AllenLowe

All right, I confess, I haven't really read the book - that Slugs quote is interesting, sounds like typical musician trouble, if I may say so. Slugs was the first jazz club I ever went to, at the tender age of 15 and 16. It had a lot of interesting people hanging out - apparently Genet was there about the time I was (!) and I remember seeing Mingus and Ornette on separate nights, and Mingus's son showing people his paintings. I don't know if it was a musicians' hangout, as I didn't know any musicians back then, but the price was cheap and the pressure low to buy drinks - nice little club in a hairy neighborhood (full of Hell's Angels back then) -

Last one, I promise - but I cannot stop reading this bio: "It is also little known that Shorter invented one of the most famous characterizations of Miles Davis's playing. He went to visit Miles one afternoon shortly after being hired for the band. Davis was having a lot of personal problems, and his apartment was a mess, full of old food and drink and thousands of cockroaches. Shorter was grossed out. As Miles went througfh the kitchen Shorter heard a loud crunching under his feet. "Miles," he exclaimed, "this is disgusting. You're walking on eggshells."

good point about leaving the remarks unedited - I was just very disturbed by the various anti-semitic remarks of, as I recall, Roach, Hubbard, and Kenny Clarke - they were just unworthy of such great artists -

well obviously no one else is reading this book as closely as I am - another tidbit: "Shorter and the group did a concert in Dallas on November 21, 1963, after which his former namesake, whom few people knew was a rabid jazz fan, sought him out for an autograph. Lee Oswald came up to him in a local nightclub, the Carousel, where Shorter was drinking afterwards, and introduced himself. Oswald asked Shorter if he knew that the President was visiting the next day. "Shoot," Shorter responded, "do I look like a depository of ignorance?" Though he never really knew if his remarks effected the following days events, Shorter has felt guilty ever since."' Would someone please pull my computer plug before I write any more of these? I hate bad jazz writing -

I enjoyed Notes and Tones but was alarmed by the number of unchallenged anti-semitic comments -

problem is, how many saxophonists are named Noah?

Some more excellent research from this bio: "Few people know this, but Wayne Shorter's birth name was Edward Kennedy Ellington Duke Parker Charlie Evans Bill Lateef Yusef Lee Harvey Oswald. When he applied for membership in the Philadelphia musicians union they advised him that his name might create confusion with royalty checks. So he changed it to Irving Mills." I didn't know this -

Well, it's not all bad: now check out this passage from the book: "Many people have asked Shorter how the group got the name Weather Report. Shorter has pointed out that when he lived in Philadelphia in the 1950s he used to watch the Weather Channel 10-12 hours a day. This inspired him, when forming the group some years later, to use that initial exposure. At first he was unsure of what he should call it - Weather Retort? Weather Remark? Leather Resort? He went to a Gypsy woman and asked her what to do. She looked into her crystal ball and said: I see miles of footprints. I see parpahanelia. I see Japanese American woman weeping in the aisles. I see a better Morgan (suddenly lapsing into German); that is the end of my report. Whether you pay me or not I don't give a shi*." wow, this is good stuff...

Also, Mike, remember - the kid may have been a premie -

"The entire band left the country in tears." Now, does this mean they were crying when they left Japan? Or that they said something to upset the Japanese people, leaving throngs of weeping Asians in their wake - and was it some mean spirited reference to Pearl Harbour? I mean, this is quite hypocritical, especially since Shorter later played with an Austrian -

I checked Switchboard, and there are 20 John Bothwell's listed in the US - anybody feel like hitting the phones?

wait - how about saxophonists named Sonny: Rollins, Stitt, Criss, Simmons, Fox, Von Bulow -

Just to add to my previous - Roswell plays changes very well - Julius not as well, but he was still a transcendant player -

just to add to this, though I probably disagree with Williams in the big picture, he was on to something about "pure" folk sources - Bill Malone has pointed out, in a discussion of early country music, that the sources for a great deal of early country recordings were minstrel and pop music -

yow, what a disaster this book sounds like - and Mike is absolutely right - the old saying "when an elephant flys you don't worry about how long he stays up" does NOT apply here, just because we're grateful that there's a book on Wayne Shorter in circulation. This does continue the sad Santoro/Gourse line of jazz bio - glad someone mentioned Sanotoro's Mingus book, as that is THE WORST book ever written by a jazz critic with a good reputation -

Well, Chuck, great minds think alike - but all seriousness aside...(as Steve Allen used to say) - this rules thing is frought with danger - Dave Schildkraut told me something that I found to be one of the most illuminating quotes I've ever heard re-jazz, though it may be mostly for personal reasons. He told me that Joe Henderson said to him: "I never felt I could really play jazz when there was only bebop - but after Coltrane I knew that there was a place for me." Now here's a guy (Henderson) who had no lack of the musical fundamentals, no shortage of knowledge of the rules - and yet even he felt constrained by the conventions of the dominant post-war music, bebop, to the point of feeling that he could not even really play jazz until he heard another musician (Coltrane) who felt no such constraints. Personally, as a saxophonist, this has always been an issue for me - I know how to play changes but I don't feel I am at my best in the standard format. And yet, if I concentrate on music that is more open I sometimes feel like I am cheating, perhaps because of my original exposure to the music of chords and song. Internally I know this is nonsense, but it's very hard to discard this kind of conditioning - especially since I have known a fair amount of "free" players who, musically speaking, did not know their ass from their elbow (including one fairly famous free drummer who could not keep a steady 4-beat, try as he might). On the other hand, I have performed in public with both Julius Hemphill and Roswell Rudd, and felt as though the stage was about to levitate -

"Im not sure about Buddy Bolden" - well, ask Wynton Marsalis - from what I could tell on the documentary, the two were quite close -

Sorry to be so slow to respond - 1) I think American Pop is a good intro to my work, but that actually Devilin Tune is better from a jazz perspective - both can be ordered from Cadence - 2) Wondrich is smart but a bit jivey - makes a fair amount of mistakes, writes in a way that personally I find, from a stylistic standpoint, a bit tired - I have not, however, completely read his book but only browsed through it - it does appear, I will say, immodestly, to lift some things from my own work -

Re-Endgame and Schildkraut - 1) thanks for the clarification. I actually think the sound is very decent on the Shildkraut - I recorded it on an old cassette machine and than re-mastered digitally; of course there were many limitations with the original - it certainly sounds as good as a lot of old boots, and actually probably better - only had a single microphone, placed on a speaker through which the alto was playing - also recorded 1979 - more important is that Dave was a genius; I personally regard him as one of the two or three greatest modern alto players ever - in separate conversations that I had with them, Dizzy Gillespie, Jackie Mclean, Bill Evans, and Stan Getz agreed. 2) Engame is a label that was born and died within the space of about 6 months. A long story with some legal isues, I did the mastering for the Japanese market, spent a fair amount of money, and than had my Japanese contact back out - lost a lot of money but made it back in about 3 years, fortunately. The other releases were Art Pepper (which had to be officially withdrawn because my source lied about the rights), Warne Marsh (VERY bad sound quality but still interesting) and Zoot Sims (also, I find out, questionable) - at this point I am just unloading them at cut-out prices through ebay -

wanted to add - Porter Kilbert -

I like Bothwell, and have a nice LP with notes, I think, by Dan Morgenstern -

well - I produced and released that Schildkraut CD - I recorded it live in New Haven 1979 - I think he plays quite brilliantly - I'm willing, in the interests of argument, to send it to anyone here for cost and let them judge for themselves - assuming this does not violate any commercial rules here - let me know if you are interested -

Matisse - I think I remember that guy - was doing time for bank robbery - he and Gary were lovers -

"Though in some ways I find it even more enigmatic how pre-modernist music has become less strange with the passage of time, rather than more so. " I'm not sure about this - I listen to a lot of 1920s hillbiully music, and I find that people consider it weird beyond weird - in a way it's so old it's new -

actually, Gary and I shared a prison cell together at Attica in 'the '60s. During the uprising he insisted on using me as a shield - which is why I never fail to set off the metal detector at the airport -