Guy Berger

This is going to be our life for the foreseeable future and your gradual change in mindset strikes me as pretty normal. Going forward, vaccinated adults (and kids) will mostly experience COVID as a nuisance similar to other respiratory illnesses we periodically get from time to time, whereas unvaccinated adults will be rolling the dice with a potentially very serious illness.

IMHO the other 3 Fillmore West April 1970 shows are better than this one, though I like this one too.

Maybe it’s more a personal taste thing than any objective assessment of quality, but IMHO Columbia’s post Bitches Brew issuance decisions were poorly prioritized.

Probably On the Corner?

Enjoying this. No particular thoughts yet, it has a similar vibe to Turner’s prior ECM quartet album.

Probably not, given the typical ALS prognosis?

How much of this is due to Mingus’s roots as a third stream composer? FWIW in the liner notes to Mingus Dynasty he makes derogatory comments about film music but also implies that “Far Wells, Mill Valley” is inspired by it.

I like Notorious Byrd Brothers a lot, but IMHO Younger than Yesterday is a better album (and the best Byrds album I’ve heard). I don’t really get the fascination w/Gene Clark (though “I’ll Probably Feel a Whole Lot Better” and “She Don’t Care About Time” are masterpieces)

I picked up the Lightcap album SUPERBIGMOUTH, which combines the Bigmouth group (Cleaver, Taborn, Malaby, Lightcap, Cheek) w/the Superette group (two guitarists and another drummer). Released on the Pyroclastic label which I believe is run by pianist Kris Davis. The music is very enjoyable. More rock oriented than Bigmouth as you can imagine, at times a bit of an homage to the best of 70s fusion. (The first track is called “Through Birds, Through Fire” which I assume is a Mahavishnu homage? Though the intro also reminds me of “Neal & Jack & Me” by King Crimson - those interlocking dual guitars.) I wouldn’t put it quite at the same level as the two Clean Feed albums (Deluxe and Epicenter) but is better IMHO than the two Fresh Sound albums. Worth picking up if you like Lightcap’s work.

I haven’t heard anywhere near every single bootleg and a lot of this just reflects my personal taste, but I love every live recording I’ve heard from the 1967 and 1969 bands. The 1969 gigs from October/November are particularly mind-boggling. IMHO the Plugged Nickel stuff is great to have, but is overrated relative to other recordings by that band, probably because it was the only widely available recording for some time. Re later bands - imho the Cellar Door band was much better w/DeJohnette than Ndugu, and the Cellar Door recordings themselves are amazing. I’ve really underinvested in listening to the 1972-75 bands’ unofficial recordings and hope to correct that in the coming decades.

IMHO the correlation between “officially released” and “best” live 1955-1975 Miles Davis recordings is close to zero

A label called “Sounds of Yesteryear” has issued Mingus’s 1959/1971 Newport performances. Is this a legit label or not?

Discovering Science Friction (Berne, Taborn, Ducret, Rainey) this week - so far just the studio album. It’s really good and fairly accessible by Berne’s standards.

I caught Ben Monder, Tony Malaby, and Tom Rainey at SFJAZZ tonight - my first concert since COVID began. it was really good - reminded me of a jazz take on late 60s / early 70s German guitar/electronic music like Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel or Guru Guru. It was my first time seeing Rainey in concert and… holy shit. The guy is a monster!!!!

Both the Jarrett band and the Cosey/Lucas band were represented on the Newport box. My interpretation is Sony just doesn’t think there’s that much buyer appetite for this music, rightly or wrongly. Folks who want to hear more (which is worth it!) should just go ahead and find the recordings without waiting for the record company.

Wow! Seems like a cool thing for any musician to put in their bio, “makes music so powerful it makes long-deceased people (and one living person) nervous”

Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but aside from Jackie McLean, Lou Donaldson and Ornette Coleman, did Blue Note record more than 2-3 albums led by any individual alto saxophonist? Maybe Lion/Wolff didn’t care for the instrument, or the market/audience for alto saxophonists wasn’t very big relative to trumpet or tenor. Also seems significant that, aside from the Freddie Hubbard albums, Spaulding was usually featured in ensembles with at least two other horns.

He talks about it here

Tyshawn Sorey posted the following on his Instagram: ”We (TS, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell trio) also managed to record an album featuring my compositions (along with a couple of them by JL and BF) on July 7, 2021 with the intention of having it released soon this year. It would have been my first recording for @ecm_records as a leader. However, this process too has been slowed down due to restrictions; i.e., the inability to be in a mixing and mastering room with Manfred Eicher in Europe or in New York. But we are still working very hard together on making this happen as soon as possible. More details on that front, as I'm also doing another very big project with them, and we don't yet know which will come out first on ECM.”

Listening to a lot of mid-50s Stan Getz and imho Getz sounds way better with Lou Levy than w/Peterson. Peterson sounds clunky behind Getz.

Mark Turner has a quartet album coming out on ECM this spring, Return from the Stars. (Presumably named after the Stanislaw Lem novel.) The quartet is trumpeter Jason Palmer, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Jonathan Pinson. I really enjoyed Lathe of Heaven (his prior album on ECM, from 2014) and am looking forward to this one.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking about - that and also the contrapuntal texture of the music.

RB is Ronnie Boykins, right?

Finally got around to listening to Secrets from this box set! (One of the oldest items remaining in my backlog!) Really good, just like this duo’s other early work.

Thanks for sharing! Interesting interview.