AllenLowe

this goes with my new theory that the internet has expanded things while contracting them. I am a little shocked at some of the unawareness of younger musicians, and when they do seem aware, they seem to spew pre-digested pieties about the tradition, etc without really knowing much of the substance. I used to worry that I was needlessly conservative in this respect until I realized that all great modernists in other areas - literature, theater, painting - tended to be deep cultural historians as well, from Joyce to Beckett, to any great modern painter, to composers like Boulez and Hodeir.

Jeff - in this context you are creating straw arguments, I fear. No one here has claimed jazz is dead, only that it has hit a bit of a creative crisis. Which is absolutely accurate, I think. Same thing with theater at various times (and continuing). Personally I think it's very much (though not only) an American problem; while we love to talk about history and tradition, etc etc, we are pretty a-historic in our understanding and analysis, which often leaves our creative people with little to go on. Talk to a contemporary young playwright and ask them, for example, how familiar they are with Beckett, Buchner, Brecht, Kleist, Koch, Kroetz, Botho Strauss - if they look at you blankly,well, it's the same look you will get if you ask a young jazz musician about certain equivalent jazz people. And it's why so much contemporary dramatic theater sounds like Neil Simon without the laughs. It's just soap opera and glib sociology. And this is not merely a recent trend; I saw it first hand when I studied theater in the late 1970s. I have never taken the position that one has to be well versed in the history of a form in order to advance it or proceed to do it well - though I do think that such knowledge can help a musician make vital connections, and get him or her through blank periods; and that what we see as malaise in today's jazz is related to certain formal failures that, themselves, are the result of a kind of artistic narcissism.

from what I have heard, 1950 was a good year for Prez, based on some other live shots; I just hope Uptown has gotten their sound issues corrected.

this is a very complex argument - and of course I have my own ideas why certain things suffer musically. And it is possible to do good music that is accessible (immodestly I will cite our blues project); but also I think the internet has just left us adrift in a sea of activity. If you have to work for a living, and have limited time, t's very hard to know what to do or where to look. And strangely enough, though the net has opened things up, it has also resulted in a great clannishness, in which people retreat to, and stay inside, their own comfort zone.

I blame musicians, first and foremost - because - 1) they produce too much, just keep playing and recording; I mean, how many novels did Thomas Mann produce? Faulkner? Robbe Grillet? Dosteoevski? How many plays did Buchner write? Beckett? the answer is to all of those is "just enough" - and not the same things over and over again. 2) the audience gets tire of a) on the one hand, every jazz player is a composer, composer, and composer again; few can write so much and keep the quality; I watch a lot of new music on youtube, listen to plenty on Spotify; good players, mediocre music - and b) the more traditional stuff just bores people; history becomes a crutch or, really, an anchor 3) there are a whole lot of tired improvisers - beboppers play the same things, the free players are lazy and repetitive in their approach and reportoire. ALL of the above need to take sabbaticals and just contemplate the music, life, and art. It worked for me (though mine was a bit more coerced).

Julia Lee - My Man Stands Out.

Larry Cohn heard that I had a relatively clean copy of Shave it Dry and gave me a call - as for my source - can't say publicly; I'll give you a call this weekend.

looks like Mark Shane on piano.

there's a much better-sounding Shave em Dry from the Sony Legacy issue of her work; I know because I found it for them and restored it - along with another she did that is equally wild, called When the Cows Come Home. I also have a very dirty Gene Autry, one-off, that I have not done anything with, but which may already have been bootleged.

I may have said this already, but I find the title of this box to be semi-literate. West Coast Seattle boy? Could there be an East Coast Seattle boy? Should I call my next CD, Maine-Occupying Mainer?

to me Matt can do no wrong; he's on several cuts on our new CD, if it ever gets issued.

though as I do recall, he hated jazz.

actually, it came out in the '50s.

it's funny, Larry, but I did notice in some youtube clip of hers that she's picked up some weird Tony Scott's phrasings; I know to you that's like fingernails on a blackboard. At any rate I posted a bit on Facebook about how dumb that article is.

maybe those are the only tunes they can remember.

I am sure Valerie will join me in saying that these groups have to start finding people who are not, let us say, the usual suspects. and what, no Herbie Hancock?

one example that doesn't quite work, I think, is George Russell's A Bird In Igor's Yard, in which Buddy Defranco plays great, but in a more conventional bop way.

Miles said, IIRC, he admired Getz's patience with ballads, his ability to not rush them, melodically or rhythmically. Still can't listen to him, however.

well, at least we can all agree on one thing: Stan was a great human being.

then you must love that moo-ing thing Cannonball used to do. I just cannot listen to Getz; to me he ruins Focus, also Mickey One.

to me Focus is a perfect example of what Paul Bley was talking about years ago when he mention how on certain kinds of more advanced pieces the soloists' language was not up to the composer's language - meaning that a jazz soloist might be faced with some very complex and advanced piece, and would respond with the usual bebop lines. To me Focus is a variation on this problem - beautiful work by Sauter, and Getz hasn't a clue as to what to do with the material; for one example, I remember that on one piece he repeats the same diminished scale over and over again as though this is some kind of major tonal discovery for him. This has always bothered me.

I know there's often no correlation between a musican's personality and his music; but Getz always struck me as sounding like someone standing in front of the mirror. And he was some of the first jazz I heard, when I was a mere 14, so I definitely had no personal preconceptions. He's slick as pup shit, as they say, but it gets me nowhere (and it may be sound more than anything else because I also cannot listen to Paul Desmond).

there's actually a Memphis Minnie piece about him, with great, almost-stride piano by Black Bob.

as for the actual musical vols of the blues set - I am working on it. What I really need is a European source, if anybody knows of one.

I have tried for years to like Getz, who just never, to my ears, plays something that is unexpected; and I don't think this is a matter of some great melodic logic. And I don't want to start a big thing with his daughter again, but I think his playing in many respects is narcissitic, reflecting certain personality traits (and I thought this before I knew anything about him on a personal level).