Pianist Bill Mays and the Oregon Festival of American Music Orchestra will perform George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue tonight. Mays tells Rifftides it will be the full-blown composition that debuted in 1924 with Gershwin as soloist, not the shortened version frequently performed by symphony orchestras. For details, click here. If you happen not to be in Eugene, Oregon, you can hear it live in a web-streaming broadcast on KLCC-FM, Eugene's public radio station, at 8:00 pm PDT, 11 pm EDT. Click … [Read more...]

George Russell died Monday night. Here are some of the facts of his life, outlined by the Associated Press. BOSTON (AP) -- Jazz composer George Russell, a MacArthur fellow whose theories influenced the modal music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, has died. His publicist says Russell, who taught at the New England Conservatory, died Monday in Boston at age 86 of complications from Alzheimer's. Russell was born in Cincinnati in 1923 and attended Wilberforce University. He played drums in Benny … [Read more...]