AllenLowe

I love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawkI love hawk I love hawk I love hawk I never get tired of saying that - though everybody else does -

well, I was at a party years ago (maybe the late 1970s) and a guy comes up to me and says, "hey I've been told you know a lot of jazz musicians. Did you ever hear of Willis Jackson?" At that point I'd never met Jackson, though of course I knew the music. The guy said to me "he's a patient of mine - I'm a dentist, and he is the nastiest guy I ever met. I can't stand him." coincidentally, a short time later I was sitting in at the West End with Percy France, and who shows up? Willis Jackson. He stood next to me, glared at me for about 15 minutes, and never said a word.

well, somebody's gotta do it - especially in this day and age of critical happy talk.

nastiest guy I ever met - even hated by his dentist - but he could play.

now that's interesting, because if I was going to hazard a guess I would posit a reverse influence - USA to Africa (listening to the performance of Ali Farka Toure) -

BERTRAND: BUY THAT CD OR THE FATE OF THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY WILL BE ON YOUR CONSCIENCE

I recommend Heroes and Villains, which contains some of the best criticism I have read in recent years.

and yes, the Deena Epstein is essential. It's funny, because in these arguments you get, on one side, the ideologues who think everything is African - and on the other, the more conservative African American viewpoint (which I have seen expressed by Crouch, and even in some ways by Ralph Ellison) which is wary of the way in which African emphasis de-Americanizes black people. I'm going to have to search on my shelves for the Pierson book. He was killed in a car accident at a very young age, as I recall; the chapters I found most interesting were about how the whole realm of Southern speech is related to the number of white children basically raised by slaves; and another on how the original Klan uniforms were based on those of African secret societies, and were used in order to frighten people who still maintained a lot of old-world superstition. The Levine book is amazing, in my opinion, just an essential work about African retentions and the whole acculturation thing. John Szwed, by the way, teaches now at Columbia, is the smartest guy I've ever known at sifting the reality from the mythology, and is a nice, accessible guy -

the Szwed book is out of print, I fear - the Levine is Black Culture and Black Consciousness - should be on amazon. I'll see if I can locate the Pierson, which is fascinating on issue of speech and even the Klan.

"I ain't gonna be your dog" is also extremely common in older, Delta, pre-War blues. I think whereas "slave" indicates a relationship that has some elements of co-dependence, "dog" just refers to being treated like crap. So therein, perhaps, lies the difference. hence, of course, Iggy's "I Wanna Be Your Dog," a smart twist on the old saying.

I have not heard the Bix Restored, but the old Euro EMI LPs of Bix and Bix and Tram are very close to the Mosaic in sound quality.

just a good book I would recommend, edited by John Szwed - "After Africa." And as always, Lawrence Levine. then, John Pierson, Legacy.

there were a lot of African American newspapers in the first 30-40 years of the 20th century; if there was a local one, and if he was prominent, it might contain a story about him. also, Miles son is still alive, I think.

I would go to the local paper - especially if they had a black paper in those days. Call the public library in his home town.

sounds like Randy Weston's little speech last year at the Monk reading about how the slaves came over singing the blues - (though there is an early, 1893 version of Pete Kelley's Blues from an old cylinder; Sabu and the Swahili's, with Henry Mancini conducting) -

almost 56, heard it-

thanks - as soon as I have a sense of stock (they've only got a small shipment so far) I'll let you know. The timing, as I am told, will be Vol. 2 by Summer. Vol. 3 by Fall, and Vol. 4 by early 2011 -

there's lots of jazz in it -

13 - qualifies me as an extremely intelligent mulatto male of good taste, strange sexual habits, yet an upstanding member of my community.

just looked it up - Rube Bloom. Unless there's a duplicate title by Irving.

I don't think Berlin wrote Lost in a Dream.

thanks, no, the art work is done on the blues set; I am thinking right now, in addition, of self-publishing two books, one on the history of rock and roll, the other on jazz of the 1950s. Haven't, however, quite made up my mind -

MG - I almost used Do Somethin' but actually liked the other performance, in strictly musical terms, a little better. though he's no Johnny Winter....

there is a fair amount of cajun - Ardoin, Lawrence Walker, LeJune, Dennis McGee, some '50s Cajun rock and roll...

thanks, Chris, will do so asap - and Stefan, I think this would make a perfect wedding present (rule of thumb: always give the other person something that YOU want) -