AllenLowe

interesting, as my late father grew up in Brownsville, and would have been the same age as Max, and went to the same High School - Boys High - I never thought to ask him; Brownsville, even when the Jews were there, was dirt poor, and it produced the Jewish mafia, Murder Inc - Lepke, etc. There is a great book of short stories I have at home, I Come From Brownsville, and it's a brutal book, and a lot of that explains my father's strangeness; the writer, whose name escpaes me, was Jewish and the neighborhood was violent and dangerous, a class and not a race issue, primarily, of course.

yes, yes, sure sure - and by the way - just wondering, Dan - did the confidentiality issue apply to that note you got from your wife?

it's nice to know that the majority here seem to have absolutely no concern about the ethics of a public critic sending a communication to someone, privately, that represents not only a gross conflict of interest but a threat - probably because most of you are not musicians or writers who of necessity have to put their work out for public consideration (interesting that Larry and Chris, who have been in this boat, understood immediately exactly what was going on) - I don't really care if the thread is locked or deleted at this point, just a bit disappointed in responses like Jim R's - and to go on and on about email communication, which is the LEAST private of communications is just an excuse to avoid dealing with the prime issues here. Emails are no more privileged than letters (probably less) and I would have no compunction quoting someone's letter to me - however, I will wait a bit and might think about deleting this whole thing after lunch -

I do hope nothing that I say here is seen as reflecting opinions other than my own, and I understand Jim's concern - but, in a way, the more public this is, the more difficult it is for anyone to do anything unethical or out of general sight, in the spirit of revenge. And I'm willing to bet that, had Yanow NOT seen my posts about him, his opinion of my set would be more positive - therein lies the difference between us. I, for example, have publicly praised Gary Giddins's writing, even though Giddins has been quite harsh about some of my work. I think it's called intellectual integrity -

nonsense - that was not an email but a flame, as Larry pointed out. Even a bit of a threat, I would say, kind of Yanow's way of saying that he, the public critic, was preparing a bad review - as a matter of fact, looking at it, the ethics of it are deplorable on Yanow's part - he's basically saying, you don't like my stuff, well here's what's bad about your stuff, so beware -

the difference between Scott and I, Dan, is that I own up to my dislike of his work and don't pretend to making one point when I'm really trying to make a much different point - and as I said, his email was nothing more than the equivalent of a crank call - intended, as Larry said, to provoke, and though I did indeed go for the bait, I figure it says as much about Yanow as it says about me. The thing I am really curious about is whether he will now go public with his "review" of my set, as his opinion is clearly tainted by his awareness of my dislike of his work -

not the same thing - it was not really a question, or even really a personal message, but basically the email equivalent of a a crank call -

thanks, Chris - it was the passive aggressive tone of it that I found worthy of noting - and that took it out of the realm of personal communication - and waking up to it was a little like hearing the sound of a Hezbollah missle incoming - though I hope that, unlike the Israelis, I did not over-react -

or let's try Stuart Broomer, from Signal to Noise: "There's nothing like Lowe's CD compilations, providing an extraordinary portrait of the forces and variables in American music...the music is likely to come as both a revelation and a joy...the book and CDs are entirely worthy of the material they cover...in extraordinary detail"

might as well post this: BOOK REVIEW Allen Lowe That Devilin' Tune : A Jazz History, 1900-1950 (Music and Arts Programs of America) by Joe Milazzo January 2002 In 1958, Sonny Rollins wrote this about his Riverside recording Freedom Suite: "America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms, its humor, its music. How ironic that the Negro, who more than any other people can claim America's culture as his own, is being persecuted and repressed, that the Negro, who has exemplified the humanities in his very existence, is being rewarded with inhumanity." Diction aside, in a mere two sentences, Rollins expresses the central tenets of what was come to pass—and what we've become accustomed to as—jazz criticism in the past 40 some-odd years. Perhaps Ken Burns was right when he diagnosed jazz intellectuals with chronic inability to arrive at civil consensus on even the most trivial musical facts. But Burns mistook the symptom for the disease, and missed completely that jazz criticism still suffers from a hereditary weakness, a lack of collegial trust that stems from perceptions of race and power. Whether Sonny Rollins, since typecast as modern jazz's most lasting enigma, ever envisioned or currently approves of the racialist ideologies of Albert Murray and Stanley Crouch is something which we will perhaps never know. But Rollins' statement, like so many of profound cast, presents truth and obfuscation in equal measure. It's up to us to separate them, to see what justice time has meted out to them, and to peel back the layers of paraphrase and misinterpretation that now cling to these ideas. When this reviewer first read on page 13 of tenor saxophonist, arranger, composer and scholar Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune: A Jazz History, 1900-1950, about the "deep African and African-American roots of all [emphasis mine] American culture", a tiny bit of despair entered into the reading experience. But what quickly becomes obvious over the course of the next 250 pages or so is that Lowe is perhaps the most rational writer to attempt a project of this subject and scope. Take, for example, just these few sentences on Thelonious Monk's career: "Who was Thelonious Monk? No one really seems to know, though toward the end of his life (he died in 1982) the pianist was revered as the last of jazz's great eccentrics and offered large amounts of money (which he refused) to perform in public. The very things which had once made his music so difficult and incomprehensible to many—the odd melodic turns of phrase, the percussive primitiveness of his touch, the unresolved dissonances, and, most of all, his reputation for inscrutable eccentricity—were now, in a more modern and tolerant age, the stuff of marketer's dreams... From his earliest days as a professional musician Thelonious Monk had gone his own way... Though his stance—his absolute refusal to do anything but play his music in his own way, without compromise—was seen by many as heroic, it was more likely the only choice he had. In truth, Monk had a kind of artistic tunnel vision, something which was to his and jazz's benefit, though he was lucky to have a built-in support system—his wife and, later, record companies, promoters, and booking agents—that allowed him the luxury of such a principled life." (193) The personal, the political, the musical—there it all is in a package that is not so tidy as to be smug, but tight enough to withstand the jostlings and pryings of dissent and rebuttal. Incorporating historical investigation (sometimes impertinent, but most questions are), discographical detective work, personal interviews, and, most crucially, often pithy and memorable musical analysis—such as his likening of Frankie Trumbauer's C-melody saxophone playing to "a painter using only straight brush strokes" (112)—Lowe combines the best features of the musicological and (often "amateur" or "enthusiast", as Terry Treachout defined in an essay from last year's Nation) jazz critical traditions. Perhaps the most notable aspect of this book is that Lowe returns to the notion that jazz is a popular music, with all the wonderfully fascinating and difficult complexities that entails. His consideration of the music's growth and transformation during the first half of the 20th Century yanks jazz out of its isolation as "art music", an aesthetic phenomenon only, without confusing the music's socio-historical context for its actual and sole meaning. Citing Richard Gilman, Lowe views "artistic creation... [as a] counter-history, the generation of a psychological and aesthetic alternative to the prevailing artistic and social order". (176) Yes, this book could be five times its current length, and it sometimes moves too swiftly, especially when one is not all that familiar with the recordings under discussion. But That Devilin' Tune is criticism of the best sort. It does not evaluate, rank, or taxonomize—it elucidates and makes relevant to the way we perceive the totality of the music, the way we recreate these sounds in our own imaginations. It is a perhaps the first real jazz morphology; in That Devilin' Tune, jazz is a musical attitude, a loose alliance of very different kinds of information, that manages to cohere and flow through any available circuit, and across any geographical and anthropological borders: "We've discussed in earlier chapters... issues of musical black and white, acknowledging jazz's roots in the techniques and experiences of 19th century black America. That truth notwithstanding, jazz could not long be contained in one community, so strong were its powers of musical persuasion, and so tempting and attractive were its expressive elements—as a matter of fact, an argument can easily be made that jazz's racial and multinational proliferation was a tribute to the genius of its African American inventors. They had devised cultural and musical strategies that were so irresistibly populist and ingeniously community-based, while still amounting to great art, that jazz itself held, in the very essences of its aesthetic and mass appeal, the key to its racial and commercial dispersal, to those very things which would aid and abet its separation and ultimate flight from the African American community." (147) Aside from it's dramatic irony, this thesis points toward Lowe's other major achievement in That Devilin' Tune. Suppose we do as he has done, and we consider early jazz vocalist Annette Hanshaw, 1920's cornetist Thomas Morris, swing-era saxophonist Rudy Williams, and European band leaders Ray Noble and Spike Hughes? Or, as Lowe himself writes: "And then there are those groups and musicians whose impact and visibility is like that of a hit and run driver, who are here one day and, though sometimes traceable by label (rather than plate) number, nearly gone the next, having vanished into the fog of the jazz and dance band's world of economic uncertainty." (106) The image, for this reviewer, immediately recall the Joe / Josephine and Jerry / Daphne of Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, musicians in dresses and heels madly scrabbling across boundaries not in self-conscious violations of taboo, but in search of some safe haven (and maybe a little fun). One of the most often-repeated tenets of early jazz research is the fact that we know so little. We have tall tales about Buddy Bolden, first-hand accounts of the brothels of New Orleans and we know that the Gennett studios were almost literally on the wrong side of the tracks, etc. But Lowe exposes this assumed paucity of knowledge for the canard it is. Throughout That Devilin' Tune, Lowe reminds us that, if we just open up the established canon of jazz recordings even the slightest bit—if we deign to turn critical attention to the likes of Wilbur Sweatman, Guy Lombardo, Raymond Scott, and Hank Garland—it comes to light that we know more than we expected we did. Recordings, for all their flaws (and early recordings may not be so much flawed per se as much as they are a different form of expression altogether) are the most important documentary resource we have. Working from these assumptions, Lowe is also able to devote much needed attention to musical styles that, existent—and in some cases, still evolving—parallel to jazz as it's canonically defined, both drew from and contributed to the music's vocabulary: The rural blues, minstrelsy, and Western Swing. Some may argue that his hunting for hints of jazz in the acetate dross of the early 20th Century is an attempt to pollute the music with allegations of influence that run counter to "the facts". But, consider, as Lowe does, the impact of the recording as a technology: "Jazz and its categorical offshoot popular blues still largely emanated from the African-American community, but as soon as the music reached shellac and national distribution any proprietary ideas of ownership had to be abandoned." (73) Doubtless it is no accident that That Devilin' Tune's final paragraph is dedicated to a quick, "coming attractions" appreciation of Sonny Rollins"n everything he played there was a sense of a work in progress, of structures built to last yet still unfinished". (258) This very thing is what Sonny Rollins was trying to communicate to us in 1958; the punning overtones and sorrowful, indicting inflections that surround the words "humor", "people", "humanities" and "inhumanity" as Rollins employs them in his little annotation to Freedom Suite still ring clear and harsh today. Like any good jazz player, Lowe has the ear to hear it, and to know that, in many ways, the attempted remedies have been worse than the affliction itself. At times cauterizing, That Devilin' Tune cannot help but heal without hurting. With Lowe currently at work on a companion volume that brings us through the 1950's, another period that saw "white" and "black" forms of jazz sharply defined in the critical and popular imagination, we will see if his cure takes.

'cause I did not send him an email - figured I could out him as the kind of guy he is - that was, after all, not really a question he asked but a reponse to my own chronic dislike of his work. The difference is, unlike me, who would say "Yanow is not good and I have said this before and I do not like his prior work," he couches his criticisms in pseudo-objective language. Unfortunately, the guy is not even good at sarcasm -

I vote for Scott Yanow -

so, I wake up this morning and I find this from Yanow: "I just wanted to thank you for all of the kind words that you've said about me on the Organissimo threads. It's greatly appreciated. Scott P.S. Why did you put out That Devilin' Tune without personnel listings, sometimes using scratchy surfaces that are inferior to other reissue projects, and with liner notes that often do not mention the recordings? For example, you have the first-ever example of scat-singing by Gene "The Ragtime King" Greene and don't even mention it in the notes. I know that there was a reason for all this. I'm just curious as to the strategy." yes, Scott, with your usual brilliant insight you may just have caught something I should have mentioned per Gene Greene; and you're full of shit, as I mention a GREAT MAJORITY of the recordings in the text, and at the least refer to them stylistically per the period in which they were recorded - yes, I may miss a few but, gee, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry - as this was done over a 5 year period on my own time, with my own collection, without a penny of financial support , AND I did all restoration work - and just happens to have been praised to the skies by just about everyone else who has heard and read it -read Signal to Noise this month, or Joe Milazzo's review in One Final Note, or the review in Cadence - so it may be possible that not all recordings are the best sources; name however, 10 that sound better on other reissues. And than do your own damn project rather than writing badly about everyone else's - sorry, also, that I could not list full personnell for the 1,000 recordings that were re-mastered for the box; I do note key soloists in most cases. But just in case you're still confused, Bix was a cornetist - ALSO, I would hope, given the fact that, yes, I never tire of saying publicly what an incompetent hack you are, that you refrain from reviewing Devilin Tune, as there is clearly a conflict of interest on your part; just as I could not, now, objectively review a work of yours in a publication, I hope you would admit same -

Bley is smart, and in conversations has a tendency to tell you how to do everything - a bit of a know-it-all, but than, he does know a lot - good guy, and full of insight. And how can you fault a guy who hired Ornette Coleman in 1957, and who was playing free jazz even prior to that? I figure that he's earned his right to proselytize -

I will give them lots of credit for just initiating this project - though I have to admit that I do feel that, every time I see a "plays the compositions of" or tribute CD it makes me think that there's too many recordings out and that it's time to cut back. There was a thread a few years back in which I got everybody mad (so what else is new?) by complaining about tribute CDs and calling for a moratorium on same. I don't want to start that again here, and I understand that this is much more, at least by intention, though there are certain composers whose work I personally would avoid, as I see their compositions as so intrinsically a part of their performance/improvisational style. Monk, for example, and Herbie Nichols, and also Hill. But I am very curious about it, and would agree that the best thing is a complete re-casting of the work that preserves the composer/performer's intentions while adding something unique (thinking Zorn's Morricone CD, one of the most successful in this genre). Of course, I should talk, as I did a Louis Armstrong CD years ago, and I will admit that it started out, at least a lilttle bit, as a marketing ploy and as an answer to Wynton, Crouch, et al -

Joe's a very nice guy, I knew him in Connecticut and worked with him a few times, heard him a lot on various gigs - great sound, though I was never quite impressed by his own compositions, and thought his own groups tended to get stuck in a bit of a free-jazz mire. Haven't heard him in quite some time, however, and would be curious to know what kind of things they're playing -

here's what's left: (hey doen't anybody buy LPs anymore?) CDs: Prices Include First Class Shipping in plastic sleeves: Kenny Dorham: Cafe Bohemia: Vol. 1 w/Montersoe, Kenny Burrell, Bobby Timmons. Blue Note.$5. Art Blakey: Compact Jazz: Verve: $4. Laverne Baker: Sings Bessie Smith: Atlantic. $5. Thelonious Monk: The Blue Note Years: collection, Blue Note. $4. Charles Mingus: Mingus at Antibes: Atlantic. $6. Thelonious Monk: The Unique: Riverside. $5. Coleman Hawkins: In the 50's: Body and Soul Revisited. Decca Sessions. $8. LPs: prices include Priority Shipping in the USA: Randy Weston: Blues for Africa: Freedom. LP is NM, sleeve has some separation. $12. Bill Russo and His Orch. Seven Deadly Sins: Roulette. Some Marks on LP, plays well. $15. Barry Harris Quintet: Newer Than New: McPherson and Hillyer. rare Riverside, LP is VG++, cover has some separation. $20. Richie Kamuca's Charlie: Concord. Out of print, get the Biird tribute LP that Larry Kart has described in glowing terms. Blue Mitchell, Jimmy Rowles, Ray Brown. LP and cover are M or M- if you're a fussy one. $20.

that's the jazz book biz - write it today, publish it whenever they feel like it -

I'm quite curious about this release - I liked Cline's Coltrane CD, did not like him when I heard him in person (dull, repetitious, but let's not start trhat fight again) - I've recorded with Ben Goldberg, who plays great but does not really have a harmonic conception in the way that I hear Hill - doesn't mean he can't make something of it, but I'm very curious as to how organically they approach the music - in other words, not just theme and free, but something that creates an interesting frame of reference consistent with the feeling of Hill's music -

here's what's left: CDs: Prices Include First Class Shipping in plastic sleeves: Red Allen: Dr. Jazz: 1951-1952. Live radio sessions with Willie the Lion and Buster Bailey. Storyville. $5 Teddy Charles/ I Sullieman/Mal Waldron/John Jenkins: Coolin, OJC. $4 Kenny Dorham: Cafe Bohemia: Vol. 1 w/Montersoe, Kenny Burrell, Bobby Timmons. Blue Note.$5. Art Blakey: Compact Jazz: Verve: $4. Laverne Baker: Sings Bessie Smith: Atlantic. $5. Thelonious Monk: The Blue Note Years: collection, Blue Note. $4. Charles Mingus: Mingus at Antibes: Atlantic. $6. Thelonious Monk: The Unique: Riverside. $5. Gerry Mulligan Concert Band and Sextet. Live sessions. Jazz Band. $5. Tubby Hayes: The Eighth Wonder. Jasmine. $8. Coleman Hawkins: In the 50's: Body and Soul Revisited. Decca Sessions. $8. LPs: prices include Priority Shipping in the USA: Randy Weston: Blues for Africa: Freedom. LP is NM, sleeve has some separation. $12. Bill Russo and His Orch. Seven Deadly Sins: Roulette. Some Marks on LP, plays well. $15. Johnny Richards and His Orch: Walk Softly - Run Wild. Coral. Original LP is VG+++ or M--, I would say. Cover is in excellent shape. $25. Barry Harris Quintet: Newer Than New: McPherson and Hillyer. rare Riverside, LP is VG++, cover has some separation. $20. Richie Kamuca's Charlie: Concord. Out of print, get the Biird tribute LP that Larry Kart has described in glowing terms. Blue Mitchell, Jimmy Rowles, Ray Brown. LP and cover are M or M- if you're a fussy one. $20. Roswell Rudd: The Jazz Composer's Orchestra Plays Numatik Swing Band, w/Charlie Hayde, Charles Davis, Beaver Harris, Howard Johnson, Sheila Jordan, Enrico Rava, Dewey Redman, Sirone. Live recording from NYC, 1973. A rare one, nice cast. Record is M, cover has some separation. $20. paypal preferred, email me at alowe@maine.rr.com (which is also my paypal address) - if you're out of the country, email me for shipping rate.

the Julie London is gone - but I'll hold the JJ for you -

CDs: Prices Include First Class Shipping in plastic sleeves: Red Allen: Dr. Jazz: 1951-1952. Live radio sessions with Willie the Lion and Buster Bailey. Storyville. $5 Teddy Charles/ I Sullieman/Mal Waldron/John Jenkins: Coolin, OJC. $4 Jay Jay Johnson Quintet: Live at Cafe Bohemia 1957. Tommy Flanagan, Bobby Jaspar, Ejvin Jones, Wilbur Little. Fresh Sound. $7. Kenny Dorham: Cafe Bohemia: Vol. 1 w/Montersoe, Kenny Burrell, Bobby Timmons. Blue Note.$5. Chris Connor: Chris. Bethlehem. $4. Art Blakey: Compact Jazz: Verve: $4. Bob Brookmeyer/Jimmy Giuffre: Portrait of the Artist/The Four Brothers Sound. Collectables. $6. Laverne Baker: Sings Bessie Smith: Atlantic. $5. Red Mitchell/Harold Land Quintet. Hear Ye Hear Ye Hear Ye with Carmell Jones, Frank Strazzeri, Atlantic. $4. Julie London: Julie Is Her Name, both Volumes on 1 CD, showing boobs and covering boobs: Liberty: $6. Thelonious Monk: The Blue Note Years: collection, Blue Note. $4. Charles Mingus: Mingus at Antibes: Atlantic. $6. Thelonious Monk: The Unique: Riverside. $5. Gerry Mulligan Concert Band and Sextet. Live sessions. Jazz Band. $5. Tubby Hayes: The Eighth Wonder. Jasmine. $8. Coleman Hawkins: In the 50's: Body and Soul Revisited. Decca Sessions. $8. LPs: prices include Priority Shipping in the USA: Randy Weston: Blues for Africa: Freedom. LP is NM, sleeve has some separation. $12. Bill Russo and His Orch. Seven Deadly Sins: Roulette. Some Marks on LP, plays well. $15. Johnny Richards and His Orch: Walk Softly - Run Wild. Coral. Original LP is VG+++ or M--, I would say. Cover is in excellent shape. $25. Barry Harris Quintet: Newer Than New: McPherson and Hillyer. rare Riverside, LP is VG++, cover has some separation. $20. Richie Kamuca's Charlie: Concord. Out of print, get the Biird tribute LP that Larry Kart has described in glowing terms. Blue Mitchell, Jimmy Rowles, Ray Brown. LP and cover are M or M- if you're a fussy one. $20. Roswell Rudd: The Jazz Composer's Orchestra Plays Numatik Swing Band, w/Charlie Hayde, Charles Davis, Beaver Harris, Howard Johnson, Sheila Jordan, Enrico Rava, Dewey Redman, Sirone. Live recording from NYC, 1973. A rare one, nice cast. Record is M, cover has some separation. $20. paypal preferred, email me at alowe@maine.rr.com (which is also my paypal address) - if you're out of the country, email me for shipping rate.

hint: the autobiography was inspired by Joan Crawford -

yeah, except that Warne was one of the most controlled of saxophonists - as we know from his autobiography Lennie Dearest -

the Federal years are fascinating - some of it is fairly typical r&b BUT - one hears the little rhythmic figures that would become his signture, on a few of the cuts - definitely some signs of the new funk thing -