Archives for September 2005

My ArtsJournal confrere Terry Teachout is writing a biography of Louis Armstrong. If you have read his big biography of H.L. Mencken and his small one of George Balanchine, you know that Terry is a superb chronicler of lives. He is also a skilled musician who understands from the standpoint of … [Read more...]

As we all should know by now, there are many Katrina relief scammers attempting to profit from human kindness at the expense of the storm’s victims. Caution is in order before you give to any organization or person about whose credibility and honesty you are not certain. I knew and trusted … [Read more...]

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. —Bertrand Russell … [Read more...]

In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, Jesse Hamlin has an article about Paul Desmond. In it, I am happy to report, he is kind to Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond and mentions that I will be signing copies of the book a week from today at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Hamlin … [Read more...]

The Jazz Refugee Project in Phoeniz, Arizona, is offering relocation aid for musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The project, set up by the drummer R. R. Phaneuf (aka DrSnazzy), makes this offer: Once you are part of the Jazz Refugee Project, we will help connect you with shelter, food, … [Read more...]

Dick McGarvin writes from Los Angeles: Your blog about watching the silent television images of the New Orleans disaster while listening to Miles' recording of "Basin Street Blues" was quite moving. And, having played that recording many times, I could hear it without even taking the album off the … [Read more...]

Richard Tabnik writes: heard the 'new' bird and diz? amazing...if that had come out 60 years ago, the entire concept of saxophone would be different whew! From the August 8 Rifftides posting: Throughout, Gillespie’s control, range, harmonic ingenuity, melodic inventiveness and time—above all, … [Read more...]

For a while last night, I watched the latest images of New Orleans with the television babble turned off. From the CD player came the 1963 Miles Davis recording of “Basin Street Blues,” its muted trumpet solo a long, slow memory of loss, Victor Feldman’s piano choruses laced with hope. The … [Read more...]

Several days ago, DevraDoWrite posted a piece about the all-but-forgotten guitarist Brick Fleagle. I then sent her a message that mentioned another important, now obscure, musician with an unusual name. She researched Fud Livingston and came up with a fascinating report. Here is a little of what … [Read more...]

A Rifftides reader writes: While you admit that the problems New Orleans faced and knowledge of what was necessary go back to Camille and beyond, indeed had to have been known 300 years ago when the city was built, the only person who comes in for blame is, guess who?, George W. Bush. This is … [Read more...]

Following up on yesterday's posting about the lack of preparedness for Katrina, Rifftides reader Garret Gannuch points us toward an October 2001 Scientific American article. The piece by Mark Fischetti provides additional detail about what it will take to help nature rebuild parts of the Mississippi … [Read more...]

Demonstrating the principle enunciated in the first item in the right-hand column, we have a tip from the same helpful Rifftides reader who raised the question about President Bush. He alerts us to a reliable source in the U.S. for the Buddy De Franco CD discussed in Doug's Picks (also on your … [Read more...]

During my coverage of the aftermath of hurricane Camille in 1969, I talked with experts who predicted that some day New Orleans would not be so "lucky." Eventually, they said, unless massive preventive steps were taken, there would be a storm so big that the levees would not hold, the pumps would … [Read more...]

For anyone partial to Roy Hargrove, this would be a fine week to be in New York. He is appearing Wednesday through Sunday at The Jazz Gallery with his quartet (pianist Danny Grisett, bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Greg Hutchison). Each night, Hargrove will perform with a different fellow … [Read more...]

The Chicago Jazz Archive is maintaining a list of New Orleans musicians found safe. The list is short but growing. Deborah Gillaspie, the archive curator, asks that anyone with verified reports of survivors e-mail her. She emphasizes that the CJA is not searching for missing people, only reporting … [Read more...]

Seattle’s Earshot Jazz magazine has a nice article by Philip Coady on Lucky Thompson. It includes stories about Clark Terry’s visits to his old friend before Thompson died. Coady also describes Ellis and Branford Marsalis going to Thompson’s hospital room and drawing out a man who had been … [Read more...]

“Don’t buy gas if you don’t need it.” —George W. Bush … [Read more...]

Among the many New Orleanians I have been worrying about is Al Belletto, the leader of the Al Belletto Sextet and, in recent years, also of a booting big band. Calls to him and his companion Linda Rhodes in the city and to their vacation retreat in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, went nowhere; the 504 … [Read more...]

Rummaging through biographical facts, I was reminded that the great pianist Jimmy Rowles and Minnie Pearl, the comic doyenne of country music both died in early 1996. That recalled a story Rowles told over lunch one day a few weeks before his death. When he was Ella Fitzgerald’s accompanist, he … [Read more...]