It is the custom of trumpeter John McNeil to disseminate notices about his band's engagements at Puppet's, a Brooklyn, New York, night club. Late today, he issued a special edition: Tonight's gig at Puppets is cancelled. Don't know why... … [Read more...]

Once in a great while, I encounter a photograph so good that it is necessary to dream up a reason to use it. In the case of the one beow, no dreaming was necessary. The lighting, sharpness and definition are so right, the shot looks like 3-D. The tenor saxophonist is Hadley Caliman. The conductor is Michael Brockman of the Seattle Jazz Repertory Orchestra. The SRJO is preparing for two concerts called Big Band Monk and Mingus, in early March. Photo by Bruce C Moore From the SRJO news … [Read more...]

With fairness, it could be charged that Rifftides has been too concerned lately with the old and the dead. Well, certain observances and acknowledgements needed to be made. But let's move on. David Liebman wrote with an antidote. Here's his message: ok--it's a cliche now that "they"(meaning the kids) get better earlier-check this out--he's already doing classical stuff since he was a babe--jazz for two years--Ravi (Coltrane) turned me on to him before I went to Israel a few weeks ago 13 yr old … [Read more...]

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.--Friedrich Nietzsche It is all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date.--George Bernard Shaw For God's sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself!--Robert Louis Stevenson The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after … [Read more...]

What three administrations in the White House have refused to do, the people have done. They have recognized Willis Conover, the Voice of America broadcaster who may have been America's greatest cultural diplomat of the Cold War. He now has his own Facebook page, The Willis Conover Club. Will that lead to his getting a long overdue posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom? Possibly not, but his page, up only a day or two, is rapidly accumulating fans. One of them typifies the many musicians who … [Read more...]

Sad news from London that Johnny Dankworth --Sir John Dankworth-- has died at 82. The alto saxophonist, composer and band leader and his wife, the singer Cleo Laine, have been pillars of jazz in England since the early 1950s. To read the BBC's announcement of his death, go here. John Dankworth … [Read more...]

Browsing YouTube, I came across what must be among the rarest pieces of jazz film, a sequence of Woody Herman's Second Herd, the celebrated Four Brothers band. We hear Herman's vocal and a bit of Stan Getz's tenor saxophone on "Caldonia," then most of "Northwest Passage," both pieces holdovers from the First Herd destined to be staples in the Herman book for the rest of his life. Herman, Getz and Shorty Rogers play the trio section of "Northwest Passage," then there's a succession of four-bar … [Read more...]

In today's New York Times, classical music critic Steve Smith gives an account of a rare encounter between improvising jazz musicians and a work of Franz Josef Haydn. To read it, go here. … [Read more...]

Rifftides Washington, DC, correspondent John Birchard has rediscovered pianist Mike Wofford and filed this appreciation: I've been listening lately to Mike Wofford. I first heard his work on an Epic LP titled Strawberry Wine back in the early 60's and was impressed, especially with a couple of his originals, "Strawberry Wine" and "Three For All." In '67, he did another trio LP, Sure Thing, on Discovery, produced by Albert Marx, that I still have on my LP shelf. In '76, during the brief Scott … [Read more...]

Daedalus Books and Music is a company that sells remaindered or overstocked books and recordings. It is the beneficiary of what we might conservatively call a state of flux in the fields of book publishing and recorded music. Daedalus and similar overstock specialists gather the fruits of catalogs thinned or, in some cases, decimated by publishers and record companies and sell them at reduced prices. The Winter 2010 Daedalus catalog includes 33 pages of cutout jazz, blues and rock CDs. All but a … [Read more...]

GOING To repeat: I have no intention of Rifftides becoming an obituary service, but as James Moody says his grandmother told him, "Folks is dyin' what ain't never died before," and some passings demand to be observed. John Norris died yesterday in Toronto at the age of 76. He was the founder of the Canadian jazz magazine Coda, and of Sackville Records. Norris was a benevolent and resolutely independent spirit in music north of the border. He steadfastly resisted technological demands of not … [Read more...]