It could have been worse—toxic red sludge, for instance. The technician just left after performing CPR on the internet connection, which was out of commission for 48 hours. The Rifftides staff will resume posting soon. Now, ears open wide and notebook in hand, we're off to The Seasons for the … [Read more...]
Archives for October 2010
Rifftides is currently at sea
The Rifftides global headquarters' internet connection is currently flooded. We'll be back when the water recedes … [Read more...]
In Breve (2): Rosenthal, Carter, Bang, Chang
Continuing the not quite helter-skelter survey of recent recordings that we began last week, here are four more worth your attention: Ted Rosenthal, Impromptu (Playscape). Rosenthal interprets classical composers' themes with respect, but he is not reluctant to add or subtract an element to make … [Read more...]
The Seasons Fall Festival And Scott Robinson
Among the dozens of musicians either already here or headed toward my current home town for the eight days of The Seasons Fall Festival are Tom Harrell and his quintet, Bill Mays, Martin Wind, Matt Wilson, Scott Robinson, the African percussion expert Michael Wimberly, composer Daron Hagen and a … [Read more...]
Brown, Green And Hamilton: “Cotton Tail”
While the Rifftides staff prepares the next installment of In Breve, we don't want you to feel abandoned. We have been holding the following video for just such an occasion—Benny Green, piano; Ray Brown,bass; Jeff Hamilton, drums; and the WDR Big Band conducted by John Clayton, in 1994, playing … [Read more...]
The Latest Recommendations
CD: Miles Davis
Miles Davis, Bitches Brew 40th Anniversary (Columbia). Here is everything you are likely to want to hear, know, ask or think about Davis' full-fledged leap into the rock ethic that informed his music in the 1970s. It is a lavish boxed package of two LPs, three CDs, a DVD, a book and a packet of … [Read more...]
CD: Irene Kral
Irene Kral, Second Chance (Jazzed Media). Kral's stock in trade was perfection—of intonation, time, feeling, diction and lyric interpretation. She sang with little movement, no show biz mannerisms, nothing resembling schtick. She was so good at 25 that in 1957 Maynard Ferguson hired her on the … [Read more...]
CD: Martin Wind
Martin Wind, Get It? (Laika). The quartet's feeling of controlled abandon, symbolized in the cover shot, is notable in the title tune inspired by James Brown. There's a sense of slight danger even in the stately treatment of Billy Strayhorn's "Isfahan" and Wind's atmospheric, blues-inflected "Rainy … [Read more...]
DVD: Johnny Mercer
Johnny Mercer, This Time The Dream's On Me (Warner Bros). Producer-director Bruce Ricker does a masterly job of integrating new and old material into a thorough biography of the great lyricist. The story of Mercer's life and artistry melds film clips and recordings of Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, … [Read more...]
Book: Nat Hentoff
Nat Hentoff, At The Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years On The Jazz Scene (U of California Press). Hentoff is our leading avatar of the proposition that jazz is a living expression of the principles embedded in the US constitution, of which he is also a scholar. He does not deal in technical analysis of … [Read more...]
Correspondence: Butler Did It
Rifftides reader Garret Gannuch practices pediatric radiology in Denver. When he moved to Colorado, his Louisiana soul went with him. A week ago, Dr. Gannuch traveled into the country south of Denver to hear a fellow New Orleanian. He knew that, like nearly anyone who's ever lived there, I'll never … [Read more...]
Diversion: Johnny Wittwer
During my early development as a listener, I was immersed in the works of Charlie Parker, Bud Powell and Miles Davis when along came Johnny Wittwer. Wittwer was a Seattle pianist who had been been important in the traditional jazz revival on the west coast in the 1940s. Early in that decade he had a … [Read more...]