Neither of author, composer, and saxophonist
Allen Lowe's two-volume, four-disc
Louis Armstrong's America sets contains compositions by their storied subject or tunes associated with him. Given the massive scope of
Lowe's earlier work, this shouldn't come as a surprise. This ambitious undertaking contains 69 tracks composed by
Lowe as an expression of an "older American musical aesthetic, sensibility and cultural consciousness¿" As a whole, it reflects
Armstrong being influenced by, and later influencing, American popular music, as seen through the lens of his life and Black cultural experience.
Lowe argues that
Armstrong was the first post-modernist, picking from a wide variety of musical sources (minstrel show, pop, opera, and blues, and later,
the Beatles and
James Brown,
Ornette Coleman and
Captain Beefheart) without regard for cultural, class, or racial hierarchies.
Lowe's tunes namecheck historic periods and persons from swing and ragtime through bop, modal music, and more. In his copious liner notes and track annotations, he namechecks
Duke Ellington,
Bo Diddley,
Utah Smith,
Steve Albini,
Ben Harney, and others, as well as monumental historical events, including the Little Rock Nine and the appearance of Black composer
William Grant Still at Carnegie Hall.
Lowe uses various groups of players to accomplish this including trombonist
Ray Anderson, trumpeter
Frank Lacy, pianists
Lewis Porter,
Matthew Shipp, and
Ursula Oppens, guitarists
Ray Suhy and
Marc Ribot, drummers
Ethan Kogan and
Kresten Osgood, bassist
Will Goble, and various others.
LAA, Vol. 1's opening cut, "Mr. Jenkins' Lonely Orphans Band" (titled after the youth orchestra that gave us
Jabbo Smith,
Freddie Green, and
Cat Anderson) easily gives way to "Aaron Copeland Has the Blues," a languid tune that resembles a back porch lullaby with the bassist playing a 12-bar line. On "Calling All Freaks (an homage to
Armstrong's musical director
Luis Russell), weds 1920s swing and jump blues to a 21st century banjo solo by
Suhy. "One Two Fuck You: Steve Albini Ascends to Heaven" is an angry homage to punk from
the Seeds and
Ramones to
Big Black. "I Should Have Stayed Dead (ballad)" is a mutant lounge-blues duet between
Lowe's sax and
Shipp's piano. Disc two's "When Dave Schildkraut Goes Marching In" is titled after an obscure yet highly regarded sax player and based on a live rendition of the NOLA standard "Saints"; the song traverses gospel, swing, and bebop. "Back Home Rag" is modeled on bandleader
James Reese Europe, who led the first recorded jazz orchestra in 1913. "Roswell's Dream" is a loving tribute to trombonist
Roswell Rudd, one of
Lowe's best friends and musical collaborators. "Pleased," a horn-driven jam, translates the jazz-blues through the early work of
James Brown. More than two-and-a-half-hours long, this set is astonishing. Its compositions, groupings, and collisions of styles and genres don't sound remotely anachronistic filtered as they are through
Lowe's sheer musical skill and kaleidoscopic approach to jazz. ~ Thom Jurek
