The Detroit Jazz Festival is playing this Labor Day Weekend. One reason the four-day event is subtitled "A Love Supreme: The Detroit-Philly Connection" is the powerful legacy of bassists from those cities. In a sidebar piece leading up to the festival, Mark Stryker of The Detroit Free Press writes … [Read more...]
Archives for August 2008
Compatible Quotes: Bix Beiderbecke
One of the things I like about jazz, kid, is I don't know what's going to happen next. Do you? -- Bix Beiderbecke Finally Beiderbecke took out a silver cornet. He put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying 'yes'. -- Eddie Condon ...and all of a sudden Bix stood up … [Read more...]
Diversion: Marimba Queens Meet Insane Bassist
Rifftides reader David Peterkofsky inquired about modern-day jazz marimba players. In the course of searching, I ran across a 1940s soundie with marimbists galore. This has little" to do with jazz, but it's an opportunity to see" a bass player who makes Chubby Jackson seem catatonic." " As for Mr. … [Read more...]
CDs: Michael Weiss, Ryan Kisor
Michael Weiss, Soul Journey (Sintra). Michael Weiss has been a pianist to follow since his impressive 1986 debut recording, Presenting Michael Weiss. As his career rolled out in work with Art Farmer, Johnny Griffin, Lou Donaldson, Tom Harrell and other major leaguers, Weiss's talent as a composer … [Read more...]
Johnny Griffin Memorial Tribute
Readers in and around New York City may be interested in this announcement sent by Michael Weiss. CELEBRATING JOHNNY GRIFFIN: A TRIBUTE IN WORDS AND MUSIC Reminiscences from fellow musicians, family and friends. Johnny Griffin's compositions performed by Johnny's longtime rhythm section (Michael … [Read more...]
Bix Beiderbecke: Overrated?
The recent Rifftides item about the continuing medical needs of Bix Beiderbecke biographer Richard M. Sudhalter brought interesting comments about both men. You can read it and the comments here. The piece stimulated a correspondence with Paul Paolicelli, blog reader, fellow survivor of the news … [Read more...]
Speaking Of Armstrong…
...Fellow artsjournal.com blogger Terry Teachout has the kind of news every author welcomes. To share it, go here...and be sure to watch the celebratory video of Terry's subject in glorious action. Congratulations, TT. I know how good it feels. … [Read more...]
Other Places: John Coltrane, Bud Shank
John Coltrane In the August 21 Wall Street Journal, Nat Hentoff tells of a New York second grade teacher, Christine Pasarella, who uses John Coltrane as a classroom role model in her work of drawing out the intelligence of her students. He reports Mrs. Pasarella saying that when she played … [Read more...]
Recent Listening: Perez, Brookmeyer, Lundgren, Gardner
Rifftides World Headquarters has welcome summer visitors and resounds with telecasts of Olympics events. Nonetheless, the staff makes time for listening. We don't award medals, but here are brief impressions of four recent CDs that placed high with the judges. Danilo Perez, Across The Crystal Sea … [Read more...]
Jazz & Film Animation: A Brief, Sketchy History
Film animation married to jazz improvisation goes back to the 1930s and the advent of sound films. This collaboration of the cartoon figure Betty Boop and the real Louis Armstrong is one of the most famous early examples. Social sensitivity was not a consideration. In 1949, the art advanced--or at … [Read more...]
Other Places: Paul Bley Speaks
Last month, Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, named pianist Paul Bley a member of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honor. The official announcement cited him for "his contributions as a pioneering figure in avant-garde and free jazz, and for his influence on … [Read more...]
Your New Recommendations
The Rifftides staff is pleased to announce that the new Doug's Picks are on display in the center column. Your comments are invited and treasured...and usually posted. … [Read more...]
CD: Miles From India
Miles From India (Times Square). Producer Bob Belden wound up a monumental series of Miles Davis reissue box sets for Sony/Columbia, then he and fellow arranger Louiz Banks turned to interpreting the trumpeter's immense output of recordings after 1959. This two-CD set considers the intersection of … [Read more...]
CD: Norma Winstone
Norma Winstone, Distances (ECM). The British singer places the purity of her voice, intonation and phrasing in the spare setting of Glauco Venier's piano and Klaus Gesing's soprano sax. Winstone's songs include that rarity, a successful vocal version of John Coltrane's "Giant Steps," and … [Read more...]
CD: Johnny Griffin & Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis
Johnny Griffin & Lockjaw Davis, Live in Copenhagen (Storyville). The hard-charging tenor saxophonists worked in tandem for twenty-six years. This 1984 club date at the Montmarte club two years before Davis's death is typical of the unremitting swing and visceral excitement of their live … [Read more...]
DVD: Joe Zawinul
Joe Zawinul: A Musical Portrait (ArtHaus Musik). This well crafted documentary offers generous helpings of Zawinul's music while outlining his life and philosophy. Zawinul's luxurious existence in Malibu during his final years ("I have everything I want in life") contrasts with … [Read more...]
Book: Wildly Irish
Dick Wimmer, The Wildly Irish Sextet (Soft Skull Press). Following the elemental Seamus Boyne (Irish Wine: The Trilogy) into the genius painter's old age, Wimmer cuts his creation no senior citizen slack. Boyne is wilder, more famous and more self-centered than ever. Still, he manages to … [Read more...]
Herb Geller, Activist
At eighty, Herb Geller is playing alto saxophone even better than when he was a key jazz figure in the 1950s and '60s. He is performing not with the gravity of Brahmsian old age but with full vigor. Nor has he lost the force of his convictions, witness this political song for which he wrote … [Read more...]
Bix And Dick
A British company is releasing a two-CD package tracing Bix Beiderbecke's influence on musicians of his era. Proceeds from sale of the set will be devoted to medical care of Dick Sudhalter, a musical descendant of Beiderbecke and his greatest biographer. Sudhalter is in bad health with MSA (muscular … [Read more...]