Archives for 2011

Five years ago, I wrote about Tom Sancton’s book Song For My Fathers being assigned reading for Tulane University’s incoming students. That venerable school chose it to give the freshmen a shared intellectual experience that would stimulate discussion. Not incidentally, it would also acquaint them with a profound aspect of the culture and caché of Tulane’s home, New Orleans.

A respected correspondent, an overseas bureau chief and a clarinetist who mastered the traditional music of his hometown, Sancton has now adapted the book as a theatrical experience. The stage presentation will run in a St. Charles Avenue theater for two weekends this month. This preview is enough to make me want to drop everything and hurry down to a place that, during my eight years there, got into my blood and won’t get out.

For Sancton in a different context—trading fours with Wynton Marsalis at the 2002 Marciac Festival in France—go here. Sancton, clarinet; Marsalis, trumpet; Charles Bremner, piano; Adrian Dearnell, bass; Philippe Camus, drums.

This is the latest of our periodic efforts to keep up with recorded music. Some of these CDs are recent. Some have been languishing in the holding pen for months. Some are timeless standard repertoire items that the Rifftides staff believes everyone should know about. The album titles in blue italics are links.

Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, Eric Harland, James Farm (Nonesuch)
For the most part, leaderless cooperatives in jazz have assembled to record and then gone their separate ways. Some of those brief encounters produced enduring music. The 1937 Teddy Wilson- Harry James-Red Norvo-John Simmons “Just a Mood” comes to mind; Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz with the Oscar Peterson Trio in 1953; John Lewis, Bill Perkins, Jim Hall, Percy Heath and Chico Hamilton in the Grand Encounter session of 1956; Cal Tjader and Getz in 1958; Ron Carter, Sadao Watanabe, Hank Jones and Tony Williams for Carnaval in 1993.

It is less common for prominent leaders and soloists to join forces as a working group. Saxophonist Redman, pianist Parks, bassist Penman and drummer Harland combined for the 2009 Montreal Jazz Festival, stayed together, and are on an ambitious world tour under the name James Farm. All of them contribute compositions. After 20 years of prominence, Redman’s virtuosity is well known. Penman’s strength and the depth and surge of Parks’s playing may come as a revelation to many. The power from these four dynamos throbs beneath the surface. With their degree of intensity, they don’t need volume to transmit urgency. Tension and release operate in harness. The unity of harmonic sophistication among Parks, Redman and Penman combines with Harland’s subtle use of rhythmic muscle to bring elation to the bucolic meander of Parks’s “Bijou”. Flavored by Harland’s accent bursts, “Chronos” recalls Bartók in its Slavic country-folk spirit, if not in its inconclusive ending. Overall, the album has a fine balance between peacefulness and strength.

JD Allen, Victory! (Sunnyside).
The pianoless trio worked for Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Giuffre, John Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Joe Lovano and Branford Marsalis and it works for Allen. The young tenor saxophonist’s brevity, though not his style, gives him more in common with Guiffre than with his other predecessors. Through the succession of short pieces that make Victory! a sort of suite, Allen’s sound and passion recall Coltrane, but his ability to capsulize cogent statements puts him in a category apart from most of Coltrane’s longwinded successors. Bassist Gregg August and drummer Rudy Royston are close in support and in empathy. Royston’s strategically placed cymbal splashes are a delight.

Bill Anschell, Figments (Origin).
Anschell’s liner notes say that he recorded this solo piano album mostly late at night. It has the qualities of nocturnal reminiscing—relaxation, free association, bemusement. His moods and treatments range from the pointillism of “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” through the beefy swing of “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You” to the dreamscape of “All My Tomorrows.” Along the way he constructs a fantasia on “Spinning Wheel” and checks out Fats Waller, the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, and Rodgers & Hart.

Herb Geller, At The Movies (Hep). When this showed up three years ago, I carefully put it where I’d be sure to find it and write a review the following week. I found it yesterday. So much for that filing system. The good news is that this is classic work by the veteran alto saxophonist— full of melody leavened by Geller’s bebop piquancy, and with a rhythm section sparked by bassist Martin Wind and pianist Don Friedman. The album has “Close Enough for Love,” “Laura,” “Invitation” and other standards that began life in film. Geller and Friedman take an exhilarating romp through “Ding Dong The Witch is Dead” from The Wizard of Oz. Unexpected surprises: themes from Taxi Driver and Marnie combined in a waltz and “Troubled Waters,” a gorgeous ballad from the 1934 Mae West picture Belle of the Nineties. Geller was only 79 when he made this satisfying album. How is he doing this year? See this recent post.

Peter Schärli, Ithamara Koorax, O Grande Amor (TCB). Koorax’s soft voice is an instrument of tonal precision, innate swing and variety of emotional inflection. She joins Swiss trumpeter Schärli’s trio (pianist Hans-Peter Pfammatter and bassist Thomas Dürst) in a collection of songs mostly by writers from Koorax’s native Brazil. The exception is Pfammatter’s “Wedileto,” which holds its own with pieces by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Ary Barroso, Vinicius de Moraes and other major Brazilian composers. Koorax and Schärli share the use of quietness to achieve expressive power. Each of their solos on the title tune is a prime example of that ability. The way the Swiss swing with Koorax through the samba rhythms of Baden Powell’s “Deixa” and Fernando Lobo’s “Zum Zum” suggests that there must be favelas in Geneva, Bern and Zurich.

Hampton Hawes, The Green Leaves of Summer (Contemporary). This is not a reissue. It has been on CD since 1990 and LP since 1964, when it was recorded. Thanks goodness it is still available, as it should be always. It is the album that marked Hawes’s return to—ahem—civilian life and reflects his joy at that circumstance. The pianist was feeling elated and free because President John F. Kennedy had granted him a presidential pardon after five years of a 10-year Federal sentence for possession, an indiscretion he evidently never repeated. With Steve Ellington on drums and Monk Montgomery on bass, Hawes enriched film composer Dmitri Tiomkin’s title tune with enhanced harmonies and recorded memorable versions of seven other tunes, including “St. Thomas,” “Blue Skies,” “The More I See You” and two remarkable blues performances. This is one of those basic repertoire items mentioned above.

We’ll have more recent-listening reviews soon.

Well, fairly soon.

Eventually.

Stay tuned.

Has anyone else noticed that radio and TV weather people report or predict “warm temperatures” or “cold temperatures.” Temperatures are not warm or cold. Air is warm or cold. Temperatures are high or low, or somewhere in between. Please, weather people.

And another thing, as Andy Rooney would say: Gene Lees, refusing to submit to the PC usage “weatherpersons,” called them “weatherthings.” Boy, do I miss him.

At 82, Herb Geller is still living in Germany, still touring in Europe, with occasional—too rare—visits to his US homeland. Here he is last February in Aberdeen, Scotland, at a club called the Blue Lamp. His rhythm section is pianist Paul Kirby, bassist Martin Zenker and drummer Rick Hollander. They play Billy Strayhorn’s “Johnny Come Lately.”

What’s the reason for posting this performance? Listen.

Several days ago in the course of conducting a web search, Vicki Overfelt came across a 2008 Rifftides mini-review of a Rosa Passos album, Romance. She used the comment function to ask if anyone could help her find the object of her search. She wanted the words to “Desilusión,” a song Passos wrote with lyricist Santiago Auserón and recorded on her 2006 CD Rosa. Skeptical that other trollers might find her plea so long after the initial item, we nonetheless posted the query.

Lo and behold, yesterday Rubén González sent a message from Rosario, Argentina, with the Spanish lyrics to “Desilusión.” We thank Sr. González. To see the original review in its Recent Listening, In Brief setting and the chain of correspondence containing the lyrics, go here.

Please take advantage of the Rifftides archives. You might find something you’ve been looking for or get a surprise. You can enter a term in the box to the left of “Search” just below the artsJournalblogs logo at the top right of the page. Or you can scroll down to “Archives” in the right-hand column, choose a month—or several months—and just rummage around. There are more than six years of posts to roam in. Enjoy.

The animated digital robot spoofs springing up on the internet include several aimed at the jazz-insider culture, in particular at the hipper-than-thou talk exchanged among students of the art who may be ever so slightly over-educated and just too cool—but not too cool for words. There are plenty of words in these cartoons. One of the most inviting targets for robot satire is the school of musicians who pattern themselves on the playing and teachings of Lennie Tristano and his accolytes. If you haven’t encountered the Tristano film, it might be a good idea to watch it before you get to the video below. The cartoon comes in two parts, here and here. It’s advisable to have impressionable young children out of the room. Following the viewing, come back to Rifftides for the next exhibit.

The deadly serious, quasi-religious devotion of those who are “so lucky to be Tristanoites” is prime material for lampooning. Whether Tristano (1919-1978) would be amused, we’ll never know. But it would be unfortunate if people seduced by the cleverness of the cartoons concluded that Tristano’s music was less than important. It occurred to members of the Rifftides staff that some of the younger fans of these little films may miss the point that the subject is the Tristano cult, not Tristano. Some readers may never have heard his music. We can fix that. Here he is in solo in Copenhagen in 1965.

The concert from which that piece came is on this DVD.

If you’d like to invite Tristano into your record collection, I suggest that Intuition is a good place to start. The CD has the 1949 Capitol recordings that led composer and historian Bill Kirchner to write that they are “among the greatest in the history of recorded jazz—triumphs of conception and execution by a group of musicians who had been in close collaboration for a year.” That group included saxophonists Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh and guitarist Billy Bauer. Intuition also contains 1956 sessions with saxophonists Marsh and Ted Brown and pianist Ronnie Ball, Tristano students all.

Those cartoon robots’ ribbing of the Tristanoite disciples may be something to laugh at. Tristano’s music is something to hear.

Trummy Young and Johnny Mercer wrote “Travelin’ Light.” Billie Holiday owned it. This version with an unidentified pianist was made in Paris in 1959, the year she died. It is one of her most affecting treatments of a song that became one of her signature pieces.

For more about Billie and “Travelin’ Light,” including her original recording of the song and an unusual version by Chet Baker, visit Bruno Leicht’s new blog entry.

The logical followup to the piece below about Chris Byars’ hero Lucky Thompson is a piece by Thompson. Here’s a film from Paris in 1959 at the Blue Note. The rhythm section is Bud Powell, piano; Pierre Michelot, bass; Jimmy Gourley, guitar; Kenny Clarke, drums. The compostion is Dizzy Gillespie’s and Charlie Parker’s “Anthropology.” The video clip ends before the tune does, but this is a rare opportunity to see the great tenor saxophonist in action with a band of his peers.

Make that two pieces by Thompson. This is from a 1957 French television broadcast. The song is “I’ll Remember April.” Michelot and Clarke are again in the rhythm section. This time the pianist is Martial Solal. Thompson’s ingenious exploitation of the chords is an example of the harmonic inventiveness that won him the admiration of musicians from the 1940s to this day.

Chris Byars, Lucky Strikes Again (Steeplechase).
This album by a gifted saxophonist, composer and arranger has several things to recommend it.

It presents 10 pieces written and arranged by Lucky Thompson (1924-2005), a saxophonist whose brilliance and originality as a player and writer failed to make him as well known as equally gifted contemporaries like Miles Davis, Stan Getz and Milt Jackson. Byars painstakingly transcribed most of the arrangements from recordings of a 1961 Thompson concert broadcast in Germany. Others, he arranged based on Thompson quartet records. Pieces like “Old Reliable,” “Could I Meet You Later?” “Another Whirl” and other discoveries are substantial additions to known compositions by Thompson.

Byars’ arrangements for an octet cast the tunes in the not-small, not-big format that offers tonal colors impossible in a quartet or quintet, with flexibility and subtlety difficult to achieve with the weight of a standard 15- or 16-piece big band. His sidemen include some of New York’s finest club and studio jazz musicians. Among them are trumpeter Scott Wendholt, alto saxophonist Zaid Nasser and trombonist John Mosca. Byars’ own playing evidences affection for Thompson’s, without indulgence in slavish imitation. His treatment of “Just One More Chance,” a major Thompson recording, is impressive.

The music reflects lessons Thompson learned from his contemporary Tadd Dameron, an arranger whose work was a pervasive influence in jazz from the late forties to the mid-sixties and has never lost its freshness. As Mark Gardner points out in his interesting album notes, Dameron’s example helped form Quincy Jones, Gigi Gryce, Benny Golson and Oscar Pettiford. With this work, Byars can claim a place in that line. He deserves credit for reminding listeners, by way of this stimulating collection, of Lucky Thompson’s importance.

Shortly after Thompson’s death six years ago, Rifftides posted a summary of Thompson’s career and a guide to some of his recordings. To see it, click here.

Tony Emmerson’s blog Prague Jazz has come out of hibernation after several months of dormancy. It was, and presumably again will be, a prime source of information about music in one of eastern Europe’s great centers of culture. The main re-entry item is an interview with saxophonist Julian Nicholas, like Emmerson a native of the UK who has developed strong ties to the Czech Republic. The interview is capped with video of Nicholas in performance with the Emil Viklický Trio. The quirky cinematography is presumably by way of Viklický’s unmanned camera perched on his piano. The sound quality is good. To read the interview and see the performance, go here.

A friend just pointed out that this is the birthday of Joe Henderson (1937-2001). The Rifftides time clock says that I’m punched out for the holiday, but to post a remembrance of Joe I’m sneaking past the security guards and putting up this remarkable performance of a piece associated nearly as closely with Henderson as with the man who wrote it, Kenny Dorham. The initial recording of “Blue Bossa” was in 1963 with Dorham on Page One, Henderson’s debut as a leader. It was one of a remarkable series of Blue Note albums they made together. Perhaps it is not out of the question to imagine that during this 1994 performance in Munich, Henderson was thinking of his old pal. He is the only soloist, soaring on the support he gets from bassist George Mraz, drummer Al Foster and pianist Bheki Mseluku and ending with a quixotic coda—two of them, in fact.

Here’s a cheery version of Irving Berlin’s classic holiday song. It’s by Jimmie Lunceford’s band, recorded in 1939. The vocal and exuberant trombone solo are by Trummy Young. Have patience, please. It takes the Garrard disc jockey a while to get it cued up, giving you nearly 15 seconds to read the record label.

Happy Easter.

For reasons involving the configuration of the new publishing platform, Rifftides had to put off posting a new batch of Doug’s Picks. The crack artsjournal.com technical team has eliminated the barrier and in the right-hand column you will find the staff’s recommendations of new CDs by a pianist leading a big band, a pianist leading a trio and the welcome reissue of classic Stan Getz quintet recordings. We are also alerting you to a delightful Erroll Garner DVD and a book that takes a seriously lighthearted approach to use of the language.

Speaking of roses…

Oh, we weren’t? Well, we are now. The resident rose expert around here informed me the other day that two famous roses are named in honor of Louis Armstrong. The same breeder developed both of them. His name is Sam McGredy (pictured), an Irishman who moved to New Zealand more than 40 years ago. Among rose aficionados around the world he became famous for his hybrids. McGredy’s “Satchmo” rose came first, in 1970. According to Stirling Macoboy’s The Ultimate Rose Book, experts admire it “for its bright scarlet color, its shapely clusters of double flowers and its freedom of bloom.”

McGredy is reported to believe that “Satchmo’s” 1977 hybrid offspring, “Trumpeter,” also named in tribute to Armstrong, supersedes its parent. Again quoting Macoboy, the flowers “are only slightly scented, but they are borne in great abundance and hold their jazzy color until they drop, without fading, burning or turning purple.” You may read into those qualities whatever metaphorical significance pleases you.

Now, to the main event. You knew this was coming, right? It’s Louis and the
All-Stars on tour in Europe. Oddly, this seems to be the only video of Armstrong performing one of his biggest hits. For reasons not explained, less than two minutes in still photos take over and the performance ends abruptly at 3:18. But it’s what we have, and it’s a treasure.

On his Armstrong web site Ricky Riccardi has a comprehensive history of Pops’ affair with “La Vie en Rose,” including seven MP3 versions by Louis and a clip from the motion picture Wall-E.

If Sam McGredy or rose breeding interest you, this link will take you to an on-camera interview with McGredy about his long career and some of the roses he’s named after friends and acquaintances, including the one known as “Sexy Rexy.”