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Re: [ARSCLIST] David Amram, was Rock and roll drumming



David,

I know that this is wandering off the mission statement for this list, but I never let that stop me before. I'll "try" to not go on too much.

Amram is certainly a one-off and most interesting as a horn player, jazzer and chronicler of an era (actually more than one, but particularly the Beat one). Just finished reading his second volume of memoirs (never got around to "Vibrations" yet, but will eventually) "Offbeat" and found it quite touching, though quite self centered (hey, it's an auto-biography!). He is not in the absolute first rank of horn-player who do (did) jazz (Watkins, Varner, possibly Graas and some others), but a ground breaker, nevertheless.

Amram lives about an hour up from NYC in Putnam Valley (just north of Westchester County).

I have his phone number via the Local 802 directory and can give it to you if you contact me offlist.

David Lennick wrote:

Aaron Levinson wrote:

 It is confusing for sure. But strangely enough David Amram who is
 perhaps a bit more technically sophisticated than Bob Z. seems to
 have had a similar revelation.

There's a name I haven't seen for a while! We used to get together any time I was in New York or he was in Toronto. The world's greatest interview..put a mike in front of him and ask him how he is, and then come back in a half hour to change the tape. He moved out of New York, his agent died, his Toronto rep got out of the business and I lost contact with him.

dl


He was jamming with some jazz musicians as the post-bop period was under way. He was not a sophisticated pianist and a guy who's name eludes me suggested that a way to voice more sophisticated chords without having a great deal of technique was to play a given chord (G7) and then double the third and the seventh degree of the chord again in the other hand. Neat trick, but I have no idea what this has to do with the triplet issue...just a thought.

AA




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