RIP Frank Lowe...legendary tenorman.

[Tim Price]

Frank Lowe passed Friday night in New York City.He was 60.

After battling cancer...he passed September 19 in his apartment.

What a cool guy. He was not only one of my hero's...but a real friend to me.

A cat I learned a lot from musically.

Frank Lowe was the essence of hip. He had an essence...a respect for the music that was contagious. I drew much knowledge and inspiration from him.

My life would have not been the same had I not known him. He hipped me to things about saxophone and jazz that I felt very, very fortunate to be involved with. Lowe even dedicated a song to me he composed called "Tims Whim." Written on a series of notes and tones I laid on him once when practicing.
Check out his recordings at;
http://www.mindspring.com/~scala/lowe.htm

I don't know...its a sad day without Frank Lowe.
Things just won't be the same without his vibe on 43ed St.
He could just make you want to practice and study...and LISTEN.
He loved everything... he was so open minded it just blew me away.
Kinda an end of an era IMHO. What a cool guy and spiritual being.
He will be missed.

RIP Frank.

[Tim Price]

Ya know, we lost two HEAVY duty sax players...from different
areas of jazz. Lowe from the Alice Coltrane/Don Cherry bag unlimited.

And-Harold Ashby...from the Ellington/blues/Chess records hired gun- thing.

Personally-I feel a huge gap...a great loss in these two friends.
Not only did I do a feature article on Ashby back in the 80s forSax Journal but I first met him when I played the famous " Roseland" ballroom in NyC when I was doing Harry James big band in the 70s.
We became tight instantly. Ash was working a bit w/ Sy Oliver.
That was a period when I used to go to Artie Pincus shop for repairs. (btw-What ever happened to him-He was a great repair guy-I know he moved to the mid west or some place to retire but he was very cool-and GREAT on repairs)

Somedays on 43ed st you'd see Ashby sittin' with Frank Lowe
and Schnitter and just cracking up on Ashbys crazy humor.
Lowe was always inspiring...
' One day...I went to his place...and he was listening to a young tenor player from the soth....THEN....he'd immediatly throw a record on by Jr Walker. THEN- he'd grab his tenor and try to join the two sounds in his head. I asked HIM WHY- HE SAID i like to get inspired!!!
MAN,, he WAS inspiring. He had a band called " Lowe -Windo"..with Brit sax demon Gary Window. 8)
Those two guys were a walking university of sound.
Lowe played hard,,yet understood the insides of jazz from the horn-OUT.

Ashby..had this great juice machine. Always making juice and fasting.
With-set lists on post it notes ALL over his refrigator.
I'd shed w/Ashby...and comp simple chords on his piano for him.
Or-play Ellington melodys on tenor.Trying to get INSIDE those beautiful melodys Duke or Billy wrote. Ash knew them all.

With Lowe...it was just great to talk to him for a second-He was always tellin you someone to dig.
When Lowe got ill...Lovano sent him a get well package and cards to the hospital. Lowe was touched. But- once that cancer got in his spine it was sad. We all knew.

Two guys...off the 43ed st scene...GONE.
Somehow...things ain't what they used to be.

I feel their absence.What a drag.

[Larry G]

Tim...... Good post, I'm sorry you had to write it

[Tim Price]

Thanks Larry-
Me to.

[hershel]

Frank Lowe, 60, Saxophonist in Free-Jazz and R&B Styles
By BEN RATLIFF


he jazz tenor saxophonist Frank Lowe, who first appeared in the wave of New
York free-jazz players influenced by John Coltrane and then went on to
explore an earlier jazz and rhythm-and-blues feeling, died last Friday in
St. Clare's hospital in Manhattan. He was 60.

The cause was complications of lung cancer, said his son Yaphet Lowe.

Mr. Lowe grew up in Memphis and soaked up the remarkable musical currents of
that city in the early 1960's. The saxophonists Charles Lloyd and Hank
Crawford and the singer Carla Thomas were his friends and neighbors; his
first music teacher outside of school was Packy Axton, the part owner of
Stax Records, who also played saxophone. As a teenager, Mr. Lowe worked in
the Stax recording studio and in its record store.

He briefly attended the University of Kansas, and for a time in his 20's he
moved to San Francisco to study with the saxophonists Donald Rafael Garrett,

Bert Wilson and Sonny Simmons. While he was there, he met Ornette Coleman,
one of his idols, who suggested that Mr. Lowe move to New York. Shortly
after, he began performing with Alice Coltrane, wife of John, though he said
that he was still learning how to play his instrument. "I felt privileged,"
he said in an interview in 1992. "I was just listening to records, and the
next thing I knew I was onstage."

He played on an album with Ms. Coltrane, "World Galaxy," and then made his
own first album, "Black Beings," on the ESP label in 1973. It was a wild,
full-throttle album of high-energy improvising over scant themes, and after
getting it out of his system, he quickly changed his style.

Only one year later, with "Fresh," released by Arista, he started a long
process of moving to the lower registers of his instrument and absorbing the
more temperate mood of swing players like Chu Berry and Lester Young. "In
the so-called avant-garde, sometimes I found the humor and romance lacking,"
he said.


Having started as a bandleader, he played and recorded with a range of
musicians around the New York jazz and improvisational music scene, from the
guitarist Eugene Chadbourne to the trumpeter Don Cherry; but at the core of
his musical circle throughout were the violinist Billy Bang, the drummer
Phillip Wilson and the cornetist Butch Morris. He developed a style that was
songlike and slow, shorn of extra notes, and tending toward melancholy.

At the beginning of the 1990's he formed the band Saxemble, with four
saxophonists, including James Carter and Michael Marcus; its first album
included "Four Five Six," written by Hank Crawford. His final recording was
"Down & Blue," made for the CIMP label last year.

In addition to his son Yaphet, of Manhattan, Mr. Lowe is survived by another
son, Frank Lowe III of Oakland, Calif.

[Troy]

Sorry to hear of this, Tim. You sure know (or have known) a lot of great players. My condolences.

[Tim Price]

Sorry to hear of this, Tim. You sure know (or have known) a lot of great players. My condolences.

Thanx Troy- I am lucky...very lucky.
To know some of the players as I do as friends...and people...to learn from.
It is pretty amazing..when you think of it. Ashby...was a loner type of guy. Once I suggested to Kenny Davern to use Ash,.when Flip Phillips couldn't make a gig. Ya shoulda heard that!!! Neither EVER sounded better. Ash, was a great clarinetist to. He'd say otherwise but he could really play.
LOWE..tho...he was one of my favorite people.The kinda guy you could just go to the diner with<at any hour> and he'd be talking about some tenor player non stop. These guys I'm missin big time.
Thanks again Troy- keep playin your horn!!! 8)