Rifftides

This nearly completes reviews of albums I voted for in the Rhapsody jazz critics poll as 2011’s best. The Tierney Sutton Band, American Road (BFM) Sutton and her band apply their musicianship, intensity and camaraderie to a dozen American songs. The pieces range across traditional music (“Oh Shenandoah/The Water is Wide,” “Wayfaring Stranger,” “Amazing Grace”); pop (“On Broadway,” “Tenderly”); songs from the theater (four by Bernstein, three by Gershwin, one by … [Read more...]

I voted for these albums in the recent Rhapsody jazz critics poll and wrote a feature story about one of them, but have not previously reviewed them. Jan Lundgren, Chuck Berghofer, Joe La Barbera: Together Again…At The Jazz Bakery (Fresh Sound) In a recent Wall Street Journal article, I concentrated on the surprise discovery and audio rescue of the recording that resulted in this CD by pianist Lundgren, bassist Berghofer and drummer La Barbara. Toward the end of the piece, I wrote, … [Read more...]

Visits to New York won’t be the same now that the Algonquin Hotel has closed the Oak Room. Since Ben Bodne sold the hotel in 1987, it has changed hands several times and is now operated by the Marriott chain as one of its high-end properties. With each change, another layer of the Algonquin’s mystique seems to evaporate. The Oak Room existed as an elegant dining and listening post for only 32 years of the hotel’s 110-year history, but from its opening night it was one of the most important … [Read more...]

As nearly everyone in the United States knows, the New York Giants just beat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. The score was 21 to 17. Rifftides readers elsewhere may not understand why that is significant. The Super Bowl is the culmination of the professional football season. American football is not to be confused with what most of the world calls football, which is soccer or rugby. Here in the US, a great deal is made of this ultimate contest in the sport. This was the 46th such … [Read more...]

Toward the end of last summer, vibraphonist Ed Saindon sent a message alerting me to video of a duo concert he and fellow vibist Joe Locke had just played at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Saindon has been a professor at Berklee since 1975. I made a mental note to post one of their collaborations. As mental notes have a way of doing, it sank into the murky depths, where it lurked until it found its way to the surface this morning. So, belatedly, here are Saindon and Locke. They play … [Read more...]

There is good news today for a premier west coast jazz listening establishment. Architect Frank Gehry, creator of some of the most dramatic buildings in the world, is donating his services to the Jazz Bakery. The Los Angeles performance hall lost its lease in 2009 and has functioned in an assortment of rented or donated spaces while it looked for a new site. Now, it has found one on a sliver of land not far from its former Culver City home. Gehry designed the home of the Los Angeles … [Read more...]

This is the official release date for By Myself, Meredith d’Ambrosio’s new CD of songs by Arthur Schwartz, which has been a long time coming. She accompanies herself at the piano and does so beautifully. Full disclosure: I wrote the notes for the album and will abstain from reviewing it except to say that the more I listened to it as I prepared to write, the more deeply it affected me. Here is a bit of the liner essay. Through her interpretive artistry, Meredith uses the songs to … [Read more...]

A memorial service for broadcaster, editor and jazz historian Paul Blair will be held this evening, January 30 at St Peter's Church in Manhattan. Thanks to Jim Eigo, here is full information: Paul’s family and friends from elementary school, college, Peace Corps in Malawi, Voice of America, the New York Jazz community, are remembering Paul with words and songs. Speakers: Amandus J. Derr , Senior Pastor of St. Peter’s Church Yessy Blair and Nick Blair Ellen Miller from PS 16 and … [Read more...]

The Rifftides post about radio has taken on a life of its own with a chain of reader comments. To catch up with them, go here, and feel free to add yours. One of those commenters, the veteran audio engineer (and discriminating listener) Jim Brown, has launched an internet page. He intially designed it as an aid for a jazz appreciation class he taught. Several sections serve as guides to listening, reading and viewing, complete with helpful internet links. You will find it here … [Read more...]

After Gary Foster informed me of Clare Fischer’s death at 83 on Friday, I went to the LP shelves, got out Dizzy Gillespie’s 1960 recording A Portrait of Duke Ellington and listened to all of it. For perhaps the hundredth time, I was moved by the originality that Fischer brought to the daunting task of recasting pieces by the acknowledged master of jazz composition. In an irony of Fischer’s career, the understated brilliance of his arrangements for that remarkable collection went … [Read more...]

Jerry Gonzalez Y El Comando de la Clave (Sunnyside) Since Jerry Gonzalez changed his base of operations from New York to Madrid a decade ago, the trumpeter and congero has worked with many musicians while seeking a satisfactory combination of players for his own band. In Los Comandos de la Clave, he seems to have found it. This is his most stimulating album since the Fort Apache Band’s Rumba Para Monk in 1989. In company with Cuban and Spanish players who feel rhythm as he does, … [Read more...]

Radio has no interest in music. It is in the advertising business. The record industry has no interest in music. It is in the business of selling pieces of plastic. It is a gigantic machine, almost entirely owned now by international conglomerates, whose only purpose is to accrue profits. It is indifferent to what is on its plastic discs, except insofar as it induces the undiscriminating to buy them. It virtually ignores the discriminating audience because the undiscriminating are so much more … [Read more...]

There have been several inquiries about whether we are affected by the winter storms in this part of the world. Yes. My shoveling muscles are affected. Driving can be interesting. But when you wake up to sights like these, who cares if there's a foot of snow. Way off in the distance in the upper right is Mount Adams. Such scenery inevitably leads to thoughts of this: Woody Herman’s First Herd, recorded in December, 1945. The trumpet solo was by Sonny Berman, the trombone … [Read more...]

Word came this morning from Devra Hall Levy that her husband John, a major advocate for and representative of jazz musicians, is gone. Levy died in his sleep on Friday at home in Altadena, California. He was 99. Ahmad Jamal recently described Levy as “one of the foremost supportive bassists” of the postwar period. In that role, beginning as a teenager, Levy worked with Ray Nance, Earl Hines, Stuff Smith, Ben Webster and Lennie Tristano, among dozens of other prominent jazz figures. On … [Read more...]

The careers of Johnny Otis and Etta James emphasize Duke Ellington’s often-quoted truth: There are two kinds of music—good music and the other kind. In only slightly different language, Igor Stravinsky offered the same wisdom. Otis died early this week at the age of 90, James today at 73. For decades, they made good music. Ms. James invested everything she sang with the power and sensibility of the blues. Her huge hit, Mack Gordon’s and Harry Warren’s “At Last,” was a standard ballad … [Read more...]

In today’s Wall Street Journal, I write about the surprise circumstance that led to the finest trio album of Jan Lundgren’s career. All but unknown—and unreviewed—in the United States, Together Again…At The Jazz Bakery features the Swedish pianist with bassist Chuck Berghofer and drummer Joe LaBarbera in a recording they didn’t know was being made. The CD was voted Record Of The Year in the British magazine Jazz Journal’s critics poll. I gave it first place in the new … [Read more...]

In his debut commentary today on CBS This Morning, Wynton Marsalis recalled that he was in the second grade in 1968 when Martin Luther King was assassinated. He talked about being immersed in the black culture and life of New Orleans in the late 1960s, about having a poster of Malcolm X over his bed, about being angry well into his teens, about thinking that King was an Uncle Tom. My job in New Orleans when Marsalis was a little boy involved reporting on the events and movements of those … [Read more...]

Using as his point of departure a review of Ricky Riccardi’s recent book about Louis Armstrong’s final decades, Steve Provizer concentrates on Armstrong’s debt to grand opera. In his Brilliant Corners blog, Provizer writes about the great man’s trumpet tone as perhaps his defining characteristic. Hundreds of gifted and proficient trumpet players have come and gone through jazz history, but no one has ever had that tone. Not even close. Yes, others have had an identifiable sound, … [Read more...]

As I wrote the day Paul Motian died, Rifftides was not conceived as an obituary blog, but when an important musician leaves, I feel an obligation to observe the passing. I failed to do that when Gordon Beck died at 75, also in November. To many, Beck was best known as a pianist who frequently collaborated with singer Helen Merrill, and as a member of Phil Woods’ European Rhythm Machine in the 1970s, but his contributions to jazz were much more extensive. The Irish flutist Colm “Red” … [Read more...]

Ken Dryden, estimable liner note author and Allmusic.com reviewer, writes in response to yesterday’s post about the Rhapsody critics poll. Doug, please share your method of winnowing the huge list of new releases and reissues down to a manageable list from which to make your final picks, I think everyone would be interested. I know it is easier for me if I highlight possible picks monthly for possible inclusion on my new arrival log. One thing I always have to note is that not all … [Read more...]