AllenLowe

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).

the above is probably his best work. Larry: she wrote a Billie Holiday bio which is full of the usual academic b.s. but which has one particularly offensive section about the late session which she did with Jimmy Rowles (which came out on LP and CD with their conversations intact). Now, if you listen, and you know anything about Rowles and Billie, she loved his playing and they were good friends. But Griffin writes about how Rowles was a white man that Billie didn't trust and she kept him at a distance, and that race was a deep divider between the two, and that this was made clear by the recorded conversation. It's complete and utter b.s., not just based on this conversation but on everything else that we know. And yet, the conversation, if she was actually listening, is clearly one of two comrades who love and respect each other. I just can't abide her kind of academic obfuscation, her clear lack of understanding of that life, her typical academic tendency to build a small, square ideological box and try to fit a lot of large round objects into it

if Farah Jasmine Griffin thinks Maxine knows what she's doing, well, that's about all we need to know.

I see that I am in a small minority here. I just wanted to mention that when it comes to playing behind the beat, the most interesting player I ever heard was Dickey Wells. He was uncanny, even in his dotage when, on a good night, he could still blow. And his playing was amazingly "outside." Dick Katz talked about how Dickey would play a full step above the chords. Whereas I found Dexter's behind-the-beat playing mannered and...well, grating.

ah, Maxine. A friend of mine did a lot of work for her as a favor to help promote the Dexter book, I mean a lot. And as he told me "she didn't even give me a free damn book."

it's pretty much true of everything I have ever heard Dexter play after, say, 1970. And btw, one of his drummers once complained about playing with him, because the rhythm section never knew where the hell he was. Everything he does, to my ears, is so strangely mannered that it's like llstening to a 33 rpm record at 16.

I just posted in that old thread.

I’m coming a little bit late to the party, but a few things in this regard. It’s very possible that I am the one referred to as harshly disliking Dexter‘s playing. I mentioned it here some years ago and was reamed out, but I still stand by my sense that a lot of his playing is marred by a stoned-out sensibility that never quite catches up with itself. I have heard some late Dexter that is quite profound, but still I never listen to him for pleasure but only for some kind of historical instruction. As for Stitt, In person he could be quite intensive and personal, in his own way. I did have a very difficult encounter with him in Boston at the jazz workshop In the middle 1970s or so. I’m proud to say I told him off, because he was gratuitously nasty. But that’s another story. As for his gladiator-like ability to play in different keys, I have a feeling this is pretty much a myth. I knew Bobby Buster very well, and he told me this was all bullshit, that Stitt ended up playing in weird concert keys because he refused to transpose tunes when he switched horns; so he might play body and soul on the alto in the alto key of E flat, which would put it in concert G flat, just so he could play it in the same key as he did on tenor. Bobby was pretty adamant about this.