Wassup Bluesky? (I'm hep) For me the action's over on Substack, where I post like a rabbit in heat.
Here's my latest on what I believe are the TRUE origins of rock and roll.
allenlowe.substack.com/p/part-1-too...
well, it's complicated. Country music, contrary to what people are saying, was as white as it was black (the Scotch-Irish tradition). It had many white, indigenous creators. But just about everything else here - in the vernacular - was essentially black.
I disagree with Mr. Dixon, because the blues grew from many things; it is more effect than cause.
who are the imitators? Just curious.
I am starting a new "feed" on American music of the 20th and 21st century. Nothing is off topic. But no drooling.
Some people refer to their "taste in music."
I think of it as my "musical distaste."
Jazz is not improvisation Part 3:
JR Europe swings even though early on (1913) there is no improvisation. I would argue that it qualifies as jazz, as does the work of some other early players, including those who "planned" their solos ahead of time (and this was often done in Ellington's Band).
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Jazz is not improvisation, Part 2:
Jazz in this way is as much a matter of tonality, timbre, time and attitude of expression. We might argue that some of this is improvisation, but I think, in its early years, the musical evolution of jazz is more complicated than that.; look at James Reese Europe.
I think that the conventional wisdom is that jazz is improvisation is false.
Part 1:
Larry Gushee, in his book on The Creole Band, has show this to be a misconception. There is a lot of early jazz that is more rhythmic paraphrase and displacement than improvisation in the accepted, defined sense.
thanks I am just start to get going on Blue-Ski (as I call it).
When jazz players try to be "funky" they tend to just play blues cliches with rock and roll rhythms that sound like drum machines. I have a new Avant Roots Trio, and I am arrogant enough to think I know how it should be done: (Ethan Kogan Colson Jimenez and me)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMkW...
It's Black History Month and, no matter what Nicholas Payton tells you, our general knowledge of BAM is sad and limited. I have been writing about this music for 40 years, and the first thing to understand is that Black Music is more than tblues, it's minstrel pop songs, vaudeville tunes, and more.
I am finding ageism in jazz to be pervasive. Though I have done well, generally, with the critics, there is still a core who ignore me and whose columns read like publicist handouts. And the Artist In Residence at this year's Winterfest in NYC sounds like a Smooth Jazzer. We are losing the art form.
So, a publicist said about me, recently, on Substack:
"How do you say all these things and not get canceled?"
I tried to remind him about the First Amendment, but apparently he thinks I am a Federal Employee and so should be canceled.
hey I almost forgot about this place.
I am finding the jazz world, these days, to be a narrow one, narrowed by age, race, demographics, publicist demands, and critical acquiescence. Hence my latest substack column
substack.com/home/post/p-...
but I will try.
300 character limit for Bluesky? I may not be able to do this place.
In the post-modern sense, history has to be absorbed to the extent that it is not second nature but nature itself. It just comes out in your composing and performing. But jazz history goes deeper than is commonly understood, and the music suffers for it.
It may end up as a substack thing, but the essence is that most jazz musicians (yes, IMHO) have lost a true sense of history, as something that doesn't mean re-creation or glib musical reference.
What is wrong with jazz? A few things, I would say, and I am working on a post called Jazz and the Protocols of Post Modernism.
the one to see is The Producers. His best, and possibly the funniest film ever made.
one of my Substack posts on the frustrations of living in the current jazz world:
allenlowe.substack.com/p/beware-the...
not really a jazz piece....
sorry Russ, just testing here to see if my post takes. Though I love Bunky Green
Might as well plug myself. Louis Armstrong has a spate of good reviews, made a few top CDs of the year list; #20 in the Francis Davis Poll (out of 60); and more, which I will quote in the coming days.
greetings
hi Samm -
so this is Bluesky? I am trying to fight my way back onto social media after some strange and unfathomable issues with Facebook. I am very active over on Substack, though I miss the old give-and-take. So I will ease on over here.
