Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Archives for July 2012

Looking For A Listening Post?

An outfit called Find The Best has established an online guide to jazz clubs. It could be useful to Rifftides readers planning to travel or, for that matter, who are looking for places to listen in their hometowns. The site lists location, meal policy and cover charges, which range from second-mortgage territory to zero—$85 cover for The Fox in Tampa, Florida; nothing for Vibrato in L.A.’s exclusive Bel Air section—go figure. At any rate (heh, heh), they include clubs as far-flung as Brattleboro, Vermont; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Tirana, Albania. For now, at least, we’ll add the site’s url to the blogroll in the right column as “Jazz Clubs.” Let the staff know if you find it useful. To do so, click on “Contact” on the blue strip at the top of the page or use the “Speak Your Mind” box below.

Other Matters: Monarchs

Monarch butterflies are passing through on their migration south. This morning, one rested on a maple leaf outside our window.


His or her majesty was no object of pity, but it seemed to call for a performance of that most famous of all butterfly tunes (are there others?). Here’s the late Dave McKenna.

Alternate version for two pianos, Count Basie and Oscar Peterson.

Frishberg And Friends Channel Al And Zoot

If you live in or near Portland, Oregon, this is your lucky week. I am not at all reluctant to plug Ivories Jazz Lounge or this group of elite Portland players. Here’s the announcement from Ivories.

Thursday July 12
The Two Tenors & Dave Frishberg play the music of Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, with David Evans, Lee Wuthenow, tenor saxophones; Dave Frishberg, piano; Tom Wakeling, bass; Charlie Doggett, drums.
Ivories Jazz Lounge
1435 NW Flanders, Portland, OR 97219
http://www.ivoriesjazz.com
Reservations: 503-241-6514
8PM – 11PM
$10 Cover

Al and Zoot in Utica NY – Autumn 1967: Afternoon concert at a college auditorium. L to R: Dave Frishberg, Al Cohn, Victor Sproles, Zoot Sims, Steve Schaeffer. Later we dined lavishly at Grimaldi’s Restaurant. (Photo and caption stolen from Frishberg’s website. Rifftides defense lawyers are standing by)

During his New York period, Frishberg worked extensively with Cohn and Sims, often at the old Half Note. The three were together on The You And Me That Used To Be (1971), the finest recording of Jimmy Rushing’s last years, with arrangements by Frishberg. In addition to Cohn, Sims and Frishberg, the players are Budd Johnson, soprano sax; Ray Nance, cornet and violin; Milt Hinton, bass; and Mel Lewis, drums. Do not ask me to explain the relevance of the video added to this track from the album. Let’s just be glad that the YouTube contributor uploaded the music.

Gerry Mulligan, 1926-1997

Rifftides reader Don Emanuel scanned this listing in the “What’s On” section of a recent edition of his local newspaper, The Medway Messenger in Kent, UK.

“Solar” (Davis) Or “Sonny” (Wayne)?

A long-running discussion (or argument) about the authorship of a major jazz tune may have been resolved once and for all. The tune is “Solar,” copyrighted in 1963 with the name of Miles Davis as composer, nearly a decade after he recorded it. It is a 12-bar minor blues based, with certain departures, on aspects of the harmonic structure of “How High The Moon.” Here, from the compilation album Walkin’, is the trumpeter’s 1954 recording with Davey Schildkraudt, alto saxophone; Horace Silver, piano; Percy Heath, bass; and Kenny Clarke, drums.

Keep that melody and its harmonies in mind. Among musicians and jazz insiders it has long been alleged that “Solar” is in fact a piece called “Sonny” written in the mid-1940s by guitarist Chuck Wayne (1923-1997) and later lifted by or credited to Davis. What has been missing until now is aural evidence of Wayne’s claim that he wrote the tune. Larry Appelbaum, the Library of Congress jazz maven, and Wayne’s widow have posted on the Library’s website a recording of Wayne, trumpeter Sonny Berman and unidentified others playing Sonny. At the time of the recording Wayne (pictured) and Berman were members of Woody Herman’s First Herd. The MP3 is only one chorus of melody and a few bars of Wayne improvising, but it leaves no doubt of a similarity to “Solar” that it is all but impossible to credit to coincidence.

To see Appelbaum’s story of the discovery, pictures of him, Mrs. Wayne, the acetate recording, the Davis copyright claim and—most important— to hear the 1946 “Sonny,” go to this Library of Congress page.

It will be disappointing if Appelbaum does not release the complete performance of “Sonny.” This discovery has stirred up anew claims and counter-claims about other compositions that Davis allegedly appropriated from others, among them “Four,” “Tune Up,” and “Blue in Green.”

As for Chuck Wayne the guitarist’s guitarist, here he is with George Shearing in the late 1940s in one of the pianist’s most successful quintets. The other players are Don Elliott, vibes; John Levy, bass; and Denzil Best, drums.

“America The Beautiful” The Ray Charles Way

After he heard the Eddie Higgins solo on “America The Beautiful” (one exhibit below), Rifftides reader Terence Smith wrote to suggest:

Sometime on the 4th let’s all listen to the Ray Charles version.

That’s a fine idea. There are several versions of the song by Charles, some more musically successful than others, none more touching than this performance at the 2001 World Series, less than three years before he died.

To all Americans at home and abroad, and to all friends of America, Happy 4th of July.

Encore: America The Beautiful, Eddie Higgins

Two years ago on July 4, we presented this performance by the late Eddie Higgins. When it didn’t appear in 2011, we heard from disappointed Rifftides readers. Perhaps we should establish it as an Independence Day tradition. We’ll make up for last year’s oversight by bringing on Mr. Higgins a day early.

Happy birthday, United States of America.

Today’s Listening Tip

Late notice—apologies—but this will be worth hearing:

Monday, July 2nd On the Noontime Jamboree

Record collector/musician/record producer Tony Baldwin visits the show.

Tony is bringing in a mixed sample from his extensive collection of 78s.

Join me, host Retta Christie, from Noon until 2 pm PDT

On KBOO-FM, Portland 90.7 fm

Baldwin specializes in vintage recordings restored to remarkable fidelity.

Finding Donelian

One thing leads to another, if you’re lucky. Bear with me; we’re backing into this. I was reading Thomas Vinciguerra’s Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition feature about the 50th anniversary of “The Girl From Ipanema.” When I saw a reference to “…the 1962 album Jazz Samba by Stan Getz and Charlie Parker,” I nearly lost my mouthful of coffee.

Parker was nicknamed “Bird,” but the great alto saxophonist died in 1955. The Jazz Samba album seven years later was by the guitarist Charlie Byrd. It featured Getz. “Bird” for “Byrd” and the assumption that Charlie Byrd was Charlie Parker may not be a common error, but there was a time when the WSJ’s fact checkers would have caught it. Fact-checking standards, like so much in journalism, seem to have slipped. But that’s not the point.

I was about to send a corrective comment to the Journal, but discovered on the paper’s website that several other readers had beat me to it. That’s a sign that the paper’s subscribers are hipper than their conservative aura might suggest, but it’s not the point, either. I looked up Thomas Vinciguerra, the author of the “Ipanema” piece, and discovered that, among other accomplishments, he is the editor of Columbia College Today, the magazine of a distinguished New York institution of higher learning. I went to Columbia College Today’s website hoping to learn more about Mr. Vinciguerra. I did not, but I noticed on the contents page under Alumni Profiles was “Armen Donelian, ’72.” That’s the point—serendipity. Track down one piece of information and you might google yourself into something even more interesting.

Jamie Katz’s profile of Donelian includes facts about the pianist’s formative undergraduate years that had escaped my attention, including the one that another prominent jazz pianist was at Columbia with him. Here’s an excerpt:

Donelian also played in a talented lab band in the basement of Dodge Hall, led by the brilliant alto saxophonist and pianist Marc Copland ’70. Sam Morrison ’73 also played in the group; a few years later he was with Miles Davis. Meanwhile, Donelian worked evenings at The King’s Table, a restaurant nestled within John Jay Hall, playing solo piano while the young gentlemen of the College dined in style. Unlike the student cafeteria just steps away, The King’s Table even had tablecloths.

“Armen is a great player and he’s a sweetheart — absolutely one of the good guys in the business,” Copland says today. As students, he remembers, they would improvise sophisticated duets in a two-piano practice room in Dodge. “Once we monkeyed around and played a mock classical duet in the style of Beethoven. We went on for five or 10 minutes and then fell off the piano benches, laughing.”

After graduation, Donelian played with a country rock band and, on Copland’s recommendation, began studying privately with renowned pianist Richie Beirach. “He opened the door to me, combining the harmony of contemporary music — Schoenberg, Bartók, Stravinsky and Berg — with jazz,” Donelian says. In 1975, legendary Latin jazz percussionist and bandleader Mongo Santamaria auditioned Donelian to fill the piano chair once occupied by such world-class players as Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea. Though he did not have experience playing Afro-Cuban jazz, Donelian got the gig and was on his way.

To read the entire piece about Donelian, go here. To hear him play, don’t go anywhere. Listen to this from an album of his compositions for solo piano:

Donelian’s website has sound clips and further information about a musician whose acclaim is not in proportion to his talent. The same may be said about his pal Copland.