AllenLowe

I remember seeing him with Duke Jordan at Gerald's Cafe in St. Albans, mid-70s.

as an addendum, Charters once described to me, as though he knew for certain, how Buddy Bolden's band sounded; in my then-innocence I believed him. Years later, having gotten to know Gushee, I repeated this to him and he basically told me that this info was to be taken with the same degree of complete disbelief that other historical work of Charters should be taken.

"you have the finest bong"? "the biggest dong" ?

Larry Gushee's remarks on Charters' New Orleans work were.....colorful.

from what I know Marsh was playing Out of Nowhere, on stage, when he dropped dead.

instead of Jordan? Stanley Turrentine, Max's prior tenor, would have been great, for one.

just ordered mine. I know we have speculated that it's Mingus but for some reason I keep thinking of Kenyon Hopkins.

I like the album, but I find Clifford Jordan to be one of those competent jazz players almost completely lacking in spirit or inspiration. A little bit like Jimmy Heath in this respect; can play, knows his business, but dead at the core.

wait; is he or was he head of Blue Note?

he's on a Keynote - that I need to hear.

he was one of the early ones I heard when I started listening to Fletcher in the late '60s. I wish there was more about him - an interview, maybe - around.

I don't see it so much as removing things from the art box and then placing them in the not-art box; what it is is making sure people know that it is bad art. And that's a good thing to do. this is serious shit for some of us. Morning, noon, night, sleeping. However ultimately I think of it less as art/not art, than as a kind of ethics of expression and creativity. Just as I owe it to myself to fully commit to anything I make, so do others, and it is not out of line for me to point out when I think they've come up short. I like critics and I can take a bad review.

you will find that a lot of my stuff meets the criteria: www.allenlowe.com

well, I have a degree in Library and Information Science and yes, I think Brotzmann is jazz.

well, they are for librarians because there's good reason for organizing knowledge.

look ultimately it doesn't matter, at least to me; people have stopped reading but I still read; people have stopped making human sacrifice but I still...well, we'll talk about that at another time.

this is all giving me a headache, but I probably deserve one. I'm so lost these days when it comes to following the events of music that I get worried that I'll stop listening; which I won't, but I'm at the point that, as an historian, I have to remind myself to never make historical generalizations without having an encyclopedic knowledge of whatever era I am discussing. And truthfully I am able to do this with confidence only until about 1970. So it may be that I'm post-historical but the rest of the world isn't. it's like how I lost interest in baseball after expansion; there were too many teams and too many players.

I also agree with Karl; though I will maintain that even very good players are issuing too much disposable music. Let me add that I no longer think we are in a post-modern era; I actually think we are now post-historical, meaning that there is no more real timeline or any real linearity of creative events, due to the crazy complications of contemporary communications. Everything is happening now, yesterday, and tomorrow; I am quite serious about this - just hit back-page on the internet and you are going back in time. It is like a sky in which every available space has a plane in it; have you ever experienced the phenomenon, while driving, in which you cannot tell if you are going up or down on a highway? That's the way I feel about contemporary life and art. It is confusing and at times discouraging, but I also like it because it makes me feel that being "contemporary" is becoming more and more irrelevant; especially given the continuity and continuum of African American art forms and expression.

I think one of the ironic reasons that jazz is fading is that there are too many effin' musicians playing to much forgettable music.The market is flooded and so much of what we hear is mediocre that the good stuff is lost in the noise. I really wish there was more focus to the work and more time was taken in production (yeah I know I've put out 9 CDs since 2007 and have about 6 more projects I am working on, but that's different because, uh.....well, because I said so).

thanks, just ordered Charade.

I hear they are changing the name to DeadBeat.

end of week I will post a sound cloud sample.

I can predict the past, but that's it.

a good time was had by all on Sunday; did a recording session with Matt Shipp (6 solos piano pieces, 6 group pieces) as part of a project in which Matt plays my work; Michael Gregory Jackson guested on 2 pieces on guitar. Band was me on alto, Shipp and Jackson, Chris Klaxton trumpet, Elliot Cardinaux second piano, Kevin Ray on bass, Peter McClaughlin on drums. actually recorded in the Land of the Dead, otherwise known as Portland, Maine, which I should be out of in about a year. not sure yet, but it may end up as a 2 CD set -

Sir Charles Thompson played at a hotel in Boston for many years, cannot remember which one it was, but I went and saw him a few times; sweetheart of a guy, and he loved Percy France, whom he called, to my shock and delight, "the greatest saxophonist in the world." They made one lp together for Columbia, on which Sir Charles played organ. sorry to interrupt, but I love Sir Charles Thompson's playing,