Archives for May 3, 2012

International Jazz Day

May 3, 2012 by Doug Ramsey

The first annual International Jazz Day came and went on April 30 with no mention on Riffitdes, a lapse I regret. Fellow arts journal blogger Howard Mandel, president of the Jazz Journalists Association, has a fine report at his Jazz Beyond Jazz site. Howard includes a great quote from United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon (pictured) and a tribute to Herbie Hancock, who came up with the idea of such a day. A video posted on YouTube gives a scattershot idea of some of the events at the UN … [Read more...]

Mike Zito: Keep Coming Back

After sideman work, then membership in cooperative groups with Cyrille Neville, Devon Allman and others, in 2012 the St. Louis blues guitarist and singer Mike Zito formed his band, The Wheel. Few dedicated jazz listeners also keep up with developments in the music that grows out of country blues pioneers like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson and Tampa Red—and such later urban performers as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Big Bill Broonzy. Over the past century, hundreds of blues artists in Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, Chicago and dozens of other places have forged personal blues styles. Zito is helping to extend the tradition. Here, he and The Wheel play “Bad News Is Coming.” The sidemen are Jimmy Carpenter, tenor saxophone; Scott Sutherland, bass; and Rob Lee, drums.

I’d like to have heard a tenor solo, but you can’t have everything. Zito’s newest album is Keep Coming Back. Based on what we just saw and heard, it seems more than worth checking out.

Monday Recommendation: Ken Peplowski

Ken Peplowski, Enrapture (Capri)

Despite a playlist that seems to represent a grab bag of music, there is nothing scattershot about Ken Peplowski’s eclecticism. The clarinetist and tenor saxophonist with the capacious tone and imagination brings together Duke Ellington’s early-1940s “The Flaming Sword,” Lennon and Ono’s 1970s “Oh, My Love,” Fats Waller’s “Willow Tree,” a twelve tone piece by drummer Peter Erskine, and music from Bernard Hermann’s score for the Hitchcock film Vertigo. There are other songs by Harry Warren, Barry Manilow, Noël Coward, Leslie Bricusse, and the title tune by the daring 1950s pianist and composer Herbie Nichols. Peplowski brings this all together in a program united by his musicianship and humor and his superb rhythm section—pianist Ehud Asherie, bassist Martin Wind and drummer Matt Wilson. You may find yourself going back to Peplowski’s irrepressible clarinet solo in “The Flaming Sword.” It’s addictive.

Monday Recommendation: Shirley Horn

Shirley Horn Live at the 4 Queens (Resonance)

The Resonance label continues its parade of previously unissued recordings with this jewel by Shirley Horn, a supremely gifted pianist and singer (1934-2005). By the time of the 1988 performance in the music room of her favorite Las Vegas hotel, Ms. Horn, bassist Charles Ables and drummer Steve Williams had honed themselves into a group of uncommon tightness and empathy. They generated seductive swing at the slowest tempos, as in this album’s vocal versions of Lil Armstrong’s “Just For a Thrill” and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Meditation.” In outright piano trio swing, Horn is at her peak in Randy Weston’s “Hi-Fly,” an extended “Isn’t It Romantic,” “Blues for Big Scotia” by her early piano influence Oscar Peterson, and an amused romp through Cole Porter’s “You’d Be So Nice to Come To.” This is a welcome addition to Horn’s discography.

Monday Recommendation: Kathrine Windfeld

Monday Recommendation: Kathrine Windfeld, Aircraft (Century Music)

The rich history of jazz in Scandinavia began more than a century ago. During the swing and bebop eras Sweden, Denmark and Norway produced major soloists, composers and arrangers. The emergence of Kathrine Windfeld’s big band brings assurance that the region’s new talents have the potential to equal achievements of players like Lars Gullin, Bengt Hallberg, Åke Persson, Jan Johansson, and writers of the stature of Bengt-Arne Wallin, Gösta Theselius and Harry Arnold. The evidence indicates that Ms. Windfeld, a Dane, could establish an equally impressive career. Her band’s first album has the musicianship, joy and drive of their performance at Sweden’s Ystad Jazz Festival a month ago. Ms. Windfeld tightly integrates the sections, but a feeling of looseness prevails. Among memorable solos are those from trombonist Petter Hängsel, trumpeter Andres Bergkrantz, tenor saxophonist Ida Karlsson and the leader at the piano.

Monday Recommendation: Fred Hersch Trio

Fred Hersch Trio, Sunday Night at the Vanguard (Palmetto)

After all their years together, take it for granted that pianist Hersch, bassist John Hébert and drummer Eric McPherson listen intently to one another and mesh with elegance on every level. However, taking for granted anything about the Hersch trio can only open you up to surprises. Many of the surprises here involve time. There are no Dave Brubeck excursions into 9/8, Charles Ives flings with 15/16, or other unconventional time signatures. Instead, Hersch, Hébert and McPherson flex the time, vary it, sometimes improvise with it as surely as they do with harmonic content, and never lose forward motion. Hersch’s “Serpentine” is a prime example. The trio’s Village Vanguard playlist contains Thelonious Monk’s “We See,” Jimmy Rowles’ “The Peacocks,” Paul McCartney’s “For No One,” and among several Hersch compositions a delicious solo piano encore, “Valentine.” Close listening to this album brings great rewards.

Monday Recommendation: Toots Thielemans

Toots Thielemans, Yesterday & Today (Out Of The Blue) The loss today of the harmonica virtuoso makes this survey of his career poignant and rewarding. Two CDs with thirty-eight tracks, most previously unreleased, follow Thielemans from 1946, when he was a 23-year-old guitarist with a Belgian swing band, to a 2001 harmonica performance of “What A Wonderful World” with pianist Kenny Werner. In the late 1940s and early ‘50s, when many European musicians were struggling with the style, Thielemans had a firm grasp of bebop. Playing through the decades with George Shearing, Hank Jones, J.J. Johnson, Elis Regina, Mulgrew Miller, Shirley Horn and a few dozen others, Thielemans is astonishing on both instruments, but it’s his harmonica that brings grins of joy.

More Doug's Picks

Mike Zito: Keep Coming Back

Monday Recommendation: Ken Peplowski

Ken Peplowski, Enrapture (Capri) Despite a playlist that seems to represent a grab bag of music, there is nothing scattershot about Ken Peplowski’s eclecticism. The clarinetist and tenor saxophonist with the capacious tone and imagination brings together Duke Ellington’s early-1940s “The Flaming Sword,” Lennon and Ono’s 1970s “Oh, My Love,” Fats Waller’s “Willow Tree,” a […]

Monday Recommendation: Shirley Horn

Shirley Horn Live at the 4 Queens (Resonance) The Resonance label continues its parade of previously unissued recordings with this jewel by Shirley Horn, a supremely gifted pianist and singer (1934-2005). By the time of the 1988 performance in the music room of her favorite Las Vegas hotel, Ms. Horn, bassist Charles Ables and drummer […]

Monday Recommendation: Kathrine Windfeld

Monday Recommendation: Kathrine Windfeld, Aircraft (Century Music) The rich history of jazz in Scandinavia began more than a century ago. During the swing and bebop eras Sweden, Denmark and Norway produced major soloists, composers and arrangers. The emergence of Kathrine Windfeld’s big band brings assurance that the region’s new talents have the potential to equal […]

Monday Recommendation: Fred Hersch Trio

Fred Hersch Trio, Sunday Night at the Vanguard (Palmetto) After all their years together, take it for granted that pianist Hersch, bassist John Hébert and drummer Eric McPherson listen intently to one another and mesh with elegance on every level. However, taking for granted anything about the Hersch trio can only open you up to […]

Monday Recommendation: Toots Thielemans

Toots Thielemans, Yesterday & Today (Out Of The Blue) The loss today of the harmonica virtuoso makes this survey of his career poignant and rewarding. Two CDs with thirty-eight tracks, most previously unreleased, follow Thielemans from 1946, when he was a 23-year-old guitarist with a Belgian swing band, to a 2001 harmonica performance of “What […]

More Doug's Picks

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Archives for May 3, 2012

International Jazz Day