AllenLowe

the Sweatman band is one of the major under-appreciated units, IMHO. Not just "peppy" but musically driving in a real, early jazz, way.

I think Sinatra could swing as long as he wasn't really trying to - meaning, on performances where he was trying to be "jazzy" he tended to sound just the opposite - but hear him just sing without pretence and he has his own definition of swing - great time, phrasing - another way of doing it -

that's ok - I hate Phil Woods too, now, but he was playing nicely in the 1950s -

well, I liked Frank, but Jilly Rizzo was the real king -

funny you should ask - Whitehead has a copy and, I was told, likes it very much - now, I also happen to know that Kevin doesn't like ME very much (it's an old grudge) - of course, journalistic objectivity would take precedence - both Ben Ratliff and Nate Chinen have been mailed sets, but I'm not aware that either has reviewed it -

consumer alert - all orders received by June 30 have gone out, and only three (dating from the last few days) after that remain to be shipped - I'm posting this to head off attorney general investigations, as I've had one pissy email from a member who shall remain namesless, 'cause I don't blame him for being annoyed, as I was a bit late on shipping some of these - and he IS a lawyer (or at least he works for a law firm), so I probably pissed off the wrong guy - I have been slow in responding to emails and I apologize for this, as I'm overwhelmed with life at the moment, working a new job, dealing with kids on summer vacation, taking a vacation myself, actually practicing every day, trying to finish up a new book, and trying to do a complicated recording project (I'm doing a session in a few weeks with Erin McKeown, a very interesting Indy-rocker). The other orders will go out today and tomorrow (as well as that missing booklet, Garth). I'm also busily preparing my boxed-set info-mercial, so am gathering testimonials about how these sets changed your life and enhanced your male members (please email my privates - I mean, please email me privately - about this) -

her last words - "would you like fries with that?"

well, I doubt that about Nica's dream, but maybe someone else knows more - as per the 52nd street locations looking real, well, Dan Morgenstern, who was there, said the Bird sets were "more Bourbon Street than 52nd Street" -

I tend to think that Willie the Lion was just having a senior moment -

and I will add that the Savoy and Verve recordings (and the McShann Deccas) certainly have good enough fidelity to have been used on the soundtrack -

I'd be willing to bet that Max is not in the movie because he asked for some ridiculous amount of money, which was his MO from the 1990s on - I do know that this is the reason he was not in the Ken Burns Jazz series -

actually, I meant: stereo-ority - monority refers to people who hate multi-track recordings -

watching Brubeck play the piano is, for me, like watching something shuffle cards over and over and never get around to playing - he's all mannerism and gesture, to my way of thinking, but surely I'm in the monority here. Though I do agree he is a nice guy - and he has a nice smile -

as for Russell's book, the musicians I knew who knew Bird and who read the book - Howard McGhee, Curely Russell, Al Haig, Tommy Potter - were unanimous in telling me that, when it concerned incidents with which they were directly familiar, it was pure fiction -

I think the coroner estimated 55 - Nica herself hated the movie and it's very false portrayal of her as some sort of femme fatale; if you recall, Eastwood has her say to Bird, in the movies, "Bird, that was a gas", but she pronounces it with an upper class accent as "goss" - after the first screening of the movie in NYC, Barry Harris told me, Eastwood went up to her and asked her what she thought of the film - she told him, deadpan: "Clint, it was a goss" -

what's Rita Hayworth? oh, about 3 bucks -

actually I meant to say "here cum de judge" -

It's interesting to compare the ODJB with whatever early black "jazz" bands we can find - particularly that of Wilbur Sweatman, which clearly shows the influence of the ODJB plus some other interesting aspects (vaudeville, minstrel music) - another early black band to record is that of Mamie Smith (ca. 1921) which included the trumnpeter Johnny Dunn - there exists an interesting version of Royal Garden Blues from that year by them. With all of this, however, it's really all a guessing came as to who was doing what when; we know, of course, that black musicians were the first, but, particularly in New Orleans, there was so much inter-action and so little actual recording at the time as to forever prevent us from knowing as much as we might want to know. Add to this the clearly racist responses of some of the white New Orleansians (like Tom Brown) when questioned years later, and you have something of an historical guessing game. However, we also do know how much the music of the North and Northeast changes as soon as New Orleans types like Celestin (and than, of course, Armstrong) came North. We can hear how "stiff" even players like Eubie Black sound in 1921, and even the great James P sounds vastly different after about 1923. Of course, once more, we are relying upon recordings to create this chronology, and there are too many gaps to be really certain about everything. And just to add, it's interesting to hear Kid Ory's Sunshine recordings from 1920; it alwasy makes me think of Pops Foster's comments about how there was a gentler, more lyrical side to New orleans that is rarely credited. AND, just to complicate things even more, there is a powerful N.O. string band tradition that is neither really jazz nor non-jazz, and is only partly represented on recordings. Lonnie Johnson come out of this, and would that we had much more of this represented; it would really help us understand how the music was mixing and changing before 1925.

Here come de judge!

for 20 bucks, I'll let you come over to my house and take a look at it - for another $20 you can look at my wife -

I'm a fan of the ODJB - also important because so much of their repertoire became standards in that realm - though I do like them on their own terms -

not yet - I am trying to convince the company to do a 1950s box, but no word yet -

the second box got here today - orders will ship tomorrow - I promise -

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but many years ago Barry Harris told me he wrote the Sidewinder theme, but never got credit - I believe him, as Barry is a very honest guy; and I have heard other riff tunes he has written (like Sun Dance) and he has a real knack for that sort of thing - Sidewinder sounds exactly like the kind of thing he would put together -

gives new meaning to "blow it out your shorts" -