Eric Felten’s call for suggestions of odd or unexpected pairings brought enough responses that we’ll run them in two installments. My first thought was simply to list the names of the musicians and their performances, but the comments accompanying your messages were as interesting as the couplings themselves. Wherever possible, the Rifftides staff has provided links to pertinent recordings. Some of the pairings don’t seem all that disparate, but perhaps oddity is in the ear of the … [Read more...]

Click on the highlighted words to link to the recordings. My hometown friend Bob Godfrey offered three nominations: Thelonious Monk and Pee Wee Russell Count Basie and Teresa Brewer Count Basie and Oscar Peterson Basie and Peterson recorded Satch Meets Josh in 1974 and followed it up over the years with four additional two-piano collaborations. For the 1998 reissue of Satch Meets Josh, aka Count Basie Encounters Oscar Peterson, I wrote: If Art Tatum and Fats Waller had teamed up in a recording … [Read more...]

A last-minute contribution from a Rifftides reader who identifies himself only as John. Worked: Don Pullen and the Chief Cliff Singers. (Sacred Common Ground, a collaboration between the pianist's avant garde African Brazilian Connection and a Native American vocal group. DR) Didn't (at least for me): Louis Armstrong and Leon Thomas. (Louis Armstrong and Friends, a 1960s album including Thomas, a sort of free jazz yodeler; Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis, Tony Bennett and others in a small … [Read more...]