Harry Allen - Sublime Sound

[Nefertiti]

I guess because playing well implies making it your life, and that means making it your living...

What's that have to do with making music a competition sport...........you lost me.

[paulwl]

It's competitive as hell making it your living. Sport...ok, I don't know.

[Nefertiti]

It's competitive as hell making it your living. Sport...ok, I don't know.

Yes, it can be but I get a sense that many of the guys out there are just following their passion and vision. If it was all about making a living they would all be trying to play Kenny G type music. I see these amazing players playing in clubs with 10 people in them and playing their hearts out. I think the bread would be nice but most of these guys are just following their passion and hoping the bread follows.

[paulwl]

OK, but what if your passion is just to kick everyone else's a?

[jgreiner]

OK, but what if your passion is just to kick everyone else's a?

If that's the case, the only thing you'll probably accomplish is getting your own arse kicked. That, plus asking "would you like paper or plastic" during your main gig.

Of course, your mileage may vary.....
John

[Nefertiti]

OK, but what if your passion is just to kick everyone else's a?

Hey, their passion might well be that but you know what......at their funeral what people might come will say "That guy was a killer sax player but what an a**!" That's not what life is about. It's not who you can burn, it's about what positive impact you can have on the world. (and by world I mean whatever person you are interacting with whether it be on SOTW or on a gig or on the subway.........)

[paulwl]

Well, positive impact is what they'll remember when you're gone...but competitiveness is all that will keep you alive and relevant until then. I spent 18 years in New York, but I didn't have the stomach to keep up with the pace, so I got passed by. I only stayed on because I couldn't imagine it would be any better elsewhere.

[rleitch]

why make music a competition sport.

I'd say there's mansions aplenty for that too!

For some musicians--I'm thinking of the blues great Little Walter, for instance--a kind of vicious, cut-throat, dog-eat-dog competiton for money and status was really all music was. That's how he experienced it, but of course his experience only defined it for him (and to some extent the people he played/lived with).

[JJ]

We had the pleasure to have a Harry Allen visit in Copenhagen in March. Never heard him live before. What a great player!



And a great band also btw.

[rleitch]

Hey, their passion might well be that but you know what......at their funeral what people might come will say "That guy was a killer sax player but what an a**!" That's not what life is about. It's not who you can burn, it's about what positive impact you can have on the world. (and by world I mean whatever person you are interacting with whether it be on SOTW or on a gig or on the subway.........)

Amen!

My mother actually married a guy who fits that description to a T. He was a jazz drummer. This guy was truly a monster player whose thing was the 60s avant garde school (Beaver Harris, etc.); he eked out a living doing everything from Big Band to Clown Band. The guy could play, and went to his grave chain smoking and practicing 6 hours a day with lead drumsticks for a gig he was never going to get. Physically and spiritually, he was totally rotten inside. Hated everything and everybody. I'm not sure anybody even went to his funeral.

Art is like that--it is beautiful, but often not very pretty.

[paulwl]

If you can't balance music and life, you can get into deep trouble. And still make great music. It's not a humanistic pursuit.

$#!!, I wonder what Harry Allen would say about all this. I've met him, and he seems like a very modest and levelheaded guy, more like an engineer than a musician.

[Eye Kwubeck]

This stuff is fantastic. We need more players aspiring to this kind of thing. I mean I love Chris Potter's stuff, but this is great too and I don't think we should be telling all young people they need to play like Coltrane and Brecker and Potter or else their playing will be "dated" and "out of style". Harry Allen, this kind of thing......this is how saxophonists used to sound and play back when people actually LISTENED to jazz.

[LiAm84]

This stuff is fantastic. We need more players aspiring to this kind of thing. I mean I love Chris Potter's stuff, but this is great too and I don't think we should be telling all young people they need to play like Coltrane and Brecker and Potter or else their playing will be "dated" and "out of style". Harry Allen, this kind of thing......this is how saxophonists used to sound and play back when people actually LISTENED to jazz.

I always wonder what current players would sound like if they took their inspiration from different sources. What would a modern player with Chris Potter's talent sound like if they took their influence from Prez and Ben Webster rather than a Trane/Brecker style.

[paulwl]

All true. But have you seen the crowds "listenable" jazz pulls in? They're not hip and happening people anymore!

Do you know about the "Jazz Party Circuit"? Harry is well loved there along with a few dozen other straight-ahead, swing-to-bop players (Warren Vaché on trumpet, Dan Barrett, trombone, and Howard Alden, guitar come to mind).

Jazz Parties happen in the same locations annually (my hometown, Ames, IA, used to have one until one guy died and everybody else felt too old and tired to keep it going without him). There are many different locations, even aboard cruise ships, but the musicians all come from New York. Arbors and Concord are record labels that frequently feature them. It's all small-group standards. No one ever sits in. The audiences are pretty much the same few thousand folks every year, all affluent, all retired, all White.

The parties can't go on much longer - they're a thing of a generation, and even that generation didn't start doing them till middle-age. Now the scene is going to pass. Maybe good, because the style, set list, and especially personnel are very rigid - but maybe not so good, because nothing is going to replace them. The listenable style of jazz will lose the biggest part of its listeners.

[BarrySachs]

Not at all! I just wanted to be sure it wasn't a backhanded compliment.

It's a damn shame, is all, that Harry gets typed as a niche player when he has such deep influences, while tenorists who have no sound and do nothing but sperg-out on the changes get acclaimed as righteously creative artists.

Harry is one of the only bebop/swing tenormen with a career these days. He's quite lucky. Naturally he deserves it but there are a pile of cats with his ability and artistic prowess that really get overlooked and/or typecast. Dan Block, Chris Byars, Jerry Weldon, Bill Easley and so on. Too bad there isn't room for all of us who just want to swing, play pretty and entertain jazz fans.

[mrpeebee]

I always wonder what current players would sound like if they took their inspiration from different sources. What would a modern player with Chris Potter's talent sound like if they took their influence from Prez and Ben Webster rather than a Trane/Brecker style.

I guess something like this young and very talented guy from the UK (do you know him ?):


or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-8IOTMEDRs

I think he sounds better than Harry Allen.

[LiAm84]

I think he sounds better than Harry Allen.

I wish!!

Thanks all the same mrpeebee :-)

[Nefertiti]

This stuff is fantastic. We need more players aspiring to this kind of thing. I mean I love Chris Potter's stuff, but this is great too and I don't think we should be telling all young people they need to play like Coltrane and Brecker and Potter or else their playing will be "dated" and "out of style". Harry Allen, this kind of thing......this is how saxophonists used to sound and play back when people actually LISTENED to jazz.

Whose telling young players that...........I'm not. Young students gravitate towards energy and showy pyrotechnics. Melody doesn't impress an impressionable teen.................

[piwikiwi]

I wish!!

Thanks all the same mrpeebee :-)

Do you got more stuff on youtube? I'm impressed.

[jgreiner]

Liam, you guys sound absolutely wonderful! Nice to hear a group that regularly plays that stuff and is actually *shudder*......working!!!!

John