AllenLowe

interesting article and I hate to say it to so many of my old associates but "I told you so." I was in New Haven for 20 years and we periodically tried to do it ourselves, but our biggest enemy were the musicians themselves, who would book off for an extra 10 bucks. It just to be too hard to hold on to. it would also be helpful if some of the "names" agreed to do rooms like the ones in the article for a break in price - it would be good for everybody.

the Chess stuff is probably the best -

well, I grew up on: DIng Dong School Bozo the Clown Let's Have Fun (Sonny Fox) The Chuck McCann Show The Three Stooges (hosted by Office Joe Bolton) Popeye (hosted by Captain Jack McCarthy) Leave it to Beaver Father Knows Best Stag Films and I turned out.....well, maybe not so good.

Irving Fazola! worth the price of admission - and Jeff mentioned I'm Praying Humble, a very interesting conversion of Mitchell's Christian Singers, a gospel quartet,- and as I mentioned a piece called Chain Gang (which will be on my blues set). Somewhere there's a very interesting interview with Bob Crosby, Bing's brother, as we know. I don't have the swaggies, but there's a Time Life big band LP in great sound. great band. Dixie with soul.

to me the question is what happened to his talent later? The Tony Williams of the 1980s and 1990s sounded like just another loud drummer, to me at least.

gotta go direct to Cadence for the Haig book, don't worry about those Bozos on Amazon - it's $34 plus shipping - their email: cjb@cadencebuilding.com or I'll sell you my copy for $665 - hey, it's the book that sent me into a DEEP depression. So it must be fun -

I second the Kelley book on Monk - surprised that no one else here has read the Rutan book. Of all books on jazz I've read in the last 15 years, it hits closest to the essence of the music. It's the difference between reading a book that's about something, and a book that IS the very object of its author. get with it boys.

will he be employing the Sex Robot?

do I get a relative's discount?

I like the Deccas - Chain Gang, some interesting gospel things; great band.

years ago I interviewed Sonny Rollins in a hotel room somewhere in Connecticut for a book I was working on. Sonny was nice but the interview went nowhere. Suddenly I mentioned a saxophone I had just purchased, a Martin, and Sonny's eyes lit up - and for the next 40 minutes we had the nicest conversation about horns - he told me, for instance, that he had recorded Alfie on a Buescher Aristorcrat - "I loved that horn but I had to give it up because it wouldn't play in tune." Years later I picked up a 1930s Buescher Aristocrat alto, played the octaves and - sure enough - it wouldn't play in tune. Sonny was right. A few years ago I decided to give up the tenor saxophone for the alto - first of all, there's too many tenor players in the world (they ought to be spayed, but that's another thread) - second of all, my growing carpal tunnel makes it easier to play the smaller horn. Which I've actually grown to love, and now think I was playing the wrong horn all along. A few years ago I purchased a Conn Chu Berry alto, 1923, for 1,000 bucks. Fantastic horn. The other day I'm in a local music shop and what do I see? A Buescher Aristocrat alto - but a much later vintage than the one I'd played before. This was made after Selmer bought Buescher, and the serial number put it at about 1967. Lucky enough, according to internet sources, that was the last good year for them. It played well (octaves in tune) in the store, so I picked it up for $200. A nice added bonus was the old Brilhart Ebolin mouthpiece in the case (these are not the real valuable ones, though they're very nice; these, in original shape, go for 50-60 bucks on Ebay). I took it home and started A/B ing it with my Conn, which is now worth probably 1200-1300 dollars. And guess what? I like the Buescher better - the action is great, the sound just a little bit denser. Though these were allegedly student horns, I am now looking to buy another. Moral of the story? Always do what Sonny Rollins does. Just make sure you're in tune.

that Guardian guy don't know shit from shineola - just generalizations. Lots of that music is excellent (ask Chris Albertson who produced a bunch of N.O. stuff for Atlantic, as did Herb Friedwald, Will's dad) - and the whole collector thing is a lot more complicated too. That guy's a know-nothing (and for the record, Baby Dodds' bass drum was held by Moe the Moocher, a local bookie).

bending over as I speak -

"Passion has no price" well, it does with my projects - as for: "Why not double the pressing run of all the MOSAIC's and lower the price" I don't find the Mosaics to be way out of line in terms of market price (meaning the new ones, not those that are out of print) -

and he's a strange one - promising young actor turned druggie turned good actor turned Republican.

I will say that the best jazz book I read this year and, in my opinion, one of the best jazz books ever - in spite of itself - was Grange Rutan's Death of a Bebop Wife (about Al Haig). Bizarre, complex, contradictory, organizationally a mess, but one of the most complicated and compelling books on a jazz musician I have ever read. It is formatted as oral testimony, and it sneaks up on you, but the cumulative effect is devastating. Now, it was a bit more traumatic for me than for the average reader, but I don't think one has to have known the subject to feel the impact of the book. One starts slowly to realize that these are almost all crazy and bizarre people, yet they see their lives as just average, which is what gives the book its strange aura. the ranginess and sloppiness of the book's organization actual achieves a poetic quality. I kid you not

gettin' my PSAs checked tomorrow, as a matter of fact.

also, and not so incidentally, Indians are Aryan. Look it up.

"didn't you ever wonder why Iyer thought he had the right to be offended that you didn't realize who he was? " well, he was perfectly nice about it - I just thought he had a sense that he was a known player, and that I didn't know him. But, as I said, there was little ego about it, he just thought I was an idiot. well, maybe not really. The things is, he looked familiar (and I remembered afterwards that he had appeared in a cover Downbeat story along with Matt Shipp) but it was just one of those things. I try to keep up but I'm so damn busy, and he just was not right there in my consciousness. But it really was ok; I was definitely not up to snuff, as they say. as for Larry's comments, I would tend to agree, but I think there is something there that could be tapped into with some effort (not sure if you've listened to Shipp, by the way, Larry, but start with the two solo cuts he did on my last CD and you'll hear how much there is to him). and by the way, I'm the smartest guy in the room. As long as I'm the only one in the room.

Vijay is a great pianist, I think, though I recently had an embarassing experience with thim (has to do with living up in Maine for so long which has fogged my brain and lowered my IQ by 14-17 points) - I was introduced to him at the Robin Kelley reading in NYC, by Lewis Porter, and weirdly enough I just blanked out completely on who he was or that he was a well-known pianist. he was clearly a little taken aback, though when I apologized later on and explained that I'd had a Maine-botomy he appeared to understand. Smart guy, good player. I thought about trying to get him for my blues project.

in Maine it's real cold at night. and during the day. and during the winter. and during the summer. and during the spring. why am I living here?

I like that term - on my next CD we do a thrash blues - I think that will qualify.

good work Marcello; I missed Buddy Rich entirely - I was going to say: front row: Bob Sharpstein, Eli Montgomery, Bell Williams, Margo Forbstein; back row: Karen Kollwitz, Barbie McElroy, Ed McGillicudy, Poncho Walenda, Walter Schwartz -

what unsold stock? he says that the small presses are selling out their 500 copy runs - so why not print a thousand at a lower price, they'll obviously sell as well.

sorry, it don't cut it (whine whine) - I worked 10 years on my jazz history - that's life. I did the whole thing - 36 CDs, 100,000 words of notes, all writing and restoration, by myself. Not a penny of outside assistance. We sold it for reasonable cost and shipping; the record company made its money back and more. Otherwise people lose access, and ACCESS, to me, is the name of the game. It's the right thing to do. To limit the print run and FURTHER drive up costs is really a lousy idea, also. It is a boutique approach, snobby and anti-poor people. It also continues that commodity approach. That's just not the best way to do things. It just excludes too many of the real foot soldiers who support this music. Might as well get Montel Williams to sell it along with the Franklin Mint. just my opinion (whine whine) -