AllenLowe

didn't PDQ write a Concerto for Horn and Hardart? I've actually never had instant coffee. Probably because my father drank the stuff, and he was crazy. So I'm afraid it will make me crazy too (allright, easy set up for you guys) -

Bloomfield was a monster - Al Kooper told me that Columbia is sitting on a huge trove of various solo recordings Bloomfield made, including some amazing acoustic things in which he did some Travis picking (I've heard one incredible example). I was talking with Kooper at the time (about 5 years ago) about working on the notes for a Columbia release of some of the stuff , but nothing ever came of it, at least so far.

Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen - the original group, which included Andy Stein, the best jazz fiddler in the world (he's now on Prairie Home Companion). Also had Bill Kirchen, a great guitarist. How could you not love a band that sang a song called Mama Hated Diesels?

Mike Bloomfield, If You Love These Blues Play 'Em as you Please - a fascinating and reissued CD of his own historical observations and re-creations. also, Big Brother and Janis Joplin Live at Winterland - avant garde guitar playing at the root, taking the blues someplace else.

truth is, Seeline, if I am completely serious I get attacked - "bourgeois posturing" was it, as I recall; if I use parody I get attacked, so it really matters nil. People dislike the tactic of parody unless it's a parody of something that they dislike - and looking back at my posts the only thing I did that might be construed as offensive was to call the group The Chocolate Drips - so out of 25 posts of intellectual enlightenment I make one little remark that offends and the emphasis is only, of course, on that. Not really fair. Unless there's some other sarcasm that I can't recall.

heard by itself, with a tenor mouthpiece, it SORTA sounds like a tenor - until I pick up my tenor. with an alto mouthpiece I blow and blow and practically pass out, and the sound is little - and if I think Lester Young, I can get a semi-Trumbauer feeling, which is fun - (writing a song: For Some Reason in C) but I prefer the tenor mouthpiece, because playing with a band is torture without the added volume. And I can overblow on it. the neck is another thing, at a strange angle. but I'm getting used to it.

and people wonder why jazz musicians don't make any money......

I think you two, Medjuck and Seeline, are equating a strong and serious and sarcastic dislike with feeling superior. Not true. I dislike many kinds of music for specific and numerous reasons, but I realize audiences always have their reasons. I think you are representing a false kind of populism. Do you dislike certain political candidates because you feel superior to them, or to the people who support them? or because you have a specific intellectual disagreement with them? there's a difference. and in a way, you are telling us that your method of disagreement is superior to mine. Which it may indeed be. so this is complicated.

why get the cops involved?

well, I promise I'll try and spend a little more quality time with the Choc. Drops. Of course, the very name of the group is intended with irony - but the strange thing is that the music of the group that I've heard strikes me as misguidedly and dully earnest. They just don't seem to have enough real understanding of the music to make the statement that they appear to want to make. Call me crazy (you won't be the first) but I think if you want to do it the way they seem to want to to do it you gotta know everything from James Weldon Johnson to James Reese Europe to Gus Cannon. There's no shortcuts if you want to do it well. Otherwise it's like me deciding to form a Latin band after a quick a trip to Tijuana (and hey, I got two kids from Latin America). And sometimes sarcasm is ok, I think; as a matter of fact, the basic principle of distancing, ironic humor, dominates American film and television today (Joe). I don't think it's a bad thing, though I do agree that it tends to give off an air of superiority. But geez, if I'm not better than Kenny G, who AM I better than?

I'll have to pull my old Fugs stuff, buit there's some non-Stampfel/Weber stuff, too, with a very fine guitarist whose name I can't remember - also a CD of stuff they recorded for, but which was rejected by, Atlantic. Now this is the real thing, raw, new, but very evocative of the old stuff. Makes a lot of newer things I hear sound like tea time. just found this passage from my rock and roll history: "Most notable was how quickly the Fugs, under pressure of public performance, evolved technically; by 1968 they had one of the best, if least known, rock and roll guitarists, Ken Pine, and their songs had become fluid dramatic recitations, interrupted by acid-guitar, screams of pain, and the occasional free-jazz interlude. Pine could play everything, from psychedelia to country riffs, and he gave the group just the touch of professionalism that it needed." now, that version of the group is, to me, better than captain Beefheart.

one of my favorite rootsy bands, believe it or not, was the Fugs - especially on the early stuff, which had a lot of country in it - not"contemporary" in the contemporary sense, but it still sounds new and shows a particularly strong sense of Americana ( great guitarist, great country player, I'll have to look it up) - also, another 60's crew, but still new, the Holy Modal Rounders. than there's Karen Dalton - and the Kossoy Sisters, who are still active.

I got Bird's axe -

Seeline - I actually do think the Chocolate Drops are fraudulent, because they rely upon a certain image of the portrayal of the music with a certain alleged (and racialist) authenticity and with reference to certain older forms - and I've been listening to them. And I think it's all image and, honestly, I think they are about as related to old time music as Kenny G. is to contemporary jazz. So, just as any comments I might make about Kenny would not be seen as gratuitous, comments about the Chocolate Drops should be seen as equally sincere. Kenny G. has been noted in interviews as placing himself in the jazz continuum - and I see the Chocolate Drops as maintaining the same kind of thing by repertoire and image. And it's so far off and so apart from the reality of the music they SEEM to refer to that yes, I find it offensive. Just as I find Kenny G. offensive. I mean, do you find the Tijuana Brass and the Baja Marimba Band to be honestly reflective of the Afro-Latin tradition? I doubt it. I feel the same way about the Chocoloate Drops. So please stop maintaining that I shouldn't even be saying it - any more than I would tell you to stop disagreeing with me. Geez.

I'm disappointed - I thought this thread was going to be about some secret about Frank. I guess it's enough that he's such a good pianist. Still, I was thinking National Inquirer.

well, it's like the difference between a 6th and a 13th - flat 3rd and sharped 9th - Randy's the guy I always call with these questions. He's a master. as a self-taught harmonist I go crazy trying to remember these things. same thing with scales. Lydian, Meridian, Frigidaire. Easier just to think in 12 tones. Every note is an interval of some chord. Strangers in the Night.

uhh, Ted - it's illegal to quote lyrics without permission. Might be seen as......intellectual thievery.

sorry, I won't listen to Ryan Adams until I can understand the words. The Jayhawks I like.

sorry; gratuitous remark. I know you like 'em but they drive me up the wall.

it was at a session with Randy Sandke that we did for Enja - Randy kept saying to me - "Allen, why did you write Cb?" I had to explain that I had no choice. Something to do with enharmonics.

as long as it's not the same good woman -

big problem in Maine has been to find a decent repair man, but I seem recently to have finally found a good guy. And if anybody needs mouthpiece work, Greg Wier (who's in Florida) is incredible.

have I been playing the wrong chord all these years? I used to have a writing program that, in one song, would only let me write a Cb, instead of a B. It drove the musicians crazy.

well, I'll take whatever I can get.

I wish.... it is a Buescher, I think the serial number places it at around 1920 (?). It's a great horn. These things tend to be stodgy with the original mouthpieces, but with a tenor mouthpiece I can get an Ayler-esque shriek.