AllenLowe

‘Louis Armstrong’s America’ by Allen Lowe Review: An Original Tribute to a Titan The saxophonist and scholar leads a shifting and artfully unruly ensemble on this two-volume set, taking inspiration from Armstrong’s own omnivorous musical appetite. By Larry Blumenfeld Four cymbal strikes establish a march beat, and then an eight-piece ensemble kicks in. A melody, played in unison by horns and reeds, is punctuated by growling trombone. “Mr. Jenkins’ Lonely Orphans Band,” the first track of Allen Lowe’s “Louis Armstrong’s America Vols. 1 & 2” (ESP Disk, out now), might place us back a century in time. Yet, 90 seconds in, a trombone solo slides up to one ringing note, which gets promptly and precisely matched by the bent tone of an electric guitar. Soon enough, that guitar solos wildly, with distortion worthy of good blues-rock, as the rhythm shimmies. Mr. Lowe—whose brief tenor saxophone solo on that song displays his customary fluidity and humor—uses his Constant Sorrow Orchestra to bend senses of tone and time throughout this two-volume, four-CD release. That opening number is named for the Jenkins Orphanage, in Charleston, S.C., whose jazz band developed significant talents—including trumpeter Cat Anderson, of Duke Ellington’s orchestra—not too long after Armstrong, beginning in 1913, played in the Colored Waifs Home brass band in New Orleans. The unruly beauty of Mr. Lowe’s music has long been grounded in specific lineages yet also consistently blurs styles and eras. Here, his original compositions embrace, among other things, Ellingtonia, punk rock, the Bo Diddley beat, free jazz, gospel-blues and bebop. “But where does Louis Armstrong fit into all of this?” he asks in his liner note. Armstrong listened to everything: The handwritten playlists on his reel-to-reel mixtapes ran from opera to the Beatles, from far-flung folk music to all manner of jazz. Mr. Lowe isn’t alone in proposing Armstrong as “the first true post-modernist,” but the directive he draws from the trumpeter—“the past is the present, to be re-used and even abused”—is an entirely personal credo. Mr. Lowe is a noteworthy historian, whose books are both eccentric and essential. In the introduction to his two-volume “‘Turn Me Loose, White Man,’ or: Appropriating Culture: How to Listen to American Music, 1900-1960,” he wonders: “Where does one start with American music, and where does one end? . . . Sometimes certain things seem to disappear, only to reappear as something else or something that seems like something else.” Case in point, his new composition “The Seven Foot Policeman,” which starts like a march yet slips easily into something like loft-era free-jazz without losing its essence. Mr. Lowe thinks on an absurdly grand scale. His most recent book was more than 700 pages. His new release presents 69 original compositions, spanning more than five hours. His “orchestra” is 14 different ensembles, from duo to octet, drawn from a cast of 23 musicians. Somehow, none of this music sounds gratuitous or disjointed. And it tells a story, however circuitous: one man’s version of tradition. Mr. Lowe isn’t the only historian on hand. Lewis Porter, who wrote the definitive biography of John Coltrane, plays both piano and Wurlitzer organ here, admirably balancing convention and invention on both. The piano playing of Loren Schoenberg, the National Jazz Museum in Harlem’s senior scholar, primarily known as a tenor saxophonist, is a shining revelation on several tracks, especially in duet with Mr. Lowe on “Under the Weather.” The roster of pianists here runs deep. Ursula Oppens, best known in classical circles, lends spare and strange beauty to “Aaron Copland Has the Blues.” On “Red’s Revenge,” Danish pianist Jeppe Zeeberg captures the sense of “accelerating tempo, even while the time remains unchanged,” of Speckled Red, a pianist Mr. Lowe’s book championed with such a description. Mr. Lowe’s playing is most affecting in duet with Matthew Shipp, a paragon of bold and searching modern pianism, especially on “The Sorrow Song: On the Cooling Board.” Guitarist Marc Ribot, a singular master, displays a range of blues expression, from pious to greasy to proto-punk, on several tracks. Ray Suhy summons admirable power on electric guitar, too, yet most entrancing is his elegant weirdness on banjitar (a six-string banjo), especially on “Bathing With Doc Walsh.” Still, this album’s real achievement is the variety of ensemble sounds Mr. Lowe curates—their combination of cohesion and ragged edges—and his ability to straddle eras. On “Calling All Freaks,” his octet conjures legacies of both Luis Russell’s swing and Charles Mingus’s bop. On “Mr. Harney Turn Me Loose,” he and Mr. Shipp fold shards of a ragtime hit within something John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner might have played. In books and social media, Mr. Lowe, who is 70 years old, gets cantankerous in response to lazy assumptions. Yet there’s a sweetness too, an earnestness—what Greil Marcus, in an introduction to “Turn Me Loose, White Man,” identified as his “mission” regarding the relationship “between people long dead and those listening to them now in disbelief that they could ever die.” The title of one new composition, “I Should Have Stayed Dead,” offered here in three distinct versions, alludes to Mr. Lowe’s own mortality: He recorded these tracks in between treatments and surgeries for sinus cancer. Yet this is the music of a wild-eyed optimist who shows no signs of slowing down.

bullshit article - not a single citation. And anyone who cites John Lincoln Collier and Ross Russell, two writers whose work was filled with distortions and errors, has not idea what they are talking about. Where is the evidence that Charlie Parker's kid died because he spent all of their money on drugs? Show us the medical records, doctors' reports. This is pure fiction. Shame on this story - and anyone who makes the statement that jazz had no more innovation after the 1960s is unqualified to write about jazz.

I like Nate but he has ignored my work for years; Turn Me Loose White Man should have been on that list.

well, there's a guy on here who, every time I say I don't like a particular musician, accuses me of saying it because they turned me down for a collaboration.

thank you for not accusing me of ulterior motives; which sometimes happens here. I do realize that mine is a distinctly minority opini9on.

well....never been a fan of his work in general, except for the solos with Miles, some of which are incredible. As a composer, I never quite understood his appeal; always sounds monochromatic to me.

now you've got me in suspense because I have Medjuck on ignore. What did he say? If it's about the King Oliver reissue yes, major news.

just sent -

can you give us more info? Where recorded, sound quality? Thanks - but wth, I will take all five -

Google is an amazing thing; found this United States v. Opinion CRIMINAL ACTION UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. JUDGE S. MAURICE HICKS, JR. MAGISTRATE JUDGE HORNSBY MEMORANDUM RULING Before the Court is Petitioner Motion for Compassionate Release (Record Document 781). The Government has opposed motion. Record Document 783. also filed several rebuttals/supplemental briefs. Record Documents 784, 785, 787 & 788. For the reasons set forth below, Motion for Compassionate Release is hereby DENIED. BACKGROUND In September 2011, pled guilty to participating in a child exploitation enterprise, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(g). ecord Documents 311 & 312. The evidence presented in the written factual basis shows that

I find contemporary bluegrass to be mechanical and repetitive - too many of the same old patterns. When I want to listen to bluegrass it's almost always from the 1940s and 1950s, when it still had an edge. And I love the original Bill Monroe recordings from around 1940, which to me are the country equivalent of Bird's early records.

the first jazz concert that I ever went to, maybe 1969, was in the Sculpture Garden at MOMA. James Moody - it was basically Dizzy's band without Dizzy, with Mike Longo, Candy Finch IIRC.

Yes, sorry, I should have mentioned that. But people can pre-order from me at a significant discount. And I will also put it on Band camp. Aaron did record at least one session as a leader but I am not sure if it came out. I will see if I can ask him. His playing, which was always great, has reached new levels of brilliance.

We will have the 2 volume set called Louis Armstrong's America out by mid or end of August. 4 cds total, with Ursula Oppens, Ray Anderson, Marc Ribot, Andy Stein, Kresten Osgood, Ray Suhy, Lewis Porter, Aaron Johnson among many others. All originals based on various styles that were parallel to Armstrong's life. It may not be what you fans of free jazz expect but, as I called it once before, it is "an avant garde of our own." Plenty of open improvisation. If you need a reference, Larry Gushee told me, years back, that I had "reinvented free jazz." And as Anthony Braxton said "Allen Lowe IS the tradition and one of the few people doing any new in jazz." Contact me if interested. And I should add that on this Aaron Johnson proves himself to be the best clarinetist in jazz. Bar none. Some samples coming soon.

thanks, it's also important to note that diabetes diagnosis and treatment was extremely primitive back then, another reason to believe that the treatment was not some racist aberration. But as they say about printing the legend.....

the cough part was the worst thing about it when I had it a year and a half ago. You probably have done this but I found that a cough suppressant was extremely helpful, like Robitussin.

but there are no "first hand" accounts that I am aware of; or if there are, I would love to see them.

The story as it is told is that when Eric Dolphy collapsed in a diabetic coma the doctors made the racist assumption that he was a junkie and so missed the correct treatment, which led to his death. But I have some questions - there have been reports by Dolphy's friends that he ignored diabetic symptoms for quite a while; and that he had a weird lump on his forehead (which can be seen in photos) that was related to this and which he also ignored. So - my question - was Dolphy a diagnosed diabetic when he died? Was he aware of it and was he treating it? If not, how would anyone have known, when he collapsed, that this was his condition? And do we have any documentation of what happened when he collapsed, what the treatment was and what the doctors diagnosed? I ask all of this because too often legends become truth, which is a problem for me; because without knowing any of the above we should not make historical pronouncements or judgements.

you are bringing up a topic which explains one of the reasons I left the library profession - they have become too circulation dependent and more and more have stopped ordering more marginal - ie, interesting - material. To me their mission is the opposite; as I argued when I last worked in a public library, "no one will take them out if they are nor here." There are ways to boost circulation of more obscure but worthy material. Libraries are not business; they serve the public in a much different way (unless you live in Florida).

I have a library degree, and when I was working in a library I would have welcomed such advice and assistance. Why not? He is absolutely correct. And trust me, from having worked in a few public and college libraries I would not assume the staff had any idea about much other than the works that circulate most frequently, like best sellers and self help books.

Interesting; when that song came out we used to sing "I, am hooked on the ceiling."

who are you? Can you id yourself? Sorry Tad, didn't realize that was you. It's not that exciting but I have one unknown Prestige anecdote that involves Weinstock, Miles, and Dave Schildkraut

that I don't remember, but it's been a long time since I listened to it.

You should mention that, IIRC, the pianist on that is Hampton Hawes.