Allen Lowe

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Allen Lowe at the Pop Conference EMPSFM in Seattle 2010

Allen Lowe (born April 5, 1954 in Massapequa , Long Island ) is an American music historian, sound engineer, composer and musician ( tenor saxophone , guitar ).

Live and act

Lowe grew up on Long Island; a school friend was the saxophonist Phillip Johnston . As a teenager he played in various jazz and rock bands. He worked mainly outside the music scene, but was active as a music critic, author and taught jazz history, he also performed occasionally. It wasn't until 1983 that he decided to play his own music and began to compose for New York musicians such as Roswell Rudd , David Murray , Julius Hemphill , Marc Ribot , Matthew Shipp , Loren Schoenberg , Don Byron , Lewis Porter , Randy Sandke and Doc Cheatham . His Louis Armstrong tribute Mental Strain at Dawn with the Jack Purvis Memorial Orchestra , named after an early jazz trumpeter, was performed at the Knitting Factory . Lowe also worked as a sound engineer with the sound processing of historical recordings. He took over the mastering of Michael Feinstein's radio series on the music of George Gershwin ; He also edited the 9-CD box American Pop from Minstrel to Mojo: On Record, 1893-1946 . He also worked as a consultant for Ken Burns' television documentary Jazz . Under his own name he recorded a jazz adaptation of Georg Büchner's play Woyzeck for Enja . He is the author of That Devilin 'Tune , a book on the history of jazz from 1900 to 1950, which is coupled with an anthology of 36 CDs.

In 2011 Lowe presented his ambitious work Blues and the Empirical Truth on three CDs , the title of which refers to Oliver Nelson's The Blues and the Abstract Truth (1961), but in contrast to Nelson, " puts the blues in different contexts, explores its social and cultural origins, expanded on what grows out of Lowe's personal preferences, ideas and influences. a. Tributes to numerous individuals such as swing vocalist Doris Day , forgotten bebop saxophonist Dave Schildkraut , black pianist and composer Blind Tom Bethune , civil rights activists Pauli Murray and Ella Mae Wiggins .

Discographic notes

Albums under your own name

  • New Tango '92: After Astor Piazzolla (Or the Second Assassin) (Fairhaven, 1991)
  • Allen Lowe And The American Song Project Featuring Roswell Rudd - Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground ( Music & Arts Program of America , 1993)
  • Woyzeck's Death ( Enja , 1994) with Roswell Rudd
  • Jews in Hell - Radical Jewish Acculturation Or: All the Blues You Could Play by Now if Stanley Crouch Was Your Uncle Or: How I learned to Stop Worrying (Spaceout Records, 2007) with Marc Ribot, Erik McKeown, Matthew Shipp, Randy Sandke , Lewis Porter
  • Blues and the Empirical Truth (2011) with Roswell Rudd, Matthew Shipp, Marc Ribot
  • We Will Gather When We Gather (2015) with Hamiet Bluiett , Lou Grassi , Matt Lavelle , Kevin Ray, Jake Millett, Ras Moshe Burnett, Ava Mendoza

Albums as editor

  • American Pop: An Audio History - From Minstrel To Mojo: On Record, 1893-1946 (West Hill, 1998)
  • Minstrel to Mojo: An Audio History of American Popular Song, 1893 ~ 1946 (Music & Arts Program, 2000 - 9 CDS)
  • That Devilin 'Tune: A Jazz History 1895-1950 (West Hills Radio Archives, 2006 - 36CDs)
  • Really the blues? A Blues History 1893-1959 (Music & Arts Program, 2010 - 36 CDs)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Scott Albin: Review of Blues and the Empirical Truth ( Memento of December 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Jews in Hell - Radical Jewish Acculturation at All About Jazz (2007)
  3. ↑ Information at Discogs
personal data
SURNAME Lowe, Allen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician and music historian
DATE OF BIRTH April 5th 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Massapequa , Long Island , USA