Al Haig Trio – Invitation | Das ist schon sehr toll … und wie immer bei Haig bereitet es Mühe, das festzustellen und hier hinzuschreiben. Gilbert Rovère und Kenny Clarke sind am 7. Januar 1974 im Studio in Barnes, England, als das Album für Spotlite entsteht, mehr denn bloss kompetente Begleiter, aber wer der Main Act ist, ist ebenso klar. Es gibt Klassiker („Invitation“, „If You Could See Me Now“, „Day Dream“) weniger bekannte Jazz-Tunes („Holyland“ von Cedar Walton zum Einstieg, „Enigma“ von J.J. Johnson) und drei Originals („Sawbo City Blues“, „Sambalhasa“ und „Linear Motion“). Der Touch ist ist immer noch da … und es ist eine Herausforderung, damit umzugehen, dass einer, der so Klavier spielen konnte ein so böser Mensch gewesen ist.
Allen Lowe hat auf Organissimo, als das Buch 2007 erschien, ein längeres „interview with myself“ veröffentlicht:
http://www.organissimo.org/forum/topic/34163-death-of-a-bebop-wife/
Allen Lowe
How do you know everything in the book is true?Some of it probably is not true, some of it is obviously complete crap, but I believe the rest and that’s enough to depress and upset me.
So what are you going to do?
My first thought was to take his recordings and burn them.
Have you done that yet?
My second thought was to not act on my first thought. The music is/was still important. Haig is one of the central figures in jazz history, in my opinion, he changed the sound of the piano and he codified certain standard chord changes and he was a brilliant pianist – praised by everyone, a big influence on people like Hank Jones, whom I met through him, on Tommy Flanagan, and many others – and, damn, I liked him and I miss him. This is very difficult. But I don’t want to be one of those people who denies victims their right to a public recognition and acknowledgment of their suffering; on the other hand I don’t want to think of myself as the friend of a physically and psychologically abusive rapist (apparently he raped the author of the book, who later married him. Yes, I know this raises other questions, but the victim’s self-destructive behavior does not mitigate the viciousness of the initial act).
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #169: Pianistinnen im Trio, 1984–1993 – 13.01.2026, 22:00: #170 – 19.02.2026, 20:00; #171 – 10.03.2026, 22:00; #172 – 14.04.2026, 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba