• Home
  • About
    • Doug Ramsey
    • Rifftides
    • Contact
  • Purchase Doug’s Books
    • Poodie James
    • Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond
    • Jazz Matters
    • Other Works
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal
  • rss

Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Cedar Walton Live In Laurel

October 20, 2008 by Doug Ramsey

Rifftides Washington, DC, correspondent John Birchard journeyed out of the district last weekend to hear pianist Cedar Walton and his trio. Here is John’s review.

Cedar Walton.jpgSmack in the middle of the mainstream – that’s where you’ll find Cedar Walton, still creative at the age of 74. The pianist brought his current trio to the Montpelier Arts Center in suburban Laurel, Maryland, on Friday, October 18, for an evening of warmly-received performances. On his way up, Walton worked with a literal who’s who in modern jazz: J.J. Johnson, Kenny Dorham, the Farmer-Golson Jazztet, and his best-known affiliation, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the band that featured Wayne Shorter and Freddie Hubbard. And all along the way, his ability to write attractive tunes brought him further recognition.

Friday evening’s concert featured mostly Walton originals, leading off with “Cedar’s Blues”, an up, boppish line that served to warm up the band members, John Webber on bass and Joe Farnsworth on drums. Webber favors the lower register of his instrument, giving Walton a rich launching pad for his inventions. Farnsworth’s style is strong without being obtrusive, always listening to the other players and complementing their work. The trio was tight and well-rehearsed.

Cedar Walton is very much a two-handed pianist, as he showed on his “Clockwise”, a piece in ¾ time containing a recurring Latin vamp. When he strikes a note or chord, it’s clear and strong. He doesn’t pound the keyboard, but his sound is definitely declarative.

On “Dear Ruth”, a jaunty-sounding melody taken at an easy walking tempo, Walton introduced a few bars of Garneresque left hand to good effect. The tune, said Walton, was dedicated to his mother, his first piano teacher. He told of her taking her young son to New York from their home in Dallas, Texas for the first time. Walton said he wanted to see Jackie Robinson play baseball. His mother opted for the Apollo Theatre in Harlem to see Count Basie and Billie Holiday. He smiled as he said his mother made the right choice.

Walton has long had the knack of creating catchy lines with a Latin flavor. His “Bolivia” is a good example. On Friday evening, the trio played “Ojos de Rojo” (Eyes of Red) as a way-up- tempo samba. The tune showcased Walton’s sparkling single-note lines set off by rich chords. Farnsworth’s drumming was sizzling and he also soloed effectively.

Only two pop standards appeared in the program, “Time After Time” and “Body and Soul”, both taken at walking tempos. Among the pianist’s own compositions, “One Flight Down” and “The Holy Land” stood out as interesting tunes that prompted exciting performances.

Cedar Walton wears his senior citizen status well. He has a warm, engaging personality to go with an enormous talent. He’s been a steady contributor to the language of modern jazz for more than forty years. And he hasn’t lost a step when it comes to delivering a rewarding listening experience. The Montpelier Arts Center concert was an evening well spent.

                                                                                        –John Birchard

There seems to be a shortage of Cedar Walton videos on the internet. The Rifftides staff found one made on New Year’s Eve 1985 at a club in Baltimore, not far from where Birchard reported. Walton was playing with vibraharpist Milt Jackson, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Mickey Roker. The engagement is likely to have been Jackson’s. Walton is featured on the first of two Duke Ellington compositions. The picture quality suggests a subaquatic environment, but the sound is good, or at least good enough so that you can plainly hear everyone. This is one you may not wish to view full-screen.

 

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Main

Comments

  1. Rich Juliano says

    October 20, 2008 at 4:01 pm

    Thanks to you and Mr. Birchard for the Cedar Walton post. The YouTube clip is from a live New Year’s Eve broadcast on PBS from Ethel Ennis’ club in Baltimore (as the YouTube posting indicates), but included a true all-star lineup. The Jackson-Brown-Walton-Roker group was fabulous enough on its own – I was lucky enough to see this group during this era. The mastery of these four men was amazing. They played, phrased and virtually breathed as one. However the PBS program also featured Ethel Ennis herself, Joe Williams, Gerry Mulligan, Phil Woods and Toots Thielemans, all playing with the Jackson-Brown group or subsets thereof. (The rhythm section was on stage and on live TV for a couple hours straight, as I recall.) I have a VHS tape I made that night which I came across a few months back, so my memory is fresher. It doesn’t seem like that long ago but with so many of these giants now gone, it feels lonely being left behind. The latest news on Dave McKenna makes it even more imperative to celebrate those like Cedar who continue to play to such incredibly high standards.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

Subscribe to RiffTides by Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Doug’s Books

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.

Archives

Recent Comments

  • larry hollis on Armstrong And Ellington: Azalea
  • larry hollis on Armstrong And Ellington: Azalea
  • Svetlana on Armstrong And Ellington: Azalea
  • Don Conner on Armstrong And Ellington: Azalea
  • Garret Gannuch on Armstrong And Ellington: Azalea

Doug’s Picks

Monday Book Recommendation: Lilian Terry’s Jazz Friends

Lilian Terry, Dizzy Duke Brother Ray And Friends (Illinois) Lilian Terry’s book is full of anecdotes about her friendships with the musicians mentioned in the title—and dozens of others. Enjoying modest renown in Europe for her singing, Ms. Terry has also been involved in radio and television broadcasting and is a cofounder of the European […]

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Monday Recommendation: Oscar Peterson Plays 10 Composers

Oscar Peterson Plays (Verve) In this five-CD reissue, the formidable pianist plays pieces by ten composers who dominated American popular music for decades. Peterson had bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Barney Kessel, succeeded by Herb Ellis. It’s the trio that made Peterson famous with Jazz At The Philharmonic and–by way of the 10 albums reproduced […]

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Monday Recommendation: DIVA At 25

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra 25th Anniversary Project (ArtistShare) It has been a quarter of a century since Buddy Rich’s manager and relief drummer Stanley Kay found himself conducting a band whose drummer was young Sherrie Maricle. Intrigued by her playing, Kay set out to find whether there were other women jazz musicians of comparable talent. […]

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Monday Recommendation, Keith Jarrett Trio: After The Fall

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette, After The Fall (ECM) In 1998 Keith Jarrett was emerging from a siege of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that had sidelined him for two years. As he felt better, he was uncertain how completely his piano skill and endurance had returned. He decided to test himself. He gathered his longtime […]

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Monday Recommendation: Gerard Kubik, Jazz Transatlantic

Gerhard Kubik, Jazz Transatlantic, Vol. I and Vol. II (University Press of Mississippi) The first volume of Kubik’s work is subtitled, “The African Undercurrent in Twentieth–Century Jazz Culture;” the second, “Jazz Derivatives and Developments in Twentieth-Century Africa.” The descriptions indicate the depth and scope of the Austrian ethnomusicologist’s research, which has taken him to Africa […]

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Monday Recommendation: Magris In Miami

Roberto Magris Sextet Live in Miami @ the WDNA Jazz Gallery (J Mood) Widely experienced and recorded in Europe, pianist Magris demonstrates in this club date that he knows how to reach an American audience steeped in Latin and Caribbean music. The front line has trumpeter Brian Lynch at his fieriest, and the imaginative young […]

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

More Doug's Picks

Blogroll

All About Jazz
JerryJazzMusician
Carol Sloane: SloaneView
Jazz Beyond Jazz: Howard Mandel
The Gig: Nate Chinen
Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong
Don Heckman: The International Review Of Music
Ted Panken: Today is The Question
George Colligan: jazztruth
Brilliant Corners
Jazz Music Blog: Tom Reney
Brubeck Institute
Darcy James Argue
Jazz Profiles: Steve Cerra
Notes On Jazz: Ralph Miriello
Bob Porter: Jazz Etc.
be.jazz
Marc Myers: Jazz Wax
Night Lights
Jason Crane:The Jazz Session
JazzCorner
I Witness
ArtistShare
Jazzportraits
John Robert Brown
Night After Night
Do The Math/The Bad Plus
Prague Jazz
Russian Jazz
Jazz Quotes
Jazz History Online
Lubricity

Personal Jazz Sites
Chris Albertson: Stomp Off
Armin Buettner: Crownpropeller’s Blog
Cyber Jazz Today, John Birchard
Dick Carr’s Big Bands, Ballads & Blues
Donald Clarke’s Music Box
Noal Cohen’s Jazz History
Bill Crow
Easy Does It: Fernando Ortiz de Urbana
Bill Evans Web Pages
Dave Frishberg
Ronan Guilfoyle: Mostly Music
Bill Kirchner
Mike Longo
Jan Lundgren (Friends of)
Willard Jenkins/The Independent Ear
Ken Joslin: Jazz Paintings
Bruno Leicht
Earl MacDonald
Books and CDs: Bill Reed
Marvin Stamm

Tarik Townsend: It’s A Raggy Waltz
Steve Wallace: Jazz, Baseball, Life and Other Ephemera
Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest
Jessica Williams

Other Culture Blogs
Terry Teachout
DevraDoWrite
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
On An Overgrown Path

Journalism
PressThink: Jay Rosen
Second Draft, Tim Porter
Poynter Online

Share:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2018 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.