Big Al

lowe hath no equal, period! this is reassuring to those of us who aspire to incoherent greatness despite the fact that none of us is named Allen Lowe. So here's to you, from one Big Al to a true Big Al.

Yeah it is. Went for a bike ride after work today and it was just gorgeous outside.

He appears to be fine, per FB. Yeah, my neighborhood really dodged a bullet. Two of those tornadoes were less than a few miles away. My in-laws house was right in the path of one, thankfully they were spared, but a house behind them wasn't as fortunate. One also touched down on the baseball field of my son's high school. The schools, from what I can tell, did a great job of keeping calm (although my son says that his class was in one of the safer areas of the campus, so they weren't worried). I'm just grateful there were only a few injuries and no loss of life. This coulda been far worse.

Happy Birthday, Jazzbro!

Haven't listened yet, but wanted to say I love the "album" cover!

Heard on KNTU last evening: "That was... Dexter Gordon's "Cheese Cake." Dexter Gordon on tenor sax, S... [brief pause] "SONY" Clark on piano, Butch Warren on bass, and Billy "HIDGENS" on drums." (emphasis mine) I no longer wonder how we ended up with the ClearChannels and IHeartRadios....

All right! THERE! Tickets only $10. Awww HECKS yeah!!!!

With ya on BOTH matters!!! Yep, that explains it! I probably have more CDs/LPs recorded there than I'd be unafraid I forgot about! When Mrs. Big Al & I eventually renew our vows, I am asking, no DEMANDING, that these guys play the reception! Money will be no object, especially since I have none!!! :party: I must find this album/CD before I die! A quartet where the guitar replaces the piano as the chordal instrument! On one of the final sessions for Riverside Records! Thanks for hippin me to THIS one!!!! A fine FINE BFT, Mr. Spontooneous!!! VERY much enjoyed!

Nice to know I was in the same neighborhood, if not the same metropolitan area! Really? Sounds like you may know this chap! Guilty as charged. Go Jayhawks, nonetheless! Unless of course they face Baylor in which case I gotta pull for the homestate team! A Bulgarian Wedding Band! So I was closer than I thought! Truth is funnier than fiction and I still wanna be their bass player! Don't we all? Suggesting a two-for-one with my governor may get you more than you bargained for. And this could be the soundtrack to it, ifyouknowwhatimean! Meantime, I'll give it a couple more spins and concentrate on the weirdness of it all. Especially now that I know that no Marsalis was utilized in the making of this racket.

Herbie Mann MEMPHIS UNDERGROUND Love watching that orange&green Atlantic label spin and the groove on this record is all kinds of filthy!

And I see that, after reading all the other guesses/comments, I will likely have made more than few enemies with my clueless ramblings. No offense was intended, and I would like to personally apologize to Michael Weiss, to whom I probably owe more than a debt of great value for my snarky comments about track 10.

Track 1: And so another BFT gets off to a rousing start! Sounds like a late edition Jazz Messengers or a VERY good tribute to Art! Wouldn’t be surprised if that was Cedar at the ivories! Or Curtis on the ‘bone! Thought this might be from Curtis Fuller’s last album, but alas it ‘taint, so I have no idea who it is. Track 2: Very Monk-ish. Either a tribute or someone struggling to find his voice via Monk. Keep trying, dude. Track 3: Before my time. WAY before my time. I think I hear Charlie “Pterodactyl” Parker on lead banjo there. Little humor to brazenly disguise the fact that my knowledge of pre-bop jazz is on a Kardashian level of nothingness. Which is not to say I don’t like it. Just feeling silly today.... Track 4: Ben Webster staggers into a Baghdad Café in response to a garbled Invitation in a Kaper of epic propulsions. That sounds more like the setup for a Henny Youngman joke. This works a lot better than it should. A LOT better! Yusef Lateef must be kicking himself! Another groovy thing about this track is that I would normally expect the horns to go flying off into parts unknown, uncharted, and unlistenable, and it hasn’t happened. Yet, anyway. We’ll see if this hypnautical transom can really last as long as I hope it does. Ahhhhh, it did! Beautiful! Beautiful! Looking forward to finding out who this is! And where! Track 5: I don’t know who this is, but it has such a familiar SOUND. Like, I may not have heard this band before, but this studio and this ground has been trod many times before. Doesn’t sound like Van Gelder’s house. No, it sounds like it was recorded somewhere in Florida or Louisiana, maybe in someone’s loft or on someone’s stolen yacht. I have nothing to bass this on, of course, and for all I know the reason it sounds so familiar is because it’s buried somewhere in my collection collecting dust among other things. Track 6: CRAP!!! I know this! I’ve heard this! And I can’t remember who this is! And I’m gonna kick myself a few thousand times once I find out who it is! However, for posteriority’s sake, I’m gonna go ahead and guess it’s a Bird Savoy date and if I wasn’t so lazy (or at work, or both) I’d go hit up some sound samples to see if I’m even in the same solar system. And no matter how many times I hear this melody, I will always ALWAYS forget the name of it. Drives me up a frickin’ wall, this does! Track 7: Thought this was familiar too, but alas I’ve either got this in my collection and forgotten all about it, or had it at one time but foolishly sold it off, or maybe it was one of those thousands of CDs that a friend of mine had and let me rifle thru awhile back. I honestly don’t know. I do know one thing, though: it’s been a while since a BFT has caused me to get so loopy with my writing, which I’m enjoying to know end! As you can tell! Track 8: Hey, the clarinet player who was supposed to be on track 4 finally showed up. As did the rest of the band! GOD, I wanna get these two bands together! Hell, I might just mashup these two tracks and put it on MY BFT coming up next January! Bavarian middle-east Klezmer! Hoo hah! Bin Laden will rise from the dead only to get eaten up by the sharks as he tries to emerge from the depths of the sea (talk about a nautical knot, all for naught!) Good lord, did someone just blast some ancient east Indian curry powder into the room? The guitarist’s arm is about to fly off! Just another day in sunny Brzkistan, I s’pose. Actually, come to think of it, it sounds like a band of roaming gypsies kidnapped Don Wilson of the Ventures and are holding him hostage in order to create a bizarre hybrid of Sudanese Klezmer and surf music. They might just be on to something here. They might also be onto me, and I hope they are because I wanna be the bass player. You see what happens when you put a track on here that goes on for 800 hours? Sew due eye!!!! Too much coffee in my creamer this morning, apparentlee. Track 9: Well that was nice enough. Took the edge offa my lunatic ramblings of the earlier tracks. Track 10: I am trying my hardest not to say anything bad, negative, or derogatory because I really don’t like this track. However, in the interest of brotherhood and kindness, I will refrain from saying that this sounds like one of Wynton Marsalis’ most blatant Ellington Orchestra rip-offs, right down to the belligerent abuse of a plunger that sounds more like Trick Daddy Nanton than the real deal. Yes, in the spirit of peace and harmony, I will refrain from saying such things. Because that would just be mean, and I refuse to contribute to the disharmony that already exists in everyday life as it is. I also have a governor for sale down here, if anyone wants him. Take my governor, PLEASE! Track 11: Ahhhh, that’s more like it. Love a repeated two-note figure that has all kinds of groovy silliness going on over it. I could drive around to this stuff all day. In fact, I just might! Track 12: And so another BFT comes to a quiet comforting landing. Sounds like “You Don’t Know What Love Is” and I don’t know what jazz is, apparently. I’ll bet I have this, too. Will wonders never seize? Another good ‘un. Hope the occasional flights off the proverbial handel didn’t throw anyone for a loop. Now to face the usual humiliation of all the things I missed.

This almost made me a Coke guy. And when you realize that I was weaned on Pepsi (one of the first words I learned to say was "Pesi") you realize what a strong statement that is. But, at least it wasn't Crystal Pepsi. UGH! Just gimme the regular caffeinated hcfcfied goop that I've been pouring into my system on a daily basis for the better part of 42 years. :party: BTW aloc, I strongly suspect you and I should be related!

Go ahead and put me down for another one. Hopefully by then, I'll have acquired at least a disc's worth of not-boring jazz!

Crud! I thought I had it, but I don't. Sorry, man.

I'll do the same for ya.

Download for me please! Guess I oughta submit my BFT 96 guesses!

PM coming for the following, which I hope are still available: 6 Milt Jackson Statements/Jazz n' Samba Impulse 2-fer 6 Milt Jackson Invitation (OJC/Riverside)

Amen and hear hear!!! First heard this record in '87 when I was trying to get into PF and this was the record that stuck out to me more than any of the others I was hearing then (DSotM, WYWH, Wall. In fact, I could go on an anti-Wall rant if I'm not careful! ) Didn't know at the time that PF was disintegrating rapidly, which I've always found oddly fascinating because they sound incredibly tight on this album ("Pigs (Three Different Ones)" notwithstanding). And maybe Roger Waters isn't the greatest bass player in the world, but he does some handy work on the fretless on this album, which is alright with me! His lyrics also seem to be more focused than ever on this album, especially the first verse to "Dogs" which has stuck with me to this day for its insight and right-on-the-mark strategy for dealing in the business world. You've got to be crazy, indeed!

Not just a track, but a whole friggin' album: McCoy Tyner NIGHTS OF BALLADS AND BLUES. Certaintly not his most essential recordings, and nowhere near as intense as his later solo work and his work with Trane. But as the jazz equivalent of comfort food, it simply can't be beat!

I've heard worse, it's a fairly simple rock band, he doesn't have to be Tony Williams. As far as the financial kind of "success", I'd say 80 million albums sold worldwide ain't too shabby. Isn't it sad when excuses like this are routinely given for poor musicianship??? I'd say that the 80 million albums sold worldwide is more of a reflection on people settling for less than a reflection on the band. No, what's sad is when narrow definitions of how things should be stand in the way of actually enjoying something for what it is, which is simply this: a fun album, a good album, not a great album, but a lot better than anyone had any right to expect it to be, and easily better than anything from their Hagar days.

I'm so glad that you had a great birthday!! I was glad to wish you a happy birthday eight years ago and I'm really glad that I had a chance to send my greetings this year. I'm grateful that you're my friend, Big Al! I'm with Dave that it's weird that we've known each other for so long through these boards. It's weird to think that I was still in my 20's when I visited the old BNBB and now I'm in my 40's. I think I'm having a midlife crisis because I've been thinking a lot about how quickly the time has gone by. lol Man, you hit the nail on the head there on both counts! VERY grateful to have you back here and, even more importantly, that I get to count you as one of my friends! Your PM from a few days ago was an inspiration to read, to say the least, and is partly the reason for my delay in responding: I'm still trying to find a fitting way to say "thanks!" And I REALLY know what you mean about time. We must be close to the same age, because your story reads exactly like mine! What kind of car are you gonna get for your midlife crisis? I might just go for a Caddy for Daddy! (boo! hiss!)

Started typing this in my birthday thread in response to something Dave James wrote, but decided to give it a thread all its own for reasons that I hope will be made clear below. Here's Dave's original post, followed by what I started typing: I did, thanks! Man, you hit the nail on the head! I still remember fondly visiting Lon and his wife (RIP) with my son who was only two at the time, and while I rifled thru Lon's CD collection, his wife kept my son entertained, something I've always been grateful for. My son just turned 16 in January! He, of course, has no memory of this and I deeply regret not having had a camera with me that night because it was a very special evening for me. And we still have a street here in Arlington named "Gene Harris Street." Amazing to think that some of my closest friends are people I've never met in person, but without fail every one that I *have* met in person has been a pleasure to hang with: Michigan cats Jim Alfredson, Joe Gloss, Randy Marsh (and his big bear hugs), Chuck Nessa, and Uncle Skid; local cats JSngry, Greg Waits, Joe Milazzo, Joe Christmas (sure miss that guy), kh1968, rostasi; Austin cats Lon, Clifford Allen, Shawn Dudley; and various cats scattered throughout the world: RDK, jazzkrow, and The Magnificent Goldberg; and that doesn't even begin to take in all the cats I've bought/sold/traded CDs with over the years (anyone else miss the glory days of the old Jazz Trading Post? And whatever happened to Jim S? Another guy I miss!), all the cats that keep in touch via FacePage, and all the cats I've e-mailed back & forth over the years (a special tribute must be made here to Jim R, with whom I exchanged the craziest of e-mails for a number of years and I regretfully let fall by the wayside. I mean, the guy sent me another hilarious e-mail at Christmas and I *still* have yet to respond! Some fiend I am! But if you've never conversed with Jim R, imagine having an e-mail conversation with Paul Desmond and you get the idea!) Whew! So many memories, so many friends, and so many apologies to anyone I inadvertently left out! Geez, you'd think I was dying here (actually I am, but only metaphorically and metaphysically), but as the opportunities to thank the ones who've made an impact on your life rarely present themselves, I wanted to seize the moment while it was still fresh in my mind. Thank you. All of you. I don't know about other online communities, because I don't visit them and really have no desire to, but when this place makes the claim as "The best jazz discussion forum on the web!", that ain't cheap talk: it's a fact, and one that I stand behind proudly. Of course, that's easy for me to say since I locked myself outta the political forum years ago.

Just listened to this while reading the story behind this session detailed in the Monk Prestige box. The annotator is correct, they really do sound like they're running outta gas about halfway through. Still a fascinating performance, nonetheless.