AllenLowe

I know that he is constantly working, so maybe he is too busy to worry about it. I am hoping to do a duo album with him at some point.

not gonna get into the OP vs everybody, but I am a little shocked that no one else hears this genius as I do. I can deal with it, but be aware that in New York everyone who has heard Esteban recognizes what I recognize, which is that he is far from just a technician, but a brilliant consolidator of styles, in the same league as Jaki Byard. It's possible that non-musicians don't recognize his skill, but I think it's clear that he is one of the best ever, and I have heard everyone, live or on record, from, I would say, 1923 forward. We can hear bits of Tristano, Monk, Bud and Tatum in his playing, but masked by his originality, and I have heard no other pianist - including, I would add Jaki Byard, who I loved - who can sit, relaxed at the piano like that, with such incredible focus, comprehensive technique, and just plain feeling. Part of the problem is that we have to distinguish between technique and facility (and btw I like Gene Harris a lot but not OP). But Esteban is just on another level, it's almost mystical the levels of creativity that he achieves.

no one's interested in this incredible pianist? Come on folks.

I honestly think the narration is not particularly interesting or important. What is interesting and important is that Armstrong, in these performances, breaks out of the formulas he had gotten into as a matter of touring. They made him a star, but THIS made him an artist. yes, this has been released in a few formats. And any discography that is dismissive of this, one of Armstrong's great post-War efforts, ought to be tossed in the garbage, after being burned.

There's a young pianist in NYC named Esteban Castro, young, just out of Julliard. I will state this directly: Esteban is one of the greatest jazz pianists who ever lived, and I mean ever, and I say this unequivocally, after a lifetime of listening to everything from 1920 to the present. I am trying to think of how to describe his playing - it is historically comprehensive, but never in a self conscious way. He just sits at the piano with casual ease and turns out phrase after phrase of brilliant, compelling, artistically meaningful music. In term of musical attitude he has some resemblance to Jaki Byard, but that is primarily in the ingenious way in which he incorporates his incredibly varied, but always personal, ideas of playing. He is astounding. We recorded together not too long ago, and I basically knew what he can do, but he still surprised me - bits and pieces of Tristano, an amazing Fats-Waller-into-stride passage that just blew me away, and a deep understanding of Bud Powell. He can read, he can play inside/outside/upside down, harmonically speaking. He even did an uncanny summoning of Monk on one piece that was not Monkish in the usual sense, but instead a personalization of Monk's way of fusing melody and harmony. Another thing I love about his playing is that it is non-ideological: no systems, no repetitive patterns, no blues cliches. He is the real thing. I will post some more of his stuff eventually, but here's a clip from a few years back which gives a sense of his incredible reach and sense of line:

it likely was around that time, yes.

I met her twice, and the personality difference was....well, bizarrely radical. First time, she played for John Szwed's course at Yale - it must have been mid 1980s? She wasn't very famous yet. I drove her to the train to go back to NYC and she was very "regular," young, friendly, unaffected, casual dress. Even knew some of my work. Second time - at a Jazz conference in NYC. I do not remember the year, but it was probably in the 20-teens. Well...a different personality entirely. Dressed formally in a "look at me" way, like she was going to the Oscars. I did talk to her (sort of) because Bob Neloms, an old friend of mine, who at this point was unwell, had been her mentor when she was growing up near Detroit. He was a mess, and I suggested that he might welcome a phone call. She was...strange, distant, disinterested, indifferent. Kinda like a politician meeting a constituent whom they don't think is particularly important, but whom they have to pretend to care about. Carried herself like she was a diva, maybe Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. Cordial, but regal and not quite there, clearly didn't care about what I was saying. She was a great pianist, though.

I have returned, like MacArthur (the general, not the award); I am relatively happy but a bit sidetracked by PTSD. But I am, hopefully, done with surgery (25 to date). Not a lot new to report. Still annoying people. Trying to finish a film (long story in and of itself). Just did a really nice recording session in which Leo Wadada Smith played four tunes. Will be part of the soundtrack to the film. Health is ok though not terrific. Tried to find Larry Kart, though I suspect, based on his prognosis and the fact that his phone no longer works, that he is permanently hospitalized, which makes me very sad. All I do is compose and practice. Beats working for ICE.

https://allenlowe.substack.com/p/part-1-my-life-is-a-series-of-chemo

ok. Though I should mention that I heard a young group recently that I think is the best thing in jazz in the last 10 years. They are on Instagram as Numusic.

If your implication (as others have made) is that I put down other music to elevate my own....well, you haven't read enough of my writing. There is a strange historical parallel here, of writers and others who wrote fiction/plays and who also wrote critically of other writers: Isaac Rosenfeld, Delmore Schwartz, Richard Gilman, George Bernard Shaw, Randall Jarrell, John Berryman, Harold Rosenberg - I doubt if you would criticize them in the same way though they were much more aggressive than I am. It's part of a give-and-take which few people engage in any more; criticism tends to read, these days, like press releases. But before you think ill off me for doing this kind of critical work, get a better sense of the history of American writing. There was a whole movement of the '40s and '50s called the New York Intellectuals, and my work is quite mild compared to theirs, though I am inspired by their willingness to question conventional wisdom, which is rampant in the jazz world. And I haven't mentioned Brecht, whose attacks on contemporary theater were detailed and devastating. And the truth is that much of what I say is agreed to by others who do not want to go public. I get private messages to this effect all the time.

"Allen Lowe’s massive, five-hour opus may turn out to be one of the most important recordings of the 2020s, if only more people well spend time with it. Lowe’s music is personal, deeply thoughtful, and addictively listenable. Lowe spends a great deal of time reading, writing, and thinking about jazz and the blues, their intersection, the influences that birthed rock and roll, and he’s taken all that and channeled into five hours of horn-drenched, witty and delightful music." https://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/12/allen-lowe-constant-sorrow-orchestra.html strangely, the more reviews I get like this, the more depressed I get. I think it's called Inverse Reality.

Rockland Palace was remastered and pitch corrected by Doug Pomeroy. There is a CD available: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Legendary-Rockland-Palace-Dance/dp/B000001LZ4/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1QABCUVLXZ117&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qG-cuvDxcSIaGLr4BeH05yPGA9e8ISOOMv2N8LoWZlwoFY_hvBkzDnheWl1XjgQBc9pHs2rfoTD_l_rBG914Qyw-HA_V_bHNBuZAvHxG_3Q.ObkhEU0i8EZRm_cftnhb8ZTdVOjTl6yTCMRxnXc1vP0&dib_tag=se&keywords=charlie+Parker+rockland+palace&qid=1735493632&sprefix=charlie+parker+rockland+palace%2Caps%2C114&sr=8-3 Rockland Palace was speed corrected and remastered by Doug Pomeroy: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Legendary-Rockland-Palace-Dance/dp/B000001LZ4/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1QABCUVLXZ117&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qG-cuvDxcSIaGLr4BeH05yPGA9e8ISOOMv2N8LoWZlwoFY_hvBkzDnheWl1XjgQBc9pHs2rfoTD_l_rBG914Qyw-HA_V_bHNBuZAvHxG_3Q.ObkhEU0i8EZRm_cftnhb8ZTdVOjTl6yTCMRxnXc1vP0&dib_tag=se&keywords=charlie+Parker+rockland+palace&qid=1735493632&sprefix=charlie+parker+rockland+palace%2Caps%2C114&sr=8-3

Two surprises for me were Patty Waters - a few years back she wanted to record with me but I felt terrible and could not do it because her voice was completely gone, so I had to make up some excuse - and Steve Silberman, a terrific writer who wrote probably the definitive book on autism. Also a nice guy.

I love Smith. One interesting thing that I was told was that he was born in Mississippi to a mixed-race couple (I think his mother was African American). This could not hve been easy, especially in those years. I won't order CDRs; but if you figure that each blank costs them maybe 25 cents, and if they charge $15 for each and sell 100 they are making at least $1000 profit, subtracking some production costs. So that's not bad; if they sell out they just make 100 more. And, I will add, it's a pity they didn't do more work on those; the sound can be improved hugely through a simple re-EQ.

as long as they give me a good review, I'm ok with Kenny G. on the cover.

or pay some dues.....

thanks, I had seen something by Tom but not that. As I like to point out, I am pretty much the only non-working musician who makes these lists; same thing happened two years ago. I have a few things next year, but these days the gigs in NYC are controlled by young musicians who don't know me and who tend to book their friends. But I will keep trying.

https://jazztimes.com/blog/2024-year-in-review-part-2/

well, I can barely get gigs where I live. Maybe with Ted Cruz on vocals....

people used to get mad at me here when I criticized jazz players for only scratching the surface of deep blues playing (or the Hard Blues as Julius Hemphill used to call it). Well, I never get much response here, but eff-it, I carry on although, as I said recently, I seem to have reached the jazz mandatory retirement age; meaning, I cannot get gigs. A lot of the clubs in NYC are being booked by very young players, who, if you are not famous or their friend, will not even check you out. So here is something we did with my new trio, the bassist (Colson Jimenez) and drummer (Ethan Cogan) of which are absolutely stunning players. Colson is the first bassist I have found recently who does not sound like 50 other guys, and has almost a Mingus-like drive and persistence. This is Beneath the Blues, recorded in October. Roots, schmoots, jazz players usually play blues like Oscar Peterson on a good day. The blues is a syntax, a way of phrasing and punctuating, not just hitting certain intervals. As a matter of fact I avoid minor thirds whenever I can. We have created a real interactive trio and I have got to get these guys on a cd:

that whole period is amazing, and that performance, yes. Years ago I tried to stop sounding like Sonny. It is beyond impossible. Better men than me have died (musically) trying. I remember when Wayne Escoffrey was a local kid and one night I heard him trying to replicate Sonny like this. I had to admire the attempt and even the execution, but it just wasn't there. Even if I had heard it blind, I think I would have been able to clearly discern the disconnect between style as art/form and style as mannerism.

I haven't read everything here, but the RCA stuff, IMHO, is epochal - coinciding as it does with a lot of film of Sonny, in Denmark in particular (IIRC) that is astounding; maybe 1964-66. His harmonic approach is amazing (I can say this as I try to copy him all the time; unsuccessfully of course) - he is playing these stacked, chromatic lines that, coupled with his amazing time and technique, are among the most amazing accomplishments by anyone, ever, in jazz. This is the period of which Larry Kart told me he thought Sonny to be, and I am paraphrasing, "one of the greatest artists in anything, ever." I concur.

I'm disappointed - I liked to watch those other idiots crash and burn -

no argument here; my tone is everything.