Archives for 2011

The Rifftides staff unaccountably overlooked a memo designed to alert us yesterday to an important birthday. Bill Crow, bassist, tubist, author and occasional correspondent to this blog, became 84 years old on December 27. He continues to gig on both of his instruments and to write, among other things, his Band Room column in Allegro, the newspaper of New York musicians union local 802. Now that he is 84 and one day, we wish Bill all the best now, in 2012 and for a long time thereafter.

Here is Mr. Crow in the Gerry Mulligan quartet with Art Farmer and Dave Bailey at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958. It’s from Bert Stern’s film Jazz on a Summer’s Day. The piece is Mulligan’s “As Catch Can,” recorded the same year in the album What Is There To Say?

Asked in an exchange this morning on the Jazz West Coast listserve why all of those beautiful girls were flipping over the bass player, Mr. Crow replied, “Because he was so young and handsome.”

Was?

We lost Hoagy Carmichael on this date in 1981. We have not lost “Skylark.” Here’s Carmichael in 1956 singing one of his most beloved songs. The words are by Johnny Mercer, the alto saxophone solo is by Art Pepper, the trumpet by Don Fagerquist.

The song is from Hoagy Sings Carmichael With the Pacific Jazzmen, his classic album with arrangements by Johnny Mandel—a basic repertoire item.

Our new stove chimes a catchy riff that has been challenging me to recognize it. Finally, it hit me: the stove’s timer chirps the first four bars of Duke Ellington’s “Creole Love Song.” This is a remarkable coincidence or the engineering staff at KitchenAid has the hippest designer in the appliance business. Either way, it’s a bit of serendipity with which I am happy to be greeted every morning when my tea has steeped.

I don’t have a recording of the timer, but here is the first—and many listeners think the best—of Ellington’s many recordings of “Creole Love Call,” from October 26, 1927. The band was Ellington, piano; Bubber Miley and Louis Metcalf trumpets; Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton, trombone; Otto Hardwick, Harry Carney and Rudy Jackson, reeds; Fred Guy, banjo; Wellman Braud, bass; Sonny Greer, drums. The vocalist, at once ethereal and earthy, is Adelaide Hall. Gunther Schuller has written of the “radiantly singing New Orleans-styled solos” by Miley on trumpet and Jackson on clarinet.

I’ll never catch up, but here are a few 2011 CDs I wanted to report on before the year gets away.

John Basile, Amplitudes (StringTime Jazz)

Basile has a series of agreeable conversations with two other guitarists, both of whom—through the wonders of digital overdubbing—are also Basile. Multiple tracking by a solitary musician goes back to Bill Evans (tape, 1963) and well beyond, to Sidney Bechet’s “Sheik of Araby” and “Blues of Bechet” (lacquer discs, 1941). What’s different here is that Basile and an engineer accomplished the feat somewhat more conveniently, with the use of an iPhone app. So much for the gee-whiz aspect of the recording. Forget the process and listen to the music, which is typical of Basile’s swing, melodicism and harmonic resourcefulness. In approaches as varied as the rhythm guitar and walking bass in Jane Herbert’s “It’s Nice to be With You,” the pointillism of Basile’s own 12-tone “First Row,” the samba inflections of Jobim’s “Fotografia” and the pleasingly abrasive spectrum distortions in “My Funny Valentine,” Basile manages a variety of moods and textures while maintaining the sensibility of the album. Among other highlights, he reminds us that in the right hands, or sets of hands, “Moon River” isn’t worn out; it’s still a great tune to blow on. In a single chorus of Bernstein’s “Some Other Time,” he captures the tune’s air of hopeful resignation.

Sir Roland Hanna, Colors From a Giant’s Kit (IPO)

Even casual YouTube surfers who find videos by the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra are likely to be captivated by the piano introductions, interludes and endings played by Roland Hanna. Serious followers of that band know Hanna, drummer Lewis and bassist Richard Davis, as one of the great rhythm sections. His advanced technique melded with his harmonic imagination and knowledge of the jazz tradition to make him also one of the music’s most complete solo performers. Long before he founded IPO records, Bill Sorin made unaccompanied recordings of Hanna. The pianist died in 2003, and this year Sorin compiled 14 of those performances in this collection. The album is a vibrant addition to the label’s previous three Hanna albums and to his extensive discography, which dates from the late 1950s. The pieces include standards by Ellington, Strayhorn, Coltrane, Victor Young and Ray Noble, and four Hanna compositions. His “20th Century Rag” reflects love for a central pre-jazz tradition, tinted with ironic chord voicings that might have made Shostakovich smile. He treats Coltrane’s “Naima” and Strayhorn’s “Chelsea Bridge” as rhapsodies. His introduction to Ellington’s “In a Mellotone” is a riff that works perfectly for the piece but almost makes the listener wish that Hanna had developed it as a composition of its own. He invests “Cherokee” with a bluesy introduction, then proceeds at a pace slower than the customary hurricane bebop tempo, allowing himself thorough examination of the song’s interior qualities. It’s a lovely album.

Dubravka Tomsic, Mozart Works for piano (IPO)
Dubravka Tomsic, Chopin Works for piano (IPO)

Roland Hanna was a keen student of classical piano literature and of the principal classical pianists of his day. It is unlikely that he was not aware of the great Slovenian pianist Dubravka Tomsic. For all of her prowess, high regard among her peers, fame in Europe and reputation as one of Artur Rubenstein’s favorite protégés, Tomsic was surprisingly little known in the United States until the 1990s. Much of her recording has been for relatively obscure European labels that are hard to find. Sorin, the IPO Records chief who championed Hanna, has followed her work for years. He issued an album of her interpretations of Franz Liszt in 2001. He brought her back to New York to record two CDs released in 2011, one of Chopin, one of Mozart. Chopin fascinated many jazz pianists, among them Hanna and Bill Evans, and continues to influence young jazz musicians. If you wonder why, Tomsic’s readings of the massive Sonata No. 2 in B flat Minor, four scherzos and the famous Berceuse may give you answers. In three sonatas and the Fantasia in D Minor, she discloses the energy, command and variety in Mozart’s piano writing. Whether or not you customarily follow classical piano, these are highly recommended.

The Angel City Big Band featuring Bonnie Bowden, An Angel City Christmas

If you’re looking for a collection of Christmas songs well sung and played in nicely crafted arrangements, this one meets your criterion. The arrangers include Tom Kubis, John LaBarbera and Ralph Carmichael, the singer is the unfailingly cheerful and gratifyingly in-tune Bowden, and the songs are all proven classics. If for nothing more than Bowden’s astonishing high-register unison vocalese with the trumpets on “Let it Snow,” this would be one of my new seasonal favorites. Over the years, I have grown tired of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “The Christmas Song,” Nat Cole and Mel Tormé notwithstanding. Bowden and the Angel City crew of skilled studio craftsmen restored them for me. She does a great job with the verse to “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve.”

In addition to Christmas jazz around the clock Christmas Eve and Christmas day, the internet radio station known as The Jazz Knob will present several instances of the late radio host Chuck Niles’s reading of “‘Twas The Night Before Christmas.” Niles was a Southern California jazz disc jockey from 1957 until his death in 2004. His presentation of the classic Christmas poem became a tradition in the Los Angeles area. For the schedule of readings and to listen to The Jazz Knob any time, go here.

Carol Sloane posts infrequently on her blog, Sloanview. When she puts something up, it’s worth reading. Sloane and Bob Brookmeyer were close friends for a time. Her recollections of him are fond and frank. The piece is illustrated with a candid photo of the two of them, Jimmy Rowles and Tommy Flanagan. To read it go here.

Shortly before Alan Broadbent moved from Southern California to New York, he told the Los Angeles Times:

People are making more out of this than they need to. The bulk of my work is as a touring musician, and I can do that from anywhere.

One of Broadbent’s shorter tours these days is on the train into Manhattan from his new home in the northern suburbs. It remains to be seen how much time he will be able to devote to playing in clubs there, but it worked out well when he took his trio into the Kitano Hotel. In the video of this performance of one of his favorite songs, through the window behind him you will see traffic on Park Avenue. You will also see bassist Putter Smith, Broadbent’s longtime California colleague, and drummer Mike Stephans, who, like many musicians working in New York, lives in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.

Rummaging through Rifftides for posts about Bob Brookmeyer, I found that he is mentioned dozens of times and is the focus of several pieces. You can rummage on your own by entering his name in the “Search this website” box just below the artsjournalblogs logo. This one from 2008 concentrates on a rarity among Brookmeyer recordings.

An earlier post is a review of a daring new Brookmeyer album. It begins:

Like Brahms and Bartók late in their careers, Bob Brookmeyer has achieved increased profundity by clarifying his musical palette. The tensions and conflicts that continued to roil his compositions as he emerged from a period of electronics and experimentation in the first half of the 1990s may not be gone, but if they linger they do not dominate.

To read the whole thing, go here.

To know Brookmeyer better by way of hearing him talk about his music and career, you can do no better than listen to the NPR Jazz Profiles program produced by Bill Kirchner first broadcast in 1999. Find it on Bob’s website by going here and scrolling to the bottom of the page. Among the site’s other interesting attractions is an illustrated list of 42 important Brookmeyer albums, with links to their availability.

Why miss an opportunity to hear more of Brookmeyer’s music? Here’s the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra with his stunning arrangement of “St.Louis Blues.” The soloists are Jones, Brookmeyer, Jerome Richardson, Jones and Roland Hanna. YouTube fades it away, but not before we get the essence of the writing and some fine soloing.

Bob Brookmeyer died in his sleep Thursday night in a hospital near his home in Grantham, New Hampshire. He would have been 82 on December 19. The cause is reported as congestive heart failure.

Several weeks ago, Bob sent me a test pressing of the next album by his New Art Orchestra. He attached a note:

This CD is very much a pre-production sample. Please hold close to your vest.

I have been listening to it repeatedly and holding it close, only to learn today that it has been released under the title Standards as an artistShare download and as a CD. The music demonstrates the craftsmanship, wisdom, humor, flair and architectonic mastery of form that make Brookmeyer one of the supreme composers and orchestrators in the history of jazz. As discrete statements, as settings for soloists, and in support of the singing of Fay Claassen, his pieces on Standards are emblematic of the happy place Brookmeyer had reached in a life and career that had many highs but also lows that for a time his music reflected. He once said of the period when he dealt in electronic music and acoustic music that sounded electronic that some of it “could make your teeth hurt.” He worked through whatever led to that, and for the past decade he wrote music that could make you smile, not because it was funny—although it could be, in his wry way—but because it was so satisfying.

I may write more tomorrow about Brookmeyer and his productive life as a writer and as the standard-setter for valve trombone playing. Tonight, allow me to simply share with you two Brookmeyer moments.

Here’s a track from a 1956 12-inch LP, one of his early albums as a leader. This is the 26-year-old Brookmeyer with Jimmy Rowles, piano; Buddy Clark, bass; and Mel Lewis, drums.

Moving ahead half a century, here’s Brookmeyer conducting his beloved New Art Orchestra in “Get Well Soon.” The tenor sax soloist is Paul Heller.

Sweden has been on my mind in connection with the deadline project that is slowing my Rifftides output. The project does not involve Jan Allan, but he is Swedish and it occurs to me that not enough of you may know about this splendid trumpeter. Here he is playing in the northern university town of Umeå in 1994. The piece is “The Man I Love.” Jan Allan with Kjell Öhman, piano; Georg Riedel bass; Petur Östlund drums.

A sad footnote, evidently added to the YouTube page by Allan:


This trumpet was stolen at Central Station in Stockholm May 2000. Bach 37 gold plated, dual lead pipes and Jan Allan engraved in left side of bell (see video) I miss it so, glad for ideas in what part in the world I can find it.

I have been able to find no report that he has recovered the horn.

For the next few days—at least—Rifftides will be in semi-suspension while I face down a couple of deadlines. I should be able to tell you sometime next week about the more urgent one. In the meantime, the staff will continue to monitor and post your comments. When possible, I will contribute a tidbit or two, starting now.

Early this month, Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz rebroadcast her 2006 program with Bud Shank (1926-2009). She kept marveling that the two had never before met, and they had a fine chat about his days with Charlie Barnet and Stan Kenton and his career as a saxophonist and flutist who transcended the “West Coast” label. Mostly, though, they made music. Shank brought bassist Martin Wind and drummer Tim Horner. The impromptu Shank-McPartland quartet played “Alone Together,” “Beautiful Love,” “Lover Man” and other good tunes, including “Emily” as a fast waltz. There are plenty of reminders of what a good accompanist McP is. If you missed the program or wish to hear it again, go here and click on “Listen Now.”

This is what we awoke to this morning. It’s not snow. It’s frozen fog. Had to share the sight.

The news of Clark Terry’s latest setback has raced through the jazz community and much of the wider world. The trumpet and flugelhorn hero, whose 91st birthday will be next Wednesday, has been suffering from diabetes. The disease has seriously affected his eyesight. Last week it led to the amputation of a leg. Reports are that he is recuperating well and is in good spirits. On his recently established blog, a message from CT’s wife Gwen includes this:

When Clark talked with me about the decision that he was facing, he said, “Don’t worry. Just because you lose your leg, it doesn’t mean you’ll lose your life.”

The blog has a guestbook page on which well-wishers are encouraged to send him notes that Gwen will read to him. The blog’s audio background begins with Clark’s original “Mumbles” recording with the Oscar Peterson Trio and continues with samples from his discography.

My friendship with CT goes back to 1969, when we became acquainted over plates of jambalaya on a park bench in Jackson Square in New Orleans. Shortly after, he volunteered to get me the factory price on a Clark Terry model Olds flugelhorn like the one he plays in the video below. Unfortunately, the horn did not come equipped with a CT sound-alike button. Here he is with his quartet in 1985 at the Club Montmarte in Copenhagen, sounding like no one else. Duke Jordan is the pianist, Jimmy Woode the bassist, Svend Norregaard the drummer. The tune is one of CT’s favorites by his former boss, Duke Ellington.

I admire Clark’s unquenchable spirit. I wish him a happy birthday and a speedy recovery.

Years ago, I saw film of a riotous Japanese jazz opera based on the traditional tale of Momotaro. The video disappeared for a while, but frequent Rifftides correspondent and prodigious blogger Bruno Leicht rediscovered it and sent an alert. To make sense of it, before you watch the video below it will help to know the story. It might also help to have a couple of shots of Ginjo sake.

ONCE upon a time there were an old man and his old wife living in the country in Japan. The old man was a woodcutter. He and his wife were very sad and lonely because they had no children. One day the old man went into the mountains to cut firewood and the old woman went to the river to wash some clothes.

No sooner had the old woman begun her washing than she was very surprised to see a big peach come floating down the river. It was the biggest peach she’d ever seen in all her life. She pulled the peach out of the river and decided to take it home and give it to the old man for his supper that night.

Late in the afternoon the old man came home, and the old woman said to him: “Look what a wonderful peach I found for your supper.” The old man said it was truly a beautiful peach. He was so hungry that he said: “Let’s divide it and eat it right away.”

So the old woman brought a big knife from the kitchen and was getting ready to cut the peach in half. But just then there was the sound of a human voice from inside the peach. “Wait! Don’t cut me!” said the voice. Suddenly the peach split open, and a beautiful baby boy jumped out.

Here’s the little I have learned about the opera. It’s from a 1980s TV variety show called What a Fantastic Night!—the brainchild of the comedian known as Tomori. He plays the old woman, the big bird and, on “Blues March,” the trumpet.

Thanks to YouTube commenter Evan Murphy, here are the times at which each tune appears on the screen: “Now’s the Time” (0:00) | “Lotus Blossom” (0:17) | “Milestones” (0:44) | “Misterioso” (1:39) | “Blue Monk” (1:52) | “Sister Sadie” (2:02) | “Waltz For Debby” (2:16) | “(No Problem)” (3:37) | “Blues March” (4:27) | “Doxy” (4:57) | “Five Spot After Dark” (5:13) | “Cleopatra’s Dream” (5:51) | “Comin’ Home Baby” (6:27) | “Maiden Voyage” (6:50) | “Donna Lee” (7:31) | “Cherokee” (8:15) | “Fables of Faubus” (8:41) | “‘Round Midnight” (9:04) | “Moment’s Notice” (9:14) | “St. Thomas” (9:45)

To read the entire Momotaro legend, go here.

Kanpai!

If you haven’t discovered the website called The Jazz Knob, tomorrow at 12:30 pm (PST) would be a good time to give it a try. In an unusual bit of web radio programming, the veteran Los Angeles jazz broadcaster Ken Borgers has announced that he will play the new Jan Lundgren trio album in its entirety. Together Again at the Jazz Bakery reunites the Swedish pianist with bassist Chuck Berghofer and drummer Joe La Barbera. Their 2008 concert came eleven years after their initial encounter, Cooking! At the Jazz Bakery, and as they were preparing their Ralph Rainger album. I’ll be writing about the new CD, but for now suffice it to say that it is quite likely the best Lundgren on record and that the trio’s empathy is not merely intact, it is intense. To listen to The Jazz Knob, go to www.jazzknob.org (that’s a link).

On the other side of North America, Bill Kirchner’s Jazz From the Archives will explore the music of Andy Gravish, a respected, little-known, trumpeter. From Kirchner’s program alert:

Gravish has been on the scene for almost three decades, but he has gotten almost no attention from the jazz press. However, some of the most discriminating jazz trumpeters I know hold him in the highest esteem. In the last decade, Gravish has divided his attention between New York and Rome, so we’ll hear selections from several CDs that feature him with his collaborator, the Italian pianist Luca Mannutza, and other Italian and American musicians.

Jazz From The Archives airs Sunday at 11 p.m. (EST) in the Newark-New York area on 88.3 FM and on the internet, here (that’s a link).

Rifftides reader and Detroit Free Press music critic Mark Stryker alerts us to an improbable happening in Chicago—a debate on an ESPN sports radio program over the authorship of “Take Five.” The story on drummer Ted Sirota’s website includes audio of the argument. From Sirota’s preamble:

I told him I was a jazz drummer and he put me right through! That’s the first time I’ve ever been treated better by saying I’m a jazz drummer! Usually they tell me to go away or go through the back door or the kitchen. Anyway, the whole thing was pretty funny. Check it out.

To listen to the rumble, click here. Sirota doesn’t identify the debating experts. Maybe one of our Chicago readers can.

Mark Stryker adds:

Not that those guys ever would, but they should have you on the show as Desmond’s biographer to talk about the song and related issues and ironies.

On a somewhat related note, there was a sports talk show here in Detroit for a while that used Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder” (original recording) as its theme song. I heard the host – well known as a huge Bruce Springsteen fan — refer to Lee Morgan and the song by name once, but I never heard anything like the extensive discussion about “Take Five” on the Chicago station. I always wanted to call the station here and ask if the folks knew that there were two Detroiters on that record – Barry Harris and Joe Henderson – or that Lee had been one of the great prodigies in jazz history and died under tragic circumstances, or that “The Sidewinder” had been used in a car commercial.

Jazz can show up in some pretty crazy, unexpected places — otherwise improbable films, TV shows, commercials, radio, literary references, etc. One that comes to mind is the use of Mingus’s “Haitian Fight Song” behind a love scene in “Jerry Maguire” (details at this web page).

Maybe others can give more examples …

Coda: Regarding “Jerry Maguire” — the Nanny in the film is played as a stereotypical jazz geek but he misidentifies the date of the Miles/Trane recording. Also, and I’m going from memory here, I think at the very end of the scene Tom Cruise reacts to the music (Mingus) by saying in a bewildered tone, “What is this music?” My initial read is that he’s actually breaking character but they decided to keep the line in the film.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet: The Columbia Studio Albums Collection 1955-1967

Dave Brubeck turns 91 tomorrow, December 6, and Columbia Records is releasing a CD box containing all 19 of the Columbia albums that his quartet recorded in the studio. The earliest, Brubeck Time, was released in 1955 but recorded in the fall of 1954, three years after Brubeck and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond formed the quartet. The last, Anything Goes: Brubeck Plays Cole Porter, was released in 1967 a few months before the quartet ended one of the most successful runs of any band in jazz history.

A few of the albums in the box have been widely available since their initial release. They include Brubeck Time; Time Out, which contained the chart-busting “Take Five;” Brandenburg Gate Revisited; and Jazz Impressions of Japan with the enchanting minor blues “Koto Song.” Some of the other albums made brief appearances in the United States, but after the LP era were available on CD only as expensive Japanese imports that were often hard to find. Among the rarities are the Porter collection and two albums released in 1965, Angel Eyes, songs by Matt Dennis; and My Favorite Things, a set of Richard Rodgers compositions, both sublime. Also never before on CD for US release are Jazz Impressions of the U.S.A., Jazz Impressions of Eurasia, Bossa Nova U.S.A., Jazz Impressions of New York, and two thematically related albums, Gone With the Wind and Southern Scene. Why have they been withheld from digital release until now? Perhaps the Sony/Columbia accountants could explain.

The problem for thrifty shoppers who want the previously unavailable CDs, of course, is that they are part of the $149.95 package and not available singly, at least for now. If you have a full shelf of Brubecks except for those gems, is it worth the expense to duplicate the others? Based on the quality of the playing in the Dennis, Rodgers and New York albums, it may be. Not having had the LPs of those albums for years, I am eagerly reabsorbing, among other highlights, the smoky “Sixth Sense” from Jazz Impressions of New York, Desmond’s jaunty solo on Dennis’s “Let’s Get Away From it All,” Brubeck and bassist Gene Wright challenging each other in serious fun on a quick romp through “Darktown Strutters Ball,” Joe Morello adapting himself to Indian finger drumming on “Calcutta Blues.”

The booklet included in the box contains tune listings and discographical information for each album, but no narrative, no essays placing the music in perspective. It has a few informal session photographs from Columbia’s 30th Street studio in Manhattan, including this one showing the quartet and, on the left, producer Teo Macero. Concert audiences rarely saw Desmond having this much fun.

The set traces Brubeck’s productive and often exhilarating years with Columbia before the quartet disbanded. It is not comprehensive. Their first album for the label, Jazz Goes to College (1954), was a concert recording, as were several other albums recorded on tour in Europe and the United States. The last of those concert recordings, from tapes in Brubeck’s collection, has just been released as Their Last Time Out. It was recorded December 26, 1967, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, almost literally on the eve of disbandment.

The two-CD set is primarily of pieces the quartet had played dozens, if not hundreds, of times. It includes a “These Foolish Things” with the quartet weaving abstractions that came naturally to Brubeck and Desmond after decades of further developing the ESP that characterized their collaborations from the beginning. It also has “La Paloma Azul,” which became a Desmond favorite in the years after the quartet broke up and he also recorded with the Modern Jazz Quartet in their 1971 Christmas Eve Town Hall concert. His brief solo here reduces the piece to its harmonic essence. The sensitivity of Brubeck’s solo belies the frequent accusation that he was a keyboard basher. The Pittsburgh “Take The ‘A’ Train,” shorter than some of Brubeck’s many other recorded versions, has Morello particularly vigorous in the exchange of four-bar phrases the two always enjoyed. This “You Go to My Head” may not equal the breathtaking 1952 recording the early quartet made at Boston’s Storyville in 1952, but it has moments of fine lyricism from Desmond and intriguing rhythmic displacements by Brubeck. By this time, Morello had only to set two bars of 5/4 time in introducing “Take Five” to draw applause. Desmond’s solo on his famous composition— alternating altissimo and basso profundo phrases—includes a passage of low tones startlingly reminiscent of Earl Bostic or, perhaps, Desmond’s early inspiration Pete Brown. In all, the Pittsburgh concert is a substantial addition to the Brubeck discography.

Happy 91st birthday.