A Challenge to my Integrity - Phil Freeman of Burning Ambulance writes, referring to me: "...show your work, motherfucker...you can fuck right off."

So Phil Freeman, who writes a column called Burning Ambulance, has taken umbrage at my actual ability to understand American musical history and give my opinions with substantial historical backup; he writes about me:

“I’m getting really fucking tired of one particular jazz writer who speaks in crude generalities, broad-brushing the whole rest of the discourse as careerist hackwork in order to portray himself as The Last Brave Truth-Teller. To this person I say, Show your work, motherfucker. You think someone’s writing is shit? Quote the offensive passage, and name and shame the writer. Then a debate can be had. But if all you’re gonna do is slink around day after day saying, “jazz critics are all subservient to publicists and The Industry” (because there’s so much fucking money in jazz criticism, right?) without naming one specific writer or pointing out one specific thing they’re doing wrong, or naming the publicist(s) every jazz critic but you is supposedly kowtowing to, or even pointing to one specific artist or album you think is overpraised? You can fuck right off.”

This is the most pathetic kind of macho dicksmanship. But I will answer a bit anyway. I have been writing about music for over 30 years, and been recording music for 40. I have written 6 books and recorded about 20 albums; here are a few endorsements of my writing and performing and composing:

“Allen is one of the most important music historians alive, an exceptional thinker who sees the entirety of American musical history with unmatched clarity. He's unbowed as an intellectual, driven by neither vogues or ideology. His work taken as a whole is a monumental achievement. There's no one better alive.” - former New Republic music editor David Hajdu

“Allen Lowe is a genius! His work is always full of wonder, the excitement of discovery, and humor…the best work has always been done at the margins, by the so-called underground - Poe, Whitman, Monk, Harvey Pekar, Herbie Nichols, James Joyce, Sun Ra - but it's still a surprise and a revelation whenever you find it." -John Szwed, Columbia University Jazz Studies; formerly of Yale University Department of Anthropology

“Allen Lowe is, and has been for the last twenty years and more, the premier archivist of American popular music in all of its forms. More than that, he has, as an independent producer, done more to disseminate rigorously collected and presented yet completely accessible collections covering popular music as a whole, jazz, blues, and more, than anyone else. He brings to his project both knowledge and vision, a sense of mission an a love for what he does.” – Greil Marcus

First of all, I ALWAYS give specifics, of albums, comments, observations of those I disagree with. And yes, I often name names, though not always, because, unlike Freeman, I want to keep my opinions professional - and no matter how much I disagree with someone I have never called anyone a MF’er or told them to “fuck right off.” I give substance to my opinions, which he fails to do in his attack on me. And I do name names when I think it is necessary; read my Substacks to get an idea. But I believe in ideas, polemics, argument, debate - so Freeman can stick to the name calling. I will continue to deal in substance (and as far as I can tell he has read none of my books or listened to any of my recordings; but as a musicians I was good enough for Julius Hemphill, David Murray, Doc Cheatham, JD Allen, Marc Ribot, Nels Cline, Kalaparusha, Ursual Oppens, Matt Shipp, Ken Peplowski - all of whom worked for me as sidemen. And that certainly means something).

So - I have been praised for my writing and my music; what more can I say? It’s a lot more than Phil Freeman has accomplished. Name names? Well, I have tussled publicly with Nicholas Payton, Holiday Harmony, Rhiannon Giddens, Wynton Marsalis (see the introduction to my blues history). That’s just a taste. And the tradition I come from, a deeply Jewish polemical tradition, encourages just that. It encourages argument and arguing, discussion and discussing, it realizes the importance of bringing things out into the open. Maybe Freeman is bothered by that, but clearly he has no awareness of the depth of Jewish intellectual thought or the dialectics of literary, theatrical, and cultural argument. But that is his problem, not mine.

But I will name one more name: Phil Freeman. He does not do well in his attempts at writing about mainstream (or really any) jazz, and I have called him out for it. Here are my comments on his writing about the great saxophonist Don Byas, who he strangely credits for starting the trend for big band saxophonists to be featured as soloists:

1) He says: "He (Byas) came up in the 1930s, when tenor players were supposed to be just one part of a big band, taking the occasional, short solo without disrupting the action on the dance floor."

This is a pretty bizarre claim; horn soloists, as Lester Young said frequently, were early on inspired by and offered their own prompts to the dancers. Lester said specifically: "The rhythm of the dancers comes back to you when you are playing." And he was far from the only one; there was Dick Wilson with Jimmy Lunceford’s band, Johnny Hodges and Ben Webster with Duke Ellington’s band, all of whom were public soloists for dancers. And more. Phil, try listening to some records.

2) He compares Byas' tone to Lester Young, which is….well, strange. Byas’ tone was not anything like Lester Young's but related to that of Coleman Hawkins, who was his prime early influence.

But strangest of all was Freeman’s comments about bebop, which he doesn’t like much, and Charlie Parker. What he said about Parker was really a disqualifier; how can someone who does not understand basic musical principles write about jazz ? Freeman tells us, in reference to a bebop recording:

“Anyway, listening to this mostly makes me think about why Charlie Parker’s music has never had the impact on me that it has had on so many others. Like, I can hear that he’s a virtuoso player, and I acknowledge his influence — he changed the way players after him approached composition, improvisation, and even their tone on their instruments. But any time I read about Parker being called the greatest saxophonist ever, or whatever, I always think Sure, for one particular value of “great.”

“His melodically and harmonically adventurous, chord-flipping style (which he famously described as “playing clean and looking for the pretty notes”) is one way to play jazz. But it’s not the only way, by any means. Personally, I have always been more drawn to players with more rawness and grit to to their sound. And I don’t just mean free jazz.”

What? What? “Chord-flipping?” That has no musical meaning, and Parker’s idea of playing the “pretty notes” is the OPPOSITE of a chordal conception. With that observation he is talking about basic intervals, finding those that have a certain kind of melodic meaning, yes, within the chord, but Freeman’s comments show he has no idea what that is about. And truthfully, his sense of Parker is bizarre; Parker had more blues grit than probably any other player in the history of jazz. His virtuosity was ALWAYS at the service of complex melodic/harmonic relationships.

How can someone who cannot grasp all of this write about jazz? I really don’t know. I guess if you sound authoritative enough about something, people will believe it. It is kind of a Trumpian approach to music writing.

Freeman further describes bebop as “almost punk in its speed and aggressiveness…it was kind of a music-school thing.” Well, Parker did not go to music school, and neither did so many of the beboppers. This style started a long time ago, and though there were music schools, there was virtually no one, in the 1940s, teaching jazz. And bebop was “almost punk in its speed and aggressiveness…” ???? Why does he need to pull another, but irrelevant, style into it? This is almost racist in its attempt to tell us that we cannot understand a form of black music without comparing it to a form of white music.

He goes on: “It’s the kind of music you get when a bunch of young, talented men get together in a room, night after night, and start showing off for each other. ‘Listen to what I came up with!’ ‘Oh, yeah? Well, how about this?’ And on and on, at lightning speed. Which is exactly why it continues to appeal to many young jazz musicians.”

How does he come up with these things? I have known hundred of musicians since I started to listen to jazz, and many were first and second generation beboppers who knew and/or worked with Charlie Parker. And this whole weird idea of them sitting around and showing off for each other is a comic book image of music, and is something that never happened.

Well, I’ve just lost an hour arguing with someone who probably is not worth the time. But I feel a lot better. And to add, I still have a lot of problems with the influence of publicists who run festivals at which their clients appear and who write articles about their clients that make it sound like the publicist is a journalist. He is not; he is a publicist who has financial interest in these musicians, and this is gigantic conflict of interest. It is fine to write about them, but please disclose the connection. That is what is done out in the real world.