Archives for June 2013

The National Endowment for the Arts today announced the class of 2014 NEA Jazz Masters to be inducted early next year. Here are the Endowment’s profiles.

JAMEY AEBERSOLD*
Educator, Saxophonist, Pianist, Bassist, Banjo player
Born in and currently resides in New Albany, Indiana

* Jamey Aebersold is the recipient of the 2014 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy, which is bestowed upon an individual who has contributed significantly to the appreciation, knowledge, and advancement of the art form of jazz.

“Jamey Aebersold has made enormous contributions to the jazz world through his tireless efforts as a performer, educator, and publisher,” said 2000 NEA Jazz Master David Baker (pictured to Aebersold’s right) who is also on the faculty of the Summer Jazz Workshops, directed by Aebersold. “As the creator of the innovative and groundbreaking Jamey Aebersold Jazz Play-A-Long recordings series, as the longtime director of the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshops, as an exceptional clinician and performer, and as the publisher of an extensive catalogue of jazz materials, Jamey has revolutionized the way people practice, teach, create, and perform their music. Jamey has carried his message that ‘anyone can improvise’ and that ‘creativity is part of the nature of every person’ throughout the world to great success, impacting generations of both aspiring and established jazz performers and teachers.”

ANTHONY BRAXTON
Composer, Saxophonist, Clarinetist, Flutist, Pianist, Educator
Born in Chicago, Illinois. Currently resides in Middletown, Connecticut

Anthony Braxton’s compositions almost defy categorization through his use of the improvised and rhythmic nature of jazz but moving it in a more avant-garde direction, such as in his Ghost Trance Music compositions.
Jason Moran, jazz pianist, composer, and artistic advisor for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, noted, “Anthony Braxton’s expansive catalog has always been an inspiration. [He is] a beautiful artist in every sense of the word: performer, composer, educator, co-conspirator. Braxton is a supreme improviser and composer who searches with sounds.”

RICHARD DAVIS
Bassist, Educator
Born in Chicago, Illinois. Currently resides in Madison, Wisconsin

One of the premier jazz bassists in history, Richard Davis is widely recorded, not only in jazz settings but also in the pop, rock, and classical genres. Bassist and composer Linda Oh commented, “Richard Davis, with his wide palette of skill sets, has been an inspiration for me and many bassists. To me, he shows strength and versatility within his musicianship—a versatility that seems to not compromise integrity and individuality, something many bassists can only dream to achieve.” In addition to his prowess on bass, Davis is a noted educator, having been a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1977.

KEITH JARRETT
Pianist, Composer
Born in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Currently resides in Oxford, New Jersey

Keith Jarrett’s talent for playing both abstractly and lyrically, sometimes during the same musical work, continues to astound and delight audiences around the world. His ability to work in both the jazz and classical fields as performer and composer demonstrate the breadth of his creativity. 2012 NEA Jazz Master Charlie Haden, who has performed and recorded alongside Jarrett, commented, “Along with Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett is perhaps the most influential pianist in the history of improvised music because of his mastery of the instrument, his creativity and deep harmonic knowledge. His playing transcends category.”

The NEA will again partner with Jazz at Lincoln Center to produce an awards ceremony and concert in honor of the 2014 NEA Jazz Masters, that will be webcast live on Monday, Monday, January 13, 2014 on arts.gov and jalc.org/live. A limited number of free tickets will be available for the public. More information about the awards ceremony and concert and how to obtain tickets will be released this fall.

The latest edition of Steve Cerra’s Jazz Profiles features an extensive illustrated history of Supersax. The group of saxophone virtuosos dedicated themselves to performing transcriptions of intricate Charlie Parker solos. In addition, band members played top-grade improvisations of their own. Steve’s post has an interview of Supersax founder Med Flory by Marc Myers of Jazz Wax. A live concert video of “A Night in Tunisia” includes not only brilliant reed section work but also let-out solos by baritone saxophonist Jack Nimitz and trumpeter Conte Candoli. To go to Jazz Profiles, click here.

As of today, of Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond begins its new existence as an ebook. The hardcover edition has sold out. Used copies are going for as much as $150 on book and auction sites, but new hardbound copies are history. The electronic transformation is good news on several counts:

The book will continue to be available. For now, it is on Kindle. Publisher Malcolm Harris of Parkside Publications tells me that he plans to have it up on Apple and Barnes & Noble within a week or so.

The ebook edition has all of the features of the hardbound, including the nearly 200 photographs, the chapter notes, the solo transcriptions, the discography, the extensive index and Dave and Iola Brubeck’s foreword.

The ebook edition is easily portable. The most frequent complaint about the five-pound, 10-and-a-half-by-11-inch original was, “How am I supposed to read this thing on an airplane?” Now you can, after the pilot says it’s okay to fire up your Kindle, iPad, Nook or Sony Reader.

 The ebook sells for less than a third of the list price of the original hardcover edition.

Among other honors, Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond won an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award and the Jazz Journalists Association Book of the Year Award. Here are a few of its plaudits:

Scrupulously researched and written with an attractive combination of affection and candor, it casts a bright light on Desmond’s troubled psyche without devaluing his considerable achievements as an artist. “Any of the great composers of melodies—Mozart, Schubert, Gershwin—would have been gratified to have written what Desmond created spontaneously,” Mr. Ramsey says. Strong words, but Take Five makes them stick. —Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal

The telling is lyrical, funny, nostalgic, provocative, and allusive — just like a Paul Desmond solo.”
 —Gary Giddins, author of Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of its Second Century

Doug Ramsey, the saxophonist’s friend for 20 years before Desmond’s death in 1977, constructs the full person as well as digging out much more of his writing than was known. A major piece of jazz scholarship, the book cuts no corners. —Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

Every jazz musician should be lucky enough to get a biography as thoroughly researched as Doug Ramsey’s new tome about alto saxophonist Paul Desmond. —Paul de Barros, The Seattle Times

When I learned that Doug Ramsey was writing a biography of Paul Desmond, I was pleased and relieved, because I can think of no one better qualified to do so. Ramsey has the distinct advantage of being a musician, someone who understands how a jazz musician thinks and how amazing Paul’s talent really was…
 —Dave Brubeck (from the Foreword to Take Five)

Doug Ramsey’s Take Five is an invaluable addition to jazz literature—by an especially enduring writer on the music. I knew Paul Desmond, but I found so much more I did not know. —Nat Hentoff, author of American Music Is

The detail of the research is astonishing. The writing is exquisite. I’ve never seen a biography like it.
—Gene Lees, author of Portrait of Johnny: The Life of John Herndon Mercer, 
and publisher of The Jazzletter

Doug Ramsey has illuminated Paul Desmond’s life and music with insight and compassion, gleaned from diligent research and genuine friendship, and offered with the touch of a true storyteller. This is the finest biography we’ve had of an important jazz figure. —Dan Morgenstern, Director, Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies;
 author, Living with Jazz

This is a fascinating portrait of a remarkable artist who turns out to have been not at all easy to know. It is a rare and valuable book largely because Doug Ramsey (who began with the advantage of having known Desmond about as well as anyone ever did) has approached his subject with skill, sensitivity and — above all — the ability to thoroughly involve himself in the project. When Ramsey lets us share his conversations with people who played important roles in Paul’s life, it is as if we were there with them, not just reading, but listening and learning. 
 —Orrin Keepnews, veteran music producer and author, 
founder of Riverside and Milestone Records

To order the Kindle edition, please go here.

The extensive response to yesterday’s post about Oliver Groenewald’s tentet and the phenomenon of medium sized bands in jazz precludes individual replies to the comments. Thanks to everyone who wrote. There will be more on the subject. To see the comments, go to the next exhibit down the page.

Five years ago, I started what I intended to be a series of Rifftides pieces about little big bands. This was the rationale:

Six to eleven pieces allow arrangers freedom that the conventions and sheer size of sixteen-piece bands tend to limit. Medium-sized groups have been important since the beginnings of jazz.

For reasons I don’t remember—sloth, possibly—the series stopped after this installment and this one. A new ten-piece band has reignited the idea.

The tentet’s leader is Oliver Groenewald, a trumpeter, composer and arranger educated at Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany. Groenewald studied trumpet with Art Farmer in Austria and Willie Thomas in the US, composition and arranging in the US with Chuck Israels. He has written extensively for World Brass, Canadian Brass and other ensembles. He now lives on Orcas Island in Puget Sound near Seattle. He is rehearsing a band of Pacific Northwest stalwarts that includes stars of the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra. Here, they run through Groenewald’s arrangement of “You Don’t Know What Love Is.” Brad Allison has the flugelhorn lead. Jay Thomas is the alto saxophone soloist. The video closes with names of all the players.

There was a sort of followup to the Medium But Well Done venture. To see it, go here. If you would like more on the topic, let me know, and we’ll put the slothful Rifftides staff to work on it. To send an email message, click on the word “Contact” in the blue band at the top of the page, or submit a comment using the “Speak Your Mind” box at the end of the post.

Just for fun, here’s World Brass with a witty Groenewald arrangement of “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” of all things. Let’s hear it for the drummer.

Following its May announcement of awards to musicians, the Jazz Journalists Association this week disclosed the winners of its journalism awards for 2013. Congratulations to Willard Jenkins, winner of the award for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism, to Patrick Jarenwattananon of National Public Radio Music, winner of the Blog of the Year Award for his A Blog Supreme, and to all of the other winners listed below.

Print Periodical of the Year: 
JazzTimes

Website of the Year: 
AllAboutJazz.com

Best Book of the Year: 
Shall We Play That One Together? The Life and Art of Jazz Piano Legend Marian 
McPartland (St. Martin’s Press), by Paul de Barros

The Helen Dance-Robert Palmer Award for Writing in the Year 2012: Nate Chinen

The Willis Conover-Marian McPartland Award for Broadcasting in the Year 2012: 
Jim Wilke (Jazz After Hours)

Photo of the Year: 
Lionel Charles Ferbos, by Skip Bolen

Short Form Jazz Video of the Year: Tarbaby–Fanon by Jason Fifield, Slife Productions

For a Rifftides report on the JJA music winners announced last month, go here.

Risking the appearance of Rifftides becoming an obituary service, I must note the deaths in the past week of two supreme artists of the bebop era, flutist Sam Most and guitarist Johnny Smith. Each of them blazed trails on his instrument and was a major influence on generations of players who followed him.

From the notes I wrote for Most’s 1976 Xanadu album Mostly Flute (Out of print, sadly. Copies are being sold for exorbitant prices on the internet):

At 17, he was working with Tommy Dorsey, then with Shep Fields. Jobs with Boyd Raeburn and Don Redman followed and before long, Most became the first bebop flutist. In 1954 he won the Down Beat New Star award. Through the fifties, Sam led several groups, recorded and worked with an astonishing cross-section of musicians, from Teddy Wilson to Paul Bley.

Most was a part of Buddy Rich’s band from 1959 through 1961, on a State Department world tour that included Afghanistan, Nepal, Indonesia, Singapore, India and South America. In the early sixties, the jazz work began tailing off as Most moved into the Los Angeles scene and the pits of Las Vegas and Tahoe. There were occasional gigs with Louis Bellson. He led his own quartet at Shelly’s Manne Hole and traveled with Red Norvo. But the show bands, studio calls, television shows, films and commercial recording sessions dominated.

Then, Sam began to yearn again for self expression.

“I realized that kind of life was a little like hibernating,” he says. “It became clear that I didn’t want to be a professional act backer, although I backed some of the best…Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee, Carmen McRae, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra. Frank gave me a very expensive handmade wooden flute after I had worked with him.”

Most came out of hibernation on a beautiful spring day in New York City. The setting was RCA’s famous studio B, where Don Schlitten has recorded so many of the great jazzmen.

His sidemen on Mostly Flute were Tal Farlow, Duke Jordan, Sam Jones and Billy Higgins. It’s a highlight of his restored jazz career.

For a thorough obituary of Most, see Elaine Woo’s article in The Los Angeles Times.

Here is Sam in Belgium in 2011 with the Rein De Graaf Trio and trumpeter Ellister Van Der Moen. The video may have been shot through the wrong end of a telescope, but it finds Sam in fine fettle.

When Johnny Smith died at 90 on June 11, most of the obituaries and articles about him began with the fact that a rock and roll band had a hit with one of his compositions—as if that validated him. What validated Smith was that he was one of the great guitarists of his time. It was a living testimonial to his importance and influence that decades after he left New York and the active jazz life, young guitaritsts continued to study Smith’s work, hoping to master his technique and gift of invention. Some figured out the technique. Few were able to do more than approximate his creativity. For an obituary, see this New York Times piece.

For an example of his brilliance, listen to “Jaguar” by Smith’s 1952 quartet with Stan Getz, tenor sax; Sanford Gold, piano; Eddie Safranski, bass; and Don Lamond, drums.

Earl “Fatha” Hines, Berlin, 1965, with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, bass; and Alan Dawson, drums.

Bert Wilson was an undersung musician and an extraordinary man who died earlier this month. An underground hero of saxophonists far beyond the Pacific Northwest where he lived, he was so unusual and so little recognized that Rifftides is departing from our policy of not publishing verbatim announcements from elsewhere. Here is Jim Wilke’s alert to a special broadcast this weekend devoted to Wilson’s music.

Herb Geller is at home in Hamburg, Germany, recovering from a health setback. Until fairly recently, the octogenarian alto saxophonist’s demanding schedule had him in clubs and at festivals throughout Europe. One of those events was the Darmstädter Big Band’s Kentomania tour featuring music written for Stan Kenton’s band by Bill Holman, Gerry Mulligan, Bob Curnow and others. Geller is featured here in Bill Mathieu’s arrangement of “Django” by John Lewis. In addition to Geller’s solo, the performance is notable for the resounding bottom notes provided by the brass section’s two bass trombones.

The singing was something I got from my father.

My early morning cycling expedition took me nowhere near the Alamo or a Navajo, but I stopped to look at this fella looking at me…

Terence Blanchard, Magnetic (Blue Note)

Imagine the president of the United States regularly presenting jazz in the East Room of the White House; that is the level of recognition Václav Klaus gave the music. President of the Czech Republic from 2003 to March of this year, Klaus succeeded the Republic’s first president, Václav Havel. He hosted 90 monthly concerts known as Jazz na Hradě, at the Prague Castle. This 2011 Rifftides post reports on one of the events. Here on the left, we see Klaus with the Czech pianist Emil Viklický, who served the president as adviser to the series.

The story goes that a friend who hadn’t seen the great tenor saxophonist Al Cohn in a long time encountered him on the street in New York and said, “Hey, Al, where are you living these days?”

“Groovin’ High”: James Moody, alto saxophone; Al Haig, piano; Ray Brown, bass; Kenny Clarke, drums.