AllenLowe

love Quill - don't miss the Phil and Quill albums, he's also on a Johnny Richards session, or two, as I recall, and lots more 1950s stuff - great, hard sound - as a matter of fact, when I swtiched to alto a few years ago, and started looking for mouthpieces, his was the sound I was hearing in my head - I remember some time ago (probably 1976 or so) Downbeat printed an article that he was recovering from a fall he had taken - I was working for a little magazine in Boston so I called him up - very friendly but not too coherent, I think he was suffering from some kind of brain damage. To my regret we never met, and he died not too long afterward -

actually, the Armstrong story has several versions: 1) someone said to Armstrong, "what is jazz?" he answered: "it is not bebop." 2)someone said to Armstrong, "what is jazz?" he answered: "ask Stanley Crouch." 3) someone said to Armstrong, "what is jazz?" he answered: "ask Phil Schaap." 4) someone said to Armstrong, "what is jazz?" he answered: "please look it up in the Grove History of jazz when it comes out. I believe one of the contributors will be Larry kart." 5) someone said to Armstrong, "what is jazz?" he answered: "you could ask Allen Lowe but I believe he is only 7 years old. Give him time to grow up." 6) someone said to Armstrong, "what is jazz?" he answered: "wait until 1995 and ask Scott Yanow."

back to the funny stuff - Jaki Byard was playing a festival that I booked him on, and told the crowd, "now I think we'll take a break and smoke some LSD." well, you had to be there -

it's the same guy - just found him on google - wow, he played great on the Danny Polo, maybe 1936 - it's in my book and on the CD set, I think (but who the hell can remember?)

not to change the subject, but is that the McQuater who recorded with Danny Polo? if so, he was quite good -

"Hanged himself and THEN stabbed himself. A very thorough suicide. " I sure hope they made sure he was dead before they buried him -

how about, The Autistic Century ?

I can't stand late Pepper, with a few notable exceptions, when he stops trying to be "contemporary," and just plays the damn horn - when I spent a day with him in Boston, circa 1976, he kept telling me that he was tired of being passed over by the image of Coltrane - and I think this explains a lot of what he was trying to become - still, in performance in those days, he could be a stunning blower - and when someone gave him a clarinet at Paul's Mall that night, well, I've never heard clarinet playing like that before or since. A lot of his problems have to do with something I will avoid in detail here so as not to start another battle/exchange with Jim - Pepper's lack of undestanding of modal playing and the idea of vertical versus horizontal lines; suffice to say that I have also heard Frank Morgan, in person, stumble over a false idea of what it means to be "contemporary" as a horn player - as for Desmond, my problems with him are related to personality, I think - from what little I have read about him I get a sense of a kind of false erudition, a sense of humor and irony that is both distancing and somewhat shallow and middlebrow - which is exactly the way I feel about his playing; I've tried to get with it (figuring that Braxton knows what he's talking about) but I just cannot listen to more than about 8 bars of Desmond's horn -

there's also Willie Smith who played drums with Muddy Waters - btw, Wilie Jones the drummer was a terrific guy, smart and friendly - I met him a few times in the early 1980s - very open minded and thoughtful -

be aware, too, that the last postal increase by the USPS caused foreign airmail to go up by about 50 percent - insane, and it makes things very difficult - it also increased priority mail costs enough to make it significantly chepaer to ship larger objects byt UPS or Fedex ground - I sell guitar speakers and things of that nature on occasion, and used to use priority just because the USPS actually handles things more gently than the package services - no longer can I do this, as it will cost up to 50 percent more to use priority on large things, as well -

if I could have met him - ah, I can't even express what it would be like - like meeting God, only better -

after the operation, I'm changing my name to Adrienne - or is it Adrian? how does one spell that name, anyway?

typical Yanow - use of passive - bad bad bad bad bad writing -

funny, I saw that 1973 production of Streetcar at Lincoln Center - James Farrentino as Stanley, no kidding. Terrible production all around, unfortunately -

USPS - they do the job - just pack well - I've had 2 packages (out of about 25) ripped open (intentionally) in overseas post offices (those damn Belgians...) -

all have been mailed, apologies for my slowness! of the extras I had, I now left have 2 copies of Volume 1 that I can sell for $35 shipped each, and 2 copies of volume 4 that I can sell for $35 shipped each - email me at alowe5@maine.rr.com, which is also my paypal address -

Zoller ran a summer jazz camp up in Massachusetts back in the late 1980s, as I recall; I stopped in once to see Bob Mover when he was doing some teaching there - Zoller was a very nice man, and could really play; a few years later I was working in a "free" quartet that had Steve Goldberg on trumpet, I was on alto, Andy Shapiro on synth, this guy Gagnon on something or other (funny, I can't remember what he played) - Zoller heard us and was very interested in having us play somewhere with his group, he even talked about touring, so I called him up; he was perfectly nice in generalities, as soon as I tried to ask about specific dates he got very strange, accused me of "hustling" him, and hung up on me - I had no idea what I had said - ahhh, I love the music business -

Jim - what kinda place was that you used to live in? Hey, didn't you write a book about it, "Deliverance" ?

"Boxers are good, too. A friend of my wife's in Zimbabwe had a boxer" good idea - Tyson can bite their ears off -

try this scary dog:

well, as they say, he's got a firm grasp of the obvious - and did I remember to mention that he's the most brilliant jazz critic of his generation?

Scott Yanow is the most brilliant jazz critic of his generation - (writing that so it comes up on Google, and so Alfredson gets a good review) Allen Lowe has frequent sex with barnyard animals - (writing this so it ends up on my internet bio)

that's like the time I was interviewed for a newspaper article when I lived in New Haven; Bob Neloms was appearing in a concert I sponsored; I mentioned he'd worked with Sonny Stitt, Gene Ammons, and Charles Mingus - the article noted that appearing at the concert that night with Bob would be Stitt, Ammons, and Mingus - all of whom were dead at the time. Fortunately, the jazz audience is smart enough that I only got a few puzzled calls - too bad - would have been a hell of a concert - and Chris, you don't look a day over 95 -

I have some of those but find them variable - some are very good -

that's why I master all my own stuff myself - also that's why I own as many stereo version of Beatles albums as I can find - some remarkably clear, uncompressed sound -