AllenLowe

musicians.

great concert; before he got fat.

Wynton is seen everywhere as a spokesperson; you know it's slly, Tom, and I know it's silly; but that's what a lot of people, from Time Magazine to Obama, think. So he ranks, really, as the most powerful musician in the history of jazz. And he is not a benevolent dictator.

just a btw; I love Armstrong, etc etc; I know the Symphony Hall set very well (owned the LPs for years); I do think that, like most things from the All Stars, it wears a bit thin after a while. Just a friendly consumer warning.

I actually think Wynton would be an excellent side man - interpreting good writing. He is not the first jazz guy to observe The Peter Principle (anyone else remember that?)

that's only a last resort.

now that's something it would be fun to do - set up my own radio. I assume it could be automated.

it's just sometimes I cannot get on in certain places. I do think the first thing to do would be to move it, elevate it, or possibly urinate on it.

not what I was saying - the point is that when the center of power (and Wynton is the most powerful musician in the history of jazz) goes to a dictator everything falls apart. And I think I disagree; jazz needs marketing like everything else, just a different kind,.

yeah I saw that - in a way, the people who Larry mentions who praised Wynton not because they believed it but because they so feared the more radical elements in jazz are sort of like the Christian Democrats in Chile who sided with the Right wing because they feared Allende was too radical - by sublimating their better instincts in favor of what they thought were long-term gains they helped foment a fascist state and the destruction of democracy in Chile - parallel to jazz's steady market descent under Wynton's leadership.

yeah, I think first thing I'll do is move the router a bit. We'll see what happens.

Miles is always fun to read - he nailed Oscar Peterson to the wall in one of those things - but he also hated Dolphy, Ornette, and, I am sure, Mother Theresa, so we gotta take it all with the knoweldge that it's the wife-beater himself calling the kettle white.

heavy stuff for a 14 year old.

In person - I saw them in Jazz Interactions outdoor concerts, late 1960s - that band just levitated.

thanks both; will consider either method.

oh....how is that done?

my router is on the main floor, and my computer in the basement has problems getting on the internet - are there ways to boost the signal, or otherwise strengthen it? Some kind of relay? thanks

Spud Murphy, that is; he wrote a whole system, I think.

Spud?

I have had all my cds copied onto microchips and implanted in my lower intestine.

well said Larry; my wife was asking me to explain recently what was wrong with the whole JALC/WM thing and I got a little tongue tied; I found it hard to explain as something more than just a personal discomfort; I intend to send her your explanation, above. though I did manage to explain the awful way in which he was used (at his own behest, trust me) in the Jazz documentary to black out (or maybe I should say white out so as to avoid charges of insensitivity) such a big chunk of jazz history. To me, that was one of the most offensive results of what Larry refers to.

I have decided that I am going to back up what I need onto CDRs and then photocopy the notes as necessary. Risky, but then this is all risky, and I have Tayo Yuden CDRs that are still good after 10 years -

it's complicated; the problem is partly the life of a musician - it's not like a novelist or esayist; stay home for 6 months or a year or two and produce that book, promo it a bit, and then start again. Intellectually jazz eats itself up; the ideas are put in and out and used, and then re-used. Open forms of improv have become a problem as well, I think - if you are a "free player" and you want to work all the time, it's easiest to just get a bunch of guys together and blow - but the energy gets used up, at least for me. If you are a tune player, well, it's been done over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over................................. I believe in a kind of free-form structuralism. Short pieces, short solos. Almost like mini-novels, though not in a representational sense. Make your point and get out. If I had a literary model I would say: the scenes of Buchner; Bruno Schulz; Brechtian episodes; Flannery OConnor; the early novels of Handke. Ironically, I haven't worked for 15 years; and it has actually been good for my music, bad for my mind.

I skip ahead to the solos or wait for an interesting arranged section - more and more I am bored with jazz performance. Too much laziness in terms of formal discipline, too much need to produce too much product, as I have said before. Even some musicians whom I know personally to be great players have gotten bogged down in the need to play all the time.

I am not in a knot over Wynton - more like a gently twisted soft pretzel.