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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

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

Archives for February 2006

Mitchell’s Studio Club

February 28, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

DevraDoWrite is trying to answer a question from one of her blogees. This is it: In 1966, the Hampton Hawes trio (with Red Mitchell & Donald Bailey) recorded ‘live’ for Contemporary Records at Mitchell’s Studio Club in Los Angeles (the ‘Mitchell’ in question was no relation to Red, the bassist). Two LP albums were subsequently issued: The Séance and I’m All Smiles. My question is: Do you – or does anyone among your many readers happen to recall the address of this particular club? Phil Woods and … [Read more...]

The New Picks

February 28, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

If you direct your attention to the right-hand column and scroll down, you will come upon the new batch of Doug's Picks. At the top of that column in "About," the Rifftides staff makes the assumption that people who follow jazz are also interested in other matters. The book pick this time around may be, at least in literature, the ultimate Other Matter. … [Read more...]

Ratliff on Wilson

February 25, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Nice piece of writing by Ben Ratliff in today's New York Times. He covered the concert in which 87-year-old Gerald Wilson took over the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Ratfliff reports that Wilson "hijacked the evening." Mr. Wilson made the show an exclamation point. He stalked the front of the stage, his white mane turned to the audience and his piercing eyes trained on the band. His body was tuned to the music — dislodging rich, overstuffed harmonies of brass and reeds and quelling them, … [Read more...]

Portland Jazz Festival Report

February 24, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

The Portland Jazz Festival ends on Sunday, but the main events took place last weekend. Here are samples of my impressions, from a long review for Jazz Times. McCoy Tyner’s trio with bassist Charnett Moffett and drummer Eric Gravatt played the opening concert. Before a capacity audience in the gargantuan grand ballroom of the Portland Hilton, Tyner pulled out the stops, meaning that on a dynamic scale of 10, he kept the music between 8.5 and 10. A monster sound system, suited to a rock concert … [Read more...]

Comments: Cole, Ferguson, Applause

February 24, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Doug: Fine commentary on Earl Hines' rightful place in jazz legend. You might also have mentioned how indebted Nat Cole was to the Fatha and how Nat is also often unrecognized today for the giant he was--most people seem to remember him as just a singer. He exhibited the same joy and exuberance in his playing that Hines did and need not have ever sung a note in order to be always remembered. Jack Tracy I couldn't agree more with the former editor of Down Beat about Nat Cole's greatness as a … [Read more...]

Big Band Econ 101

February 24, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

In my Maria Schneider report a few weeks ago, I speculated about the economics of moving large congregations of musicians around the country. It turns out, according to DevraDoWrite, that the speculation was on target. The difference between Devra and me is that she has the inside facts. A sampling: Having been Maria’s manager at one time, I know that she pays her musicians well (especially compared to some other leaders) and that on occassion she has netted less on a gig than anyone else in … [Read more...]

Jazz Scene & About Last Night

February 24, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Under Other Places in the right-hand column, you will find a new link, to Jazz Scene, a site operated by the British journalist David Fishel. Jazz Scene is rather like an internet radio station over which the listener has scheduling control. Mr. Fishel's specialty is interviews with musicians. He intersperses the conversations with music by his guests, rather as Rebecca Kilgore did in her short-lived and lamented On The Road series. His current subject is the Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi. … [Read more...]

Fatha Hines! Fatha Hines! (Danko Very Much)

February 23, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Although most modern jazz pianists don’t acknowledge the fact or don’t know it, modern jazz piano begins with Earl Hines. For the most dramatic evidence, listen closely to Hines in the 1920s, especially in the mind-blowing “Weatherbird” duet with Louis Armstrong or his QRS recordings from 1928, "Chicago High Life," for instance. (Follow the link, then scroll down to hear it.) You can bet that Bud Powell studied that chording left hand and those “trumpet” passages in the right hand and knew them … [Read more...]

Coming Soon

February 23, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

In the next day or so, I'll post impressions of the Portland Jazz Festival, including performances by McCoy Tyner, Miguel Zenon, Bill Frisell, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dave Peck and Lynn Darroch. We're overdue for new Doug's Picks. Watch this space or, more accurately, the space in the right-hand column. And let us hear from you. The Rifftides staff loves to get your comments. … [Read more...]

Paul and Frank

February 23, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond has been running neck and neck with Frank Sinatra: The Life as best-selling book on jazz at the Barnes and Noble website. Yesterday we were first. Today we're second. And you thought the Winter Olympics were exciting. … [Read more...]

Being There

February 20, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Signing books at the Portland Jazz Festival Saturday evening, I was pleased to meet Joe Maita, the proprietor of the web site called Jerry Jazz Musician. He reminded me that I took part in his exercise asking a number of musicians, writers and other people in the jazz community to designate recording sessions they wish they had attended. The other respondents for Joe's first installment were Ingrid Jensen, David Liebman, Jane Ira Bloom, Lalo Schifrin, Herman Leonard, Lee Tanner, Buddy Bregman, … [Read more...]

Compatible Quotes

February 17, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

At this time the fashion is to bring something to jazz that I reject. They speak of freedom. But one has no right, under pretext of freeing yourself, to be illogical and incoherent by getting rid of structure and simply piling a lot of notes one on top of the other. There’s no beat anymore. You can’t keep time with your foot. I believe that what is happening to jazz with people like Ornette Coleman, for instance, is bad. There’s a new idea that consists in destroying everything and find what’s … [Read more...]

Comments: The VOA

February 17, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Doug, We've had our political disagreements in the past, but your post on the Voice of America was spot on. I read the editorial in the Washington Times yesterday and was appalled at the cuts. The funding (peanuts, when you think about it) should be dramatically increased, for all of the reasons you mentioned. How quickly we forget. The VOA was a beacon for freedom for Eastern Europe in the days of the Iron Curtain and could well serve the same purpose today. Sometimes the President's … [Read more...]

Other Matters: The Voice of America

February 16, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

The Bush administration's attempt to use the war on terrorism as an excuse to destroy the Voice of America angers me. I sent the message below to my senators and congressman and a few other senators who I thought might understand what's at stake. I hope that you will consider taking similar action. Most of the senators' and representatives' web sites provide easy ways to send them e-mail messages. I urge you to fight the Bush administration's budget cuts that would result in the Voice of … [Read more...]

Portland

February 15, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

This weekend, I will be in Oregon for the third Portland Jazz Festival. Headliners are McCoy Tyner, Ravi Coltrane, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Stefon Harris, Miguel Zenon, Eddie Palmieri, Susan Werner and Bill Frisell’s Unspeakable Orchestra. With live audiences, I’ll be conducting two Jazz Times Before & After sessions, one with Zenon at 10:30 Saturday morning, the other with Frisell at 1:00 Sunday afternoon. If you are not familiar with the Before & After audio quiz, go here. For a detailed festival … [Read more...]

Al Cohn

February 14, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

The great tenor saxophonist, composer, arranger and wit Al Cohn died 18 years ago tomorrow. He and his frequent tenor sax partner Zoot Sims were so closely associated, so compatible in every respect that they were often mentioned as if they were a single entity named Alan Zoot. As quick and inventive with words as he was with notes, Cohn was celebrated for his bon mots. Here are a few: On being offered a Danish beer of the brand called Elephant—“Oh, no, I drink to forget.” Handing a … [Read more...]

Enough MF

February 14, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

We'll be moving on to other matters now, but you'll find interesting comments on the Maynard Ferguson dispute or discussion, or whatever it was, here and here. … [Read more...]

Central Avenue Redux

February 13, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

In the 1940s and early 1950s, a stretch of Central Avenue in Los Angeles was prime jazz territory. Hampton Hawes, Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry, Vi Redd and Billy Higgins learned and developed in clubs and jam sessions there, alongside veterans including Dexter Gordon, Roy Porter, Charles Mingus and Jack McVea. In recent years, fortunes along Central have declined, but help is on the way. A story by Jean Merl in Sunday's Los Angeles Times gives details. Nearly half a century has passed since Central … [Read more...]

Comment: Kirchner on Salmon on Ferguson

February 13, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Regarding John Salmon's communique about Maynard Ferguson, a musician and historian writes: Doug: John Salmon would have made his case for Maynard Ferguson better without the hyperbolic prose. For example: 1) "Some, like his Roulette era albums of 1958-1962, and are unrivaled by anyone, including Basie and Ellington." I think that Ferguson's '57-'65 bands were among the best of their time, but I've never heard even the most hyper-partisans of MF make a claim like Salmon's. "Endless taste … [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
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Jason Crane:The Jazz Session
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I Witness
ArtistShare
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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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