Archives for 2008

Three CDs, a DVD and a book: your new Doug's Picks are in the center column. To see previous recommendations, click "more picks" at the bottom of that section. … [Read more...]

Looking for the earliest Slim Gaillard clip I could find, I came across a sequence from Olsen and Johnson's manic 1941 hit movie Hellzapoppin'. Gaillard plays piano and guitar, with his constant companion of the period, the great Slam Stewart, on bass. Among the several dozen uncredited musicians … [Read more...]

Summertime, and the living is easy.             --Ira Gershwin, "Summertime"   I hear laughter by the swimming hole. Kids out fishing, with the willow pole. Boats come drifting 'round the bend. Why must summer ever end? … [Read more...]

It has been some time since we ran a check on the whereabouts of Rifftides readers. Here is a partial location list of recent visitors, starting at the point farthest from home base. Wellington, New Zealand Wollongong, Australia Sydney, Australia Tokyo, Japan Beijing, China Tarnow, Poland … [Read more...]

The Rifftides staff is going to take a couple of days off and trek across the mountains to watch the Mariners play the Tigers. The links are for the benefit of those in, say, Casablanca or Tarnow who may not be familiar with the quaint US sporting culture. In the meantime, enjoy this video of … [Read more...]

A few years ago, research disclosed that Louis Armstrong was not born on the Fourth of July, 1900, but a little more than a year later. No matter; Armstrong believed that Independence Day was his birthday and identified himself with the United States of America. As his career and popularity … [Read more...]

(An annual Rifftides reminder) Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.--Benjamin Franklin America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed … [Read more...]

It appears that Ernestine Anderson is going to be able to stay in her house--at least for now. News of the seventy-nine-year-old singer's impending eviction traveled quickly around the world last week, and people responded. Help came from fans, old friends--including Quincy Jones--and just plain … [Read more...]

It was in the back of my mind that I would post something about this morning's bicycle ride. I took the mountain bike along the canal trails. It was a perfectly good ride, but it turned up nothing to report beyond the fact that by the time I finished, around 11 a.m., the temperature was approaching … [Read more...]

When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that … [Read more...]

Last week, jazz lost two journeyman artists valued for their dependability, versatility and swing. On the west coast, bassist Dave Carpenter died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of forty-eight. Most recently, Carpenter had been in drummer Peter Erskine's trio, which also included pianist Alan … [Read more...]

It sometimes takes Rifftides posts a while to catch up with their subjects. On August 22, 2006, I reported the results of research into the matter of a high school teacher who received a lot of attention in 1993 for using Frank Sinatra to punish miscreant students. Sinatra did not come to class to … [Read more...]

The Rifftides post three weeks ago with the video of Peggy Lee's and Frank Sinatra's "Nice Work if You Can Get It" brought so much comment that another Lee installment seems justified. Here she is with her husband Dave Barbour on guitar. The song is Lee's composition "Maňana," a huge hit in 1947. … [Read more...]

Friends and admirers of Bob Florence, including his Limited Edition band, gathered at the Catalina Bar and Grill in Hollywood on June 15 to pay tribute to the arranger, composer, leader and pianist.. Florence died exactly a month earlier at the age of seventy-five. In Florence's honor, the piano … [Read more...]

Around 1955 (I must have been in kindergarten), I went to a concert at the 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle and for the first time heard Ernestine Anderson. She sang with a big band. I was impressed with the quality of her voice, her phrasing, her time, the lack of gimmickry in her delivery and how she … [Read more...]

Exactly how Anderson keeps her contralto so plush and supple ranks among the sweet imponderables of the art of jazz singing.... she remains an eloquent song interpreter with a broad array of expressive devices at her command. -- Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune, September, 2004 Anderson remains a … [Read more...]