Archives for November 2005

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

“…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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

In the adjoining exhibit, under Doug's Picks, are the Rifftides staff's latest recommendations. We hope that you find them worthwhile. Either way, let us know, please. The e-mail address is also in the right column. … [Read more...]

It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not. It’s feeling—Bill Evans Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all. Music expresses itself—Igor Stravinsky … [Read more...]

My heavily-traveled weekend with an assemblage of couples out for a good time included an evening at Jazz Alley in Seattle eating well and hearing Toots Thielemans, Kenny Werner and Oscar Castro-Neves. Thielemans is a member of that astonishing corps of world-class jazz octogenarians (Hank Jones, Marian McPartland, James Moody, Dave Brubeck, ClarkTerry, Buddy DeFranco) who seem uninterested in slowing their pace, let alone retiring. At eighty-three, his polish, harmonic daring and swing on the … [Read more...]

The islands of Puget Sound are among the glories of the Pacific Northwest. Vashon Island, where we celebratory couples spent the night after we left Jazz Alley, is one of the loveliest. Because the only way to get to it is on the water, Vashon has managed to retain much of its rural and small town charm despite its proximity to Seattle. For now, and I hope forever, to get on and off Vashon, you drive, bicycle or walk onto one of the boats of the Washington State ferry system and take a … [Read more...]

The veteran Pennsylvania broadcaster Russ Neff is once again doing a jazz program, but he’s streaming it on the internet. He writes that he was inspired by Jim Wilke’s Jazz After Hours to return to jazz radio. I'd not been on the air since 1991 and since no local station was interested in my services, I decided that online audio was the way to go…audio streaming is my chosen vehicle. To hear Russ’s current My Favorite Things, click here and then on “Listen Here.” The program has a minimum of … [Read more...]

Jessica Williams has entered the blogosphere. She is a most welcome entry. Her blog, The Zone, is unlike any other, just as Ms. Williams is unlike any other pianist. Here is some of what she wrote in a posting called “Making Oneself Available.” Never rehearse a moment. Too much practice kills all magic, all spontaneity. Being spontaneous is the highest form of calculated artistic achievement. Calculated only in that it's a plan not to have a plan. Sitting alone at home at the piano, I become the … [Read more...]

Dick McGarvin writes from Los Angeles: I've been catching up on stuff, including a backlog of Rifftides (high tide?), which brings me to... I'm not sure why, but your letter to Gene Lees about Willis Conover touched me even more than when I first read it in the Jazzletter. Maybe it's because of reading TAKE FIVE and knowing more now about that great 1969 New Orleans Jazz Festival and your relationship with Willis. (By coincidence, I just recently was playing the Gary McFarland album PROFILES … [Read more...]