AllenLowe

it sounds good on the samples, though I probably won't buy it. Wondering if it includes the Lena Horne session? Also, gotta tell Mosaic; in their blurb listing all the important pianists on the set they fail to include the great Arnold Ross. Also, the Jack McVea sample has a terrific trumpet solo by somebody name Joe Kelly, which they don't even mention in their online notes. Who was that guy? This could be him: https://en.everybodywiki.com/Joe_Kelly_(musician)

It really is not a Coltrane-ish thing to my ears, but I would suggest that Coltrane's way of stacking chords forced Sonny to take the bebop method to it's most logical conclusion, which is that every chord suggests a lot of other chords; what he did, to my ears, was connect these chords in dense and brilliantly varied (rhythmically complex) clusters. It's like this circle of harmony. Maybe it can be generally explained, but pulling it off is a whole other thing; it's like one continuous, Joycean sentence that circles itself and then extends to another level of consciousness, before seeming to level off, at which point (since the chord has changed) it recycles itself in new harmonic/scalular directions (some of which veer off harmonically, but which almost always resolve consonantly). As for Sonny understanding new aspects of music, well....I think this period is a very logical extension of his best 1950s work; it is as though he has just filled in the spaces (to get a sense of where he was in the '50s check out the recording he made with MJQ in the late 1950s; the one with Doxy, You Are Too Beautiful, I'll Follow My Secret Heart, Limehouse Blues. This is where he is starting, to my ears, to really fully extend the bop gesture).

1) I am glad that Jim cited The Bridge as sub-par Sonny; I find the album strangely dull. 2) I was lucky enough to come across the RCA LP of Sonny playing standards when I was maybe 15 or 16 and it was revelatory. This really was the greatest era of Sonny's playing, no if, ands, or buts. I was able to pick up a few more RCA Lps of this era as the years passed. As Mark said, his chord-change playing was unbelievable, an incredibly dense exploration of tonality and harmony (as a tenor player I have tried in vain to emulate this, though it seems to have to do with a king of circular line, parallel scales and figures that move across the harmonic landscape). Happily I now own the Complete Sonny Rollins RCA on CD (or something similarly titled). 3) Jamil Nasser expressed the belief to me that Sonny was completely thrown for a loop when Coltrane became the dominant tenor. In Jamil's opinion this was why he cultivated a somewhat self-conscious eccentricity, playing on the bridge, getting the Mohawk. 4) Sonny, for all his gentle persona, is fiercely competitive. As much as he loved Hawk, according to what Paul Bley told me he was always trying to throw Hawkins off, to play so abstractly that the older man would not know where they were in the tune. Hawk asked Bley, on more than one occasion but particularly on the recording, to signal him in for his choruses.

I have tried; with some interesting exceptions it just all sounds too calculated. It verges on the adventurous, but then loses its nerve.

I recently pissed off Darcy James Argue because I mentioned that I do not like Carla Bley's band writing. It strikes me as strangely conventional, the harmonic voicings, the execution; fake daring. As opposed to, say, Duke, George Russel and Gil Evans and Julius Hemphill, whose big group work always seems to be on the edge of a certain kind of musical disintegration. Her work has its moments of disjointed glee, but they are usually fully under control, with very little true harmonic tension or emotional release. It's like a giant tease resolved by consonance and convention. Is there not anyone else who feels this way? Her whole thing is too controlled, lacking in non-textbook essence. There is, to quote a great lady, no there there. There are sections I like, but they come across as second-rate Brechtian/Weil gestures with settled triads and land-locked chords.

there's nothing really to read except that I was told by some fellow band member that he was continually showing up late, missing planes, playing the prima donna. His sudden "fame" went to his head.

it was with both Mingus and Danny Richmond. I have first hand accounts.

in college I was playing bass in a country/rock band, and we had a gig at a biker bar. Sure enough a fight broke out one night; fortunately it went toward and out the door instead of toward the band stand. Fortunately, no one had guns in those days (maybe 1973) -

in those days he kind of did himself in, missing planes and acting the Star. Looks like he's grown up, which is nice to see.

that Zieff thing on Fresh Sounds is a must-have. Really.

Chris was one of the few absolutely honest people in the music business, which is why he died basically poor, if not impoverished. He was a great man and, for all his occasional mishugas, I miss him.

both Ellison and Albert Murray hated bebop (there is a fascinating book of their letters to each other in which they are less guarded than in public statements); Murray in particular also thought the '50s Basie band was an abomination.

I am very curious about this as post-'60s Mingus has never felt right to me, never had the visceral effect of the earlier bands. Plus George Adams, who is thankfully not on this, annoys the hell out of me.

The only thing I would add about the Rollins trio is that although the group composition changed, what was significant was Sonny's use of the piano-less trio, which he did maintain for quite a while (until the God-forsaken Fantasy years). As a matter of fact, the last pianist he hired just before this was Dick Katz, who was still bugged by it 30 years later; Dick loved playing with Sonny, and it was a great gig but, as he noted with some annoyance to me many years later "he was done with pianists." At least for a while.

yes, it is all down hill from here....

it is one of the best collections ever of jazz writing. University Presses are notorious for not paying a lot. Though it's not the way everyone wants to do it, the smartest thing I ever did was to publish Turn Me Loose White Man myself. After the WSJ article I made a lot of money on the project (including the CDs). Paid my property tax for at least two years.

So what are we playing at Smalls (on Wednesday April 6, sets at 7:30 and 9)? Belasco's Revenge, a tribute of sorts to the Trinidadian pianist Lionel Belasco; Damnation, a gospel-type meditation on....well, damnation. Ralphie's Theme, a somewhat sideways version of a more famous tune. Two ballads for now-departed friends: Goodbye Barry Harris, and Memories of Jaki; In the Jungles, a look back at the New York dance and stride scene of James P. Johnson et al, named after the joints he played in the New York Neighborhood of San Juan Hill (where Lincoln Center is today. Innuendo in Blue, our non-Ellington piece inspired by the fascinating way in which Duke wrote for his band, in a kind of continuous musical sentence. Not to mention the ballad Duke Dreams, which evokes my own sleepless year roaming in the dark, as part of my suite by the same name; also, In the Dark: Delirium, a memory of those nights when I felt like I was on the edge of a strange and shallow precipice. Hassan's Nap, a sequel to Hassan's Dream; and Hiding from a Riff, a semi-bebop tune written in the Mop Mop style (we come not to bury bebop but to praise bebop.....) Now we may not get to all of these, but there's only one way to find out.....remember that I only play out a handful of times every year, and like Halley's Comet it may be a while before I make my next appearance (or before I crash and burn). and for tickets: https://www.smallslive.com/events/23738-allen-lowe-octet/

as someone who has recorded about 20 albums worth of original tunes, with 3-5 more coming in the next year.....

this is just too much for me right now; I knew Bill through here and Facebook and he was one of the kindest people I have ever dealt with. I don't know what to do or say.

Larry; he is not exactly in this vein, but I was wondering if you know the work of Jon-Erik Kellso? Great trumpet/cornetist, and an amazing plunger player. His groups have a Condon-ite feel, roughly speaking.

I used to call them "Mostly Other Musicians Do the Playing."

for what it's worth (and I think it's worth a lot) Larry Gushee told me he thought that Ernest Coycault, the trumpeter with Clay, probably gave a strong clue as to the sound of Buddy Bolden.

I was basically just goofing around, but I did mean it when I said how much I dislike the group.

this is the point where I say I hate this band, which is the worst kind of white-boy pseudo funk. And then someone else says "Allen is just jealous" and I answer fuck no, I'm still alive and I'm Artist of the Year. You're the one who's jealous. But they are so awful, jazz's version of bubblegum music, Muzak for someone stuck in the Elevator of Life. And fuck you, I'm not jealous I am old and secure and happy and breathing and only seeing double on occasion.

Lees was a bit of a dope, and yet he has some good profiles in his books. But sometimes I want to kick him, especially with his moronic ideas about modernism (which he decided was unsuitable for jazz).