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Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

You are here: Home / 2006 / Archives for January 2006

Archives for January 2006

The Odd Couples, Part 1

January 31, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Eric Felten’s call for suggestions of odd or unexpected pairings brought enough responses that we’ll run them in two installments. My first thought was simply to list the names of the musicians and their performances, but the comments accompanying your messages were as interesting as the couplings themselves. Wherever possible, the Rifftides staff has provided links to pertinent recordings. Some of the pairings don’t seem all that disparate, but perhaps oddity is in the ear of the beholder. I’ll … [Read more...]

The Odd Couples, Part 2

January 31, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Click on the highlighted words to link to the recordings. My hometown friend Bob Godfrey offered three nominations: Thelonious Monk and Pee Wee Russell Count Basie and Teresa Brewer Count Basie and Oscar Peterson Basie and Peterson recorded Satch Meets Josh in 1974 and followed it up over the years with four additional two-piano collaborations. For the 1998 reissue of Satch Meets Josh, aka Count Basie Encounters Oscar Peterson, I wrote: If Art Tatum and Fats Waller had teamed up in a recording … [Read more...]

Odd Couples, Part 3

January 31, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

A last-minute contribution from a Rifftides reader who identifies himself only as John. Worked: Don Pullen and the Chief Cliff Singers. (Sacred Common Ground, a collaboration between the pianist's avant garde African Brazilian Connection and a Native American vocal group. DR) Didn't (at least for me): Louis Armstrong and Leon Thomas. (Louis Armstrong and Friends, a 1960s album including Thomas, a sort of free jazz yodeler; Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis, Tony Bennett and others in a small … [Read more...]

Compatible Quotes: Train Connection

January 30, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

I would gladly give all my symphonies, had I been able to invent the locomotive. —Anton Dvořák “Happy Go Lucky Local”...told the story of a train in the South, not one of those luxurious, streamlined trains that take tourists to Miami, but a little train with an upright engine that was never fast, never on schedule, and never made stops at any place you ever heard about. After grunting, groaning, and jerking, it finally settled down to a steady medium tempo. —Duke Ellington … [Read more...]

Comment: From Russia With Brevity

January 28, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Very good site! Poishi … [Read more...]

Jackie Cain

January 28, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

This week, Jackie Cain, the surviving member of the vocal duo Jackie and Roy, sang with some of their arrangements from nearly half a century ago. Ms. Cain’s angelic voice, an instrument of purity and tonal accuracy rarely equaled in any area of music, has seldom been heard since Roy Kral, her husband, died in 2002. Her re-emergence performing with a big band was an event. Here is a bit of Zan Stewart’s report from the Newark Star-Ledger. Cain was spotlighted on several ballads, among them "Darn … [Read more...]

Call For Suggestions

January 27, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Eric Felten—trombonist, singer, bandleader and occasional Wall Street Journal contributor—is asking for Rifftiders’ suggestions, to wit: The other day I heard a cut that I had heard a time or two before, "Shine On Harvest Moon," with that remarkably odd combination of Jimmy Rushing and the Brubeck outfit. I found it weirdly compelling. It got me thinking about what other odd pairings have been made in jazz. Some have been great artistic triumphs—Coltrane/Hartman, anyone? And I imagine there have … [Read more...]

Sign Of Spring

January 27, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

I saw a sign, beautifully hand-lettered, in front of a garden apartment not far from my house. WELCOME: FRIENDS BUTTERFLIES LADYBUGS BEES A good thought on a frigid January day. … [Read more...]

Catching Up With IAJE

January 27, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Several Rifftides readers have written that they regret not having been at the International Association of Jazz Educators bash in New York. Many of them were disappointed at not hearing the conversation between Ira Gitler and Sonny Rollins. Because of that session’s overlap with one I did, there was no chance for me to hear it. I thank DevraDoWrite for alerting us to a way to get tapes or CDs of that interview and dozens of other IAJE presentations. None of the major concerts is available, for … [Read more...]

Jazz Standards Expands

January 27, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

The web site jazzstandards.com has added a Paul Desmond page with a biography and links to Desmond CDs and books. The site offers resources to researchers and entertainment to browsers. Fair warning: one thing leads to another on jazzstandards.com. Be prepared to spend time. … [Read more...]

Francis Davis Is Feeling Blue

January 26, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

In the current issue of The Village Voice, critic Francis Davis assesses venerable jazz survivors. Here's his lead: The votes are in: Monk and Coltrane at Carnegie Hall in 1957, my choice as the best jazz CD released in 2005, is the winner in JazzTimes' critics' poll, scoring 165 points to 87 for Dizzy and Bird at Town Hall in 1945—my runner-up as well. Number three with 73 points is Coltrane at the Half Note in '65, followed by the highest-ranking living performers: Sonny Rollins (40 points) … [Read more...]

Rifftides In The World

January 26, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Once in a while, the Rifftides staff checks the traffic report to see where our postings are being read. The most recent sampling includes: Cremorne, Victoria, Australia Manchester; London; Elsfield, Oxfordshire; and Hampstead Norris, West Berkshire, England Bors, Vastra Gotaland, Sweden Beijing, China Clarkson, Ontario, Canada Tigery, Ile-de-France Dozens of places in the US, from Tavares, Florida, to Port Angeles, Washington Several places identified by the site meter only as "Unknown … [Read more...]

Compatible Quotes

January 25, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it. —Samuel Johnson No writer ever truly succeeds. The disparity between the work conceived and the work completed is always too great and the writer merely achieves an acceptable degree of failure. —Phillip Caputo … [Read more...]

Comment: Frishberg Followup

January 24, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Tim DuRoche's response is also posted as a comment to Dave Frishberg's Page Three story, but I didn't want to risk its being lost in the blog backwater. He wrote: I read Page Three a while back when I was doing a profile of Dave for a Portland magazine that went broke before they ever published their first issue. Here's my piece on him: DAVE FRISHBERG: Shooting from the Hip "I’m from the old school The proper and the prude school Where it’s stiff upper lip stay quietly hip" —Dave Frishberg, … [Read more...]

Up Against It

January 24, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

The Rifftides staff is racing a deadline for a large article that, unlike the blog game, will result in remuneration. More on that later. Posting this week will be done in proportion to progress on the project. We know that you understand. … [Read more...]

On The Radio

January 23, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

I will be a guest this (Monday) evening on Michael Atleson's Point of Departure program on WPMG, Portland, Maine. We will discuss Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond, recent CDs and whatever else comes up. Air time is 9:00 pm EST, 8:00 pm Central, 6:00 pm PST. In the Portland listening area, go to 90.9 FM. Elsewhere, you can hear the show by going to WPMG's web site and clicking on "Listen." Hope you can join us. … [Read more...]

Dave Frishberg

January 23, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Before Dave Frishberg the pianist became Frishberg the celebrated songwriter, singer and wit, he was a journeyman musician. When he had established himself in New York in the late 1950s, he played with Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, Ben Webster, Jimmy Rushing, indeed, a cross section of the best jazz artists of the day. In the course of working into the jazz community, however, he took the jobs he could get. Pianist Jack Reilly recently sent me an account that Frishberg wrote some time ago about one of … [Read more...]

Page Three

January 23, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

HOW HISTORY ALMOST HAPPENED AT THE PAGE THREE By Dave Frishberg Around the time I first came to New York, during the late fifties, I got a call from a piano player named Johnny Knapp. He asked if I would be interested in replacing him with the band at The Page Three. It was a two piece band--piano and drums. "You have to play a continuous show," he told me, "the hours are 9pm to 4am, and the pay is seventy-five a week." I told him I would be interested. The Page Three was a cabaret on Seventh … [Read more...]

Jeremy Steig

January 23, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Our posting about pianist Denny Zeitlin’s recording debut on Jeremy Steig’s 1963 Flute Fever coincided with critic Owen Cordle’s review in the Raleigh News and Observer of a rarity, a new CD by the flutist. Sample sentence: Steig is a busy soloist, and his tonal palette ranges from ravishing pure sounds to guitarlike overdriven grunge. To read the whole thing, go here. Zeitlin apparently has a cache of Flute Fever LPs and offers them for sale on his web site, autographed, for fifteen … [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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