AllenLowe

Ted - anything in quotes is the previous post by Carnivore - each graf underneath is my response -

"that sounds like a cop-out." only if you ignore everything else I said - "That music is created for a 'popular market' does not gainsay a need for a critical perspective. " correct - what do you think I am offering? a critical perspective - I've written 2 books about these things - "Armstrong seems to me to be someone whose playing had content, depth. individuality and musical sophistication that reached a level beyond 'American pop' even if he mostly performed in venues devoted to popular entertainment" these venues don't house individuality and sophistication? It was in such venues that Bert Williams, Lenny Bruce, Red Foxx, Pigmeat Markham, James Brown, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Muddy Waters, Mike Bloomfield and Ellington DEVELOPED their art - not 'beyond' American pop but as PART of it - "as did Duke, Basie and everyone else." thanks for proving my point - " I can listen to and appreciate what Louis did during the years in question but pace your comment about imagination and taste, regret the opportunities wasted by the provision of second-rate arrangements, and imagine what might have been the fruits of him working with more skilled and talented writers. I did not refer to 'bad taste' arrangements but pointed out that they are mediocre and antiquated given the best of what was happening at the time - and far from saying 'the band sucked' praised it for rising above the material, and drew attention to its very high quality personnel. regret the opportunities that produced one of the greatest bodies of music of the 20th century? I actually dont think that you've listened to much of it - the music is real, far from antiquated, just down to earth, like Armstrong himself (and let us not forget his famous praise of Guy Lombardo). The band did not (need to) rise above the material - they just needed to deliver it as part of the whole glorious package, which they did - those performances are of a whole, Armstrong reacting to the band and vice versa - would he have sounded better with Stan Kenton? You're not only missing a lot here, but you are misunderstanding the entire nature of African American entertainment -

did anybody go see Junior Mance? I had no idea he was even still around -

yes, Leroy Foster is a significant figure - and that whole session has an eavesdropping quality, the sound of musicians before they got self conscious about what they were doing (hate to sound like Lomax here but in this case it applies) -

sold to Karl Berger -

if I could afford it I'd get the Armstrong, as that body of music is one of the glories of the 20th century - and let's face it, Benny did his best playing by 1934 -

grado sr225

these go new for about $95; they only have about 2 hours on them, as when I started my new remastering project I needed to upgrade for more precision. They are excellent mid-level headphones, and I will sell for $50 - prefer paypal and my paypal address is alowe5@maine.rr.com

Smith's major thing was a report with amazing photos on mercury poisoning in Japan by local industry, which got him badly beaten and gave him permanent and debilitating injuries - he also had some famous photos, as I recall, in a popular older photo collection called Family of Man -

"in other words, as far as 'American popular culture' is concerned, it's all of equal value - Liberace, Celine Dion, Sammy Kaye, Ernest Tubb, Louis and Nirvana. We can check our critical sensibilities at the door and just have 'big fun' ?" please do not put words in my mouth - my point was that if you want to look at American pop you cannot use the same measure as for other forms of art - and yes, FUN is a big part of it. And the so-called bad-taste accompaniments to Louis were part of the whole package; useless to say, he was great but the band sucked. Those arrangements and that particular band brought out something special in the man, and it was no accident. Sometimes, as I said many years ago, it is better to have imagination than taste -

"Gosh he's great, in spite of etc." Or "rises above" see, I don't subscribe to this - it is all of a part - cheesy, pop-ish, than swinging and jazz-like - these were all part of Armstrong's persona- maybe he was the first real pop star, both part of the system and than apart from it - you just cannot separate the two in American popular culture - it is one big and fun package -

if they are being played by Vince, I recommend this concert to anyone within traveling distance - the Nighthawks, to me, are the ONLY "revival" band who play with the original (and non-condescending) spirit - I wonder if Randy Sandke's going to be in the trumpet section-

actually one of the things I like best is the amazing contrast between the slightly cheesy arrangements and Armstrong's intensity- I think that, like Schuller, you are missing the context in which this band played (see, Chuck, that's why we talk about this stuff). Commercially this music was something like the Perfect Storm - all conditions, musical and commercial, were just right - and the result is sublime -

earl grant and that lady from SCTV -

"I'm sorry....the number you are calling is no longer in service"

I generally agree, except - "Jazz's first great soloist" - maybe JR Morton, or Leon Rapollo (not sure if I am spelling this right) -

beg to differ, boys, it matters to some of us. Sometime if a musician's charm eludes us, it helps to understand why he does what he does. As a matter of fact, reading Dan Morgenstern about the Decca period of Armstrong's music made the whole thing light up for me, opened up a whole new understanding of the era and the music (and not just Armstrong's). As a matter of fact it gave me an entree to about 50 years of (other) music - these little epiphanies don't always happen by themselves, sometimes they need a little push -

yes, the Rollin and Tumbling takes are on a CD - HOWEVER, and I hate to sound like a purist, but if you can find the LP get it, as the CD de-noising took a lot of the presence out of it - and these are extremely clear recordings with a little bit of (tolerable) noise -

"my wife and i were going to name our newborn son "Allen," but now we've agreed to name him "Karl." didn't know you were a Marxist -

on top of it all, by the way, Armstrong was a real and total mensch, loved by everyone who knew him - so the grin was real -

tony williams was one of the few record people Al Haig spoke well of -

I would not call Armstrong post-modern - that term has a whole other connotation - but he was a modernist who basically, to my way of thinking, invented 20th century pop. The rhythm revolution he started led to swing (and thus bebop and rhythm and blues and rock and roll) and his singing completely altered the way EVERYONE sang -

well....I know this will bore Cliff, but Armstrong's on -stage persona is directly relevant to all of this, and this relates to my recent debate with Marsalis - the truth is that you can argue, probably correctly, that Armstrong assumed a kind of 20th century minstrel mask - but it was a new mask with a very different meaning. It took the techniques and attitudes of the old black minstrels, tied as they were to a whole persona of humor and put-on, and applied them to the material in an entirely new and original way. So it IS relevant. You cannot separate the two, IMHO - it was a new and very hipster-ish minstrel treatment, not unlike Fats Waller's (and Pigmeat Markham's and Moms Mabley's) -

you sound like Wynton -

flannery oconnor - stories