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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Archives for November 19, 2010

Followup: Reilly’s Joyful Thanks

Pianist Jack Reilly’s recital at the Johns Hopkins Medicine Center in Baltimore on November 9 paid musical tribute to the memory of the doctor who saved his life.
Reilly Joy.jpg
The concert of Reilly’s original work was recorded. To see and hear it, click here. Thanks to the folks at Johns Hopkins for providing the printed program.

DESCRIPTION:
” THE SILENCE of the HEART”
24 MINIATURES FOR PIANO
Dedicated to the late Dr. Martin Abeloff

BOOK ONE
1) C Major 7) E flat Major
2) C Minor 8) E flat Minor
3 D flat Major 9) E Major
4) C sharp Minor 10) E minor
5) D Major 11) F Major
6) D Minor 12) F Minor
INTERMISSION
BOOK TWO
13) F sharp Major 19) A Major
14) F sharp Minor 20) A Minor
15) G Major 21) B flat Major
16) G Minor 22) B flat Minor
17) A flat Major 23) B Major
18) G sharp Minor 24) B Minor

A Brubeck Birthday Concert

Dave Brubeck’s 90th birthday is on December 6. Observances are beginning. This weekend in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under music director William Schrickel will play a celebratory concert with three pieces by Brubeck. Bill-&-Dave-Brubeck-May-7-2004 .jpgThey include one of his first extended orchestral works, Elementals, and the U.S. premiere of an adaptation for solo violin and strings of “Sleep, Holy Infant” from La Fiesta de la Posada. Three others pieces on the program are by George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and Darius Milhaud, composers Brubeck admires. The Milhaud piece is La Création du monde, the French composer’s 1923 venture into jazz, the music he often credited with revitalizing European art in the 1920s. Following World War Two, Brubeck studied with and was encouraged by Milhaud at Mills College in California.
As Schrickel, was planning the concert, Brubeck’s son Chris sent him this photograph of a self-portrait that Milhaud gave the Brubeck family in 1958. The lines of the drawing are themes from La Création du monde.
Darius Milhaud Self-Portrait.jpg
The message in the bottom right corner reads, “To the 7 Brubecks, the Owner of the Square Foot. Souvenir of Creation du Monde, Milhaud 1958.” In a note to Bill Schrickel, Iola Brubeck explained:

The reference to the “square foot” stems from the fact that Milhaud was a Jewish refugee in this country. His apartment in Paris was destroyed by the Nazis when they occupied Paris and the German elite took over his family home in Aix-en-Provence. His parents remained on the estate disguised as gardeners. Amazingly, no one gave away the secret. However, Milhaud never saw his parents again. They died before the war was over and he could safely return to Europe in 1947. When we were building our new home in Oakland, he asked that we reserve one square foot for him, because he said “I want to have someplace I can stand and say “this is myMilhaud smiling.jpg own”. We did just that. We reserved one square foot–unfinished–in the hearth of the living room fireplace. When he visited us in 1958, he saw the square foot, asked for a piece of paper and the next day we received in the mail the sketch of Milhaud and the themes from Creation du Monde. We have the piece of paper in a safe and had the portrait engraved on copper to place in the hearth. When we moved to the East Coast we brought it with us, and that is what Chris photographed for you.

For details about Sunday’s concert and to hear an interview with Bill Schrickel about Brubeck’s effect on his musical life, go here.

Weekend Listening Tip: Stamm And Kirchner

Correspondence from Bill Kirchner, saxophonist, composer, arranger, teacher, author, broadcaster (does this guy sleep?):

Thumbnail image for Kirchner CU.jpgRecently, I taped my next one-hour show for the “Jazz From The Archives” series. Presented by the Institute of Jazz Studies, the series runs every Sunday on WBGO-FM (88.3).
After graduating from North Texas State University and playing with the Stan Kenton and Woody Herman orchestras, trumpeter Marvin Stamm (b. 1939) settled in New York City in 1966. For more than two decades, he was a first-call studio musician. Since the late 1980s, he has concentrated on his career as a touring jazz soloist.
We’ll hear Stamm playing on recordings with composer-arrangers Johnny Carisi, FrankStamm CU.jpg Foster, Thad Jones, and Rich Shemaria, and with his own quartet (with pianist Bill Mays, bassist Rufus Reid, and drummer Ed Soph) and The Inventions Trio (with Mays and cellist Alisa Horn).
The show will air this Sunday, November 21, from 11 p.m. to midnight, Eastern Standard Time.
NOTE: If you live outside the New York City metropolitan area, WBGO also broadcasts on the Internet at www.wbgo.org.

Rifftides is adding to the blogroll at the bottom of the center column a link to Stamm’s website. At the site, there’s a link to Cadenzas, his newsletter of interesting reflections and, often, provocative thoughts about music and life.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, … [MORE]

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