AllenLowe

isn't "new remaster" redundant?

I think it's Steve Hoffman -

I know a good doctor; if you can't afford the operation he'll touch up the x-rays -

sorry, but this is the best song ever written: happy mothers day happy mothers day I am your son I am a runaway livin' on the East Side always gettin' stoned - living on the East Side glad I'm not home - happy mothers day happy mothers day I am your son I am a runaway call me a bastard call me a bitch you are made of plastic you are filthy rich

sounds like a stanza from a Japanese NO Play

what I like the most, so far, is that Lewis is very open and non-ideological.

also, there are nice mentions of not only Chuck but also Larry Kart and Terry Martin - I think the Chicago critics call this "product placement" -

by the way, before Chuck sends me a letter-bomb, let me say that I am liking the book a great deal -

marvelositous idea -

exactliessentiallicenctiously -

I also like the one on Candid with Jaki Byard - and there's the other one, with Paul Bley -

because he makes up silly words that don't contribute to any points he's making, simply sound like parodies of academia - it's a perennial problem, IMHO - academics are sometimes afraid to sound too accessible, and yet, Lewis's overall tone is very accessible. These kind of multi-syllabic nonsense words end up sounding like Dr. Seuss - don't have the book with me now, but will pick through tonight to find examples -

liking the book - I just wish he wouldn't, in that academic way, make up words -

1) it's titty boom - 2) defintely NOT Prez at .50 - just not him, not his sense of time -

1) yes that's one of thge greatest comedies ever made - if you have not seen it, get it pronto - 2) No one has talked about how digital editing has changed the recordist's landscape - I can tell you from experience that it is nothing short of miraculous - and though I'm basically a "record it live" type of guy, digital editing allowed me to save having to go back in the studio on two cuts on my last CD - they weren't radical edits, but allowed me to snip out two brief flubs; kinda like editing a manuscript - it can be quite seemless, especially compared to that old tape edits - as a matter of fact, I was istening to Tijuana Moods just recently and heard one of the worst edits ever -

to me the most interesting thiing about all this - and it's something Hemphill and I discussed one day, not long before he died (I went to see him while he was in bad shape, waiting for a transplant that never came) is the relation of performance/composition to experience and community. This relationship is an important and generally inseparable part of African American performance, and something that Lewis seems to be getting at as he distinguishes black and white avant gardists - it is the ability of African American avant gardists to connect with their root communities and experiences even as they express things which many members of the those communities might find difficult to absorb or understand. As my old mentor Richard Gilman said, the best artists are not just repeating the gestures that we've already made but are telling us what we are going to be doing/thinking/saying NEXT, they are just a little bit ahead of our own understanding of our changing consciousness. So that which they give us is not always easy to understand, and defies a conventional idea of art and experience, even as it directly reflects the deepest and truest aspects of that experience - and Julius clearly had a real understanding of this relationship between his own music and his life. It was the most important thing I learned from him and I find it clearly in all that Lewis writes here -

I recently did a big reunion/tribute to Maine Jazz - and I had a great time - just me and an 89 year old accordion player who played Lady of Spain -

I love Bo Diddley - a real early rock and roller because he was working from a different beat (the Bo Diddley beat is basically a clave variation) -and though not really the first to play with that rhythm (there's some Memphis stuff earlier that uses same, by a group called Lawson and Scott) he was just a great band-leader and writer - really much closer than even someone like Muddy Waters to the change to rock and roll - very down home, very strangely African, just out of nowhere like all the greats -

just got my copy, liking what little I've read, seems like a very level-headed look at a potentially VERY political subject (just as an immediate point of praise, he questions some things that Baraka says - I've always felt that Blues People is riddled with errors, but that's for another thread) - will take some time to read, as it's a big book - gotta admit that I'm not as well versed in AACM recordings as I should be due to my relatively short musical attention span these days; I'm more of a Hemphill/Braxton guy - time to get back into it -

unless I'm thinking of the wrong recording, but I think that's the one -

that particular Bird, as I recall. was later pitch corrected and remastered by Doug Pomeroy - and was recorded, I think, by Chan at that benefit for a Communist candidate for Congress - only problem with Bird Is Free is that it's too fast - has Lester Leaps In in the key of B, shoulda been Bb -

Brian...Brian... BRIAN

"The Lester Young stuff on CP is "must have", I think." that stuff was Dave Schildkraut's favorite - he once called me on the phone, held the receiver to a speaker as he played one of those LPs, and than said "this is where I went to school."

Brian, is that you?

Billy Jack by Curtis Mayfield -