Rifftides

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...]

Bill Mays Trio Live At COTA Pianist Mays recently reassembled his trio for a concert and their first CD release in more than ten years. Mays, bassist Martin Wind and drummer Matt Wilson came together in a live performance at last Fall’s COTA (Celebration Of The Arts) festival. The audience at the Deer Head Inn in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, was enthusiastic in welcoming Mays and the trio back to what was his main stomping ground before he began splitting his year between the … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Mack Parkhill called our attention to a Flash Mob video featuring a huge number of Muscovites having more fun than may be legal in Russia, dancing to the most joyous and metrically challenging song Irving Berlin (pictured) ever composed. Mr. Parkhill writes, “The dancing was filmed on Moscow’s “overlook” in Sparrow Hills. Looking down from the overlook you see the largest stadium in Russia (140,000 capacity). The ski jump is for practice and training. If you make a mistake, … [Read more...]

Jeremy Pelt The Artist (High Note Records) For nearly two decades, Pelt has made it clear via his trumpet playing, and occasionally in interviews, that he is attuned to what other artists achieve in their work. That sensitivity extends well beyond jazz—indeed, beyond music. For this album, his primary inspiration came from the 19th century French sculptor Auguste Rodin. In notes for Pelt’s first album, Profile (2001) I observed, “Pelt’s own studiousness is audible, as are his confidence, his … [Read more...]

There may be a longshot chance that you are unfamiliar with the mrudangam. It is a South Indian percussion instrument that Rajna Swaminathan has introduced into American music since she became a part of the New York City jazz community in 2011. She is a protégé of the renowned mrudangam maestro, Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman and tours with him and other Indian musicians. She also collaborates with prominent jazz artists based in New York, including the influential pianist Vijay Iyer, himself of … [Read more...]

Alun Morgan, 1928-2019 The influential and prolific British critic Alun Morgan has died. Morgan’s critiques, reviews and album notes were among the most widely read of those by any contemporary jazz critic.  His longtime admirers included fellow critic Mark Gardner, whose own reputation in British jazz circles and elsewhere grew substantially after he fell under Morgan’s influence and entered the critical field. Gardner wrote an appreciation for the January 14 issue of Jazz Journal. To see … [Read more...]

A welcome surprise: I had no idea that veteran pianist Fred Hersch and the relatively new piano star Sullivan Fortner had worked together. As it turns out, they made a joint appearance at Jazz At Lincoln Center in 2016. Here they are on that occasion in a duet on Ornette Coleman’s 1959 composition “Turnaround,” first heard that year on Coleman’s album Tomorrow Is The Question. In the photos and the video, Hersch is on your left, Fortner on your right                                   … [Read more...]

The extracurricular, non-Rifftides assignment that I mentioned in the February 2nd post is done, barring revisions. As mentioned, it involves notes for a CD box set of everything that trumpeter and singer Chet Baker recorded for Riverside Records in the late 1950s. Baker’s Riverside association was packed with problems for him and for producer Orrin Keepnews, but it brought him together with a dozen or so of the finest jazz musicians of the era. Among them are Bill Evans, Philly Joe Jones, Al … [Read more...]

Blogging has been sporadic (at best) lately because I’m into a non-Rifftides writing project about Chet Baker that is taking even longer than I thought it would. I’ll fill you in on it when I come up for air. In the meantime, let’s remember the February 2nd birthdays of two saxophonists, Stan Getz (b. 1927) and Sonny Stitt (b. 1924). In the pictures, Getz is on the left. In the video below, they are together in Los Angeles in 1956. The front line also includes Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet. The … [Read more...]

Michel Legrand, the pianist, arranger and prolific composer of film scores, died today at his home in France. He was 86. Dozens of Legrand’s melodies became popular hits, among them “The Windmills Of Your Mind,” “What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?” and “Watch What Happens.” The wide range of performers who collaborated with him includes such diverse stars as Miles Davis, Barbara Streisand and Kiri Te Kanawa. Early on, Legrand was the piano accompanist for Sarah Vaughan and Lena Horne, … [Read more...]

Helen Sung: Sung With Words (Stricker Street Records) In this poetry and jazz collection Helen Sung further validates her position as one of the most accomplished pianists In the New York jazz community, which has an abundance of fine pianists. The quintet supporting Sung thrives on her arrangements and accompaniments as she improvises on themes suggested by seven poems of poet Dana Gioia, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and—not so coincidentally—the brother of jazz … [Read more...]