AllenLowe

wel, getting it in is not too difficult - it's getting it OUT that's a problem -

I actually have never listened to the Schaap Benny Goodman - maybe if I get up the urge I'll pick it up and do a before and after with CEDAR -

Strangers inthe Afternoon All the Things You Ain't What is this thing Called, Love? Queasy Living I Hear Shaun Cassidy But Not For Us It's Easier to Forget

hmmm - you want 20 tenors who can play inside/outside better than Murray? here goes - in no particular order: Benny Wallace Joe Lovano Sam Rivers Von Freeman Fred Anderson Ed Wilkerson Wayne Shorter Warne Marsh John Coltrane Ellery Eskelin Ira Sullivan Sonny Rollins Allen Lowe (when he has time to practice) Archie Shepp well, that's 14 - there's more, but I'm a little tired right now -

nobody made it into a contest - I just said I thought Max was the world's greatest drummer - until about 1965. What I am referring to, re-changing with the times, is the problem some musicians have when trying to keep up with perceived changes in the music, instead of doing what they do best and adapting THAT to the changes. I heard this negatively impact on Al Haig when I knew him ( in some of his later playing he floundered a bit with modality), in Walter Bishop's later work (his system of fourths), on Art Pepper (brilliant when not trying to conjure up the ghost of Coltrane). With Roach I heard a style based on an iron grip and steel-like time-keeping become mechanical in the search for freer forms of jazz. Nothing he played post 1965 is as musical nor as interesting as his work with, say, Sonny Rollins in 1956. That's just the way I hear it. I find Max profoundly complex, by the way. He was capable of both great orthodoxy (in some of his social views, see Notes and Tones) and personal generousity. While ocasionally hung up on a racially determinist view of jazz (as in declaring it can be played only by Afircan American, non-Europeans) he also was among the earliest advocates of Lenny Tristano, and also commisioned work from Johnny Carisi when Carisi was doing little else in a jazz context; also, from what I have heard privately, Max commited a great many humantarian acts in his private life. So all was not negative. I just cannot shake the brutality of his treatment of Abby Lincoln. I find it unforgiveable.

hey, Max is the worlds greatest drummer - up until about 1965, when he seems to have forgotten how to swing. I find a lot of his later stuff self-consciously contemporary, sounding like another older musician unsuccessfully trying to keep up with the times - just one man's opinion.

I actually don't know anything behind-the-scenes here, as I have not talked to Phil in probably 5 years - the mastering on the box seems generally OK, but hearing that weird and completely unnecessary artificat (as Weatherbird is a very easy track to work on - I have CEDAR myself) - means somebody at Sony was asleep at the wheel -

Cleaning house this weekend - a few odds and ends, and I only have 1 of each of most of these. First to email me gets each or whatever quantity is requested (please email at ammusic@maine.rr.com) - all are CDs: 1) Art Pepper Quartet, V. 1: With the Sonny Clark Trio (Live 1953). Time Is $10 shipped. Sealed. 2) Johnny Otis: Be Bop Baby Blues. Night Train, '50s sides. Sealed. $6.00 shipped. (I have two copies of this one only) 3) Jay McShann Orchestra: Blues from KC (GRP Decca Reissue, very good sound, sealed) - $8.50 shipped. Sealed 4) Django Reinhardt: Guitar Genius. (A Charly reissue; good sound). Sealed. $6.50 shipped. 5) Sonny Terry. Capitol gatefold reissue. $6.5o shipped. Sealed 6) Jimmy Witherspoon. Call My Baby. Night Train. Sealed. $6.50 shipped. paypal, check, or money order -

the other thing I would suggest is to consult a lawyer - I doubt very much that what he is doing is legal -

find a bar nearbye, work there, and draw his crowd away -

hey, there's no doubt, David can play. I just feel that somewhere along the line his own ego and money-lust got in the way. I do hear that he's a bit easier to deal with these days, though we haven't been in contact for some time -

I have limited quantities on these - this weekend, email me at ammusic@maine.rr.com. All are still sealed, cutouts, CD's from the old Specialty Records: Joe Liggins, Vol. 2 The Meditation Singers: Good News (great female gospel group, middle and late 1950s) The Detroiters (male gospel group, great stuff; late 1940s, early 1950s) Vocal Groups, Coast to Coast (rare singing goups, late 1940s, 1950s) Women of Gospel's Golden Age Volume 1: (Bessie Griffin, Dorothy Love Coates, Wynona Carr; essential) Creole Kings of New Orleans (another essential anthology: Professor Longhair, Lloyd Price, Earl King, Clifton Chenier, Art Neville, etc) Lloyd Price, Volume 2 Smokey Hogg: Angels in Harlem $8.00 each shipped. Buy 3 or more and the price goes down to $6.00 shipped.

well, no - if we are talking about the public Roach, than we should talk about it, warts and all. If we are talking about the MUSICAL Roach, than we talk about the music, straight and simple - I just am slightly offended at seeing a public/human tribute to the now disabled wife-beater. Sorry, it just irks me.

sorry, can't stop talking about Joe. After I wrote the last post I put on the Donte's CD, with notes written by the writer who wrote the Marsh bio (which I have not read but have been told is quite good) - have to say I was a bit annoyed when he termed Joe's solo on 'S WOnderful as one of Joe's best; well, Joe gets lost in the middle of it and clearly has trouble keeping up with the rhtyhm section - and so goes jazz writing...

"It may be an "honest assessment", but ultimately we are talking about subjective opinions and each listener is entitled to react differently. Right?" We're not questioning anybody's right to disagree - there are things I disagreee with Larry on, and which are in his book. The point is (and this has nothing to do with how technically knowledgeable your are or are not) that good honest essays on jazz like Larry's enrich our point of view whether or not they coincide with our own viewpoints - it's not a matter of simply agreeing or disagreeing with him, but of allowing yourself to broaden your perspective. As it is with all good critics.

it is not "trashing" Murray - it's an honest assessment. If you want to be engaged with this music you have to be willing to see different viewpoints -

I should add that Bruce Lundvall called me, probably around 1980, because he wanted to do a duo album with Al Haig and Joe Albany (and someone had told him I knew both of them). I proposed it to Haig, who would have none of it, as Joe was quite unpredictable, both personally and musically -

I knew Joe very well in NYC in the 1970s-80s. He had some incredible chops when he was right, but a tendency, in those days, to get lost. The best stuff is the stuff with Marsh from the living room, and I recemmended the recently issued live recording from Donte's. Joe's solo on I Love You (from the Riverside) is astounding and transcendant, astonishingly advanced and individual, rhythmically complicated in an entirely original way (almost sounds like Cecil Taylor in small bits). I produced a session he was on in the late 1970s with a Connecticut saxophonist named Diockey Myers - Joe played well, but got lost on occasion. Read AJ Albany's book, which is simply one fo the best jazz books I've ever read by anyone. I emailed her after reading it that Joe came off like a combination Ward Cleaver/degenerated junkie, and she was in complete agreement. Joe could be quite cranky as well as quite affable, and cleaerly had a problem with recurring depression which he self-treated with alcohol, junk, and a lot of pot in the years I knew him (a side benefit was that Joe always had the best stuff in NYC, or so it seemed).

I would walk - you might check, if you guys are in it, with the musicians union - otherwise just walk, and let people know why -

actually the parrott was just sleeping and a little depressed - he was pining for the fjords -

well, I played one gig with Murray, at the Knitting Factory, which was recorded (Mental Strain at Dawn - a Louis Armstrong program) - the problem with Murray is that, I think, he has some good ideas but has learned to coast on those ideas relative to audience reaction - some of his writing, is, indeed. intriguing, but I'm with Larry on this. On the bandstand he was nothing exceptional, and I know 20 tenors who can take that "inside-outside" thing and make something MUCH more of it - Larry's essay on this in his recent book is outstanding and should be rquired reading.

actually, I was thinking of it as the Toilet Seat cover -

well, Lenny Bruce said he wouldn't go to any more Civil Rights demonstrations, because he was tired of watching Ray Charles bump into Al Hibbler -

didn't mean to start a storm here - Max is a great drummer no matter what. But I do get a little weary of praising the humanity of people of whom we really know too little -

this I would like to see in coherent form - in my jazz-development years I bought a ton of that stuff, and was frequently confused as to origin (and I always wondered if Bates was the English actor; I know now that he wasn't) - there was also a lot of bad sound, bad pressing, bad original sources, god-knows-what. I'd also like to see the paper trail of how all this was set up, contracted for, and issued. It would be a good supplement to the skectchy history we have of 1960s jazz -