Archives for April 2015

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="xRG2A6Gv5JCvsnBdHTT52uCQ6nHA50li"] Thanks to Rifftides reader Marla Kleman for sending an alert to the posting of a film about one of the late pianist Frank Strazzeri’s loveliest albums. Strazzeri died last year at about this time. He was 84. The album was his Woodwinds West with saxophonists Bill Perkins, Bob Cooper and Jack Nimitz, bassist Dave Stone and drummer Paul Kreibich. In the 1993 film Frank talks about his approach to writing for a woodwind chamber … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="nDnPhnnh7Io7xR70f8Q9sTXDrUtcKyMP"] A trove of jazz recorded in the 1950s became available again when Naxos of America acquired the Bethlehem Records catalogue a couple of years ago and began an extensive reissue program. Gus Wildi, who was born and grew up in Switzerland, founded the label in New York in 1953. Through the 1950s he recorded Dexter Gordon, Booker Ervin, Zoot Sims, Mel Tormé, Oscar Pettiford, Nina Simone, Chris Connor and a couple of dozen other major … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader David Perrine writes: In the spirit of your occasional feature, I offer the following quotes. (As you know, a notated F# on alto sax would normally be a concert A— except in the quantum physics-like world of harmolodics.) ‘Poise’ has an F# for its tonic on the Eb alto and a D concert for the transposed key.—Ornette Coleman [Ornette] took his saxophone out, and I notated what he played. I asked him what chord he was using, and he blew the arpeggio of a G chord thinking it … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="o0uwy5uS05X3CNDmZ3oMZNKhLka4ikmt"] Pianist Les McCann and saxophonist Eddie Harris played the Gene McDaniels song “Compared to What” at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1969. Bret Primack, The Jazz Video Guy, recently put video of the performance on his Facebook page. It’s too good, too undated, not to share. Roberta Flack had minor success with the song on her first album, but McCann and Harris made it a hit when this version was a part of their Swiss Movement album. … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="ecItH5WQ1tMBMrJxZCBeX9Lfmz748aEo"] From today’s cycling expedition through the hills of apple country, there is evidence that prospects seem good for a bountiful crop next fall. If a late snowstorm in the Cascade Mountains melts enough water into the high reservoirs that provide irrigation for the orchards in the valleys below, growers—and those of us who love Honey Crisps, Fujis, McIntoshes, Pink Ladies and Winesaps (to name a handful of hundreds of … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="u7LroeU3Df1cRKGDsC8SRWYmr10DqJ8L"] Following the April 8 Rifftides post about Carol Sloane and Carmen McRae, Bill Kirchner sent us a link to a German television program featuring McRae in 1968 with the formidable Clarke-Boland Big Band. Co-led by drummer Kenny Clarke and pianist-arranger-composer Francy Boland, the band was a collection of prominent European and American musicians. It thrived for more than a decade in the 1960s and 1970s. It was notable for, among … [Read more...]

To me, music is entertainment - what else can it be? In fact, it's the only language I know of that's universal. What is a soul? It's like electricity - we don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light a room. My version of 'Georgia' became the state song of Georgia. That was a big thing for me, man. It really touched me. Here is a state that used to lynch people like me suddenly declaring my version of a song as its state song. That is touching. … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="1MnnYxB4LiuDaCbGHN6uqq2Bhr80lXdG"] Yesterday was Billie Holiday’s 100th birthday. Rarely has the centenary of a jazz artist received as much notice. There have been tributes galore, special television and radio reports and long articles in major publications. This Rifftides remembrance of Holiday is confined to a short period of her early career in which she extended with a big band what she started with small groups in the 1930s Holiday sang with Count Basie’s … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="S99vrJ0cVK5Kb3jyKGEIvA6sc3MS8c1A"] On her blog, Carol Sloane (pictured above) observes the birthday of Carmen McRae (1920-1994), the woman she calls her, “girl friend, confidant and Sister Singer Superior.” The two singers had a long, rare, honest, sometimes tempestuous friendship that lasted until Carmen’s death. For Ms. Sloane, the friendship continues. Her remembrance incorporates video of McRae in concert in 1988. Tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan is the guest … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="BUtzqNO7PDbS6vNYTAvpJWGdH2BVCix9"] Pianist Bill Mays and trumpeter-flugelhornist Marvin Stamm are just back from a European tour. One of their trip’s highlights was a March 20 concert in Cologne, Germany, with the formidable WDR Big Band. The theme was New York State Of Mind, with compositions by Mays, Stamm, George Gershwin, Billy Joel and Duke Ellington, among others. The pair’s exhaustive preparation for the concert included Mays arranging Thelonious Monk’s … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="SN6yrk2ck3nmTVgccX4rpL186fOa8WOW"] Gerry Mulligan would have been 88 years old today. Until a year or so before his death in 1996, Mulligan was playing and writing at the top of his game. To remember him, let’s listen to one of the classic compositions played by his quartet at the Brecon, Wales, Jazz Festival in 1991. Here’s Mulligan’s “Walking Shoes” with Bill Mays, piano; Dean Johnson, bass and Dave Ratajczak, drums. For an entire Mulligan concert a year … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="QlBAauLBM0PeZg7ToUetZGOpNaMPr4ch"] Rudresh Mahanthappa, Bird Calls (ACT) Listeners steeped in the music of Charlie Parker may be able to detect clues to the inspirations for Mahanthappa’s new compositions in this stimulating collection. If doing so adds to their enjoyment and appreciation of the album, so much the better. But in approaching the collection as a blindfold test, literalists may miss the point. Alto saxophonist Mahanthappa has taken Parker, his … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="UxRvj0k7FmrlgRiptgew9SeuwS2H9wlE"] The bossa nova phenomenon infused jazz and popular music with fresh ways of thinking about rhythm and about story telling through music. It arrived when rock and roll was firmly established, the Beatles were beginning to dominate music on the radio and hardly a week passed without another boy band taking its place in the pop firmament. Brazilian music was a distinct contrast and, to many, a relief. Fortunately, it has remained a … [Read more...]

I suppose it figures that on April Fools' Day, something like this would be making the rounds of web pranksters. You may have difficulty finding it in your corner record store or online—unlike this early Monk gem from his Complete Blue Note Recordings. Thelonious Monk, piano; Idrees Sulieman, trumpet; Danny Quebec West, alto saxophone; Billy Smith, tenor saxophone; Gene Ramey, bass; Art Blakey, drums. October 15, 1947. Yes, "Humph" is based on "I Got Rhythm." … [Read more...]