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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

You are here: Home / 2005 / Archives for November 2005

Archives for November 2005

Comment: Separation

November 29, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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...]

Comment: Randolph Scott Flicks, er, Flix

November 29, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 29, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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?

November 29, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 28, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

“…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!

November 28, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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?

November 26, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 26, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 25, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 24, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 24, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 23, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 22, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 21, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 21, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 19, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 18, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 17, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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

November 16, 2005 by Doug Ramsey

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...]

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Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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Doug’s Picks

We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside

As Rifftides readers have undoubtedly noticed, it has been a long time since we posted. We are creating a new post in hopes  that it will open the way to resumption of frequent reports as part of the artsjournal.com mission to keep you up to date on jazz and other matters. Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s stunning new trio album […]

Recent Listening: The New David Friesen Trio CD

David Friesen Circle 3 Trio: Interaction (Origin) Among the dozens of recent releases that deserve serious attention, a few will get it. Among those those receiving it here is bassist David Friesen’s new album.  From the Portland, Oregon, sinecure in which he thrives when he’s not touring the world, bassist Friesen has been performing at […]

Monday Recommendation: Dominic Miller

Dominic Miller Absinthe (ECM) Guitarist and composer Miller delivers power and subtlety in equal measure. Abetted by producer Manfred Eicher’s canny guidance and ECM’s flawless sound and studio presence, Miller draws on inspiration from painters of France’s impressionist period. His liner essay emphasizes the importance to his musical conception of works by Cezanne, Renoir, Lautrec, […]

Recent Listening: Dave Young And Friends

Dave Young, Lotus Blossom (Modica Music) Young, the bassist praised by Oscar Peterson for his “harmonic simpatico and unerring sense of time” when he was a member of Peterson’s trio, leads seven gifted fellow Canadians. His beautifully recorded bass is the underpinning of a relaxed session in which his swing is a force even during […]

Recent Listening: Jazz Is Of The World

Paolo Fresu, Richard Galliano, Jan Lundgren, Mare Nostrum III (ACT) This third outing by Mare Nostrum continues the international trio’s close collaboration in a series of albums that has enjoyed considerable success. With three exceptions, the compositions in this installment are by the members of Mare Nostrum. It opens with one the French accordionist Galliano […]

Monday Recommendation: Thelonious Monk’s Works In Full

Kimbrough, Robinson, Reid, Drummond: Monk’s Dreams(Sunnyside) The subtitle of this invaluable 6-CD set is The Complete Compositions Of Thelonious Sphere Monk. By complete, Sunnyside means that the box contains six CDs with 70 tunes that Monk wrote beginning in the early years when his music was generally assumed to be an eccentric offshoot of bebop, […]

More Doug's Picks

Blogroll

All About Jazz
JerryJazzMusician
Carol Sloane: SloaneView
Jazz Beyond Jazz: Howard Mandel
The Gig: Nate Chinen
Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong
Don Heckman: The International Review Of Music
Ted Panken: Today is The Question
George Colligan: jazztruth
Brilliant Corners
Jazz Music Blog: Tom Reney
Brubeck Institute
Darcy James Argue
Jazz Profiles: Steve Cerra
Notes On Jazz: Ralph Miriello
Bob Porter: Jazz Etc.
be.jazz
Marc Myers: Jazz Wax
Night Lights
Jason Crane:The Jazz Session
JazzCorner
I Witness
ArtistShare
Jazzportraits
John Robert Brown
Night After Night
Do The Math/The Bad Plus
Prague Jazz
Russian Jazz
Jazz Quotes
Jazz History Online
Lubricity

Personal Jazz Sites
Chris Albertson: Stomp Off
Armin Buettner: Crownpropeller’s Blog
Cyber Jazz Today, John Birchard
Dick Carr’s Big Bands, Ballads & Blues
Donald Clarke’s Music Box
Noal Cohen’s Jazz History
Bill Crow
Easy Does It: Fernando Ortiz de Urbana
Bill Evans Web Pages
Dave Frishberg
Ronan Guilfoyle: Mostly Music
Bill Kirchner
Mike Longo
Jan Lundgren (Friends of)
Willard Jenkins/The Independent Ear
Ken Joslin: Jazz Paintings
Bruno Leicht
Earl MacDonald
Books and CDs: Bill Reed
Marvin Stamm

Tarik Townsend: It’s A Raggy Waltz
Steve Wallace: Jazz, Baseball, Life and Other Ephemera
Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest
Jessica Williams

Other Culture Blogs
Terry Teachout
DevraDoWrite
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
On An Overgrown Path

Journalism
PressThink: Jay Rosen
Second Draft, Tim Porter
Poynter Online

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