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...]
Archives for August 15, 2008
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...]