Archives for August 2007

Mr. JazzWax, aka Marc Myers, tracked down the venerable baritone saxophonist Danny Bank, one of the few Charlie Parker sidemen still with us, to talk about Bird. Among Bank's anecdotes: "One morning, sometime in 1951, I think, I took out one of the Sonatas for Woodwind by Hindemith and used it to practice. That night, after I played on two or three recording dates that day, I went to Birdland to hear Charlie play. "As soon as he saw me come into the club, he started to pay the Hindemith Sonata I … [Read more...]

For a long time, the Doug's Books section on the right side of your screen ended with: His next book is a novel that has nothing to do with music. The section now begins (bells, whistles, horns, raucous whoops and shouts, please): Doug's most recent book is Poodie James, a novel published in 2007. The official publication was a few days ago. The book is now available. Preview readers have been extraordinarily kind. You can see some of their comments if you go to this page at the publisher's web … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Wade Nelson of River Forest, Illinois, writes: After reading a piece about George Russell, I hauled out a 1957 LP by Hal McKusick called Jazz Workshop that I hadn't listened to in many years. Arrangements by Russell, Giuffre, Evans, Mandel, Albam and Cohn. Very fine music. I couldn't agree more. McKusick was in an elite cadre of musicians during a golden age of jazz in New York in the late 1950s and early '60s. He had a distinctive tone on alto saxophone and a personalized … [Read more...]

The Rifftides staff directs your attention to the right-hand column and the exhibit entitled Doug's Picks. All the picks are new. We invite your comments, as always. … [Read more...]

Labor Day Weekend's Detroit International Jazz Festival is looming, and Mark Stryker of the Detroit Free Press is profiling some of its headliners. In today's column, pianist Herbie Hancock tells Stryker about his early experience with Miles Davis. "After a couple of months of trying to play what I thought would please Miles, I said to myself, 'I've got to let this out.' "So the next gig, which I think was in Chicago, I just played what I really wanted, and if it clashed with something Miles … [Read more...]

The Rifftides piece about Charles Mingus brought a response from pianist and composer Jill McManus in New York. Jill McManus I knew Mingus! I was introduced to him one night when I took my mother, in from England, to the old Half Note in the '70s. I seem to remember it was pouring. We were waiting in line, chilled and dripping, chatting with Rev John Gensel when Mingus plunged in, and John introduced us. Mingus was charming, looked at them, one on either side of me, smiled and said, "Hmm, good … [Read more...]

Here's a video clip of an unlikely collaboration, complete with a little refresher course in jazz history. … [Read more...]

The Chicago pianist and self-described bon vivant Jeremy Kahn writes: I was lucky enough to have crossed paths with Max Roach on a couple of different occasions: Once was for a workshop of an Amiri Baraka play about Bumpy Johnson, the black gangster in the twenties. It was performed by NYU students, one of whom was Muhal Richard Abrams's daughter Richarda. The first time, though, was for 3 plays by Sam Shepard at LaMama for which Max was supplying the music. Permit me a middle-aged memory: When … [Read more...]

2007 is turning out to be a bonanza year for a Charles Mingus sextet that existed for a few months forty-three years ago. All of the band's members are dead. Its music is gloriously alive. The high point so far is a remarkable two-CD set capturing a performance that might have been forgotten except for a lucky discovery. On a neglected shelf, Sue Mingus, indefatigable preserver of her husband's legacy, found tapes of a concert the sextet played at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in March … [Read more...]

Coming soon: meditations on Charles Mingus, who is proliferating posthumously this year. I had hoped to finish the piece tonight, but it is demanding more than I had intended to give it and night is rapidly heading toward morning. To borrow Dave Frishberg's line, I gotta get me some Zzzzs. Stay tuned. … [Read more...]

Al Haig and Gene DiNovi came out of their teens into the excitement of bebop as the music was discovering itself in the early 1940s. They played piano with some of the most important musicians of the era, had periods of relative obscurity, then re-emerged -- Haig briefly. DiNovi is still enjoying a long second run and showing no signs of slowing. Al Haig Haig's first recording session, when he was twenty-one, was with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Curly Russell and Sid Catlett on the Guild … [Read more...]

Record producer, writer and all-'round musician Bill Kirchner writes: In 1995, I programmed and did the liner notes for Harry James: Verve Jazz Masters 55, a CD compilation of James' MGM recordings from 1959 to '64. These recordings are among James' best from a jazz standpoint; the CD is still available. My thanks to trumpeter/bandleader/historian Dean Pratt--much more of a James authority than I am--who hipped me to these recordings in 1993 when I was working on the Smithsonian Big Band … [Read more...]

In case you've forgotten or never knew, Harry James was a terrific leader who had some great bands. If that seems obvious to you, then you are a better listener than many of the critics who knocked James for what they decided was showy trumpet playing without much musical merit. There are many recorded examples disproving that misperception and, it turns out, several pieces of video that also demonstrate the quality of his band. The Rifftides staff is grateful to the big band authority Bill … [Read more...]

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited; imagination encircles the world -- Albert Einstein The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed -- Albert Einstein … [Read more...]

Curiosity overtook me today about Carl Payne, the San Francisco cable car bell-ringer who collaborated with the great drummer Max Roach. I found Payne by telephone and added the story of what he's been up to since he sat in with Max in 1981. To read it at the end of the original posting, go here. … [Read more...]

The passing of Herb Pomeroy on August 11 leaves jazz education in New England without one of its most skilled teachers and the music absent an improviser and bandleader of rare originality. Pomeroy was a trumpeter who grew into a major arranger, leader and inspiration to hundreds of students at the Berklee School of Music and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Vibraphonist Gary Burton, a former Berklee student of Pomeroy who later became dean of the school, told the Boston Globe: He was one … [Read more...]

Max Roach died early this morning at the age of eighty-three. Phone calls and e-mail messages announcing his passing and commenting on his importance have been pouring in all day. Max Roach As a teenager, Roach began developing a way of drumming that grew out of the bop pioneer Kenny Clarke and was also profoundly affected by Sid Catlett. By the mid-1940s, Roach was the premier innovator among bebop drummers, with virtuosity, complexity and subtlety that made him perfect for the rhythm … [Read more...]

It may seem that jazz gets less coverage in the general press than it deserves, but don't blame the Associated Press or the San Francisco Chronicle. The Chronicle frequently runs substantial AP stories and pieces by its own staffers about major musicians and important developments in jazz. Bassist Ron Carter was the subject of a recent Chronicle article by AP writer Charles J. Gans. Carter told Gans he rejects the notion that his old boss Miles Davis had disdain for the audience. He explains the … [Read more...]

The Rifftides Lead Of The Week Award goes to Steve Greenlee of the Boston Globe for this entry: NEWPORT, R.I. -- News bulletin: Major theft this weekend at Fort Adams State Park during the JVC Jazz Festival. Description of subject: Elderly gentleman, white hair, thick glasses, walks and speaks slowly, but plays piano like a madman. Date of birth: 12-6-20. Item stolen: the show. Greenlee was describing Dave Brubeck. To read all of his review of Sunday at the Newport Festival, go here. In the … [Read more...]

In response to last week's Rifftides posting on free press issues, DevraDowrite brings up the Bush administration's relationship to press freedom and journalistic responsibility, particularly in regard to the Joseph Wilson-Valerie Plame episode. As I would have if I'd had the presence of mind to think about it, Devra links to the conversation on a recent PBS program among Bill Moyers and two constitutional scholars . To read her comments and get a link to the transcript of the Moyers program, go … [Read more...]