AllenLowe

hello, I must be going -

I knew Wayne quite well when I lived in New Haven in the 1980s and 1990s - incredibly nice guy, didn't know a lot on gutiar, but what he knew he played the hell out of - if I had to guess, and I'm sad to say this, his early demise likely had to do with substance problems -

actually, a movie theater experience of the Marx Brothers was common in the late 1960s, early 1970s, as they were HUGE on college campuses and at alternative commercial theaters; the real dream would be to see them"live," as they frequently tested out their movie lines on theater audiences before filming -

wel, if Howard Reich liked it, it can't be any good - that guy's a fool -

and let's not forget Harry Reems, Adolf Hitler, and the cast of Fame...

mmmmmm...herring........

- and sometimes posting just for the sake of posting is a good thing -

I think they should use rust, like on that Bill Evans box -

actually I disagree - sometimes change for the sake of change is just what an art form needs -

I guess it depends what the box is made of - cardboard, plywood, silk, mink, pine -

I like many things about Motian - I particulary like that he makes himself an equal voice without bashing - I loved the group with him, Lovano, and Frisell - truly inter-active.

wait, are we talking about just a big box, or one with CDs in it? Because if it's just a box, Mosaic can probably issue it pretty cheap, low list price, etc -

Hi Larry - I agree that the specific connections between this generation of avant gardists and prior Euro progressives, et all, may have extremely limited - but, in a way, that's my point. They may not have been as limited as Lewis indicates, but there's no sign that he ever really inquired. At any rate, even if these movements were parallel, without personal or musical contact, that is history - understanding connections and non-connections made between contemporary figures, understanding that events don't necessarily occur in a linear fashion. On the other hand - there may be much more here than meets the eye relative to the early contacts of Euro jazz musicians with more traditional musicans - who knows? It would certainly be relevant to a paper that makes such sweeping judgements about the barren state of Euro jazz prior to this time. And, yes, I know about Hodeir's condemnations, which remind me of things Johnny Carisi use to say to me - he hated the "avant garde" and represented, to me, a much different strain. And, yet, I would always include Carisi if I were trying to draw a picture of the times and the progressive musicians who operated both within and outside of the new modernist movement -

the butcher the baker the candlestick maker -

he also refers to American "hegemony" over the creation of jazz until this point - which would have been a good time to mention Euro alternatives to American-style music, like Lars Gullin, Hodeir, and Django. Also, it would have been interesting to examine the effect of Eddie Sauter's appearance at the Berlin Jazz festival in, I think, the late 1950s - look, Chuck, I know you're angry at this criticism, but if we can't engage Lewis's article here, in serious terms, than we can't engage it anywhere -

Chuck - all I am saying is that he put the article in an historical context, and discusses, very specifically, not just the Euro free scene but the question of Euro jazz as an independent entity - without mentioning anyone but AACM and the group of musicians they encountered in that year. He describes (citing others) Euro jazz of the time as suffering from " epigonal Americanism," as being like "an exotic plant in barren soil." Well, I think that soil was a bit richer than he notices (and I haven't even talked about the British hard-bop scene of the 1960s, which was quite vital). Thus my mentioning of those musical predecessors. This is, to my way of thinking, odd and somewhat representative of a kind of academic tunnel vision -

well, Chuck...what can I say? I just feel, reading through, that Lewis (for whom I have great respect as a musican) has fallen into a very basic academic trap - he's come up with a theory and than had to struggle to make the facts fit the theory - yes, he is talking about a particular interaction. But, as an academic, he has felt that he has to contextualize the whole thing, and that's where he has faltered. If he had just left it to the interactions of those musicians, well, than it probably would have made complete sense - but he, not I, has opened himself to historical criticism by making these interactions a function not just of a particular time and place, or of particular musicians, but of the whole Euro jazz/free jazz scene. And, in that context, there are problems with his presentation-

I really don't think you would have a problem - no studio would own the recording unless there was an expressly written contract - I can make some queries, if you like, but I feel it is very likely that the only clearances you would need would be the estates of the musicians - is Chuck Nessa out there anywhere? He knows this stuff best -

what's this about overworked prostates?

well, let me ask you a question - the record was a demo, privately recorded - or am I incorrect in this? Because if it was, it can be issued with the permission of the musicans's estates - (unless there is some contemperaneous Blue Note contract that contradicts this) -

I understand, but that's the condition the record was in - I've heard many reissues with sound that was equivalent to what you have there - historical considerations might outweigh other things, eventually, and someone should issue these -

that's right - now if someone were listening, on the East Coast, on a Sunday morning to something recorded, on the West Coast, on Saturday night, what day would that be considered? And would the record company have to issue two sets of notes and covers? Or how about if someone was in Tokyo (as we know there are many Japanese jazz fans) which is 18 hours ahead of the West Coast - so in Tokyo it is Monday morning, but in California it is Saturday night (and in New York it's Sunday - and don't even ask about Idaho) - and we're not even considering the former Soviet Union, Outer Mongolia, Germany, France, Poland, Alaska, Hawaii - not to mention daylight savings time and Leap Year -

just make sure, if anyone uses the re-masters that I've done, that they credit me - and pay, if possible -

as I read the Lewis essay I find many things wrong; first of all, comparing AACM to the entire Euro free jazz community is silly; too broad a field here - what about Jutta Hipp's early work wth the Europe Tristanoites? How about Martial Solal, who was beginning to take things apart by the 1950s? How about Hodeir's use of electronics and avant garde compositional techniques? and how scientific is it to cite Brotzmann's estimate that there are only 15 players? And I'm still reading, but what of other Euro jazz movements? Where does he talk about Django, or the effects on the Europeans of the early visits of Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, and Louis Armstrong, which had a major impact on Euro jazz? and let's not forget Spike highes. Also, the independent, non-American compositional style of Lars Gullin - there is too much left out of this essay. For an article that purports to correct certain a-historical assumptions it is shockingly a-historical.

this is getting a little scary - and I'm not feeling so well myself -