AllenLowe

Jurgen - Herb thought it was hilarious - as I did -

you're missing number 38 -

Phil Ochs - still the best topical songwriter ever -

well, we are talking music here - there's always Molly Picon Sings Deutschland Uber Alles and Other Fuhrer Favorites -

how about: The Aryan Nation sings Yiddishe Folk Songs - (since Nazism and Zionism are the same according to Che) -

I love Jack Sheldon (anybody remember Run Buddy Run, his old TV series? He's also in that bad movie with James Caan and Better Midler about a touring big band singer). I'm not surprised Martin Williams didn't get him - Larry summed it up perfectly; as good a critic as Williams was, he was probably put off by what he deemed to be Sheldon's casual approach to his art - though that approach masked his quite wonderful abilities as an improviser. There's some great work I have from him on a CD of a tour with Benny Goodman. Now that's a tour that muist have been interesting. Herb Geller also told me a funny story - Herb was visitng the US and went to see Sheldon in a club. Sheldon starts talking between tunes, says: "Visitng tonight is the great alto saxophonist Herb Geller, who has been living in Germany for some time - Heil Hitler, Herb!"

what year was the song written? Bird died in 1955 -

I like Schuller a lot, but go to his books less and less, as he tends to miss certain things and is not very able to integrate it all into some larger social/musical patchwork - hence his very odd interpretation of Sam Morgan in the first book, his general ignoring of the Red Nichols/Miff Mole school, or his someone homophobic put-down of high-voiced African American singers (not really understanding that the falsetto is a real part of this tradition). Per-early jazz, I would get hold of as much of Larry Gushee's work as you can (articles here and there, worth seeking out) and wait for Gushee's book on the Creole Band, which will tell us more about early jazz and it's development than anyone has told so far - I was reading Schuller's notes to the Buster Smith reissue on Atlantic, and they epitomized Schuller's overall problem - he described Smith's current (1960s) means of earning a living, playing for a lot of dancing and in black clubs, as being such a negation of Smith's talents, missing the obvious point that this was typical of the African American scene that has nurtured the music for so many years. Better choices for jazz's early years are Sudhalter's Lost Chords (for all its foibles), Dick Hadlock's Jazz Master's of the 1920s (an absolutely great book), Humphrey Littleton's first volume, called, I think, Jazz, and, immodestly, my own book Devilin Tune, Jazz 1900-1950. Together these will give you a much more accurate picture of the early development of the music.

that's like the old joke - women says: "I'll never get pregnant; I can't stand the taste of the stuff."

well, many players are outside players if they are playing sans chord changes - unless they're playing very simple modal things -

no player, free or not, is ever playing independent of what the chordal or bass instruments are playing - it's just another kind of musical relationsip, suggested by passing notes, implied harmonies, lines, textures, sound, rhythm - a bit of everything -

Jaki Byard - yes, yes, a genius - and Jaki was doing this stuff in the 1950s, according to one reliable witness -

I would say that inside-outside players tend to play notes both inside and outside of the standard harmony; unlike "inside" players who do this, they are willing to use an "outside" phrase as a point of tonal resolution instead of as a passing tone or group of tones - or as a passing chord - now, if we use this definition I would say that the first person to do this in jazz was likely Lenny Tristano who, as early as 1946, was willing to end a phrase with unresolved tension (eg; what is this thing called love, solo, I blieve has a phrase that ends on a flat ninth). Bird was a genius at constructing odd-ball and distant harmonic approaches to triadic harmony - but always (or almost always) resolved these phrases. And maybe we shouldn't just do saxophonists but all good inside-ouside players - in which case let's not forget one of the best, Paul Bley -

Actually, Chuck, I was one of those folks and, in reality, we were a white minstrel troupe. Sorry to mess up your life like that -

now Sol Yaged - there's a poet -

who's Dan Morgenstern?

there actually used to be a Roy Palmer CD (done by JRT Davies) - don't know if it's still available, but I love his playing - full of smears and dips, very evocative of that period in jazz -

actually, I hardly ever listen to jazz anymore - this week I've been listening to: 1940s/1950s white gospel CD Merle Haggard Mike Bloomfield Dizzy Gillespie - 1943/44 (snuck that one in) Sun Records blues anthology most of all I love that hillbilly music - particularly pre-War - sounds fresh and out there, all the time -

the voices in my head - and they are commanding me - I AM A BRICK WALL I AM A BRICK WALL

genius work -

love Roy Palmer - one of my old-time favorites -

Lil Hardin?

is that a woman on piano?

this is all very interesting to me and raises some larger philosphical questions - there is nothing theoretically wrong with taking tunes based on set changes and extendng them - how, I'm not always sure, however (though we can look to Miles's band as a model) - looking at the personnell on there, I know Joe Fonda can play changes - I've worked with him - but I tend to be skeptical about cause and effect -is the freedom principle the result of getting lost, or is getting lost the result of the freedom principle? I worked once with a very well-known new-music drummer who COULD NOT keep straight time, try as he might - and I tend to prefer the kind of musicians who really know how to bring it back and take it out - as these guys seem to be having trouble with on this (by the way that drummer had the same name as a famous American writer) - now ultimately the proof is in the result, no matter how they got there - I don't necessarily want to know if an abstract expressionist painter, for example, can do REALITY. But I'd like to hear someone like Larry Kart weigh in on this - Larry, you out there?

just wanted to add a good little anecdote here - before the Eastwood movie came out about Bird (which had a similar incident), Bill told me a great little story about playing an Orthodox Jewish wedding in Brooklyn, at which Bird showed up (I think they may have had some later gig) - Bird sat in with the band and, as Bill described it, one old man was so inspired by Bird's playing that he got up on a table and started dancing - wish I coulda been there -