Louis Armstrong was born on this day in 1901. When he was 26, he recorded King Oliver’s “West End Blues” with an opening cadenza that put the world on notice that this new music was an art form to be taken seriously. How big was Armstrong’s impact on the development of jazz in the late 1920s? No one has described it more succinctly than one of his greatest admirers, the cornetist Ruby Braff. Braff said that Armstrong “changed everything.” Louis Armstrong and his Savoy Ballroom Five: … [Read more...]
Archives for August 2013
Bill Mays, Historian: Surprise Video
In one of my Rifftides posts on last October's Oregon Coast Jazz Party, I told you a little about the remarkable program in which Bill Mays traced the development of modern jazz piano. Here's that section from October 12, 2012 Bill Mays’ History of Jazz Piano concert for a morning audience covered pianists from James P. Johnson to Herbie Hancock. Teddy Wilson, Bill Evans and Bud Powell were among the 13 whose styles Mays summoned without surrendering his individuality. Tommy Flanagan and … [Read more...]
Weekend Listening Tip: The Clayton Brothers
As reported in this Rifftides coverage last fall, a concert by the Clayton Brothers is likely to become a party. John and Jeff Clayton and their band partied again at the recent Jazz Port Townsend festival on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. Jim Wilke, a fine recording engineer as well as an award-winning broadcaster, captured the Claytons and will feature their performance on his Jazz Northwest program this Sunday. Here is Jim Levitt’s photograph of the band and a guest at the … [Read more...]
Recent Listening: Woody Shaw
Woody Shaw: The Complete Muse Sessions (Mosaic) In a couple of record dates when Woody Shaw was 21 and in a dozen years through the 1970s and ‘80s, Muse Records captured some of the trumpeter’s most innovative and inspired work. When Shaw emerged, it was clear that Freddie Hubbard had influenced the younger man but, as he was to demonstrate, the model Shaw reflected most profoundly was not a trumpeter but a saxophonist, John Coltrane. The characterization of Shaw as a Hubbard clone persists … [Read more...]