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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Archives for May 12, 2006

Brookmeyer And The Times

Bob Brookmeyer is as forthright, and often unorthodox, in his conversation as he is in his music. Here’s some of what Brookmeyer told The New York Times‘s Ben Ratliff about how jazz soloists often relate to the music he writes:

If you give a soloist an open solo for 30 seconds, he plays like he’s coming from the piece that you wrote. Then he says, ‘What the hell was that piece that I was playing from?’ And the next 30 seconds is, ‘Oh, I guess I’ll play what I learned last night.’ And bang! Minute 2 is whoever he likes, which is probably Coltrane.

Ratliff’s article, “Bob Brookmeyer: Raging and Composing Against the Jazz Machine,” is in today’s Times. The Rifftides staff recommends it. If it doesn’t give you enough of Brookmeyer’s undiluted opinions about music and life, go to his website, scroll down and click on “Currents.”

Comment: NIck Brignola

Love your blog…
Got it from Kenny Harris* here in Bermuda. I am a tenor and soprano sax player living in Bermuda as Kenny is. Trying to keep flame alive. Damn, there are so many steel pan players here, but I guess that’s what the tourists want.
The real reason I emailed you is response to the baritone sax players. ~~~ great. Just a plug for my old friend, Nick Brignola. Never seemed to get his due, but could also play great tenor and soprano. May he RIP.
Keep up the good work.
George Kezas

*The British drummer Kenny Harris played in New York in the 1950s with Sonny Stitt, Paul Bley and others and appeared at clubs including the Hickory House, Basin Street East and The Embers. He had a memorable encounter in Bermuda with Paul Desmond, recalled in Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond, pages 248-9. Harris wrote a biography of his teacher and hero Don Lamond, First Call Drummer, out of print but worth seeking. —DR

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, … [MORE]

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