• Home
  • About
    • Doug Ramsey
    • Rifftides
    • Contact
  • Purchase Doug’s Books
    • Poodie James
    • Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond
    • Jazz Matters
    • Other Works
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal
  • rss

Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

You are here: Home / 2010 / Archives for December 2010

Archives for December 2010

The Reluctant Lister: A Confession

December 31, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

At this time of year, those who write about music, books, plays, motion pictures, sporting events, chili cookoffs, hog-calling contests and—for all I know—goldfish breeding, are expected to compile lists of the year's best. I have been complicit in this questionable activity, but I've been trying to quit. In the case of jazz recordings, the notion is absurd that anyone can name the best. You could listen for 12 months during all of your waking hours and not hear, much less evaluate, a … [Read more...]

Other Places: Preservation Haul

December 30, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Oregon Music News has a line on its masthead listing the categories the online publication covers: CLASSICAL, JAZZ/BLUES, ROCK/ROOTS, ACOUSTIC, INDIE, DJ/ELECTRO, SOUL/HIP-HOP, MELTING POT, FAMILY, MUSICALS I don't spend much time with two-thirds of those genres and although I found it enlightening to rummage through the OMN sections about them, I doubt that I will be delving deeply into, say, DJ/Electro. I'm glad it's there for those who need it. The current lead story in the jazz section is … [Read more...]

Billy Taylor, 1921-2010

December 29, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Billy Taylor, a pianist who became a television and radio spokesman for jazz and made the music familiar to millions, died last night in a New York City hospital after suffering heart failure at home. He was 89. In his work on National Public Radio and CBS-TV's Sunday Morning, Taylor's playing and relaxed explanations dispelled for many listeners and viewers the notion that jazz was remote, impenetrable and difficult. He earned a doctorate in music in 1975 and chose to be called Dr. Taylor, a … [Read more...]

Other Matters: Ciccolini Plays Satie

December 27, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Many Rifftides readers may be familiar with Erik Satie's "Gymnopédie No. 1" because performers including Jessica Williams, Jacques Loussier, Ximo Tébar and Herbie Mann with Bill Evans have recorded jazz or near-jazz versions of that classic of French music. It has not become a jazz standard, but it has assumed a modest place in the repertoire. For those who have not heard the piece as Satie wrote it in 1888, here it is, played by the eminent Satie interpreter Aldo Ciccolini. The performance is … [Read more...]

Joyeux Noel, Frohe Weihnachten, Feliz Navidad, Christmas Alegre, Lystig Jul, メリークリスマス, Natale Allegro, 圣诞快乐, Καλά Χριστούγεννα, 즐거운 성탄, И к всему доброй ночи And С Новым Годом

December 24, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

The Rifftides staff wishes you a Merry Christmas, a splendid holiday season and happy listening. For good measure, here is a scene captured yesterday on the staff winter field trip. … [Read more...]

A Sad Note: Jack Tracy Is Gone

December 22, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Jack Tracy died on Tuesday, December 21. He was 84. Jack was editor of DownBeat magazine in the 1950s and went on to a second career producing fine jazz recordings. He was a frequent Rifftides commenter. We shall miss his knowledge, pointed observations, humor and friendship. … [Read more...]

CD: Alan Broadbent

December 22, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Alan Broadbent Trio Live At Giannelli Square: Volume 1 (Chilly Bin). No outer space explorer, Broadbent finds in the song form all that he needs for freedom earned through discipline. The technique he has intensified in recent years is evident in the precision and relaxation of his counterpoint in "Lullaby of the Leaves," stunning parallel constructions, speed and independence of hands in "Solar" and in dozens of other demonstrations of his skill. Broadbent's music, however, is not about chops. … [Read more...]

CD: Rudresh Mahanthappa & Bunky Green

December 22, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Rudresh Mahanthappa & Bunky Green, Apex (Pi). Mahanthappa, aged 39, is one of the most visible alto saxophonists of the 21st century; Green, aged 75 one of the least. As a result of this album, Green is gaining the prominence he might have achieved in the 1960s had he not left Charles Mingus for academia. Among the saxophonists he influenced through recordings was Mahanthappa. Together, they are formidable kindred spirits. Throughout, but notably on "Summit" and "Playing with Stones," their … [Read more...]

CD: Harold Danko, Dick Oatts, Rich Perry

December 22, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Harold Danko, Oatts & Perry II (SteepleChase). Pianist Danko was a colleague of alto saxophonist Dick Oatts and tenor saxophonist Rich Perry in the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis band and never got over them—with good reason. This successor album to Oats & Perry (2006) again teams the three with bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Jeff Hirshfield. It reemphasizes the reasons that Oatts and Perry are admired among musicians and serious listeners for their inventiveness, passion and tonal qualities. … [Read more...]

DVD: Dave Brubeck

December 22, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Dave Brubeck, Brubeck Returns to Moscow (Koch Vision). This 2005 film about Brubeck's 1997 visit to Russia for a performance of his mass To Hope is a beautifully crafted documentary. It incorporates Brubeck's quartet with a symphony orchestra and chorus performing the mass and a rousing "Blue Rondo ala Turk." We see Brubeck's informal encounters with the Russians, including a spirited impromptu duet with a young violinist, and conductor Russell Gloyd amusingly overcoming the language difference … [Read more...]

Book: Laurie Verchomin On Bill Evans

December 22, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Laurie Verchomin, The Big Love: Life & Death With Bill Evans (Verchomin). The "Laurie" of the pianist's song by that name spares nothing in her account of their romance or of the drug use that hastened Evans' death at 51. Love between the pianist and the young woman flared in the year-and-a-half before Evans died in late 1980. Her book is the story of the life-affirming brilliance of his music in the final months, a man resigned to the inevitability of his early mortality and the devotion of the … [Read more...]

New Picks, Delayed But Worth The Wait

December 21, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

A flurry of deadlines for other projects meant that it took a while to get the new batch of recommendations ready, but they are posted. In the center column under the legend Doug's Picks you will find suggestions of CDs by pianists and saxophonists, a DVD documentary about a momentous event in Moscow and a book about the last days and last love of Bill Evans. … [Read more...]

Christmas CDs: Matt Wilson, Matassa/Anderson

December 19, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

The other day a man who acted on last year's Rifftides recommendation of Carla Bley's Carla's Christmas Carols let me know that he was disappointed in the album. Indeed, he was offended by it. In the review, I described the "tenderness, wit, harmonic brilliance, wide dynamic range and wry sense of nostalgia" in Bley's arrangements of traditional holiday songs. My friend said that he likes his Christmas songs straight, without "all those minors." I refrained from a discussion of the importance of … [Read more...]

Correspondence, With Music: Moody Concerned

December 17, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

The Norwegian pianist, composer and bandleader Per Husby writes: I'd like to share a little remembrance of mine of James Moody - from Oslo, Norway somewhere around 1990: I had been playing piano with Moody on some gigs at the Molde jazz festival in 1979, and had met him sporadically here and there after that. On this occasion in 1990 he had done a gig in Oslo with a Swedish rhythm section - and Moody had played fantastically as usual. I spoke to him in the interval, and he enthusiastically … [Read more...]

Clark Terry Is 90

December 14, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Today is Clark Terry's 90th birthday. Admired for his trumpet, flugelhorn, singing and blues mumbling, Terry has been an idol of trumpet players since the teenaged Miles Davis took him for a role model in St. Louis in the 1940s. From his days with Charlie Barnet, Count Basie and Duke Ellington through his national prominence in the Tonight Show band and his long career as a leader and soloist, CT has been an inspiration to generations of musicians. It is a rare set in which Terry doesn't include … [Read more...]

Correspondence, Illustrated: Leap Frog II

December 14, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Jeremiah McDonald writes: Years ago you featured my Jazz Dispute video on your blog, and I just wanted to let you know that I recently a second version for the French theater that I now work for. It's the same recording of "Leap Frog," but performed a little differently... Yes, a little differently. The music was by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Curley Russell and Buddy Rich, recorded June 6, 1950. Thanks to Mr. McDonald for the alert to his new version. To see his original … [Read more...]

How Moody Became Famous

December 12, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

I thought that we had come to the end of the current Rifftides series of James Moody entries until I heard from a reader who wondered why she had never heard Moody's "I'm in the Mood for Love." That is a puzzle, given the record's ubiquity, but if even one person has the pleasure of hearing it for the first time, how can we refuse? Here is Moody's 1949 recording with the Swedish All-Stars, followed by King Pleasure (Clarence Beeks) in 1952 singing Eddie Jefferson's lyric set to Moody's solo. … [Read more...]

James Moody, 1925-2010

December 9, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

We knew it was coming. That doesn't make it easier. James Moody died this afternoon of the pancreatic cancer he had known about for nearly a year but did not make public until November. He was 85. Moody was in hospice in San Diego, his hometown for many years. His wife Linda was by his side, as she was almost every moment since they met. Moody became famous for his solo on "I'm In The Mood For Love," a record he made when he was 24. His friend Eddie Jefferson put a lyric to it and it became … [Read more...]

Don’t Let It Bother You

December 8, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Extracurricular assignments will keep me busy for a while. The Rifftides staff will supply items to inform or entertain you. There's not much information in this one, but it may lift your spirits if, say, snow collapsed your roof or Julian Assange leaked one of your cables. Fats Waller in 1934 with Gene Sedric, tenor saxophone; Herman Autrey, trumpet; Harry Dial, drums; Billy Taylor, Sr., bass. I've always been impressed with Autrey's ability to insert lovely little obligato licks among phrases … [Read more...]

Next Page »

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...

Subscribe to RiffTides by Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

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.

Archives

Recent Comments

  • Rob D on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • W. Royal Stokes on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Larry on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Lucille Dolab on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Donna Birchard on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside

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
Notes On Jazz: Ralph Miriello
Bob Porter: Jazz Etc.
be.jazz
Marc Myers: Jazz Wax
Night Lights
Jason Crane:The Jazz Session
JazzCorner
I Witness
ArtistShare
Jazzportraits
John Robert Brown
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

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in