Astonishing blather about Woody Shaw

[danasgoodstuff]

You don't love Gene Harris? Why you...!

[Dan Gould]

Can't agree with everyone. Some people here love Gene Harris, I don't , but that doesn't devalue the worth of their other opinions in my eyes.

You don't love Gene Harris? Why you...!

Well, Adrian was smart - he bought some discs from my Stupendous Sale first, then he outed himself.

[danasgoodstuff]

Seriously, you could not like Hank mobley for a lot of reasons but if you really think he's anything but subtle I have to wonder what world you're living in...

[Larry Kart]

Thanks for the thought, CM, but I don't think I have the necessary sitzfleisch --or the money to acquire the sides I don't have or, at age 66, the time. If I do any more writing on jazz -- that is, other than what I do here -- it probably will be something personal, oblique, and semi-novelistic (as in "names changed to protect the innocent"). For example, the final chapter almost certainly would be about my taking Coleman Hawkins to O'Hare airport a month or so before his death, another would be about an afternoon and evening spent with Dexter Gordon in his hotel suite while Maxine Gregg raged, mostly out of sight, in the next room.

The theme of all the episodes I have in mind would be the semi-comic dance that jazz musicians and their admirers more or less unknowingly engage in -- the ways in which this all-too-human music separates the actual humanity of its players and listeners by encouraging the latter parties to think that they know what they don't/can't know and by leaving the members of the former group significantly isolated because their own needs (as artists and human beings) are similarly divided internally.

[AllenLowe]

good idea Larry - and talk to me if you're interested in about 80 stories; these days they come back to me like flashbacks in the night; that's why I'm making a film, though I should write 'em down -

[AllenLowe]

"Just think if they had let Allen Lowe write the Dexter Gordon section."

not a bad idea - I once had a conversation with Dexter that took about 4 hours - or maybe just seemed to -

back to Penguin - they had me in the first few guides, called me a "cult figure" in one of them, which I kinda liked - impressed my daughter to think that the old man had something in common with Charles Manson -

Edited September 4, 2008 by AllenLowe

[Larry Kart]

good idea Larry - and talk to me if you're interested in about 80 stories; these days they come back to me like flashbacks in the night; that's why I'm making a film, though I should write 'em down -

Thanks, Allen, but they have to be stories that I myself was a participant in because part of the deal is what I felt -- at the time and later on -- about what was going on. Not merely for reasons of ego, I hope, but because for example I need to know what it felt like to be temporarily responsible for and to try to help an apparently dying Coleman Hawkins. Not to give the game away, but basically it felt very good -- because for once at least I think I knew exactly what was at stake, did what I could/needed to do in human terms, and because what I did was acknowledged in the same way.

[AllenLowe]

that's ok, I was thinking more in terms of drunken musicians calling me in the middle of the night to complain that I owed them money - of course, they could never tell me EXACTLY what I owed them money for - I guess on general principle -

and than, of course, one of said musicians called me about ten years later in the middle of the night to APOLOGIZE for accusing me of owing him money - part of his 12 Step Program. But I digress...your book sounds a lot more interesting -

[montg]

I don't remember the line about Sonny Clark--what was it?

Maybe this?:

"As long as there was a piano in the corner, a bottle opened and some business to attend to in a back room, he seems to have been content"

To echo what Lon said earlier, I've become increasingly reliant on the opinions and thoughts of board members and much less reliant over time on the Penguin Guide (and other commercial reviews).

Edited September 5, 2008 by montg

[Jazzmoose]

Thanks for the thought, CM, but I don't think I have the necessary sitzfleisch --or the money to acquire the sides I don't have or, at age 66, the time. If I do any more writing on jazz -- that is, other than what I do here -- it probably will be something personal, oblique, and semi-novelistic (as in "names changed to protect the innocent"). For example, the final chapter almost certainly would be about my taking Coleman Hawkins to O'Hare airport a month or so before his death, another would be about an afternoon and evening spent with Dexter Gordon in his hotel suite while Maxine Gregg raged, mostly out of sight, in the next room.

The theme of all the episodes I have in mind would be the semi-comic dance that jazz musicians and their admirers more or less unknowingly engage in -- the ways in which this all-too-human music separates the actual humanity of its players and listeners by encouraging the latter parties to think that they know what they don't/can't know and by leaving the members of the former group significantly isolated because their own needs (as artists and human beings) are similarly divided internally.

What the hell are you waiting on? I'll start saving up right now!!