AllenLowe

actually, his name was Murray Amani - the Jewish/Italian tailor (he took the "r" out of his last name to avoid confusion) -

yeah, it stings a little bit - especially as I would not compare myself to Beefheart, but for a much different reason; I would say our lyric aims are much different - still, hard to complain about a review like that - on the other hand, it did get me thinking about how to approach some new songs I'm working on -

I rarely use the term (it IS overused) but Hendrix was a genius - consider the fact that virtually every rock and roll recording of the last 30 years owes something to his ideas - not to mention the whole pedal/effects industry -

good week for reviews - this is part of a larger review that will appear soon, I am told, in Signal to Noise by Stuart Broomer: "The same iconoclastic wit and intelligence that shape That Devilin’ Tune are evident in Lowe’s latest work as a musician, Jews in Hell: Radical Jewish Acculturation. Lowe is an accomplished saxophonist who has previously populated his CD with performers like Roswell Rudd and Doc Cheatham, and his interests in musical history manage to inform his sometimes abrasively contemporary work. In 2001 Lowe took up guitar, and it’s as a guitarist and singer of a rough-cut post-modern blues that he primarily appears here. It’s raw music, a kind of alienation-celebration of the acculturation suffered by baby-boom Jews growing up in America in the 1950s and 1960s. For Lowe, no ax is too small to grind . The liner booklet has him referring to his high-school vice principal “a cretin named Floyd Kenyon.” One sub-title is "All the blues you could play by now if Stanley Crouch was your uncle," while the other refers to a local Portland, Maine venue called the Space Gallery that won’t give him work. The Velvet Underground are a central theme and influence, with songs about Nico and Lou Reed: “Walk on the Wild Side” turns up in “Where’s Lou Reed?” with “And all the white girls go…LouLouLou LouLou…” Elsewhere Frank Zappa’s “Peaches en Regalia” gets referenced in “Failure”—“Failure is my face in the mirror.” Lowe summons up real power on songs like “Goyishe World,” a rock-driven tune on the hoary subject of Christ-killing, and his themes and music possess more power than the petty grievances might suggest. It’s a compound world populated by Doc Boggs, Blind Willie Johnson, Doc Pomus, Lenny Bruce and Delmore Schwarz—at times it feels like Trout Mask Replica, but done by a vastly inferior lyricist and a much better saxophonist. Marc Ribot is a guest, turning in a couple of superb unaccompanied solos on Lowe compositions, but he’s also a key to the Lowe guitar style, a blues-rooted sound, but full of sudden surprise, whether it’s a bend, a note choice or a sudden key shift. Matt Shipp appears as well to contribute unaccompanied piano, while there’s a fine wind trio composed of Lowe on alto saxophone, Randy Sandke on trumpet and Scott Robinson on contra-bass clarinet. Their “I licked Bird’s Blood” (the background description of Joe Albany might have made its way into That Devilin’ Tune) sounds like a Dolphy tune. Lowe’s extended alto solos overdubbed over minimal keyboard accompaniments are sweetly luminous interludes, though the liner booklet provides darkly comic film treatments for them to accompany (the most beautiful playing occurs on “Soundtrack Theme from the Film Jews in Hell”). The liner notes possess the same interest as the end-notes to “That Devilin’ Tune,” managing at one point to connect Bix Beiderbecke and Dadaist word games. Anyone preferring live mind to dead mind (I think the phrase is Ezra Pound’s) will welcome Lowe’s work. " -Stuart Broomer my wife particularly likes the references to "petty grievances" and "no ax too small to grind." I don't like that "inferior lyricist" thing, but at least I'm better at something than Beefheart. Now, tell me, as I quote this in my literature, is it dishonest to cut "vastly inferior lyricist" ? ah, what the hell do you guys know? just wait 'til my next CD oh evil organissimo-ites - I can keep this revenge thing going for years - yeah, that's the ticket: Allen Lowe: The Revenge Series. The possibilities are endless -

I tend to look back at myself at any earlier period and decide I didn't know anything at that point - so it's probably now; so much new stuff to write and play, if I can find the time (and I have to) -

" there's a thing that happens with young people - say people around 22 - where everything is fresh and new to them. Like there's this whole world of potential. And then, after a while, they settle down - and that newness goes" scary thing for us old guys, but too often true - something to fight and fight against - but than, that's a whole new topic in itself -

about the Carter band - I'll call Ed Berger at Rutgers - he knew Benny very well, and he of all people might know details - I probably won't be able to reach him until next week -

and here's another account, differs somewhat from what I heard, but even better: From a July 15, 1990 Detroit Free Press profile: And he is equally proud that the Michigan Legislature this year proclaimed him a "wholesome, traditional" man of "honesty, integrity, loyalty and patriotism." But Nugent wanted no part of Vietnam. He claims that 30 days before his draft board physical, he stopped all forms of personal hygiene. The last 10 days, he ingested nothing but Vienna sausages and Pepsi; and a week before his physical, he stopped using bathrooms altogether, virtually living inside pants caked with his own excrement, stained by his urine. That spectacle won Nugent a deferment, he says, although the Free Press was unable to verify his draft status.

here's Ken Levine from the Huffingon Post: "Ted Nugent? Legal guardian of a 17 year old Hawaiian girl to avoid statutory charges. The man who got a draft deferment by reporting to his draft board with a week's worth of excrement and urine in his pants ..."

the Columbia solo recordings are wonderful - in the film Straight No Chaser there are plenty of great clips of his playing from that era - now, the last time I saw him (Central Park, maybe 1970) he was basically comatose on stage - but than, that was the beginning of the end -

yes, 4f was a medical rejection - the info about Nugent I got from an article a while back, and I'd have to research it (it might turn up on google) - as for the cocktail, I don't know the ingredients - however, Curley Russell told me that a lot of the guys in Benny Carter's band did the same thing - as he told me, I think (and this conversation was 30 years ago) it was some combination of benzedrine and alcohol and who knows what else - uppers versus downers, guaranteed to wreak havoc with your metabolism and blood pressure and heartbeat (if it didn't kill you). Unfortunately those guys are all dead (meaning Benny Carter's late 1930s, early 1940s band) - though maybe it's buried away in some book or oral history. I can make some calls (maybe talk to someone at Rutgers) to see if anyone ever went on the record -

what Nugent neglects to mention is that, to avoid the draft, he took the classic 1960s drug cocktail so he could go to the draft board with his vital signs run amuck - and so he, too, received a 4f deferral. biggest damn hypocrite in the world. The 1960s can't be summed up in sociological cliches and catch-phrases. I tend to agree that the "hippy" movement was, to paraphrase Frank Zappa, just another middle-class conceit. HOWEVER - the politicization of that generation had the kind of complicated and ripple effects on social and political norms - from basic ideas of feminism to the overall change in attitudes toward homosexuality to affirmative action, to changes in the social service bureaucracy, and much more - that make this more than a "yes" or "no" argument. as one whose life was forever altered by the Vietnam war, by public figures like Bobby Kennedy and Allard Lowenstein and Martin Luther King, I would suggest that one should make more informed judgements about that era. The Big Chill it wasn't -

I'd go as long as they didn't give any of my money to the Collective - a title which is a misnomer if there ever was one -

slight off topic, but another nice response to my work - from an interview the writer Stewart Broomer did with Anthony Braxton: Braxton says: "I’m a big fan of Allen Lowe, and I think Allen Lowe as a scholar and as a musician is very important and I think he is deeply misunderstood because he doesn’t hate himself. Now if he hated himself, and hated TransEuropa, then he would have a more successful run, but he is misunderstood because he wants to include the input of the great transeuropeans who have also contributed to the music – it is not understood – and the idea of European Americans being connected to the music is looked at almost as if it’s a racist proposition, or some diabolical political plot to destroy the essence of the music, when in fact, as far as I’m concerned, my research a long time ago made it pretty clear that we don’t talk of the historical aspects of the music correctly, that jazz has been etched out and defined as a vehicle for African Americans..."

I understand - good source or not, however, the CEDAR distortion should not be there - whoever did the restoration just got lazy -

"I could've gone all morning without reading that... " actually the joke's on Bird - I gave him the wrong changes -

he did ask me for the changes to "Feelings" - he's got a few weddings lined up -

well, as long as everything is stable now, I can post something I've been putting off for a few weeks - it's so important I didn't want it to get lost - I had a dream the other night - but not just any dream - in this dream I woke up and there, sitting in a chair in my room was Charlie Parker- "Bird!" I cried. "Is that you?" "Yes, Allen," he intoned with grave purpose. "I see where you have been troubled by this Al Haig business. So I have decided to come to you - yes, I have picked YOU - I would have apppeared at Ron Carter's house, but he's so damned obnoxious and arrogant. And let's face it, he hasn't made a good recording in 20 years, and I'm not really crazy about how he makes the changes on Stella -- " "yeah, I know, Bird, but would you get to the point?" "oh, sorry. Yes, Allen, I have come to YOU, ALLEN LOWE - and did I mention that Carter plays too damn loud?" "No, but I agree." "It's not that he plays Stella wrong, it's just that on the last eight he doesn't listen to the rest of the rhythmm section - and he pushes the damn time - " "Hey Bird, it's late and I'm kinda tired - I have to work tomorrow - " "sorry - anyway, where was I?" "You've picked me to tell me something." "Righto, kid. Also wanted to mention I like that Organissom forum. and you're right. That Yanow guy is really not the greatest. But that Litchfield fest looks kinda cool - though I sent them a promo packet, and they wouldn't hire me -" "I'll tell Alfredson - but can you get to the point?" "Oh yeah, now I remember. I've been dead more than 50 years, and I feel it's time to come back and tell people the true meaning of not just MY lfe, but of all life -" "Bird, are you kidding? Are you about to tell me the true meaning of life?" "You got it Lowe - straight from God's mouth to my mouth to your ears - are you ready?" "Hit it Bird, I'm all ears." Bird stood up, and begin to speak: "Listen carefully Lowe, because I'm only going to say this once, and than I will be gone for eternity. And feel free to quote me on Organissimo. "The meaning of life is

the Pearls (JR Morton) Pearl Bailey Earl the Pearl

Jim, the trombone is fine, but just remember that it does NOT have pedals - that thing is called a slide, and if you step on it you'll bend it -

well, I have all Republicans blocked for the politial forum - but I'll take Berigan's word -

another (semi) review - just got a nice email from the novelist Jonathan Lethem, who gave me the following blurb: "Angular, sly, and funky, Jews In Hell is a bona fide wake-up call from the avant garde." -- Jonathan Lethem

I actually think the White Stripes may be the hippest contemporary group I've heard in some time - and Meg, for better or for worse, makes up in feeling for what she lacks in technique - and maybe we should give her more musical credit and less physical evaluation - all of which may be the reason that so few women post on this board - I for one am tired of being taken for eye-candy, and I asssume so is she -

he's a helluva shortstop - good hitter too -

my only problem with Not Heard is on one cut (not home now so I can't cite it) that has extensive CEDAR distortion on a trumpet solo (Hobart Dotson?) The music is great, but this kind of thing is inexcusable; that cut should have been done over (I'm assumoing they remastered it from an LP) -