Len Dobbin, a man of many parts in Montreal, died last night. Among his other roles, over the years Mr. Dobbin was a broadcaster, reviewer, photographer and producer intimately involved in the Canadian jazz scene. For details, go here. Len was a frequent and knowledgeable correspondent to Rifftides. The Rifftides staff will miss him.

(This item originally appeared in Rifftides on July 19, 2005)
A Little “Rifftide” Geneology
Annie Kuebler, the Mary Lou Williams archivist at the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies, gives us further insights into “Rifftide.” That is the 1945 Coleman Hawkins recording that inspired the name of this blog. She does not say that Hawkins stole the tune from Williams, only that it is likely to have been lodged in his mind when he played on a little-known record date with Mary Lou a couple of months before his own session. In the mid-forties, Hawkins and Williams were major swing era musicians encouraging and aiding the younger players who were developing bebop. Hawkins gave Thelonious Monk one of his most important early jobs as a pianist. Wiliams had a profound influence on the new music’s pianists. She told Ira Gitler in an interview for his book Swing To Bop, “We were inseparable, Monk, Bud Powell and I. We were always together every day, for a long time.”

Here is the note Ms. Kuebler sent us about “Rifftide.”

On December 15, 1944, Moe Asch recorded six cuts titled Mary Lou Williams and Her Orchestra in New York City. Williams’s arrangement of “[Oh] Lady Be Good” is nearly identical to Hawkins’s “Rifftide”–and one doesn’t need a musicologist to explain it. It just takes a listen. The only real difference is the breaks to accommodate the various musicians.

Originally recorded on 78 rpm Asch 552-3 as a three record set, the recording is now available on CD on the Chronological Classics Series # 1021, Mary Lou Williams 1944 -1945. The personnel for four of the cuts is Hawkins – tenor sax; Joe Evans – alto; Claude Green – clarinet; Bill Coleman – trumpet; Eddie Robinson – bass; Denzil Best – drums; and, of course, Williams on piano.

Obviously, this recording precedes “Rifftide,” attributed to Hawkins, from Hollywood Stampede on February 23, 1945. I don’t believe enough time had passed that Hawkins forgot the source, but that’s an opinion. Since my music manuscript archivist career began with Duke Ellington’s Collection, I am not judgmental about these things — just like to lay the facts out. In such matters, I am always reminded of Juan Tizol’s reply when asked if Ellington stole songs, “Oh, he stole. He’d steal it from his own self.”

Hope this helps. Thank for naming your website after a great underrated artist’s arrangement.

Before she joined the Institute for Jazz Studies five years ago, Annie Kuebler spent twelve years at the Smithsonian Institution. There, among many other achievements, she accomplished the massive task of organizing the manuscripts in the Smithsonian’s Duke Ellington collection. Her contributions to preserving large segments of American art and culture are invaluable. Thanks, Annie

To my knowledge, there is no video of Coleman Hawkins or Mary Lou Williams playing “Rifftide” or “Oh, Lady Be Good” and certainly not “Hackensack,” Thelonious Monk’s appropriation or adaptation of the line. So, we’ll have to settle for Stan Getz and John Coltrane accompanied by Oscar Peterson, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. This was 1960 in Dusseldorf. There are several dubs of this clip floating around the internet. This one has the clearest picture and sound.

For some time–years–I have been bothered by the further deterioration of a craft that too often has not achieved the status of serious criticism. I write, sad to say, of jazz reviewing, in which assignments all too often go to the lowest bidder, or to no bidder. These days, they go less frequently than ever to those who know something about music or are willing to learn about it, or who have qualifications beyond an eagerness to get free records or free admittance.

When a Canadian acquaintance sent me the Montreal Gazette review of last week’s Maria Schneider concert at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, I thought it was a spoof of incompetent, malevolent, reviewing. It is not. It is the real thing, incompetent and malevolent. It is also misogynist.
Here are the headline, byline and first few sentences:

Jazz fest 2009: Maria with the long bare arms
By JEFF HEINRICH
07 02 09
My high-school jazz band was never conducted by a woman, let alone a middle-aged American blonde with a penchant for sleeveless black tops that show off her Pilates-styled arms. But then, again, if my high-school jazz band had been conducted by such a woman, I might have been too distracted and never become a gifted clarinet player. Actually, that’s a lie; I gave up the clarinet pretty early. So what was so bothersome about the show Maria Schneider and her jazz orchestra gave the other night (Tuesday) at Théâtre Maisonneuve? Well, a couple of things: Schneider’s irritatingly stiff body-language and the equally stiff sound of her musicians, as excruciating visually and aurally as your run-of-the-mill high-school jazz band. It was creepy, the way the soloists schlumped across the stage to do their number then schlumped back to their seats and their music stands, like adolescents in uniforms going through the paces.

The in-depth misogynism comes in the rest of the article. To read the whole thing, go here. Then scroll down to read responses from readers of the Gazette, nearly all of whom know more about Mr. Heinrich’s subject than he does and all of whom are more articulate and civil, even the one who wrote, “Your an idiot.” To paraphrase many of them, what were the editors of the Gazette thinking when they assigned Mr. Heinrich to review something for which he had a priori contempt? What were they thinking when they examined his copy before they published it? Did they put it through the editorial process at all? Any answer to those questions is disturbing.
Mr. Heinrich’s level of gratuitous nastiness is not typical of most jazz reviewers. All too often his level of ignorance of the subject is typical in both specialty and general publications. There are jazz critics who pride themselves on writing from a base of knowledge, perception, taste and fairness. They have worked, studied, researched and listened hard to achieve that standard. There are, alas, countless editors and publishers who do not hold their staff writers or free lance contributors to high professional values. That is bad for everyone–readers, listeners, musicians and, ultimately, newspapers, magazines and the journalism profession.
As jazz magazines go out of business and coverage budgets at general circulation publications dry up, one part of conventional journalism wisdom is that the web, specifically bloggers on the web, will take up the slack. Please don’t let it disturb you if I point out that most bloggers work for nothing more than the challenge, the thrill, the contacts or the loss-leading benefits of using their blogs as adjuncts to whatever they do for a living. It would be a mistake to count on them (us) to provide the standards and oversight that print publishers are unwilling or unable to observe and practice. In journalism as in the rest of life, generally you get what you pay for.

Asked to define jazz, Louis Armstrong replied, “If you have to ask what it is, you’ll never know.” That’s one answer. Here’s another, provided by Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Hank Jones, Rufus Reid and Mickey Roker at Gillespie’s 70th birthday concert on October, 21, 1987. The composition is Gillespie’s blues “Wheatleigh Hall.” In the preamble, Gillespie and Rollins praise one another, then Willis Conover introduces the performance. If you have full-screen capability on your computer, please do yourself a favor and use it. I have watched and listened to this four times tonight and will play it again before I turn in.

To find the 1957 Gillespie-Rollins recording of “Wheatleigh Hall,” which also has Gilespie duets with Sonny Stitt, click here.
Have a good Sunday.

(An annual Rifftides reminder)
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.–Benjamin Franklin
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.–Abraham Lincoln

Sheila Jordan has a farmhouse retreat in Upstate New York where the 80-year-old singer goes to develop new music. In The New York Times this week, Lisa A. Phillips wrote a charming story about Jordan and her country life. Here is a sample:

“When I come up here,” she said, “I feel totally undressed musically. I feel I can try out any kind of idea I have.”
On her five and a quarter acres of land atop Canady Hill, her only close neighbors have been the cows the farmer next door once kept. “I called them the bebop cows,” Ms. Jordan said. “They didn’t like ballads. If I sang them a slow tune, they left. If I sang bebop, they came running over.”

To read the whole thing, go here. Do not miss the audio slide show embedded in the article.
Here is Sheila during a Austrialian tour in a tribute to one of her heroes, Billie Holiday. Mike Nock’s trio accompanies her.

When the video clip ends, you will see links to other Jordan performances on YouTube.

If all of July is like this, I’ll be a happy cyclist. My Italian friend Vigorelli Bianchi and I did 22 morning miles. The air and light had a crystalline quality more usual In October than summer. The cherry crop looks splendid, loading the trees so heavily that in places the branches bowed low near enough to the road that I could almost have plucked the fruit as I rode by. This is the stage at which cherry growers pray for no rain.
Thinners are in the apple trees making room for the fall fruit to develop. The orchards have all the earmarks of a bumper apple crop.
Fruit workers waved and smiled as I passed, approaching motorists nodded and lifted fingers from their steering wheels in greeting, dogs barked more out of a sense of duty than intent to pursue, and not one pickup truck tried to run me into the ditch. It was one of those rides when I felt stronger at the end than the beginning. It was great out there.
I had to tell someone.

Please go to the center column and scroll down to Doug’s Picks. There, you will find recommendations for two tenor saxophonists, a pianist who sings (or a singer who plays the piano), a pianist and a poet. Yes, a poet.

Ted O’Reilly writes from Toronto about the item in the following exhibit:

Nice stuff with the DBQ. I agree with your comments about the sound quality especially. It was in the days of Professionals when that was recorded: both musicians (who knew how to play together) and technicians. “Balance Engineers” who could listen to a group play, then simply(!) put THAT sound on the air, or disc usually capturing it with three or four well-placed microphones.
I am still in awe of the hundreds of performance airchecks I have by Ellington/Basie/Herman et al. which stand up so beautifully over decades. It sure is a differently-made beast that is presented to our ears these days…

Ted’s communiqué put the Rifftides staff in mind of Roy DuNann’s imperishable engineering for Contemporary Records. To read about him, see this archives piece.

YouTube has posted a few excerpts from programs the Dave Brubeck Quartet did for BBC television in 1964. The musical and the black and white video quality are superb. In the first one, I am struck by Brubeck’s delicacy at the keyboard and by the fullness of Paul Desmond’s alto saxophone sound. The critic Steve Race was the program host.

Race interviews Brubeck leading into a feature for bassist Eugene Wright. In the discussion, Brubeck earnestness and shyness are as noteworthy as Wright’s playing. One other point: Desmond used to speak with enthusiasm about Brubeck’s skill and sensitivity as an accompanist. In “The Wright Groove,” Brubeck’s comping behind Wright’s solo is evidence of what Paul was talking about.

Up to my ears in curricular and non-curricular matters since my return from New York, I may or may not get around to writing more about last week’s Jazz Journalists Association awards afternoon. In the meantime, Arnold Jay Smith posted a lively summary on Ted Gioia’s jazz.com blog. In his lead paragraph, he alludes to the demise in the past few months of of several jazz magazines, including Jazz Times, Coda and Jazz Review.

In the face of what is fast becoming a debacle of biblical proportions for jazz, the Jazz Journalists Association held its 13th Annual Awards buffet at Jazz Standard on Tuesday, June 16. From all over the globe they came; scribes, radio and computer folks, business and professorial types, from the east, Midwest and western U.S., from across the pond, from up Scandinavia way, from down in the Caribbean, out of Africa, India, Russia and Kazakhstan. Proving once again that jazz is a multi-cultural, international language.

To read all of A.J.’s report, click here. The photo below shows Mr. Smith and Sharony Andrews preparing for the arrival of guests at the 2002 ceremony at the Jazz Standard. He was just as impeccably attired this year. His face, unfortunately, is mostly obscured by the brim of his chapeau, but his shoes are on full display.

JJA President Howard Mandel’s exhaustive report on the afternoon, generously illustrated with photographs, is in PDF form at this internet address.
Finally, as evidence that I really did show up this year, in this photo by JJA member Steve Sussman, I am announcing that the 2009 award for lifetime achievement in jazz journalism goes to Mike Zwerin (shown here on the left). Mike is most likely the only jazz writer of standing who doubles on bass trumpet and trombone. He was in the original Miles Davis-Gerry Mulligan-Gil Evans Birth of The Cool band. For decades, he has written from Paris with forthrightness, humor and the insights of a trained musician. Zwerin was unable to attend. His friend the novelist Rafi Zabor accepted for him.

Each man reads his own meaning into New York. –Meyer Berger
One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years. –Thomas Wolfe
I miss New York. I still love how people talk to you on the street – just assault you and tell you what they think of your jacket. –Madonna
I love short trips to New York; to me it is the finest three-day town on earth. –James Cameron
It is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal. Its politics are used to frighten children. Its traffic is madness. Its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it-once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no other place is good enough. –John Steinbeck