AllenLowe

Just to let everybody know, we will be streaming live on Tuesday night February 20 from Dizzys.

just to note, for sound geeks; re: the Columbia CD Basie reissue with notes by Loren Schoenberg: the notes are terrific, as usual for Loren, but the sound, really, is not as good as the earlier CD issue. I think its the transfers, not the restoration - and that Super Chief LP has some of the best sound of all.

well, I subscribe.....

probably not, but here is our set list: Funeral March: Watch Your Step/New Orleans is Sinking and so is Dixieland Tiger Rage Modal Stomp Monk and the Evangelist Of the Lamb Exit My Mind Enclosures March of the Vipers Part 2 Vachel Vachel Monroe Incident In the Midst Roswell's Dream Play That Ladnier Holy Roller Shakes Name Her Tar Roof Blues Pee Wee Russell Enters Into Heaven In a Lonely Place

from the NY Times: ALLEN LOWE at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola (Feb. 20, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). Mr. Lowe doubles as an alto saxophonist and a kind of alternative cultural anthropologist. His histories of American popular music (“That Devilin’ Tune: A Jazz History 1900-1950” and “God Didn’t Like It: Electric Hillbillies, Singing Preachers and the Beginning of Rock and Roll, 1950-1970,” among others) reflect a fathomless musical knowledge and an iconoclastic streak. Those elements define his music too: a loose meld of American folklore, halcyon pop and free jazz. For this concert, Mr. Lowe has convened a 13-piece band to honor the heavy influence of John Coltrane’s 1960s work. He’s doing it in decidedly unconventional fashion, reaching back to the polyphonic sound of early-20th-century New Orleans. 212-258-9595, jazz.org/dizzys

love it; buy it.

unfortunate name for Josef Suk. I do wonder what he would call himself if he married Philip Dick.

I wrote my own some years back; I think it holds up pretty well; the cover pic is a little to big to download here, so I'll have to re-shoot it later. The title is: God Didn't Like It; Electric Hillbillies, Singing Preachers, and the Beginning of Rock and Roll, 1950-1970. My main complaint about virtually every rock and roll history I have read is that they haven't a clue about the connection of country music to its origins; they all stick to the blues/r&b party line.

I think it was his inspirational after-hours speeches that held the band together.

I always thought Tommy Flanagan was a strong African name.

funny reading this because last year Ken Peplowski and I talked about doing a CD of songs with the same names as standards, but completely different tunes and changes. I wanted to call it Sub-standards.

this is better, but I remain not real interested. Listen at 19:20 or so; plays a simple major scale; doesn't get to me. "Effects" playing, as Jim says. You might be surprised at how easy it is to play like this. I remain troubled by musicians who confuse gimmicks with ideas, mannerisms with with style. And that's how I hear this.

i'm in for whatever is necessary.

Dizzy Atmosphere is also notable for the bridge, which is probably different than what they are used to (I recorded it with Roswell Rudd in the early '90s). As for tunes, jam sessions have gotten tedious for me; it's not the simplicity of the tunes but the narrow range. I mean I Surrender Dear and Time on My Hands, just to name 2 rarely-played songs, are certainly solid harmonically. It's just that nobody knows them any more because they've never heard them. I like to call things like Dinah and If Dreams Come True, but it's pretty hopeless. Repertoire, if you want to call it that, has changed.

tubes to me in these kinds of setup, as in guitar amps and in mic preamps, breathe, for want of a better term. In a good tube appliance it is a very particular and very warm sound. But as our ears have gotten accustomed to solid state, opinions have definitely changed. But to me this is why 1950s jazz guitar recordings sound so much better than current ones - there is a more organic connection between finger and strings, and a fatter, more "musical" sound.

interesting; I do think tubes also effect the sound.

the songster tradition is long, complicated, and wonderful. This side of the black vernacular was woefully under-appreciated until Paul Oliver wrote a book about it; think Julius Daniels, et al, there are some amazing old Document collections of this song side. Some of it is minstrel, some folk/vernacular, and some folk vernacular as filtered through professional songwriters. Love this stuff, wrote about it in my blues thing. There are many obscure but amazing recorded performances (will deal with some on my country music thing too). As for Blake, amazing performer and historically a key figure - his influence can be traced through Ike Everly (the Everly brothers father) and Mose Rager (little on record, some youtube thing) to Merle Travis, and through that whole school to Scotty Moore and one particular pioneering strain of rock and roll guitar. Country picking, basically, but with a very specific sonic signature.

slink or swim as the saying goes.

I gotta say I am bewildered at how well this album has been received; at first I liked what I heard of her work - but then realized she does the same 2 or 3 things on everything she plays. I dunno; it just sounds so amateurish to me. There is one particular solo where she seems completely stumped so instead just noodles, and not in a particularly interesting way. I tried to like that record; just ran out of patience. I will now slink away........

just an extra opinion about turntable pre-amps. I did find that, with a semi-high-end turntable (I have a VPI TNT junior) pre-amps made a big difference. Don't know about other kinds; I sold my conrad johnson, which was a great tube thing, and replaced it with a very small but very good-sounding NAD. The NAD is definitely not on the same level as the tube thing, but it does the job amazingly well for its size and price.

love that clip. Gotta get this. Has a filmic quality. Coulda been from a Hitchcock movie. I always liked Nelson, but missed a certain kind of tension in his arranging (same thing with Carla Bley, btw). This particular recording feels like he was liberated, finally, if somewhat late.

the one pic I have of us performing together, in Rhode Island, in the 1990s.

loved him, love him, will always love him. One of the great human beings.

I've actually stipulated in my will that my birthday will be celebrated in perpetuity, and people shall continue to bring me cake and presents.