AllenLowe

I have trouble with I Claudius because, as Larry indicated, it's on videotape. Film is so much better; also, "Rome" has more sex. How can you go wrong?

bringing this back to Fruscella - Bill Triglia told me about going up to see Sonny Rollins at his apartment (not sure of date, probably early 1960s) - and going up the stairs and hearing Rollins playing along with a trumpet player - and when he got up to the apartment it was Tony Fruscella - things were different in those days. Before fame/money (not that I begrudge any jazz player those things) the relationships were a little bit more open and less formal -

thanks Jim - I know this is a re-post, feel free to delete my initial thread - just releasing my new cd (2 cd set) Jews in Hell: Radical Jewish Acculturation or All the Blues You Could Play by Now if Stanley Crouch was your Uncle I play alto and guitar. personnel includes: Matt Shipp solo piano and in duet with me on guitar (three cuts) Marc Ribot solo guitar (2 cuts) Erin McKeown, vocal (one cut) Randy Sandke, trumpet Scott Robinson, contra bass clarinet (Robinson and Sandke are on two cuts) Lewis Porter, solo piano (one cut) and others all self-composed except for one trad tune (Oh Molly Dear) I call it the debut of the Fourth Stream something of an autobiography Happy to solicit reviews and send review copies as well as radio station copies. email me at alowe@maine.rr.com

just to add, when I started listening to jazz - ca. 1967 - the jazz world was really a critical desert. Some books, maybe, but most of them not very good. No web sites, very little in the way of re-issues, not much of a critical community. One grabbed what one could, and Williams really stood out as an important and central critical figure. Another was Dan Morgenstern; there was also Nat Hentoff but I always thought his jazz stuff was shallow. And as soon as I started getting to know people like Al Haig, who regarded Hentoff as an exploiter, there was really only Williams and Morgenstern - of course, if I had been reading Downbeat (which I was not doing very much) I might have noticed this guy Kart - thoough I do remember Alan Heinemann (sp?) who was kind of the magazine's counter-culture jazz guy, as I recall.

in the field of jazz criticism Williams did it first, and for many of us my age and older (I'm almost 53) he showed that it could be done - he was a major influence on my early tastes and listening habits and it took me quite a while to shake off some of his blind spots. One thing I always remembered was his analysis of one of Bird's first recorded McShann solos, Hootie Blues (I think that was the title) - Williams says that Bird plays a great and futuristic solo and than spoils it in the middle with a trite blues phrase - well, at the time I said to myself, this guy Williams know more than I do so take his word for it (I was about 16); now, of course, I hear that phrase - a five note descending figure that is probably older than the blues - and understand how important this is to Bird and to jazz and how it represents not some lack of taste on Bird's part but rather who he was and where he was from. And Williams (like, also, I would say, Gunther Schuller) is not really in touch with this aspect of the music. I accept his limitations because he was usually quite perceptive - and, as I said, he really was the first to point the way toward this kind of serious jazz criticism.

do you mean the Vienna Boys Choir? or the Lincoln Center Castrati ?

well, I'm on the net now listening to Where You'll At?" at least now I have the name of my next CD: "Hey Stupid Here I Am"

he was thinking of composers like Glass -

well, it is true, there may be a distinction between "free" and the avant garde, especially per Hodeir, but I do think some of their aims were the same. But as Larry implied, there tended to be a gap in understanding and sympathy between the more "technically"minded (for want of a better word) modern composer-types and the more instinctive (also for want of a better word) players. I always think of Johnny Carisi, who could write so beautifully and whose work is full of beautiful dissonances, and who was really an "educated" composer and "rules" modernist with a great deal of "freedom" in his work - he spent an afternoon telling me how much he hated the "free" jazz players (he also hated minimalists) -

I read Roberts's book on Latin jazz (a long time ago) and it was full of errors - I could not cite them now, unfortunately, but he does not know his jazz history -

Andre Hodeir was writing some very interesting and "outside" music early on; he was also one of the first to use electronics -

she lives in NYC and is married to Torrie Zito - I talked to her on the phone last month - nice lady -

Lulu sarted off as a great r&b singer; she became very popular, got a British tv how, and started to go more middle of the road. If you can find some old compilations, she did an incredible version of "Shout." She can really sing -

even better - there's a picture of me on the cover - the back, however, has a large Jesus on it -

allrght, cheapskates - I AM trying to get some reviews of this thing and radio play - willing to send promos for either - email me at alowe@maine.rr.com

hippest band on TV - one day there was a member of the Jimmy Carter administration on, and they were discussing the controversy over the proposed Anti-Ballistic Missle System that Carter had proposed. The Carter guy said, in the interview with Cavett, that they had received a lot of mail in support of the system - at the commercial break the band played "I'm Gonna Sit RIght Down and Write Myself a Letter (and make Believe it Came from You)" -

are you sure it wasn't Monica Lewinsky? she was in charge of the oral history archive there, I think -

I'm a little late to this, and don't know if it's been mentioned, but Mike Fitzgerald lives, I believe, in Charlotte now -

a few irrelevant comments: 1) Larry, I do believe that the young woman assistant of Nixon's that you refer to was none other than Diane Sawyer 2) re- the Crouch - Bird bio - well, I will say that: a) Crouch wrote one of the best articles I saw on the Eastwood/Bird movie (for the New Republic) and b) has apparently done some very important research for his own Bird bio; a person who shall remain nameless but whose judgement I trust has been impressed by portions of the book that he has read - the delay in Crouch's completion of the book is likely related to the fact that any biographer has to sublimate his own ego in substantial ways. This is something Crouch is not good at.

I, too, am in agreement - if the cops, lazy butts that they are, enforced the law, a lot of lives would be saved -

be sure to listen to my new recording of Blue 7 with liner notes by Gunther Schuller -

allright, but I only have ten fingers and ten toes - and one abnormally large appendage -

funny thing about Norah JOnes - I heard her, on the radio, singing a Hank Williams tune and thought, wow, this is a great country singer. But than I heard her singing some jazz tunes and I thought, wow, this is the world's most shallow jazz singer. and I think we're confused here - she's related to ALBERT Shankar -

she's a great performer, basically an indie folk/rocker, I would say. Nice person too, starting to get some increased national attention. I wrote a piece for her based on the old melody Wildwood Flower -

titled as above, my new CD has just appeared on my doorstep; 2 cd set with myself on alto, synth, guitar and vocals; plus: Matt Shipp solo piano and in duet with me on guitar (three cuts) Marc Ribot solo guitar (2 cuts) Erin McKeown, vocal (one cut) Randy Sandke, trumpet Scott Robinson, contra bass clarinet (Robinson and Sandke are on two cuts) Lewis Porter, solo piano (one cut) and others all self-composed except for one trad tune (Oh Molly Dear) I know this is not the "offering and selling" forum, but I will sell it to Organissimo members for $11 shipped. It is basically a 2 cd autobiography and self-summation. Happy to solicit reviews and send review copies as well as radio station copies. email me at alowe@maine.rr.com it's a strange one, I think, but I just listened to it and actually like it.