Nate Chinen's WBGO obit for poet Steve Dalachinsky

[ghost of miles]

Steve Dalanchinsky, poet who chronicled and championed jazz avant-garde, dies at 72

[Steve Reynolds]

I’ll miss him. I’ve been sad all week since hearing this. I’m sure he would have been at the show I’m going to tonight. We had a nice rapport and he treated my wife like a princess when she came to shows with me. She referred to him as the Mayor. 

[clifford_thornton]

He was the best. Really gutted by his sudden departure.

[Rabshakeh]

Just come across this series of still photos from his 60th celebration at Tonic. 

https://downtownmusic.net/steve-dalachinsky-60th-birthday-celebration-09-24-2006#image207

It was a paid entry event in theory but I don't think anyone except for me and my friend (another Londoner who was living in New York at the time) had paid. Everyone else knew everyone else.

I've been wondering who I saw for years (I, a callow youth, was into jazz, but didn't know as many people as I do now). For years I believed Charles Gayle and Paul Flaherty played, but apparently not (it seems that Paul Flaherty was in fact Earl Howard). Equally, apparently I saw Sabir Mateen, Assif Tsahar and Roy Campbell, who I must not have known, and don't remember at all. The big draw for me in those days was Matthew Shipp, who'd blown me away when I'd seen him play live a year or so earlier at the now defunct Red Rose on the Holloway Road. I remember Daniel Carter making a big impression.

Crazy to think this was nearly two decades ago.

I'm currently reading Dalachinsky's French poems.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Rabshakeh

[mjazzg]

7 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

Just come across this series of still photos from his 60th celebration at Tonic. 

https://downtownmusic.net/steve-dalachinsky-60th-birthday-celebration-09-24-2006#image207

It was a paid entry event in theory but I don't think anyone except for me and my friend (another Londoner who was living in New York at the time) had paid. Everyone else knew everyone else.

I've been wondering who I saw for years (I, a callow youth, was into jazz, but didn't know as many people as I do now). For years I believed Charles Gayle and Paul Flaherty played, but apparently not (it seems that Paul Flaherty was in fact Earl Howard). Equally, apparently I saw Sabir Mateen, Assif Tsahar and Roy Campbell, who I must not have known, and don't remember at all. The big draw for me in those days was Matthew Shipp, who'd blown me away when I'd seen him play live a year or so earlier at the now defunct Red Rose on the Holloway Road. I remember Daniel Carter making a big impression.

Crazy to think this was nearly two decades ago.

I'm currently reading Dalachinsky's French poems.

I was at the Shipp Red Rose gig, great evening.

Needless to say I wasn't at the Dalaschinsky but it sounds like an impressive event 

[Rabshakeh]

29 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

I was at the Shipp Red Rose gig, great evening

I remember the sweat dripping off the walls. I miss that place.

[mjazzg]

13 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

I remember the sweat dripping off the walls. I miss that place.

Yeah, it was stifling. Also miss the Red Rose, some great gigs and also union meetings attended there

[paulfromcamden]

I only met Steve a couple of times - I think first when he was performing his Insomnia Poems at at Cafe Oto.

He inscribed a copy of his Evan Parker poems for me ("I don't normally do this but...") which I treasure.

A really really nice guy - within ten minutes of chatting instantly your new best mate. I was very sad to hear of his passing just a few months later.