new book with some words about me...

[AllenLowe]

there's a new book coming out in the next month from 5 Leaves Publications called Jazz Jews, by the English writer Mike Gerber; includes the following section:

"Jews in Hell is a Jewish jazz album that is not a Jewish jazz album in the sense that there are no obvious Jewish music influences on it.

Jazz, as most people would understand it, accounts for fewer than half the tracks, many of which have a fractured country blues air. But the album is the work of a jazz musician and his anguished Jewish sensibility pervades all. The artist concerned is Allen Lowe. Jazz-wise he is a superb wide- ranging saxophonist, but he also plays laconically blistering blues, folk-roots and garage rock guitar and electric banjo. He extracts the most soulful sounds out of a synthesiser since Steve Wonder, composes ambient-evocative instrumentals, and songs with vernacular lyrics that stick in the mind like those of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Mose Allison or Lou Reed. Intellectually, Lowe's up there with Artie Shaw; just as angst-ridden too about his Jewish identity as Artie was, only combatively upfront about it.

All this is packed into the thirty-eight tracks across the two CDs that comprise Jews in Hell. The titles of some of Lowe's composi-

tions, followed by his sleevenotes, give a good idea of where he's coming from, for example: 'He Will Walk Across the Water (We Will

Walk Across the Water)' — about which he says, "He, being Jesus, we being the Jews following Moses in the wake of the parting of the

Red Sea. Expressing a very basic tension between Judeo and Christian systems of belief, with their alternate ways of looking at

reality"; 'Leni' — "Hate song for an old Nazi (Riefenstahl)"; 'Goyishe World' — "More impotent outrage, with a nod to the Velvet

Underground, via the great dobro-ist Stacey Phillips' story about getting beat up on the way home from Yeshiva on Passover eve...";

'Soundtrack Theme From the Film Jews in Hell' — "The film, directed as part of his Community Service by Mel Gibson..." Lowe

is having a dig here at the actor/director whose movie The Passion of Christ brought charges of anti-Semitism.

Some Lowe compositions are tributes to his heroes, including 'Shiva 1' and 'Shiva 2' — a shivais the Jewish bereavement ceremony and

these tracks are dedicated to the late Jewish blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield. Lowe says "... the dual spirits of Lenny Bruce and Mike

Bloomfield hover, inevitably, over my intents and efforts, and on a daily basis." Another title is 'Jewtown Shuffle (Who's that Lovin' You

Baby?)' — this inspired by the late blues musician Jimmy Reed and also by the "merchant section of Chicago where the Jews met the

blues." Jewtown was the area in Chicago filled with pawnshops — so- called because the pawnshops were largely owned by Jews — where

many blues musicians busked in the street. On several tracks Lowe performs solo or, on overdubbed recordings, plays all the instruments, vocalising in his vernacular manner. Elsewhere, some wonderful guest musicians contribute, among them pianists Matthew Shipp and Dr Lewis Porter, trumpeter Randy Sandke, guitarist Mark Ribot, contra bass clarinettist Scott Robinson and singer Erin McKeown. Porter, who is Jewish, (and who is founder and director of the Rutgers University's jazz history and research masters degree, and a jazz writer), plays solo on the instrumental 'To Dance Beneath the Cuban Sky'. The latter, Lowe explains is, "A piece I wrote trying to evoke the great New Orleans composer and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk."

Lowe, who is also a music historian, comments in his extensive sleevenotes for Jews in Hell, "Jewish musicians, from Louis Moreau

Gottschalk to Doc Pomus to Mike Bloomfield to Dave Schildkraut, represent a movement of permanent post-modernism (our version of the

permanent revolution ... a vernacular hybrid musical Fourth Stream of memory, obsession, and aggressive self-interrogation ... often mis-

taken for self-hate). We/they are a cult without a leader, freelance wise-asses without portfolio." Schildkraut, who died in 1998, is the alto saxophonist Dan Morgenstern described to me as very gifted. He is one of the bebop generation active in American jazz, but performed little after the 1950s. Lowe, who knew him, told me, "Schildkraut had, as Lee Konitz once commented, 'a Yiddishe soul'. He was a complete genius and virtuoso — Dizzy Gillespie once told me 'he was the only alto player who captured the rhythmic essence of Bird', and Bill Evans told me there were only two alto players from that era who did not copy Bird— Konitz and Schildkraut. Dave had the most amazing time of any player I have ever heard, and he was a good friend as well. Pan-reli- gious in his personal beliefs — told me he believed in all religions. Davey was rarely active after the 1960s, but did work for wedding bands and also did the occasional concerts."

In reference to Jews in Hell, Lowe explains in his liner notes, "Thematically I am thinking of Jews in the post-WWII era, some born

of the so-called baby boom generation, and some who fall just outside of it. Agreeing with the pianist Anthony Coleman, what I find interesting is not the conventional ethnicity of these Jews but their (often very Jewish) response to all that American and world culture had/has to offer. It's not just Klezmer, but also black and white country music, jazz, the blues, American pop, rock and roll, et al. Jews have always been natural post-modernists, open to virtually anything in cultural influence and reference, and (hopefully) largely free of pretentious fusions of same. I ... posit a recurring theme of the Jew as permanent outsider, though in some ways well assimilated, always feels the need to struggle and prove him or herself. The Jew I am describing regularly suffers a vision of himself and in THEIR image, of the fish out of water, the odd duck..."

In Lowe's case, the feeling of being a fish out of water is accentuated by his having been stuck out in Maine. He moved there with his family around the mid-nineties and found little support from the local cultural establishment for a jazz musician of his creative vitality.

Originally from New York, Lowe performed there at The Knitting Factory and Sweet Basil. He worked with David Murray, Doc Cheatham, Don Byron, Julius Hemphill and Loren Schoenberg, and recorded six albums in his own name. But Jews in Hell, released in 2006, is his first recording for some fifteen years. Jews in Hell stands out from most of the product that has been churned out by record companies in the last forty or so years. Anthony Braxton, (vanguard African-American saxophonist/composer) said about it, "I was absolutely astonished by Jews in Hell ... Allen Lowe is one of the few musicians doing anything new today."

He's right, but the chances are that Jews in Hell will do little to endear Lowe with the Maine grandees."

maybe I'll actually get a gig in 2010....

Edited December 3, 2009 by AllenLowe

[kenny weir]

I want to hear that (bit slow on the uptake)

What's the best bet?

[Elissa]

Bravo Allen!

[jeffcrom]

Pretty cool. Makes me want to hear the album - I'll be tracking it down.

[Chuck Nessa]

PayPal Mr. Lowe.

[bertrand]

The thread title says it all.

[papsrus]

Nice words from the author, Allen.

"Jews in Hell" is wild.

[AllenLowe]

"The thread title says it all. "

well, you did say recently, Bertie, that I have become unhinged.

please continue to advise. I can't afford a shrink.

[Brad]

You didn't write that did you Allen

Very nice, seriously.

Edited December 4, 2009 by Brad

[AllenLowe]

I just dictated it -

[7/4]

http://www.allenlowe.com/

Pretty embarrassing looking web site Allen.

Why don't you put some of that excess energy into fixing that and setting up a blog?

[Brad]

I listened to some of the music samples. Nice playing. Interesting titles to some of the songs

[AllenLowe]

wait - I just figured out that Bertrand and 7/4 are the same person -

Edited December 4, 2009 by AllenLowe

[7/4]

Welcome to AllenLowe.com. Watch this space for updates.

.

[AllenLowe]

[7/4]

East Jersey State Prison in Avenel, NJ.

Nice try Allen.

[Brad]

Maybe that's the update.

[bertrand]

[AllenLowe]

it's ok, 7/4; I'll bake you a cake with a gun inside.

and Bertrand bubbalah, keep your eyes on the prize - found this on another thread:

"I'm confused - 7/4 lives in NJ and I live in D.C. How can I be he and he be me?"

it's easier for people to know what you're talking about when you actually put your comments on the correct thread -

but that's ok, as I too am getting forgetful -

Edited December 5, 2009 by AllenLowe

[mgridley]

there's a new book coming out in the next month from 5 Leaves Publications called Jazz Jews, by the English writer Mike Gerber; includes the following section:

"Jews in Hell is a Jewish jazz album that is not a Jewish jazz album in the sense that there are no obvious Jewish music influences on it.

Jazz, as most people would understand it, accounts for fewer than half the tracks, many of which have a fractured country blues air. But the album is the work of a jazz musician and his anguished Jewish sensibility pervades all. The artist concerned is Allen Lowe. Jazz-wise he is a superb wide- ranging saxophonist, but he also plays laconically blistering blues, folk-roots and garage rock guitar and electric banjo. He extracts the most soulful sounds out of a synthesiser since Steve Wonder, composes ambient-evocative instrumentals, and songs with vernacular lyrics that stick in the mind like those of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Mose Allison or Lou Reed. Intellectually, Lowe's up there with Artie Shaw; just as angst-ridden too about his Jewish identity as Artie was, only combatively upfront about it.

All this is packed into the thirty-eight tracks across the two CDs that comprise Jews in Hell. The titles of some of Lowe's composi-

tions, followed by his sleevenotes, give a good idea of where he's coming from, for example: 'He Will Walk Across the Water (We Will

Walk Across the Water)' — about which he says, "He, being Jesus, we being the Jews following Moses in the wake of the parting of the

Red Sea. Expressing a very basic tension between Judeo and Christian systems of belief, with their alternate ways of looking at

reality"; 'Leni' — "Hate song for an old Nazi (Riefenstahl)"; 'Goyishe World' — "More impotent outrage, with a nod to the Velvet

Underground, via the great dobro-ist Stacey Phillips' story about getting beat up on the way home from Yeshiva on Passover eve...";

'Soundtrack Theme From the Film Jews in Hell' — "The film, directed as part of his Community Service by Mel Gibson..." Lowe

is having a dig here at the actor/director whose movie The Passion of Christ brought charges of anti-Semitism.

Some Lowe compositions are tributes to his heroes, including 'Shiva 1' and 'Shiva 2' — a shivais the Jewish bereavement ceremony and

these tracks are dedicated to the late Jewish blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield. Lowe says "... the dual spirits of Lenny Bruce and Mike

Bloomfield hover, inevitably, over my intents and efforts, and on a daily basis." Another title is 'Jewtown Shuffle (Who's that Lovin' You

Baby?)' — this inspired by the late blues musician Jimmy Reed and also by the "merchant section of Chicago where the Jews met the

blues." Jewtown was the area in Chicago filled with pawnshops — so- called because the pawnshops were largely owned by Jews — where

many blues musicians busked in the street. On several tracks Lowe performs solo or, on overdubbed recordings, plays all the instruments, vocalising in his vernacular manner. Elsewhere, some wonderful guest musicians contribute, among them pianists Matthew Shipp and Dr Lewis Porter, trumpeter Randy Sandke, guitarist Mark Ribot, contra bass clarinettist Scott Robinson and singer Erin McKeown. Porter, who is Jewish, (and who is founder and director of the Rutgers University's jazz history and research masters degree, and a jazz writer), plays solo on the instrumental 'To Dance Beneath the Cuban Sky'. The latter, Lowe explains is, "A piece I wrote trying to evoke the great New Orleans composer and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk."

Lowe, who is also a music historian, comments in his extensive sleevenotes for Jews in Hell, "Jewish musicians, from Louis Moreau

Gottschalk to Doc Pomus to Mike Bloomfield to Dave Schildkraut, represent a movement of permanent post-modernism (our version of the

permanent revolution ... a vernacular hybrid musical Fourth Stream of memory, obsession, and aggressive self-interrogation ... often mis-

taken for self-hate). We/they are a cult without a leader, freelance wise-asses without portfolio." Schildkraut, who died in 1998, is the alto saxophonist Dan Morgenstern described to me as very gifted. He is one of the bebop generation active in American jazz, but performed little after the 1950s. Lowe, who knew him, told me, "Schildkraut had, as Lee Konitz once commented, 'a Yiddishe soul'. He was a complete genius and virtuoso — Dizzy Gillespie once told me 'he was the only alto player who captured the rhythmic essence of Bird', and Bill Evans told me there were only two alto players from that era who did not copy Bird— Konitz and Schildkraut. Dave had the most amazing time of any player I have ever heard, and he was a good friend as well. Pan-reli- gious in his personal beliefs — told me he believed in all religions. Davey was rarely active after the 1960s, but did work for wedding bands and also did the occasional concerts."

In reference to Jews in Hell, Lowe explains in his liner notes, "Thematically I am thinking of Jews in the post-WWII era, some born

of the so-called baby boom generation, and some who fall just outside of it. Agreeing with the pianist Anthony Coleman, what I find interesting is not the conventional ethnicity of these Jews but their (often very Jewish) response to all that American and world culture had/has to offer. It's not just Klezmer, but also black and white country music, jazz, the blues, American pop, rock and roll, et al. Jews have always been natural post-modernists, open to virtually anything in cultural influence and reference, and (hopefully) largely free of pretentious fusions of same. I ... posit a recurring theme of the Jew as permanent outsider, though in some ways well assimilated, always feels the need to struggle and prove him or herself. The Jew I am describing regularly suffers a vision of himself and in THEIR image, of the fish out of water, the odd duck..."

In Lowe's case, the feeling of being a fish out of water is accentuated by his having been stuck out in Maine. He moved there with his family around the mid-nineties and found little support from the local cultural establishment for a jazz musician of his creative vitality.

Originally from New York, Lowe performed there at The Knitting Factory and Sweet Basil. He worked with David Murray, Doc Cheatham, Don Byron, Julius Hemphill and Loren Schoenberg, and recorded six albums in his own name. But Jews in Hell, released in 2006, is his first recording for some fifteen years. Jews in Hell stands out from most of the product that has been churned out by record companies in the last forty or so years. Anthony Braxton, (vanguard African-American saxophonist/composer) said about it, "I was absolutely astonished by Jews in Hell ... Allen Lowe is one of the few musicians doing anything new today."

He's right, but the chances are that Jews in Hell will do little to endear Lowe with the Maine grandees."

maybe I'll actually get a gig in 2010....

[mgridley]

There is another new book that mentions a book by Allen Lowe. In fact, Lowe's revisionist jazz history, THAT DEVILIN' TUNE, gets a larger blurb than any other book in the Supplementary Reading section of JAZZ TYLES: HISTORY AND ANALYSIS, 10th Edition by Gridley (Prentice-Hall, 2009). See page 486.