AllenLowe

"The entire band left the country in tears." Now, does this mean they were crying when they left Japan? Or that they said something to upset the Japanese people, leaving throngs of weeping Asians in their wake - and was it some mean spirited reference to Pearl Harbour? I mean, this is quite hypocritical, especially since Shorter later played with an Austrian -

I checked Switchboard, and there are 20 John Bothwell's listed in the US - anybody feel like hitting the phones?

wait - how about saxophonists named Sonny: Rollins, Stitt, Criss, Simmons, Fox, Von Bulow -

Just to add to my previous - Roswell plays changes very well - Julius not as well, but he was still a transcendant player -

just to add to this, though I probably disagree with Williams in the big picture, he was on to something about "pure" folk sources - Bill Malone has pointed out, in a discussion of early country music, that the sources for a great deal of early country recordings were minstrel and pop music -

yow, what a disaster this book sounds like - and Mike is absolutely right - the old saying "when an elephant flys you don't worry about how long he stays up" does NOT apply here, just because we're grateful that there's a book on Wayne Shorter in circulation. This does continue the sad Santoro/Gourse line of jazz bio - glad someone mentioned Sanotoro's Mingus book, as that is THE WORST book ever written by a jazz critic with a good reputation -

Well, Chuck, great minds think alike - but all seriousness aside...(as Steve Allen used to say) - this rules thing is frought with danger - Dave Schildkraut told me something that I found to be one of the most illuminating quotes I've ever heard re-jazz, though it may be mostly for personal reasons. He told me that Joe Henderson said to him: "I never felt I could really play jazz when there was only bebop - but after Coltrane I knew that there was a place for me." Now here's a guy (Henderson) who had no lack of the musical fundamentals, no shortage of knowledge of the rules - and yet even he felt constrained by the conventions of the dominant post-war music, bebop, to the point of feeling that he could not even really play jazz until he heard another musician (Coltrane) who felt no such constraints. Personally, as a saxophonist, this has always been an issue for me - I know how to play changes but I don't feel I am at my best in the standard format. And yet, if I concentrate on music that is more open I sometimes feel like I am cheating, perhaps because of my original exposure to the music of chords and song. Internally I know this is nonsense, but it's very hard to discard this kind of conditioning - especially since I have known a fair amount of "free" players who, musically speaking, did not know their ass from their elbow (including one fairly famous free drummer who could not keep a steady 4-beat, try as he might). On the other hand, I have performed in public with both Julius Hemphill and Roswell Rudd, and felt as though the stage was about to levitate -

"Im not sure about Buddy Bolden" - well, ask Wynton Marsalis - from what I could tell on the documentary, the two were quite close -

Sorry to be so slow to respond - 1) I think American Pop is a good intro to my work, but that actually Devilin Tune is better from a jazz perspective - both can be ordered from Cadence - 2) Wondrich is smart but a bit jivey - makes a fair amount of mistakes, writes in a way that personally I find, from a stylistic standpoint, a bit tired - I have not, however, completely read his book but only browsed through it - it does appear, I will say, immodestly, to lift some things from my own work -

Re-Endgame and Schildkraut - 1) thanks for the clarification. I actually think the sound is very decent on the Shildkraut - I recorded it on an old cassette machine and than re-mastered digitally; of course there were many limitations with the original - it certainly sounds as good as a lot of old boots, and actually probably better - only had a single microphone, placed on a speaker through which the alto was playing - also recorded 1979 - more important is that Dave was a genius; I personally regard him as one of the two or three greatest modern alto players ever - in separate conversations that I had with them, Dizzy Gillespie, Jackie Mclean, Bill Evans, and Stan Getz agreed. 2) Engame is a label that was born and died within the space of about 6 months. A long story with some legal isues, I did the mastering for the Japanese market, spent a fair amount of money, and than had my Japanese contact back out - lost a lot of money but made it back in about 3 years, fortunately. The other releases were Art Pepper (which had to be officially withdrawn because my source lied about the rights), Warne Marsh (VERY bad sound quality but still interesting) and Zoot Sims (also, I find out, questionable) - at this point I am just unloading them at cut-out prices through ebay -

wanted to add - Porter Kilbert -

I like Bothwell, and have a nice LP with notes, I think, by Dan Morgenstern -

well - I produced and released that Schildkraut CD - I recorded it live in New Haven 1979 - I think he plays quite brilliantly - I'm willing, in the interests of argument, to send it to anyone here for cost and let them judge for themselves - assuming this does not violate any commercial rules here - let me know if you are interested -

Matisse - I think I remember that guy - was doing time for bank robbery - he and Gary were lovers -

"Though in some ways I find it even more enigmatic how pre-modernist music has become less strange with the passage of time, rather than more so. " I'm not sure about this - I listen to a lot of 1920s hillbiully music, and I find that people consider it weird beyond weird - in a way it's so old it's new -

actually, Gary and I shared a prison cell together at Attica in 'the '60s. During the uprising he insisted on using me as a shield - which is why I never fail to set off the metal detector at the airport -

hey - just wondering and don't want to start a political firestorm - is it true Ellis was a Republican? If so, I find this somewhat amusing, given his acceptance of 1960s hip trappings - (by the way I think he was a great trumpeter, so don't yell at me) -

Rottweiler or dachshund? (I didn't want to say anything, but that might explain the odd baby pictures I found in your wallet) -

Gary is an old friend of mine - we used to take baths together, as his mother and my mother were cousins - actually, his mother was married to her cousin, but that's another story. When we were 6 years old he poked a sharp stick into my eye, blinding me but making it much easier for me to beg pennies on the streeets of Atlanta - though having grown up in NYC I'm not really sure how I got there(Gary did walk me to the subway one morning, and I did wonder why they kept saying: "train to Atlanta") -

I'm with Nate on this - one problem, of course, is that to say "avant garde" is to refer to so many different players and styles that it's difficult to generalize in an accurate way - but Nate's analysis is perfect. I would add that avant gardists, like modernists in any form (literature, theater, film) are trying to replace outmoded gestures and worn out forms, to substitute the new for the easily identifiable and thus predictable cadences of an older way of creating. Audiences tend to prefer that with which they are already familiar. But forms like music will die if they are not constantly renewed - the other thing to realize is that even much more conservative jazz musicians are positively efected by the avant garde, borrowing its techniques and certain means of its expression for their own much more conventional purposes.

I was conected to Crumb by Harvey Pekar, who loved my jazz history, but nothing ever came of it - and Pekar himself is completely uncommunicative these days - I think he's upset that he's gotten so famous and thinks everyone wants something from him - I admire some of what Tosches has done but I find too much flash there, less substance at the core than I would like - I would have to buy the Emmett Miller book again and do some itemization about errors, etc, but unfortunately can't do it now. It's a good idea, though. I like Fahey more for his conception and ambition than execution - I keep thinking, when listening to him, that I wish there was just a little bit more there - but honestly it's been some time since I listened closely -

Wel, a lot to respond to , but I'll do my best - honestly I don't like Tosches, too flashy, not enough real knowledge, but we'll have to agree to discagree here, as with Francis - I have had very little mainstream success with getting published, and some downright rotten luck: First book, American Pop, published by Cadence, good, honest people but little distribution. Second book, That Devilin Tune published 2002 by Music and Arts and than frozen in time - delays in getting out the boxed CD set that is supposed to accompany it (I spent nearly 2 years mastering that sucker), but I am told they are finally getting ready to put the whole package together. I certainly hope so but am worried about the condition of mastering CDRs that are almost three years old. 1 Third Book - Jazz of the 1950s: Sheldon Meyer was very interested in it at Oxford, but it got turned down in peer review, including rejection by one reviewer who advised that he was mentioned prominently in the book - I yelled and howled to the editor (a complete idiot)that this was a conflict of interest, got a nice, shit-filled twinky of a letter from the head of the press, but no book. The editor was fired right after this. My bad luck. I think I have a publisher now, but will know more in a few months. Still editing and re-writing. Last book- history of rock and roll 1950-1970 - nasty rejection by U of Illinois - Burton Peretti, I found out, was one of the reviewers - I responded to these guys who reviewed it, but I got a sense that 1) they had political problems with the book and 2) they knew and did not like my prior work. Politically I deal very honestly and forthrightly with racial issues and I admire the music on its own terms, not as "whitewashed" r&B, which is the prevailing academic attitude. I was previously advised by U California that the work would be politically unacceptable to their board, and by the editor of U North Carolina that I was full of shit. I tended to disagree. I have found a small publisher for 2006 and they will include a CD with the book that I will master - so as you can see I have not had a lot of luck - DaCapo has turned down every one of these books, Routledge has turned down the last two. I feel like I've done some important work, but it's getting harder and harder to justify the time spent on these projects -

JSNGRY: RE- Bobby Short - he drove me a little crazy at first - but as I did more research into the hisotry of American song, he began to sound much more within the tradition to me - not that that necessarily is a good thing, but I began to acquire a taste for his style, which fell anywhere from vaudeville to early pop - I found his means of expression to be quite deep and satisfyingly broad in its references - hope this helps -

Iwas actually, initially, thinking of the first post-Parker generation, the guys who felt the most immediate influence, but the more the merrier. And yes, Strozier is black -

Sudhalter - loaded question - extremely knowledgeable guy with a racial chip on his shoulder - has spent too much time arguing, in my opinion, that both whites and blacks are equally responsible for the origins of jazz. I think that opinion is indefensible and has occured to him because he knows next to nothing about the 19th century and developments prior to jazz. Still, I like Lost Chords and think he has made worthy attempts to revive the reputatrions of musicans like Miff Mole, Jack Purvis, et al, musicians whom I admire hugely and who, indeed, I feel have been neglected out of a misguided type of critical liberalism. But stll...I think he doth protesteth too much; lost chords has, as well, some silly critical brickbats aimed at specific black musicians which I feel can be interpreted as racist - to get more detail I'll need some time to go through my copy... Tosches is interesting and I believe is a good writer whose historical knowledge has some unfortunate gaps. There are historical probelms in Country, and I found his Emmett Miller book riddled with errors or questionable statements - once again I can't give citations right now, and I hate to make this a kind of hit-and-run criticism - I no longer have my copy of the Emmett Miller book, however, as it annoyed me so much I returned it. I think Tosches does have a tendency to over-inflate his opinions -