Lately, readers have asked how to sign up for Rifftides RSS feeds and be notified of new posts and comments. On the right side of the blue bar at the top of the screen, you will see a pair of symbols like this. Click on the one next to "Posts" or the one next to "Comments," or both, and then click on "Subscribe." Voila! … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Debra Kinzler’s notice that a quartet of Clifford Jordan's admirers will revive his Glass Bead Games prompts me to post a slightly revised version of a 2007 piece about a landmark recording that became unavailable for too long. Ms. Kinzler informs us that tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake, pianist Eric Reed, drummer Billy Drummond and bassist Dezron Douglas will perform Jordan’s work in an engagement May 17-22 at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in New York. She describes the 1974 … [Read more...]

New Orleans is the only place I know of where you ask a little kid what he wants to be and instead of saying "I want to be a policeman," or "I want to be a fireman," he says, I want to be a musician."—Alan Jaffe I was just like the rest of the kids, wanted to now all about that new music called jazz. I was a second-line kid. That meant I’d follow the big bands down the street and, man, what a thrill when Tio or George Baquet would let me carry their cases while they played!—Albert … [Read more...]

Five years ago, I wrote about Tom Sancton’s book Song For My Fathers being assigned reading for Tulane University’s incoming students. That venerable school chose it to give the freshmen a shared intellectual experience that would stimulate discussion. Not incidentally, it would also acquaint them with a profound aspect of the culture and caché of Tulane's home, New Orleans. A respected correspondent, an overseas bureau chief and a clarinetist who mastered the traditional music of his … [Read more...]

This is the latest of our periodic efforts to keep up with recorded music. Some of these CDs are recent. Some have been languishing in the holding pen for months. Some are timeless standard repertoire items that the Rifftides staff believes everyone should know about. The album titles in blue italics are links. Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, Eric Harland, James Farm (Nonesuch) For the most part, leaderless cooperatives in jazz have assembled to record and then gone their separate … [Read more...]

Has anyone else noticed that radio and TV weather people report or predict "warm temperatures" or "cold temperatures." Temperatures are not warm or cold. Air is warm or cold. Temperatures are high or low, or somewhere in between. Please, weather people. And another thing, as Andy Rooney would say: Gene Lees, refusing to submit to the PC usage "weatherpersons," called them "weatherthings." Boy, do I miss him. … [Read more...]

At 82, Herb Geller is still living in Germany, still touring in Europe, with occasional—too rare—visits to his US homeland. Here he is last February in Aberdeen, Scotland, at a club called the Blue Lamp. His rhythm section is pianist Paul Kirby, bassist Martin Zenker and drummer Rick Hollander. They play Billy Strayhorn’s “Johnny Come Lately.” What’s the reason for posting this performance? Listen. … [Read more...]

Several days ago in the course of conducting a web search, Vicki Overfelt came across a 2008 Rifftides mini-review of a Rosa Passos album, Romance. She used the comment function to ask if anyone could help her find the object of her search. She wanted the words to “Desilusión,” a song Passos wrote with lyricist Santiago Auserón and recorded on her 2006 CD Rosa. Skeptical that other trollers might find her plea so long after the initial item, we nonetheless posted the query. Lo and … [Read more...]

The animated digital robot spoofs springing up on the internet include several aimed at the jazz-insider culture, in particular at the hipper-than-thou talk exchanged among students of the art who may be ever so slightly over-educated and just too cool—but not too cool for words. There are plenty of words in these cartoons. One of the most inviting targets for robot satire is the school of musicians who pattern themselves on the playing and teachings of Lennie Tristano and his accolytes. If … [Read more...]