The tireless Bret Primack has made the leap from mere blogging into video blogging. His first posting has a sixteen-minute mini-documentary about the late Michael Brecker. It includes Brecker discussing his playing, and an organized jam session with Michael, David Liebman, Joe Lovano and the incendiary rhythm section of Phil Markowitz, Rufus Reid and Billy Hart.
At the bottom of Primack’s page are links to several of his favorite YouTube videos, so I have him to thank for chewing up a substantial chunk of a morning I should have spent writing. No hard feelings, though, because I saw and heard Fred Astaire singing with Oscar Levant (I’m not making that up) and Lord Buckley as a guest on Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life. Younger Rifftides readers may think I’m suggesting a trip to fogeyville, but they are likely to discover that true hipness has no age. To find out for yourself, go here.
Be aware that YouTube has a second part of Astaire’s guest spot on the Levant show in which he does a brilliantly underplayed impression of Samuel Goldwyn.