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Everything posted by AllenLowe
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Herbie Hancock Memoir
AllenLowe replied to brownie's topic in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...
that's a reasonable philosophy - personally, I will fight to the death. -
Herbie Hancock Memoir
AllenLowe replied to brownie's topic in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...
gotcha. It's just that that version of The Sun is Shining is astounding. It made me run to my rock and roll history and add a few more lines about Beck. -
Herbie Hancock Memoir
AllenLowe replied to brownie's topic in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...
spoken like an agent. -
Herbie Hancock Memoir
AllenLowe replied to brownie's topic in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...
just listen to the clip. I gotta go have sex with my mule. -
Herbie Hancock Memoir
AllenLowe replied to brownie's topic in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...
well, then, check this out (some of the best rock guitar ever, IMHO): http://www.wolfgangs...ly-24-1968.html especially The Sun is Shining. Incredible. If Jeff Beck had died and only recorded that one tune, he would belong in the Pantheon. Page can't come near this no matter how many fish he inserts into how many vaginas. -
Herbie Hancock Memoir
AllenLowe replied to brownie's topic in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...
ah, you're killing me. Would die for a halfway decent scene. Even New Haven had some nice days like that, maybe the 1980s. But the real failure, here as elsewhere, is that of what I call the arts infrastructure - the organizations that get what little money there is and either pay it all to "stars," or who haven't a clue as to how to do audience development, how to try and foster support for those things on the cutting edge. Last year I helped organize (it was all at my instigation) a series of meetings here to put together a Portland performing arts fest - the meetings never went anywhere, but apparently someone who attended took the idea (and the name), incorporated it, and they're trying to do it this year - though of course they've turned me down as a performer unless I want to work for nothing. I love this place - -
next time, to see if you're really paying attention, Mike will give you the wrong changes - or say something like: "on the second bridge play an H sharp, stand on your head, and kiss the piano player. Play the second ending three times, roll over, and hold your breath for 4 minutes. Then call Chewy."
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Herbie Hancock Memoir
AllenLowe replied to brownie's topic in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...
thanks Larry, I now remember that you posted about that a while back - unfortunately that's the way of the foundation world (and even someone I know who is involved in social services reports that this happens on that level as well - wasted time and money on useless studies, in which the money spent would be better put to direct use, as in actually helping people). I participated in a bunch of these kinds of activities in the late '80s and early '90s before I finally realized that it was the same people talking about the same things that they never actually did. As I mentioned, at one regular conference, the N.E. Foundation for the Arts used to always cite me as the model for how an independent musician could work and create on his own - but the nonprofits they spoke to never returned my calls or hired me or responded to anything I (or a number of musicians) sent. And NEFA itself never gve me an ounce of real support. I once got quoted in a New Haven newspaper as criticizing arts organizations who "got grants in order to allow themselves to get more grants." People in that world were furious at me - but I was completely justified in saying it. The upshot of all this is that you would hope that someone who goes through the ranks - like a Hancock - and achieves a certain amount of wealth and power might actually use it do help people outside of their own sphere - but it rarely happens because it calls for challenging the status quo, which they, for all their claims, are not comfortable doing. -
Herbie Hancock Memoir
AllenLowe replied to brownie's topic in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...
Mark's points are good - but I didn't say Lundvall portrayed himself as a revolutionary, but rather as an alternative to the way things were happening. Which he did, in interview after interview at the time. I myself, representing both Haig and Albany, talked to Lundvall a few times. It came to nothing, which is not necessarily indicative of larger issues, but I just got a sense that the whole idea of a deeper love of the music as reflected in his business practices was pretty much a shallow idea. In other words, it was more talk than anything else. as for a new economic model, I am over my head here, but Marty Khan (who makes me seem like a moderate) could fill you in with more detail on why guys like Lundval tend to get nowhere until they go back to the same old/same old - which is fine for what it is, but which really (for jazz musicians) means back to square one, over and over again. as for the rest, Leila Wallace is still a gaping sore, in my book. It was a real chance to do something, and those of us who warned it wasn't happening were ejected - and then the internal report came out and was, basically, shredded. All of this, as I said, happened at a very optimistic time, when things SEEMED to be changing. I got a call one day from Rob Gibson at Lincoln Center, had lunch with him where he dangled the possibility of a job in front of me; I basically gave him every jazz contact I had in NYC - and then, of course, could never again get him on the phone. no big surprise, but in a way, the promise of change without change is worse than never having the oppportunity. -
Herbie Hancock Memoir
AllenLowe replied to brownie's topic in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...
cmon Pete, read my post, I never set Lundval up for perfection - he was just another of a whole lotta record company people who tried to create the illusion that they were alternatives to the established system - ask people like Joe Albany, who could not get return calls in those days from Bruce, or Al Haig, who was pretty much ignored, or even Barry Harris who, back then, could not get a record deal from the bigger "jazz" labels, and who was not afraid to complain publicly about this. Or jaki Byard, who was pretty blunt about jazz lovers like Lundval. And Art Pepper gave me an earful about a similar group of executives. as for my generation of musicians, it was and continues to be trickle down economics - everything from Leila Wallace claiming it was going to change the way the jazz business was set up (they actually claimed this in the early meetings) to the New England Foundation for the Arts bouncing musicians off of panels (they said it was a conflict of interest, as these musicians were looking for work - yet the panels continued to be occupied by presenters who were receiving DIRECT FUNDING from Leila Wallace - and who, when they got the money, proceeded to do the same things they had done before the whole program existed - and as I said, there was an internal report which said exactly this, but the Leila Wallace Foundation never let it see the light of day). ask Bill Dixon (too late now) who was on those panels and whom I could tell thought the whole thing was a smoke screen. Lundval, once again, failed to change the model for the way the business was done. He wasn't obligated to do so - BUT HE TALKED AS THOUGH THIS WAS HIS GOAL. so all of this does, indeed, give me a jaundiced view of a lot of people, including Herbie, who talk a good game about community but continue to act primarily for self interest. It's not the only way to do things. It's easy to glibly criticize his cynicism, but one of the reasons Chris Albertson did not retire a rich man was because he continually did the right thing for musicians and didn't cut himself in on their deals. I spent years advocating for musicians like not only Barry Harris but Bob Neloms and Schildkraut and Bill Triglia and Dickey Meyers and Duke Jordan and Tommy Potter and Percy France, getting some of them bookings and publicity, spending my own time and money and never accepting a cent in return. And I'm not the only one, though everybody works in different ways - look what Chuck Nessa has done, or William Russell, Larry Gushee, or the years of essential critical work Larry Kart has done - without any real compensation, while guys like Lundval give lip service to what we do (and the New England Foundation used to love using me as a poster child for the independent musician, but never gave me a penny of support) but never really take risks themselves. I'm sure these guys are all fun at parties, Val, but for some of us this is daily life. this is reality, and this is jazz. Love it or leave it. -
that sounds right, He was very out of it when I spoke to him. Pity,
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Herbie Hancock Memoir
AllenLowe replied to brownie's topic in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...
jeez, let's talk about it. Lundval was just another of those guys who talked the talk but really, in the end, just did the same old things. Nice guy, definitely; but talk to Marty Khan about him. There was a whole period when things started to SEEM like they were changing in the jazz world - the Musician label, Jazz at Lincoln Center (Rob GIbson talked a good game and used a lot of people); the Leila Wallace Fund was giving cash - but nothing happened except that those who were already well fed just kept feeding themselves. Marty put together a revolutionary model for a national network of jazz presentation; the presenters (and Leila Wallace) all rejected it because it made THEM less central and elevated musicians. Leila Wallace spent thousands on devising a presenters network, and THEN surpressed an internal report that said, basically, their money was wasted (something which I, as an early panelist, said was happening throughout the whole process). Lincoln Center became Lincoln Center. Lundval failed to change the model of the jazz record label. this stuff really happened. The jazz world continued to be trickle-down economics. I was there. Yes, Val, these are all nice people, but they continued to keep jazz as a feudal system. That's reality, -
listen to his solo on Yardbird Suite on that (it's on Spotify) - brilliant stuff, shapes, exactly - but it's edgy, sounds like he's finding things.
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but his tone was different in those days, too - edge, not growl, I think - just a little more intense. You felt like he meant it. The Phil Woods of today sounds to me like a synth. There's an old Xanadu LP that's got some live stuff, I think, with Woods, that was a revelation to me. I think this is it: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.xanadurecords.com%2Fpdfs%2Finternationaljamsessions.pdf&ei=PpqYT8f5C-rF0QGTheyJBw&usg=AFQjCNHPMKojqO9ojPI1vx9Q5rnnEiH5Yg&sig2=L2GtYd_blqHx2w2at_NIrw
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huh....it may have been a combo - thrown down. But my memory may be playing tricks, because I remember they said he was found lying face-down on the sidewalk.
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Quill is, to my ears, the best altoist of the '50s after Schildkraut and McClean. Now, the rumor has been that he used a tenor reed on an alto mouthpiece, and I'm certain this is true, on some of the recordings. On the collection I mentioned he appears to be using the tenor reed on about half the cuts (with a Link rubber); it gives him a darker, bigger sound, almost a McLean-like sourness (though not quite). too bad he was such a falling-down drunk and junkie. I tried to interview him some time in the '80s, called his house, He had just gotten out of the hospital after being found laying in the gutter (he'd hit his head on a sidewalk), He was very nice, but he never really came out of it.
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Herbie Hancock Memoir
AllenLowe replied to brownie's topic in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...
allright, I guesss, maybe he knew. I just found Lundval to be a big disappointment; more talk than real action in the jazz thing. BTW, go online to that guy's vault, the one with all the Fillmore shows. FInd the '69 show with Beck at the FIllmore, and be prepared to hear some of the best blues guitar ever. just a conjecture on my part. -
in the 50s Woods still had a wonderful edge, I know what Larry means (I think). Later he became a bit machine-like.
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Herbie Hancock Memoir
AllenLowe replied to brownie's topic in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...
Pete - Lundvall is a typical jazz guy, in that respect; you'd be surprised (or not) how many of his generation never heard of Beck. And I'm willing to bet this is true because Lundvall is also a market-type guy; if he knew how big Beck was he would have been all over this.
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