Archives for July 13, 2005

Perversity

July 13, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

The intellectually tireless arranger, composer, saxophonist, leader and writer Bill Kirchner called to my attention an important essay by Martha Bayles. Under the same artsjournal.com umbrella as Rifftides, Ms. Bayles is the proprietor of Serious Popcorn, a web log devoted to film. Her March 31, 2005 piece titled “The Perverse in the Popular” touches on matters of interest to anyone concerned about the size of the audience for serious art and about the quality of music, movies, television, and … [Read more...]

The Crimson Canary

July 13, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

Speaking of the cinema, Charlie Shoemake, lightning vibraharpist and late-night TV movie browser, sent a message after he read yesterday's posting about the name of our adventure in blogging. Concerning the "Hollywood Stampede' session, tell your readers if (truly out of left field) they should stumble sometime in the wee hours of the morning across a 1945 "B" movie entitled The Crimson Canary (Noah Beery Jr.) to grab onto it because they'll see Coleman Hawkins, Howard McGhee, Oscar Pettiford, … [Read more...]

Monday Recommendation: Tommy Smith On Coltrane

Tommy Smith, Embodying The Light: A Dedication To John Coltrane (Spartacus Records) Fifty years ago in the aftermath of John Coltrane’s death, it would have seemed unlikely that a definitive tribute to the saxophone master would someday come from a Scottish tenor player. Yet, so universal is Coltrane’s presence in jazz and so deeply has […]

Monday Recommendation: Chet Baker Biography Revised

Jeroen de Valk: Chet Baker, His Life And Music (Aspekt) de Valk has revised his 2000 biography of the trumpeter. The new version includes a comprehensive index that is helpful to readers. It has a selection of new photographs of Baker on the bandstand, with family, and in times of trouble growing out of the […]

Monday Recommendation: Another Bill Evans Discovery

Bill Evans, Another Time, Resonance For years, it was thought that drummer Jack DeJohnette’s only recorded appearance with the Bill Evans trio was at the 1968 Montreux Jazz Festival. Then in 2013, producer Zev Feldman discovered that five days after Montreux, Evans, DeJohnette and bassist Eddie Gomez recorded privately for the owners of the MPS […]

Monday Recommendation: A Captivating Book Of Photos

Jean-Pierre Leloir, Jazz Images (Elemental) Jean-Pierre Leloir, who died in 2010, left a remarkable legacy of photographs from his work in the years when France was a destination for, and in a few cases home to, many of the world’s principal jazz musicians. The technical perfection of Leloir’s photographs was matched by his ability to […]

Recommendation: Miles Davis At Newport 1955-1975

Miles Davis At Newport 1955-1975:The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4 (Columbia/Legacy) Miles Davis’s importance and recognition grew dramatically in the decades covered by the recordings on these four volumes. When he played in an all-star group at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival, the trumpeter was barely known to the general public. By the end of the […]

Monday Recommendation: Mat Walerian

Mat Walerian, Matthew Shipp, Hamid Drake, Jungle: Live At Okuden (ESP-Disk) His adventurism ranges far and he occasionally makes harsh sounds, but Polish reed artist Mat Walerian ultimately projects a calming effect not often found in avant garde music. The album is from the concert that produced a previous Walerian album with American pianist Matthew […]

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