Archives for 2013

Across the country from warm and sunny Los Angeles tomorrow, New York’s Central Park will be full of leaves turning color and 30 bands serenading the season. It is the park’s annual Jazz And Colors celebration. The photograph is from last year’s event. For information, including a list … [Read more...]

Watching and listening to Bill Holman put his big band through its paces was a rare treat. The 86-year-old leader was preparing his troops for a rare public performance of his arrangements of the ten Thelonious Monk compositions in his celebrated Brilliant Corners album. Allowed to drop out of … [Read more...]

If I weren’t flying south today, I might very well be looking for a plane headed east. If you live in the northeastern US, you may want to know about these events: Steve Kuhn has lined up a rarity in these days of one-shot engagements; four nights in the same club, Thursday through Sunday at … [Read more...]

Rifftides is going into partial suspension for a few days. I’m involved in a documentary about Bill Holman (pictured), the composer, bandleader and NEA Jazz Master universally regarded as one of the greatest of all jazz arrangers. I will be in Los Angeles for a few days to interview Mr. Holman. … [Read more...]

During the week when we lost Frank Wess, it has been impossible not to keep thinking about him—and listening to him. Today’s listening was to Uptown Records’ marvelous two-CD set of Wess in his partnership with trumpeter Johnny Coles (1926-1997). Their quintet was a 1980s band that … [Read more...]

Favorite front porch exchange with one of tonight's scores of trick-or-treaters. Me: "Don't eat too much of that candy." Eight-year-old Green Hornet: (with a sigh of exasperation through his mask) "I know ." … [Read more...]

As noted occasionally on Rifftides, the creative power of medium-sized jazz ensembles often exceeds their size. Go here to read several posts on that topic. The guitarist Anthony Wilson added to the mid-sized genre’s discography with his Power of Nine in 2006. Over the summer, he revived the group … [Read more...]

We have confirmation that Frank Wess died today. The flutist and saxophonist succumbed to kidney failure at 91. Wess played with undiminished spirit and creativity that kept him in the forefront of jazz soloists for decades after most of his contemporaries had retired or died. A professional from … [Read more...]

By special arrangement with the publisher, Rifftides readers may acquire autographed copies of Doug's novel Poodie James at a reduced price. To see a description of the book, read an excerpt and learn how to order, click on Purchase Doug's Books on the blue border above. The special price will be in … [Read more...]

"Thank you," I said to the clerk at the hardware store. "Hey, no problem, ya know?" she replied. It occurred to me that she had not jumped aboard the Rifftides Department Of Language Reform (DOLR) bandwagon. Despite our periodic efforts to encourage clarity of expression, Americans and other … [Read more...]

Lester Perkins, the proprietor of Jazz On The Tube, sent an alert to a rare opportunity to watch and listen to Duke Ellington rehearsing a new piece. This was on the French Cote d’Azur in 1966. We see glimpses of Paul Gonsalves, Russell Procope, Cat Anderson, Buster Cooper, Jimmy Hamilton and the … [Read more...]

I must confess that among the dozens (and dozens) of unsolicited email messages that pour into the Rifftides computer each day, I have paid little attention to those from the Litchfield Jazz Camp. That changed when one arrived with news that next year the camp moves from Kent to another Connecticut … [Read more...]

The Rifftides blogroll near the end of the right-hand column now includes a link to pianist-arranger-composer Mike Longo’s new website. Longo’s site is replete with practical tips to musicians about developing and refining their craft. By way of example, it also presents videos of his trio and … [Read more...]

It was a fine day for the ritual of draining, coiling, labeling and storing the hoses. The canal has been dry and the irrigation water off since Tuesday. That news is of no importance whatever and has nothing to do with the usual topics of this blog. Hoping to find a connection (hah), I searched for … [Read more...]

First, from an upstairs window looking across the valley. This is a fine time of year to live in the high desert at the foot of the Cascades. Next, in the exquisite 1948 original adapted by Ralph Burns from a movement of his Summer Sequence suite for the Woody Herman Ochestra. This is the … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Ted Hodgetts writes from Ontario, Canada, with a reminder that Clark Terry's prolonged, expensive, illness continues. CT's medical bills are accumulating at an accelerating rate. The Jazz Foundation of America set up a special fund to help with, among other things, the substantial … [Read more...]

It’s a bit late to recognize Christopher Columbus on his holiday but at this writing it’s still Columbus Day in the Pacific time zone. The banks and the post office were closed for the day in the land that Columbus discovered. Substantial parts of the federal government have been shut down for … [Read more...]

Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond is moving along briskly in its new digital life as an ebook. The hardcover edition has sold out. Used copies are going for as much as $335 on book and auction sites, but new clothbound copies are history. The electronic transformation is good … [Read more...]

Jim Wilke will devote his Jazz Northwest broadcast on Sunday to a musician who has been the bartitone saxophone anchor in a significant number of great bands and, on baritone and alto, a mainstay of jazz in the Pacific Northwest. Here’s the announcement: Saxophonist Bill Ramsay is a Northwest … [Read more...]