Jews in Hell: First Review

[AllenLowe]

First review I've seen to my CD, will be on AAJ momentarily:

ALLEN LOWE

Jews In Hell: Radical Jewish Acculturation

Spaceout Records

by Clifford Allen

Art critic Clement Greenberg posited the task of modernism as follows (and I paraphrase it somewhat liberally) – a modernist work must engage and, to a strong degree, self-criticize its own basic tenets and that of its given medium, not as an affront to its place in the art world, but as a way to, as Greenberg puts it, “entrench [it] more firmly in its area of competence.” In other words, the emphasis on two-dimensionality as qualities of paint and canvas are both an affirmation of and a criticism of the nature of painting. Understanding what a painting is (not what it is “about” or “contains” outside itself) is crucial to the art of painting. Greenberg’s modernist self-criticism doesn’t come out of nowhere, though – it can be keenly related to the long tradition of Jewish self-criticism, rooted in intellectualism, and studying what it means to be a Jew in order to understand one’s place in the culture and to be better-equipped to move that culture (and oneself) forward. Like Modernism, Jewishness is a constant process of self-understanding, of re-evaluation and regeneration.

What’s particularly interesting about this take on Jewishness vis-à-vis Modernism is that, for guitarist/saxophonist/composer/engineer/author Allen Lowe, Jews are the first post-modernists. The idea of Jews as a rootless people, since time immemorial without a true homeland and, in spite of it all, a strong sense of community in very disparate surroundings (whether the suburbs, Brooklyn, or Maine), begets a “post-modern” ethos. In being uprooted, one also finds that, in order to continue culturally, new materials must be engaged and new connections made. If such an idea is self-criticism on a shoestring, so be it. For example, saxophonist John Zorn’s fusing of free jazz, no-wave punk energy, film music and traditional Jewish melodies is a radical and post-structural approach to creating art while maintaining ties to one’s own cultural idiom. Is this rootless condition for self-criticism one reason that jazz has had an attraction to Jews? Is the work of Zorn or Lowe that different from the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s Great Black Music ethos?

Questions like these might make it seem like Allen Lowe’s Jews In Hell: Radical Jewish Acculturation is a concept record meant more to be thought about than listen to. Rather, this record, Lowe’s first since 1994’s Woyzeck’s Death, might better be thought of as his own self-criticism and summation of experiences thus far, told through the lenses of free jazz, bluesy skronk, and punk abandon. Lowe’s guitar style is itself extraordinarily fragmentary, a disjointed and dissonant, non-linear approach that seems to creep out of nowhere on the solos of “Lonesome and Dead” and imbues the bent notes and wide intervallic relationships of “Tsuris in Mind.” It’s not the square-wheel rhythms of Robert Pete Williams or the perverse Company-weaned antics of Eugene Chadbourne, though Lowe’s musical landscape surely includes such precedents. His solo on the (sub-) title track may display a bit more logic, building from loose, raunchy blues to detuned Arto Lindsay-esque DNA madness, though the tension of escaping bar lines and rhythmic constraint is present from the beginning.

In a more jazz-based setting, there’s an entirely different side of Lowe’s music visible than punk-folk-blues would belie. The loose rhythms and broadly shifting cadences belie a Dolphy/Braxton approach, though his tone approximates earlier Ornithologists. In trio with the trumpet of Randy Sandke and Scott Robinson’s contrabass clarinet, there is a kinship with the AACM’s drummer-less swing and bright, swaggering melodies. There is a quiet honesty on the delicate “film version” of the title track (“Soundtrack Theme from the Film Jews in Hell”) and “I Come from Nowhere” that makes this writer look forward to hearing Lowe in a purely improvisational context. Though Jews In Hell offers settings for improvisers like Matthew Shipp (including a piano-guitar duo with Lowe on “Shiva I”) and Marc Ribot, it would’ve been interesting, for example, to hear Lowe’s take on Jaki Byard’s post-modernism himself, despite the excellence with which Shipp approaches such work.

As the song titles might indicate, and as there are not only philosophical but also experiential underpinnings to the music contained herein, Lowe’s lyrics hold major importance. However, the vocals are frequently off-mike and in some cases are hard to decipher (“Suburban Jews,” an important track, is a perfect example). Sometimes, as on “Oi Death,” muffled and primal atmospherics make the point clearly, but at other times I was wishing for a bit more vocal clarity (the biting send-up of “Where’s Lou Reed?”). Then again, Charley Patton isn’t all that easy to decipher, either, though you get the feel of it.

Coupled with the broken rhythms, isolated phrasing and distant-thunder twang of Lowe’s guitar (“Other Bodies Other Souls”), a clear psychological picture of alienation emerges, but it isn’t without the affirmation of humor and wry, life-giving musicianship, either. Allen Lowe has, with Jews In Hell: Radical Jewish Acculturation, created a complex musical landscape through a summation of experiences and meditation on their integration. It’s self-criticism amid satire, applied both to the musician and the craft of music making, and a vision well worth sharing in.

[Adam]

Hi Allen,

But are you selling this one yet yourself?

Seriously, how much? Paypal?

A

Edited June 4, 2007 by Adam

[AllenLowe]

paypal is fine - can do $10 shipped - paypal address is alowe@maine.rr.com

thanks -

[AllenLowe]

another (semi) review - just got a nice email from the novelist Jonathan Lethem, who gave me the following blurb:

"Angular, sly, and funky, Jews In Hell is a bona fide wake-up call from the avant garde." -- Jonathan Lethem

[AllenLowe]

slight off topic, but another nice response to my work - from an interview the writer Stewart Broomer did with Anthony Braxton:

Braxton says:

"I’m a big fan of Allen Lowe, and I think Allen Lowe as a scholar and as a musician is very important and I think he is deeply misunderstood because he doesn’t hate himself. Now if he hated himself, and hated TransEuropa, then he would have a more successful run, but he is misunderstood because he wants to include the input of the great transeuropeans who have also contributed to the music – it is not understood – and the idea of European Americans being connected to the music is looked at almost as if it’s a racist proposition, or some diabolical political plot to destroy the essence of the music, when in fact, as far as I’m concerned, my research a long time ago made it pretty clear that we don’t talk of the historical aspects of the music correctly, that jazz has been etched out and defined as a vehicle for African Americans..."

Edited July 4, 2007 by AllenLowe

[AllenLowe]

good week for reviews - this is part of a larger review that will appear soon, I am told, in Signal to Noise by Stuart Broomer:

"The same iconoclastic wit and intelligence that shape That Devilin’ Tune are evident in Lowe’s latest work as a musician, Jews in Hell: Radical Jewish Acculturation. Lowe is an accomplished saxophonist who has previously populated his CD with performers like Roswell Rudd and Doc Cheatham, and his interests in musical history manage to inform his sometimes abrasively contemporary work. In 2001 Lowe took up guitar, and it’s as a guitarist and singer of a rough-cut post-modern blues that he primarily appears here.

It’s raw music, a kind of alienation-celebration of the acculturation suffered by baby-boom Jews growing up in America in the 1950s and 1960s. For Lowe, no ax is too small to grind . The liner booklet has him referring to his high-school vice principal “a cretin named Floyd Kenyon.” One sub-title is "All the blues you could play by now if Stanley Crouch was your uncle," while the other refers to a local Portland, Maine venue called the Space Gallery that won’t give him work. The Velvet Underground are a central theme and influence, with songs about Nico and Lou Reed: “Walk on the Wild Side” turns up in “Where’s Lou Reed?” with “And all the white girls go…LouLouLou LouLou…” Elsewhere Frank Zappa’s “Peaches en Regalia” gets referenced in “Failure”—“Failure is my face in the mirror.” Lowe summons up real power on songs like “Goyishe World,” a rock-driven tune on the hoary subject of Christ-killing, and his themes and music possess more power than the petty grievances might suggest.

It’s a compound world populated by Doc Boggs, Blind Willie Johnson, Doc Pomus, Lenny Bruce and Delmore Schwarz—at times it feels like Trout Mask Replica, but done by a vastly inferior lyricist and a much better saxophonist. Marc Ribot is a guest, turning in a couple of superb unaccompanied solos on Lowe compositions, but he’s also a key to the Lowe guitar style, a blues-rooted sound, but full of sudden surprise, whether it’s a bend, a note choice or a sudden key shift. Matt Shipp appears as well to contribute unaccompanied piano, while there’s a fine wind trio composed of Lowe on alto saxophone, Randy Sandke on trumpet and Scott Robinson on contra-bass clarinet. Their “I licked Bird’s Blood” (the background description of Joe Albany might have made its way into That Devilin’ Tune) sounds like a Dolphy tune. Lowe’s extended alto solos overdubbed over minimal keyboard accompaniments are sweetly luminous interludes, though the liner booklet provides darkly comic film treatments for them to accompany (the most beautiful playing occurs on “Soundtrack Theme from the Film Jews in Hell”). The liner notes possess the same interest as the end-notes to “That Devilin’ Tune,” managing at one point to connect Bix Beiderbecke and Dadaist word games. Anyone preferring live mind to dead mind (I think the phrase is Ezra Pound’s) will welcome Lowe’s work. "

-Stuart Broomer

my wife particularly likes the references to "petty grievances" and "no ax too small to grind." I don't like that "inferior lyricist" thing, but at least I'm better at something than Beefheart. Now, tell me, as I quote this in my literature, is it dishonest to cut "vastly inferior lyricist" ?

ah, what the hell do you guys know? just wait 'til my next CD oh evil organissimo-ites -

I can keep this revenge thing going for years - yeah, that's the ticket: Allen Lowe: The Revenge Series. The possibilities are endless -

[clifford_thornton]

"Vastly inferior lyricist" is a little heavy-handed as a way to get his critical opinion across, I'd say. One could say the same thing more "nicely."

[AllenLowe]

yeah, it stings a little bit - especially as I would not compare myself to Beefheart, but for a much different reason; I would say our lyric aims are much different - still, hard to complain about a review like that -

on the other hand, it did get me thinking about how to approach some new songs I'm working on -

[clifford_thornton]

I hope the record is getting some sales so far.

Beefheart is, yeah, a different bag entirely. Hard to compare.

[AllenLowe]

doing ok, getting nice reviews - biggest thing sales-wise will be to get some non-jazz, mainstream press; also working on Jewish music sites -

[clifford_thornton]

The Braxton quote is nice, didn't see that earlier...

[ep1str0phy]

High praise from a a big man in this music, that Braxton quote. Though, like clem, I'm interested in the deal with the Lethem quote.

[AllenLowe]

sorry to be so slow to respond - I sent him a copy after I met him at a pop music conference in April - I was quite happy (and surprised) at his response -

[porcy62]

Allen, ship the cd to me, since I usually have some comprension's problems with english, Zappa and Beefheart included, it's granted you'd never get a "vastly inferior lyricists" from here.

[medjuck]

I don't know if all of this is jazz but all of it is good. Shoot Me Up with Your Love is a hit. Highly recommended.

[Fer Urbina]

Jews in Hell has also been reviewed in Spanish magazines "Cuadernos de Jazz" and "Ruta 66" (this one, a rock mag) by me and Pachi Tapiz respectively. Both reviews are positive to very positive.

F