The pianist and singer Joyce Collins died recently in Los Angeles following a long illness. She was 79. Highly respected in jazz circles, Collins played with a sensitive touch and subtle use of chords. Her singing was an outgrowth of those values, with attention to interpretation of the meaning of … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2010
The Montmarte Masks
If you have seen videos filmed at the Montmartre club in Copenhagen in the 1950s and '60s, you may have wondered about the stylized wall masks that often show up in the opening moments. Rifftides reader Dave Bernard has wondered about them, too. Mr. Bernard researched the masks and reports the … [Read more...]
The Blues Are Brewin’
1947 was a good year for movies. It saw the release of Miracle on 34th Street, Gentleman's Agreement, Life with Father, Lady from Shangai and Out of the Past, among other excellent films. New Orleans also hit the screen that year. It began life as an Orson Welles project, but Welles dropped it and … [Read more...]
The Long Wait Is Over: New Picks
Maybe it was the holidays. Maybe I've been busy writing for a living. Maybe I'm lazy. Well, no matter. You finally have a new edition of Doug's Picks. Consult the center column for the latest recommendations. … [Read more...]
Weekend Extra: Oscar Peterson and NHØP
Here is a lovely opportunity to hear and see two masters toward the ends of their lives. Oscar Peterson played at the Montreal Jazz Festival in July of 2004 with bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, guitarist Ulf Wakenius and drummer Alvin Queen. The piece is "Cakewalk." NHØP died the following … [Read more...]
CD:SFJazz Collective
SFJAZZ Collective, Live 2009 (SFJazz). Last year's tour by the all-star septet was built around their arrangements of music by pianist McCoy Tyner. It also included new compositions by its members, Joe Lovano, Miguel Zenón, Dave Douglas, Robin Eubanks, Renee Rosnes, Matt Pennman and Eric Harland. … [Read more...]
CD:Eddie Thompson And Brad Terry
Eddie Thompson and Brad Terry, Eddie and Me (Living Room). Thompson, a blind British pianist, spent ten years in the US before he returned home in 1972. He performed often around New York with Terry, a peripatetic clarinetist whose brilliant work would be better known if he had pursued a … [Read more...]
CD: Henry Threadgill
Henry Threadgill Zooid, This Brings Us To, Volume 1 (PI Recordings). Threadgill names his band Zooid after a cell "that is able to move independently of the larger organism to which it belongs." Accordingly, five musicians simultaneously and freely invent within, around and through structures … [Read more...]
DVD: The Story Of Jazz
Masters of American Music: The Story Of Jazz (Medici Arts). An opening montage cleverly synchronized to Ellington's "It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got That Swing" introduces the first in a series whose other initial subjects are Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. The programs … [Read more...]
Book: Teachout On Armstrong
Terry Teachout, Pops: A Life Of Louis Armstrong (Houghton Mifflin). Teachout is a consummate biographer. His books about H.L. Mencken and George Balanchine proved that. With Armstrong, he exceeds himself. Teachout combines the advantage of unique access to Armstrong's archives with deep musical … [Read more...]
Weekend Listening: Hadley Caliman
A few days into his 79th year, tenor saxophonist Hadley Caliman is thriving in the Pacific Northwest, starring in the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra and leading his own group. As a high school youngster, Haliman was a part of the yeasty Los Angeles jazz community of the late 1940s and early '50s. … [Read more...]
Pianists: Matthew Shipp And Greg Reitan
Why consider in the same piece albums by pianists as unalike as Matthew Shipp and Greg Reitan? Because in different ways the ghost of Bud Powell informs their music; because pairing them may lead partisans of one to listen to the other and find unexpected rewards; because the profound dissimilarity … [Read more...]
Compatible Quotes: On Bud Powell
No one could play like Bud; too difficult, too quick, incredible!--Thelonious Monk Bud is a genius.--Charlie Parker Bud is a genuine genius.--Duke Ellington He laid down the basis of modern jazz piano.--Dizzy Gillespie Bud was the most brilliant that a spirit might be, a unique genius in our … [Read more...]
Stories: Sinatra, Herman and Manne
Once again, Bill Crow's The Band Room column in the New York musicians union Local 802 newspaper, Allegro, is packed with anecdotes. Here are two. Outgoing (Local 802) President Mary Landolfi told me this one: Her husband Pat and another tuba player, Lew Waldeck, had arranged to meet at the … [Read more...]
Other Places: It’s Moody In Detroit
James Moody is in Detroit this week. Mark Stryker, the music critic of The Detroit Free Press, heralded the event with a column that begins: James Moody is my hero, and he should be yours. At 84, the irrepressible saxophonist and flutist remains a ferociously creative musician, playing with passion, … [Read more...]
Jazz Masters Honored
Wednesday night, the 2010 NEA Jazz Master awards went to pianists Kenny Barron, Cedar Walton and Muhal Richard Abrams; arranger, composer and band leader Bill Holman; saxophonist and flutist Yusef Lateef; vibrahaphonist Bobby Hutcherson; singer Annie Ross (pictured at the ceremony); and record … [Read more...]
Ed Thigpen, RIP
An American jazz master who relocated to Europe nearly four decades ago died yesterday in Denmark hours after eight of his peers were honored in New York. Drummer Ed Thigpen succumbed to heart and lung problems in a hospital in Copenhagen, his home since 1972. He was 79. Thigpen was universally … [Read more...]
Compatible Quotes: The Tenor Saxophone
I made the tenor sax - there's nobody plays like me and I don't play like anybody else. - Coleman Hawkins If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it's like the human voice. - Stan Getz The tenor's got that thing, that honk, that you can get to people with. - Ornette … [Read more...]
Brecker and Blake
Speaking of Seamus Blake (see the item below), I looked for a video clip with him in action and came across one of the 28-year-old Blake in heavy company. He follows the late Michael Brecker in solo on Charles Mingus's "Goodbye Porkpie Hat." All of the other information I can give you is that this … [Read more...]