AllenLowe

is it true that on the first two Capitol boxes they retained the bad reverb? I never bought 'em, and recently stocked up on good LP versions off of Ebay; German and Parlophone pressings that beat any CD single disc reissue, of course; but I have not heard those boxes -

are we still talking about white alto players?

forgot about that one - as a matter of fact I have it tattooed on my left bicep -

still sealed DVD about Benny Carter; narrated by Burt Lancaster; Rhapsody Films Digital Remaster $10 shipped conus. Paypal preferred; email me at alowe@maine.rr.com

last possibility - Yes Men Must Vacate - this one makes the most sense -

or maybe, Yellow Moneys Masturbate Vicariously (once again, consult Larry for sources) -

I thought it meant Your Mother's Mean and Vicious (of course, how Larry knows this, I have no idea, but that's between you two guys) -

yes, terrific film, very good Martin Balsam as well; also, Jerry Stiller as a transit cop (Stiller, by the way, is a big jazz fan; when I lived in NYC I saw him more than once at various clubs; twice I saw him in the audience to hear Barry Harris) -

years ago when I was doing a lot of transfer work someone sent me cassettes that clearly contained reels of out-takes from Herrmann movie music - orchestral works, fascinating bits and pieces, probably bootlegged from some movie studio - stupidly I did NOT make copies for myself - does anybody have any idea if this stuff has ever come out elsewhere? by the way, Taking ot eh Pelham...is a terrific movie. Robert Shaw was one of my favorite actors.

these are both spoken for/sold - however - I do have a few promos (3 of each) coming in, in about a week - volumes 1 and 3 - unsealed, mint - which I can sell for $30 shipped - that is, 3 of Volume 1 and 3 of Volume 3 - I will hold these for people, but will need advance payment just so things don't get too confusing - email me at alowe@maine.rr.com

Gene Lees is disliked byumany for good reason for his dumb-ass racial stuff and his stupid take on modernism (read what he says about jazz being un-adaptable for the avant garde and how he cites, in ignorant fashion, Joyce to support this) - BUT - he has interviewed and profiled quite a few musicians that have rarely been profiled elsewhere, so I read him, because they are good, intelligent profiles. On the other hand, anyone remember his Diane Krall piece in Downbeat? Most embarassing thing I ever read -

"Fans read articles and books. Real musicians make music" well, I don''t know - I read music books all the time, and I hope I'm a real musician - and yes, I read Larry's book. Twice.

I think he was too stoned to talk about it -

you never miss your water...

the amazing thing about Bird (or ONE amazing thing), that I especially note when I read transcripts of solos, is how he puts certain unlikley intervals together in such incredibly melodic ways - I'll see a note that he's picked out or a jump that he makes, and I'll say to myself, "where the hell did he get that? and sure enough it resolves in a way which you could never predict but which is completely logical. Now I do remember Dave Schildkraut talking about a way he used to play, and he said he got some of the idea from Bird - he would phrase ahead, looking a bar or two or three ahead in the chord changes, and this would create a kind of dissonance but a relatively gentle kind and a logical one, since the changes he was looking at were usually related in terms of key, progression, transition, harmonic anticipation, etc. So this may have to do with Bird's kind of harmonic ingenuity - or it might have to do with his being stoned out of his gourd every night -

thanks, Jon - is there a site where one good hear decent examples of the music you are talking about?

"but at his best, he was one of the last real bluesmen, albeit from Connecticut/NYC." don't want to get into the insult game, guys, we can discuss this in a semi-adult way (at least that's how my wife considers me) - I usually avoid posting about people I know, always afraid they'll see it if it's critical, but I doubt Loren Mazzacane hangs out here, so - to me, he's part of the problem with a lot of the music you admire and/or produce - I've gone on about this before, but this all to me represents a new kind of formalism, a misguided belief by musicans that just because they have found a new gesture, or at least one that they think sounds new, that they have nade a signifdcant formal discovery - and than they drive it into the ground. A good idea is not necessarily a good organizing principle, or a way of life and music, and this is the problem with a lot of drone stuff, noise stuff, electro-acoustical. And that's Mazzacane - he came up with a very interesting idea for sound and basic phrase organization - and has been doing the same thing for 30 years (I first heard him in the late 1970s in New Haven) - it's a perversion of Cage I think (or maybe not) - and a persistent problem in the field. Listening to these guys being praised reminds me of all the cinema majors I listened to in the 1960s and 1970s - all they talked about was some "amazing" camera angle, an incredible splash of color, or the subtextual rhythm of a scene in some worthless Bertolucci movie - but there was more to Goddard and Antonioni and Bresson than, and there is more to new music now - it's the difference between an idea and a gimmick, mannerism and style - of course I won't make the same mistake you make, and generalize about it, call it "dead" or stagnant - I'm always listening and there is a lot of fresh stuff coming out. It just needs more brains and discipline. Time will tell -

funny, but the idea of using the higher intervals and using appropriate changes sounds more like a Tatum thing to me - kind of a method for chromatic substitution, maybe - also, glad someone mentioned Larry Gushee, who has become a good friend during his summers here in Maine. One of the great curmudgeons of the jazz history world, and he and I battle it out every year about verifable and unverifiable "facts." He's a great man -

"both of those guys did their best work before when I'm talking about, Hemphill hit his peak with his first two records." only if you've never heared them in person, but even recording wise this is not true - listen to Roswell on my American Song Project , just for starters, and when I did 3 nights with him at Sweet Basil in the early 1990s with my Louis Armstrong show, the bandstand seemed to levitate. Ask Loren Schoenberg, who was there, and not necessarily a fan of "free" playing -he was ecstatic - as "live" performers they kept it going in amazing ways. Also, per Hemphill, his big band record is the probably the best jazz orchestral writing done in the last 40 years; his sextet was incredible; and listen to him on my New Tango CD; playing with him at the Knitting Factory was an experience that will not be repeated - "my point is that nothing truly new has emerged within jazz for decades, and I believe it's impossible at this point because of the limits of jazz as an art form. the same boundaries that make something "jazz" or not are what's prevented it from continuing to develop, there's simply no room. don't get me wrong, jazz was a crucial building block in the history of improvisation, but it's a historic art form at this point. improvisation, on the other hand, is very much alive and well and flourishing on a global scale." yikes, don't know where to start on this - Julius, for one, and his development of the horn quartet and sextet; Zorn for obvious reasons (Spillane and Morricone discs in particualr, also Naked City); Tim Berne, completely unqique compositional style and method of organizing it; the late Andy Shapiro, the most talent synth/jeyboard player I have ever heard (basically undocumented on CD, but just ask anybody in Vermont) - Matt Shipp, who has fused certain keyboard approaches in ways whic are unprecedented; I hear new-sounding stuff all the time, and I'm old and out of it up in Maine. I'm sure the guys here can be much more forthcoming. And I'll mention my own guitar playing, which Larry Kart has called "unprecedented" - though you may prefer Mazzacane, who I like personally, but, damn, is really an amateur -

yes, one left, just sent you a message - I hold it until you reply -

my writing is analog as well, in real time, though occasionally I will do overdubs -

it's yours - one set left -

Jon - don't lump it all together - I know you find improvisation boring - I just read an on-line interview you gave - but having stood on stages with Roswell Rudd and Julius Hemphill, AFTER the Ford administration, I will say that you are missing some of the work of the Gods by making such generalizations.

I have 2, 4 volume sets (36 cds in all) of Devilin' Tune promos - unsealed but mint, each 4 volume set for $100 plus shipping - paypal preferred; email me at alowe@maine.rr.com I prefer not to break up the sets, but if they don't sell in a few days I might be willing to part with them for $30 each volume-

I used to play weddings with Bob Neloms in the 1980s, and he always told me there are two tunes you don't play at a wedding: I Can't Get Started and Slow Boat to China - aside from that, you're on your own.