AllenLowe

https://allenlowe.substack.com/p/part-1-my-life-is-a-series-of-chemo

ok. Though I should mention that I heard a young group recently that I think is the best thing in jazz in the last 10 years. They are on Instagram as Numusic.

If your implication (as others have made) is that I put down other music to elevate my own....well, you haven't read enough of my writing. There is a strange historical parallel here, of writers and others who wrote fiction/plays and who also wrote critically of other writers: Isaac Rosenfeld, Delmore Schwartz, Richard Gilman, George Bernard Shaw, Randall Jarrell, John Berryman, Harold Rosenberg - I doubt if you would criticize them in the same way though they were much more aggressive than I am. It's part of a give-and-take which few people engage in any more; criticism tends to read, these days, like press releases. But before you think ill off me for doing this kind of critical work, get a better sense of the history of American writing. There was a whole movement of the '40s and '50s called the New York Intellectuals, and my work is quite mild compared to theirs, though I am inspired by their willingness to question conventional wisdom, which is rampant in the jazz world. And I haven't mentioned Brecht, whose attacks on contemporary theater were detailed and devastating. And the truth is that much of what I say is agreed to by others who do not want to go public. I get private messages to this effect all the time.

"Allen Lowe’s massive, five-hour opus may turn out to be one of the most important recordings of the 2020s, if only more people well spend time with it. Lowe’s music is personal, deeply thoughtful, and addictively listenable. Lowe spends a great deal of time reading, writing, and thinking about jazz and the blues, their intersection, the influences that birthed rock and roll, and he’s taken all that and channeled into five hours of horn-drenched, witty and delightful music." https://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/12/allen-lowe-constant-sorrow-orchestra.html strangely, the more reviews I get like this, the more depressed I get. I think it's called Inverse Reality.

Rockland Palace was remastered and pitch corrected by Doug Pomeroy. There is a CD available: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Legendary-Rockland-Palace-Dance/dp/B000001LZ4/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1QABCUVLXZ117&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qG-cuvDxcSIaGLr4BeH05yPGA9e8ISOOMv2N8LoWZlwoFY_hvBkzDnheWl1XjgQBc9pHs2rfoTD_l_rBG914Qyw-HA_V_bHNBuZAvHxG_3Q.ObkhEU0i8EZRm_cftnhb8ZTdVOjTl6yTCMRxnXc1vP0&dib_tag=se&keywords=charlie+Parker+rockland+palace&qid=1735493632&sprefix=charlie+parker+rockland+palace%2Caps%2C114&sr=8-3 Rockland Palace was speed corrected and remastered by Doug Pomeroy: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Legendary-Rockland-Palace-Dance/dp/B000001LZ4/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1QABCUVLXZ117&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qG-cuvDxcSIaGLr4BeH05yPGA9e8ISOOMv2N8LoWZlwoFY_hvBkzDnheWl1XjgQBc9pHs2rfoTD_l_rBG914Qyw-HA_V_bHNBuZAvHxG_3Q.ObkhEU0i8EZRm_cftnhb8ZTdVOjTl6yTCMRxnXc1vP0&dib_tag=se&keywords=charlie+Parker+rockland+palace&qid=1735493632&sprefix=charlie+parker+rockland+palace%2Caps%2C114&sr=8-3

Two surprises for me were Patty Waters - a few years back she wanted to record with me but I felt terrible and could not do it because her voice was completely gone, so I had to make up some excuse - and Steve Silberman, a terrific writer who wrote probably the definitive book on autism. Also a nice guy.

I love Smith. One interesting thing that I was told was that he was born in Mississippi to a mixed-race couple (I think his mother was African American). This could not hve been easy, especially in those years. I won't order CDRs; but if you figure that each blank costs them maybe 25 cents, and if they charge $15 for each and sell 100 they are making at least $1000 profit, subtracking some production costs. So that's not bad; if they sell out they just make 100 more. And, I will add, it's a pity they didn't do more work on those; the sound can be improved hugely through a simple re-EQ.

as long as they give me a good review, I'm ok with Kenny G. on the cover.

or pay some dues.....

thanks, I had seen something by Tom but not that. As I like to point out, I am pretty much the only non-working musician who makes these lists; same thing happened two years ago. I have a few things next year, but these days the gigs in NYC are controlled by young musicians who don't know me and who tend to book their friends. But I will keep trying.

https://jazztimes.com/blog/2024-year-in-review-part-2/

well, I can barely get gigs where I live. Maybe with Ted Cruz on vocals....

people used to get mad at me here when I criticized jazz players for only scratching the surface of deep blues playing (or the Hard Blues as Julius Hemphill used to call it). Well, I never get much response here, but eff-it, I carry on although, as I said recently, I seem to have reached the jazz mandatory retirement age; meaning, I cannot get gigs. A lot of the clubs in NYC are being booked by very young players, who, if you are not famous or their friend, will not even check you out. So here is something we did with my new trio, the bassist (Colson Jimenez) and drummer (Ethan Cogan) of which are absolutely stunning players. Colson is the first bassist I have found recently who does not sound like 50 other guys, and has almost a Mingus-like drive and persistence. This is Beneath the Blues, recorded in October. Roots, schmoots, jazz players usually play blues like Oscar Peterson on a good day. The blues is a syntax, a way of phrasing and punctuating, not just hitting certain intervals. As a matter of fact I avoid minor thirds whenever I can. We have created a real interactive trio and I have got to get these guys on a cd:

that whole period is amazing, and that performance, yes. Years ago I tried to stop sounding like Sonny. It is beyond impossible. Better men than me have died (musically) trying. I remember when Wayne Escoffrey was a local kid and one night I heard him trying to replicate Sonny like this. I had to admire the attempt and even the execution, but it just wasn't there. Even if I had heard it blind, I think I would have been able to clearly discern the disconnect between style as art/form and style as mannerism.

I haven't read everything here, but the RCA stuff, IMHO, is epochal - coinciding as it does with a lot of film of Sonny, in Denmark in particular (IIRC) that is astounding; maybe 1964-66. His harmonic approach is amazing (I can say this as I try to copy him all the time; unsuccessfully of course) - he is playing these stacked, chromatic lines that, coupled with his amazing time and technique, are among the most amazing accomplishments by anyone, ever, in jazz. This is the period of which Larry Kart told me he thought Sonny to be, and I am paraphrasing, "one of the greatest artists in anything, ever." I concur.