AllenLowe

His widow Carol has called me a few times for some remastering advice for his old label (was it Improvising Artists?). She lives up in Cherry Valley New York near the Baseball Hall of Fame.

In my current cognitively-challenged state, it is possible that I was actually remembering reading the one autobiography twice.

I only went to one concert at Symphony Hall, in the '70s, and the acoustics were very difficult, though the recordings I've heard that were made there (like Armstrong's) are pretty clear. This of course is rough, but everything is there.

Paul and I were friendly acquaintances, he used to call me 3 or 4 times a year to talk. I loved the guy; he was a bit of a know-it-all, but he really did know it all. I've read both bios. I was most impressed by the fact that at certain key points of his career he took the path least likely to lead to work and money, but succeeded each time. He also told me some funny stories about working with Hawk and Rollins, that Sonny was very consciously trying to lose Hawkins, who asked Bley, on occasion, to cue him in for his solo.

got it thanks

can't get to it; when I click the link it says "video is private."

Percy talked about Coggins a lot; at the time Coggins was playing in a place down in the village, where I only caught him once. His late work was terrific, very original. those notes are formidable; when I first sent Devilin' Tune out for one of its many rejections, one editor who turned it down complained I didn't have enough footnotes, though I had hundreds. It was maddening. Aidan, as I've said, is really smart. 700+pages is a lot. I have to admit that in books like this I tend to skip the sections on the early years, which I think often are dragged down by too much research. But he clearly knows the way around this subject (though I would avoid one source cited, Farah Jasmine Griffin, like the plague. She's a classic tenured know-nothing).

Aidan Levy is a good guy and a smart guy. I am sure the book is worthwhile.

I think Bloomfield was a genius and love his playing. He just did not, like most rockers, have enough of a musical understanding of true modal playing. Same thing with Jerry Garcia, who I also admired; he thought playing scales was enough to be playing "jazz."

Hampton Grease Band might qualify, as well as Big Brother, depending on what you mean by "extended." Of course not always on record, but in live performance. I'll bet Hendrix did some of that. I know East West is considered important, and I love Bloomfield, but I think he really didn't have a clue as to how to do that kind of thing, and it showed. In performance Zappa did some long solos. Also, White Light White Heat by the VU is one of the best examples of very advanced soloing in a rock performance.

REEG

Wendy Eisenberg? And Xerxes Russell? Looks like a nice fest, but why does all contemporary, non-jazz, in these festivals almost always sound like canned music and outsider music castoffs? I'm no improvised music snob, but a lot of this other music is starting to sound like the aural equivalent of processed food.

well, maybe - because I know that he did jettison that original band because he thought they weren't really up to playing his compositions as well as some others -

Frank was wrong, in my opinion, which is why none of his later bands were as great as the first - I was lucky enough to catch them in 1968, and they were rough, tight, edgy, spirited, and just a hell of a lot of fun. Not that the later ones were bad, but they had a slickness which gave them less feeling.

Katja just announced she's leaving the USA and going back to Berlin.

I head to Boston Sunday for one more surgery (number 15) but there's light at the end of the funnel - feeling better, have had what is probably my last reconstructive surgery. I have a face again (well, maybe 75 percent of a face) and hope to be playing by the end of January. We are also doing Dizzy's on May 3, 2023, with a nice group including Aaron Johnson, Ava Mendoza, Ray Suhy, Lewis Porter. In the meantime I am trying to get my "career" back. I did a whole lot of recording last spring, and am finishing a book, as follows: 3 cd set of my own work called In the Dark (featuring Ken Peplowski and others) and a separate, single CD of my own work called America: The Rough Cut. The first is a series of song forms and oddities; the last is a program of older American song forms, from gospel to country to blues and pre-blues. Plus a heavy metal piece (actually 2) with saxophone and electric guitar. All pieces feature Ray Suhy, who I say without fear of hype is the best guitar player in the world. And Aaron Johnson, on clarinet and alto on In the Dark, is not to be missed. Both projects will be out on ESP Disk; I honestly think this is the best work I have ever done. The book is called Letter to Esperanza, with some semi-pithy commentary plus the usual stuff which continues to get me into trouble. I would like to do an advance sale. This will help finance the project. I offer the following: 1) In the Dark – 3 CD set - $25 plus media shipping (total $30) 2) America: The Rough Cut – single cd - $10 plus media shipping (total $15) – 3) The book – Letter to Esperanza - which will be priced at $30 shipped when issued – for $20 shipped as a pre-order. Those are all individual prices when ordered, in advance, separately. Or, order all for $55 shipped in the USA. (Contact me for Euro shipping, which has gotten expensive) - my paypal is allenlowe5@gmail.com thanks -

I understand. I guess we have to realize that Haig was about 23 years old (born in 1922; apparently he changed the date later on) and this music was such a racial kind of reorganization. He told me that Dizzy showed him how to voice chords for the new music. it won't let me correct the above, "racial" should have been "radical" - spellcheck crap, sorry. Anyone else here find themselves unable to edit text?

I will add that the movie made of Joe's daughter's book is probably the best jazz film/bio ever made. Spectacular, and caught Joe perfectly. It was very painful to watch, but worth it. I have to protest that Haig at Town Hall - and Billy Berg's, from the airshot I have heard - plays brilliantly. He had it absolutely together. You need to listen again. check the piano out at 6:51: https://www.google.com/search?q=charlie+parker+town+hall+1945&sxsrf=ALiCzsYP2vFDuDK8f_MFdF4wGao_35qgPw:1668733094675&source=lnms&tbm=vid&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjxzdSaw7b7AhW2KlkFHfYYAHIQ_AUoAnoECAEQBA&biw=1584&bih=773&dpr=1.82#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f208174e,vid:ciFjhdeEa5A better link - piano at 5:23

I only played with Joe at my wedding, but I heard him play many times. He was best in solo, full of wonderfully dense lines - though he was fine with groups, he had these blank spaces where he just got lost - usually only for a few seconds, but they were weird - and I have heard similar things with other former drug and alcohol abusers (Al Haig on rare occasions, Brian Klahrman frequently). But I loved Joe; he really, at his best, had an almost Cecil Taylor-like intensity (listen to the version of I Love You on the home recording he made with Warne Marsh). But here was a guy who had used not just a lot of alcohol but also, as he told me, horse tranquilizer.

great book. As told to Ed Berger, a wonderful guy.

I go in the other direction music wise. Religious music, yes, but the key to the fire and cry in Trane's sound (and Bird, and Ornette and Julius Hemphill and Albert Ayler) is black Pentocostal music. Eastern music my butt. Listen to classic storefront gospel, like Bessie Johnson, and tons of other 1920s gospel, or any COGIC recording or the (white) Old Regular Baptists, or the Holy Rollers, and you have all you need. It is visionary, delirious, rolling in the aisles, speaking in tongues (and there is, interestingly enough, also lots of white religious music of this stripe, on YouTube). This to me is the soul of American sound, deeper than the blues. Even if you are not a believer, well, it doesn't matter. This is the music that I hear in my head when I play.

well, here's the proof that you are right; not only is Greer on drums, but he swings and has a great solo:

Many years ago, probably Mid 1970s, I wandered into Gregory's, a piano bar on the East Side of NYC. Brooks Kerr was scheduled to play, and when I walked in I saw that Scott Hamilton was also there, plus a bass player whose name I can not remember, and Sonny Greer! I almost fell over; even back then he was kind of a mythical figure. He set up a very small drum set, and played very nicely. I mentioned this to Scott not long ago, to see if I was hallucinating, and he confirmed it actually happened.

I will probably skip the Iverson, but the others look interesting (though until a surgery I am having next week, my sight will remain unable to navigate these very well). The standards article interests me because I remember Dick Katz discussing how the jazz repertoire radically expanded post- bebop, from the relatively limited harmonies used by swing era (and earlier) musicians (with exceptions of course). A lot of this was the function of bebop's broadening of tempos and intervals. I also recall a conversation I had with Bill Crow years ago. We were discussing, for some reason, how the standard repertoire inserted itself into jazz. He knew I had been friends with Al Haig, and he said something which I have never heard anyone else mention. which was that in his experience Haig was one of the prime players who helped to codify the changes in the growing standard repertoire, meaning re-harmonization and chord substitutions. I wish I had heard this when Haig was alive; it would have been interesting to ask him about it

just ordered. If it is a sonic upgrade on the studio stuff, it is worth it. Haig always complained about this session (he was on a few cuts) because he said Max was in a separate booth (interesting that this was a mono session with concerns about leakage). But it is such an amazing recording and historically important. As for Mulligan - I always found his work to be a little precious, but it is worth another close listen.