Martin Drew died in London on Thursday of a heart attack. Drew was the house drummer at Ronnie Scott's club for 20 years beginning in 1975. He gained his greatest fame during the same period and into the new century playing around the world in Oscar Peterson's trios and quartets. Recently he led his … [Read more...]
Archives for July 2010
Desmond a la Francais
The French jazz critic Alain Gerber is also a novelist, or vice versa. He published a book in 2007 that may be a biography, a novel, or both. Its title in French is Paul Desmond et le côté féminin du monde, or Paul Desmond and the Feminine Side of the World. That is the extent of my ability to … [Read more...]
New Picks: Summer Listening, Viewing, Reading
The Rifftides staff is pleased to announce a new batch of the recommendations known as Doug's Picks. Please proceed to the center column, scroll down and, there they are. … [Read more...]
CD: David Weiss
David Weiss & Point Of Departure, Snuck In (Sunnyside). Trumpeter Weiss's heart may be in the 1960s, but he and his young band operate very much in the present. His solo style is largely a bequest from the late Freddie Hubbard, with whom he worked closely as a player and arranger. His repertoire … [Read more...]
CD: Esperanza Spalding
Esperanza Spalding, Chamber Music Society (Heads Up). The contrarian impulse is to briskly walk away from hype about the latest sensation du jour, but critical duty says, listen anyway. In Spalding's case, I'm glad I listened. She is an accomplished bassist with depth of tone, penetrating timbre and … [Read more...]
CD: Joe Sardaro
Joe Sardaro, Lost In The Stars (Catch My Drift). Last year, I mentioned in a review of Joe Sardaro's Protégé that the singer's 1986 vinyl album Lost In The Stars had never been reissued. Now, happily, it is on CD. Sardaro recruited high-level backing for his first recording; drummer Shelly Manne, … [Read more...]
DVD: Jimmy And Percy Heath
Jimmy And Percy Heath, Jazz Master Class (Artists House). In 2004, the year before bassist Percy Heath died, he and his saxophonist/composer brother Jimmy appeared in John Snyder's master class series at New York University. A pair of DVDs captures them in several stunning duets, critiquing student … [Read more...]
Book: Harvey Pekar
Harvey Pekar, American Splendor: The Life And Times Of Harvey Pekar (Ballantine Books). Pekar, who died this month, mesmerized readers by transforming his ordinary life into comics for adults. Pekar wrote the stories. R. Crumb and a crew of other artists illustrated them to Pekar's specifications, … [Read more...]
Language: Irritating Cliché Department
This rhetorical padding is used by countless politicians and, it seems, nearly everyone interviewed or quoted in the news, from President Obama on down: "...going forward..." and its variant, "...moving forward..." Take it out of virtually any sentence and you will lose no meaning. Example: "The … [Read more...]
Other Places: Barkan To The Rescue
Jimmy Heath recently said he's been hearing since he was a youngster that jazz is dying. The saxophonist and composer/arranger will be 84 in October. Joining him in discounting death rumors is a younger man, the veteran entrepreneur Todd Barkan, who runs the oddly named but vital Dizzy's Club … [Read more...]
Weekend Extra: Fun With Chet And Paul
Someone who identifies himself on YouTube as "liveacid" went to painstaking trouble to manufacture a video of Chet Baker and Paul Desmond playing "Autumn Leaves." The music track is from Baker's 1974 album She Was Too Good To Me. It was later reissued on the compilation Chet Baker & Paul Desmond … [Read more...]
Recent Listening: These Pianists Are From Venus
The Japanese have a longstanding love affair with jazz piano. Albums by jazz pianists sell consistently well in Japan. Leading pianists from around the world perform there in concerts and clubs. Indeed, the country has produced its own crops of world-class pianists, among them Toshiko Akiyoshi, … [Read more...]
Other Places: Manfred Eicher And ECM
Manfred Eicher has been successful with his ECM label not by constantly taking the pulse of the public and the record industry but by recording music he likes. That is an oversimplification, but not much of one. In the British newspaper The Guardian, Richard Williams has a piece about Eicher and his … [Read more...]
From The Archive: Separated At Birth?
This was first a Rifftides post on March 24, 2006. Thanks to Bill Reed and David Ehrenstein for calling this to our attention. … [Read more...]
Compatible Quotes: On Freedom
The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution. —Igor Stravinsky At this time the fashion is to bring something to jazz that I reject. They speak of freedom. But one has no right, under pretext … [Read more...]
Recent Listening: Kamuca and Konitz
Richie Kamuca & Lee Konitz, Live at Donte's 1974 (Cellar Door) It's a hoot to hear the saxophonists channel their hero Lester Young in this recently discovered session recorded at the lamented Los Angeles club. "Lester Leaps In" begins and ends as a unison duet, complete with stop-time breaks, … [Read more...]
Recent Listening: Whitted, Manricks, Saluzzi, O’Brien
Here is the new batch of short reviews —micro-reviews, perhaps—in which the Rifftides staff acknowledges some of the CDs that have attracted our attention lately. It would be impossible to hear all of every album that shows up. Even sampling a majority of them is a challenge. Evidence: … [Read more...]
Things To Come
In a doomed attempt to stay abreast of the torrent of new releases flooding into Rifftides world headquarters, the staff is feverishly preparing a series of brief reviews; perhaps "alerts" would be a better word. It is our intention to begin posting them tomorrow or the next day. Even in the digital … [Read more...]
Brubeck & Company In Belgium, Part 5
Ending this Rifftides mini-series of videos from the Dave Brubeck Quartet's 1964 appearance on Belgian television is—what else?—the number that became a popular hit in a best-selling album and for Desmond, its composer, an annuity that by terms of his will is still funneling large amounts … [Read more...]