Archives for December 2013

1. Today, a year following Dave Brubeck’s death, a new website celebrates his life and music.

2. We relay an announcement that one of the finest jazz repertory orchestras will broadcast a program of Brubeck compositions.

As John Bolger’s Dave Brubeck Jazz.com debuts, the Irish Brubeck maven has unveiled an impressive site. In the “About” section, he outlines his ambitious goal:

The primary purpose was to detail the entire catalogue of Dave‘s music, recorded over eight decades, so that fans, music lovers, collectors, musicians and historians would have a database of all of his music, in one site.

The secondary purpose was to complement the Brubeck Collection, Holt Atherton Collections, at The University Of The Pacific, by providing biographical, image, media, video and memorabilia databases outlining Dave’s musical life, based on what was in my own collection and those gathered from other sources. I also hoped to highlight Dave Brubeck the person, who was intolerant of prejudice and used his music to advocate for civil rights and racial unity.

The site has extensive sections of Brubeck biography, news, photographs and links to blogs, books, academic collections and interviews. I found in browsing the sections devoted to recordings and videos, that a great deal more time had passed that I planned to spend. Consider yourself warned—or encouraged.

Bolger offers assurance that his is not the official Brubeck website, which can be found here.

 

As for that broadcast of Brubeck’s music, it will feature the consistently impressive Seattle Jazz Repertory Orchestra and be streamed live on the web this coming Sunday. Here is the announcement from Jim Wilke:

The Dave Brubeck Quartet was one of the primary groups moving jazz from the dance hall to the concert hall in the 50s. The cooler, more intellectual style of music found great success on college campuses and music departments (which previously discouraged it) started adding jazz to the curriculum.

The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, co-directed by Clarence Acox and Michael Brockman recently presented a concert of big-band arrangements of music by Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond and highlights from that concert will air on Jazz Northwest on Sunday, December 8 at 2 PM (Pacific). Music includes

In Your Own Sweet Way,
Three to Get Ready
Take Five
A Paul Desmond tribute medley featuring all five saxophonists from the SRJO
Blue Rondo a la Turk
The Duke
Theme from Mr.Broadway
plus an encore tribute to the late Frank Wess

Jazz Northwest is recorded and produced by Jim Wilke exclusively for 88.5 KPLU. The program airs on Sundays at 2 PM Pacific Standard Time and is available as a podcast at kplu.org following the broadcast.

The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra’s next performance will be the 25th annual presentation of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music Concert at Seattle’s Town Hall on December 28.

Chico Hamilton’s drumming with the original Gerry Mulligan Quartet and his own small groups helped introduce many young listeners to jazz in the 1950s. His death last week in New York brought a reaction from Don Conner that may strike a chord with other Rifftides readers.

R.I.P.Chico Hamilton! Chico died recently at 92. This was meaningful to me as Chico’s group was the first live band I’d ever heard. I was 18 and L.A. was dark and mysterious. I was in the military. Needless to say, my naiveté was off the charts. I had never heard of Chico or his sidemen, whom I later found out consisted of Buddy Collete on reeds, Fred Katz on cello and probably jim Hall on guitar. Ah a little history and nostalgia.

Hamilton’s popularity, already high, broadened in 1958 after Bert Stern captured his quintet at the Newport Jazz Festival as part of the film Jazz on a Summer’s Day. In this edition of the band, Hamilton’s sidemen were Eric Dolphy, flute; John Pisano, guitar; Nat Gershman, cello; and Hal Gaylor, bass. In Buddy Collette’s composition “Blue Sands,” the main feature is Hamilton’s skill with mallets.

In addition to providing early exposure for Dolphy and guitaritsts Jim Hall, Larry Coryell and Gabor Szabo, Hamilton’s quintets were launching pads for bassist Ron Carter and saxophonist Charles Lloyd, among other developing jazz artists. Hamilton worked steadily, as well as teaching at New York’s New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. He recorded his last album, Revelation, in 2011.

It’s December and the gentleman to the left is calling your attention to the new Rifftides batch of things that we recommend you hear, watch and read. The CD suggestions include an indispensable collaboration finally being reissued after half a century, a mainstream trio and a decidedly un-mainstream quartet. The DVD catches Thelonious Monk concertizing in Paris. The book is a biography of one of the most public and most elusive of major jazz artists. The notices will appear under Doug’s Picks in the right-hand column until the next batch shows up and, for the immediate future, immediately below.