There's a fresh dump of snow and avalanches have closed some roads in the Cascades, but in our little orchard, spring has—well, you know. … [Read more...]

Hundreds of CDs have piled up around Rifftides world headquarters. At a meeting, the staff voted whether to write, long, exhaustive analytical reviews of three of them or highlight many more in an effort to keep up with a jazz scene that—take our word for it—is not dying, at least not in … [Read more...]

Rifftides readers who responded enthusiastically to the video we posted on February 22 in connection with a piece about the Modern Jazz Quartet may be absolutely delirious when they see—and hear—this one. Again, the music is John Lewis’s “The Golden Striker.” The video is from the … [Read more...]

Bill Dixon, Intents and Purposes (International Phonograph). Dixon, who died last year at 84, is typically described as a force in the free jazz that emerged in the1960s. He was that, but Intents and Purposes defied labeling when Dixon recorded it more than four decades ago. This long overdue … [Read more...]

Bill Mays writes from Japan, where—despite earthquake, tsunami and radiation—the Phil Woods Quintet is on tour: Mays, piano; Woods, alto saxophone; Brian Lynch, trumpet; Steve Gilmore, bass; Bill Goodwin, drums. Food and bottled water have not been a problem here in Tokyo. … [Read more...]

Frank Foster wrote “Shiny Stockings” when he was in Count Basie’s “New Testament” band of the mid-1950s. He gained fame as half of Basie’s “Two Franks” tenor saxophone tandem with Frank Wess. The piece became a staple of not only the Basie band but of big jazz bands around the world. … [Read more...]

It is the first day of spring and, naturally, Igor Stravinsky is on everyone’s mind. Well, perhaps not everyone’s, but he is powerfully on the minds of The Bad Plus. That trio of restless and sometimes disturbing seekers are adapting Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, a piece that nearly a … [Read more...]

Jeffrey Snedeker, Minor Returns (JS). Snedeker is a rarity, a first-chair symphony French horn artist who understands jazz time, phrasing and feeling. In settings from quartet through big band to 41-piece string orchestra, he pays homage to the horn’s role in jazz. Snedeker solos on pieces … [Read more...]

It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line. The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether … [Read more...]

Because it has been too long since you’ve heard him, and because these two videos are—by all accounts—the only ones in existence that show him playing. His rhythm section at the Golden Circle in Stockholm in 1963 was Goran Lindberg, piano; Goran Peterson, bass; and Leif Wennerstron, drums. … [Read more...]

Joe Morello, the drummer best known for his long tenure with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, died this morning at his home in New Jersey. Morello joined Brubeck in 1956, remained with the group until it disbanded in 1967 and later played with it in reunions. He joined Brubeck after three years in Marian … [Read more...]

Ernie Krivda, Live At The Dirty Dog (CIMPoL). " Except for three years in New York in the 1970s and occasional tours out of town, Krivda has remained in Cleveland during his five decades as a hard-driving soloist, bandleader, composer, arranger and educator. If he had stayed in New York, he might be … [Read more...]

In The Wall Street Journal, Nat Hentoff reminisces about his relationship with Duke Ellington. The occasion is the release of a massive Mosaic CD box set of early Ellington recordings remastered by Steven Lasker. The column is packed with anecdotes, including this one from the early 1940s, when … [Read more...]