Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
Max Wilk, They’re Playing Our Song (Da Capo). Wilk’s survey of classic songwriters doesn’t have the wisdom and analysis of Alec Wilder’s American Popular Song. Still it’s a minor classic full of wonderful anecdotes about two dozen of the people who brought you the great American songbook, among them Kern, Gershwin, Berlin, Fields, Mercer, Duke, Rogers and Styne.
Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion to Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Wick is a wonderful book and often overlooked in the annals of popular-song writing. Another one that I’ve found to be useful and enjoyable is William Zinsser’s EASY TO REMEMBER: THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGWRITERS & THEIR SONGS. It includes a number of composer profiles, some thematic overviews, and numerous photos and sheet-music illustrations.