At this time of year, those who write about music, books, plays, motion pictures, sporting events, chili cookoffs, hog-calling contests and—for all I know—goldfish breeding, are expected to compile lists of the year's best. I have been complicit in this questionable activity, but I've been … [Read more...]
Archives for December 2010
Other Places: Preservation Haul
Oregon Music News has a line on its masthead listing the categories the online publication covers: CLASSICAL, JAZZ/BLUES, ROCK/ROOTS, ACOUSTIC, INDIE, DJ/ELECTRO, SOUL/HIP-HOP, MELTING POT, FAMILY, MUSICALS I don't spend much time with two-thirds of those genres and although I found it enlightening … [Read more...]
Billy Taylor, 1921-2010
Billy Taylor, a pianist who became a television and radio spokesman for jazz and made the music familiar to millions, died last night in a New York City hospital after suffering heart failure at home. He was 89. In his work on National Public Radio and CBS-TV's Sunday Morning, Taylor's playing and … [Read more...]
Other Matters: Ciccolini Plays Satie
Many Rifftides readers may be familiar with Erik Satie's "Gymnopédie No. 1" because performers including Jessica Williams, Jacques Loussier, Ximo Tébar and Herbie Mann with Bill Evans have recorded jazz or near-jazz versions of that classic of French music. It has not become a jazz standard, but … [Read more...]
Joyeux Noel, Frohe Weihnachten, Feliz Navidad, Christmas Alegre, Lystig Jul, メリークリスマス, Natale Allegro, 圣诞快ä¹, Καλά ΧÏιστοÏγεννα, ì¦ê±°ìš´ 성탄, И к вÑему доброй ночи And С Ðовым Годом
The Rifftides staff wishes you a Merry Christmas, a splendid holiday season and happy listening. For good measure, here is a scene captured yesterday on the staff winter field trip. … [Read more...]
A Sad Note: Jack Tracy Is Gone
Jack Tracy died on Tuesday, December 21. He was 84. Jack was editor of DownBeat magazine in the 1950s and went on to a second career producing fine jazz recordings. He was a frequent Rifftides commenter. We shall miss his knowledge, pointed observations, humor and friendship. … [Read more...]
CD: Alan Broadbent
Alan Broadbent Trio Live At Giannelli Square: Volume 1 (Chilly Bin). No outer space explorer, Broadbent finds in the song form all that he needs for freedom earned through discipline. The technique he has intensified in recent years is evident in the precision and relaxation of his counterpoint in … [Read more...]
CD: Rudresh Mahanthappa & Bunky Green
Rudresh Mahanthappa & Bunky Green, Apex (Pi). Mahanthappa, aged 39, is one of the most visible alto saxophonists of the 21st century; Green, aged 75 one of the least. As a result of this album, Green is gaining the prominence he might have achieved in the 1960s had he not left Charles Mingus for … [Read more...]
CD: Harold Danko, Dick Oatts, Rich Perry
Harold Danko, Oatts & Perry II (SteepleChase). Pianist Danko was a colleague of alto saxophonist Dick Oatts and tenor saxophonist Rich Perry in the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis band and never got over them—with good reason. This successor album to Oats & Perry (2006) again teams the three with bassist … [Read more...]
DVD: Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck, Brubeck Returns to Moscow (Koch Vision). This 2005 film about Brubeck's 1997 visit to Russia for a performance of his mass To Hope is a beautifully crafted documentary. It incorporates Brubeck's quartet with a symphony orchestra and chorus performing the mass and a rousing "Blue Rondo … [Read more...]
Book: Laurie Verchomin On Bill Evans
Laurie Verchomin, The Big Love: Life & Death With Bill Evans (Verchomin). The "Laurie" of the pianist's song by that name spares nothing in her account of their romance or of the drug use that hastened Evans' death at 51. Love between the pianist and the young woman flared in the year-and-a-half … [Read more...]
New Picks, Delayed But Worth The Wait
A flurry of deadlines for other projects meant that it took a while to get the new batch of recommendations ready, but they are posted. In the center column under the legend Doug's Picks you will find suggestions of CDs by pianists and saxophonists, a DVD documentary about a momentous event in … [Read more...]
Christmas CDs: Matt Wilson, Matassa/Anderson
The other day a man who acted on last year's Rifftides recommendation of Carla Bley's Carla's Christmas Carols let me know that he was disappointed in the album. Indeed, he was offended by it. In the review, I described the "tenderness, wit, harmonic brilliance, wide dynamic range and wry sense of … [Read more...]
Correspondence, With Music: Moody Concerned
The Norwegian pianist, composer and bandleader Per Husby writes: I'd like to share a little remembrance of mine of James Moody - from Oslo, Norway somewhere around 1990: I had been playing piano with Moody on some gigs at the Molde jazz festival in 1979, and had met him sporadically here and there … [Read more...]
Clark Terry Is 90
Today is Clark Terry's 90th birthday. Admired for his trumpet, flugelhorn, singing and blues mumbling, Terry has been an idol of trumpet players since the teenaged Miles Davis took him for a role model in St. Louis in the 1940s. From his days with Charlie Barnet, Count Basie and Duke Ellington … [Read more...]
Correspondence, Illustrated: Leap Frog II
Jeremiah McDonald writes: Years ago you featured my Jazz Dispute video on your blog, and I just wanted to let you know that I recently a second version for the French theater that I now work for. It's the same recording of "Leap Frog," but performed a little differently... Yes, a little … [Read more...]
How Moody Became Famous
I thought that we had come to the end of the current Rifftides series of James Moody entries until I heard from a reader who wondered why she had never heard Moody's "I'm in the Mood for Love." That is a puzzle, given the record's ubiquity, but if even one person has the pleasure of hearing it for … [Read more...]
James Moody, 1925-2010
We knew it was coming. That doesn't make it easier. James Moody died this afternoon of the pancreatic cancer he had known about for nearly a year but did not make public until November. He was 85. Moody was in hospice in San Diego, his hometown for many years. His wife Linda was by his side, as she … [Read more...]
Don’t Let It Bother You
Extracurricular assignments will keep me busy for a while. The Rifftides staff will supply items to inform or entertain you. There's not much information in this one, but it may lift your spirits if, say, snow collapsed your roof or Julian Assange leaked one of your cables. Fats Waller in 1934 with … [Read more...]