Archives for July 2012

The Quincy Jones ABC/Mercury Big Band Jazz Sessions (Mosaic)

Preparing for my public conversation with Quincy Jones (two items down), I’ve been reading his 2001 autobiography, chatting with people he knows and listening to his music. The inventiveness, sparkle and audacity of Jones’ arrangements in the 1950s and early ‘60s gave his music freshness that was notable when he was in his twenties. Now that he’s nearing 80, these works of his youth are still among the most vital big band recordings of an era in which Count Basie, Woody Herman, Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton were going strong. Jones’ inventive scoring of his compositions, including “Stockholm Sweetnin’,” “The Midnight Sun Will Never Set” and “Hard Sock Dance,” is matched by his settings of standard songs, and pieces by contemporaries like Horace Silver, Benny Golson, Ernie Wilkins, Bobby Timmons and Bill Potts.

As for execution, Jones put together a band whose various versions had some of the best players of the day, among them Clark Terry, Zoot Sims, Freddie Hubbard, Phil Woods, Budd Johnson, Ã…ke Persson, Buddy Catlett, Urbie Green, Julius Watkins, Les Spann and Patti Bown. Stranded in Europe by the failure of “Free And Easy,” a stage production they were a part of, his musicians sacrificed to stay together and tour the continent, reflecting their loyalty to Jones, his music and each other. When the band is at its best in these five CDs—which is most of the time— it is easy to hear what inspired that spirit. Brian Priestley’s booklet notes are a valuable telling of the band’s story.

Jones moved from leading a big band into wide success in scoring for film and television and in pop music production. This set is a reminder of how much he accomplished when he concentrated on jazz.

Pop music too loud and all sounds the same: official

(London, July 26, 2012)—(Reuters) Comforting news for anyone over the age of 35, scientists have worked out that modern pop music really is louder and does all sound the same.

Researchers in Spain used a huge archive known as the Million Song Dataset, which breaks down audio and lyrical content into data that can be crunched, to study pop songs from 1955 to 2010.

A team led by artificial intelligence specialist Joan Serra at the Spanish National Research Council ran music from the last 50 years through some complex algorithms and found that pop songs have become intrinsically louder and more bland in terms of the chords, melodies and types of sound used.

So, it’s official. I had my suspicions. Note that the period of the study began with 1955, the year of “Rock Around the Clock.” To read the whole story, go here.

In a few days the Rifftides staff flies to Europe to report from the Ystad Jazz Festival on the southern coast of Sweden. Organized by pianist Jan Lundgren in 2010, the festival has developed into one of Europe’s most important music events. Among the US contingent August 2-5 will be Benny Green, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Eliane Elias and Kurt Rosenwinkel. Billy Harper and Victor Lewis will play with Swedish trumpeter Anders Bergcrantz. Dozens of Europe’s brightest stars will perform, including Bengt Hallberg, the dean of modern Swedish jazz pianists, in a two-piano concert with Lundgren. Tomasz Stanko, Richard Galliano, Paolo Fresu, Arild Anderson, Tommy Smith and Claire Martin are among other major artists set for the festival.

Ystad is one of Sweden’s best known small cities because of its beauty, its long history and, in modern times, because it is the headquarters of Kurt Wallander, a fictional detective who to millions has become real through novels and a successful BBC television series. If I catch a glimpse of Wallander, I’ll try to get a picture.

Quincy Jones is the festival’s guest of honor. His long involvement with Sweden dates back to classic recordings he produced and arranged in 1953 with Clifford Brown, Art Farmer and a group of Swedish all-stars, including Bengt Hallberg. Lundgren and the festival organizers have asked me to appear with Mr. Jones in a one-hour conversation at the Ystad Konstmuseum on August 4—something to which I look forward. To see the festival rundown and roster of artists, go here and click on “Programme.”

An e-mail announcement from the trumpeter Brad Goode:

This Thursday, July 26th:
THE BRAD GOODE JAZZ TRIO
Brad Goode trumpet
Bijoux Barbosa bass
Todd Reid drums
6:30 -9:30 pm
TREPPEDA’S ITALIAN RISTORANTE
300 2nd Avenue
Niwot, CO 80544
303.652.1606

I realize that few Rifftides readers will find themselves in the tiny Boulder, Colorado, suburb of Niwot tomorrow. If you are in that area of the Rocky Mountains, however, and make it to Trepedda’s Italian Ristorante, hearing Brad Goode will be worth the trip even if you have to drive all the way from Boulder or Denver.

But that’s not the point. The point is that Goode’s bass player is named Bijoux Barbosa. I’m always intrigued by euphonious appellations, as Cuthbert J. Twillie called fine-sounding names. But, I wondered, who is Bijoux Barbosa—and can he play? A web search answered the first question. He’s Brazilian. His real first name is Eduardo. He studied in his hometown of São Paulo, has been in Colorado for 15 years and has worked with Herbie Mann, Brian Lynch, Ron Blake, Jaleel Shaw and Ron Miles, among others.

Whether he can play, you may judge from this brief duet with tenor saxophonist Eric Trujillo at the Mi Vida Strings shop in Denver. The piece is Chucho Valdez’s “Mambo Influenciado.”

Given the list of performance credits above, it is clear that Bijoux Barbosa is far from unknown, but he was new to me. Perhaps he is to you. I’ll be keeping an ear out for him.

Jessica Williams, Songs Of Earth (Origin)

Williams, the Triple Door’s Steinway and the Seattle theater restaurant’s audience collaborate on yet another album of solo pieces by the pianist. The audience gets credit because their attentiveness, appreciation and courtesy help establish the atmosphere in which Williams creates seven pieces comprising a collection unlike any other in her vast discography. You can almost hear the audience listening.

For all of its suggestions of preconceived form, Williams must have spontaneously generated much of this music in performance. Its calm and thoughtfulness are illuminated by moments of surprise in which she seems to be discovering and disclosing facets of herself. That is what the best improvising performers do, and few pianists do it with more magnetism than Williams.

The keyboard touch that gave her previous Triple Door album its title is a marvel throughout this CD. The attribute equally in evidence in “The Enchanted Loom,” which has the vigor of a tribal dance, and “Montoya,” in which she suggests Spanish romanticism not only of the great Flamenco guitarist but of the era of Falla, Granados and Mompou. In John Coltrane’s “To Be,” Williams captures the mysticism of the version Coltrane recorded a few months before he died but also gives the composition—a sketch, really—more earthly substance, and vastly more whimsy, than did the five instruments on the Coltrane recording. The emotional high point comes in “Joe and Jane,” described by the pianist in her articulate liner notes as a “sorrowful psalm” to men and women who serve in the armed forces. The performance has elegiac qualities combined with down-home earnestness that reminds me of church music I’ve heard in the rural southern US.

In my review two years ago of Touch, I wrote:

People in the jazz community, particularly pianists in awe of Williams’s consistency, creativity and constant growth, often discuss why so many critics and the business side of jazz seem deaf to her brilliance. Whatever the reasons, they must be sociological, political or cultural. They cannot be musical…

Based on her playing here, I renew that expression of puzzlement.

COINCIDENTALLY, Her new album appears as Jessica Williams faces surgery and major expense for a long and persistent spinal problem. She has launched an appeal for help. You will find details on her website.

Malcolm Harris, the publisher of my Paul Desmond biography, sent this photograph and caption.

Of the many places where I’ve lived, from Choteau, Montana, to Iwakuni, Japan, to San Francisco and New York (mentioning a few), New Orleans is the most unusual, the one most often on my mind. “This is really a banana republic, you know,” my friend Bill Corrington once told me. He loved the city as much as I do, and he wasn’t the only one to invoke that metaphor. Most people know about above-ground cemeteries, jazz funerals, streetcars, beignets and the madness of Mardi Gras, to mention obvious facets of Crescent City culture.

Unless you’ve lived there, perhaps it’s impossible to know the mixture of laissez faire, stubbornness and gaiety that characterizes Orleanians, regardless of background. All of that came flooding back when I read Keith Spera’s story in the Times-Picayune about the lying- —er—standing-in-state of Lionel Batiste (photo by Marc Pelletier). The bass drummer in the Treme Brass Band was one of the Batiste clan that has provided New Orleans so many fine musicians. He died on July 8 at the age of 80. To identify him as a New Orleans character would be to drastically under-describe his personality. Here’s a paragraph from Spera’s story.

In a send-off as unique as the man himself, Mr. Batiste wasn’t lying in his cypress casket. Instead, his body was propped against a faux street lamp, standing, decked out in his signature man-about-town finery.

Yes, his body. To read the whole thing, click here.

Now, for a taste of what made Uncle Lionel distinctive in a town packed with rare characters, here is a performance captured by videographer Beate Sandor in 2009. Uncle Lionel sits in at Snug Harbor with Charmaine Neville and the band led by Wendell Brunious. Lionel doesn’t appear until 6:36, but you don’t want to miss what comes before. Brunious makes the introduction. This makes me want to go “home.”

Lionel Batiste, RIP.

Well, actually, we were never gone. However, for several hours, the Rifftides comment mechanism was broken. If you tried to use the “Speak Your Mind” box at the end of an item, or found that it had disappeared, we would like you to know that the feedback function is back in business. Provided that they are pertinent and civil, reader comments are always welcome. They give us some of our best stuff.

Thanks to the artsjournal.com technical team for the restoration work.

LATER: No sooner had I posted this item (notice the part about pertinence) than the following “comment” on the Ravi And Igor item arrived.

If you don’t want to spend a fortune on a large, elaborate wedding then you probably are considering eloping. If this is the case, then finding the best places to elope should be on your agenda. You want to make this task as stress-free as possible so that it will be something that you truly look forward to. You want to keep all the “fuss” to a minimum and find something that is romantic but at the same time affordable.

Oh, I get it; the commenter thought that Ravi and Igor are a couple.

For all of the excitement with modes that McCoy Tyner generated with John Coltrane and still achieves in long his post-Coltrane career, I have always been partial to Tyner’s way with standard songs and jazz originals with standard changes in albums like this and this.

That aspect of his playing is brilliant in this video from the 1987 Mount Fuji Festival in Japan. Ron Carter is the bassist, Joe Chambers the drummer.

Ethan Iverson featured that video recently in his Do The Math blog. Jim Harrod, moderator of the Jazz West Coast listserve, found it through Ethan. I found it through Jim. Thanks, guys. Networking works.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

National Public Radio’s series “Mom And Dad’s Record Collection” recently featured Ravi Coltrane, who has followed his father as a tenor and soprano saxophonist. John died when Ravi was two years old. Most of his son’s early musical memories stem from records his pianist and harpist mother Alice played when he and his siblings were children. He told NPR’s Robert Siegel:

I remember my mother playing lots of symphonic music. Specifically, my mom was a great admirer of Igor Stravinsky. Her favorite pieces were The Rite of Spring and, more so, the Firebird Suite.

To hear Siegel’s five minutes with Ravi Coltrane, go here and click on “Listen Now.”

To see and hear Stravinsky, at 82, conduct the thrilling final moments of The Firebird, click on the arrow:

On today’s cycling expedition during rush hour, I saw an amazing sight. A motorist pulled to the side of the road and stopped to use her phone. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true.

On the other hand, a man in Naples, Florida, was reaching for his cell phone just as a fire truck arrived in the intersection.

Boy, was he embarrassed.

I cannot recall having previously posted a promotional video, and I may never post one again. But the video about the Branford Marsalis CD recommended in the new batch of Doug’s Picks has helpful insights into the philosophy of the band’s approach to its work. In addition, it is a nice little piece of documentary film-making.

Bruno Leicht of Cologne, Germany—trumpeter, composer, teacher, and frequent commenter to this blog—has dedicated a four-part suite to Rifftides. The work is based on George Gershwin’s “Oh, Lady Be Good” and played by a band of Bruno’s students. On his web log, Brew Lite’s Jazz Tales, he explains the suite’s gensis and makeup, and links to the band’s performance at a festival earlier this month. The Rifftides staff is, to say the least, flattered. Thank you, Bruno. To go to Brew Lite’s Jazz Tales, click here.

The latest listening, viewing and reading suggestions are posted immediately below and in the right column with the heading Doug’s Picks (scroll down). They include CDs with the music of a forthright quartet, a great 20th century composer-arranger, and the satisfying second volume of a piano trio’s club engagement. We also recommend a DVD by a quartet that changed jazz and the biography of a pianist whose musical partnership with cartoon characters endeared him to generations.