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YouTube Examined

October 2, 2006 By Doug Ramsey

Many Rifftides readers check in regularly with Terry Teachout’s indispensable artsjournal.com blog About Last Night. You may also read him in The Wall Street Journal, where Terry’s Sightings column over the weekend concerned the economic, ethical, commercial and cultural facets of a phenomenon often discussed and linked here. It is YouTube, the web site devoted to video clips. A large percentage of what appears on YouTube and similar sites is ego-driven ephemera, but much of it is cultural treasure. To read Teachout’s thoughts on the long-term value of YouTube, go here. The Journal has granted a free link to the piece.
When you come back, click this link for a YouTube clip of the great saxophonists Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins at a latterday Jazz At The Philharmonic concert. The introducer is JATP’s impresario, Norman Granz. The intergenerational rhythm section is pianist Teddy Wilson, bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Louie Bellson. The tune is “Blue Lou,” not, as YouTube bills it, “Blue Lue.” Spelling is not often the strong suit of the people who mount these videos.

10/2/06 1:05 AM | filed under: main |

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Doug’s Picks

CD: Corea, Gomez, Motian

Chick Corea, Eddie Gomez, Paul Motian, Further Explorations (Concord)

The two-CD album is described in the notes as a “template,” a “tabula rasa,” rather than a tribute to Bill Evans. Nonetheless, Corea’s encounter with two great Evans sidemen underlines Evans’s profound influence on the development of the jazz piano trio and on Corea’s own playing. Released less than a month following Motian’s death at 80, the live recording from New York’s Blue Note beautifully captures the drummer’s freedom, swing and interaction. In pieces from Evans’s repertoire and others by members of the trio, there is a spirit of adventure and, in Evans’s newly found “Song No. 1,” the challenge of discovery.

CD: Pinky Winters

Pinky Winters, Winters In Summer (SSJ)

To borrow from Paul Williams’s words to Ivan Lins’ “Love Dance,” Winters knows how to turn up the quiet. Using subtleties in phrasing, pitch, intensity and tone shading, she takes ownership of a song without violating its writer’s intentions. Here, her bossa nova repertoire includes Jobim, Lees and Moraes, plus Brazilianized songs by Cole Porter, Dave Frishberg, Bob Florence and Jack Jones. A highlight: her caressing of Jobim’s and Lees’ “Dreamer,” which also has one of several simpático tenor saxophone solos by Pete Christlieb. Years pass between Pinky Winters albums. When one appears, it is an event.

CD: Ronnie Cuber

Ronnie Cuber, Ronnie (Steeplechase)

Cuber has been playing uncompromising jazz on the baritone saxophone for more than half a century. With pianist Helen Sung, bassist Boris Kozlov and drummer Jonathan Blake, he is in top form in this 2009 album that escaped my attention until recently. Following his hard-bop gruffness in Freddie Hubbard’s “Thermo,” Cuber floats with tenderness through Scott LaFaro’s “Gloria’s Step” and Michel LeGrand’s “Love Theme From Summer of ’42.” At the speed of thought, he burns through ”Ah Leu-Cha” and “All the Things You Are”, giving young Blake a run for his money in their exchanges.

DVD: Chet Baker

Chet Baker, Candy (MVD)

In a private library in Sweden in 1985, Baker plays and sings with his working trio of the period, pianist Michael Graillier and bassist Jean Louis Rassinfosse. Red Mitchell is a guest, not on bass but at the piano showing Baker his preferred changes to “My Romance,” which the two perform together. Baker is relaxed and impressively fleet in the 1944 title tune and in “Tempus Fugue-it,” “Nardis,” “Sad Walk,” Mitchell’s “Red’s Blues” and “Love for Sale.” His “Bye Bye Blackbird” is tinged with blues. In brief interludes, Baker chats with Mitchell about his career. It’s good to have this on DVD at last.

Book: Clark Terry

Clark: The Autobiography of Clark Terry (UC Press)

The great trumpeter, flugelhornist and mumbler writes with joy about the good times in his long life and with frankness about the rough patches. His humor and generous spirit are intact whether he is telling of his love for Basie and Ellington, his triumphs as a performer, his legions of friends, or encounters with racists and bottom feeders in and out of the jazz world. Terry’s ear, eye and memory for detail provide insights into not only his remarkable career but also the trajectory and development of jazz as an art form and a social force during his many decades in music.

CD: Ron Carter

Ron Carter’s Great Big Band (Sunnyside)

The venerable bassist’s first recording at the helm of a big band has style, depth and power. The playlist of jazz standards may suggest that Carter and arranger Robert Freedman are plowing old ground, but they produce a crop of fresh ideas. They transform “Opus One,” “Con Alma,” “Sail Away,” “The Golden Striker,” “St. Louis Blues” and eight others. Harmonically and rhythmically, Carter leads. He solos, but does not dominate the album, leaving space for Steve Wilson, Greg Gisbert, Wayne Escoffery, Jerry Dodgion, Mulgrew Miller and Scott Robinson—a few of the 17 top-flight members of the band.

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