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AllenLowe

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Posts posted by AllenLowe

  4. Ellington Small Groups on Columbia

    in Discography

    Posted

    On 1/27/2021 at 8:57 PM, Captain Howdy said:

    This is a question I've been wondering about lately. You always see PD labels proclaiming DIGITALLY REMASTERED! when you know damned well they stole the tracks from Chronological Classics or someone like that. How much can you actually change the sound using EQ? It's my (extremely poor) understanding that EQ is best used as a subtractive rather than additive process. If the track you have to work on has no low end, can you really create a low end using EQ?

    Thanks. Depending on which tracks you're referring to I assume they would be in this box: Blues, Boogie & Bop—The 1940s Mercury Sessions.

    with the right digital eq you can do incredible things - I re-did the Morton from the BMG box and Larry Gushee, sitting in my basement, was absolutely astounded, saying he had never heard it sounding so good.

  5. Ellington Small Groups on Columbia

    in Discography

    Posted · Edited by AllenLowe

    31 minutes ago, Mark Stryker said:

    Interesting, though I probably don’t have to point out that I am the sort of high-interest, knowledgeable consumer who is absolutely willing to pay a premium for reissues that I don’t have to fucking EQ myself. In a sane universe, that would be the company’s responsibility.

     

    I have to admit that I take some satisfaction in just being able to make stuff sound like it should. But the insanity is that, with these Ellingtons, it's not just a matter of making them sound better but like completely starting from scratch.  It is idiotic.

  6. Ellington Small Groups on Columbia

    in Discography

    Posted

    12 hours ago, Mark Stryker said:

    I have the two Columbia 2-CD sets from the early 90s title “The Duke’s Men Vol 1 and 2.” Nicely annotated but not crazy about the early digital transfers (CEDAR). So, what are the quality options on CD or vintage LPs for this material? 

    I have the RCA small group stuff 1940-46 on French black and white LPs — off-the-charts great musically and sonically, but I’m looking for the the stuff on the Columbia family of labels in better sound.

     

    the Columbia issue CD transfers are actually fine, but extremely poorly eq'd. Which means that the sound is all there but needs, yes, to be restored. Which is crazy if you are a consumer but amusing and fun if, like me, you are fond of showing what idiots the engineers on these major labels have been (this, btw, is also true of the much hated Jelly Roll Morton BMG box; I can make that thing, with digitial eq, sound fantastic. Larry Gushee was amazed).

  8. Digitally restoring 78 records?

    in Audio Talk

    Posted

    21 hours ago, mjzee said:

    Allen: I'm now on disc 23 of Turn Me Loose, and am impressed by how listenable the results are.  I wonder if you could talk a little about your remastering philosophy.  For example, what level do you consider optimal?  Some suggest that the level should be as loud as possible without hitting 0 db (i.e., without going into the red).  You remaster a little quieter than that, so I wonder if there's an optimal level you shoot for, or do you just rely on your ears to tell you whether a track sounds distorted or is too low?

    this is very variable. I use, primarily, my ears, and it is hell when sources are so variable, I tend to put it all on a pair of decent speakers and then sit back; the goal is to not have to constantly adjust levels as one listens back. Sometimes I take the lazy way out, and measure peaks to about -2. But if you do that you have to take into account that very noisy sources are going to read much different than those with less surface noise. Other than that it's all by the seat of my pants.

  10. Phil Spector Dead at 81

    in Artists

    Posted

    1 hour ago, felser said:

    Various thoughts on the discussion:

    1 - "Hung on You" is not hard to find on 45.  It was a surprisingly failed A-side following the two classic Philles hits, but some DJ's flipped it, and the semi-throwaway B-side, a 50's retread they didn't even bother to have Bill Medley sing on, did OK.  That was "Unchained Melody".

    2 - The climax of "Just Once in My Life" ("I Can't Give You The World" etc.) is probably the most goosebump-inspiring moment in all of music for me.

    3 - I am constantly shocked at how "otherworldly" a lot of 50's records sound.  Check out something like Bobby Freeman's "Do You Want to Dance" on youtube.

    that's quite an amazing record and I agree with you. The techniques Spector used were ripe for overkill - to my ears it is basically plate reverb  - but there is something incredibly patient is that performances; just let the music happen and don't rush anything.

  12. Sonny Rollins Recommendations?

    in Discography

    Posted

    I don't have any info as to who is doing what, but I did have a conversation about this period with Dick Katz years ago; I loved Dick and he was a great guy, but it's always amusing and interesting to hear, when you get close to musicians who have been at the center of things, about the little irritants and resentments. Dick had just started to work with Rollins when Sonny abruptly changed to piano-less trios, and 20-30 years later he was still a little frustrated and pissed off, as I think it felt like a real opportunity for him to work with one of the central figures in all of jazz. But it was not to be (for very long); he said, as I recall, that he had been rehearsing with Rollins in anticipation of the famous Vanguard gig that was recorded, but that just before it happened Sonny decided to strip down the group to a trio.

  13. Groups whose sums are less than the parts

    in Miscellaneous Music

    Posted

    another one was an  infamous gig Sonny Rollins did at Town Hall - maybe 1969 or 1970 - with him and something like 6 bassists? Maybe more. It was a long time ago, and though I remember there was a notice in Downbeat about it, I cannot find any other documentation. I do remember that in the first half of the concert Jaki Byard appeared with a group that had one of those active names - like the Jazz Messengers, though not that of course. They were fine. Sonny came on, played against this weird bass background, and lasted maybe 15 minutes before he just walked off.

    Years later I mentioned it to Jaki Byard, who cracked up and said to me: "yeah, what was Sonny thinking?"

  14. Louis Armstrong book review

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted

    this is what I posted on Facebook about this whole question:

    I look at it this way: Louis Armstrong revolutionized pop music and jazz. He saw himself as an everyman of entertainment, and I think it's racist to complain that he doesn't meet some political standard of appropriate racial behavior; not to mention that it's a myth that he was politically compromised (he very publicly attacked Eisenhower over Little Rock, for example). And he was a great humanitarian, loved by everyone who knew him. At his best he was the James Joyce of jazz and popular music, restructuring reality and rearranging it in revelatory ways, showing us that linearity doesn't mean A to B to C but is instead a representation of shifting states of consciousness. He was the American Dada, showing how reality is a confrontation between the intellect and the senses.
     
    And in the end, no matter what he did, it is a matter of self-determination. You think music is political? Then Louis Armstrong is the great liberator, a black man who declared artistic and personal independence when to do so was risky if not dangerous.
     
    So let us summarize: a genius artist who was the most influential musician of the 20th century; an individual who took control of his life, artistic and personal, who was about as free as a 20th century black man could be; a great entertainer beloved by millions; and great human being, a humanitarian who treated everyone as equals. What the hell more do we want from the guy?

     

  18. Herbie Nichols Radio Interview

    in Artists

    Posted · Edited by AllenLowe

    gotta listen when I have a chance. Ros was fascinating when talking about Nichols, and explained very patiently to me  one day that Herbie's career problems had nothing to do with industry problems or evil businessman but because Nichols basically talked himself out of the business. "He was just everywhere else, anything but the music" Ros said to me, "and would not get down to business with club owners, and so they wouldn't deal with him."  It's a pity, but it's just the way he was.

  21. Life in Eb The Phil Woods Autobiography

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted

    5 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

    So I sprang for this from a Christmas Amazon gift card and now Amazon is pimping Chan's book by the same title. This is a must-have, isn't it? I honestly didn't know about her book and you'd think I'd heard about it when published 20 years ago.  I don't really need too much encouragement but curious what people think of it. And anyway since its the same name as Phil's book I am not really changing the threat topic at all, right?

    For what it's worth, Dan, I liked Chan's book. She was a real witness to that era and a lot of the craziness.

  23. Life in Eb The Phil Woods Autobiography

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted · Edited by AllenLowe

    19 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

    The relevant passage about Al Haig from Woods' autobiography:

    "Less great were several memorable encounters with Al Haig, one of  them a New Years Eve gig at a longshoreman's club in Brookyn. It looked like a scene from 'On the Waterfront' with pitchers of beer on the table. There was no bandstand, the three-foot Acme piano in the middle of the dance floor was out of tune, and the other bandmember was a midget with a snare drum and a hi-hat... His time came and went, and no sign of Al. The crowd was getting rowdy so I offered to play the piano. It was a quarter tone flat and the midget was little short of time. Finally Al showed and I jumped on him. 'What is this, Al? That little MF can't play, and I can't tune to the piano, and we might end the year in the river with cement overshoes! And the bread sucks and you're late!'

    "Al's retort was the first indication I had that he was stone nuts! 'Oh, all of you artist type exhibit tension and bring an overload of emotional problems to the marketplace of life! Don't you know any polkas? Are you a musical illiterate? Communist or what?' 

    "I excused myself and went to the toilet with my horn and case and slipped out the back door. I ran like the wind to the subway, hoping I wouldn't be missed until I was safely aboard the first train out of this gig from hell."

    Afterwards Al shows up at Phil's home in rural Pa., where he interacts bizarrely with Chan and Phil's step kids and lobbies to become a semi-permanent houseguest. Phil finally drives him back to New York; on the way Al buys a bottle of sherry for a dollar and a half. "When I finally ejected him from my Falcon at 52nd St. and 7th Ave. the last words I heard were, 'Yeah, f--- you. You're a self-centered bastard and your wife's a shrew, your kids are a drag, and your fucking arthritic dog is a faggot!' [The day before Al had picked up the dog by its hind legs and shaken it violently, saying that this was a sure cure for its arthritis. At this Chan snapped and said Al had to go.]

     

    In that whole series of events I don't see insanity - I see an alcoholic with a very caustic sense of humor (the speech about temperamental artists) - and as I said, an alcoholic for whom drinking brings out the whole Jekyll and Hyde thing. I saw this is another very close friend, also a great jazz pianist.

    At least this is not as bad as the Frank Rosolino story (and just to add to the story,  I remember a friend of mine on the Cape telling me that one of Haig's sons lived near her and was a very strange and reclusive guy).

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