Rabble Without A Cause
Wednesday February 4th, 2015 with Bernard Stepien
Saxophonist Allen Lowe’s Blues and the Empirical truth

Jazz has known every approach possible to get its music known. The star system that worked well until the mid ‘70s followed by the free lancers hereafter. Then there are those people that most of you never heard of either because they refuse something, like club dates, drugs or alcohol or because they are against anything (Jimmy Giuffre, Ran Blake, etc…). The latter brings up an interesting case, the Outsider, of which saxophonist Allen Lowe is a perfect representative. In his autobiography he defines himself as: “Who is Allen Lowe, and why is he doing all these projects and why have you never heard of him?”” True, I confess, I never heard of him! So maybe this is the time to have a closer look. I will let you discover his complex life or lifestyle through the web: http://www.brooklynrail.org/2014/04/music/the-outsider-allen-lowe-against-the-jazz-tradition On my side, we will concentrate instead on his music. One thing is clear as soon as you hear the first note, Ornette Coleman is a major factor. Second, the focus is on projects. Tonight we will sample a near encyclopedic three CD album devoted to the Blues being the Empirical truth (note the selected upper case characters). There are eight musicians involved in these recordings, but don’t expect a big band, instead configurations featuring small rotating ensembles featuring Free Jazz celebrities such as Matthew Shipp or Roswell Rudd prevails.