Archives for December 2008

The release of a new CD, The Film Music Of Ralph Rainger, is the occasion for my piece in today's Wall Street Journal. Coupled with an article about the contemporary motion picture composer A.B. Rahman, it is headlined, Another Who Has Been Unjustly Forgotten and begins:  For years, Jack Benny opened his CBS radio and television broadcasts with "Love in Bloom." The comedian's violin butchery of his theme song became a running coast-to-coast Sunday night gag. As a result, the piece became … [Read more...]

Rainger was a very good pianist. In 1933, Paramount featured him playing his music in a promotional short subject that included cameo appearances by Bing Crosby and Maurice Chevalier. It ends with superimposed shots of Rainger improvising separate parts simultaneously on three pianos. Sound familiar? Of course, but it was three decades before Bill Evans recorded Conversations With Myself. I wanted to put the film directly into Rifftides, but embedding the clip is forbidden. To see it, click … [Read more...]

For a comprehensive Freddie Hubbard obituary, see Peter Keepnews's article in this morning's New York Times. … [Read more...]

Freddie Hubbard died this morning in the Sherman Oaks district of Los Angeles. He was hospitalized there since he had a heart attack on November 26. Hubbard was 70. From the trumpeter's first recording with the Montgomery Brothers in 1958, it was evident that reports coming out of Indianapolis were true: the city had produced a remarkable trumpet player, one who might equal another twenty-year-old, Lee Morgan. After his arrival in New York, Hubbard quickly proved the point. The two were the … [Read more...]

My PC-to-iMac conversion project is coming along nicely. I should have the new computer figured out any year now. It will be nice if that year turns out to be 2009.  … [Read more...]

User, n. The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot." ~Dave Barry  But they are useless. They can only give you answers. ~Pablo Picasso  Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all. ~John F. Kennedy … [Read more...]

With so little video of Lester Young, every foot of him performing on film is precious. Loren Schoenberg calls attention to a performance by Young that showed up recently on You Tube. Whoever submitted the clip from a kinescope of Art Ford's Jazz Party television program provided no information beyond Young's name. Ray Bryant is the pianist. The bassist is Vinnie Burke, who was on many of Ford's shows. Does anyone recognize the drummer? We catch a glimpse of cornetist Rex Stewart, who does not … [Read more...]

Whatever your language, the Rifftides staff wishes you a Merry Christmas, a happy holiday season, a rewarding 2009 and good listening.     … [Read more...]

While probing the mysteries of the Macintosh universe and meeting with frustrations, roadblocks and delights (man, this thing is FAST), I have continued to listen. Here are impressions of two of the CDs that have kept me company during my slam-bang self-tutorial and late-night iMac school.  Carla Bley And Her Remarkable Big Band: Appearing Nightly (Watt/ECM). Somehow, this album got by me when it came out in late summer. Since it arrived a few days ago, I've listened to it repeatedly, … [Read more...]

Christmas week is underway, time to listen to the only vocal performance Bill Evans is know to have recorded. I wish I had thought of posting the audio clip, but full credit goes to Jan Stevens of The Bill Evans Web Pages. Rifftides reader Russ Neff called it to our attention. Click on this link. When you get to the Bill Evans site, click on the word "Here" in the first panel. Prepare to smile. … [Read more...]

All I can tell you about this is that the violinists are Katica Illenyi and Csaba Illenyi.The Hungarian Wikipedia entry did not help me learn more. I only wish that Jimmy Giuffre had heard this version of his best-known composition and arrangement.                Thanks to Bobby Shew for calling this to our attention. … [Read more...]

Posting will resume after I have spent a little time getting to know my new iMac. After beginning on a KayPro 2 and spending more than twenty years with PCs, I have switched to Macintosh. So far, it is exhilarating, but there is a lot to learn. I feel like the audience in the commercial that announced the advent of the Mac twenty-four years ago.  … [Read more...]

On Tuesday, Dave Brubeck was inducted into the California Hall of Fame along with eleven others including actors Jane Fonda and Jack Nicholson, fitness maven Jack LaLanne, musician and producer Quincy Jones, chef Alice Waters and -- posthumously -- Theodore Geiss (Dr. Seuss), scientist Linus Pauling, architect Julia Morgan, and Dorothea Lange, the photographer best known for documenting the human toll of the Great Depression. Brubeck turned eighty-eight on December 6. Paul Conley of Capital … [Read more...]

Shortly after I posted the Doug's Picks selection of Wadada Leo Smith's new CD, Tabligh (see the center column), I was in a meeting with Daron Hagen. I casually mentioned Smith. "What?" he said, full of excitement. "You know about Leo?" It turns out that Hagen, a distinguished composer of operas, chamber music and orchestral works, was a teaching colleague of Smith at Bard College and holds him in high regard. That led to a discussion of one of Hagen's -- and my -- favorite propositions, that … [Read more...]

From San Francisco comes news of the death of Frances Lynne, the singer who worked with Paul Desmond and Dave Brubeck before there was a Brubeck Quartet. Ms. Lynne went on to sing with Charlie Barnet and Gene Krupa as the big band era wound down. Her first recording, however, was not until 1991 with her husband, John Coppola's band. She and the trumpeter were married for fifty-six years. She was eighty-two years old. Reviewing her CD, Remember, I wrote, "Often discussed but seldom heard, Ms. … [Read more...]

Among Rifftides readers in Europe are the proprietors of three web logs helpful to those who wish to keep up with developments on the continent. Tony Emmerson's Prague Jazz concentrates on music in the Czech Republic. George Mraz, Emil Viklický, Frantisek Uhlir, Gustav Brom, Miroslav Vitouš and a few other Czech musicians are widely known. Emmerson (pictured) writes about them, but he also keeps tabs on the current crop of players known mainly in Eastern Europe. He sometimes stretches the … [Read more...]