AllenLowe

I'm a much different guy than I was before.

now if we can get Cliff Englewood back.....

beyond that he had the classic jazz musician's loyalty to the women who had stood by him during his messed up (read: junkie/alcoholic) days. She was the one making the decisions, and it was really, as I have seen over and over again, a guilt-induced loyalty. This doesn't mean that she didn't deserve his loyalty; only that professional considerations are different, and from what I have seen, no spouse should be booking another spouse.

are you the same guy?

very true; problem was that no one saw it as such, and eventually he just became something of 'was'; people, as you know, forget. And the money he (and she) was turning down was 'let's grab it while we can' cash; there was a real revival of interest in that generation - Max, Moody, etc - and Jackie missed out. I was booking a festival at the time, and i knew the fees; probably higher then than it would be today. I couldn't even get him to play in New Haven - 45 minutes from his house - for what would have been a high-paying, easy, home-by-11 PM gig. And he would have made about 5 grand, just himself. At least that much if not more because his side men were all his students.

hmmmm....I think Dolly really harmed his career; Jackie could have, at that point, written his own ticket, but she was booking him and decided it was their revenge on the jazz world, and asked for absurd amounts of money, even for a guy of his stature; at one point she placed him with Max Roach's agent, who told me he dropped Jackie because of her impossible demands (Max, btw, was one of the highest-paid jazz players at this point, which was the late 1980s). At the same time she ran an arts center in Hartford that was something of a scam, just a platform for her ego and control. I wasn't planning on talking about all this, but I hate to see the same old jazz-life cliches; at one point Jackie offered me a job at the jazz program he was running; but the whole setup was strange and absentee and, once again, Dolly just manipulated and manipulated. I didn't want any part of it. He was a great guy and a great saxophonist, but I think the legitimate criticisms/observations that Larry Kart made about McClean's late playing are related to his (and her) whole post-'80s sense that he had had enough of the business, and was gonna withhold as much of himself from it as he could and that, at this point, it all came down to money (quick example; at one point I had a little grant from the Connecticut Humanities Council; I wanted to interview Jackie, one hour, in his house, to a cassette tape; I had $300 to pay him; Dolly told me it wasn't enough; there's more, as well).

I did get to know Jackie a little bit in the early 1990s when I worked with Walter Bishop up in Hartford. Jackie told me his biggest regret was turning Cecil Taylor away, sometime in the '50s, when Cecil came to his door and wanted to record with him. He was a personal mess at the time but he told me he should have heeded Bird's advice to listen to everybody. I kept thinking about this since by the time of this interview he was clearly following his instincts.

I'm always more intrigued by his basic concept than by his execution of it.

like OP - it is domineering yet....unsatisfying.

is there anyone else here who really likes Blake, as I do, but often finds his music.....unsatisfying?

thanks, Ron; Kamasi turned me down, as it was 'pay for play.'

actually Maine, as a completely idiot place, cannot rival anyone.

I continue to be underwhelmed by Organissimo attendance at my NYC concerts, but I'm like a bad nickel; you can't get rid of me; here is the schedule for our October 18 Concert/open recording session at I Beam in Brooklyn; music starts at 3 PM: 1. Loren Schoenberg will be doing a solo piano set called Micro-Cosmics, a post-Frank Melrose/Hoagy Carmichael fusion of ersatz modernity in the post-post-modern age of jazz 2. Kelly Green will perform several solo piano pieces that were written in reference to, or as variations on, Mary Lou Williams 1954 solo piece I Loved Him 3. Pianist Ursula Oppens will perform in a trio with me and clarinetist Ken Peplowski of various of my original works 4. A group with: Shayna Dulberger on bass, Ava Mendoza on guitar, me on alto, Miki Matsuki on drums; a 10-15 minute disconnected suite on the notion of personal abstraction and the blues. 5. A quartet of myself on electronics and alto (and possibly banjo); Ray Suhy on guitar and banjo; Jake Millett on sampling, electronics, etc. Plus an extra player or two. This is our Americana segment built on pre-war blues and hillbilly song forms. 6. A sextet - me, alto; Kirk Knuffke trumpet, Paul Austerlitz clarinet, Kevin Ray bass, Lewis Porter piano; Jeremy Carlstedt, drums. 5 or 6 more 'straight ahead' pieces, inside and out, my own approach to the post-bop universe and including a piece for Jaki Byard. 7. A nine-piece band, something of an elaboration and expansion of a program we did at Spectrum a few years back; with: Lou Grassi, me, Kevin Ray, Hayes Greenfield, Paul Austerlitz, Randy Sandke, Bobby Zankel, Christopher Meeder, Lewis Porter - my own ADHD version of a big band. Working Title: The Five Stages of Grief/Meditations on Disintegration,

I agree. Joe. Over and over again. Of course, that is a little like the old saying 'never say never....' .

funny because when I first heard Blues n Roots, there's one piano solo where I always thought, in the LP days, that the record was skipping. It was Parlan playing the same phrase over and over.

I have doubles of this, nice series of live recordings. $8 shipped in the USA; my gmail is alowe5@maine.rr.com

there's a short solo here by Wein at about 2:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plSlWUdSgOI and here's a whole concert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlJirRC_uXs I see what you mean about the Hines, but he's a relatively smooth player.

he can play; has a nice Teddy Wilson thing going, I think.

I hope not. OTOH, Wynton's fans should know that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is going to premiere his new Violin Concerto at Ravinia next summer. Actually, that's the American premiere; the world premiere will take place this November in London: http://www.primoartists.com/uncategorized/nicola-benedetti-premiere-violin-concerto-wynton-marsalis/ The key question is what do we think of George Wein's piano playing? Listening to the Mosaic reissue of of "George Wein Is Alive and Well in Mexico," which is full of excellent work from Ruby Braff, Bud Freeman, and Pee Wee Russell, I was pleasantly surprised by and large by Wein, though were times when he wanders some. Larry - I've long been impressed with Wein's playing; back in the 60s and 70s he used to bring Newport groups out to Long Island, and he played with them usually; and he was good. Years later I met him and told him I liked his piano playing and he was very pleasantly surprised, I think. He's also on a '50s Doc Cheatem/Pee Wee Russell session.

Monty is another one, yes, drives me crazy; check out, as well, Dudley Moore's jazz playing.

Peter, about Hampton Hawes; I actually had a talk with Russ Freeman about this once; in the middle years Hawes did start to re-use a lot of classic bebop phraseology; the thing to listen to are his early recordings, '51-53, most recoded live (Fresh Sound has issued these). These are astoundingly inventive.

but Miles, Peter, was so on target with Peterson; it was an interview with Nat Hentoff in the old Jazz Review. though my favorite remark about OP was (I think) made by Francis Davis, to the effect that "what strikes one about Oscar Peterson is not how 'easy' he makes it all sound, but rather how it all sounds equally difficult." though I do hold Larry responsible for waking me up at 3:45 in the morning.

the key to understanding what's wrong with OP is found in the realization that I had while watching a program one night on Educational TV with Peterson and Andre Previn. They did a piano duet, and could not be told apart.

well, it's really post-rational; but my hatred for OP's work (and I do have to admit it really is hatred) is because I am so completely offended by his playing. It's like....well, to my ears and taste, fake, shallow, superficial, predictable, glib, repetitive; and it struck me that way when I was 14 years old and a friend played me the LP of OP playing West Side Story. And until I read what Miles said about him, I thought maybe it was just me. But he is offensive to my sensibilities. On so many levels; I mean, I can play a blues on the piano that sounds like OP, and then I can play a blues on the piano that's better than OP; this alone should tell us that something is horribly wrong. And btw, Billie Holiday didn't like his playing, either. And neither did just about every old bebopper I knew in the '70s, some on the famous side.

here's a rough start for Blues and Rhythm: (and 2 others); as for shipping, it's gonna be costly, I think: November 1991 February 1994 April 1993 March 1994 June 1995July 1995 July 1993 March 1995 April 1992 October 1993 blues and William Christmas 1995 b September 1994 August 1995 April 1993 September 1993 November August 1984 September 1996 September November 1993 January 1995 October 1996 February 1995 October 1993 May 1994 March 1993 July 1994 May 1993 April 1995 blues and rhythm October 1994 blues and July 1994 November 1995 September 1995 living blues number 54 blues unlimited 19 Spring 1983