By way of his invaluable blog, Terry Teachout has news of the indispensable Shirley Horn. It is not good. Shirley needs cheering up. Please go here for details. … [Read more...]

The Encyclopedia of Jazz, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz and Ira Gitler's books on bebop spell the name of a famous Charlie Parker-Dizzy Gillespie bassist as Curly Russell. But Jack Tracy informs me that when he was editor of Down Beat, Russell told him that he preferred Curley (his given name was … [Read more...]

Saturday night, following my lecture as jazz scholar-in-residence, I attended the final concert by the students of the Brubeck Institute’s 2005 Summer Colony. The Institute staff invited prominent jazz musicians to select the seventeen colonists by compact disc audition from among the best … [Read more...]

Well, the book signing at Barnes and Noble in Stockton went fine. We moved a few copies of Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond and I signed a batch of shelf copies on which Kathleen Anderson, the store’s lively, intelligent events manager, slapped “Autographed Copy” … [Read more...]

Here in hot Stockton, California (more than a month of daytime temperatures in the nineties or higher, with no relief), the young musicians of the Brubeck Institute’s Summer Colony are learning to be better improvisers. I’ll hear some of them for the first time this afternoon when one of their … [Read more...]

Devra Hall, aka DevraDoWrite, was Joe Williams’s publicist and close friend. She responded to yesterday’s post. The Joe and Ben story is a great one, and Joel Dorn's account is quite accurate, but I would quibble with one phrase. Joel writes, "But blizzard or not, enough people showed up so … [Read more...]

I have had one day at home and in the office following my adventures—Marine and otherwise—on the east coast. This morning, I am flying to Stockton, California. Stockton is the site of the University of the Pacific, home of the Brubeck Institute. I’ll speak at the institute’s Summer Colony … [Read more...]

You may have heard about the new (yes, new) Joe Williams CD. There has been a lot of talk about it. No wonder. In the winter of 1964, Williams had an engagement with a magnificent rhythm section at Pio's a club in Providence, Rhode Island. The weather was so bad that Williams, pianist Junior Mance, … [Read more...]

A Rifftides reader responds to the posting about Annapolis. Weems Creek: I lived in Annapolis from 1969-1986, with a brief 2-year return to NYC in the late 70s (Memo to self: Thomas Wolfe was right). Managed a record store some of those years on West Street, and still have many friends there, … [Read more...]

Regarding my rave review of the Marine Corps Band the other night, if you haven't heard Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" for a while and don't have it in your collection, here is a free refresher course. It's a Real Player download of the entire three-and-a-half minute piece by an unidentified … [Read more...]

This afternoon during my Annapolis sojourn, I recorded an hour with John Tegler for his Capitol Conversations show. If you stay up late Friday night, you can hear it on Baltimore's WCBM, 680 AM. The air time is Saturday morning, August 13, at 12:05 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time...five minutes after … [Read more...]

This afternoon I will be signing copies of Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond at Hard Bean Coffee and Book Sellers in Annapolis. The signing will follow the taping of a 2 PM interview with John Tegler for his Capitol Conversations radio program. Both things will happen at Hard … [Read more...]

Most people alive are too young to have heard Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker when they were establishing bebop. Most, indeed, were not born. Observers have attempted to describe the excitement of hearing Gillespie and Parker together for the first time, but words cannot convey the abstract … [Read more...]

As I write this, I'm having difficulty keeping my eyes off the scene out the window to the left of my friend's computer. I am spending a few days with a cherished colleague from my TV news days. He and his wife live on Weems Creek, a tributary of the Severn River in Annapolis, Maryland. Every house … [Read more...]

Our reuniting Marines spent yesterday cruising the Potomac, visiting the Korean War, Viet Nam, World War Two and Franklin Delano Roosevelt monuments, then the Washington Navy Yard for a long lunch. One of our 150 guys failed to make it back to the bus following the monuments tour, causing a good … [Read more...]

More than a hundred men who were commissioned Marine Corps second lieutenants together a long time ago are gathered at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia. We visited the Officer Candidate School on the banks of the Potomac where we spent twelve weeks convincing the Corps that we were good enough … [Read more...]

When the Four Freshmen were winning 1950s Down Beat polls as the top vocal group and their recordings were ubiquitous on radios and juke boxes, I was more impressed by their contemporaries, the Hi-Los. The Hi-Los’ mix of voices was richer and more varied, their arrangements more harmonically … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Martin Fritter writes, I've just discovered Benny Carter's alto playing, which seems of absolutely the highest caliber. Could you recommend some basic discs? With pleasure. This is the best assignment I’ve had in weeks. I envy anyone’s hearing Carter for the first time. He’s … [Read more...]

Jim Brown writes about a couple of points with which he takes issue in a recent Rifftides piece, Harmony And History. First, I take great pleasure in sitting in a Starbucks or other small restaurant and hearing QUALITY music in the background (or even the foreground). It appears that Starbucks did a … [Read more...]