AllenLowe

I recently invested in the Sun Blues box, so am selling off my individual Sun Cds of blues. IMHO, these early recordings are essential and beyond essential; like the nexus of the old country blues and the new electric; wild and crazy - and beautifully recorded with only a few exceptions; some of the best sound you will ever hear in 60+ year old recordings. And these are getting harder and harder to find. CONUS shipping is $4 first class for 1-2 cds; beyond that we will calc separately - prices do NOT include shipping, below; email me at allenlowe5@gmail.com 1) Black Music Originals V. 1 $10 2) Black Music Originals V. 3 $8 3) Lets Drink Some Juice and all Get loose $12 4) Deep Harmony (Sun Gospel) $12 5) Boppin the Blues (Charly) $6 6) Sun Records: The Ultimate Blues Collection (Varese Vintage, 3 cds) $16 7) Sun Records 25 More Blues Classics (Varese Vintage) $6 8) The Sun Blues Years $5

just to note, though it doesn't seem to be mentioned as much as the other, the LHR Sing a Song Basie on Roulette is WAY better than their other Basie record (ABC Paramount? Not sure). It's the most perfect melding of solos/lyrics I have heard, the hippest stuff in this arena, I do believe.

yo on McPhee. Joe has something very special.

thanks; I just miss the old setup.

is this the way it is going to remain? I feel like I'm reading standing on my head.

what is Laubrock's esthetic? Meandering, for one. But.....look, as I implied above I should just stick to making my own recordings, because those are my best arguments, I do believe. There are a lot of musicians whose musicianship I admire more than their work, or their compositions. Most of all, however, I admire hunger. But she sounds like she's just had a big meal and is now sitting down in front of the TV to let it digest. If it was me, I'd let out a big burp and move on.

as long as it's not just me....

all of a sudden I can't find 'new content,' just 'unread content,' I can't get the screen to look like it just did on Friday. And ideas/help? Assuming I can find my way back to this thread.....

I do think Sonny is pretty well off these days, economically and otherwise. Now if he'd only find a decent rhythm section.....

well, Chapin was the worst example, I always thought; you mentioned Ibragon, and I agree, from what little I have heard. And the one piece I listened to of Laubrock's new CD on Firehouse had that kind of annoying buildup. So that can get us started. btw, on that Braxon, listen from about 8:40 forward to give an idea of how this very vertical and stationery method can work when the ensemble offers some relief. look, I should add, in all of this, that these are only my personal intolerances; I have to admit that I have lost patience with a lot of contemporary improvising that does not seem to grasp what I would call the linear/non-linear African American post-blues diasporic tradition. That's a mouthful I know, and there are wonderful alternatives out there to it - think Paul Bley and Matt Shipp for a start, neither of which is a particularly blues-based improviser, but both of whom have found deep, deep alternatives to the expressive prison that can be the blues; as have Roscoe and Leo Smith, to broaden my frame, 2 players who get so far inside that it's really outside. Braxton is another; don't always like his work but he does so much that he is entitled to his excesses. The bleat-bleat of Laubrock strikes me as a very artificial alternative, a flailing for originality, with moments of insight but longer passages of aimlessness. And btw, those of you who have not heard Karl's guitar playing would understand further what I mean if they did, because he is beholden to no school other than the one that commands freedom and feeling. But ultimately I have no ideological point, I only think the improviser has to create his/her own frame of reference, though even that is not quite enough. The rest is really a matter of connecting, not to an audience, but to some level of consciousness that goes beyond simple sonic mimicry of that consciousness. I don't know how better to explain this, other than to think of the way Larry Kart describes shapes in improvisation or to refer you to Beckett's theater pieces, to the play Woyzeck, and Pinter's better work.

I am not where I can listen to the Braxton right now; sorry. But I am guessing my response will be relative to Anthony's ability as a composer, which brings out qualities in his sidemen - and women's - playing that forces them into a much more compelling context than they might achieve on their own. Same thing, in a different way, that used to happen with Mingus.

that above is a good example; though i like her playing at about 9 minutes in particular; but as a fellow saxophonist I find it, honestly, just too easy to do what she does here.

I do particularly like Wright, Howard, Brotzmann and Sanders. So what is the difference? I think it's the way they heat it up. It seems much more organic.

ahhhhhh mmmmmaaaaaaad jamal.

let me also make clear that I am not opposed to EMOTIVE playing; to violent, loud, crazy playing - but rather to the conventional idea of starting slow and quiet and building to screech and roll. To me this misses the point of musical consciousness and of non-narrative narrative.

Tim is a great saxophonist and composer; Laubrock is....well, a snoozer, to me. I actually think that, for her, some sort of buildup to something - to anything - would be an improvement. I have no doubt she can play, as can many others; there is boring, repetitious, lack of connection in her soloing, though it is not the kind of fragmented work that makes some other saxophonists interesting. It is, for me, too public a search for something she needs to do in private, perhaps.

please note, since great minds think alike, that I do believe I placed a cut from that band on Devilin' Tune.

agreed, re: "dealing with the burden of history, but part of me also feels that this burden engenders responsibility;" yes, as Delmore Schwartz said, "in dreams begin responsibility." as for "fighting these small-scale battles against the tides of musical habit and embodied history." In jazz as in virtually all African American music, the relationship with habit and embodied history is both affectionate and ambivalent, I think. The rest is really the choice of the soloist and/or his accompanists. And you make complete sense in the rest of your post. The question then becomes whether repetition (of old gestures) is a part of some bigger and referential picture or just unfortunate habit. I do have a sense that a lot of the current-day 'open' players are somewhat artistically schizophrenic; for example, Laubrock (of whom I am not a big fan; I think she has serious rhythmic deficiencies) is much more interesting on her latest recording than that of her work which I have heard in 'live' and open-improvised performance; though I have another theory about this, because this lines up with so much else that seems to be happening. I think the economics of jazz have gotten so bad that musicians - and this includes more inside players - have decided it is too much work to really prepare and organize every performance. Hence what we see are long, constructed, open-ended performances that cannot meet the burden of length and spontaneity. Which leads me to other problems that are beyond the scope of this discussion,

that's a good CD.

the significance was that I had been listening to Jamal (I was about 15) and did not like him - while everyone was saying how great he was. Williams was the first person I read who actually said what I was thinking.

of course, this was just his opinion.....

and, I should add, Martin Williams was one of the few who understood how awful Ahmad Jamal was.

I was hoping somebody here would ask them for me.

just a question - and a comment on the current difficulties of improvising - listening to that Laubrock piece from Firehouse - a nice tune called Ubatuba - why do contemporary free improvisers think that increasing speed and quicker, more frequent punctuations of altissimo squeal and other sonic manipulation involving increased volume indicate and/or mean a build up of ideas and tension? This is the kind of thing that used to drive me crazy about the late Thomas Chapin's soloing; I worked with him a few times, master musician, but every solo built in the same way - more lines, more speed, more honks and split tones and high-note squeals. Felt like I was with JATP. just wondering, but I think it's a big problem with some players. This, not Sonny Rollins and Trane, is what Tristano should have meant when he described certain players as being 'all emotion, no feeling.' I think this kind of playing is a trap into which a lot of musicians fall. What I like about Ayler, in contrast, is that he started at full speed and then just accelerated. That works for me.

that is true - he was supposed to appear at a seminar in New Haven in the '80s, missed his train, and couldn't make it. Offered him a plane ticket, which he refused.