Archives for 2011

A Rifftides reader asked what happened with Bob Belden’s Miles Español video and audio project that I took a brief hiatus to contribute to this summer. It is out as a two-CD set. My essay on the African, Spanish, Caribbean and New Orleans influences that led to Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain, among many other cultural and musical phenomena, is part of the package.

Friend Dave Cohler sent me a few puns recently and reminded me of one I sent him long before it became a part of my Paul Desmond biography. Desmond and Jim Hall (pictured) concocted what I described in the book as the most elaborate pun I’ve ever encountered. He loved to recite it:

A boy of Italian descent named Carbaggio is born in Germany. With his swarthy looks and dark curly hair, he grows up feeling a bit of a misfit among the blond Teutons. He tries to compensate by being more German than the Germans, but he’s only boring, and is not accepted. When he’s a young man, he escapes to Paris. Shortly after he arrives there, he visits a gift shop and is caught stealing a brass miniature of the Eiffel Tower. The police arrest him and give him the choice of going to jail or immediately leaving the country. He chooses freedom and buys passage on the first ship outbound from Marseilles. It takes him to New York. Thinking he’d like a career as a broadcaster, he goes the RCA Building and walks into the office of General David Sarnoff. Sarnoff says there are no air positions open, but he offers the boy a job as a strikebreaker. Carbaggio takes it. When the strike is over, he finds himself on a union blacklist. He moves out to Long Island and gets a job at the sonar equipment company owned by a man named Harris. He studies English, and after several years has improved to the point where he gets a job as a disc jockey on a radio station, doing a program called Rock Time.

He has realized his dream. He’s a routine Teuton Eiffel-lootin’ Sarnoff goon from Harris Sonar, Rock-Time Carbaggio.

Culturally deprived Rifftides readers mystified by the payoff line should click here and let Jo Stafford bring them up to date.

Here’s another Desmond-Hall collaboration, with Gene Cherico, bass, and Connie Kay, drums. 1963.

All my musical foundations go back to the age of 3. My family tell me that I used to listen to the old crystal set, then go to the piano and pick out the tune that I just heard.

I always tell people, it took me 10 minutes and 35 years in the business. I get tired of playing it, but not of collecting the royalties.

You know, when you’ve established a certain thing, what can you do? You’re stuck with it.

Not yet.

Shortly after Pete Rugolo died this week, Jeff Sultanof offered to contribute a piece putting Rugolo’s work in perspective. I was delighted to accept and flattered that he considered Rifftides the proper place for his essay.

Jeff is a native of New York City, where he lives and works. He is a composer, orchestrator, editor, educator and researcher greatly admired in the community of professional musicians, critics and academics. He has analyzed, studied, edited and taught the music of Gerald Wilson, Robert Farnon, Harry Warren and Miles Davis, among others. The Rifftides staff is honored to present Mr. Sultanof’s thoughts about the importance of Pete Rugolo.

The career of Pete Rugolo as a film and television composer has been covered elsewhere in great detail. As good as his work in that world was, Rugolo’s importance is far greater elsewhere. And that is what I wish to celebrate here.

The musical medium delivering popular music in the twenties through the mid-40s has been called a lot of things in retrospect– an orchestra, a big band, a jazz ensemble and a stage band. Back in that period, its primary function was providing music for dancing. Songs made their way to bandleaders and were assigned to writers who loved arranging the good ones and tried to do something at least interesting with the duds. Singers interpreted the lyrics, and the groups made records to promote the songs and the bands.

It was Paul Whiteman who liberated the ensemble to play concert music, later followed by Duke Ellington and Artie Shaw. But such ensembles and the opportunities to play such music were few. Agents wanted their clients to make money, and the way to do that was feature a unique sound and come up with a hit record so that you could break into the big time and make some real money at ballrooms, hotels and movie theatres.

Things changed after World War Two and the time was right for a new ensemble that could concertize as well as play for dancing. Luckily, an excellent musician named Stan Kenton was not only a good arranger and bandleader, but also an excellent salesman. Stanley liked the music of a soldier he’d met sometime in 1944. When the soldier got out of the army, Pete Rugolo had a job. He would become one of the world’s great composers, helping to change the world of the big band and showing composers around the world that the resources of saxes, brass and rhythm had barely been explored. He certainly wasn’t the only one to do this at the time (one thinks of George Handy, Gerald Wilson, Johnny Richards, Paul Villepigue and Ralph Burns, who were also expanding the vocabulary of the dance band), but thanks to the success of the Kenton orchestra, he was able to explore, experiment and have his music recorded and heard by millions. No less than Leonard Bernstein was an admirer and fan of Rugolo’s music, and said so publicly; Rugolo would discover that many composers of concert music knew his work and were influenced by it. Some of his pieces were published in score format at a time when this simply was not done. For a couple of bucks, you could buy the score of a Rugolo composition to study. Even though he would achieve great success as a composer for television and film, it is the music he wrote during 1945 through 1948 which may be the most lasting and innovative.

After earning a B.A in music, Rugolo became one of the first male students at Mills College because he wanted to study with the eminent French composer, Darius Milhaud (pictured), who later taught Dave Brubeck. When he joined Kenton, Stanley gave Rugolo pop tunes to arrange. Later, he let Pete write what he wanted. Many band members hated his writing because it didn’t swing, but Kenton couldn’t have cared less. It was new, interesting, often highly dissonant and uncompromising, and it created for the band a commercial niche called “Progressive Jazz.” Even though Kenton had had his fill of dance dates, playing such music he was able to sell out major concert halls. Rugolo was one of the first composers for big band to write in meters other than 2, 3 or 4 (his “Elegy for Alto” is in 5/4 time). Desiring different tone colors and combinations, he wrote sections of pieces with brass in different mutes (five trumpets would be divided into one open, two in straight mutes, two in cup mutes). For many listeners, the musical vocabularies of Bartok, Stravinsky and Berg were first experienced with Kenton’s orchestra, and yet the stamp was uniquely Rugolo.

When Kenton disbanded, Rugolo moved to New York and became a staff arranger/producer for Capitol Records. He was responsible for signing and producing recordings of such artists as the Dave Lambert Singers, the Miles Davis Nonet (the famous “Birth of the Cool” recordings), Tadd Dameron, and Bill Harris. He arranged for Harry Belafonte, Nat Cole, Mel Torme and June Christy; he later wrote many wonderful albums for Christy during the fifties. He moved back to California to work at MGM Studios, often uncredited.

In 1954, he was signed to Columbia Records to record his own orchestra, but because of harassment by Mitch Miller, his tenure there was unpleasant even though the music was excellent. In 1956, he signed with Mercury Records and made a series of albums with all-star studio ensembles that are still fresh, exciting and beautifully recorded at the Capitol Tower. Happily, most of them have been reissued on CD and are available, but it wasn’t easy to get these recordings for many years. Some time ago, I met Rugolo and told him how much I loved these albums and hoped they’d be reissued. Rugolo agreed, saying “Have the guys at these labels even seen who’s playing on them? They should be available just because of all those great musicians.” This was typical of Pete; forget the music, reissue them because of who’s on them. Talk about humble!

He lived to the age of 95, long enough to be celebrated for his considerable contribution to music. Happily, YouTube has several clips of Pete conducting his music, so future generations will be able to see him in action.

Pete was a wine collector, along with Henry Mancini. I raise a glass to Pete Rugolo for the many ways in which he touched us and left his considerable mark in music. He left so much of it that his spirit will always be with us. That’s what is special about being an artist.

(©Jeff Sultanof 2011)

Here’s an example of Rugolo’s ingenuity with unusual instrumentation. From the 1961 Mercury album 10 Saxophones and 2 Basses, it’s the Charlie Barnet staple “Skyliner.”This was at the height of record companies’ exhiliration over early stereo. Rugolo knew how to take advantage of the possiblities of the new technology’s capacity for sonic range and depth without beating it to death.

Marcus Strickland, Triumph of the Heavy (SMK).

In the liner notes, saxophonist Strickland writes, “Playing for a live audience heightens the adrenaline; you don’t have the luxury of correcting mistakes. It puts you on a high wire.” The second of the album’s two CDs, a club recording, captures his trio’s risk-taking and underlines the influence of an audience that truly listens. Strickland, his twin brother E.J. on drums and Ben Williams on bass hold the crowd’s attention and seem to thrive on its approval. In his work with Roy Haynes, Dave Douglas and Charles Tolliver, and on his own, Strickland has steadily developed as a creator of articulate solos. On tenor sax in the trio setting, it may be inevitable that he invites comparisons with Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson, but there is little here to suggest that he is imitating them. Indeed, to single out two tenor performances, on “Mudbone” and “Prime” his brawny solos are free of quotes and of clichés, his own or anyone else’s. If the Stricklands’ tight interaction arises from their life as twins, it is enchanced by their musicianship. With his brother comping on saxophone, E.J. has a taut drum solo on the lengthy “Prime,” following an impressive Williams bass solo. In Jaco Pastorius’s “Portrait of Tracy,” Marcus Strickland takes a stabbing, pointillist approach on soprano as he spars with E.J.’s drums. It is one of only two pieces in the album that he didn’t write.

The first CD, made in a studio, adds David Bryant, a pianist who knows his McCoy Tyner but is most interesting when he works his own sparser harmonic ground. Bryant’s fleet solo on “’Lectronic,” strictly acoustic despite its name, is a highlight of his work here. In addition to soprano and tenor, Strickland plays alto saxophone and bass clarinet. Overdubbed, he uses all of them in the imaginative ensemble he wrote for Karriem Riggins’ “Virgo,” but solos—forcefully—only on tenor. On alto sax in five of this CD’s 10 pieces, Strickland has a tone notable for its depth and butteriness. In the pieces playing alto and soprano, he frequently achieves heaviness, in the sense of density and profundity. Yet, it is on tenor, the larger horn, that he is most often triumphant, weightless and free.

A note about the package: Strickland designed it and did the art work. He chose for the liner notes what appears to be 6-point type. Get out your magnifying glass.

Pete Rugolo has died in Los Angeles at the age of 95. Rugolo’s composing and arranging, particularly for the Stan Kenton Orchestra, had much to do in the 1940s and ‘50s with the creation of what came to be called progressive jazz. As a discoverer of talent and as a producer, he was responsible for recording a number of artists including Peggy Lee and Mel Tormé. He produced the seminally influential Miles Davis Birth of the Cool sessions of 1949 and ’50. Later, Rugolo led a band of his own and composed theme music for several successful television series, among them The Thin Man, The Fugitive and Run For Your Life. For today’s Los Angeles Times obituary, go here.

Rugolo’s 1951 arrangement of “Love For Sale” for demonstrates the craftsmanship and sense of drama that underlay his work for Kenton.

Here is Rugolo’s theme for The Fugitive, the series starring Richard Janssen that aired on ABC television from 1963 to 1967.

Composer, arranger, historian and big band scholar Jeff Sultanof is preparing for Rifftides an essay putting in perspective Rugolo’s career and contributions.

A friend writes:

Getting home, our plane had to stop in Sacramento to get gas. The jet stream was so strong last night, we flew north over parts of Canada to avoid it. Flying through the jet stream is NOT a good idea, so we did not.

I put some cottage cheese in a plastic container and into my carry-on, planned to eat it on the way. Evidently it looked suspicious—It took a while until the inspector asked me what it was. I told him. He threw it away and returned the container. Evidently, I was going to blow up the plane with cottage cheese.

I hope he confiscated that dangerous plastic spoon.

Cecilia Coleman Big Band, Oh Boy! (PandaKat).

Before she moved to New York 13 years ago, Coleman established a solid reputation as a pianist and arranger in her native southern California. Studies with Charlie Shoemake and Tom Kubis provided a solid theoretical foundation for imaginative charts that she wrote for a variety of small groups she fronted or played with in Los Angeles. With New York’s pool of accomplished jazz players to choose from, she expanded her arranging scope and palette.

Coleman’s first big band album is replete with examples of the imagination of a craftsman whose freshness balances her writing influences. There are intimations, but not imitations, of Thad Jones, Bill Holman and Tadd Dameron, among others. Her voicings across the band’s sections in the pensive “Until Then” and the counter-punching movement between reeds, percussion and brass in the energetic title tune demonstrate her originality. There are plenty of other instances, among them the swell and ripple of brass figures in the waltz “Princess,” the keening quality she gives the reeds leading into Stan Killian’s tenor sax solo in “Liar, Liar,” and a hymn-like brass choir that sets up the improvised complexities of the ensemble behind alto saxophonist Peter Brainin in “Walk Away” before the piece melds with an arranged section that dissolves into a simple piano statement.

Coleman’s band is made up of a cross-section of veteran and newer players. It includes trombonists Sam Burtis and Mike Fahn, saxophonists Bobby Porcelli and Geoff Vidal, and trumpeters Kerry MacKillof and John Eckert. The rhythm team is Coleman, bassist Tim Givens and drummer Jeff Brillinger. Don Sickler guests on trumpet on one piece. All of the soloists are excellent, but Coleman’s arrangements—resourceful and free of clichés—are the stars of the album.

Tony Fruscella & Brew Moore, The 1954 Unissued Atlantic Session (Fresh Sound).

Fruscella was an enigmatic trumpeter with a deeply personal style, Moore a tenor saxophonist who once said that anyone who didn’t play like Lester Young was wrong. At a time when Dizzy Gillespie’s fiery playing was the general model, Fruscella was one of a few young trumpeters who concentrated on tone, lyricism and quiet melodic invention. Others were Don Joseph, Phil Sunkel, Miles Davis and Chet Baker. The Atlantic recordings that Fruscella and Moore made together in March of 1954 have never been released until now. Fruscella died in 1969, Moore in 1973.

The pieces are all blues except for one composition by pianist Bill Triglia. The CD contains nothing as captivating as Fruscella’s solo on “I’ll Be Seeing You” from the self-titled album he recorded for Atlantic the next year. Nonetheless, the trumpeter’s flowing lines and deep sound combine with Moore’s relaxation and swing in performances whose inventiveness surmounts the simplicity of the material. The rhythm section—Triglia, piano; Teddy Kotick, bass; Bill Heine, drums— is excellent in support. The underrated Triglia solos briefly and well. Fresh Sound rounds out the album with “Blue Bells” and “Roundup Time,” pieces that Fruscella recorded with Stan Getz in 1955 when he was in Getz’s quintet.

This is a valuable find. The album, all but a rumor for decades, was widely anticipated. Reports are that its first pressing sold out within weeks of release. Presumably, there will be another.

It occurred to me as I was writing the review above that I have linked to Tony Fruscella’s “I’ll Be Seeing You,” but never actually put it on Rifftides. Let’s remedy that.

Fruscella, trumpet; Bill Triglia, piano; Bill Anthony, bass; Will Bradley, Jr., drums.

The irregular Rifftides series of posts inspired by moon sightings now continues. A half-hour ago, I glanced out the window at the harvest moon beginning its transit across the valley. It was framed by the branches of a huge fir tree, but clouds were beginning to move across its face. If I was going to get a shot, it had to be soon. I dashed downstairs, grabbed the el cheapo digital camera, bounded back up to the kitchen, removed the window screen, flung open the window and had time for two quick shots before clouds hid the moon. A proper camera with a long lens might have been ideal for sharpness and size, but it would not have produced the impressionist image that emerged with only a bit of editing manipulation.

All right, it’s not a great picture, but it’s an excuse to listen to Jimmy Rushing with Count Basie.

When I called this an irregular series, I wasn’t kidding. Click here for the previous installment.

Mort Weiss identified himself in a comment here as “the world’s greatest out-of-work Jewish bebop clarinet player.” That may be, but he found work one night not long ago at Steamers jazz club in the Los Angeles area. Weiss led a band with Sam Most, tenor sax and flute; Ron Eschete, guitar; Luther Hughes, bass; and Roy McCurdy, drums. The tune is Jerome Kern’s “I’m Old Fashioned” at a lovely, relaxed tempo. Most’s two tenor choruses channeling Lester Young are as enjoyable as watching him dig Eschete.

Here are a couple of anecdotes from Bill Crow’s “Band Room” column in the October Allegro, the New York Local 802 newspaper of the American Federation of Musicians.

Ron Mills, while fronting a combo at a dance in Chicago, was approached by a couple of dancers. The husband asked, with an earnest look, “Do you play a lot of songs in the key of F. That’s the key I dance best to.” The wife nodded in agreement. As the night progressed, Ron couldn’t see any difference in their dancing whether the band was in F or D-flat, but he scrupulously announced the key whenever they were in F, and the couple eagerly took the floor on those tunes.

I’d forgotten that I gave Bill this one.

Reminiscing with me via e-mail about the late Manny Albam, Doug Ramsey told me:

We met by chance one night at the Village Vanguard because the joint was full, and Max Gordon installed me at Manny’s table. I bought Manny a drink. Years later, in California, I wound up at a table with Manny, Bob Brookmeyer, Herb Geller, and their wives, and Bill Perkins. It had been at least 15 years since I’d seen Manny, but he remembered me. “You bought me a cognac,” he said. “I’ve never forgotten that. Nobody ever buys me a drink.”

For more from Bill’s “Band Room” columns, click here, then on “Allegro” for a drop-down menu.

Rifftides does not make it a practice to observe birthdays of jazz artists. That could be a full-time job. Once in a while we make an exception. This is one. Larry Young was born on October 7, 1940. He took the organ beyond Jimmy Smith’s earthy approach and Don Patterson’s piano-style into the use of modes. Young sometimes employed the instrument’s capacity for overtones to produce otherworldly effects. With Tony Williams Lifetime, Miles Davis on Bitches Brew and Jimi Hendrix on Nine to the Universe, Young was an experimenter with fusion. In this piece from Unity, an album that sells well 46 years after it was made, Young is experimental only in negotiating the challenging chords of Woody Shaw’s “The Moontrane.” Shaw is on trumpet, Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone, Elvin Jones on drums.

Larry Young died on March 3, 1978 of untreated pneumonia. I wish that this remarkable musician had taken better care of himself.

In 1963, Dick Gibson (1926-1998) threw a party in Denver, where he lived. An investment banker who expanded his fortune when he founded the Water Pik company, Gibson invited well-heeled friends to mingle with his favorite mainstream musicians and listen to them play. He ran his jazz parties for three decades and hired a cross section of artists that included James Moody, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Clark Terry, Ross Tompkins, Victor Feldman, Budd Johnson, Trummy Young and Cliff Leeman, to name a few. Gibson’s parties were so successful that they inspired similar events across the country, from Clearwater Beach, Florida, to Sun Valley, Idaho.

One of the newer parties on the circuit is Jazz at Newport, held each fall since 2002 in its namesake, a town of 10,000 on the Oregon Coast. Newport’s long sandy beach, seen here, didn’t get much attention from the several hundred listeners who attended the mini-festival last weekend; a packed schedule kept them occupied. Presented by the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts, Jazz at Newport is booked, organized and straw-bossed by Holly Hofmann, who found time to play her flute only twice. She put together a roster of 23 musicians of various persuasions. Their mutual goal did not, for the most part, encompass complexity or freedom from harmony, rhythm and structure. Farthest out was the Sunday morning session by Weber Iago’s adventurous Chamber Jazz Project, and it had jazz time at its heart even as it verged on textures of modern classical music.

The festivities began on Friday evening with the first appearance by drummer Jeff Hamilton’s longtime trio with pianist Tamir Hendelman and bassist Christoph Luty. Their opening set established a standard of cohesion and hard swing, Hamilton astonishing the audience with the variety of his playing with wire brushes. In the mix-and-match spirit of the party, throughout the weekend the three would drift in and out of other combinations of players.

At a Saturday morning panel, an audience member asked how musicians who have never played together know what to do when they are combined in a spontaneous jam session.

“Jazz has a common language,” Hamilton said. “We agree on a tune, a key and a tempo. Experienced players usually adjust to one another more or less instantly.”

Allow me to expand on that with two passages from, coincidentally, the “Common Language” chapter of a book I wrote:

Pure improvisation born of absolution inspiration, a solo created out of whole cloth, is likely to be as remarkable as it is rare. Most solos are combinations of inspiration and spare parts. The creative process of improvisation is selective, and what is selected is influenced by a number of elements including the music’s harmonic structure, the tempo, rhythmic qualities, the musician’s fellow players, and his memory. His brain has a stockpile of musical knowledge, general and specific. The specifics include phrases from his own experience and that of others. They are pressed into service as quotations and worked into the new performance. Sometimes they are inserted piecemeal, sometimes merely alluded to.

Mutual access to a community body of knowledge makes possible successful and enjoyable collaboration among jazzmen of different generations and stylistic persuasions who have never before played together. It is not unusual at jazz festivals and jam sessions for musicians in their sixties and seventies to be teamed with others in their teens or twenties. In the best of such circumstances, the age barrier immediately falls.

If I had written that today rather than 20-odd years ago, the word “his” might not have popped up, especially if I’d written it after hearing Anat Cohen, Kristin Korb and Holly Hofmann at Newport. Cohen joined bassist Luty, guitarist Howard Alden and drummer Lewis Nash. Following a relaxed “Shiny Stockings,” they tore into “Limehouse Blues,” which featured a blistering soprano-guitar unison passage that Alden and Cohen had worked out in their New York encounters. Ellington’s “The Mooche” (clarinet) and Monk’s “Ask Me Now” (tenor) preceded one of the Brazilian choros (clarinet) that Cohen has been favoring lately. Riding on the energy of the rhythm section, she had remarkable power and command on all three horns. The common language principle was in full force among these four.

Pianist Monty Alexander’s first set reunited him with Hamilton, the drummer on Alexander’s celebrated 1976 live trio recording at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Hassan Shakur (formerly known as J.J. Wiggins) providing bass lines, they opened with the signature tune from Montreux, “Night Mist Blues.” It took them about three seconds to recapture their rapport and contagious swing and the audience about six seconds to roar their approval as they recognized the tune. The good feeling expanded through a six-tune set that included “Come Fly With Me” and “In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning,” recalling Alexander’s association with Frank Sinatra. Shakur’s bass solos captivated the audience, not for the last time during the weekend.

The first of two late-night jam sessions took place in a long, narrow restaurant at the Shilo Inn on the Newport waterfront. The sound system crashed, so the set went mostly acoustic except for some jury-rigged miking for Korb’s vocals. Her colleagues were Terell Stafford, trumpet; Howard Alden, guitar; and Lewis Nash, drums. They opened with “I’ll Close My Eyes,” then did Sonny Rollins’ “Pent-up House,” Stafford unleashing his first torrents of high notes that were to have the audience applauding and cheering him all weekend. The subtlety of his intriguing alternate harmonies on Ellington’s “Just Squeeze Me” got less reaction from the audience, but plenty from the musicians. Korb’s vocal on “Take The ‘A’ Train” featured her clever lyrics and on “My Romance,” her quick thinking. The illumination flickered and dimmed as she approached the part of the lyric that goes, “Nor a dance to a constantly surprising refrain,” so she instantly substituted “…surprising light change” and got a laugh. The session ended with Nash not only drumming but also scatting the blues as Alden and Korb provided propulsion. Alden and Stafford took it out with the classic “Walkin’.”

The Saturday morning panel of Hamilton, Korb and Stafford had Hofmann as moderator and participant. They tackled the perennial question: is there a young audience for jazz? “Yes,” Hamilton said, “but not here. They can’t afford it. You have the money to come here for a few days,” he told the audience, average age well above 50. “They don’t.” He said that the youngsters are listening in new clubs that cater to them. Stafford said he is encouraged by the numbers of young people attending festivals like Lionel Hampton in Idaho and Port Townsend in Washington. As for inner city kids, the consensus was that clinics and courses are available to them, but to learn about jazz, they have to want to learn, and they are fixated on hip-hop. If that’s a generalization, it’s not much of one.

The Saturday afternoon sets began with each of three musicians playing alone. Hendelman did a medley of tunes by Ray Noble that ended with a fleet “Cherokee.” Korb’s bass solo was on “Green Dolphin Street,” and so was her vocal; she accompanied herself, occasionally drifting into bass-voice unison lines. Hamilton, Alexander and Portland vibraharpist Mike Horsfall each played an unaccompanied solo. In the duo segment that followed, Alden and Cohen opened and closed with pieces from the 1920s. Cohen was on soprano for Duke Ellington’s “Jubilee Stomp” and Jelly Roll Morton’s “Shreveport Stomp.” The middle of their set included Django Reinhardt’s “Nuages,” the guitarist and the clarinetist floating through the famous melody as if on a cloud. Stafford and pianist Mike Wofford followed with “Taking a Chance on Love.” There was a lot of Clifford Brown in the beginning of Stafford’s solo, then growls and note bending by a trumpeter who makes judicious use of his flexibility and range on the horn. If his playing was often spectacular at Newport, the flash was never at the expense of taste or musicality. Wofford’s and Stafford’s counterpoint chorus and tag ending on “Close Your Eyes” stay in the mind, as does Wofford’s rich 16-bar solo on “Old Folks,” which led to a suspended ending complete with a “Country Gardens” quote from Stafford. Remember—spare parts are allowed.

In trio sets, Korb took Luty’s place in the Hamilton Trio, singing and playing and locking up nicely with the drummer and Hendelman. Luty then joined Howard Alden and Lewis Nash, opening with Bud Powell’s “Strictly Confidential.” Using brushes, Nash was flying through the breaks. Alden led the trio through two pieces by one of his guitar heroes, Barney Kessel. In a three-generation guitar continuum, Kessel’s “I Remember Django” honors one of his inspirations. Alden captured the spirit and sometimes the letter of both of his predecessors. On “64 Bars on Wilshire,” taken at warp speed, Alden simply wailed, powered by Luty’s and Nash’s teamwork.

The Rifftides staff thanks the veteran Newport photographer Nancy Jane Reid for letting us use her pictures of some of the sessions. There’s more coming about Jazz at Newport, but for now, I gotta get me some Zs (© Dave Frishberg).

Thanks to the dozens and dozens (and dozens) of Rifftides readers who sent birthday messages via Facebook and other social media. How the word got out, I have no idea, but you folks certainly know how to make a guy feel that maybe this blogging stuff is worth the effort.

“Schedule permitting” I wrote in the previous exhibit, “I hope to work in a bit of blogging.” The schedule did not permit. The Oregon expedition was a jam-packed (ahem) four days that allowed the Rifftides staff (plus one) time to sleep a little and to eat now and then, often on the run. It’s life on the road.

I hope tomorrow to bring you a compact account of the Jazz at Newport Festival on the Oregon coast. For now, let me tell you about Rebecca Kilgore and Dave Frishberg Thursday evening at the Touché in Portland. They performed two sets at the entrance end of that long, narrow restaurant. I have heard better pianos, but rarely better piano playing than Frishberg’s that night. I cannot recall Becky Kilgore in finer form, live or on record.

Their first set consisted of 18 songs from the stockpile of hundreds that the two have amassed in their 15 years or so of collaboration. A few highlights:

—The richness of Frishberg’s chord changes behind Kilgore on “A Fine Romance.”

—Kilgore’s blues inflections in her second chorus of “Easy Street” and the entirety of “Baby All the Time.”

—The relaxed swing phrasing of Kilgore’s chorus following Frishberg’s meaty piano solo in “You’re Getting to Be a Habit With Me,” with the counterpoint of her rhythmic shoulder hunches and Frishberg swaying gently on the bench.

—The verse of “You’re a Lucky Guy.” I’ve known the song since I first heard Louis Armstrong’s 1939 recording, but had no idea that it has a verse. “I love verses,” Frishberg said later. He and Kilgore have sensors that seek out rare verses. The one to “I’m Shooting High” is about singing in the shower—sample lyric: “I begin by making up my mind that it’s my lucky day”—an ideal vehicle for Kilgore’s essentially sunny performance disposition.

—The set ended with eight Irving Berlin songs, including some nearly forgotten, “After You Get What You Want, You Don’t Want What You Get,” for instance, and “Everybody Knew But Me,” which has a great verse and is not sunny. The Berlinfest also included “It’s Over,” “Lazy,” “Better Luck Next Time,” “The Best Thing for You” and “Russian Lullaby.” Berlin’s versatility and variety were amazing. What his songs have in common is that they have hardly anything in common. But that night they had Kilgore and Frishberg.

Without going into a play-by-play of the late set at the Touché, I’ll simply tell you that as good as the first set was, the second was better. Swing, phrasing, subtlety, mutual support and interaction, spontaneous key changes—everything worked. From Frishberg’s stompin’ solo and Kilgore’s vocalese riffs in “Stompin’ at The Savoy” through his Ellington references and her exquisite phrasing in “I’m Just a Lucky So and So” to the best “Detour Ahead” I’ve heard since Mary Ann McCall to their melodic variations in “My Ideal,” it was one of the most perfect performances I’ve ever heard from two people.

When it was over, I asked Kilgore if the set felt as good as it sounded out front. “Oh, yes,” she said, gazing into the distance with a dreamy look, as if she missed it already.