AllenLowe

maybe it's just me, Jim, but this all gets a bit technical for an industry whose best sounding recordings were 3+ microphone analog setups in the 1950s and 1960s - don't meant to sound like a Luddite, but I still turn back to those sounds and basic techniques- -

1) I have, in the past, read numerous references to this mother, whom I know he was in touch with over the years; don't recall about his father, but will have to consult the Howard Sounes bio, which is very good. 2)National Lampoon did a Zimmerman comics years ago, a hilarious send off of Dylan's life; don't know if anybody remembers it - 3)As for Dylan's persona in those films: yes, maybe the interviewers were clueless idiots, but I've always found the Dylan persona of that era to be quite narcissistic/repulsive; he was a complete a-hole, arrogant in a way which detracts from more than a little bit of the music - I was struck during the documentary with how sloppy and lazy a lot of his writing is on songs like Desolation Row - forced rhymes, pseuo-symbolist references, things clearly dashed off by someone who was writing too much, too fast in those days; in my forthocming rock and roll history (self plug) I make the point that I think it's somewhat ironic that, for all our consideration of Dylan the poet, his greatest contribution seems to be musical, in his formulation of the group folk/rock sound, his very smart melodicism and, surprise surprise, in his vocal time and phrasing, whic are absolutely masterful in the 1960s - the arrogance of his lyrics really hurts longs like "Like a Rolling Stone" POsitively Fourth Street" Don't Think Twice", reducing them to personal revenge and re-dress instead of musical poetry. Just my opinion -

well, that is true, and that's Dylan, whose careerism was quite ruthless in his early years, using and discarding people as necessary - middle-class Jewish family probably just did not fit the image -

actually, my favorite performance, and I would love to see the whole thing, was the Gene Vincent -

just to add, so far, only annoyance was the doc's failure to id Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee as performing in the film of Woody Guthrie -

isn't Knudsen deceased? and Chris, do you have any idea what it is Fred Cohen might have had?

yes, excellent, not least because Bobby was so forthcoming - I've always found his past interviews to be like interviews with Cecil Taylor- too hip, too arrogant and extremely annoying - as though they are putting on the world and only they are hip enough to be in on the joke - I loved this documentary, however -

I was at the Jazz Record Center in NYC about 15 years ago, and Fred Cohen pointed to a bunch of recordings he had (I think they were tapes) and told me they were unissued Jerry Newman recordings - don't know whatever happened to them -

nice guy, too - I saw his name in some notes to a Bird collection and called him up when I lived in New Haven -

you might argue that it's Kenny G, when he plays tenor - there's probably more young kids around who think they can make big bucks, thanks to Kenny's success -

I think it just means they're both tall - and shop at the Large Men's Store -

similar intervals, last part VERY close - somebody shoulda sued someboday - of course. this is typical TV - Odd Couple Theme sounds just like Bag's Groove - and Inspector Gadger theme is a direct ripoff of Topsy -

anybody ever notice how much the Get Smart theme sounds like "Walkin'" ?

well, we're all really disciples of Bird, IMHO - and let's not forget that Jesus was Bar Mitzvah'd, and word has it that the band was pretty good (though they did bring in a DJ later on in the party) - as for musicians who played with Bird, there's a guy named Frank Brief, played on the Bird with Strings - still alive up in New Haven, Connecticut -

I would skip the Mehldau - good piano payer, but one who must be punished for his bad amd torturous prose -

youmustbe: tell us about the book -

Barry Harris played with Bird one night at a club in Detroit (it may have been the Rouge; Barry told me about it 25 years ago so my memory is sketchy) - also, thanks, Ron, for confirming that repressed memory - now on to other psychiatric flashbacks -

well, I hear Brigham Young did a mean scat - unfortunately he died before the invention of recording technology - though I heard rumor of a bootleg cassette -

12 CDs? Oy veh -

them Mormons sure can swing -

and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir -

jeez, it seems a lot of people played with Bird - I've been having some repressed memory sessions recently and do recall a night in '54, me and Bird, a couple of winos, 2 midgets, and a rabbi - hmmm...or maybe that's just an old joke someone once told me -

in the early 1980s I was at a club in NYC called the Angry Squire -there was a guy stadning at the bar who looked real familiar - finally I said to him - "Do I know you?" He told me he was Frank Wright - he looked in incredibly good shape, muscular, happy, etc, and we talked for a little while - I was shocked when I heard he died so young -

also, Paul Bley played with Bird -

anybody seen or hear from Duke Jordan? another living musician who worked with Bird is Bill Triglia, pianist - Bill's got some great stories, including the time that Bird showed up at an Orthodox Jewish wedding Bill was playing, and played for an old Jewish guy who was dancing on a table -