After a prolonged holiday delay, the Rifftides staff has posted new recommendations in three categories. Please see Doug's Picks in the center column. … [Read more...]
Archives for January 15, 2009
CD: Mike Holober
Mike Holober & The Gotham Jazz Orchestra, Quake (Sunnyside). Pianist-composer-arranger Holober chooses not to call his large congregation a big band. His scoring justifies the term orchestra. Balancing lushness with motion in and through the horn and rhythm sections, he evokes nature; the … [Read more...]
CD: Gene Perla, Elvin Jones
Gene Perla, Bill''s Waltz (PM). Drummer Elvin Jones should get equal billing with Perla. The two laid down basic electric piano-and-drums tracks in 1986. Following Jones' death in 2004, Perla wrote orchetrations for the pieces. With Jones digitally present, he recorded them in 2007 with the NDR … [Read more...]
CD: Brooklyn Undergrounders
Various, Brooklyn Jazz Underground, Volume 3 (BJU). If you have heard that Brooklyn is a hotbed of young jazz artists but haven't the foggiest idea what they are about, this compilation will give you a summary. Twenty-eight musicians in combinations from a duo to a sextet stretch your ears and the … [Read more...]
DVD: Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk Live in '63 & '67 (Jazz Icons). One of eight DVDs in the impressive Jazz Icons third release, this finds Kirk touring Europe with his arsenal of horns. It is fascinating to watch him manage tenor sax, manzello, stritch, clarinet, siren and nose whistle. The forthright music … [Read more...]
Book: Willa Cather
Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics). Cather is in a class with A.B. Guthrie, Jr. and Bernard DeVoto in her feeling for the expanse and expansiveness of early America. This tale of two French priests carving their church territory out of a resistant New Mexico is an … [Read more...]