Archives for May 2006

Later in the week, I'll be posting from Rochester, New York, and the ninth annual Swing 'n Jazz, an event supporting The Commission Project's music education of young people. In this context, "Swing" refers to both music and golf. A tournament on Sunday raises money for the education. Workshops accomplish the learning during a three-day event, and throughout the year by way of commissioned works that provide educational opportunities for children of all ages. Trumpeter Marvin Stamm is the … [Read more...]

Following the posting about Paul Desmond playing "Take Five" in a youtube.com video, Rifftides reader Jon Naylor wrote from Seattle: In regards to youtube.com, they have a great piece of history with Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie being presented a Down Beat music award by Leonard Feather and columnist Earl Wilson. Watch the look on Parker's face when Earl Wilson refers to him and Dizzy as 'you boys' and the painful look on Feather's face earlier when Earl tries to use some hipster lingo with … [Read more...]

It is a truth so commonplace that it has become a cliché: You needn't be American to be a first-rate jazz musician. The United States of America brought together and mixed the elements that made jazz. But it is not, after all, something in the water, the genes or the sociology of The United States that makes good jazz improvisers. Rather, it is talent, inspiration, hard work and experience--the combination that creates artists in any field. Some black musicians used to say of white ones, … [Read more...]

Here are more recommended CDs by jazz artists not from the United States. Gilad Atzmon, Musik: Rearranging the 20th Century (Enja). It is unlikely that Atzmon can separate himself from Israeli-Palestinian politics--or that he wishes to--but this CD is more about music and less about ideologies than, say, his Exile. The context of the album is, I suppose, world music, but it has plenty of Atzmon's fearsome, lovely, sax and clarinet work. I have heard private recordings of his straight-ahead jazz … [Read more...]

Just as the music is everywhere, so are Rifftides readers. A recent check of the site meter shows you in these places, among others: Australia Melbourne Canberra Austria Vienna Canada Guelph, Ontario Belleville, Ontario Toronto, Ontario China Shanghai Beijing Czech Republic Brno Prague Denmark Glostrup Germany Herne Berlin Holland Amsterdam Israel Bet Nehemya Tel Aviv Japan Kyoto Tokyo Norway Kjellerhollen Oslo Sweden Viskafors United Kingdom Glasgow Parkwood, Gillingham London West Byfleet, … [Read more...]

Twenty-nine years ago this weekend, Paul Desmond bid his girlfriend goodbye as she set off for London, urging her to have a good holiday. That was on Friday. He would be fine, he told her; he had friends coming the next day. But his only companion was the lung cancer that had ravaged him during the past year. His housekeeper found him dead on Monday, Memorial Day. Marian McPartland said, “It’s just like Paul to slip quietly away when everyone’s out of town, not to bother anybody.” Details of … [Read more...]

Like, dig! I'm in step. When it was hip to be hep, I was hep. I don't blow but I'm a fan. Look at me swing. Ring a ding ding. I even call my girlfriend "man," 'cuz I'm hip… —Dave Frishberg, “I’m Hip,”1965 It has been well said that ‘the arch-flatterer with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence is a man’s self.’ —Francis Bacon, “Of Love,” 1605 … [Read more...]

Terry Teachout's ecstatic review of pianist Roger Kellaway's new drummerless trio makes me want to hop a plane to New York. Kellaway has lived in California for years. He is back in The Apple for an engagement at the Jazz Standard. The three men opened the set with a super-sly version of Benny Golson’s “Killer Joe,” and within four bars you knew they were going to swing really, really hard. So they did, with Kellaway pitching his patented curve balls all night long, including a bitonal … [Read more...]

The Before & After test I did with Miguel Zenon at the Portland Jazz Festival appears in the June issue of Jazz Times, now on news stands. Here's a sample of his acute hearing and assessments: 3. Gonzalo Rubalcaba “Los Buyes” (from Paseo, Blue Note). Rubalcaba, piano; Luis Felipe Lamoglia, alto sax; Jose Armando Gola, electric bass; Ignacio Berroa, drums. Recorded in 2005. BEFORE: This is Gonzalo Rubalcaba’s group, all Cuban. Luis Felipe Lamoglia is a tenor player, but he sounds great on alto … [Read more...]

The ambitious multiple blogger Jerry Bowles has put together blognoggle, a clearinghouse for several blogs. In a message to Rifftides, he writes: I started blognoggle pages on new music, business and politics because I realized that only a small fraction of internet users now bother with RSS readers and those who do become quickly overwhelmed by too much information. My hunch is that web readers (particularly music lovers as opposed to techies) would much rather go to a web page where the most … [Read more...]

The distinguished audio expert Jim Brown saw the Rifftides piece on the possible demise of the last jazz radio station in Los Angeles and sent this reminder that the music is threatened at stations across the nation. Although I've just completed a move to Santa Cruz, I did learn during a recent visit to Chicago that WBEZ, the NPR station there, has announced discontinuance of all music programs in favor of the magazine format that has dominated an increasing portion of their airtime over the … [Read more...]

A Rifftides reader writes I just came across Rifftides, as I was searching for Coleman Hawkins' Centennial CD/DVD package. I was at a loss in identifying some of the players on the DVD, and your post from 2005 helped a great deal. Especially in introducing me to Harry Sheppard and Dickie Thompson, neither of whom I'd known previously. I'm still wondering who the piano, bass and second tenor players are, however. Any help there? Anything would be appreciated. The pianist is Willie “The Lion” … [Read more...]

As he moves toward the middle of his eighty-sixth year, Dave Brubeck is not slowing down. He's picking up speed—and honors—and preparing a major work. Today he is at his alma mater, University of the Pacific, to collect another medal. For a story about Brubeck's whirlwind week and his new project, go here. … [Read more...]

A story in today’s Los Angeles Times has this headline: Straight-ahead jazz may lose its KKJZ-FM gig And this quote: "KKJZ is a very famous jazz station and there aren't many more around like them," said Frank Sinatra Jr., son of the singing legend, and a professional musician who lives in West Los Angeles. "[Straight-ahead] jazz is the biggest music in the world, except in the country (where) it was created. It would be such a big loss if they stopped playing jazz. That station is the last … [Read more...]

What can be hoped of an art which must necessarily depend on the favor of the public—of such a public, at least, as ours? Good work may, does sometimes, succeed. But never with the degree of success that befalls twaddle and vulgarity. Twaddle and vulgarity will always have the upper hand. —Max Beerbohm, Saturday Review, September, 1908 We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart; But, the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: It’s clever, but is it Art? —Rudyard … [Read more...]

John Birchard writes from Washington, DC. Reading TT's disgusted remarks about the American Masters Nat King Cole show brought to mind the only time I saw Cole in person. It was 1956. I was in Uncle Sam's Air Force, stationed at Craig AFB outside Selma, Alabama. A jazz fan friend of mine and I learned that Cole would be coming to Birmingham as headliner of a tour that included June Christy, the Four Freshmen, Ted Heath's British band and comedian Gary Morton, who later would become more widely … [Read more...]

artsjounal.com neighbor Terry Teachout suggests that I pass along an item from his About Last Night. As a followup to recent Rifftides discussions about the quality of television music programming, here it is—a public service: If you missed last night’s PBS American Masters documentary on Nat King Cole, don’t even think about catching a replay. Not only was the script a dumbed-down, once-over-lightly account of one of the most significant careers in the history of American popular music, but the … [Read more...]

Very interesting (fascinating actually) subject, I think. Doug, I am thrilled that you are exploring the origins of the Jazz Messiahs and the emergence of Ornette Coleman. Pianist Don Friedman mentioned to me that this band played several gigs in the Pacific Northwest and Vancouver during this period, late 1957 (just prior to his joining a newly formed Buddy DeFranco group for an east coast tour). I have been searching many years for a possible recording made of the Jazz Messiahs from a CFUN … [Read more...]

Matthew Lurie writes from Chicago: I just thought I'd drop a line and link to an article I wrote about Legends of Jazz for Time Out Chicago. Because Ramsey Lewis is from here (as are the rhythm section of Larry Gray, Willie Pickens, and Leon Joyce) and the show was shot here, we viewed it as our special Chi-town duty to try and address some of the problems of the show. Did he ever. Two samples: The younger musicians who do make it in the show (Chris Potter, Roy Hargrove and Kurt Elling) perform … [Read more...]

Coincidentally, on the heels of yesterday's Rifftides piece about the Legends Of Jazz television series, an e-mail message alerted me to a video performance that demonstrates the visual restraint, taste and directorial discretion that is missing in the Legends series. It is a solo piano performance by Denny Zeitlin of "What Is This Thing Called Love," preceded by a few minutes of free playing as an introduction. It was videotaped at the 1983 Berlin Jazz Festival, with Zeitlin at a C. Bechstein … [Read more...]

Doug: I watched the Legends of Jazz episode that featured Jim Hall and Pat Metheny and found it disappointing. Jim and Pat and associates played fine--as expected, of course. But the overall "happy talk" tone was rather shallow and not very enlightening; for that, the producers and writers are responsible. Jim's good-natured grouchiness was a relief. And for a show that's supposed to be educating a mostly novice audience about jazz, there were some obvious balls dropped. Like identifying … [Read more...]

Last July, Rifftides examined the pilot program for the Public Broadcasting System series Legends of Jazz. Here is part of that posting. It was a charming and engaging program. It lacked the intensity, focus and video artistry of the immortal 1957 The Sound of Jazz on CBS-TV, Ralph Gleason’s Jazz Casual series of the sixties and the Jazz At The Maintenance Shop programs directed by John Beyer for PBS in the late seventies and early eighties. But, after all, it was a pilot and a promo. We may … [Read more...]

Django Reinhardt died on this date in 1953. He was forty-three years old. Reinhardt melded jazz and the wild élan of the gypsy music he grew up with in Belgium and France. He began to be noticed in 1930 when he was twenty. By the mid-1930s he, violinist Stephane Grappellii and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France were sensations of Europe. By the end of the decade Reinhardt was also working and recording with Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins, Dickie Wells, Rex Stewart and other leading American … [Read more...]

The May issue of Allegro, the monthly publication of the New York local of the American Federation of Musicians, has reviews by Bill Crow of Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond, the reissue of Gene Lees’ superb biography The Worlds of Lerner and Loewe, and the first volume of Don Rayno’s Paul Whiteman, Pioneer in American Music. From the review of the Whiteman book, a dart in the side of conventional wisdom: This account refutes the accusations that accumulated in the jazz … [Read more...]

The You Tube website has put up a seven-minute video of the Dave Brubeck Quartet playing Brubeck's "London Flat London Sharp" at the North Sea Jazz Festival. Sound, production qualiy, camera work and direction—except for one brief asleep-at-the-switch moment—are excellent. Bobby Militello's alto solo is one of the most cogent I've heard from him. It's interesting to watch Brubeck digging Michael Moore as he comps for Moore's bass solo. The first half of Brubeck's own solo is about as close to … [Read more...]

While you're there, don't miss Elis Regina singing Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Aguas de Marco." This is the irreplaceable Elis in solo, apparently a predecessor to the video of her doing the song with Jobim. … [Read more...]