AllenLowe

We always talk about the white/Lester Young/tenor sax disciples - but it's equally interesting to me to look at the white alto heirs of Bird, as I think thay are as good and maybe even more distintive: hence: Dave Schildkraut, Joe Maini, Gene Quill, Phil Woods, Lee Konitz, Charlie Mariano - must be more but I work a brain deadening job and am having trouble replacing those lost brain cells -

This is interesting and it brings to mind some things I thought when I first heard Ira Sullivan in person in the 1980s - this was in the middle of Marsalis's battles about the tradition vs more modern styles of playing - and I remember thinking about Sullivan - "This guys plays bebop like none of the young Lions, because he has nothing to prove - and it doesn't matter that he's 30-40 years older - he has more to say and says it more interestingly." Same with Mariano - nothing to prove, he just plays, doesn't have to show he knows changes or bebop because he's already paid those dues. And so he illustrates how that language can be kept alive and current (he's also a very nice and unassuming man, from a few conversations I had with him - which is icing on the cake) -

Re- mintrelsy - I have not read the Appel book; I am pretty certain, however, that his idea of mintrelsy is much different than mine. It is a complicated subject, but suffice to say that I think he may be right, if for all the wrong reasons. In Armstrong's formative years, one of the most important Southern vehicles of entertainment was the medicine show, a traveling performing circus of song and dance and a close relative of the misntrel show. I have no doubt that his attitudes about entertainment and audience were at least partially shaped by that format; more likely they were powerfully shaped. This would take a full essay, but mintrelsey has been documented to have much stronger ties to 19th century African American music and dance than were previously thought; also, see my last post, as many of the archtypes, both comedic and musical, that we associate with early and later jazz/comedy/entertainment may indeed have origins in minstrelsy. Minstrelsy also provided a forum for early professional songwriters; it also employed instruemntal techniques (vocal with improvised obligatto) that are very much related to Armstrong and jazz. It is likely, as I said, that Appel knows little or nothing of this, and so was correct for the wrong reasons. I certainly don't agree that you HAVE to consider misntrelsy when you consider Armstrong, only that, if you are going to deal with certain aspects of his art, it helps to have some real knowledge of minstrelsy. It is a lot more than blackface and stereotypes, but related to attitudes and approaches, and I believe this is where it fits Armstrong's methods -

Sorry to take so long to answer - my quote was from Joe Albany, my favorite degenerate junkie - nice guy and funny to boot -

Here another one, as well: "You know what they should call my autobiography: 'I Licked Bird's Blood." When we used to shoot up together, Bird would take the needle out of his arm and hand it to me. Before I could use it, I had to wipe the blood from the needle with my finger, after which I had to lick it off."

thanks! Now - who is that famous collector who won't give up the 6 minutes? And did jack Towers do the original transfers of these acetates? I know it's all none of my business, but I do restoration work myself and was just curious - (and did I mention that I own some un-released Mrs. Miller? I'm waiting until it's really worth a lot)-

thanks - had me worried there for a minute -

I apologize if this is old news, as I think it is - I just heard the story about a 1945 Town Hall concert release of Bird and Diz, with Al Haig - and that it's going to be put out by Bob Sonnenblick. I trtied to search it here, but came up empty handed. Can anyone help? thanks -

Hey - I thought I was Chuck Nessa -

Bobby Short - and, after seeing the film Festival Express, Janis Joplin (used to hate her singing) -

Armstrong did, by some accounts, admire Lombardo's sax sound (I can't take credit for this) - if, however, you want to hear an excellent Lombardo jazz performance, try St. Louis Blues, from 1930 - it actually swings!

And per Simone Weil's comments - intuition and instinct is indeed mysterious - why does one come up with good ideas (or bad ideas)? My prime point in all of this is that it's hopeless, in this process, to try and separate the intellectual from the emotional or intuitive - as they all contribute; any separation of elements that we make might be seen as artificial, at least in my opinion -

Per middle class taste, I did notice on a recent BET broadcast that a Kenny G performance had an audience made up primarily of appreciative African Americans -

Pick up the Al Haig - compiled from live recordings in California - if you can find it - has Sonny Criss and Chet Baker -

Nice to see a Dead thread here - I was enthusiastic early on for the Dead (late 1960s) but fell asleep for quite some time; I was partly turned off by Garcia's jazz attempts, which struck as student modalism - but when dealing with the music he knew and loved, he had a touch and feeling beyond compare in the rock world. Don't know if anyone has seen the film Festival Express, but it's a good testimony to the power of 1960s rock as wellas the Dead - Now I have a question - I saw the Dead at their Central park concert in 1967 and was wondering if anyone knows if any tapes exist of it -

Mike is one of those guys without which the research community would be in deep trouble - resourceful, ACCURATE, helpful and generous - and he has put up with my cranky posts on the Jazz Research line for some time now -

well, I like pudding, too - and to understand my cranky reaction to your post, you should realize that it was a bit insulting - and I've long been concerned by the fact that it's next to impossible to find a decent custard anymore -

"The very question on discerning between the aspects of feeling and intellect is rather nonsensical and though stale, yet somehow still sensational, but still silly in the end. Intuition cannot be parted, yet it is part feeling and part intellect. That does not mean there isn't pure intellect or pure feeling as well. All of this has nothing to do with the discussion at hand BTW." Spoken like someone who really only understands and considers these concepts in theory, but not in actual practice. Excuse me, but you might try reading through the ENTIRE thread - there has been much discussion on this, pertaining to Williams and the state of music pre-modern and post-modern. I was pointing out the mistake of calling certain modernists "intellectual" while considering their predecessors to be non- intellectual, which particlarly pertains in many discussions of jazz as an early music (say, pre-War) versus jazz as a modern music (say, post-War). And if the very question is nonsensical, why have you given it so much thought? Spare us the academic dialectics, please. These are the things that musicians and writers (in the real world) grapple with every day. And just as you can sometimes, at least theoretically, separate form and content, they are still, in their essence, aspects of each other.

Whooa - sorry I went away this weekend; still trying to absorb the threads of this thread - I will add a few things that I hope don't seem irrelevant - 1) Jazz may seem more "intellectual"these days than in certain past times, but that's an inevitable turn for any art form. But, to look more deeply than this - can we truly separate intellect and feeling? To me intellect is an aspect of feeling, feeling an aspect of the intellect. So maybe it's not that musicians are now more intellectual than in the past, but that they are intellectual (and emotional) in a much different way. And, anyway, who among us can truly separate those two elements, in any real why? They are both equal parts of the psyche; any dichotomy is, IMHO, false. 2) Martin Williams - interesting and important guy; I had a few encounters - he was a pain in the ass, but an accomodating and important pain in the ass, and truly one of the pioneers of jazz criticism. I know this has already been said, but it bears repeating. Reading the collection of his reviews is interesting, because his opinions have aged quite well (including some non-snobbish and acute observations about Elvis). He had technical issues, and made some mistakes this way. Dick Katz, who worked with him on a number of things, told me that Williams refused to acknowledge or admit to his technical limitations. 3) Frances Davis's book on the blues is one of the finest of the genreand, believe me, I've read just about all of them - and, by the way, Francis HAS done hillbilly, and well - his piece on Johnny Cash is brilliant, and he did another fine piece on Pee Wee King. So enough of that.

I think Larry wants us to mail him the actual book so he can return it to the local Border's for credit -

1930s, 1930s, 1930s, 1930s - did I mention that I like his work best from the 1930s?

I'm not sure it's simply a black vs white thing but maybe even a class thing, when it comes to recognition of soul or organ jazz - whites are, after all, sometimes ahead of the black community in recognition of black artists - Paul Bley was hip to Ornette Coleman at a time when having Ornette in his band got him fired from a black club; Sun Ra was probably championed by more whites than blacks. Organ trios and soul jazz are acquired tastes for many of us, as they tend to emphasize the non-intellectual side of jazz, the more visceral, communal experience of the music. You are absoultely right, this is a vital element of jazz history and easily ignored. It should also be rememebered that there's lots of BAD music in this area - think some of Lou Donaldson's things (Hot Dog) and a host of other laughably bad 1960s recordings that tried to jump on this bandwagon. On the other hand, I learned as much about jazz hanging out in New Haven clubs listening to great organists like Bobby Buster or Richie McCrae (Richie was from New Jersey) as I did from anything else - and, of course, there was plenty of bad music going on in these places as well, as lot of tired repetition of old things. Jazz demands newness, and for some critics this kind of music is a throwback. And let's not also forget organists like Jeff Palmer, who really took the instrument and put it into a new and different context -

Multi band EQ's are relatively cheap,and can radically transform speakers and system, not to mention the bad work of reissue engineers -

I actually agree with his line about the importance of minstrelsy and Armstrong, though I haven't read Appel's book and don't know if I feel this way for the reasons that he does; I think minstrelsy is a complicated and multi-layered subject, but relates here most specifically as, musically, the intial source for multi-streams of American music and comedy. Virtually every type of popular music (incl. country, jazz, standard song) can be seen as having minstrelsy as a source. This goes as well for popular entertainment and comedy, for the development of archtypes and comic methods. Minstrelsy is very much a music of impersonation and alteration of identity, as is pop music, as is Armstrong's m.o. Add to this the documented fact that minstrelsy used early forms of vocal/background obligatto (meaning vocal accompanied by instrumental asides) and you have an interesting collision of forms and styles - also think of of the minstrel performer's characteristic distance from the material, his need to perform it and comment on it at the same time, the use of ironic distancing - Armstrong's persona was very much related to this -

Good idea - but it's probably on a tape somewhere - I'm sorry to say I never transcribed it - DOH!