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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

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

Archives for August 2006

Comment Re: Steve Kuhn And Tempo

August 31, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

George Ziskind writes from New York: Good to have Kuhn in the air of late. And it reminds me of this: Steve has always been an adventurous player. Yet nothing I had previously heard him do prepared me for the time, around seven or eight years ago, when I was listening to his Dedication CD (Reservoir). I was in the first chorus of Like Someone in Love, specifically at bar 7, and no matter how many times I replayed that bar I got the same result: damn if the tempo wasn't slowing down there, almost … [Read more...]

Elsewhere In The Blogosphere

August 31, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Many Rifftides readers are themselves bloggers. Richard Carlson, the proprietor of JazzoLOG, called my attention to a fine piece about his memories of Maynard Ferguson. Here's a taste of it. Maynard stood out in front of that band like a cheerleader/drill sergeant somehow combined. He was constantly on the move to the rhythm. He must have been in a marching band around his home of Montreal when he was a kid, because he liked to tuck his horn under his arm and just march up there while the … [Read more...]

Secular Conversion

August 30, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

What do the Angel Orensanz Center on New York's Lower East Side; The Old Church in Portland, Oregon; the Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven and The Seasons in Yakima, Washington, have in common? They are former places of worship born again as performance halls. My story in the Leisure & Arts pages of today's Wall Street Journal tells about a few of the dozens of such places. The acoustical properties and central locations of old sanctuaries often make them ideal concert halls, but converted … [Read more...]

Comment: Kuhn Followup

August 30, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Regarding the Steve Kuhn CD that will be issued next year on the Blue Note label, the Rifftides reader who calls himself drjazzphd writes: This is only supposed to be a one-off deal for the live date but I'm very pleased to see Blue Note taking an interest in such a fine pianist, who has lurked in the shadows for many years now. Also Blue Note will be releasing an album recorded two weeks ago at Iridium of the Charles Tolliver Big Band on the heels of the article in DownBeat a couple months … [Read more...]

Other Matters: Give Me A Brake

August 29, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

It was my intention to spend most of yesterday auditioning a few of the CDs that lately have been pouring in here like Lake Pontchartrain emptying into New Orleans. But first, I thought, how about a nice morning mountain bike ride in Cowiche Canyon. At the bottom of that canyon northwest of Yakima is a three-mile trail on the bed of a railroad that was abandoned in 1984. It's a great place to see wildflowers and an assortment of birds and small animals, mostly cottontails and an occasional … [Read more...]

Steve Kuhn

August 28, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

I just discovered by way of Nick Catalano that Steve Kuhn has signed a contract with Blue Note Records, putting him once again with a major jazz label, where he has always belonged. Among important pianists, Kuhn has received nowhere near the share of recognition he has earned. Catalano writes. To celebrate the event Kuhn was reunited with bandmates Ron Carter and Al Foster at Birdland earlier this month. The Steve Kuhn trio carved out an important slice of immortality when it was first formed … [Read more...]

Comment: Ferguson At The Changing Of The Guard

August 26, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Thanks for your wonderful appreciation of Maynard Ferguson. In many ways, Ferguson transcended jazz and big bands. His high-octane enthusiasm and optimism captured the spirit of an entire generation of post-war Americans who believed anything and everything was possible and that the only way to go was flat out. Despite Maynard's massive musical ego, he never made anyone feel badly and encouraged everyone he encountered to be better--as a person and as a musician. One of my favorite Maynard … [Read more...]

Michael Cuscuna Responds

August 26, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

The obvious answer. I had a few out on Roulette Jazz through EMI Blue Note and they didn't sell and got deleted. That's what drove me to do the Mosaic set. Oddly enough, before this week's shocking news I was thinking about trying the Ferguson and Basie Birdland albums at some point next year. MC Mr. Cuscuna is the head of Mosaic Records. He also employs his reissue expertise at Blue Note. … [Read more...]

Comment: Ferguson

August 26, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Nice piece Doug. I've linked it on The MF Trbute Page Forum, which is getting ten thousand times its usual traffic. I've been listening to MF since I was 15 (I'm only 47 now) and this is a big loss. What a complete musician, and what a gentleman. John Salmon … [Read more...]

Comment: Nonstop Rollins

August 26, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Rifftides reader Chris Harriott writes concerning the Sonny Rollins CD in the new set of Doug's Picks (right-hand column): Coincidentally, I've had Work Time in non stop rotation on my IPOD for the last 2 weeks or so. Can't get enough. … [Read more...]

Blog Watch

August 26, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

A blog by the anonymous Dr. Jazz Ph.D. is worth perusing, if only for a couple of Michael Brecker video clips. One, from 1983, has the tenor saxophonist and a rhythm section that includes Niels Henning Orsted-Pedersen playing the fastest "Oleo" you're likely to hear this side of Johnny Griffin. The other was made at an outdoor festival in Switzerland in 1998 with his Brecker's own quartet, Joey Calderazzo on piano, James Genus on bass, and drummer Ralph Peterson. In it, Brecker manages to … [Read more...]

Maynard Ferguson

August 25, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

CBS Radio News called this morning and asked me to talk about Maynard Ferguson. That's how I learned that Ferguson died last night in Ventura, California, just down the road from his home in Ojai. He was seventy-eight. He had an abdominal infection that shut down his liver and kidneys. The phenomonal trumpeter had been performing on tour with his band, Big Bop Nouveau, when he became ill and went to the hospital. Before him lay a full schedule of performances--an indicator of the almost … [Read more...]

CD

August 24, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Sonny Rollins, Work Time (Prestige). This was recorded more than fifty years ago. It is forever new. At twenty-six, Rollins was full of energy and bursting with ideas. I have never listened to him soar through "There's No Business Like Show Business" and Billy Strayhorn's "Raincheck" without grinning. Max Roach, high on his partnership with Clifford Brown, was at his apogee of drumming. Ray Bryant's gorgeous piano solo on "There Are Such Things" is his best ballad playing on record. The bassist, … [Read more...]

CD

August 24, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Brian Lynch, 24/7 (Nagel Heyer). I just caught up with this 2002 album. Lynch teams his trumpet with Miguel Zenon's alto saxophone. The two of them groove with a fine rhythm section of pianist Rick Germanson, bassist Hans Glawischnig and drummer Neal Smith. Everyone plays well on the originals by band members, but the prize tracks are Jerome Kern's "Nobody Else but Me" Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" and Ellington's barely-known ballad "Azalea." In the Kern, Lynch, using a tight mute, is … [Read more...]

CD

August 24, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

András Schiff, Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Volume II, op. 10 and 13 (ECM). If you are a jazz listener who doesn't cotton to what is often categorized as "classical" music, you have my sympathy because you won't be hearing this brilliant pianist in the second CD of his projected series of the Beethoven sonatas. Consider relenting. Even you can probably relate to the c-minor, the famous "Pathetique," but Schiff's magic with the slow movement of the D-major could just convert you entirely. Lucky you. … [Read more...]

DVD

August 24, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Jazz Shots From The East Coast, Vols. 1-3, Jazz Shots from the West Coast, Vols. 1-3 (EforFilms). The music on these discs is almost uniformly good. The video ranges from TV quality to grainy film, and no wonder; some of these clips are ancient soundies. There are great rewards here, but be warned: the producers provide no information beyond the names of the leaders and the tunes, unless it was superimposed on the original clip. No dates. No sidemen identification. Who was that marvelous alto … [Read more...]

Book

August 24, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Vivian Perlis and Libby Van Cleve, Composers' Voices from Ives to Ellington (Yale). This is the book that took first place over Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond in the Independent Publishers awards competition. But, no hard feelings, only gratitude for a hefty volume that presents oral history in a readable--and listenable--form. The book includes two CDs with, in many cases, the voices of the composers. Aaron Copland: "Music needn't be so high-falutin' that it becomes … [Read more...]

The New Picks Are Here

August 24, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

Choosing a new group of Doug's Picks is always a challenge and a pleasant chore. You will find the latest recommendations in the right-hand column. As always, your comments are welcome and encouraged. The e-mail address is also to your right. … [Read more...]

Sudhalter’s Concert

August 23, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

The program is mostly set for the concert Dan Levinson and Randy Sandke are organizing to benefit the author and cornetist Dick Sudhalter. For details about Dick's medical predicament, the effort by many of his friends to help him, how you can get tickets and how you can lighten his overwhelming burden of medical costs, go here. The quality and range of musicians who have volunteered their services constitute a testimonial to the respect and affection Richard M. Sudhalter has earned in the jazz … [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
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Bob Porter: Jazz Etc.
be.jazz
Marc Myers: Jazz Wax
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I Witness
ArtistShare
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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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