AllenLowe

I realize that the trend is elsewhere, but if you want to do research in music it can best be done with physical media surrounding you; books, CDs, LPs, and means of ACCURATE playback. I have accumulated the best American music CD collection on earth, likely, for the span 1900-1970. I have written 6 books based on this collection and reissued something like 100 CDs. If this makes me a relic, so be it. Trying to do it differently results in gaps, mistakes, lack of personnel and credit, etc. You also need to know the sound quality of reissues, what's good, what's better, and what's not. This in itself is more than essential. When I die, if it's worth anything, my family can sell or donate. I know of one major library that has been begging me for this stuff, but for complex reasons, it's not gonna happen soon.

This is going to be a NEW 31 CD survey of American song, 1900-1960 - with a book - called: TURN ME LOOSE WHITE MAN: OR: APPROPRIATING CULTURE: HOW TO LISTEN TO AMERICAN MUSIC 1900-1960 (it will be done by late spring 2020; I have been a little delayed by cancer treatments, but have written 20,000 words so far; song mastering is completed) The pre-order price includes the book and shipping, at $125 ($140 to Europe). This will hold until November 1. After that, and at publication, this will go up to $160 plus shipping - ($185 to Europe) my paypal is allenlowe5@gmail.com

I loved Herb; probably the biggest mensch I ever met in the biz.

well, for one thing, a few more marriages would have stayed intact.

sorry guys, really bad day yesterday. Kind of like a cloud-over-a-brick-hitting-my-head without stopping for about 12 hours. (though my heightened sensitivity is also related to recent posts about Allison Miller). Feeling a little better at 4 AM (now if I could only sleep....) -

Please stop with the usual crap that we're jealous because he's making money. Good for him, I don't care. The music is horrible. Roland Kirk was nothing like him. Every time I dislike a musician here it's inevitable - the charge that it's all professional jealousy. Well, I am doing just fine, thanks. Check my web site. Lots happening. I help lots of musicians, release lots of material, employ a lot of people, lecture, play, so leave me the hell alone with this crap. I am really no longer in the mood.

that's hardly your only choices.

I saw you at the LA show watching her watching the show. And the FBI was watching me watch you watch her watching the the show.

is there no one else whom Carter's playing drives crazy? He's the Rip Taylor of jazz. I wish I had half his chops, plus a large dose of musical taste.

I seem to have heard my name

ohhhhhhhhh; I am done. Thanks for that, Dan.

this is a discussion about very little. Musicians act up, yes it can be entertaining, but just as entertaining to other musicians. Big nothing, and there are reams of hypocrisy innvoled. I mean, Jo Jones was drunk for about 40 years. I watched them dry him out every year in the '70s at NYU hospital but he remained insane and raving and nasty and just plain mean. Comportment? He comported himself like a mad man. I remember Randy Weston one night complaining about how his generation lived "clean," and then someone whispering to me that he had so many kids with so many different women that even he wasn't sure who was who. Face it - private AND public lives are messy and it has nothing to do with Minstrel Show entertainment. Not if you've heard the locker room talk. Jazz and most of black music started out from a 'disreputable' place, and stayed there for a long time. The best music in the old days was made by junkies and drunks, and we know Miles was an abuser and sexual predator. Bud was a mess, Bird was a mess, Prez was a mess. Duvivier was a gentleman and great artist. There's all kinds. Al Haig was tried for murder, Tony Fruscella was a mess, Stan Getz made plays for the other musicians' wives when they were on tour. Keith Jarrett is an asshole with a vengeance, Art Blakey ripped everybody off, Bill Triglia called me 'jewboy' (he suffered from horrible PTSD; I still loved him). Julius Hemphill told me his life had been out of control, and by the time he made a move to put things together it was too late. It's all music. It's not nice, but it's life. As for a 'class thing,' most of the jazz players I knew, black and white, were essentially middle class. Race is a deal-breaker, however, and clouds everything. A famous producer told me once (in the '70s) that he had only known ONE jazz musician who was a "grownup," and this guy knew everybody.

she is....shockingly bad. Reminds me of a singer who turns up at a jam session who won't stop singing. Jim is too kind. She has no taste, no dynamics, doesn't understand rhythm, she just screams crap that occurs to her. As you can tell, I find her aggressively offensive.

There are some annoying things in this - the idea that I have shrugged off fame and recognition is silly, and this writer, a nice guy from Maine, apparently bought into the local myth that I was responsible for my problems up there (which included a nasty rumor that I falsified my musical resume - no Hemphill, Bluiett, Ribot, et al) - and I recently had strong pre-sales on my new book, so someone is reading my stuff - so, take it as you will: Allen Lowe: Jews & Roots (An Avant Garde of Our Own — Disconnected Works: 1980-2018) (ESP-Disk’) A review of the eight-disc set from the saxophonist/composer Published June 26, 2019June 26, 2019 – By Steve Greenlee The cover of Jews & Roots (An Avant Garde of Our Own — Disconnected Works: 1980-2018) by Allen Lowe Of all the people who’ve ever made jazz, Allen Lowe may be the hardest to figure out. He’s a frustrating genius who seems to disdain commercial success despite having all the skills to attain it. He’s a saxophonist, composer, musicologist, preservationist, historian, author, lecturer, and curmudgeon who writes obscure books that few people read and makes great, weird records that just about no one hears. He blends blues, bebop, avant-garde, free jazz, and punk rock into a wonderfully singular concoction; lures A-list musicians to help create it; and then issues it on multi-disc sets with titles like Jews in Hell. It’s as if every piece of art he makes is a middle finger to convention. Now, at age 65, he’s put out an eight-CD career-spanning survey called Jews & Roots—on ESP-Disk’, the home of Albert Ayler reissues and Sun Ra box sets, no less—that gathers his favorite moments from 40 years of a financially unrewarding career. Few people are going to buy this $75 set, and that’s too bad. Unlike much of what’s labeled avant-garde or “out jazz” these days, Lowe’s work is largely accessible. It’s melodic and rhythmic; you can tap your feet to it and hum its themes. But, as the collection’s subtitle suggests, there’s little connective tissue in the music presented here, and it doesn’t fit anyone’s preconception of what jazz should or shouldn’t be. It’s not traditional, and it’s not not traditional. For a guy who spent a good half of his career in bucolic but jazz-less South Portland, Maine, it’s hard to believe that Lowe was able to recruit the likes of Julius Hemphill, Doc Cheatham, Marc Ribot, David Murray, Hamiet Bluiett, Matthew Shipp (on a Farfisa organ!), and Roswell Rudd (who turns in a spectacular solo on “Louis’ Pennies” from a 1994 concert) to play his compositions. Yet he did—for a long time. Some of what’s documented here has been plucked from Lowe’s earlier records. Most of this, however, comprises new-ish and previously unissued material. There are garage tapes from 1980, Knitting Factory concert tracks from the ’90s, and home recordings from the past decade. Several long suites were laid down as recently as last year. And much of it is politically pointed or at least socially aware, with titles like “Black Brown and Beige, Yellow, Trans and Queer: My Country ’Tis of This” and “Hymn for the White Folks” (aimed squarely at Trump’s supporters). Musically it’s all over the map, with shades of Louis Armstrong’s earliest work, electric guitar-driven avant-garde, and everything in between—sometimes in the same song. At times his aesthetic is in line with Henry Threadgill; at others he seems to channel early Sun Ra. Then he throws a curveball and sounds like Nels Cline (who, of course, appears here). As you might expect from the set’s punning title, Mingus’ shadow hangs over a decent chunk of Jews & Roots. That’s especially true on the suites that constitute the fourth disc, whose music was written after the 2016 election and whose titles show it: “Fables of Fascism,” “Border Crossing.” Lowe dips into early West Coast jazz on tunes like “Strollin’ With Helen” and goes back further, to hot jazz and King Oliver territory, on “Rhythm Thing” and “Mental Strain at Dawn.” Then he leaps forward to atonal electric shredding on “Oh Molly Dear,” gets Twin Peaks-y on “Dark Was the Night – Cold Was the Ground,” serves up hard bop, dabbles in avant country jazz, and parodies “Walk on the Wild Side” on “Where’s Lou Reed.” His versatility comes to full fruition on the set’s first track, 1991’s “March of the Vipers,” which runs from skronk and Air-style avant-garde to New Orleans second-line. His liner notes are similarly wide-ranging—on one hand paying tribute to Jaki Byard, Mary Lou Williams, and an obscure cabaret singer; on the other taking swipes at his onetime collaborator Don Byron, Trump voters, and his former home state of Maine. But the most unexpected thing across these eight CDs? The tender and soulful tenor-sax reading he gives “Stars Fell on Alabama” (titled simply “Stars Fell” here) in a 1985 recording. It’s as sincere as it is beautiful.

be prepared for some blowback; well, maybe not here - but when I criticized McKenna - who I always found uninteresting - on Facebook I caught a lotta crap.

related to Moby?

I actually have that CD of Ellington which they put out, from maybe '35? That was recorded in stereo. I guess it was '32: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-06-30-8502120173-story.html

to me this doesn't sound like Trane speaking. Even if he thought it I don't think he would say it. Not that kind of guy,

problem is, we'll never know.....

I was playing a gig in Philadelphia in the early 1990s, a concert, with Jimmy Knepper, and my bass player didn't like a chord I'd written, thought the melodic line did not fit the harmony. We began having a friendly enough but slightly tense conversation about it. Jimmy leaned in, tongue-in-cheek, and said "what would Schoenberg say?" I look at him and said, 'the hell with Loren, this is MY piece." Jimmy laughed for about 10 minutes,

it was a very nice day; we talked about a lot of things, about jazz, Shelly Manne, Hampton Hawes, Stan Kenton, Dave Schildkraut. From time to time we would stop at an apartment building, he would run in, and come out fairly quickly. Finally he seemed ready and I took him back the hotel. We talked a little more, he gave me some record albums, thanked me for taking him around, and invited me for that night (The Jazz Workshop, I think). He played brilliantly that night (better, really, than on most recordings of the time); he even played a clarinet that someone handed him. End of night we shook hands, said goodbye. Last time I ever saw him. I really liked the guy, he was smart and funny; just not the most....settled or mature person I ever met.

you wouldn't need much - the book can be printed for under $1000. Bigger job would be hiring someone to retype and format the ms.

wasn't you, it was "I don't know if he was intentionally trying to pull a verbal sleight of hand but that's the effect." Veiled, but still an accusation.

I did spend a weird day with him, but mostly we drove around looking for drugs. But I do recall he was about my size, which is, as Larry says, between 5'7 and 5'8.

I happen to know Zev Feldman very well and he is not only ethical to a fault, but one of the nicest people on the planet. Maybe they have Organissimo blocked. this is why they won't respond. Jeez. Basically calling them liars from the get go, without any real info.