News from the publisher: less than two weeks off the press, Poodie James has gone into a second printing. Many thanks to Rifftides readers who have helped to make that possible. As an excerpt from the novel posted on Rifftides makes clear, Poodie is deaf and mostly mute. After she read that passage, … [Read more...]

A message from Sue Mingus, widow of Charles: I believe it was in Rifftides that someone recently quoted one of Charles Mingus's sons talking about his father telling him to jump off a shed and then not catching him. That was an old joke I heard about 50 years ago in Paris-- not very funny-- about a … [Read more...]

Several major jazz bassists - including Oscar Pettiford, Ray Brown, Sam Jones, and Percy Heath - also played the cello. Ron Carter doubles on cello. For the most part, Carter employs it as a midget replica of his main instrument, soloing by plucking the strings, as did his predecessors. Indeed, … [Read more...]

Two of the leading pianists in modern jazz are now man and wife. Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes were married last week. For details go to this New York Times story. The Rifftides staff offers hearty congratulations. … [Read more...]

Announcing the publication of Poodie James the other day, I included an excerpt from the only episode in the novel in which Poodie reacts to music. To read it, go here and you will see that the music, at a dance, is "Caldonia," played by Woody Herman's band. After it became a hit in 1945, Herman … [Read more...]

Mr. JazzWax, aka Marc Myers, tracked down the venerable baritone saxophonist Danny Bank, one of the few Charlie Parker sidemen still with us, to talk about Bird. Among Bank's anecdotes: "One morning, sometime in 1951, I think, I took out one of the Sonatas for Woodwind by Hindemith and used it to … [Read more...]

For a long time, the Doug's Books section on the right side of your screen ended with: His next book is a novel that has nothing to do with music. The section now begins (bells, whistles, horns, raucous whoops and shouts, please): Doug's most recent book is Poodie James, a novel published in … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Wade Nelson of River Forest, Illinois, writes: After reading a piece about George Russell, I hauled out a 1957 LP by Hal McKusick called Jazz Workshop that I hadn't listened to in many years. Arrangements by Russell, Giuffre, Evans, Mandel, Albam and Cohn. Very fine music. I … [Read more...]

The Rifftides staff directs your attention to the right-hand column and the exhibit entitled Doug's Picks. All the picks are new. We invite your comments, as always. … [Read more...]

Labor Day Weekend's Detroit International Jazz Festival is looming, and Mark Stryker of the Detroit Free Press is profiling some of its headliners. In today's column, pianist Herbie Hancock tells Stryker about his early experience with Miles Davis. "After a couple of months of trying to play what I … [Read more...]

The Rifftides piece about Charles Mingus brought a response from pianist and composer Jill McManus in New York. Jill McManus I knew Mingus! I was introduced to him one night when I took my mother, in from England, to the old Half Note in the '70s. I seem to remember it was pouring. We were waiting … [Read more...]

Here's a video clip of an unlikely collaboration, complete with a little refresher course in jazz history. … [Read more...]

The Chicago pianist and self-described bon vivant Jeremy Kahn writes: I was lucky enough to have crossed paths with Max Roach on a couple of different occasions: Once was for a workshop of an Amiri Baraka play about Bumpy Johnson, the black gangster in the twenties. It was performed by NYU … [Read more...]