Improvisation in music did not begin with jazz. Bach and Chopin were noted improvisers, as was 
Beethoven. One of the great Beethoven stories is about the flamboyant pianist Daniel Steibelt (seen right) challenging Beethoven (seen left) to an improvisation contest, in effect a musical duel. Steibelt played first. When it was Beethoven’s turn, he used
a few notes of Steibelt’s score, turned the page upside down, mocked his opponent’s first notes and built a brilliant improvisation. In that early nineteenth century cutting contest, Steibelt was humiliated. The younger man announced that he would leave Vienna, never to return as long as Beethoven lived there. Beethoven died in Vienna in 1827. Steibelt, as promised, stayed away.
Many of today’s classical musicians are also master improvisers. One of the most flexible, prolific and daring is Mandhira de Saram, a British violinist of Sri Lankan origin. She is, among other things, the founder and leader of the Ligeti String Quartet. In this video provided by the British Music Collection, she discusses her music and introduces performances by a variety of colleagues, including pianist Steve Beresford and the Ligeti Quartet.
For all the subtlety and intricacy of the group’s interaction, their music commands attention because of sheer musicianship and their ability to apply rhythmic muscle without losing the chamber-music character of their work. In their most recent album, Destinations, their approach to “Solar†by Miles Davis (or Chuck Wayne, if you prefer)* is a perfect example of Scenes’ duality—the abstraction created in Stowell’s guitar solo melding into the undercurrent of swing generated by Johnson and Bishop. The principle applies firmly in another standby, Schwartz and Dietz’s “You And The Night And The Music,†as it does in originals by the musicians. Johnson’s loose, loping “Long Prairie†follows Stowell’s opening “The Mandy Walk,†with its hints of the melody of “Everything Happens To Me.†Stowell wrote five of the album’s ten pieces, including “Für Heide,†in which he intersperses occasional chords in a gripping solo made primarily of single-note lines. Johnson’s powerful bowing dominates his “T.I.O.†Throughout that track Bishop manages to sound like two drummers, one using resonant tom-toms, the other, cymbals.
Willard “Woody†Woodward writes a straightforward account of the career of the keyboard artist who pioneered the Hammond B3 organ in jazz. Milt Buckner paved the way for later organ heroes including Jimmy Smith, Don Patterson and—more recently—Joey DeFrancesco. His legacy encompasses the parallel-chords or locked-hands technique that Buckner developed as a pianist and transferred to his organ playing. Woodward, a pianist and organist inspired by Buckner, is thorough as he traces Buckner’s development, including his breakthrough in the early 1940s with Lionel Hampton’s band. In addition to his solid story telling, Woodward discusses details of Buckner’s settings of the pullout stops that determine the B3’s variety of sounds. It’s fascinating stuff, not too technical for most readers. If you are unfamiliar with Buckner’s work (it’s possible), 
For the first weekend of summer, Jazz Northwest features a collection of resident duos and trios playing music for those lazy summer days and nights.
funk. He wasn’t alone. Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and George Benson were also incorporating funk in hopes of capturing wider shares of audiences oriented toward the basic—not to say primitive—emotions at the heart of much rhythm-driven pop music of the day. Blue Note albums like Carryin’ On and Ain’t It Funky Now illustrate Green’s dedication to the trend. The first track of Funk In France, recorded live in a Paris studio, is a cover version of the ultimate funk star James Brown’s “Don’t Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing (Open Up The Door I’ll Get It Myself).†The album also captures Green at the top of his bop game in two classics by Sonny Rollins, “Oleo†and “Sonnymoon For Two,†and in an untitled minor blues that incorporates aspects of both idioms. Green’s two-man rhythm section for the studio recording is drummer Don Lamond, the motivational drummer of Woody Herman’s great Second Herd, and bassist Larry Ridley during the period when he was having success with Freddie Hubbard, Philly Joe Jones and Dinah Washington, among many others. Barney Kessel, whose career went back as far as Lamond’s, joins Green to provide  moving second-guitar accompaniment on Parisian Charles Trenet’s “I Wish You Love.â€
Slick! was recorded in 1975 at Oil Can Harry’s, a club that thrived in Vancouver, British Columbia, for a decade in the sixties and seventies. The CD’s first half finds Green in familiar territory with Charlie Parker’s blues “Now’s The Time.†A supremely relaxed 26-minute version of Jobim’s “How Insensitive†demonstrates Green’s absorption with the Brazilian music that had captivated Americans. Then, Green’s funk unit revs up with a medley that includes Stanley Clarke’s “Vulcan Princess,†the Ohio Players’ “Skin Tight,†Bobby Womack’s “Woman’s Gotta Have It,†Stevie Wonder’s “Boogie On Reggae Woman†and the O’Jays’ “For The Love Of Moneyâ€â€”in all, a fair overview of the pop-funk landscape of the mid-1970s. Green’s guitar and Ronnie Ware’s electric bass fairly leap out of the speakers during the medley until Green dials back the funk a bit for a relatively relaxed interval by Ware’s bass. Emmanuel Riggins’ electric piano, Greg ‘Vibration’ Williams’ drums and Gerald Izzard’s array of percussion round out the band. Izzard’s panoply of effects includes what may be bird calls and a police whistle. This newly-discovered music probably won’t replace Green’s beloved Blue Notes on collectors’ shelves, but the Resonance discoveries offer a way for those new to this gifted guitaist to make his acquaintance. In Slick! the Oil Can Harry’s audience gives Green and his quintet a joyous reception.
For many aficionados of Bix Beiderbecke the surprise is not that there is so little film of the great cornetist, but that there is any. To the left, we see a frame of film shot in 1928 for Fox Movietone News of the Whiteman orchestra recording or rehearsing a piece called “My Ohio Home.” When Beiderbecke died in 1931 at the age of 28, he had earned the admiration of his contemporary and friend Louis Armstrong and become an inspiration for generations of cornetists and trumpet players. The official cause of his death was pneumonia, his lifestyle strongly suggests that advanced alcoholism was a contributing factor. Beiderbecke was a primary model for Rex Stewart, Jimmy McPartland, Benny Carter and Bobby Hackett, among dozens of others. The influence of his tone, lyricism and phrasing continued well into the new century in players including Warren Vache, Ed Polcer and Richard Sudhalter. Sudhalter was also 
Having heard an advance CD by Jamie Shew, a singer new to me, I asked the trumpeter Bobby Shew if she is related to him. He followed his answer—No— with a question of his own, the one that musicians invariably ask about singers: “Can she sing?â€
Lorraine Gordon, who inherited the Village Vanguard after her husband Max died in 1989, remained its proprietor and no-nonsense guiding spirit until her death yesterday in New York. She was 95. Under the Gordons, the Vanguard became quite likely the most famous jazz club in the world. Bill Evans, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and Wynton Marsalis were among many musicians who made memorable live recordings and videos there. The club is a destination not only for New Yorkers but also for jazz listeners from throughout the world who make it a required stop when they visit the city. Here is a recent interview with Mrs. Gordon, courtesy of the National Endowment For The Arts.
Compatibility, mutual responsiveness and subtle interactivity characterize this album from guitarist Ben-Hur and bassist Harvie S. It might have just as appropriately been titled “Interaction.†With drummer Tim Horner as a third partner, the trio moves through a ten-track collection encompassing several rarely-recorded pieces. Among them are Thelonious Monk’s title tune; the Brazilian master Ary Barroso’s “Prá Machucar Meu Coração;†an intricate take on George Shearing’s “Conception; Harvie S mournfully bowing the melody of Billy Strayhorn’s “Blood Count;†and welcome explorations of Jerome Kern’s “Nobody Else But Me,†Neil Hefti’s “Repetitionâ€, Baden Powell’s “Deixa,†Tadd Dameron’s “Focus†and Kenny Dorham’s “Asiatic Raes.†The album is an attractive amalgam of standard songs, Latin classics and neglected jazz tunes integrated with uncommon sensitivity.
musical theatre success based on Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. As she advances in her career, Elias’s playing seems to gain harmonic and sonic depth. Alternating between all-star rhythm sections with bassists Eddie Gomez and Mark Johnson and drummers Jack DeJohnette and Satoshi Takeishi, she is captivating from “To Each His Dulcinea†through the playfully rich chord-play of the concluding “A Little Gossip.†Elias alternates between all-star rhythm sections, one with bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Jack DeJohnette, the other with bassist Marc Johnson and Satoshi Takeishi on drums. Throughout, Manolo Baderna enlivens the rhythmic atmosphere with rich percussion touches. This is a captivating collection.
quartet, to say the least, a Russian pianist, a Norwegian bassist, an Oregon reed player and a bebop drummer—Yelena Eckemoff; piano; Paul McCandless, oboe, English horn, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet; Arild Anderson, bass; Peter Erskine, drums and percussion. As she prepared this latest in her impressive succession of themed L&H albums, Ms. Eckemoff chose musicians who could picture and feel the desert she conceived. The vision extends to the short-short story and descriptive poems she wrote in the liner notes and her atmospheric painting that makes the cover of the booklet. The music visualizes the unnamed desert to which she gives sonic life. McCandless’s oboe is notably evocative in that regard. Ms. Eckemoff’s own playing leads the way, harmonically and in depth of keyboard tone, as she establishes the album’s feeling of mystery and languor. Eckemoff’s concept is akin to that of many albums released on the ECM label over the years, making it a natural setting for bassist Anderson, often a leader of ECM sessions. Erskine’s percussion array allows him to generate colors beyond his customary mainstream palette.
21 years old at the time of this 2017 recording, the identical Maguire twins—bassist Carl and drummer Alan—were born in Tokyo and raised in Hong Kong. In a dramatic change of scenery and culture, they moved with their parents to Memphis, Tennessee, in 2011. The brothers enrolled at the Stax Music Academy and came under the influence of bassist John Hamar, pianist Donald Brown and saxophonists Greg Tardy and Kirk Whalum. Brown is heard only on electric piano on one track. All of those musicians but Whalum and Hamar are on the twins’ debut album on their family’s label, as are pianist Aaron Goldberg and trumpeter Bill Mobley. The twins manage extremely well in that heavy company. Carl’s responsive drumming is impressive behind Goldberg on Brown’s “An Island, A Piano, and Keith,†dedicated to his son, also a pianist. Carl Maguire contributes two original compositions to the playlist, Alan one. Alan’s bass introduction is important to the success of his abstract arrangement of “Someday My Prince Will Come.†It will be interesting to follow this pair of promising rhythm players as they develop further.
The seasoned New York pianist traveled west to record with a sterling rhythm section of veteran Los Angeles players. The bicoastal combination clicked. Drummer Joe La Barbera, bassist Darek Oleszkiewicz, and—on two pieces—guitarist Larry Koonse meld with Piket in a collection of standards and originals by her and others. After Piket wrote “Mentor,†she discovered that it reminded her of her former teacher Richie Beirach and dedicated it to him.  Her eight-bar exchanges with LaBarbera highlight the track. Zippy versions of Chick Corea’s “Humpty Dumpty,†Richard Rodgers’ “Falling In Love With Love†and George Shearing’s “Conception†are up-tempo successes balanced by the trio’s ballad artistry in Piket’s “A Bridge To Nowhere.†In Walter Donaldson’s 1920s ballad “My Buddy,†she lingers over the melody and Oleszkiewicz caresses the verse mid-chorus. They revive the song so touchingly that one wonders why it isn’t performed more often.