AllenLowe

call me what you want, but the Christians here may be offended if you call me by the name of the son-of-god -

gotcha - in that case they should let the kids play with them -

that's why I've pasted a picture of Brad Pitt to the back of my head - it works, Larry, you should try it -

damn, this makes me mad - ***** *****just wondering, why would this make anybody mad? I'm out of the loop here -

curious as to what sources you will be playing - as I was listening to really early (1923) Fletcher Henderson last night -

not funny to the Bush administration -

in re- Monk - years ago I was auditing a course at Wesleyan on jazz; the instructor was talking about doing the dozens and referred to Monk's approach to standards. He claimed that Monk held these songs in contempt and was showing this by the way he played them. To me the reality was WAY different. Monk certainly used some distance and irony, but it was clear that he respected the tunes deeply. I argued this in class. This instructor (who was NOT Braxton, by the way) told me sternly: "Irony is a white person's term. He was doing the dozens." End of discussion. But relevant to how we look at the remnants of minstrelsy and the way they cross with just good old show biz tradition -

and in regards to Cliff Englewood above and RDK's affirmation, my new policy is to ignore such things, but they contribute to the pointlessly nasty tone that rears its head here on more than occassion -

the problem with thinking about minstrelsy is that there is a whole OTHER kind than the one we (and W) usually think of - the medicine show, the traveling tent shows, and early black vaudeville use the minstrel format but to MUCH different ends than the antebellum style. And in my research for the blues book, I am finding fascinating musical artifacts of minstrelsy which are quite affecting - singers like Kid Coley (who sounds, believe it or not, somewhat like Bobby Short!), a guy named Julius Daniels, Rabbit Newbern, Pink Anderson - they sing songs that are not the least bit racially demeaning, they are just great and somewhat old fashioned, about relationships and even racial fantasies of being rich. And more than one is very critical about racism (a lot of talk about the white folks who "get a meal, while the black folks have to rob and steal") - very race conscious, if in a different way than we might think. There's a great old song called Ham Beats All Meat which basically describes and depicts the class differences between whites getting all the good food and the help in the kitchen getting the scraps - this is all there, all available (sort of) - and will be on my collection. At some point I am going to try to post some of these on my web site as well. There's a lot of real insider sarcasm about white people, some of these old guys sing about being hungry and being talked to by food ("I Heard the Voice of a Porkchop") and of being treated unequally in the court system. So stereotypes and the usual assumptions fail us here. But a lot of these songs reflect the things Armstrong and Fats Waller ("I wonder where all the poor people are tonight?") were thinking about-

thanks, I was hoping it would look that way - hardest part will be narrowing the field.

band was great, I agree - but I find that Cootie's own playing was never near his work with Duke -

cootie williams - bubber miley - both great musicians, didn't make half as intersting music on their own dates - Jimmy Knepper - great great great trombonist, nice guy, but strangely (or maybe not so strangley) obtuse about Mingus and the jazz world in general - very negative privately (and not so privately) about Mingus, who did punch him in the mouth; however, he did his best work with the bassist -

talked to his brother yesterday - he's in China until next May -

he's a groovy cool cat -

no sweat, I appreciate your response; I did see the smiley! just sometimes in this place personal innuendo subsitutes for discussion and I know that sometimes internet communications are not clear. I'm a tiny bit defensive because I agree that I am out front in my opinions and not shy about expressing them, which grates on some people. But I am also careful in that I never hide any agenda I may have, and I never pretend I mean or want one thing when I mean or want another. it's just that the whole episode was strange and disorienting to me. It did inspire me to begin work on the blues book, so in that sense in may have been a good thing because, as I mentioned somewhere else, it got me to thinking about something that I should be thinking about. Part of the sensitivity of the whole issue, of course, is the apparent presumptuousness of a white guy telling a black guy that he is wrong about an issue of race, and that certainly did not make the situation any easier. On the other hand I have been reading a lot of Ellison recently in researching my book and it's calmed my nervousness on this issue somewhat, as he strongly opposes the use of racial determinism in the development of cultural perspectives. Ironically or not Wynton, Crouch , and Murray all idolize Ellison. I don't think, however, that they have read him closely enough or really get the depth and complexity of his racial/cultural perspective. I can say, for example, from a discussion I had with Albert Murray many years ago that his general belief is that African Americans have a cultural advantgage in not only playing the music but in understanding it; though I might agree that this was true at some point in our history, unless you believe culture is passed on genetically it is no longer supportable as a thesis (once again I defer to Ellison here). And I do believe I have earned my opinions in real time, we might say, by learning the music, playing the music, and getting to know the musicians. On the OTHER hand - I do believe racism is such a complex and deeply wounding force that any non-African American, in discussing all this, needs to tread carefully and be sure to allow for a cultural/political margin of error that is quite attributable to race.

"Put yourself is his shoes for a minute. You, a controversial figure in jazz with many enemies, agree to do a a taped interview with a person who you do not know, and this person immediately comes right at you, putting your knowledge to test on late 19th and early 20th century American music. I would suspect that it might be a set up. And maybe it was? " this is extremely unfair and the implications are a little unfriendly here - read what I said, above - I asked him a perfectly appropriate question - he's the one who expanded the reference to areas he knows nothing about. No one made specific reference to the 19th century, though if HE makes a statement that applies he has the responsibility to support it. It was a friendly and unthreatening atmosphere, arranged by one of his closest friends. He (like Crouch) makes these kind of statements all the time about the contemporary music of young African Americans. Why should ne NOT be accountable for them? He's a public figure who in the past has thought nothing of attacking people like Miles Davis in public. And who said I came RIGHT at him? once again, these are the same kinds of nasty assumptions that too often pass for debate on these forums. We had been talking for at least 15 minutes when the topic came up. I was perfectly appropriate and I gotta say I resent the implication that I have been misrepresenting the way I approached this interview. I do agree that he has regret about some of the more callow statements he made in his youth - HOWEVER, my encounter with him showed, to me, that he has changed only on the surface. He is magnanimous as long as his own opinions are enforced and as long as his ego is massaged, This sounds harsh, but I got this very strong sense of him, and others have confirmed it since the interview.

well, it bothered me for many reasons, not least of all because he seemed to assume that I had no real or hands on experience with music - when I've been playing music longer than he has -

exactly - though I did tell him I had won the Nobel for Physics - I don't think he bought it, however, as he mentioned Albert Einstein, and at first I couldn't place the name -

the thing is, I had been reading his book (full disclosure here, which will thicken the plot considerably: his co-author and best friend is my brother-in-law); and I was somewhat impressed and interested in what seemed like a greater open-ness to life, shall we say, than I had previously detected in his words. The book is very revealing in places and I found myself surprised at how interesting I found it. The truth is, there is a not-so-fine-line between arrogance and just plain self confidence coupled with a personal willingness to engage in the give-and-take of open debate; to my way of thinking one must always be ready to abandon one's pre-conceived notions, to recognize that they may be based on received ideas or other unsupported evidence. I think it's almost always a mistake to close discussion - "Is the thrust of the interview going to be to make a point to him or to get his ideas about that point?" none of the above - I wanted to hear him out - but to hear him out on solely his own terms is old news - been there/done that, as has the rest of the world. I was thinking, ok, you express regret at certain points of the book at being closed off, in the past, to certain ideas. Well, let's put it to the test. It was a good idea and I have NO regrets -

well, it wasn't exactly like that - here's what I said: "In your book you call hip hop and rap the new minstrelsy; but, historically, hasn't the whole point been for the oppressed to take control of that which has oppressed them and use it for their own artistic ends and means? I'm thinking about Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller and their use of minstrel elements to very progressive musical ends; also, of the paritcipation by African Americans in showbiz in medicine shows, tent shows, and circus shows, and other traveling entertainments after 1890; all of these used the basic minstrel format. And all of these were revolutionary in their impact on American culture; and as one after another black musician has testified, these were all extremely liberating to black performers, allowing them to get out into the world and practice their art." well, my question was not based merely on supposition, but on the testimony of many musicians, jazz and otherwise, including Doc Cheatham, who reminisced quite happily to me one night about his days on the traveling vaudeville/music/comedy circuit (which, once again, was basically an appropriation of minstrel elements); well, W. would not even talk about it but said minstrelsy was simply racial degredation. When I tried to distinguish the various elements of minstrelsy and to talk about how it altered and changed in black hands, he said, basically, that I was just a cloistered academic who did not know anything. I have to admit that I saw red for a moment or two; I tried to discuss it and gave some points, but he was so dogmatic I shut the whole thing down before I might say something unfriendly. what I realized afterwards is how little he knows about the whole era I was tlaking about - which is fine, it's not well publicized in historical texts. But instead of wondering what I was getting at, instead of listening to anything I said, he basically, and in a deceptively passive way, attacked me personally and shut down all discussion. and I gotta admit, calling me an academic is about as big an insult as you can make - the whole topic is MUCH more complex than he makes it; for another frame of reference read about Pigmeat Markham's experiences around WWII on the stages of Los Angeles; he was wildly successful and hilarious, making a lot of money; after the local NAACP leaned in him to make his act more "modern" and less old-timey/minstrely, his career collapsed. So this is a big subject, I know, and there are many sides. But I was the only one in the room willing to leave it open to debate -

by the way, I like Iverson a lot, as both a pianist and a person - he's very open minded and I had a nice talk with him about some of these things when he was in Portland a few months ago -

no, just a sidearm - actually I went into the interview with a friendly disposition, thinking, probably naively, that though we would likely disagree, we could have an interesting dialog - I had just read W's new book, in which he seemed, at least on paper, to indicate a new degree of personal tolerance/understanding of points of view that were different than his own - it was a quote from his own book that got him going - I expected some disagreement, but I was hoping to have a real exchange; I knew we would differ, but, maybe stupidly, I did not anticipate how he would basically say "this is the way it is" case closed I will not listen to anything you say. That's what bugged me; I wanted to talk about it but he shut down in that way of a politician (or actor) who hears only his own voice - there was a good deal of narcissism in his response.

good lead - I'll try the brother -

yes, they were about as forward looking as the Bush administration and the SEC regulators -

1) the stuff is issued from Europe under the rule of public domain; I let them deal with the mechanicals - 2) there will be some duplication with Devilin Tune, but not a lot (less than a CD's worth, probably) - my main job is re-mastering/restoring, and writing the book. I'm hoping to have the re-mastering done by next summer (approx. 450 cuts restored and sequenced); the writing is another matter, and I'm talking with an agent now but, as usual, I'm not overly optimistic as most publishers have a hard time getting a grip on my stuff.