Archives for February 2006

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

John Salmon writes about the Rifftides review of Maria Schneider at Jazz Alley: I'm amazed that anyone could write a piece on big bands and not mention Maynard Ferguson's band, which is on the road 200 days a year. How is it possible to do a piece on big bands and ignore the one touring band still out there? Yes, there are larger groups that don't tour (MF has 10 pieces, including himself), but who's reaching the public, especially young people, for jazz? Many critics like to dump on Maynard, … [Read more...]

On OH! Say Love your column and read it faithfully every day. Actually, the "Star-Spangled Banner" is a glorious and thrilling and quite triumphant melody and, if you think about it, is a pretty potent anthem, while "God Bless America" (tune I'm talking about here) is the worst sentimental garbage. The problem with "Star" is that it is difficult in that it has an innate theatricality, a grand opera quality, that is totally destroyed if you "pop music" it in any style; gospel, R&B, country, … [Read more...]

Hal Wilner (sometimes spelt Willner on the web), the producer, has put together some extraordinary collaborations on his tribute records to Mingus, Nino Rota, Monk, Poe, Weill and Disney. What's more, most of them work. One of my favourites is Ringo Starr, Ken Nordine, Bill Frisell, Herb Alpert and Wayne Horvitz doing "When You Wish Upon A Star" on Stay Awake: Interpretations of Vintage Disney Films (1988). On this CD you also can experience perhaps the segue to end all segues - Sun Ra to Harry … [Read more...]

The digital doctor and his aide have ministered to my invaluable, but not irreplaceable, electronic assistant, Mr. Dell. 'Ol Dell is feeling considerably perkier and moving from task to task with dispatch. I think he'll make it, after all. (Hat in the air. Spin Around. Big smile. Music up and out.) If you don't get that, you haven't watched the right reruns lately. Speaking of up and out, I'm headed over the mountains to Seattle today to transact a bit of business and listen to the … [Read more...]

Introducing yesterday's rendering (word chosen with care) of the national anthem at the Super Bowl, the booth announcer said that it was to be, in part, a tribute to New Orleans. Hasn't that unfortunate city suffered enough? Granted, "The Star Spangled Banner" is a miserable piece of music and our national anthem should be "God Bless America," but Francis Scott Keys' song did not deserve the trashing it received from Aaron Neville, Aretha Franklin and Dr. John. By comparison, the Seahawks got … [Read more...]

It was a full weekend, full of the Superbowl and full of maddening computer and server glitches. The down periods were frequent and frustrating. The beast is running for the moment, so we'll post recent correspondence. I'm hoping for a return to complete online health after the digital doctor makes a house call. (DR) … [Read more...]