The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival yesterday announced the lineup for the 2011 edition. The festival will run the weekends of April 29-May 1 and May 5-8. In New Orleans, they still refer to the event as JazzFest. Here is a partial list of the hundreds of major attractions. Arcade Fire, Bon … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader John Bolger writes with a suggestion: Somebody has posted the legendary interview between Paul Desmond and Bird on YouTube. I had a seen transcript of this before but never heard the interview. Rare and wonderful! Thought you might like to know - might be worth piece in … [Read more...]

Not long ago, we told you about stealth comments intended to lure Rifftides readers to websites that sell stuff. This just came in from the United Kingdom: just signed up at www.artsjournal.com and wanna say hi to all the guys/gals of this board! That cheery greeting was disguised as a comment … [Read more...]

There is good news for jazz listeners in Southern California. The Jazz Bakery can stop roaming. That modern-day rarity, a major jazz club in Los Angeles, the Bakery lost its lease in 2009 and has been presenting concerts in a variety of halls, moving from one spot to another. Now it can reestablish … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Mark Stryker sent this reaction to the previous entry. Mr. Stryker is the music critic of The Detroit Free Press. He has good ears. Just a coda re: "Moonlight in Vermont," whose unusual lyrics were written by John Blackburn. The A section words are actually in the form of a haiku, … [Read more...]

News of Margaret Whiting's death at 86 on Monday must have sent her fans to the shelves in search of her recording of "Moonlight in Vermont." She recorded the song in 1943 when she was 19. It helped make her a star, and she stayed on the charts well into the 1960s, surviving even as rock and roll … [Read more...]

Partially blind, totally brilliant, for decades James Thurber (1894-1961) entertained readers with the incisiveness and wit of his stories and drawings. His most famous story is probably "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," which was distorted into a film that Thurber detested. Almost everything he … [Read more...]

It is better to have loafed and lost, than never to have loafed at all. It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough. Progress was all right. Only it went on too long. There is no exception to the rule that … [Read more...]

Flip Philipp & Ed Partyka Dectet, Hair Of The Dog (ATS). In their third album as co-leaders, Philipp and Partyka make a substantial addition to the recorded history of medium-sized jazz groups. From bands led by Fletcher Henderson through Red Norvo, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Miles Davis, … [Read more...]

At the end of the piece two exhibits below, I wrote that I would depend on Rifftides readers to tell us about the Emil Viklický-Scott Robinson concert the night before last. Even better, journalist and blogger Michael Steinman took his video camera to the Bohemian National Hall of the Czech Center … [Read more...]

Digital video surprises pop up on the web. Here is an ad hoc edition of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet. The valve trombonist is Mulligan's frequent collaborator Bob Brookmeyer. Ray Brown, bass, and Art Blakey, drums, may have done this with Mulligan just once. YouTube tells us when, 1981. But who knows … [Read more...]

Comments provide some of the most valuable content in Rifftides. We encourage everyone to submit comments. The staff decides which ones appear and is tolerant, but there are limits. We evaporate comments that would commercialize the blog by offering links to products or services, especially those … [Read more...]

Rifftidesers who live in or near New York City have the opportunity this week to hear and see together two musicians who have often received favorable mention in Rifftides—and elsewhere. Here is the announcement from one of them, the multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson. Hello everybody. … [Read more...]

Sorry for the late notice, but I just found out about this. The adventurous radio station KBOO-FM in Portland, Oregon, is broadcasting a six-part series about the musician Butch Morris. The second part is this evening—soon. For how to tune in, go to the end of this piece. Morris is not merely a … [Read more...]

The Rifftides staff hopes that your 2011 will be as happy as this New Year's Eve performance by Venezuela's Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra. The conductor is Gustavo Dudamel, music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Feliz Año Nuevo … [Read more...]

At this time of year, those who write about music, books, plays, motion pictures, sporting events, chili cookoffs, hog-calling contests and—for all I know—goldfish breeding, are expected to compile lists of the year's best. I have been complicit in this questionable activity, but I've been … [Read more...]

Oregon Music News has a line on its masthead listing the categories the online publication covers: CLASSICAL, JAZZ/BLUES, ROCK/ROOTS, ACOUSTIC, INDIE, DJ/ELECTRO, SOUL/HIP-HOP, MELTING POT, FAMILY, MUSICALS I don't spend much time with two-thirds of those genres and although I found it enlightening … [Read more...]

Billy Taylor, a pianist who became a television and radio spokesman for jazz and made the music familiar to millions, died last night in a New York City hospital after suffering heart failure at home. He was 89. In his work on National Public Radio and CBS-TV's Sunday Morning, Taylor's playing and … [Read more...]

Many Rifftides readers may be familiar with Erik Satie's "Gymnopédie No. 1" because performers including Jessica Williams, Jacques Loussier, Ximo Tébar and Herbie Mann with Bill Evans have recorded jazz or near-jazz versions of that classic of French music. It has not become a jazz standard, but … [Read more...]