AllenLowe

Good idea - but it's probably on a tape somewhere - I'm sorry to say I never transcribed it - DOH!

Yow - this is mind boggling - how do you guys keep track of this stuff? What happened to the good old days when a song was a song and a composer credit was a composer credit (like that Irving Mills, who wrote so many of our favorites) -

I have to dissent somewhat - the later stuff is great but the best is from the 1930s, with small group, as leader, sideman - "I Ain't Lazy I'm Just Dreamin" has a collossal solo, and I think his playing in these years reached a peak; hear his work as sideman with Benny Goodman - or "Two Tix To Georgia" with Ben Pollack, 1933; with his own group: "Planation Moods," from 1933 - don't worry about recording quality, this is important music - advanced, soulful and timeless -

It's a funny thing about musicians and their attachments to horns - many years ago I was working on a book project and wrangled an interview with Sonny Rollins - Sonny is a nice guy, but it's sometimes difficult to get him to open up. Somehow the talk came around to the subject of differnt kinds of saxophones, Selmers, Conns, Buescher, King, et al - and Sonny lit up - fascinating conversation, if completely un-related to the topic I came to speak with him about, and completely un-useable for my book -

The Naked Lady Conn alto was sometimes known as the Charlie Parker model - Bird played one for a while - it had a tuning apparatus near the mouthpiece - best alto I ever played -

Glad to hear Rudy Williams' name come up here - plays well on those Tad Dameron broadcasts, and I've heard some things from 1939 (When I Grow too Old to Dream) which definitely predict Bird - he also plays well on some Savoyy/Howard McGhee sides -

It's great to look at that horn. Conns have great sound, if difficult action. It's no exaggeration to say that the older horns sounded different - many required less pressure to blow, which is related to the older sound - other horns like Martins have much better action and a similar, dark sound - I love'em and will play nothing but. Yamahas sound like Kazoos -

I'm not a big fan of Kelley's work - he really doesn't, from what I've seen, know or understand very much about jazz (anyone ever read his article about Miles as sartorial model for pimps?) He's a guy who has latched onto jazz as an aspect of "cultural studies," and made a career of it, who loves to talk about a lot of sociology, but who really has next to no knowledge of the actual music. Just my opinion -

there's actually an old Twilight Zone in which an old codger, whose mind lives in the past, turns on his radio and gets old big band broadcasts, like TOmmy Dorsey - the old guy was played by Dean Jagger, as I recall -

"A somewhat complicated idea (with no sound evidence) for a book... " Not sure what this means - can you explain? My only other comment would be that if Robin DG Kelley liked his other book, than I'm already wary...

I don't think anyone's mentioned it here, and I was reminded by "sidewinder," but Barry has said that he wrote the riff upon which Lee Morgan's big hit Sidewinder was based - and never got credit or any dough. I believe him as 1) Barry is not the kind of guy to brag about stuff he didn't do and 2) it actually sounds like one of his phrases; he's a great writer with a knack for catchy little riffs -

Francis's recent things for the Voice have been hampered by a lack of space, but that's something that, unfortunately, he does not have control of. No one's an an expert on everything, but Francis has an impressive range. He just, to me, knows how to get to the essence of music and its effects, and is a terrific WRITER as well. His book on the history of the blues was quite good, filled with his typically astute observations, and an ability to contextualize in a way that's decidedly and thankfully un-academic. Now, Gary's not my favorite person, and I think he's slept through much of the last 20 tears, musically speaking, but some of his writings (collected in Rhythming and Riding on a Blues Note, Face in the Crowd, plus this new one) can stand the test of time; good writing, keen observations, a true and deep understanding of the music (though he does occasionally try to show off, and than makes musical/technical mistakes). I don't like him, and he's vindictive and unforgiving, but that's his problem, not mine.

Oh, what the hell, I'll tell theGiddins story - when my book American Pop came out Giddins gave it a lukewarm review, which of course I didn't enjoy reading, but that's life - what bothered me, however, is that he was clearly basing his book review not on the book but the liner notes, which were a distillation of the book, but which contained about two thirds of what was in the book. So he made some comments/crticisms in his review which indicated that I hadn't mentioned this, and I hadn't mentioned that - things which, however, were in the book but not the liner notes. In one of these he said that, in discussing James Reese Europe, I failed to note the Reid Badger bio of Europe. Well, the Badger book was mentioned in my bibliography and in a foot note (and we're talking about a passage, in my book, of approximately 200 words). He also said I had no discography. Well, I did have a discography, it was just not as detailed as he might have liked, but that's also life. He also said I was "typical" in that I related everything in the book to the origin of rock and roll, which, as anyone who has actually read the book knows, is utter nonsense.So I wrote a letter to the Village Voice pointing these things out. Giddins response, vis a ve the Europe credit, was that this was typical of me and Amercan Pop: taking the works of others and passing them off as my own. He basically called me a plagiarist, which make me livid, as I have NEVER taken the credit for anyone else's work. I honestly considered suing the SOB (or, actually, the Voice), but of course that never came to anything. The only revenge I had was that Giddins, in the meantime, had become good friends with my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law happened to mention our relationship, and Giddins was, from what I heard, quite embarassed -

Just per some other comments here: Giiddins and Frances Davis don't need me to defend them but the two of them have written some of the best jazz criticism of the 20th century (for full disclosure: Frances is a friend of mine; Giddins doesn't like me at all). Of the two I think Frances has the edge for depth and breadth, but I've learned a lot from both. The only other (jazz) critics I know who are in their league are Larry Kart, Dan Morgenstern, and Larry Gushee, and I am not exaggerating, over-stating or under-stating (when it comes to jazz criticism I have, almost quite literally, read it all). Lou Reed is a mixed thing for me; post-1970 he is a well of medicorty; pre-1970 he did some of the most interesting and revolutionary work in rock and roll (and no, that's not a contradiction in terms).

Per Larry's post, there may be a bit of passive-aggessiveness to his Times review, some payback, as I know that Dan has expressed reservations about Appel's book - I don't know for certain, however, if Appel is aware of this -

Lewis is a friend of mine, so let that be a disclaimer to objectivity, but I've found his work to be consistently first rate. Mike Fitgerald know about how often I've railed agains academics on the Jazz Resarch line - Lew is to me what an academic SHOULD be - knowledgeable about the subject in a technical, research, and real- life way - and his work reflects this, particularly his book on Coltrane. the Lester Young reader is a great book as well -

Some of my best friends are lesbians - but I wouldn't want my sister to marry one - (didn't Dick Cheney's OTHER daughter say that?)

Per Dan, let's not forget that Benny Carter payed trumpet as well - and personally I have to admit I like his trumpet playing better than his alto playing. But that''s another thread... just to add a little bit to this discussion, there seems to be a sense of Pepper as somewhat detached from what he is playing - and to me, this is one of the things that makes him great, no irony intended. There is a certain modernist perspective that I call the "impersonal I" - it has to do with first person representations of the self that go deeper than the typical literary realist approach - without getting too literary here (Larry knows this stuff much beter than I do anyway) I think such an approach has more depth and feeling than the typical heart-on-sleeve style of creation. This, to me, is one of the things that makes the earlier Pepper so incredible to listen to. It is, as has been indicated, as though he is standing to one side and watching himself play. This makes his playing, bith technically and emotionally, extremely fresh to me. In his comeback years he is too aware iof himself, calls himself a genius, and seems to be acting as though he has missed some jazz developments. I find his attempts to "catch up" as largely self defeating and pointless -

Wait - Dizzy was gay? What did I miss here? Well, as long as he stayed away from goats...

When I heard Pepper in person in the midddle 1970s I loved his playing, unselfconscious and intense - but almost everything I've heard on record of him after this comeback strikes me as too selfconcious, trying too hard to be "contemporary" (and Art was definitely worried about being left behind by the whole array of post-Coltrane-ites; he indicated this indirectly in an interview I did with him at the time). He wanted to play "outside" sometimes, but didn't really know how to do so. When he just decided to play, no b.s., he could be wonderful - at other times he strikes me as thinking too much, as trying to determine how he can be "relevant" (to use a really annoying 60's term) to the music - and I must admit I find the Vanguard ballads to be simply too much and too maudlin - personally Pepper was a brilliant musician with the temperment and maturity of a 12 year old - I say this from having spent one very long and interesting day with him and Laurie when I was working for a Boston jazz publication - nice guy but a classic junkie, self-obsessed if musically brilliant; I think the later music particularly reflects this lack of real self knowledge, if I may be pardoned for a bit of amateur psychoanalysis -

There's an Ada Brown who recorded with Bennie Moten - great singer -

I believe there has been some question of the legality of the CDs issued of the old Xanadus, but you'll have to ask Don Schlitten about that (he's listed in the Bronx, or was last time I checked). Some of the best stuff, for me, on Xanadu, were the various Hampton Hawes "live" recordings, which showed a much different Hawes than the one on most of the Contemporary Issues, IMHO. On the Contemporarys he always sounded rather mechanical to me - the Xanadus established, to me, what a truly great pianist he could be. He's on some with his trio, also on a great Wardell Gray - and I think he's on the OTHER side of that Paul Chambers, if I am recalling correctly -

I'm proud to say that I wrote the first profile on Barry ever to appear in Downbeat - sometime in the late 1970s. I was shocked that they'd never given him any real space - and I'm proud not because of anything special I did but because Barry was still struggling than, and it was about time he was recognized - he shows how, with feeling and study, bebop can still be a living musical language. He is one of the most profound pianists I've ever listened to -

just to add a little bit of jazz lore - according to Curley Russell, Dizzy cut Calloway on the butt because it's a spot that takes forever to heal - it's like a cut on your palm, or any place that does a lot of bending -

come on Chuck, now we HAVE TO HEAR WHAT HAPPENED!