967 tape has decent sound (for a boot) and has the group's only known live recording of "Dolores" as well as its final live recording of "Stella by Starlight". Guy

Yeah seems like a waste. (Though I would be interested if they separately released an audio-only version - it's a great concert.) Sony isn't releasing worthy of my interest this time around. Guy

What an awesome dog, Dan. Props for taking care of him so well! Guy