Rifftides

We spent much of this Easter Sunday driving slowly through hills covered with hundreds of acres of apple and cherry trees gloriously abloom. Spring is here in full flower, with enchanting vistas that include glimpses of Mount Adams and Mount Rainier. This post comes late in the holiday, but the Rifftides staff hopes that your Easter has been equally inspiring. “Easter Parade” is hardly a jazz standard, but Irving Berlin gave it a wonderful melody and a harmonic structure that encourages … [Read more...]

The recent post featuring the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet in the 1950s led a couple of Rifftides readers to suggest that we hear more of Brown’s sparkling trumpet playing. He became a major jazz artist before his death at 26 in an automobile accident in 1956 and has been a major influence on every generation of trumpet players since. Let’s listen to his composition “Tiny Capers,” with Clifford leading an ensemble that also includes Zoot Sims, tenor saxophone; Bob Gordon, baritone sax; Stu … [Read more...]

John Coltrane, Coltrane ’58: The Prestige Recordings (Craft) Every few years, curators of the great saxophonist John Coltrane’s extensive body of recordings come up with yet another retrospective of his work. Craft Recordings is now the overseer of Coltrane’s massively productive years with the Prestige label. The company has reissued a five-disc album of music that he made in 1958. That was when Coltrane rejoined Miles Davis as part of the classic sextet that also included alto saxophonist … [Read more...]

The Rifftides series of occasional visits to jazz bands of the United States armed services continues with the US Army’s Jazz Ambassadors. In a concert at the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas, singer Alexis Cole joined the Ambassadors in trumpeter Clifford Brown’s “Joy Spring.” That classic composition was one of the showpieces of the quintet that Brown co-led with drummer Max Roach in the 1950s. The tune has become a part of the modern jazz repertoire. This version features vocalist … [Read more...]

Hakan A. Toker, Messing Around…With The Classics (Navona) For several months since this CD arrived, I have occasionally looked at the cover photo and concluded that there must be more rewarding things to do than listen to a musician who poses upside down atop a piano giving a victory sign with his right hand and playing what may be a C-D-E triad with his left. Well, I finally listened, and guess what? It’s an entertaining collection by a pianist with enormous technique and good time feel … [Read more...]

There is no way that Rifftides can keep up with the flood of new jazz albums put on the market by record companies and—in the new world of relatively low production costs—by dozens of independent musicians. The best that we can do is be alert for exceptional releases and bring them to your attention. Sometimes that means brief notices about music of quality that deserves even greater attention. That is the case in today’s catch-up effort about the veteran bassist John Patitucci’s latest album. … [Read more...]

If you live in Los Angeles or will be there later this month, here’s good news from the L.A. County Museum Of Art (LACMA). On April 26th The Bill Holman Band will open the museum’s season of summer jazz concerts. Word from the Holman organization is that, inspired by the continuing success of the band’s Brilliant Corners album, the repertoire will include a variety of Thelonious Monk compositions. Holman’s writing for Brilliant Corners won a Grammy that year. He has had fifteen Grammy … [Read more...]

The Jazz Journalists Association has announced its slate of 2019 Jazz Heroes, people who have made significant contributions to the health, well-being and exposure of jazz in their cities and towns. The list includes performing artists, presenters, broadcasters and—well, of course—journalists. In the extensive list you are likely to find someone you know. Click here, scroll down, and meet the 22 new honorees. They are an impressive, hard-workng bunch. … [Read more...]

A couple of months ago, I mentioned that I had been given the privilege and pleasure of writing the liner notes for Scott Robinson’s new album. Today, he announced that the CD has been released. His notice includes background about the project, a link to a promotional video and a link to the company that is releasing Tenormore. Reading what Scott wrote, you may get the feeling that he’s happy with the results. He should be.   Today is the official release day for my new CD, Tenormore. … [Read more...]

David Friesen, My Faith, My Life (Origin) Friesen’s virtuosity brought him to prominence as a bassist nearly fifty years ago. He has remained one of the instrument’s most adventurous players through a career including associations with Duke Jordan, Marian McPartland, John Handy, Denny Zeitlin, Paul Horn and other major jazz artists. This two-CD album presents him on the first disc playing his compositions on the Homage bass, an instrument he developed. On some tracks in that CD he overdubs on … [Read more...]

When the 1960s jazz avant garde was cranking up, George Russell (1923-2009) set an example, as was his way. It had been more than two decades since the intrepid composer captured the attention of the jazz world with his 1947 “Cubano Be-Cubano Bop” for the Dizzy Gillespie big band. He had gone on to compose and arrange for leaders as varied and influential as Artie Shaw, Buddy DeFranco and Lee Konitz. Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization became an influence among serious … [Read more...]

Logan Strosahl, Sure (Sunnyside) Piping at the high end of the flute’s range, guttural near the tenor sax’s low end, sliding, slurring and sometimes punching notes on alto saxophone, Strosahl is intense and full of surprises with his trio. His music is laced with classical allusions and marinated in jazz feeling. He, bassist Henry Fraser and drummer Allan Mednard create moments in this album in which they come remarkably close to what few groups in the history of improvised music have truly … [Read more...]

The jazz bands of the United States military services have long histories of impressive achievement. There are high levels of musicianship in the big jazz bands of the Marine Corps, Army, Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard. Now and then, Rifftides samples performances by these service bands. Frequently, established name musicians from civilian life join them in concert as featured soloists. Let’s see and hear the veteran Los Angeles trombonist Andy Martin with the US Air Force’s Airmen Of Note. … [Read more...]

  There is much to like about this version by vibraphonist Cal Tjader of Clare Fischer’s modern classic “Morning.” It is from a brief period in the 1970s when Fischer was a member of Tjader’s band. The recording opens with an aware audience greeting Fischer’s electric piano introduction with the enthusiasm that one might show in encountering an old friend, and that’s what the tune seems to be to these listeners. Fischer is also featured in a compelling solo. Of the several versions of … [Read more...]

Today is Dave Frishberg’s birthday. He was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1933. Frishberg is a splendid pianist who has worked with Zoot Sims, Bill Berry, Ben Webster Carmen McRae and too many other leading musicians to list. His greatest fame, however, has come through his songs. Many of Frishberg’s pieces have become parts of the standard repertoire, among them “I’m Hip,” “Peel Me A Grape,” “Dodger Blue,” “Van Lingle Mungo,” and (with Johnny Mandel), “You Are There.” Preparing this … [Read more...]

A Rifftides reader recently confessed to never having heard Slim Gaillard’s “Poppity Pop,” a 1945 recording with Charlie Parker as a sideman. The record might be dismissed as a period piece, a novelty, if it did not also include trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, tenor saxophonist Jack McVea, pianist Dodo Marmarosa, drummer Zutty Singleton and Gaillard’s frequent collaborator bassist Bam Brown. With that lineup, it was a gathering of mid-1940s Los Angeles all-stars. On the off-chance that there may be … [Read more...]

In response to yesterday’s Mikrojazz! review, reader Richard Weyuker wrote: "I’m surprised that you left Don Ellis off of your list of musicians who experimented with quarter-tones. He had a specially-constructed four valve quarter-tone trumpet. I think that at one point, his entire trumpet section played these." Thanks to Mr. Weyuker for recalling the remarkable Don Ellis (1934-1978). Ellis was a virtuoso trumpeter who led a big band that thrived on innovation not only in the use of quarter … [Read more...]

Philipp Gerschlauer, David Fiuczynski: MikroJazz! (Rare Noise Records) This exploratory venture is subtitled, “Neue Expressionistiche Music.” The music is, indeed, expressionistic. Ears accustomed to conventional tuning may initially find the microtonal approach difficult to absorb. However, after a hearing or two the microtonality begins to move beyond exoticism and stimulate in the listener a willingness to accept that the tempered scale dominant in western music for centuries does not have … [Read more...]

Chucho Valdés, Jazz Batá 2 (Mack Avenue) Valdes’ Jazz Batá was considered a departure into the avant garde when he made it in 1972. That trio recording was a preview of advances to come from the great Cuban pianist and composer. Nearly half a century later, the followup finds him as adventurous as ever, heading a quartet that concentrates on mastery of the batá tradition of West Africa, long a major component of Cuban music. In their rhythmic power and harmonic acuity, Valdes’ piano solos … [Read more...]

Albums are arriving for consideration in batches that have my poor postlady groaning down the sidewalk toward the mailbox. Today’s review is intended to be the start of the latest Rifftides attempt to catch up. (If the jazz record business is dying, it has a funny way of showing it.) Daniel Szabo, Visionary (Fuzzy Music) The liner essay in pianist and composer Szabo’s album, and the publicity surrounding its release, stress the music’s eclecticism. It is true that Szabo’s work reflects … [Read more...]

  The power and imagination in his composing and arranging have made Ed Partyka a major contributor to the European big band scene. A trombonist from Chicago, Partyka leads a formidable big band and chairs the Jazz Institute at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Austria. Mentored by the late Bob Brookmeyer, Partyka uses in his teaching and his writing much of what he learned from Brookmeyer. Having absorbed that influence, he developed his own unique and identifiable … [Read more...]

Following yesterday’s announcement about the loss of the brilliant Canadian guitarist Ed Bickert, here is a piece from the 1975 Paul Desmond Quartet album Live, recorded at Bourbon Street in Toronto in 1975. We hear Bickert and Desmond with bassist Don Thompson and drummer Jerry Fuller. They play Desmond’s composition “Wendy,”             Desmond based “Wendy” on the chord structure of one of his favorite ballads, “For All We Know.” He named the piece for a woman who was a romantic … [Read more...]

One of Canada’s finest musicians, guitarist Ed Bickert, died on Thursday. He was 86. He was quiet and reserved, but the rich harmonies in Bickert’s playing captivated listeners and fellow musicians alike. Alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, with whom Bickert performed and recorded in the 1970s, wrote in the notes for one of his albums that he sometimes turned around on the bandstand to ”count the strings on Ed’s guitar … how does he get to play chorus after chorus of chord sequences which could not … [Read more...]

This week, music lost two venerable and influential figures. Andre Previn (above), who distinguished himself as a performer and composer in a wide range of styles and genres, died on Thursday at his home in New York City. He was 89. A gifted pianist whose work as a film composer and orchestrator began before he left high school, Previn won four Academy Awards for his film scores. He performed orchestral works and wrote many pieces played by renowned musicians including the violinist … [Read more...]