AllenLowe

Maceo Parker.

I honestly think this session is a major disappointment, though not a major surprise.

my feeling is that Webster at this point was all breath.

Roswell Rudd told me that Shepp is so famous in France that people were naming their babies after him.

Muriel Winston is actually pretty good - and she sounds more than a little bit like Abbey Lincoln. And that one track above by Hassan is extraordinary - and shows a very surprising Lenny Tristano influence.

I have read it, very nice piece. The ONLY thing I would suggest is that, even after all of these years, there is a somewhat misguided sense of Armstrong's importance as a great innovator of melody and rhythm - which he was; but I think his innovations, especially in the early years - 1925-1940 - are much more radically modernist, as I have posted before. He was, accidentally or not, exactly in tune with the new modernism of Dada, of Joyce, of new theater like King Ubu. His was a radical restructuring of traditional and recognizable elements, ingenious reordered so that the effect was of something both strange and familiar at the same time -

Ethan peruses this site regularly, and then gets mad when I don't defend him. So in case he is watching, let me say I intend to read this article and enjoy it, whether I like it or not.

I have no problem saying that, based on this one recording, Sleet (a druggie who died of cancer in 1986) is one of the best trumpeters I have ever heard. I have no idea how I missed this guy:

I figured my opinion would be counter to the general sense of things here; but I will tell you, listen to his 1964 recording of the album Now's the Time, and think about whether anything he has done in the last 40 years even comes close to what he was doing back then. I think it's a huge loss for jazz; on the other hand, he wouldn't be the first artist who did unbelievably important work, and then stalled out. Think Ralph Ellison, for one. It doesn't alter Sonny's legacy, which is gargantuan.

I have to confess, I remastered that for a Japanese label which then refused it, so I put it out myself. Interesting CD.

we should note that Sonny Rollins himself fired Jim Hall for this same reason, as he was under pressure in the 1960s not to have whites in his band.

I am very interested but I have a feeling Sonny still holds almost everything back. The most insightful thing I have ever heard about him was about 30 years ago from Jamil Nasser who said that Sonny early eccentricities - the bridge, the mohawk, the sabbiticals - were expressed when Coltrane ascended and really usurped Sonny's tenor dominance. Jamil felt that all of this was just a way of his trying to reassert his popularity, that it was random, aimless, and somewhat pointless. I tend to agree, to whit: right after this time he did his best playing ever, some of the best playing in the history of jazz (say, 1962-1968) before turning to what I would call (and this is not a popular opinion) an over-ripe, neo-pop style with a newly-dominant (and noisy) rhythm section, culminating in years and years of good but unfocused playing. At this point (yes, in my personal opinion) he just decided he was going to be popular, and though there were real, live sparks of what he could do, his body of work just ended up as - a body of work, inconsistent, crowded with empty performances (of both his and the band's). There is almost a weirdly disturbing hint of distorted ego in all of this, and I remember being really disgusted with his interivews in that movie (G-Man?) where, along with Lucille, everything seems almost totally self directed. And the rest was a kind of sordid artistic journey from nowhere to nothing. Sorry, that's how I feel. Sonny is one of the most important American artists of the 20th century, and genuinely nice guy to boot, and personally he has had a dominating effect on my own playing and musical approach; but he could still have been wildly popular and made plenty of money if he had learned how to be dispassionately self-critical (instead of doing so in a more radically self-rejecting way, as indicated by one passage I saw quoted). He has/had the right to do otherwise, and more power to him, but it doesn't mean we cannot evaluate his work realistically. So....I guess what I am saying is that I would be interested in the notebooks if they reflect a real inside look instead of one that, under the guise of telling all, is really still very sanitized, even if in a way that is deep and very carefully encoded.

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/wp-content/files_mf/1353950503Mailer_WhiteNegro.pdf

Pepper made frequent comments about his whiteness, many of them indicating a strong personal sensitivity at being considered less "authentic" because of his race. Absolutely, but not necessarily for the better.

I have gone through five stages with later Art Pepper: 1) I met and spent time with him when he came to Boston on his comeback tour, loved the guy, escorted him around town, and thought he was fantastic that night, though I noticed some oddness to his playing. He gave me a few copies of his current LPs which took me to 2) being frustrated with the recordings. He seemed to be working too hard to sound "contemporary" in a sort of post-early Coltrane way. A lot of stops and starts that just were dull in their ineffective tonal tangents. A "scream" here, a pounded note there, as though he was telling people "yes I have heard jazz in the last 20 years and here is my interpretation." But he was always best when he changed back to his linear style which, as with that night in Boston, had intensified and focused itself in profound ways. But it never lasted; I could not listen to these LPs, which bored and frustrated me; so 3) I stopped listening. There was just too much wrong with his current approach, which had substituted a kind of emotional self-expose while losing the true intensity of linear development. It was raw but it was not really revealing or indicative of any true artistic epiphany, but then.... 4) Some years later I went back and started listening again, to the Vanguard CDs, another with Duke Jordan, and I heard moments of real personal revelation, so I started listening again, enjoying myself until.... 5) His personal history and artistic mis-advantures just started to repeat themselves; blues cliches substituting for real expression (and I do wonder if some of his personal racial self consciousness was starting to act in artistically self destructive ways), the same retreat into false tonal and harmonic exploration, just a weird kind of near-narcissistic emotional self-abuse. And now listening to a clip from one of these sessions, I feel like I cannot listen any more.

Nadien is a terrific drummer; I will be recording with him in January. Very curious as to who the weak link was (older dude). It wasn't me.

sounds great. As this is Organissimo, I doubt a lot of members will show up (actually one showed up at our Kingston gig, which was really nice). Would be there if I could.

Sounds more like Shrinking Ears. With some exceptions, they are really stuck in a rut, as is most of what we used to call the "New Music" scene. Jon Batiste? Is he going to do one of his awful pop things?

they don't discuss any of his groups in the '80s or '90s except M'Boom. And there are other errors, which didn't hurt my appreciation of the documentary, but which were significant and a bit shocking. The worst being that there is no real explanation of WHY his style was so revolutionary and important.

I am watching it gradually; on October 22 my quartet will be performing after a showing in New Haven. I will also, on that night, be co-moderating a panel on the film (the filmmaker will be there) - So far, about one-third through, two things are bothering me - no mention of Jo Jones, who Max idolized, and, in the post-tragedy atmosphere of Clfford Brown's death, no mention of Bird's death just the year before. This must have had a huge impact on Roach - the two in near-tandem - and I know from the old beboppers I knew that Bird's death was cataclysmic for a generation of players who not only loved him but who were extremely dependent on his presence and creativity. From what I know, some were sent into a real personal tailspin, and I cannot imagine that the two deaths - not just the one, as the documentary mentions - were a terrible blow for him.

Max, as Dan Morgenstern told me years ago "had psychological problems." In the early days he beat up people. Bill Triglia told me if he was walking down the street and saw Roach coming, he would cross the street rather than be shaken down for cash. And, Max did beat up Abbey Lincoln. Though from what I know he changed; when I met him he was just a very easy-going, nice person (we had a nice conversation about Dave Tough). Musically-speaking, post-70s Max is a slog, at least for me. I think he lost his swing in his attempts to be "contemporary," and that last band with Pope and Bridgewater was deadly dull, to my ears. Max's playing was just like a hammer in those last years, and it swung as much. I admire his attempt to try, but he should have stayed with his original concept, which was contemporary as anything; steely, rock-like sound, and incredibly swinging. Not as earth-bound.

actually we don't say Quadrophonic any more. It's now "Sys Audio x 4". It's for listeners seeking a safe space, away from Jazz Sonic Micro Aggression.

oh; hmmmm. Maybe I read that one. I will say that there's a lot I don't remember about that time (had just finished chemo and radiation for the first time, was sleeping for about an hour at a time, lost about 40 pounds and didn't eat solid food for two months). But I have no memory of that. I wonder where I put that book.

I haven't read that one, but you can't go wrong with his stuff.

I apologize for not going into greater detail, as I am in the middle of two insanely complicated projects right now, but to your question about polyphony - it might be related to the very unified independence of African rhythms, the way in which they divert and then return to the pocket. But truthfully, African music is not an area I know enough about to speak definitively. I would refer you to the writings of Gerald Kubik, who has written spectacularly on this and other related topics. I hope to do this in my Black Country project, though I did write about that a bit (I think) in Turn Me Loose White Man,