AllenLowe

hmmm...trouble, eh? well, let's see: 1) "What’s so special about the „Moonglow“ version by the Mississippi Mud Steppers that would warrant it being included TWICE in the box set? (Vol. 3, discs 1 and 2)" - yes, a mastering mistake; realize that this project was done by myself over a five year period, accumulating all recordings and doing all gathering, sequenciong, restoration and mastering as well as writing; I had no outside support or assistance, so was working my day gig at the same tiume. Not an excuse, only an expanation for some of the deficits herein and some of the project's limitation -2) "Cliff Bruner & his Texas Wanderers never were „falling DOWN“, what they recorded (on April 8, 1940, to be exact ) was the „New Falling RAIN Blues“ (Vol. 3, disc 6)." - not sure what this means, so you see it's easy to make typographical mistakes -3) "Is the recording date of Maxine Sullivan’s „Nice Work If You Can Get It“ (Vol. 3, disc 3) correct? Rust and Bruyninckx give it as Oct. 22, 1937. Could it be that the date given here is actually a repeat listing of the Charlie Christian entry that precedes it?" - could be; I know that I goofed on the Chrtistian Tea for Two; would have to check 4)"Interesting as the booklet texts are, what I find somewhat irritating is that the periods covered by the music in the respective box sets and by the accompanying booklet texts do not quite coincide. A good deal of the booklet text (including quoted musical examples) of Vol. 3 relates to the discs of Vol. 2, and to read up to the end of the period covered by Vol. 3 you have to go to Vol. 4 and read the first part of the booklet there. A bit strange if the liner notes are intended to illustrate the music of any given box set (or vice versa, in fact). " -they are not intended as such, and are simply an accompanying narrative; they mention most of the tracks in the set, but you are correct that, without an index, as there is in the book, it can be hard to follow. BUT, I think the narrative style of the project works better than a track-by-track breakdown. The book was written first and had to be excerpted to fit the breakdown into four sections. Not perfect, but I think it's a good deal to get the entire text with the CD sets. And in reality this was a seat-of-the-pants project, written and mastered by me without an iota of outside financial support, so I had to do what could reasonably be done - 5) "I realize with the amount of music of each box set it would have been difficult to include full session details, but if those are (regrettably but understandably) omitted it would have helped a lot for those who feel like cross-checking the details elsewhere if the artist credits had been given more accurately throughout. For ex. just listing Ivie Anderson doing „Oh Baby Maybe Someday“ (Vol. 3) is confusing, seeing that she did in fact record under her own name. „Duke Ellington Orch. feat. Ivie Anderson“ would have been more like it. Overly abbreviated credits like „Berigan/Waller/Dorsey“ are a bit odd too, IMHO. And in the case of more obscure recordings, artist details would indeed have been very welcome, e.g. for Lester Young’s jam session/airshot recording of „Benny’s Bugle“." -well, see above; yes, it would have been nice, though I did try to mention relevant soloists in the text and added their names to the track listing, as you mentioned. Just could not be done without an NEH grant and/or a trust fund - 6) "The 2nd pic showing Charlie Barnet as per the caption (Vol. 3, p. 25) looks suspiciously like Benny Carter to me, and the 2nd pic credited to Maxine Sullivan (Vol. 3, p. 67) reminds me more of a very elderly Gil Evans. " -actually those are all drawings.... not.... I had nothing to do, unfortunately, with booklet design and was not allowed a chance to proofread. And few people know this, but Maxine Sullivan and Gil Evans were separated at birth... 7) " Speaking of the photographs, I wonder why Lee Konitz rates a picture entry in Vol. 3. This period (1934-45) isn’t exactly the prime period that he left his mark in. The same goes for Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman in Vol. 4 (which ends in 1951 after all). Surely there must have been a lot of jazz personalities (famous or obscure) from the periods covered by the music that would have warranted a pic instead. And speaking of the pic of June Christy (Vol. 4, p. 54), what a pity this particular one is only half the actual pic so the story that this pic tells is totally lost (see W. Gottlieb’s „Golden Age of Jazz“ book where I guess this pic came from)." -yeah yeah, see above. 8) "The author of „The Making of Jazz“ (and others) who apparently does not meet with unanimity is called JAMES Lincoln Collier, not John . " -yes, but I think John is a much nicer name 9) "Valaida Snow definitely never was imprisoned by the German occupants in Sweden. This happened in Denmark, not Sweden. Sweden stayed strictly neutral throughout the entire war. I realize from a U.S. point of view this may be but a minor slipup like speaking of North Carolina when you mean South Carolina, but to Europeans the difference was considerable. Ask any Swede about it ... " -this was based on erroneous info from some liner notes, I believe; I do know the difference between those two countries (I think the women are taller in Sweden) - 10) "By 1944 Sonny Berman, though he died young, luckily had a bit more than „less than one year“ (Vol. 4, p. 28) left to live, or else we never would have heard a good deal of his great solos in Woody’s Herd." -will have to check dates; don't remember 11) "I also wonder about the recording date for the Georgie Auld recording of „Short Circuit“ quoted in connection with Sonny Berman on disc 9 of Vol. 3. This track sounds very much like the recording previously released on Hep LP 27. Discographies give its recording date as March 28, 1944 (this date figures in the tracklist alongside the subsequent track – Don Byas‘ „1944 Stomp“ which according to all sources was waxed on Aug. 17, 1944, however). The date of Feb. 16, 1944 given for the Auld track in the tracklist, on the other hand, seems to belong to the previous one in the list, to Coleman Hawkins‘ „Woody’n you“. Seems like the track and recording date listings got out of sync ... " -could be, though I likely took the Auld date off of an LP; 12)" finally, I wonder how those numerous misspellings of artists‘ names throughout the booklets of both volumes came about. Surely that’s something easy to avoid..." -without confirmation I might question "numerous" - I'm certain that there are some, would have to get a list for correction - 13) "O.K., enough of this, and again, call it nitpicking of you want to, and yes – IMHO the box sets still offer great value for money, but judging by Allen Lowe’s CV in the booklets I feel sure that as a jazz historian, in particular, he will already have made a point of getting errors like this straightened out in second pressings/printings. " -unlikely to ever see another pressing of this, unfortunately; no time or money - someone else will have to take the keys to this particular kingdom -

just to add a liner note highlight, if you can, find Dan Morgenstern's notes to the Lester Young LP that has some late live recordings from Europe and the US (I think it's an Onyx though it might be a Xanadu) - a masterpiece of distilling and demolishing certain received ideas of jazz criticism. I love good liner notes and wrote about 20 pages for my own recent cd; I also think it's ironic that, with all the criticism of the reduced graphic possibilities for CDs, that they have opened up a new market for extensive and detailed liner notes that are, in general, a real improvement over LPs. As for Feather, well... he was not a nice man, and his ego really took over at some point. he was also the only person who could take a talent like Hot Lips Page and produce a dull session with him...but he did some good things and apparently was very helpful to a lot of women musicians. I had only one or two encounters with him, and they were not pleasant.

1) Do you collect '78s? a relative few - maybe 200 - I used LPs, CDs and a network of collectors (though mostly LPs and CDs, and LOTS of LPs) - also found a few things at Rutgers - 2) Where did you find all that early material and how much did you reject because it wasn't good music? (You spend a lot of space putting down one ragtime player-- sorry I don't have the notes here and can't remember his name-- but don't include an example of his work, presumably because you wan't to maintian the quality of the cds.) I listened obsessively for about 5 years - early Folkways rag collections, a lot of obscure LPs found by haunting record stores from Maine to NYC, some CD reissues (there are not a lot of CDs of pre-1920s music), a few good internet sources; collectors (Mike Kieffer, David Sager and Tim Gracyk) supplied some tapes - I spoke to people like Dick Spottswood, a brilliant historian who now lives in FLorida - read things like the 78 Quarterly; contacted some Europeans - I'm not sure who you are referring to, though you are probably correct in your assumption - let me know if you come up with the name - I'll take a look tonight - I basically listened and rejected things if they were poorly done or sometimes really bad sources or if I had enough of that particular musician or if I thought a recoring was available everywhere else; or sometimes I just had to make a cut to keep within a reasonable amount of CDs (if you call 36 reasonable) -

you have to realize that there was a time when reading liner notes from certain writers was one of the best ways to learn about jazz - as there was no net, few publications and not a lot of books - in the late 1960s I learned more from the notes of Martin Williams (Saxophone Colossus) and Dan Morgenstern than from anyone else - as a matter of fact, Morgenstern's notes to a Decca reissue of Louis Armstrong's (Collector's Items, containing 1930s tunes) almost single handedly rehabilitated Louis's later reputation -

hi - sorry so slow - I'd be happy top entertain questions/comments - where's Scott Yanow when we need him?

"what kind of permission do u need to go into and listen to the l.o.c. sound archives. can any citizen just go there and listen to stuff 9am-5pm? what if i decide to go to philly for the genesis concert and to visit hank's gravesite, then i hop over to DC i wanna know whats goin on" actually, LOC will allow you to listen to and copy and take home any recording(s) as long as you consent to a cavity search that they can video and use as a CIA/FBI training film - that's how I acquired half of my collection (for the other half I had to sleep with Barbara Bush) -

I better call my grandmonther - she likes Iams -

also, my copy has the super-secret code to instant jazz success. I just chose not to use it, so it is still good for one budding player out there -

well, I'd be willing to sell it on a per-page basis; 10 cents a page - funny thing about this book is that it was very helpful for the short time I used it - the arcs of scale that Slonimsky uses are very applicable to jazz playing and conducive to avoiding cliches. But than I watched a friend of mine, a pianist, playing passages by heart, and got discouraged. but if it was good enough for Coltrane...

Slonimsky's famous book in hardcover; edition is 1975; I bought it than and have opened it maybe twice (I do not want to play good); though the cover is somewhat frayed, the book itself is near mint. I have seen older hardcover editions like this being sold for as much as $250 but only an idiot would pay that much - so - I will sell this one at an offer you cannot refuse: $35 plus shipping (probably about $8 domestic media mail; this thing is tall) - (Chewy, you can have it for $250) - all others, $35 $35 $35 $35 35 $35 $35 $35 35 $35 $35 $35 also good for jazz critics who want to be seen reading it at the local iternet cafe; it makes chicks go wild - people will think you actually know something about music - become known as the Larry Kart of the East; or the Chuck Nessa of the West; or as the Allen Lowe of Berlin - or the Kurt Furtwangler of Kansas (not sure if I am spelling that one correctly) email me at alowe@maine.rr.com - that is also my paypal address

let's not forget that Ronald Reagan played college football -

not that I was complaining -

this is a complicated subject, and I am posting from work, so apologies if I am missing some points already made. However I will say: 1) the "words" thing is nothing new; ask any jazz musician about gig experiences over the years; even so-called jazz audiences prefer to hear singers, because songs with words are easier to listen/relate to. Now, if the singer is Billie Holiday, that is not a bad thing; if it's ____ (fill in the name of just about every singer I've ever worked with) - well, that's another thing - or if it's, say Carmen Lundy and the band ends up wanting to murder her at the end of the night - (or as Al Haig said: "I hate working with singers. They all want to be actresses." But that's for another thread - ) 2) What Jim says. Songs are really IT when it comes to American music, from the vernacular to pop; personally I'd rather listen to one good pre-War hillbilly singer like Kelly Harrell than 10 typical jazz/pop/blues singers (some exceptions: Holiday, O'Day, Lil Green, Rosetta Tharpe, Rushing, Sinatra). In the big picture, I bow to what Henry Pleasants wrote about in his book on American singers, that the whole character of American music is derived fron vocalisms, and comes from the very distinct American vocal style (which relates to speaking style), and which effects everything from rock to minstrelsy to blues to pop to country to ragtime to rap -

Dexter who?

me like Roland Kirk -

nothing to add, I just want to see if I can get my name on all the "last posts" -

I could be wrong, but I think Lee Young is still alive - anybody know? Loretta Young, however, his other sister, is dead -

thanks guys, all very helpful - yes, WGBH is an EXCELLENT idea - also WBUR -

aren't you the guy who killed my cat?

actually, Prez would only be 97 - it might be a little like the Elvis theory, that Elvis faked his death to get away from the rat race and is living somewhere in the Mid-West. So Prez figured he'd had enough, bleached his skin, and became a bible salesman in Dallas - he also might have had something to do with the Kennedy assassination -

sounds like a dream I had once... I also recall that Henny Youngman's brother was named Lester - not kidding -

thanks guys - yes, a cd is on its way ot Lazaro - and to Dave, too - I'm thinking of WFMU, also, as I remember, it's an adventurous station -

this has probably been done to death, and I apologize if I am making people repeat themselves - but with the new CD I am determined to be selective with radio station freebies - but if you could name 10 stations in the US with good jazz/new music programming, who won't just cash this in at their local used CD store - what would they be? Hoping for a good geographic spread - from people with direct experience of these stations -

as wrong as I think he was about Trane, I still think he made his points in a convincing way - and I have to admit his and my tastes coincide somewhat, especially in a preference for Rollins over Trane. But that's the sign of a good critic - you understand and agree even as you disagree; it is not unlike my own response to Larry's pieces on Bill Evans -

I think you meant Friedwald not Litweiler -