Rifftides readers replied in droves to our request for news about what you are listening to these days. Here is the final installment, which provides further evidence of the impressively wide range of your tastes and predilections in music.

Larry Hollis, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
To One So Sweet Stay That Way: Hank Mobley In Holland (Nederlands Jazz Archief). From the Treasures of Dutch Jazz Series comes this more-than- welcome edition of a 1968 visit to the Continent from the underappreciated tenor man. A triad of concerts is heard: Three tunes (“Summertime”/”Sonny’s Tune/Airegin”) from the Theatre Bellevue in Amsterdam on March 20th and five numbers at Jazzclub B-14 in Rotterdam on March 29. Sandwiched between them is a pair of titles (“I Didn’t Know What Time It Was”/”Twenty-Four And More”) of a rare appearance of Mobley with the Hobby Orkest Big Band. These were taped at the VARA studio in Hilversum on 28th of March. Acceptable sound, neat graphics and astute annotation in a thick cover booklet make this a prized addition to the Uptown label’s 2-fer of Newark 1953 regarding Mobley’s live archive.

Stan Jones, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
I’ve been listening to some new, quite varied, female vocalist releases. Diana Krall’s newest release, Turn Up the Quiet, is older standards-based instead of the new standards on her previous Wallflower. I felt that Wallflower had too much David Foster—never my favourite—but Tommy LiPuma did Quiet (maybe his last album) and his hand is less intrusive. The backing groups are worth listening to in their own right (Anthony Wilson, in particular, has in my view made every Krall album he is on better). Eliane Elias has a few standards mixed in with the Brazilian tracks on her Dance of Time; most of them are new to me, but most enjoyable, and it’s always nice to listen to musicians seldom heard in North America. The third vocalist is much different. Lucia Cadotsch is backed by two free improv musicians on , and her interpretation of standards is anything but standard, but I find I’m returning to it a lot, mostly for that reason.

Rob Dewar, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
1. Bobby Womack, The Womack Live on Stateside/Capitol. A great singer guitarist over the years in American Soul music. Innovative singer who was also a great writer and guitarist. The triple threat.
2. Zoot Sims. Quietly There: Zoot Sims Plays Johnny Mandel on JVC XRCD / Warner Bros. This CD has been killing me for weeks. It makes me happy, it makes me sad and near tears. Zoot has a way of opening up my emotions. Hard to believe, given the strength of his playing on this wonderful recording, that he died only a year later.
3. Weather Report. on Legacy/Columbia The first eponymously titled LP and this: The Legendary Live Tapes, 1978-1981 on Legacy/Columbia. Much better than I remembered. I think they were better earlier rather than later, but a great working band.
4. Brubeck and Desmond, Desmond and Brubeck. Just about everything.
5. Hampton Hawes w/Charlie Haden. As Long As There’s Music. I’ve always loved Hawes and I think Haden did as well. It shows on this recording. Someone on this list talked about this one and I’m in his or her debt!
6. Smokey Smothers Sings the Back Porch Blues, a  reissue of a classic (OK in nerdy blues scholar circles it’s a classic) session on King Records in Cincy…reissued by Ace Records in the UK. The great Freddie King on second guitar. It’s the stuff you might have heard on Maxwell St. in Chicago back in the day. Wonderful.
7. Billie Holiday. The Columbia box set. Her phrasing is to die for. I borrowed the box from a friend and I don’t want to give it back. Will have to buy it. They say there’s a lot of inferior material she was forced to record on this set but…man o man…she can make it ALL sound like prime material from the pen of Gershwin.
(Thanks to Doug for this indispensable blog)

Michael C Baughan OD, Elizabeth City, North Carolina,USA Thanks all but what’s this? A competitive expose’ on how eccentric or avant garde one’s tastes can be? My choices? “Shuffle” on my iPod full of numerous categories of music. As Dylan would say: “It’s all good!”

Fred Augerman, Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada
Clarke-Boland Big Band: Three Latin Adventures.
Stan Kenton: Adventures In Blues.
Erroll Garner: The Complete Concert By The Sea.
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass: Sounds Like.

Don Conner, New Hampshire, USA
I’m currently listening to to segments of a huge CD and LP collection. For new sides, I’ve got Bill Charlap’s latest called Notes From New York, which I highly recommend. Also two CDs from vocalist Catherine Russell whom I really like, with New York sidemen, some of whom I’m familiar with.The arrangements are tight and enlighten Ms. Russell’s superb versatility. I’m also featuring unsung players from the past who for various reasons were unsung, such as trumpeters Don Joseph and Tony Fruscella.

Tony Burrell, II, Frederick, Maryland, USA
At Home: Lately, I have been listening a lot to Claire Daly’s 2648 West Grand Boulevard: Jazz Interpretations Of Classic Motown 45s, which has some rather interesting takes of these classic soul songs. Claire – who has always been one of my favorite baritonistas – really rips up “Cloud Nine”, “Ooo Baby Baby (!)” and turns “Ain’t That Peculiar” into an intense up tempo swing waltz. Aided by Steve Hudson on piano, Mary Ann McSweeney on bass, Peter Grant on drums and Jerome Harris on Guitar, they have reworked these songs into a really rather unexpected imaginative treatment of these tunes. Strunkin’ by Leigh Pilzer and Open Heart by Céline Bonacina are on my to listen-to-again list as well. Also At Home: ABC Jazz [Australian Broadcast Corporation , which was discovered on a trip to Down Under back in 2011 and have been listening to it ever since. Jazz 24 hours a day. Jessica Nicholas and Mel Stanley are two of the on-air hosts that have live shows that are rebroadcast several days later. Of course the times on the web site are Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) which is 10 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

In the car: Lately, since the bluetooth audio system grabs whatever is on my iPhone, I have been listening to Yuhan Su’s A Room of One’s Own, which showcases her four-mallet vibes playing. So, still getting kind of familiar with some of her songs although “ValedÄ«cere I” and “Amulet” have rather attractive themes and developments. Ms. Su, on vibraphone, is nicely supported by Matt Holman: trumpet, flugelhorn; Kenji Herbert: guitar Petros Klampanis: acoustic bass and Nathan Ellman-Bell: drums.

When I really have time: YouTube videos of Steely Dan, whose horn section has included such stellar musicians such as Michael Leonhart- trumpet; Jim Pugh- trombone; Walt Weiskopf, alto and tenor sax; and Cornelius Bumpus, tenorsax, who was later replaced by Roger Rosenberg on bari sax along with Carolyn Leonhart-Escoffery as another of the backing vocalists. It was pretty well known that Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have a lot of jazz roots which could be seen by their using Ray Bryant’s “Cubano Chant” and Dee Barton’s “Turtle Talk” as the opening introductory songs played by the band before Becker and Fagen walked on the stage.

And briefly, without links, because the Rifftides staff has done yeoman linking work for days and is on the verge of mutiny:

Dan Holm, Cedar Falls Iowa, USA
The Heads of State, Search For Peace; Steve Nelson, Brothers Under The Sun; Mosaic Records Classic Savoy Be-Bop Sessions 1945-49.

Art Klempner, no location given
Last night on the turntable: Randy Weston, Little Niles: Teddy Edwards, Good Gravy; Horace Silver, Finger Poppin’; Elmo Hope Trio; Frank Rehak, Road to Jazzville, vol.4; Al Cohn, Cohn, Kamuka, Perkins. Pop, click and hiss, always!

Author: Art Manchester, Newport, Rhode Island Area, USA
I’ve been listening to many recordings either on my car CD player, or on my ipod. One memorable recording is Chance Encounter by A. G. N. Z. (Jay Azzolina, guitar; Dino Gavoni, tenor sax; Adam Nussbaum, drums; Dave Zino,bass). Excellent original tunes and great playing by all. Also, I keep coming back to Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra’s last : Time/Life. Just fine ensemble playing (Carla Bley charts) and impassioned solos. Last, a classic that I just discovered, Johnny Hartman’s I Just Dropped By To Say Hello, especially the title cut with Hartman’s beautiful baritone and Hank Jones’s bluesy, soulful piano work. Looking forward to the Newport Jazz Festival.

Des Stanley, Capetown, South Africa
After getting hooked at the age of 7 (Benny Goodman Quartet’s recording of “Moonglow”), Ihave spent my life persuing the greatest art form ever. Thankfully, at 75 my hearing has not deserted me, soI continue to explore the myriad of jazz genres available. My most recent standout CDs:
Hands On: Warren Bernhardt, piano, and the great Marc Johnson on bass. Manu Katche, Neighbourhood, with Tomasz Stanko. Erroll Garner, Ready Take One. This is very special, as most Garner albums have been badly recorded.

Frank Roelliger, Rochester, Minnesota, USA
Some of the Dave Brubeck studio sessions in the 1950s for Columbia produced alternate takes which were not released for decades. On Dave Digs Disney I’ve always especially liked “When You Wish Upon A Star.” In recent years a “Legacy” version of this recording appeared, which contains another version of this tune that is almost as good as the original and at least makes for very interesting comparisons. I’ve been listening to them recently and both can be found on YouTube.

Charlton Price, Bainbridge Island, Washington, USA
My habits haven’t changed for years. My LPs and DVDs are inoperative right now, soo I’m into these heroes of mine on You Trube and in iTunes downloaded to my hard drive: Al & Zoot, Ellington and Basie of the 50s-70, Richie Kamuca and other West Coasters, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Band, late Brookmeyer, especially in Europe with his own compositions and arrangements, and Toots Thielemans from the mid 1940s on. Constant nourishment!

Tom Ball, Midland, Michigan, USA
Been listening to many Blue Note 2-fers over the past few weeks—those tan covers from BN: Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Jackie McLean, et al. Also re-discovering James Clay, Double Dose of Soul. Great flute and Sax playing.

Maryanne de Prophetis, no location provided
I have gotten to know a wonderful Danish singer/composer, Helle Henning, and am listening to her recording Lyden af ensomhed. The personnel are: Helle Henning, voice/composition/text; Nicolai Hess, piano’ Jay Andersen, bass; Marc Momaass, saxophone: Gregory Hutchinson, drums. Produced by Nicolai Hess. Helle’s writing and singing sounds like no one else. It is soulful, groovin’ and direct. Her band speaks for itself.

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That concludes this round of Readers’ Choices. Many thanks to all who responded. If your communiqué did not appear, please accept our apologies. At tonight’s staff meeting, we agreed that we may do this again in a few years—say around 2025.

Saxophonist and bandleader Dave Pell, a prominent figure in the west coast jazz of the 1950s and ’60s, died on May 8. He was 92. Pell recorded extensively with his octet and the tribute group Prez Conference. Over the years the collective members of those bands included Art Pepper, Red Mitchell, Harry Edison, Mel Lewis, Benny Carter, John Williams and other leading musicians of the day. Pell’s devotion to his hero Lester Young extended to the rescue of Young’s instrument. Here’s that story from the Rifftides archive.

The following article appeared in the Fall, 2008, issue of the British magazine Jazz Review.

Lester Young drew on Louis Armstrong, Frank Trumbauer, Bix Beiderbecke and his own genius to create one of the most personal styles in music. In the 1930s he provided an evolutionary step between Armstrong and Charlie Parker. Flying weightlessly over bar lines, Young helped to free the jazz soloist from the arbitrary restrictions of time divisions and showed the way to the rhythmic and harmonic foundations of bebop. He became a hero of forward-looking musicians of several decades. Billie Holiday, his friend and musical alter-ego, called him the president of tenor saxophonists. His nickname became Prez.

More than seventy years after his first recordings with Count Basie, Young’s buoyancy, harmonic subtlety, flexibility with rhythm and distinctive tonal qualities keep his playing alive and fresh. Time has been less kind to one of the tenor saxophones that Prez used to make his music. In the course of his career, his main horn was the Conn he played with Basie. His second was a tenor presented to him in the 1950s in France by the Dolnet company, which had made reed instruments since 1888. He played it in the few years before he died.

The Conn is enshrined in the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, side by side with Billie Holiday’s artificial gardenia and a certificate of authenticity signed by Young.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

This Conn saxophone, number 444,4444, is the saxophone I used with the Count Basie band in 1936 and later. With this horn I recorded “Twelfth St. Rag,” “Song of the Islands,” “Lester Leaps In,” and “One O’Clock Jump”–among other numbers.

Young’s Dolnet tenor sax fared less well. Following his lonely death at forty-nine in 1959 from the effects of alcoholism, the horn went to his younger brother Lee, successful in Los Angeles as a drummer, studio musician and music director for Nat King Cole. Lee Young consigned the horn to his basement, where it remained until after he died on July 31, 2008, at the age of ninety-one.

Among Lee Young’s friends in the L.A. music community was Dave Pell, one of a legion of tenor players idolizing Lester and patterning their playing on his. Like Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Frank Wess, Al Cohn, Brew Moore, Alan Eager, Paul Quinichette and dozens of other tenor players, Pell emulated Lester’s tone, harmonic approach and melodic concept in improvisation. In the early 1950s he formed the Dave Pell Octet, recruiting as sidemen fellow members of Les Brown’s popular dance band. The Brown band had jazz leanings that Pell expanded in the octet. As west coast jazz was on the rise, Pell’s group blazed no trails but recorded a substantial series of albums with excellent playing by the Brown troops, including superb solo work by the trumpeter Don Fagerquist and plenty of solos by Pell. Other Los Angeles musicians who appeared on the octet’s albums over the decade included Art Pepper, Jack Sheldon, Bob Gordon, André Previn, Pepper Adams, Mel Lewis and Bob Enevoldsen. Shorty Rogers Bill Holman and Jerry Fielding contributed to the band’s book.

Through the 1960s and ’70s, Pell worked as a musician in the Hollywood studios and as a producer who oversaw the recording of more than 400 albums. In 1978, his love for Lester Young resurfaced in the form of a band devoted to his hero’s music. He called it Prez Conference, after a piece that Holman had written for the Stan Kenton band. The group recorded two albums for GNP Records. One featured Joe Williams singing songs that Young recorded. Pell, two other tenors and a baritone saxophonist played classic Prez solos on the pieces, orchestrated by Holman for the four horns.The other long-playing record had the same approach, without Williams but with trumpet solos by Young’s Basie band mate Harry “Sweets” Edison. The albums sold well. The band appeared at the 1979 Monterey Jazz Festival and played on a package tour of Japan with the Modern Jazz Quartet and the Hi-Los. Fifteen tracks from the two albums are reissued on a GNP CD, Prez And Joe.

Pell’s friend and golfing buddy Lee Young followed Prez Conference’s progress, attended its performances in the L.A. area and occasionally sat in for its drummer, Frank Capp. Pell, now eighty-three, recalled, “We had a regular golf game with Lee, his son Junior, and a bass player we found named Ray Brown, who was a golf nut, too. We’d play a foursome every Friday morning. I couldn’t play as well as these guys, but I’d go along just to hear the Lester Young stories. Lee would always say, ‘You know, I’d love to give you the horn.’ I’d say, ‘Well, give it to me.’ And he’d say, ‘I can’t. Lester’s children want the horn. They want to put it in a museum’

“When Lee died, Lee, Jr., called me and said, ‘Come and get the horn.’ Lee willed it to me, but when I die it goes back to the Young family. They’re okay with that. They know it should be played. And I’m going to learn to play it, no matter how badly it behaves.”

That presented a challenge. When Pell got the horn, he was shocked at what more than a half-century of basement damp had done to it.
“It had fifty-six years of rust,” he said. “I took the thing home, and I said, ‘Gee, maybe I can play the mouthpiece.’ The mouthpiece plays just sensational. Just perfect. It sounds like Prez,” he laughed.

Pell took the Dolnet to Steve Smith, a saxophone technician at United Band Instrument Company in Los Angeles, hoping to have it back in time to play it at a Prez Conference revival concert at the San Jose Jazz Festival in August (of 2008).

“Steve looked at me and said, ‘You won’t get this back for two or three months.’ The rust on the horn itself comes off easy. You just dip it in solvent and all the rust disappears. But where the screws go in the sockets, it’s another matter. When I called him after one week and said, ‘How’s it going?’ he said, ‘I’ve done six screws.’ So, it’s really going to be a project.”
Pell used Lester’s mouthpiece at the San Jose Festival. “All the saxophone players there came over and asked if they could touch it,” he said with a smile. For the occasion, Prez Conference included its original drummer, Frank Capp; the young Los Angeles pianist John Proulx; bassist John Shifflet; and three northern California saxophonists, Kris Strom and Matt Kesner on tenor and Aaron Lington on baritone. They played the Holman arrangements, with coloratura soprano Bonnie Bowden on some pieces doubling the lead parts an octave higher. Pell says that he, the band and the audience were delighted with the success of the concert.

The rebirth of Lester Young’s horn has inspired a new phase in the career of his octogenarian disciple. When Prez’s Dolnet tenor is back in commission, Pell plans to record it in a new CD with the reconstituted Prez Conference and take the band on the road.

(Only the photo of Lester Young’s Conn tenor saxophone appeared in the Jazz Review article.)

Before we reluctantly let Dave Pell go, let’s hear his Prez Conference harmonize one of Young’s most influential recordings with the Count Basie band.

The staff is still sorting through the profusion of responses to our query about what music Rifftides readers are putting on their CD players and turntables these days. You are an eclectic bunch, witness this batch of responses.

Peter Straub, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Miles Davis Quintet LIVE in Europe 1967 presents the second great quintet of Davis, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams playing music of great intelligence, spontaneity, and sophistication as they make their way from Antwerp to Copenhagen to Paris.

Roger Brenes, San Diego, California, USA
My musical tastes are somewhat eclectic, with a strong leaning toward jazz between the 1920s thru the mid 1960s. Having lived in San Diego all my life, I was exposed to West Coast jazz in the 1950s and it is still one of my preferred styles. From that genre some of my favorite artists are Mulligan, Pepper, early Konitz, Baker, Sims, Shank, Rogers, and Desmond. At home I listen to music from my collection of vinyl and cds. Elsewhere it’s KSDS-FM, San Diego’s 24/7 jazz station.

Dave Bernard, Waltham, Massachusetts, USA
Have been paying a lot of attention to brass and wind quintets. My interest pretty much started with the compositions of Alec Wilder. There are so many interesting CDs in that genre, such as Chicago Moves by the Gaudete Brass on the Cedille label.

Peter-Cornell Richter, Freiburg, Germany
Ellington Uptown is always anywhere on my table. It reminds me of long-gone nights when I listened to the unique voice of Willis Conover. I am just listening to Gil Evans’ Tokyo Concert from 1976. Alongside my Epson printer (I am a Photographer) there are CDs from Erroll Garner (Ready Take One), Rhoda Scott (Paris-New York) and Buddy Rich (Mercy Mercy). But most of all I like Thelonious Monk. Living on the other side of the earth, I enjoy Rifftides. Many thanks!

Ken Wilson, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Tomeka Reid, Tomeka Reid Quartet
Dave Douglas, Brazen Heart Live at the Jazz Standard
Murray, Allen & Carrington Power Trio, both the record and this great video from Winter Jazzfest 2015.

Don Nelles, Somewhere In The USA
For years I have been listening to a bootlegged tape of a Dave Brubeck Quartet concert recorded in the late 50s. I am still hoping to get permission from someone, anyone, to allow me to put together a CD that can be marketed under the title Jazz goes to Gonzaga. Given the hoops success of the school, the CD is sure to be a best seller.

Peter Sanger, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Carol and I are currently listening on our home system to CDs by Scott Hamilton with the Jeff Hamilton Trio, Mimi Fox, Ken Peplowski, and The Berlin Philharmonic playing Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe; in the car, Terry Gibbs Dream Band. There is always music in our lives one way or another. It’s great to read your posts daily, and the Desmond bio.

Responses to the 2017 survey of what our readers around the world are listening to are piling into Rifftides world headquarters at a breathtaking rate. The staff complain that trying to put internet links to all the submissions, is all but taking their breath. The mangement says, “Tough, think of all the overtime hours.” They say, “Overtime pay would be better.” Well, the original idea was to provide the readers with links to all of the recordings mentioned. We may have to lighten up on that plan in order to fend off a rebellion of the sleepless peons. “Links?” they say in their terrible attempt at an Alfonso Bedoya accent, “We don’t need no stinking links.” Management is taking their complaints under advisement. In the meantime, with links galore, here are four more reports from Rifftides readers who do a lot of listening.

John Fielding, Canberra, New South Wales, Australia
Catching up on my historicals. Recently bought Hoagy Carmichael (Key cuts 1924-46) and Johnny Mercer, The Man from Georgia. Both interesting but not, I think, essential. However, Sarah Vaughan’s Jazz Sides from Verve and associated labels is an absolute all time classic. Acquired after many years: the CD of the Oscar Peterson Canadiana Suite (replacing ancient worn vinyl), and discovered with great joy Oliver Jones, an Oscar-type Canadian pianist. Also, New Zealander—now New Yorker—Alan Broadbent. So, I’m focusing on piano at present. But I still listen whenever possible to the Mosaic Eddie Condon and any Sidney Bechet that comes my way. And, always, Bill Evans. So, classic jazz of a sort is alive and well in Australia,  at least where I reside. I know that these people, except young Broadbent, are mostly deceased. But then, I’m getting on myself.

Michael Stephans, The Poconos, Pennsylvania, USA. All over the space/time continuum:
Michael Formanek & Ensemble Kolossus, The Distance (ECM)
Ornette Coleman, Sound Grammar (Harmolodic)
Stan Getz-Bob Brookmeyer, Recorded Fall 1961 (Verve)
Bob Brookmeyer, 7 X Wilder (Verve
Willie Nelson, God’s Problem Child (Legacy)
John Abercrombie, 39 Steps (ECM)
Benny Goodman, The 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert (Columbia Legacy)

Michael Harris, Easton, Connecticut, USA
Scriabin’s Etudes for piano, particularly those of Opus 8 and Opus 42, as played by Sviatoslav Richter.

Pat Goodhope, University of Delaware Public Radio, 91.3 FM, WVUD.org
Dave Pell, Jazz For Dancing and Listening (Fresh Sound)
Ten late 1930’s Woody Herman Decca 78’s recently acquired on E-Bay
Joe Castro, Lush Life, A Musical Journey (Sunnyside)
Ernestine Anderson Four Classic Albums (AVID Jazz)
The Hot Club Of San Francisco, John, Paul, George & Django (Hot Club Records)
The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions of Ike Quebec (Mosaic)
2Cellos Score (Sony Masterworks)
The Beatles/1962-1966 (The Red Album) (EMI Records)
Stuff Smith, Late Woman Blues (Storyville)
Mandy Patinkin Sings Sondheim (Nonesuch)
Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring – Hear Ye! Hear Ye! (Naxos)
Frank Sinatra, In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning (Capitol Records)
Ferit Odman, Dameronia With Strings (Equinox Music And Entertainment)
Eddie Condon & Bud Freeman, Complete Commodore and Decca Sessions (Mosaic)
Classic 1936-1947 Count Basie & Lester Young Studio Sessions (Mosaic)

Watch this space. We will all take a deep breath and soon post more readers’ listening choices.

Once in a while, all of my New Orleans years come rushing back and fill me with music I haven’t thought about in ages. Tonight, it was the muscular alto saxophone of Captain John Handy. The son of a bandleader, he was born in Mississippi in 1900. Handy taught himself clarinet and in his middle teens was in New Orleans playing with trumpeter Punch Miller. After he switched to alto sax in the late 1920s, he developed a big sound with enough vibrato to be interesting but not annoying. Through the 1930s he worked with his bassist brother Sylvester in the Louisiana Shakers and before his death in 1971 had played with Kid Howard, Jim Robinson, Lee Collins, the Young Tuxedo Brass Band, the Preservation Hall Band, Kid Clayton, Kid Sheik Colar and dozens of other New Orleans stalwarts. In their book New Orleans Jazz: A Family Album, Doc Souchon and Al Rose described Handy as, “A rock and roll-type musician limited to the blues,” a mystifyingly wrong-headed evaluation. Here’s Handy with the New Orleans classic “While We Danced At The Mardi Gras,” with nary a hint of rock and roll.

At the Portland Jazz Festival earlier this year, photographer Mark Sheldon captured a splendid image of drummer Billy Hart in action. There was no opportunity to use the picture in our Rifftides coverage of the PDX Festival, but Mr. Sheldon has granted us the right to show it to you now.

Assuming that you wish to not only see Billy Hart but also hear him, we have him in action during a 2011 visit to Denmark. This is an opportunity to enjoy Hart enjoying his work in the company of tenor saxophonist Niels Vincentz, guitarist Uffe Steen and bassist Klaus Nørgaard. They play Sonny Rollins’s “Tenor Madness.”

To follow yesterday’s recommendation, here is Charlie Haden with his Quartet West and his composition “First Song.” The pianist is Alan Broadbent, the tenor saxophonist Gary Foster, the drummer Larance Marable, the bassist—of course—Haden.

Phelan Burgoyne Trio, Quiet Unquiet (Pumpkin Records)

Drummer Burgoyne’s trio may seem now and then to be floating toward somnolence, but the tidal urgencies and complexities of his drumming are unlikely to encourage napping. The ingenuity and intellectual rigor of guitarist Rob Luft and alto saxophonist Martin Speake are equally responsible for keeping the listener’s attention. Burgoyne and Luft were Speake’s students at London’s Royal Academy of Music. Now the professor is a sideman in his former student’s little band, which is increasingly prominent in British music. Moderate sonic manipulation occasionally enhances the music, as in “Midnight Train to Malmö.” If you are not aware of the digital molding, it seems natural—and isn’t that the idea? Luft and Speake achieve keening intensity on “Purple Z.” Burgoyne fashions a cymbal-fest before the piece slowly subsides into a thoughtful echo. The first third of “Green T” is an exercise in reflection for Luft’s guitar and Burgoyne’s cymbals before Speake soars, then darts, in a solo whose passion takes his alto well into the altissimo range. The eight pieces in the album, all composed by Burgoyne, include two short tracks titled “Quiet Unquiet I” and Quiet Unquiet II” that demonstrate the melodic quality of his solo technique. The musicality and appeal of this little band seem likely to keep bringing them attention.

In a demonstration of their stylistic flexibility, here is the Burgoyne trio at the Royal Academy in 2015 with the 20th century Vienesse composer Alban Berg’s “Schliesse Mir Die Augen Beide.”

Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) would have turned 100 years old today. She often affected audiences the way she was affecting Dizzy Gillespie when Bill Gottlieb took this celebrated photo.

It is impossible to find the perfect performance by which to remember Ella, there were so many. Let’s settle (ha) for this one. She played well with others.

This spring, the magnolia tree at the edge of the yard is in full bloom. I was determined to show you an image of just one of its magnificent blossoms. Then the challenge—this being primarily a jazz blog—became finding a piece of music that would be a suitable companion, something to listen to as we enjoy the blossom. After searching through the record collection, then online, I concluded that the rock and roll and warmed-over Dixieland I found would not do. Then, up popped a duo called, of all things, Magnolia. They are vocalist Anne Hartkamp and guitarist Phillipp van Endert. They are based in Cologne, Germany. Here they are with “Footprints,” a Wayne Shorter composition that for forty years has been one of the most performed of all Shorter pieces. It’s a good idea to have your hand near the volume control. You may find the sound a bit low in spots.

Cuong Vu 4TET, Ballet (Rare Noise)

Trumpeter Vu and three fellow Seattle adventurers explore pieces by Michael Gibbs. It was guitarist Bill Frisell’s idea to bring the British composer to the University of Washington last year for concerts of his orchestral music as well as sets by Vu’s quartet with Frisell, bassist Luke Bergman and drummer Ted Poor. In a news release, Vu is quoted as saying that their aim was, “…our individual aesthetics coming together and trying to find a common goal/language.” The language is post-bebop bordering on free jazz. Recorded at the concerts, the 4TET—with exhilaration and a sense of risk—apply their unique idiom to five Gibbs compositions. “Ballet” begins as a series of collective abstractions and soon assumes a waltz feeling. Vu’s dazzling state-of-the-trumpet-art solo leads to him and Frisell ending with Gibbs’s eccentric melody appearing in the piece for the first time.

“Feelings And Things,” an abstract ballad, is primarily an occasion for Vu to bring his lyricism to the fore and let one of Gibbs’s most attractive melodies speak for itself. Ted Poor introduces “Blue Comedy” in a short, incisive solo charged with hi-hat licks and Roy Haynes pops. As Vu and Frisell introduce the tricky melody, the trumpet’s first few notes  echo. Whether that is intentional is impossible to know, but it’s an intriguing effect. Frisell invests his solo with quirky asides and what sound like country licks. Rhythmic intensity builds under the impetus of Vu’s gnarly solo. Far from getting in the way, Poor ‘s drum chatter under Bergman’s bass solo enhances it.

“And On The Third Day” is an exercise in drama and emotional density. Vu rasps, growls and echoes before settling into what could be taken, briefly, for a resonant Esbjörn Svensson excursion in Nordic placidity. Soon enough, however, he is fluttering, swooping, playing extended growls and, in general, giving a lesson in 21st Century jazz trumpet fluency. In his solo, Frisell uses amplifier distortion and alternates power chords with decisive downward strokes. As the track eases toward its close after 12 minutes of heat, the lower register of Frisell’s guitar guides us to a peaceful conclusion. This track has remarkable power. To absorb it, the listener may want to take the trip at least twice.

“Sweet Rain,” probably Gibbs’s best-known piece, opens with Vu’s trumpet as mellifluous as a cello—in distinct contrast with the raucousness of his work in “And On The Third Day.” The lyricism of Frisell’s solo has soft, but hardly timid, support from Poor’s brushes. This is Vu’s and Frisell’s first album together since 2005’s It’s Mostly Residual. Twelve years is too long between collaborations by musicians who are so stimulating together.

“Four” is one of the best-known jazz tunes attributed to Miles Davis. He may actually have written it, although a substantial number of musicians maintain that the composer was the alto saxophonist and blues singer Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson. It is all but certain that Vinson also wrote “Tune Up,” another modern jazz standard for which Davis took credit. Regardless of authorship, “Four” quickly became a jazz standard following its first recording by Davis on his 1954 Prestige album Blue Haze. It has been performed countless times since.

During a visit to Copenhagen in 1968, Sonny Rollins tackled “Four” with a rhythm section of Kenny Drew, piano; Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, bass; and Albert “Tootie” Heath, drums. Rollins sets the scene with an unaccompanied introduction in which he does not quote every song he ever heard. It only seems that way.

Classic Savoy BeBop Sessions 1945-49

Just a quick run-through of the names involved in this ten- CD set might be enough to whet the curiosity of the uninitiated and the appetites of devotees of the music that changed jazz in the 1940s. A few of them: Bud Powell, Allen Eager, Milt Jackson, Fats Navarro, James Moody, Tadd Dameron, George Wallington. Not to mention Art Blakey, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Stitt, J.J. Johnson and Brew Moore. Mosaic Records has assembled and remastered dozens of performances from the period when Savoy Records was at the top of the bebop heap. The tracks include master takes and alternates brought up to high sonic standards. This is a major box-set event, even in the light of Mosaic’s enviable track record.