Ed Bickert will observe his 80th birthday on November 29, but some of his admirers are starting the celebration early. They will honor the guitarist, one of Canada’s foremost jazz artists, Tuesday evening, November 6, at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto. … [Read more...]

This is a busy week for birthdays of major jazz artists: On Tuesday it was Clifford Brown’s. Today belongs to two musicians who have been in the vanguard of the legion of alto saxophonists—often called Bird’s children—who were inspired in the 1940s by Charlie Parker. One of the … [Read more...]

I wanted to show you the maple tree on the west side of the house at its peak of fall glory. The question was, whose version of “Autumn Leaves” should accompany it? I considered those by Miles Davis, Eva Cassidy, Eddie Higgins, Doris Day, Cannonball Adderley, Sarah Vaughan, Nat … [Read more...]

Halloween is nearly over here in the western US, but the trick-or-treaters are still ringing doorbells in Hawaii, the Marshall Islands, Guam, the Philippines and, for all I know, Tokyo and Beijing. We plied 115 ghosts, ghouls, goblins, vampires, cowboys, ballerinas, spidermen and fairy princesses … [Read more...]

Readers familiar with Jeff Sultanof’s essays for Rifftides on Pete Rugolo and Russ Garcia know the depth of his knowledge and wisdom about arranging and composing. Professionals in many areas of music admire him for his analyses and editing of scores and for his teaching about major figures … [Read more...]

MULLIGAN AND “YARDBIRD SUITE" Part 2 By Jeff Sultanof When Jazz Lines began operation, Rob DuBoff had a meeting with Franca Mulligan and made an agreement. I contacted him about what Mulligan had said to me, and became his editor. Obviously the CJB library was a priority, but Jazz Lines … [Read more...]

If all had gone as planned, in a few hours I would be on an airplane headed east. A bunch of us who wrestled our commissions from the United States Marine Corps a few years ago were going to have a reunion at Quantico, Virginia, the scene of the struggle. Hurricane Sandy put an end to that. Along … [Read more...]

Old Pal Mike Yates mentioned in an e-mail note that he’s going to see his old pal George Amabile for the first time in 40 years. J. Michael Yates (pictured left) is one of Canada’s pre-eminent poets, radio dramatists and prison memoirists. We met in New Orleans in the 1960s and have stayed in … [Read more...]

Last month, we reported on the smoke that filled the Columbia River town of Wenatchee in eastern Washington state. During a visit, it looked like this. Rain, wind and a few high pressure systems later, the fires that blackened foothills of the Cascade Mountains and menaced towns are no longer a … [Read more...]

The Rifftides staff is making its way through a few of the CDs that have accumulated while we paid attention to some of the other matters alluded to in the subtitle of this enterprise. You will find a previous installment two posts below, where October 23, 2012, will live forever in the archive, or … [Read more...]

Rifftides readers in the UK or planning to be there next month, or those with internet capability, may be interested in this communiqué from John Gill, partner of the late composer, arranger and bandleader Graham Collier. The London Jazz Festival in conjunction with the BBC Radio Big Band … [Read more...]

Stacks and boxes of CD review copies surround me, an indication that the music is alive and well or—at any rate—an indication that lots of jazz artists are recording. That’s good. The bad news is that unless someone discovers a way of listening that is other than sequential, it is … [Read more...]

I have no intention of posting about every jazz person’s birthday. There are other sites on the web for that. I have every intention of acknowledging Dizzy Gillespie’s 95th, which is today. The video below finds him sitting in with Johnny Griffin’s quartet at Châteauvallon, France, in … [Read more...]

You may think it’s about time the Rifftides staff gave you new recommendations. So do I. Therefore, merciless taskmaster that I am, the staff has complied by finding three CDs that are quite different from one another, a DVD that has one grand jazz master sitting in with another, and a readable … [Read more...]