James Reese Europe (or: Why the Revivalists Need Reviving) -

[AllenLowe]

I love older music, and I love playing older music, though I have some very specific ideas of how it should be done. There are, I think, two ways to go. From a revivalist perspective you've got to play the hell out of the music; take, for example, Jon-Erik Kellso, one of the great trumpeters of our time, who gets so inside the music that there is no creative distance between his playing and the song.

For me, the way to go is to deal with the spirit and the energy of the original source and try to find an alternative way in; I note that there has been a recent recorded tribute to James Reese Europe, though to my ears it is done badly, with a deadness that comes from trying to do a literal re-creation. For our upcoming CD In the Dark I composed a piece as a parallel to what I hear as Europe's way of playing, an attempt to harness that incredible band's amazing energy. I think I can say, immodestly, that we have succeeded, in a way that puts us way in advance of anyone else today (there have been other, older, approaches, which have used something closer to the original arrangements). For our thing, which I call Castles in the Sand, I allowed for "free" improvising, within certain felt constraints, and I am very proud of it. I can't get the New York Times to acknowledge my existence these days (they recently wrote about the recent re-creations by someone else) - but here it is, and I challenge any other contemporary approach to get closer to the spirit of this old and amazing music: (and you can all order this stuff, it will be out within the month):

 

 

[bombdiggity]

Sounds great.  And definitively NOT some stale reading of dusty pages under glass.  Thanks for tickling our ears...