AllenLowe

trying to get paid in this business is one of the most frustrating and humiliating activities known to man and woman. I've actually made money on the new book because I just did it myself, and even turned down one offer from a small publisher. I just won't go that route any more. Let me add, however, that ESP Records, my current label, is the first of any size I have dealt with that honors every commitment, financial and otherwise. Thanks to Steve Holtje, I should mention, who is in charge.

coincidence department: Trenner, an excellent pianist, had been living in this area for years and just died about a month ago.

one of the stranger moments of my life; I got a call one day, must have been around 1978, and the voice said "hi Allen this is Bill Evans; do you know where I can get some cocaine?" I was friends with his wife and he was visiting (she lived in a suburb of New Haven) and I guess he was strung out. I was unable to help.

just to note Simmons was part of a panel, maybe last Fall, at Lincoln Center. He was in a wheel chair, but mentally completely on top of things.

there's something about San Francisco street musicians; some time in the 1980s I saw DuPree Bolton playing out there.

yes, original source is about 80 percent of the battle. Transfer a mint 78 and you will sound like a genius. A lot of that first generation of restorationists like John R.T. Davies, as great as he was, had been able to, let us say, "borrow" some amazing things from the EMI vaults as well as pick things up from RCA that were about to be thrown away.

actually, true story; Dexter was dead two hours before he finished playing his last tune.

have not had the decay problem; might be a program issue.

it really depends; I start with a typical tune - 3 minutes average let us say - by setting the de-clicking with the before/after button, listening, in real time, for distortion of any kind. After a general run, if there are still left over noises, I enlarge the wave form and try to zero in and just de-click on that tiny fraction of time with the noise, and apply de-click. If this does not work I sometime have to snip it by hand, which is tricky because it can disrupt the time flow.

I always declick and decrackle first; and I do all de-noising by hand, meaning that one should NEVER use the program the way the program advises you to use it, by having it create a noise print in which it "learns" the noise and then eliminates it. This is always grossly destructive, and is why you hear these youtube guys who offer tunes in which they have created that horrible gurgling effect. De-noise can and should always be done manually, like a filter in which different frequency bands are individually de-noised. But then ALSO remember that you can never eliminate all noise without harming the sound, so you almost always have to leave some.

lotsa programs around, best I've used (and I used it on all 800 tunes I just restored for the new project) is de-click, denoise, etc from Acon digital. It was something like $99 and seriously it's as good as the $3000 CEDAR system (or at least the one that used to be $3000) -

isn't she in a movie with Judy Garland?

ah, too bad. Lenny Bruce's former girlfriend, also.

Shepp surprised on the Bird duo record he made in 1980: and his solo on this is superb:

Connecticut is doing shockingly well, though I still see things that bother me - young kids in groups without masks, adults dining with not nearly enough physical distance. As a friend (a doctor and brilliant drummer, btw) told me early on, the ruling factor in the severity of the illness seems to be not just getting the virus, but the amount of virus load contracted; meaning, if you are at one of these idiot parties with people back-to-back and face-to-face, your chances of not just contracting it but getting a serious, heavy dose are much increased. I have some immunity compromise (because of my chemo last year) but as the months go by that becomes less and less of a factor, fortunately. Also, I was tested about 10 days ago (before I could see my throat cancer doctor) and it came out negative.

we may be overthinking this; or under thinking. Or in between. Facebook has basically allowed me to revive my career as a musician and writer after I barely survived the hell hole of Maine, so I got no complaints. People get crazy, sure, but you block 'em or delete 'em.

as I like to say, "the more Yanow the less you want."

I think it would be a nice thing.

thanks, yeah, Grievin' Blues is the deepest stuff I've ever heard. Beware the original Savoy CD reissue where they really botched the sound - I found a Euro version in which they didn't go crazy on denoising.

so where does the stuff issued on Savoy originate? I love that period.

I heard Amram play a few times (he used to sit in with Joe Albany) - and listened to that album - I have no doubt he is completely sincere, but he's not in any real sense a jazz musician. He's had an interesting life, and I don't know his compositional work, however.

what a brilliant pianist. A little wild and crazy. I wish I'd asked Bill Triglia about him. Btw there's a terrific interview with Tinney in some old issue of Cadence.

well, I hope so, because his playing drives me nuts. It's like watching someone paint, but not a picture, just a wall. Though I am running out of metaphors.

I get the same feeling from Jamal's playing that I get from Brubeck (though I hear far more possibilities in Jamal). I keep saying to myself "when is the music gonna start?" It's like he's got one foot nailed to the floor and he keeps walking in circles.

Percy was one of those guys who was determinedly "local," whatever that means in NYC. He went to Europe a few times, but also turned down, as I recall, a few more substantial opportunities.