Yeah, there's More Reviews (by George Grella, NYC Jazz Record:

[AllenLowe]

 

"(On America: The Rough Cut) Allen Lowe is the great contemporary jazz outsider....especially aided by the great guitarist Ray Suhy. The blues is fundamentally modernist, because it’s a framework for making old ideas new...Lowe is stylistically close to Mingus because they share similar values: they see the story of American popular music, especially the music made by Black musicians, as a continuing story of modernism before there was any kind of codified jazz. Mingus played modern jazz that was really modernist gospel music, and Lowe plays modern jazz that is really New Orleans brass band and march music, or hymns, or country music, even heavy metal.

 

"Both musicians also work through specific personal experiences and forms of expression. a series of books and accompanying musical anthologies that make for a strong argument that American music should have some sense of roughness and irreverence. His work represents a Whitman-esque rejection of “the polite trappings of (primarily but not only white) society.

 

"His experience has also yielded In the Dark, 31 tracks across three CDs that came from his nights struggling to sleep and even breathe. He calls it, “a commemoration of the worst time of my life.” It’s a remarkable document, which sprawls across blues, song forms, free playing and all sorts of rhythmic styles, and yet remains focused. Each track is satisfying; there’s not a dull moment.Part of that is Lowe’s compositional style, where everything sounds familiar even as the themes and personality are new. The mid-sized band includes inventive and energetic players including Lewis Porter (piano) and Aaron Johnson (alto) whose explosive energy makes him the de facto lead voice."

 

-George Grella NYC Jazz Record

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by AllenLowe