AllenLowe

I may be able to find out - I'm trying to reach her and have a call into her through her agent, because I'm trying to negotiate the rights to some private Joe Albany recordings - will let you know if I find out -

do you know what it is?

actually I'm just glad to see you -

well, I could go either way on this -

I've read the book twice now, and certain parts of it are very difficult for me to go through, a little too close to home - Joe was such a Jeckyl and Hyde personality; I was in touch pretty regularly until I got a few of those "you ripped me off phone calls," not dissimilar to the kind of calls AJ says she got in the last years, when Joe demanded money - Joe was a real smart, entertaining and charming guy when he was ok, but he had gotten back to drugs and alcohol (when I hung out with him he smoked a lot of pot, but that was not a problem). He had been living with Jean Roth, a nice lady but also a bit crazy and she could not stand it anymore and so she kicked him out. Those last years, as AJ recounts them, are painful to read about. What makes the book so important, however, are not just these stories but her literary ability, the power and pace of the narrative, her perceptiveness and ability to be both inside and outside of herself, observing that life. It's just, for me, too, a devastating work -

why certainly, Allen, you have a very good point there - hey, Allen, what do you think?

I would tend to agree -

Moe was definitely buried with a few tape boxes -

I'll just keep talking to myself -

well, I'm not a big fan of Yoko (or Yo Yo as the Rolling Stone staffers used to call her) -

I think they've got the early show on that CD - Bird came out and spun a few plates on sticks, Dizzy sawed a woman in half (for real - but than, we know what Dizzy was like) - and Max beat up a volunteer from the audience -

I am thinking that one can make copies of the narration from these new discs and just keep that, since, for me, bad restoration is not so big an issue for speech - on the other hand, there are plenty of bits and peices of music that are not on the original Rounder, so I may end up keeping the thing. I also may end up going onto my computer today to see how much I can bring back with digital EQ, and may report back later on this -

those odd distortions you refer to are high frequency spikes and other kinds of issues with the original disk eq - but the original Rounders have a nice sparkle, and space to them -

I have a bunch of the Swaggies, but have not heard them in years - will have to put them on this weekend. I'm inclined to print out the transcripts of the interviews that are on this new Morton, sell the thing, and hold onto the original Rounders - problem is that the patter and continuity is priceless, so I'll probably just keep it and suffer. But the alternative is to just get those original transcripts - apparently Lomax played with it a bit in the book and I'm hoping these are accurate. That plus the 4 volume original Rounders would not be a bad fix -

Clem - Arhoolie used to use a guy who had No Noise/Sonic Solutions, and you are absolutely right about that stuff - I actually called the guy up once, and he kind of admitted that the original stuff had problems; some of the later things are better but still lacking in presence - I will email that guy you mention - Nevins, who I have some problems with personally (yikes he's a major pain, but that's another story) does excellent work, great transfers and just the right amount of noise reduction - beautifull stuff comes out of Yazoo - another depressing thing is Document - there original stuff was noisy and sometimes a major mess - so since their reorganization they have remastered a lot of it - OUCH - full of that gurgling hiss-reduction. They've managed to make bad sound worse - the problem is that there are so many cheap hiss-reduction programs available now, which for about $100-$200 allow anybody and their grandma to become a sound restorer - though I shouldn't insult my grandma like this; even 10 years dead she could hear this stuff better than the way it comes out now -

I'll add that I posted my remarks on the Jazz Research line and got an email from someone who shall remain nameless but who was involved in transfers for the new project - he agreed completely, asked me if he could forward my remarks, and told me how much better it all sounded BEFORE it was "restored," also telling me that they had found some new safety takes that were also messed up -

just got it, and I'll tell you, the producers/sound people ought to be ashamed of themselves - the transfers/restoration are not HORRIBLE but they are mediocre and NOT AS GOOD as the original 4 volume Rounder. I am assuming that the CEDAR system has some new version of the de-hiss, and while they have not produced any of the tell-tale gurgling, it is just dead on top, and has lost the air - I just spent an hour A/B'ing the original Rounder and this and there is no comparison - even my kid can tell the difference. This is the kind of thing that is so disgusting because it was so avoidable - anyone who compared the two would have heard how much more presence and space is audible on the original Rounders. There are two kinds of hiss reduction, EQ (where you basically just turn down the treble), and digital de-hissing, in which you actually alter the wave form. They've donr the latter, and while you can improve this new version by boosting the highs on your system, the most important, ambient frequencies are just GONE. It's like "restoring" a great painting and changing the color - I'm gonna call Szwed because this was completely unnecessary - don't know if I should keep it anyway for the interviews; I'd rather just get a transcript as I honestly am repulsed by this thing - sorry to be so negative - this kind of work just makes me nuts - because it was so completely unnecessary -

I like Koglmann but haven't listened to Graham in many a-year -

I know what you mean Steve - but to me there is music I don't like but still respect and understand, and music which I really do not like because I feel it is misconceived and poorly executed - and I do intend to check this stuff out, as you've got me intrigued - impossible - i do think it may be that I dismissed Cline in an unfair way- and there is antother category to add to the two above - music from mumcians whom I respect, but which I think is misconceived - and he might more specifically fall into that category, as I know he is an accomplished player -

will do, guys. time to spend some cash...

interesting, and I have to admit I know very little about those musicians - this gives me something to investigate, thanks -

well, there's a lot to what you say - however: "some people just want to judge based on some standards of musicianship which have been by now, transcended by new methodologies" well, these "new" methodologies are about 80 years old by now; check out Debussy's Etude for 8 Fingers; Ruth Crawford Seeger, etc etc.; in jazz these methodologies are 50 years old. As for myself, I have played and recorded this kind of music with people like Roswell Rudd and Julius Hemphill, so I am not unsympathetic to it or unknowledgeable about it. I do feel that the basic concepts of free jazz, like those of bebop, have run their course and I look for new ways to channel those concepts - what I see today are a lot of good musicians with strong theoretical ideas about the music, but lost in a new set of cliches - as a matter of fact, when you think about it, free jazz has had more time to gestate than bebop ever did - so it's time for something else, from my perspective. I myself am working on some new ideas, and currently have a recording project with Marc Ribot, Randy Sandke and Ursula Oppens, so I am trying to put my theories into practice, Clementine notwithstanding. I also do not care if these players can "hang with the real dudes" - I don't believe an artist has to create in traditional forms before he can do something new. What he does is good or it isn't - no need to prove anything else. Cline may well be capable of taking it in an interesting direction. I initially gave him 4 solid hours of solo playing, which, believe me, is plenty of time for an improvisor. I will wait and see - right now it's in Amazon's hands -

did anyone mention Jagger/Richards - and Bud Powell, for my money one of the greatest jazz composers -

for Kerouac as novelist (and I think he was capable of great work here) I'd recommend Subterraneans and Vanity of Duluoz -

well, let me put it in simpler terms that Clementine might understand: formalism as a term is not an invention of Stalin, though exploited by him to persecute artists (and used by other authoritarian regimes as a means to deprecate new art) - the term, however, has independent meaning; much as "avant garde" does not merely reflect Stanley Crouch's contempt for same, "formalism" has real and precise meaning in the critical and musical world. I have seen it used, for example, to describe Stanley Kubrick, whose long and sad artistic decline reflected his belief that his skill at manipulating film was enough to justify virtually anything that he did with the form. Same with a lot of contemporary musicians, who seem to think that mere experimentation with form is enough to justify any music thus produced (especially when accompanied by a good philosophic rationale). I have a problem with this.