This rhetorical padding is used by countless politicians and, it seems, nearly everyone interviewed or quoted in the news, from President Obama on down: "...going forward..." and its variant, "...moving forward..." Take it out of virtually any sentence and you will lose no meaning. Example: "The … [Read more...]

Jimmy Heath recently said he's been hearing since he was a youngster that jazz is dying. The saxophonist and composer/arranger will be 84 in October. Joining him in discounting death rumors is a younger man, the veteran entrepreneur Todd Barkan, who runs the oddly named but vital Dizzy's Club … [Read more...]

Someone who identifies himself on YouTube as "liveacid" went to painstaking trouble to manufacture a video of Chet Baker and Paul Desmond playing "Autumn Leaves." The music track is from Baker's 1974 album She Was Too Good To Me. It was later reissued on the compilation Chet Baker & Paul Desmond … [Read more...]

The Japanese have a longstanding love affair with jazz piano. Albums by jazz pianists sell consistently well in Japan. Leading pianists from around the world perform there in concerts and clubs. Indeed, the country has produced its own crops of world-class pianists, among them Toshiko Akiyoshi, … [Read more...]

Manfred Eicher has been successful with his ECM label not by constantly taking the pulse of the public and the record industry but by recording music he likes. That is an oversimplification, but not much of one. In the British newspaper The Guardian, Richard Williams has a piece about Eicher and his … [Read more...]

This was first a Rifftides post on March 24, 2006. Thanks to Bill Reed and David Ehrenstein for calling this to our attention. … [Read more...]

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution. —Igor Stravinsky At this time the fashion is to bring something to jazz that I reject. They speak of freedom. But one has no right, under pretext … [Read more...]

Richie Kamuca & Lee Konitz, Live at Donte's 1974 (Cellar Door) It's a hoot to hear the saxophonists channel their hero Lester Young in this recently discovered session recorded at the lamented Los Angeles club. "Lester Leaps In" begins and ends as a unison duet, complete with stop-time breaks, … [Read more...]

Here is the new batch of short reviews —micro-reviews, perhaps—in which the Rifftides staff acknowledges some of the CDs that have attracted our attention lately. It would be impossible to hear all of every album that shows up. Even sampling a majority of them is a challenge. Evidence: … [Read more...]

In a doomed attempt to stay abreast of the torrent of new releases flooding into Rifftides world headquarters, the staff is feverishly preparing a series of brief reviews; perhaps "alerts" would be a better word. It is our intention to begin posting them tomorrow or the next day. Even in the digital … [Read more...]

Ending this Rifftides mini-series of videos from the Dave Brubeck Quartet's 1964 appearance on Belgian television is—what else?—the number that became a popular hit in a best-selling album and for Desmond, its composer, an annuity that by terms of his will is still funneling large amounts … [Read more...]

A new three-day jazz event joins the roster of festivals that enliven Europe each summer. A musician heads this one. The Swedish pianist Jan Lundgren is organizing an early August festival in his hometown, the historic seaside village of Ystad. In addition to Lundgren's trio, the headliners include … [Read more...]

Inspired by the new Bill Charlap-Renee Rosnes CD (see the review), I sent the Rifftides staff in search of other piano duos. They found this. The clip is from The Big Store (1941). They don't make 'em like that anymore— movies or brothers. … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Allen Mezquida writes: It seems that Pekar had a greater perception about jazz than many musicians I know. He listened with a rich open mind and a big heart. I created this animation for him. It was finished about a week before he died. Allen Mezquida animates films and plays alto … [Read more...]

Harvey Pekar died this week at the age of 70. He will, inevitably, be more widely remembered for his seriously adult American Splendor comics and the movie they inspired than for his jazz criticism. As a writer about music he was—no surprise—eccentric and uneven but at his best wrote with … [Read more...]