Bill Crow, the stalwart bassist and indispensable jazz anecdotist, comments on the Rifftides posting about the separation of reporting from advertising. I'm glad you brought up the news/advertising issue in newspapers. And it isn't just the advertisers...it's the editors. I rely on The New York Times for a lot of the information I want, but I'm afraid it isn't the paper it once was. There seems to be a new editorial policy to make the front page more entertaining. There are hardly any … [Read more...]
Archives for November 2005
Comment: Randolph Scott Flicks, er, Flix
The piece about Randolph Scott brought a comment from Frank McGrath in New York. About two years ago, I gave up on trying to find classic movies at my local Blockbuster video store, and I started a subscription to Netflix. After reading your Rifftides piece on Randolph Scott, I went to Netflix.com and found that about two dozen of his movies are available, including Seven Men from Now. I'm pretty happy with Netflix, especially never having to pay a late fee. Hmmm. I may try it. Thanks for … [Read more...]
Comment: Breakstone On Teachout On Scott
Joshua Breakstone, the melodically inspired guitarist, writes, also from New York: Thanks for the link to Terry Teachout's article on Randolph Scott. As great as the lines you quoted in your piece are, it's genius- no doubt- to come up with an observation on the order of "The dashing young leading man of the Thirties now looked as though he’d been carved from a stump, and every word he spoke reeked of disillusion." It's brilliant, it's illuminating and heart wrenching at the same time, it's got … [Read more...]
What’s That Sneaking Up On Me?
I feel the hot breath of a deadline on my neck. For a day or two, posting may have to take a back seat to necessity. But check in tomorrow. You never know, I may have a burst of speed and be able to feed Rifftides a little something. In the meantime, be sure to visit the fine artsjournal.com blogger colleagues (blogeauges?) in the right-hand column. … [Read more...]
Other Matters: The Importance Of Separation
“…on Jazz And Other Matters,” it says up there on the masthead, or whatever a masthead is called in blogese. You may have noticed that the other matters occasionally include journalism. News is where I came from, and my conviction is as strong as ever that a free flow of information through the news is essential to the survival of the democracy. The flow can be impeded as easily—perhaps more easily—from inside news organizations than from outside. Increasing fiscal pressures on newspapers and … [Read more...]
Randolph Scott!
Well, as long as we're on other matters, how about Randolph Scott? Video stores, at least the ones where I live, do not have his movies for rent. There's no theater within 800 miles of here that's likely to run one, let alone mount a Randolph Scott film festival. I got hooked on his laconic, righteous cowboy character years ago, and I miss him. It came as no surprise to learn that artsjournal.com colleague Terry Teachout also appreciates Scott. After reading the long piece about Scott that Terry … [Read more...]
Weekend Extra: New Orleans Jazz Survival?
Artsjournal.com Commander-in-Chief Doug McClennan posted a lead to a BBC Radio report on the likelihood of New Orleans musicians returning home to a city ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. It's another good reason to regularly check the AJA home page. The Beeb's Stephen Evans has two reports, one in print, one a superb broadcast documentary. You needn't agree with his editorial conclusion that Wynton Marsalis is "the world's greatest trumpeter - classical or jazz" to admire the thoroughness of his … [Read more...]
Weekend Extra: Felten On Scotch, Krall On Christmas
Eric Felten, trombonist, singer, band leader and occasional Rifftides correspondent, is a talented free lance writer. Now and then he does a column—“How’s Your Drink?”—for the weekend Wall Street Journal. This weekend, his topic is single malt scotches. In our affluent culture, single malts have become a passion of people who, a few years ago, might have been coveting rare cigars. Felten reports that some single malts sell for more than $50,000 a bottle. Driving these prices are extremely … [Read more...]
Desmond’s Birthday
If Paul Desmond had lived, he would be eighty-one years old today. His last birthday, in 1977, fell on Thanksgiving. For the occasion, Devra Hall cooked a turkey dinner for Desmond and her parents, Jim and Jane. Here's the end of the story of that visit, told by Devra in Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. "It was a very quiet dinner. Paul was not feeling well, but he was clearly happy not to be home alone. He didn’t have to say a word around my folks. They talked a blue … [Read more...]
Thanksgiving
This is an important American national holiday. To those of the U.S. persuasion, the Rifftides staff sends wishes for a happy Thanksgiving. To readers around the world: we are grateful for your interest and attendance. … [Read more...]
Compatible Quotes: The Unforgiving Instrument
The trumpet is an extremely difficult instrument. It feels and reacts differently to the player each and every day—Allen Vizzutti Some days you get up and put the horn to your chops and it sounds pretty good and you win. Some days you try and nothing works and the horn wins. This goes on and on and then you die and the horn wins—Dizzy Gillespie You pick up the horn, put it to your chops and the son of a bitch says: Screw You—Roy Eldridge I have never seen a country where they worry so much … [Read more...]
Bob Enevoldsen
One of the joys of listening to The Bill Holman Band the past decade or so has been the opening minute of “No Joy In Mudville.” Over an insistent one-bar riff figure repeated by the saxophones, Bob Enevoldsen plays a valve trombone solo of pure exuberance. It is the first track in Holman’s CD A View From The Side. It was, almost invariably, the first piece he called when the band performed. I write “was” because the bad news is that Enevoldsen died last Saturday. In a palpable sense, he was … [Read more...]
Other Matters: Good Luck, Indeed
Two weeks ago, Rifftides examined one aspect of the film Good Night, and Good Luck, which tells the story of Edward R. Murrow's pursuit of the demagogue Senator Joseph McCarthy. The entry included this: CBS head William S. Paley's demotion of Murrow established the primacy of network profit over news integrity. It set up conditions for the MBA mentality that meshed with technology and the rise of cable networks to produce the broadcast and cable news we have today in which, with few exceptions, … [Read more...]
All Over The Place
A check of tracking information discloses that Rifftides has readers today in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Bermuda, Russia, Canada, Sweden, New Zealand and all parts of the United States including Lampasas, Texas; Aliso Viejo, California; and Lithonia, Georgia. Welcome. Come back soon. Tell your friends. … [Read more...]
Jazz Standards
What constitutes a jazz standard? Purists may contend that only an original composition by a jazz musician qualifies—“Confirmation,” “Doxy,” “Sail Away,” “Seven Come Eleven,” as examples. Working musicians and fake books say otherwise; a jazz standard is a song, adaptable to improvisation, that has worked its way into the general repertoire. An entire website is devoted to that proposition. JazzStandards.com was put together by jazz aficionados and musicians who saw the need for a centralized … [Read more...]
Compatible Quotes
Don’t be a musician under any circumstances unless you can bring yourself to be nothing else—Paul Desmond If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music—Albert Einstein … [Read more...]
Fade In, Fade Out. And Don’t Mess With Jimmy Smith
The week's eeriest internet experience: being mesmerized by the masthead picture box at the top of Jazz Improv magazine's home page as a dozen great musicians appear and dissolve. While you're there, don't miss the interview with guitarist Russell Malone. It includes his story of sitting in, as a twenty-two-year-old novice, with the brilliant, irascible, organist Jimmy Smith and making a shambles of "Laura." So I was going to leave, but I said, “Well, you know, I should, at least, go up to the … [Read more...]
Streaming Tommy Smith
I first heard the tenor saxophonist Tommy Smith on opening night of the Portland Jazz Festival earlier this year. Smith was a commanding figure in several areas of the festival, notably so in a guest turn with one of his favorite collaborators. I mentioned that appearance in a Jazz Times review of the event. Vibraharpist Joe Locke’s Four Walls of Freedom quartet included Tommy Smith, Scotland’s impressive contribution to the world’s post-Coltrane tenor sax population. Performing in kilts, Smith … [Read more...]
James Joyce and Ben Webster
This piece ultimately concerns Ben Webster, but it requires setup. The setup has to do with books. The book discussion group to which I belong operates a bit unconventionally. We don’t use outlines or lesson plans. There is no discussion leader. We are a sort of freewheeling literary cooperative. Sometimes, the discussion goes far afield from the book at hand, although we usually manage to get back to it. We laugh a lot. We live in one of the great wine producing regions of the world, so we … [Read more...]