AllenLowe

Yazoo is always worthwhile, musically speaking; just avoid Rich Nevins' notes, which set new un-standards of incoherence (otherwise known as the stuff that re-writes are made of) -

you know, I thought I was gonna get the usual chorus of "Lowe don't you have any manners" - you guys are worse than me.

the reason it is not the same as worrying about kids listening to metal, or playing video games is that we are talking about something else - I'm not worried that Wagner will turn people into chromatically-harmonized skinheads - I am only reserving the right of anyone to tell Wagner to place his scores where the son has, historically, never shone.

1) interesting this: "But what, in Wagner's message, was the concrete meaning of such a disappearance? Did it mean the abolition of the Jewish spirit, the vanishing of the Jews as a separate and identifiable cultural and ethnic group, or did redemption imply the actual physical elimination of the Jews?" one could argue that it did not matter - because ultimately it led to the same thing - 2) but my position is NOT that we should not listen to Wagner; but that we need to respect and understand those to whom his memory evokes obscene levels of violence. If they chose not to listen, that's fine. We should not criticize them or think them petty, because the holocaust was on such a level as to completely warp normal levels of logic and civilization. it really is NOT the same as, say, Sinatra's stupidity and violence, Max and Miles' violence toward women, Ben Webster's violence, or Stan Getz's sociopathy, or whatever perversions we can come up with. As to public performance, I would not ban him - though I might preface any performance with an explanation of his political viewpoints.

Stefan - read Larry's post above; says it much better than I have.

it's nutty to say that the guy who helped develop an intellectual rationale for anti-semitism, in the country of the Holocaust, bears great responsibility for that Holocaust? certainly I've said crazier things than that. Give me a few minutes. look, here's from an article in something called The Telegraph: "1:32PM BST 25 Jul 2011 • Hitler wrote in his first volume of his book Mein Kampf: "At the age of twelve, I saw ... the first opera of my life, Lohengrin. In one instant I was addicted. My youthful enthusiasm for the Bayreuth Master knew no bounds." • Aged 16, Hitler quit school and spent the next three years being idle. He is said to have spent a tidy proportion of his pocket money on going to the opera. He became passionate about Wagner. • Wagner's anti-Semitic and fervently nationalistic writings are thought to have had a quasi-religious effect on Hitler. His theories of racial purity were partly drawn from Wagner. According to Wagner: "The Volk has always been the essence of all the individuals who constituted a commonality. In the beginning, it was the family and the races; then the races united through linguistic equality as a nation." • On January 13, 1933 the newly-elected National Socialist Party celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Richard Wagner's death by staging a grandiose memorial ceremony in Leipzig, the composer's birthplace. Adolf Hitler invited Siegfried Wagner's widow, the English-born Winifred, and her son Wieland to be guests of honor at this event. • Each summer, from 1933 to 1939, Hitler attended the Bayreuth Festival, and he made the Wagner estate, Wahnfried, his second home. • Hitler reinterpreted the story of Wagner's final opera Parsifal to fit his own ideological vision. The story carries elements of Buddhist renunciation suggested by Wagner's readings of Schopenhauer. However, Hitler wrote of it: "What is celebrated is not the Christian Schopenhauerian [sic] religion of compassion, but pure and noble blood, blood whose purity the brotherhood of initiates has come together to guard. • "Wagner's line of thought is intimately familiar to me", Hitler once said. "At every stage of my life I come back to him." • The Wagner family and their supporters had campaigned in the early 20th Century for a special copyright law that would restrict performances of Wagner's opera 'Parsifal' to Bayreuth. In 1923 Hitler visited Wagner's grave and reportedly promised: "If I should ever succeed in exerting any influence on Germany's destiny, I will see that Parsifal is given back to Bayreuth". He did not fulfill this. • A recent documentary, The Wagner Family, alleged that the Wagner family knowingly aligned itself with Hitler’s movement from the beginning.

according to Al Rose (who is not always reliable) Knocky had a PHD and actually wrote his thesis on some aspect of American music. I should track it down one of these days (or, really, some of these days...)

Stefan - if Wagner was one of the founders of Scientific Anti-Semitism, IN Germany, than yes, he was both indirectly AND directly responsible for the holocaust. on the other hand, I couldn't live without my Lederhosen. I continue to be with Larry on this. re-read his posts; they are more nuanced than we are allowing for here. And he's absolutely right on all counts.

Max and Miles could be bad guys, but I wouldn't quite compare them to a leading theoretician of the Holocaust.

ah, the famous Bikes - was sort of a running joke when I was in high school - "did you bring your bike?"

well, it's a question of how far the soloist's art had progressed, and this was already the 1930s; I also think his inept simplicity of solo playing is masked my the way in which the steel guitar bends notes. There is really a lot less going on than meets the eye.

btw, we Old White Men NEED a label. Actually, you just gave it to us.

sorry, I'm one of the 47 precent of jazz musicians who never works but demands public support.

you know, I've been listening very closely to some Bob Dunn Cds - and he's really a very mediocre soloist; uses the same rhythmic figure over and over again, plays the same phrase over and over but on different chords, just not half as good as Junior Bernard, or a bunch of other Western Swing guitarists/fiddlers of that era. he has an interesting sound, but is a very poor solost in jazz terms. Really.

geez, I just asked an innocent question.... though unless Spikes opens up the books, it'll be one of those Romney/tax return situations.

get 'em Larry. Good answer.

maybe his time improved.

I would try to find a third party for approach.

he wouldn't hurt a fly.

I'm with Larry - give me the Deccas; and I hear McCrae was very mean to side men.

I knew Harold, who lived near me in New Haven in the '90s, actually worked some gigs with him - great guy, great pianist, no doubt. I was just pointing out what Dick said to me at the time, and I'm sure it was accurate. (Harold is now, I think, up in Rochester; for some time he was also on the Jazz Research list that Fitzgerald kicked me off of; I think Larry's still a member; don't ask me what happened; all I can say is that it has to do with Homeland Security and Don't Ask Don't Tell).

I think we should all approach Bluiett, but only in a large group, wearing good running sneakers and, if possible, suits of armor. With a well-planned escape exit. I just like to be prepared.

I do believe Harold was a Scientologist; and I will add that if you'd seen Konitz as many nights as I did at Gregory's, close up, with Dick on piano and Wilbur Little on bass, you might feel more strongly about Katz's playing. I don't think he ever recorded as well as he played the many times I saw him around NYC. Incidentally, and off topic, sort of, Dick, who had studied with Teddy Wilson, told me Wilson was the one who told him to listen to Monk, whom Wilson called a "rhythm master." Not really surprising, but Teddy's not the first guy I would think of when trying to imagine other pianist-admirers of Monk. Dick was also the guy assigned to go back and forth to Monk's apartment when they were rehearsing the Hall Overton/big band concert. He told me he saw Monk over a period of 6-8 hours one day, and he was playing the same tune each time he saw him. Don't remember what it was, however.

here's my secret: keep the cable on 24 hours:

like a lot of good musicians, Dick was better in person, though I do like the Atlantic (hard to stay detached as I knew Dick very well); better to hear him on the Percy France date I released; I also have a nice one hour tape of my wedding, He did tend to tighten up a little when recording. one night Oliver Jackson was listening to him warm up at the West End; OJ said, "you know who you sound like?" Dick said, "Who?" "Dick Katz." needless to say, this pleased Dick immensely. he was also pissed because Lee Konitz, who did a lot with him, was only hiring Scientologists for some time. also, I always thought he should have had co-authorship for Jazz Masters of the Forties, because it seemed half of Gitler's profiles featured long interviews with Dick.