The Encyclopedia of Jazz, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz and Ira Gitler's books on bebop spell the name of a famous Charlie Parker-Dizzy Gillespie bassist as Curly Russell. But Jack Tracy informs me that when he was editor of Down Beat, Russell told him that he preferred Curley (his given name was Dillon). Accordingly, I am adding the "e" in the Rifftides posting about the CD called Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945. This is really just an excuse to again … [Read more...]

Saturday night, following my lecture as jazz scholar-in-residence, I attended the final concert by the students of the Brubeck Institute’s 2005 Summer Colony. The Institute staff invited prominent jazz musicians to select the seventeen colonists by compact disc audition from among the best teenaged jazz musicians in the United States and some from outside this country. Sixteen-year-old alto saxophonist Ben van Gelder came from the Amsterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands. Playing with … [Read more...]