Archives for July 2007

The Rifftides staff is up against non-Rifftides deadlines. Rather than abandon you, we offer links to Lionel Hampton videos. You can use them in lieu of your morning coffee to perk you up, or benzedrine to keep you awake. The piece is "Flying Home," which was to Hampton what home runs are to Barry Bonds and tie-breaking goals to Beckham. The first version is from the 1960s. It has solos by Hamp and the very young baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber, playing with ferocity. The second is from a 1957 … [Read more...]

The guest on Marian McPartland's current edition of Piano Jazz is alto saxophonist Bud Shank. Engaging talk and fine quartet playing, including one of the fastest versions of "Beautiful Love" you're likely to encounter. Go here. … [Read more...]

This turned out to be Italian Sunday. My frequent companion Vigorelli Bianchi and I went for a twenty-mile ride full of ups, downs and early morning beauty in the hills of orchard country. Back home, I wrapped up a two-day ciabatta project and baked four loaves, then made a dinner that also featured salmon, pasta with pesto and a homey 2000 La Loggia Barolo from Trader Joe's. The wine is not a triumph of the Piedmont, but it worked with the meal. A classic (read expensive) Barolo would have … [Read more...]

A year and a half ago a Rifftides report on the conference of the International Association of Jazz Educators included this paragraph: It is impossible to predict the course of an artist's career, but here's a name to file away: Logan Strosahl. He is a sixteen-year-old alto saxophonist with the Roosevelt High School Jazz Band from Seattle, Washington. Strosahl has the energy of five sixteen-year-olds, rhythm that wells up from somewhere inside him, technique, harmonic daring with knowledge to … [Read more...]

There is a joke from a category of jazz humor labeled the chick singer file. I hasten to add that there are plenty of non-chick singers to whom the sentiment of the story applies. A woman asks to sit in with a band. The leader suggests "My Funny Valentine." She agrees, but confesses that she's a bit unsure of the bridge. "That's okay," the leader tells her. "You'll be next to the bass player. He knows it. If you get hung up, just turn to him." She approaches a part of the song where she needs … [Read more...]

It's amazing; YouTube can cosponsor presidential debates and still find time to put new music on the internet. In the past few days, up popped two clips of vibraharpist Charlie Shoemake playing and his wife Sandi singing with the Bill Holman Orchestra. Charlie Shoemake Bill Holman Sandi Shoemake YouTube provides no information beyond the superimposed titles, so the Rifftides staff swung (heh-heh) into research mode. The video was taken in Los Angeles during … [Read more...]

No, that is not the name of an obscure Mississippi Delta blues man. It's the title of my forthcoming novel, which has nothing to do with the Delta or the blues, except, perhaps, the kind we all have. A few Rifftides readers have expressed interest. On its web site, the publisher provides an excerpt and a few outside opinions. Please have a look. … [Read more...]

In the right-hand column under Doug's Picks, you will find new recommendations for your aural, visual and mental pleasure. Please use them responsibly. … [Read more...]

When I arrived home after a post-concert hang late Saturday night, I found this message from a musician friend: Has there ever been a better concert at the Seasons than the Ingrid Jensen one this evening? No. I have attended most of the jazz and classical events at The Seasons in its nearly two years of operation. I have heard wonderful performances in that former church, with its dramatic domed space and nearly perfect acoustics, but none better than when Jensen, the gifted Canadian … [Read more...]

For two years, the Doug's Books section of the right-hand column has ended with this forecast: His next book is a novel that has almost nothing to do with music. That is about to change. The target date for publication is next month. Am I relieved, breathing easier? Yes. Am I excited? You bet. Please stay tuned. … [Read more...]

Singular They By way of suggesting that I was misguided when I railed against the use of "they" with singular antecedents, Rifftides reader David Seidman directed me to a web log called Language Log. Language Log summons up the Bible and Shakespeare to make the case that "everyone" and "themselves" are good partners, and concludes, alliteratively: This use of "they" isn't ungrammatical, it isn't a mistake, it's a feature of ordinary English syntax that for some reason attracts the ire of … [Read more...]

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae. --Kurt Vonnegut Jr One should not be too severe on English novels; they are the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed. --Oscar Wilde … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Marc Myers writes: Among the most underrated and barely celebrated pianists from the 1950s has to be Lorraine Geller, the late wife of alto saxophonist Herb Geller, who today lives in Germany. Stylistically, Lorraine was a funky bop cross between Bud Powell and Horace Silver. She can be heard playing with Herb on a number of solid Emarcy LPs from the mid-50s, including Herb Geller Plays and the stunning The Gellers. Just listen to "Araphoe" from The Gellers, which is set to … [Read more...]

In the steady dumbing-down of the English language, there is little dumber than the convoluting fandango that began about twenty years ago to achieve political correctness by avoiding gender. Today's Wall Street Journal story about efforts to protect the pre-publication sanctity of the new Harry Potter book quotes Potter's inventor, J.K. Rowling: I'd like to ask everyone who calls themselves a Potter fan to help preserve the secrecy of the plot for all those who are looking forward to reading … [Read more...]

He has been gone for fifteen years, but interest in the American Indian tenor saxophonist Jim Pepper seems to be building. Pepper's music, full of vigor and allusions to his cultural background, has received attention akin to cultism in parts of Europe and seems headed toward at least a modest revival in the US. (See this January Rifftides piece.) In Portland, Oregon, Pepper's home town, the journalist and historian Jack Berry produced for Oregon Public Broadcasting a mini-documentary about … [Read more...]

The artsjournal.com family of blogs becomes richer by one today. Howard Mandel (accent on the first syllable) debuts his Jazz Beyond Jazz with a manifesto that begins: What if there's more to jazz than you suppose? What if jazz demolishes suppositions and breaks all bounds? What if jazz - and the jazz beyond, behind, under and around jazz - could enrich your life? What if jazz is the subtle, insightful, stylish, soulful, substantive guide to successful navigation of today's big and little … [Read more...]

John Coltrane Not long after John Coltrane died forty years ago this week, Cannonball Adderley was the guest on Jazz Review, a radio program I did in New Orleans. He and Coltrane had forged a bond in the late 1950s as members of the Miles Davis Sextet. I wrote about their relationsip in a profile of Adderley in Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers: With Davis, Adderley began to alter his conception. Miles often leads in strange and reticent ways. But he was never … [Read more...]

From San Francisco comes word that Earl Watkins died early this month at the age of eighty-seven. Elegant, softspoken and full of knowledge, Watkins was a key figure in Bay Area jazz as a drummer and a historian of the music. He played with bands as varied as Bob Scobey's traditional revival outfit at the Tin Angel and Earl "Fathah" Hines' at the Hangover Club. He was the first drummer hired at Jimbo's Bop City when that celebrated after hours club opened in 1950. He worked steadily until bad … [Read more...]

If you are holding on to your turntable and LPs, you may be encouraged by what Katie Allen reports in The Guardian, especially if you are in the United Kingdom. The format was supposed to have been badly wounded by the introduction of CDs and killed off completely by the ipod-generation that bought music online. But in a rare case of cheerful news for the record labels, the latest phenomenon in a notoriously fickle industry is one nobody dared predict: a vinyl revival. Latest figures show a big … [Read more...]

Sue Raney, Heart's Desire: A Tribute To Doris Day (Fresh Sound). Sue Raney is hardly without a following, but it is a puzzle why a singer of her gifts never achieved widespread fame. For far too long, general audiences have been unaware of Raney's sublime work. Happily, EMI recently reissued All By Myself, one of her early Capitol albums. She seldom makes new recordings, and most of her reissued albums are on CDs that are hard to find except as imports. Since the death of Albert Marx and the … [Read more...]

There are undoubtedly pairs of CDs farther apart in spirit than these; say, New Orleans Rhythm Kings 1922-1925 and The Art of Mabel Mercer. Well, I like both of those together under my roof. Weber and Salim are welcome to join them. Eberhard Weber, Stages Of A Long Journey (ECM). In 2005 Weber's home town, Stuttgart, Germany, threw him a 65th birthday celebration. Weber has staked out territory that borders the jazz avant garde, modern classical minimalism and Bill Evans romanticism, with a hint … [Read more...]