AllenLowe

I like Dance's work, even though, when it comes to bebop, he was a bit of a Czarist - I particularly like The World of Swing, one of the most valuable jazz books in my collection, because it has interviews/profiles of musicians that appear nowhere else - he did seem, in his last years at Jazz Times, to have become a bit overly cranky (his reviews tended to have a "I could have done it better" tone to them), but he did give my book American Pop a positive review, so I cannot question his integrity -

oh, THAT Jim Alfredson - why didn't you say so? happy birthday Jim!

where I used to live in upstate New York they had a whole neighborhood with the streets named after famous composers - and it was always a kick to hear someone say they lived on "Ba-Thoven Street" -

and few people know this but Jim Sangrey pronounces his last name as "Sangria" - at least that was before he got on the 12-step program -

and than there is Stereo Jacques - the French guy who sells LPs on the Champs Elysee -

and how about Chuck Nessa? Last name rhymes with Mess-a? I have honestly never heard anyone say his name out loud, I've only seen it on a thousand recordings -

and I don't know if this has come up, but I was once told that Phineas Newborn said his first name as "Fine-us"

who's Jim Alfredson?

also, gotta add - Charlie Smith is ok, but I would not describe his playing as "brilliant" - if anything, he's a bit incompatible with the boys -

well, I did black before it was chic to do black - but when I did black, you could understand the words - (sorry - couldn't resist a quote from the Sunshine Boys, lines by the old Jewish vaudevillian as he gets defensive about minstrelsy)

sorry I'm a little late to this but I actually had a few conversations with Melle when I was working on my book - he did pronounce it as May-Lay - but maybe this is old news -

Charlie Smith -

well, I'm not an African American, though I was a black studies major in college - and if I'd stayed in school, by now I'd probably be black - all seriousness aside, it is a mistake to read current-day attitudes/realities/perceptions to a show that's over 50 years old, and Jack is certainly right (and Chan, with all due respect, is not always a great source in this respect; more than one of her observations on these days has turned out to be inaccurate) - Wilson is trying to be a hep-cat, from what I can determine, and any draft on stage there is probably more related to Bird and Diz's sense of what a square he was -

I've been trying to warn you guys about Yanow -

well, I don't know about the Detroit pianist, but I'd be happy to read a collection of Chris Albertson notes - to get back to the subject at hand, I actually DO NOT like Hentoff and his liner notes, which always strike me as lazy and hastily done - I don't really know how Hentoff got such an inflated reputation (and honors from the NEA) - as a music writer he is knowledgeable but never in depth, IMHO - also, talk to a few musicians of the 1950s and 1960s generation who ALWAYS told me they regarded Hentoff as a guy who would never be involved in a project unless it was somehow self-aggrandizing - he was NOT liked or respected by most of the older, post-WWII jazz guys that I knew -

the director, Michael Roemer, was at Yale when I was there in the late 1970s - interesting guy - he also directed a movie that came out in 1969 called The Plot Against Harry, about a Jewish gangster - worth seeking out -

I'm going to wait for the Quadrophonic mix -

1) well, it may not be nice, but if Mack says it I would believe it - he's an interesting and quirky guy and one of the most knowledgeable American music historian/researchers. He has earned his cynicism. as an aside, he once told me he had an acetate somewhere in his house of early Peck Kelley - but I have not heard from him since - too bad - 2) there are actually 4 Benny Greens - the fourth is a shoe salesman in Miami -

on the Tad Dameron LP Barry made he had Gene Taylor on bass, and it sounds like they recorded Taylor direct to the board - he sounds very buzzy, and Taylor also has a tendency to play wrong notes - unfortunately almost all of the subtlty of Barry's touch is lost - I have one Barry Harris/Bill Evans story. Around 1979 or so Barry came up to New Haven to do a concert for me in a recital room at a local music school - I told Evans's wife about it - after the concert I was walking down the stairs with Barry and who did we see rushing up the stairs - but Bill Evans! He was late, but they greeted each other warmly (Barry told me he used to run into Evans practicing at the Riverside Studios) - and had a nice talk, as a matter of fact, Barry told me later that that was the last time he saw Evans -

I actually doubt than any of the remastering of the Riversides or Prestiges have used any noise reduction/hiss reduction, as they were working from open-reel masters that were very good to begin with and relatively quiet - the only time I have ever heard this done was with the Collectables Atlantics, which are really F'd up - as for transfers to digital, I have done a ton of LP to CD work using good converters to 16 bit CD/CDR, and the copies are indistinguishable from the orginals - one of the keys is not to process but to transfer, and not to go through more than one conversion stage (though I have used CEDAR on occasion with good results) - even direct to DAT sounds great if the machine is good and has decent built-in converters (like the Panasonic 3800 DAT)

you guys laugh now - but it ain't easy to impregnate a movie star -

my mistake - that was Berigan -

that's a good fest - but it was really Dan Gould's idea, the whole thing, they stole everything from him - he's just too modest to admit it - also, Bresnahan was the original director, but they found him too abrasive and had to can him -

Gilman always used to talk about how old art (talking everything from theater to literature) was tied to old gestures - and that art's purpose was not give people the same old answers but to ask new questions -

"Brad Mehldau -- stick to playing the piano mate" - actually I'm not sure that even that is a good idea - I just heard him on BET Jazz playing the biggest pile of semi-new age piano garbage I have ever heard -