AllenLowe

I hear Texas has enormous cockroaches.

well....I downloaded a sample on Kindle, maybe 40-50 pages worth and I think it's pretty awful. The intro is a waste of time, and the first section makes the same mistake every author, unedited, seems to be making these days. The writer has mistaken research for writing, and it is so overloaded with detail about - well, everything, Texas insects, the family history (could have been cut to about 3 pages), land deals, political battles - everything but Kenny Dorham himself. And written in a totally dead style, like a listings section of a newspaper. Sorry, this is probably not a popular opinion, but this weirdness is everywhere in current jazz bios and music bios in general. The writer(s) seems to thing that merely describing something is the same as having insight into it. I just am so tired of how badly music bios are done - unless they are by Robin DG Kelley of John Szwed. I gave up on this one (and I haven't even described one particular howler of mistake, which may be an editing mistake, but that just shows there was probably no editor).

Zieff was brilliant; he used to call me every once in a while and complain about a critic I knew. By far his best work is on this: https://www.discogs.com/release/14448931-Bob-Zieff-The-Music-Of-Bob-Zieff can't get the picture to appear, but that's the CD to get -

Try the Strings Attached record he made with Jimmy Rainey. Al aways had a beautiful touch but he just didn't get modal playing like some others of his generation.

I love Mary Lou, but playing that solo she reminds of Al Haig when he was trying to play in a "contemporary" way - the line never gets going and is built around repeated patterns. For her best playing I always go back to the '30s and '40s. She was always, harmonically, the hippest of the hip, but to my ears she never successfully made the rhythmic transition from swing to bebop to post-bop. the energy us unfeigned - this was where she was comfortable. and here; she was picking up the harmonies, post-Tatum, but when it came to line she needed the old-style feel:

I admire Bickert but don't know enough about him to be of much help, but no one seems to have noticed that he played a Fender Telecaster, which is extremely unusual for a jazz guitarist. It is more likely the choice of a rock or country musician. Different kind of sound (potentially).

thanks, I will see if if I can locate a phone number.

I will tell you a weird story - years ago I was on my way to a club in Midtown Manhattan. I was walking (I was about 19, so this might have been 1973) and who did I see ahead of me but Budd Johnson. I was thrilled; I walked up and introduced myself, and Johnson said "I want you to meet my friend, Big Al Sears (who was standing next to him)." I was very excited about this, wish I'd had a camera.

last I spoke to him he was diagnosed with early-onset dementia. I had been talking to him for a while since his wife stuck him in a facility without telling him what she was doing, and while he was still very cognizant. At that point he got a lawyer and was sent back home. He had started to fade, and when I did last call, a caregiver came on the phone and said he was doing ok. That's the last contact I had. I imagine he is in some kind of care facility and probably totally out of it by now. He does have a son but I cannot remember his first name, so I know of no way to reach him, sadly enough.

thanks for saying that, not everyone here agrees that I am a benign presence.

I know that he is constantly working, so maybe he is too busy to worry about it. I am hoping to do a duo album with him at some point.

not gonna get into the OP vs everybody, but I am a little shocked that no one else hears this genius as I do. I can deal with it, but be aware that in New York everyone who has heard Esteban recognizes what I recognize, which is that he is far from just a technician, but a brilliant consolidator of styles, in the same league as Jaki Byard. It's possible that non-musicians don't recognize his skill, but I think it's clear that he is one of the best ever, and I have heard everyone, live or on record, from, I would say, 1923 forward. We can hear bits of Tristano, Monk, Bud and Tatum in his playing, but masked by his originality, and I have heard no other pianist - including, I would add Jaki Byard, who I loved - who can sit, relaxed at the piano like that, with such incredible focus, comprehensive technique, and just plain feeling. Part of the problem is that we have to distinguish between technique and facility (and btw I like Gene Harris a lot but not OP). But Esteban is just on another level, it's almost mystical the levels of creativity that he achieves.

no one's interested in this incredible pianist? Come on folks.

I honestly think the narration is not particularly interesting or important. What is interesting and important is that Armstrong, in these performances, breaks out of the formulas he had gotten into as a matter of touring. They made him a star, but THIS made him an artist. yes, this has been released in a few formats. And any discography that is dismissive of this, one of Armstrong's great post-War efforts, ought to be tossed in the garbage, after being burned.

There's a young pianist in NYC named Esteban Castro, young, just out of Julliard. I will state this directly: Esteban is one of the greatest jazz pianists who ever lived, and I mean ever, and I say this unequivocally, after a lifetime of listening to everything from 1920 to the present. I am trying to think of how to describe his playing - it is historically comprehensive, but never in a self conscious way. He just sits at the piano with casual ease and turns out phrase after phrase of brilliant, compelling, artistically meaningful music. In term of musical attitude he has some resemblance to Jaki Byard, but that is primarily in the ingenious way in which he incorporates his incredibly varied, but always personal, ideas of playing. He is astounding. We recorded together not too long ago, and I basically knew what he can do, but he still surprised me - bits and pieces of Tristano, an amazing Fats-Waller-into-stride passage that just blew me away, and a deep understanding of Bud Powell. He can read, he can play inside/outside/upside down, harmonically speaking. He even did an uncanny summoning of Monk on one piece that was not Monkish in the usual sense, but instead a personalization of Monk's way of fusing melody and harmony. Another thing I love about his playing is that it is non-ideological: no systems, no repetitive patterns, no blues cliches. He is the real thing. I will post some more of his stuff eventually, but here's a clip from a few years back which gives a sense of his incredible reach and sense of line: