Archives for September 2010

Jazz is dying? Ha. The stacks of evidence on my office floor say otherwise. Here you see a few of the recent arrivals. As I may have mentioned, it is impossible to keep up with this stuff. No matter how many listening hours the reviewer carves out of the day, they can never be enough. Selectivity is … [Read more...]

Danilo Pérez, Providencia (MackAvenue). In what may well have been his most substantial and visionary contribution to world understanding and the progress of his nation, the late Mexican president José López Portillo said in a 1977 interview, "Everything is part of everything else." 1,500 miles … [Read more...]

The pianist, composer and teacher Joan Stiles runs one of the hippest sextets in New York. Her circle of insider admirers encompasses many of the best-known musicians in jazz today and is widening to include a substantial number of listeners in the general audience. Stiles achieves identifiable … [Read more...]

Thanks to Jan Stevens of The Bill Evans Web Pages for pointing the way to a revealing interview with Evans the year before he died. Ross Porter (pictured), then of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, talked with the pianist at his home and in his car as Evans was driving to a medical appointment. … [Read more...]

Buddy Collette, a master of reeds and woodwinds who played a major part in integrating Los Angeles studios and the musicians union, is gone. He died on Sunday at the age of 89. Like his contemporary Angelenos Charles Mingus and Dexter Gordon, Collette was an important part of the southern … [Read more...]

Richard M. Sudhalter died two years ago today. A superb writer and musician, he was the author of the definitive biography of Bix Beiderbecke and played cornet—beautifully—in the Bix tradition. Here he is with the New York Jazz Repertory Company at a Town Hall concert in the early 1970s, … [Read more...]

Many of the numerous comments about my Bill Evans article in The Wall Street Journal this week have been touching. None has been more moving or more extensive than this one from Rifftides reader Mark Mohr. The staff agreed that Mr. Mohr's account of discovering Evans should be an item of its own … [Read more...]

Edwin Newman's death at age 91 is not the end of an era. The broadcast news era that produced Newman ended long ago, as you may have noticed in most of the news programs you watch on television and, particularly, on cable. Newman worked for NBC News. He was of a generation of broadcast news people … [Read more...]

A dyslexia attack a week ago caused the Rifftides proprietor to alert readers to a radio broadcast last Sunday that, in fact, will take place this coming Sunday, September 19. The only way to make amends is to correct the mistake and post the item again. The entire Rifftides staff is on vacation … [Read more...]

First of all, I never strive for identity. That's something that just has happened automatically as a result, I think, of just putting things together, tearing things apart and putting it together my own way, and somehow I guess the individual comes through eventually. Especially, I want my work - … [Read more...]

In today's Wall Street Journal I have an article in observance of the 30th anniversary of Bill Evans' death. Here are a few of the 900-plus words: Among pianists, Evans, who died 30 years ago Wednesday at age 51, is as immediately identifiable as Tatum, Earl Hines, Teddy Wilson and Bud Powell. In … [Read more...]

Dominick Farinacci, Sounds In My Life (Keystone). When I first heard Farinacci five or six years ago, he was one of two trumpet students featured on a Warren Vaché instructional DVD. In his solo on a blues, I was intrigued that he seemed to be reflecting in a personal way a school of trumpet … [Read more...]

Shots from this morning's ride: There's nothing better for color development than a succession of warm days and chilly nights. For comparison with color less than a month ago, go here. While I was shooting, a flock of geese flew over, headed south. … [Read more...]

Tenor saxophonist Hadley Caliman died Wednesday in Seattle. He was 78 and had liver cancer. Until a few weeks before his death, Caliman thrived in the Pacific Northwest, starring in the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra and leading his own group. Here, we see him soloing with the SRJO. I wrote in … [Read more...]

The siege of deadlines has lifted. The assignments were good for the sagging exchequer but put the blogging account in arrears. In the days remaining before the staff goes on vacation, we'll pay attention to a few recent CDs. Denny Zeitlin, Precipice (Sunnyside). Following Mosaic's release last year … [Read more...]

In the beginning, Stash Records specialized in songs from the '20s, '30s and '40s that dealt with drugs and sex. The first Stash compilation of old recordings, in 1976, was called Reefer Songs. Another of the label's big sellers was Copulatin' Blues. Eventually, founder Bernie Brightman, began … [Read more...]

As the 30th anniversary of Bill Evans' death approaches, he is on many minds. I am preparing a piece that will run the week of the date he died, September 15. As I researched it, among the Evans posts I found buried in the Rifftides past is one from four years ago. In those primitive days, the staff … [Read more...]

The Detroit Jazz Festival runs through the Labor Day weekend, with an impressive array of musicians including Roy Haynes, Maria Schneider, Terence Blanchard and Branford Marsalis. The festival's artist-in-residence, Mulgrew Miller, received advance attention from Detroit Free Press music critic Mark … [Read more...]