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

Bengt Hallberg, honored as one of the finest pianists in modern jazz, died today in Uppsala, Sweden, of congestive heart failure. He was 80 years old. Hallberg’s keyboard touch and harmonic inventiveness came to the attention of musicians and listeners outside his native Sweden on Stan Getz’s 1951 recording of the traditional song “Ack Värmeland du sköna,” released in the US as “Dear Old Stockholm.” He made a further impression internationally with his playing on Quincy Jones arrangements for Clifford Brown, Art Farmer and a group of Swedish all-stars in a 1953 recording. Hearing a tune from that album in a 1955 Leonard Feather Blindfold Test when Hallberg was still little known, Miles Davis said:

The piano player gasses me – I don’t know his name. I’ve been trying to find out his name. He’s from Sweden. . . . I think he made those records with Stan, like “Dear Old Stockholm.” I never heard anybody play in a high register like that. So clean, and he swings and plays his own things…”

Jan Lundgren, inspired by Hallberg and considered by many his successor as Sweden’s leading jazz artist, said today:

“Hearing his Hallberg’s Surprise record when I was a young teenager made such a deep impression on me. He is one of the reasons I play jazz. His playing, at his best, was in a class matched by few others. Bengt Hallberg was the most humble man you’re likely to ever meet with a talent unsurpassed. Teddy Wilson is said to have stated that there were two musicians in Europe on a level with the very best Americans—Django Reinhardt and Bengt Hallberg.”

Hallberg and Lundgren appeared together in a two-piano concert at last year’s Ystad Jazz Festival in southern Sweden. For a Rifftides review of that concert, go here.

Through the 1950s and ‘60s, Hallberg was closely associated with Arne Domnérus, Lars Gullin and other leading Swedish musicians. Formed in the 1980s, Trio Con Tromba‘s recordings with Hallberg, trumpeter Jan Allan and bassist Georg Riedel remain popular. Hallberg composed extensively, writing for jazz groups as well as string quartets and ballet companies. He remained active in music until shortly before his death. Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

Here is Hallberg with Stan Getz in the recording that established the pianist as a major soloist when he was 19 years old.

Another pianist, primarily noted for his impeccable accompaniment of singers but who was also a soloist of wide ranging abilities, died today. Paul Smith was 91. He was probably best known for his work with Ella Fitzgerald. He also played for Mel Tormé, Sarah Vaughan and Doris Day, among others. Early in his career, he worked with Ozzie Nelson, Les Paul and Tommy Dorsey. For a quarter of a century, he was the music director for Steve Allen’s television program. With his 1954 album Liquid Sounds, Smith crossed markets, achieving success with both jazz and easy-listening audiences. As a leader, he recorded dozens of albums.

Singer Lyn Stanley, a friend who studied with Smith and whom he accompanied, told Don Heckman of The Los Angeles Times, “Paul was a perfectionist and worked every day to improve his art. When you worked with him, he expected the same of you.” To read Heckman’s obituary of Smith, go here.

Here is Smith playing for his family on his 90th birthday, April 17, 2012.

The National Endowment for the Arts today announced the class of 2014 NEA Jazz Masters to be inducted early next year. Here are the Endowment’s profiles.

JAMEY AEBERSOLD*
Educator, Saxophonist, Pianist, Bassist, Banjo player
Born in and currently resides in New Albany, Indiana

* Jamey Aebersold is the recipient of the 2014 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy, which is bestowed upon an individual who has contributed significantly to the appreciation, knowledge, and advancement of the art form of jazz.

“Jamey Aebersold has made enormous contributions to the jazz world through his tireless efforts as a performer, educator, and publisher,” said 2000 NEA Jazz Master David Baker (pictured to Aebersold’s right) who is also on the faculty of the Summer Jazz Workshops, directed by Aebersold. “As the creator of the innovative and groundbreaking Jamey Aebersold Jazz Play-A-Long recordings series, as the longtime director of the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshops, as an exceptional clinician and performer, and as the publisher of an extensive catalogue of jazz materials, Jamey has revolutionized the way people practice, teach, create, and perform their music. Jamey has carried his message that ‘anyone can improvise’ and that ‘creativity is part of the nature of every person’ throughout the world to great success, impacting generations of both aspiring and established jazz performers and teachers.”

ANTHONY BRAXTON
Composer, Saxophonist, Clarinetist, Flutist, Pianist, Educator
Born in Chicago, Illinois. Currently resides in Middletown, Connecticut

Anthony Braxton’s compositions almost defy categorization through his use of the improvised and rhythmic nature of jazz but moving it in a more avant-garde direction, such as in his Ghost Trance Music compositions.
Jason Moran, jazz pianist, composer, and artistic advisor for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, noted, “Anthony Braxton’s expansive catalog has always been an inspiration. [He is] a beautiful artist in every sense of the word: performer, composer, educator, co-conspirator. Braxton is a supreme improviser and composer who searches with sounds.”

RICHARD DAVIS
Bassist, Educator
Born in Chicago, Illinois. Currently resides in Madison, Wisconsin

One of the premier jazz bassists in history, Richard Davis is widely recorded, not only in jazz settings but also in the pop, rock, and classical genres. Bassist and composer Linda Oh commented, “Richard Davis, with his wide palette of skill sets, has been an inspiration for me and many bassists. To me, he shows strength and versatility within his musicianship—a versatility that seems to not compromise integrity and individuality, something many bassists can only dream to achieve.” In addition to his prowess on bass, Davis is a noted educator, having been a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1977.

KEITH JARRETT
Pianist, Composer
Born in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Currently resides in Oxford, New Jersey

Keith Jarrett’s talent for playing both abstractly and lyrically, sometimes during the same musical work, continues to astound and delight audiences around the world. His ability to work in both the jazz and classical fields as performer and composer demonstrate the breadth of his creativity. 2012 NEA Jazz Master Charlie Haden, who has performed and recorded alongside Jarrett, commented, “Along with Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett is perhaps the most influential pianist in the history of improvised music because of his mastery of the instrument, his creativity and deep harmonic knowledge. His playing transcends category.”

The NEA will again partner with Jazz at Lincoln Center to produce an awards ceremony and concert in honor of the 2014 NEA Jazz Masters, that will be webcast live on Monday, Monday, January 13, 2014 on arts.gov and jalc.org/live. A limited number of free tickets will be available for the public. More information about the awards ceremony and concert and how to obtain tickets will be released this fall.

The latest edition of Steve Cerra’s Jazz Profiles features an extensive illustrated history of Supersax. The group of saxophone virtuosos dedicated themselves to performing transcriptions of intricate Charlie Parker solos. In addition, band members played top-grade improvisations of their own. Steve’s post has an interview of Supersax founder Med Flory by Marc Myers of Jazz Wax. A live concert video of “A Night in Tunisia” includes not only brilliant reed section work but also let-out solos by baritone saxophonist Jack Nimitz and trumpeter Conte Candoli. To go to Jazz Profiles, click here.

As of today, of Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond begins its new existence as an ebook. The hardcover edition has sold out. Used copies are going for as much as $150 on book and auction sites, but new hardbound copies are history. The electronic transformation is good news on several counts:

The book will continue to be available. For now, it is on Kindle. Publisher Malcolm Harris of Parkside Publications tells me that he plans to have it up on Apple and Barnes & Noble within a week or so.

The ebook edition has all of the features of the hardbound, including the nearly 200 photographs, the chapter notes, the solo transcriptions, the discography, the extensive index and Dave and Iola Brubeck’s foreword.

The ebook edition is easily portable. The most frequent complaint about the five-pound, 10-and-a-half-by-11-inch original was, “How am I supposed to read this thing on an airplane?” Now you can, after the pilot says it’s okay to fire up your Kindle, iPad, Nook or Sony Reader.

 The ebook sells for less than a third of the list price of the original hardcover edition.

Among other honors, Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond won an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award and the Jazz Journalists Association Book of the Year Award. Here are a few of its plaudits:

Scrupulously researched and written with an attractive combination of affection and candor, it casts a bright light on Desmond’s troubled psyche without devaluing his considerable achievements as an artist. “Any of the great composers of melodies—Mozart, Schubert, Gershwin—would have been gratified to have written what Desmond created spontaneously,” Mr. Ramsey says. Strong words, but Take Five makes them stick. —Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal

The telling is lyrical, funny, nostalgic, provocative, and allusive — just like a Paul Desmond solo.”
 —Gary Giddins, author of Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of its Second Century

Doug Ramsey, the saxophonist’s friend for 20 years before Desmond’s death in 1977, constructs the full person as well as digging out much more of his writing than was known. A major piece of jazz scholarship, the book cuts no corners. —Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

Every jazz musician should be lucky enough to get a biography as thoroughly researched as Doug Ramsey’s new tome about alto saxophonist Paul Desmond. —Paul de Barros, The Seattle Times

When I learned that Doug Ramsey was writing a biography of Paul Desmond, I was pleased and relieved, because I can think of no one better qualified to do so. Ramsey has the distinct advantage of being a musician, someone who understands how a jazz musician thinks and how amazing Paul’s talent really was…
 —Dave Brubeck (from the Foreword to Take Five)

Doug Ramsey’s Take Five is an invaluable addition to jazz literature—by an especially enduring writer on the music. I knew Paul Desmond, but I found so much more I did not know. —Nat Hentoff, author of American Music Is

The detail of the research is astonishing. The writing is exquisite. I’ve never seen a biography like it.
—Gene Lees, author of Portrait of Johnny: The Life of John Herndon Mercer, 
and publisher of The Jazzletter

Doug Ramsey has illuminated Paul Desmond’s life and music with insight and compassion, gleaned from diligent research and genuine friendship, and offered with the touch of a true storyteller. This is the finest biography we’ve had of an important jazz figure. —Dan Morgenstern, Director, Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies;
 author, Living with Jazz

This is a fascinating portrait of a remarkable artist who turns out to have been not at all easy to know. It is a rare and valuable book largely because Doug Ramsey (who began with the advantage of having known Desmond about as well as anyone ever did) has approached his subject with skill, sensitivity and — above all — the ability to thoroughly involve himself in the project. When Ramsey lets us share his conversations with people who played important roles in Paul’s life, it is as if we were there with them, not just reading, but listening and learning. 
 —Orrin Keepnews, veteran music producer and author, 
founder of Riverside and Milestone Records

To order the Kindle edition, please go here.

The extensive response to yesterday’s post about Oliver Groenewald’s tentet and the phenomenon of medium sized bands in jazz precludes individual replies to the comments. Thanks to everyone who wrote. There will be more on the subject. To see the comments, go to the next exhibit down the page.

Five years ago, I started what I intended to be a series of Rifftides pieces about little big bands. This was the rationale:

Six to eleven pieces allow arrangers freedom that the conventions and sheer size of sixteen-piece bands tend to limit. Medium-sized groups have been important since the beginnings of jazz.

For reasons I don’t remember—sloth, possibly—the series stopped after this installment and this one. A new ten-piece band has reignited the idea.

The tentet’s leader is Oliver Groenewald, a trumpeter, composer and arranger educated at Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany. Groenewald studied trumpet with Art Farmer in Austria and Willie Thomas in the US, composition and arranging in the US with Chuck Israels. He has written extensively for World Brass, Canadian Brass and other ensembles. He now lives on Orcas Island in Puget Sound near Seattle. He is rehearsing a band of Pacific Northwest stalwarts that includes stars of the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra. Here, they run through Groenewald’s arrangement of “You Don’t Know What Love Is.” Brad Allison has the flugelhorn lead. Jay Thomas is the alto saxophone soloist. The video closes with names of all the players.

There was a sort of followup to the Medium But Well Done venture. To see it, go here. If you would like more on the topic, let me know, and we’ll put the slothful Rifftides staff to work on it. To send an email message, click on the word “Contact” in the blue band at the top of the page, or submit a comment using the “Speak Your Mind” box at the end of the post.

Just for fun, here’s World Brass with a witty Groenewald arrangement of “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” of all things. Let’s hear it for the drummer.