Allen Lowe

Allen Lowe
Background information
Born	(1954-04-05) April 5, 1954 Massapequa Park, New York
Genres	Jazz
Occupation(s)	Composer, musician, music historian, author
Instruments	Alto saxophone, guitar, C melody saxophone
Years active	1964-1996, 2001-present
Labels	Constant Sorrow
Website	http://www.allenlowe.com/

Allen Lowe is a composer, musician, music historian, sound restoration specialist, and author. He plays alto saxophone, c-melody saxophone, and guitar, and has recorded with major figures in jazz including Julius Hemphill, Marc Ribot, Roswell Rudd, Don Byron, Doc Cheatham, and David Murray. He has also produced a series of historical projects on American popular song, jazz, and the blues.

Early life and education

Lowe grew up in Massapequa Park, New York in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He started playing saxophone in jazz groups at age 15. He had some of his first jazz experiences, as a teenager, at the legendary Lower East Side "Slugs Saloon,"^[1] seeing Ornette Coleman's band and Charles Mingus, among others. When his young band (with guitarist Joel Perry) was booked for a festival in Bedford Stuyvesant circa 1968, they turned out to be one of the opening acts for the comeback appearance of Eubie Blake.

Lowe dropped out of the Yale School of Drama after one year of studying to be a playwright. He met and married his wife, and they moved to Brooklyn where Lowe completed a master's degree in Library Sciences (1982) from St. John's University.

Career

After graduation, Lowe and his wife moved to New Haven, where he returned to his saxophone and became active in the local jazz scene with musicians including bassist Jeff Fuller and drummer Ray Kaczynski. Originally an unreconstructed bebopper, Lowe gradually became more interested in what was then known as "new music," and began composing, performing and recording more actively in the new idiom. He recorded his first LP, For Poor B.B., in 1985 and quickly recorded a series of albums in collaboration with musicians like Julius Hemphill, Don Byron, David Murray, Doc Cheatham, Roswell Rudd, Loren Schoenberg, Jimmy Knepper, Randy Sandke. Lowe recorded Mental Strain at Dawn live at the Knitting Factory^[2] with his Jack Purvis Memorial Orchestra, and later recorded sessions for Enja and Music and Arts.

In 1990 Lowe began working for the Mayor of New Haven, and became Director of Jazz New Haven, the yearly summer free outdoor festival held on the New Haven Green. He ran the festival for three years, booking musicians including Tony Williams, Max Roach, Jaki Byard, Tito Puente, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Lovano, Randy Brecker, Ray Barretto, and James Moody.

In 1996 Lowe moved to South Portland, Maine, and entered a period of involuntary musical retirement. He switched gears and began composing again, and taught himself the technique of sound restoration. During this time he wrote four books – American Pop from Minstrel to Mojo (a survey of American music from 1896 to 1946, published by Cadence^[3] and issued with a 9-CD set); That Devilin’ Tune: A Jazz History 1900-1950 (published by Music and Arts^[4] and issued with a 36-CD set); God Didn’t Like It: Electric Hillbillies, Singing Preachers, and the Beginning of Rock and Roll, 1950-1970 (Constant Sorrow Press 2013); The Lost Generation: Jazz of the 1950s (unpublished); and Really the Blues? A Blues History, 1893-1959 (Constant Sorrow Press 2013, and accompanying 36-CD set). Lowe did all mastering and sound restoration for the CDs that accompanied his publications. He also began doing freelance sound work for Rhino, Shout, Rykodisc, Sony, Michael Feinstein, Terry Gross, Venus Records, and others.

In the meantime, Lowe was also doing yearly lectures on various musical topics, and moderating panels at the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies^[5] and the annual EMP Pop Conference in Seattle, Washington. He also lectured for the United States Information Agency in Europe on American music history. His books were used in courses at Harvard and Yale (Devilin' Tune), and entries appeared on him in the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz and The Penguin Guide to Jazz on Compact Disc. There is an entire chapter on him in the book Bebop and Nothingness, by Francis Davis.

Finally, around 2001, Lowe began playing and recording again, on guitar and alto saxophone. In 2007 he recorded Jews in Hell: Radical Jewish Acculturation with Matthew Shipp, Lewis Porter, Randy Sandke, Marc Ribot, Scott Robinson, and Erin Mckeown. A mix of jazz, punk rock, and American roots music, it received little national notice. However, it received high praise from Anthony Braxton, who said, "Allen Lowe is a great writer. It's hillbilly music but it's trans-national. Allen Lowe is one of the few musicians doing anything new today. He is the tradition. I'm a big fan of Allen Lowe and I think as a musician and a scholar he is very important and I think he is deeply misunderstood because he doesn’t hate himself."^[6]

Jews in Hell also led to Lowe's inclusion in the bool Jazz Jews, which stated that Lowe "extracts the most soulful sounds out of a synthesizer since Steve [sic] Wonder, composes ambient-evocative instrumentals, and songs with vernacular lyrics that stick in the mind like those of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Mose Allison or Lou Reed."^[6]

Lowe released a series of old and new American recordings of work which he composed and directed.

He worked with Acadia Recording Company to mix a live session recording from New York City in 2015.

Discography

Publications

• Really The Blues? A Blues History, 1893-1959 - published by Constant Sorrow Press, 2013. 36-CD set concurrently published by West Hill Radio Archive, 2010.^[10]
• That Devilin’ Tune: A Jazz History, 1900-1950 - published by Music and Arts Publications of America, 2001. 36-CD set issued concurrently, spring 2006 by West Hill Radio Archive (Canada) and West Hill Radio Archive (Germany).
• American Pop From Minstrel to Mojo: On Record, 1890-1956 - published by Cadence Jazz Books, 1997. 9-CD set issued^[11] concurrently by West Hill Radio Archive (Canada) and West Hill Radio Archive (Germany). Lowe curated, restored, mastered, and wrote liner notes for the tracks.
• The Lost Generation: Jazz of the 1950s - unpublished manuscript; work in progress, book and 9-CD set study of jazz of the 1950s.
• God Didn’t Like It: Electric Hillbillies, Singing Priests, and the Origins of Rock and Roll, 1950-1970 - published by Constant Sorrow Press, 2013.
• Rhapsodies in Black: Music of the Harlem Renaissance - 4-CD set on the music of the Harlem renaissance. Issued by Rhino Records. Set was nominated for 2002 Grammy Award (Gerald Early) for Liner Notes.

Education

• St. John's University, Queens, N.Y., master's degree, Library and Information Science
• Yale University School of Drama, MFA playwriting program (uncompleted)
• State University of New York, B.A., External Degree Program

References

External links

• Official website
• The Outsider: Allen Lowe Against the Jazz Tradition