Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Montreux’s Claude Nobs, RIP

Claude NobsClaude Nobs, who made the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland one of the world’s premier performing arts events, died yesterday in Geneva. He was injured Christmas Eve while skiing in Caux-sur-Montreux near his home. Taken to a hospital, Nobs fell into a coma from which he never awoke. He was 76.

Nobs was born in Montreux, apprenticed as a cook, then worked in the Montreux tourism office. As tourism director, in 1967 he organized his first jazz festival. It included the newly popular Charles Lloyd Quartet with Keith Jarrett, Ron McClure and Jack DeJohnette. The festival was a success and quickly gave Montreux status among European festivals equal to George Wein’s Newport in the United States. The following year, Bill Evans brought theEvans Montreux festival added exposure through the release of At The Montreux Jazz Festival, preserving one of the pianist’s most powerful trio performances.

In addition to a panoply of jazz stars, over the years Nobs and the Montreux festival also presented pop, blues and rock performers, among them Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin, Deep Purple, Prince, Ray Charles and Frank Zappa. In 1971, he was lauded as a hero for rescuing several youngsters caught in the Montreux Casino after it caught fire during a Zappa concert.

In an interview with the Swiss video magazine NVP3d, Nobs demonstrated that his love of music went beyond presenting others.

In later years, Nobs shared directorship of the Montreux festival with Quincy Jones, who conducted Miles Davis’s 1993 revival of Davis’s collaborations with Gil Evans. Jones returns each year to present new artists. In addition to the 1968 Bill Evans recording, the dozens of albums made at the Montreux festival when it was under Nobs’ direction included Evans’ 1970 and 1991 return engagements and memorable appearances by Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and a 1977 summit meeting of players as disparate as Dexter Gordon, Woody Herman, Stan Getz, Bob James and Woody Shaw.

Viklický And Robinson Meet Again

Here is a listening tip for Rifftides readers in or near New York City.

On one of his periodic visits to the United States, the Czech pianist Emil Viklický will Viklicky & Robinsonhave a return engagement this week with the multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson. (In the photo, Robinson is on the right.) They will play on Wednesday evening at the Bohemian National Hall of the Czech Center in Manhattan. The occasion will be a program of music in memory of Josef Škvorecký (1924-2012), the writer known for Dvorák in Love, The Bass Saxophone and The Engineer of Human Souls, among other novels. Martin Wind will be on bass, the Finnish drummer Klaus Suonsaari on drums. For concert details, go here.

The center’s announcement did not say which of his dozens of horns Robinson will import from his New Jersey instrument farm. They could include anything from the sopranino saxophone to the contrabass sax, the trumpet to the tuba to the theremin. Given the Škvorecký connection, the bass saxophone would make sense. Almost certainly, he will bring the tenor sax, on which he has been doing some of his most expressive work. In this video from their Czech Center concert in a 2010 encounter, Viklický and Robinson play “Touha” (Desire) from Viklický’s 2009 album Sinfonietta.

Viklický’s involvement in a program honoring Škvorecký makes sense. The two were friends, fellow survivors of the Soviet occupation of their country. See this Rifftides archive post for the story.

At Last: New Picks

ApprovedFollowing a long dry spell, we return with new recommendations of three CDs, a DVD and a book. They cover music for a sci-fi adventure champion, the release of a legendary Gerry Mulligan concert in its entirety, the further adventures of a saxophonist who combines power with economy, a film about the ultimate road father, and the life story of a pianist who balances her famous charm and musicianship with understated toughness that has made for a long career.

For a while, you’ll see the recommendations immediately below in the main column. For much longer than that, they will be posted in the right column under Doug’s Picks. To find the item, click on the title.

Darius On Dave

Darius, DaveSince his death on December 5, the tributes to Dave Brubeck keep appearing all over the world in print, on the air and through the internet. His oldest son Darius, who was with his father at the end, sent us a link to the article he wrote at the request of South Africa’s Mail and Guardian newspaper. This excerpt touches on the social consciousness that guided Brubeck from the earliest days of his career:

I lived in South Africa from 1983 to 2005, teaching jazz at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, and my wife, Cathy, is South African, so sometimes people assume Dave must have had a South African connection too. Actually there is no ancestral or other background connection, but through us, South Africa became important to him.

The New Brubeck Quartet (Dave, Chris, Dan and I) toured South Africa in 1976, of all years, albeit before the declaration of the UN cultural boycott. Dave had been an outspoken campaigner for civil rights in the American South in the 1960s and it didn’t take long for him to see that while coming to South Africa may have been a mistake, he could also make demands that might do some good.

He insisted on a local opening act, Malombo, and hired Victor Ntoni to play acoustic bass with us. Even though we were self-contained with my brother Chris playing electric bass, this was a way to ‘integrate’ our group.

To read all of Darius Brubeck’s remembrance, go here.

In this video from the tribute to Brubeck, Sr. at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony, his sons—Darius, Chris, Danny and Matthew—surprised their dad as part of an all-star tribute. It was December 6, 2009, his 89th birthday.

Since Brubeck’s death, that clip has been seen on YouTube more than a quarter of a million times.

Toward 2013

Cascade Winter

Winding through the Cascade Mountains today on the way to the new year.

Have a happy one.

From The Archive: Ciao, Chow

This bit of Rifftides revisited is from an earlier encounter with the mortality of someone close. When I posted it, I was executor of the estate of a lifelong friend and influence, the pianist Jack Brownlow, recently profiled by Steve Cerra.
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Respite
Seattle, Washington
November 10, 2007

Preoccupied with death and its aftermath for two weeks, I decided to seek out life, so I went to Serafina.

SerafinaSerafina is not a girl friend. It’s a restaurant. Arriving at 7:15, I asked the hostess for a table for one. Her eyes sparkled with amusement, but she refrained from saying, “In your dreams.”

“Maybe by 9:30,” she said, “but if you’d like to wait for something to open up at the bar, you can eat there. Full menu.” It was like being back in New York, even unto the fashionably hip, mostly young, crowd.

The bar has maybe ten stools. They were all occupied, and there was a phalanx three deep trying to find enough elbow room to hoist their aperitifs. Fat chance, I thought, but I ordered a glass of wine and stood chatting with a woman who lives in the neighborhood. She asked what I do. I told her. She asked what I’d written lately. “Ah,” she politely responded, and asked me to spell Poodie. “I read a lot,” she said. “Mysteries. Can’t get enough of them. Lately, it’s been James Lee Burke. I knew I should have come earlier. It’s like this on Saturdays.” She disappeared into the Eastlake Avenue night.

A man yielded his stool. The heftier bartender with the grey beard waved me forward. I indicated the rest of the waiting crowd. He shrugged. We shook hands and exchanged names. He was Matthew. His colleague, tall and lean, was Matthias. “Matt and Matt,” he said. There is little more satisfying than the pleasure of watching people do what they do well and enjoying it. These guys were craftsmen. Matthew’s creation of a chocolate martini, something I can’t imagine drinking, was bartender ballet.

I ordered the Trota al Tortufo, roasted trout stuffed with artichokes and truffles finished with a black truffle-butter sauce, served with sautéed spinach. Matthias suggested an Italian white wine, Vermentino Sardegna Pala Crabilis. It was an inspired pairing. For dessert, he recommended a pumpkin something or other, but I had a double espresso and the chocolate tort, or Torta di Cioccolata e Mandorla, as such things are called when they cost a lot.

“The pastry chef shows up every afternoon and does these incredible things,” Matthew said, “then she disappears. Her name is Mei.” With Mei’s tort and the espresso, I hit my second daily double of the meal.

Serafina was beyond crowded, pulsing with life, noise and happiness. Just what I needed.

This is quite likely the only restaurant review I will ever write. Grazie, Serafina.

From The Archive

As the year winds down and we attempt to catch up after a rough patch, Rifftides is revisiting posts from the past.
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THE POWER OF MUSIC
Posted December 22, 2005

Plato

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful—Plato

Any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole state, and ought to be prohibited . . . when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the state always change with them—Aristotlearistotle3

From The Archive

Screen shot 2012-12-29 at 12.17.53 PMWhile the Rifftides staff regroups and copes with family matters, we shall revisit a few posts from the past. This one appeared almost exactly four years ago. It concerns a recording that received far less general attention that it warranted.
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December 30, 2008

THE FILM MUSIC OF RALPH RAINGER

The release of a new CD, The Film Music Of Ralph Rainger, is the occasion for my piece in today’s Wall Street Journal. Coupled with an article about the contemporary motion picture composer A.B. Rahman, it is headlined, Another Who Has Been Unjustly Forgotten and begins: 

For years, Jack Benny opened his CBS radio and television broadcasts with “Love in Bloom.” The comedian’s violin butchery of his theme song became a running coast-to-coast Sunday night gag. As a result, the piece became even more famous than Bing Crosby had made it with his hit record in 1934. Generations of listeners and viewers heard Bob Hope close his NBC shows with “Thanks for the Memory,” which he introduced in a movie, “The Big Broadcast of 1938.” The song was inseparable from Hope’s career. 

Ralph Rainger, the man who wrote those songs, was a pianist and recovering lawyer from Newark, N.J., who also composed such standards as “Easy Living,” “If I Should Lose You,” “Here Lies Love,” “Moanin’ Low,” “June in January,” “Please” and “Blue Hawaii,” most often with lyricist Leo Robin. Rainger and Robin turned out dozens of songs for Hollywood movies. They were frequently on the hit parade with Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter and the Gershwins. George Gershwin died at age 38, Rainger at 41. But while Gershwin’s fame increased after his death, Rainger’s name faded. With their beguiling melodies and challenging chord progressions, Rainger’s works are frequent vehicles for improvisation. Yet, in my experience, most musicians who play those songs respond with puzzled looks when asked who wrote them. That might have been the case with bassist Chuck Berghofer, pianist Jan Lundgren, drummer Joe La Barbera and the incomparable vocalist Sue Raney until producer Dick Bank recruited them to record the CD “The Film Music of Ralph Rainger” (Fresh Sound). 

To read the whole thing, run out and buy a copy of the Journal or click here for the online version. The article praises the CD, but it concentrates on Rainger’s successful, grotesquely terminated career. The album demands greater attention, and gets it here. 

The Chuck Berghofer Trio: Thanks For The Memory, The Film Music Of Ralph Rainger (Fresh Sound).

Producer Dick Bank swears that this is his last project. If that proves to be true, he is retiring a champion. He provides Berghofer with a classy repertoire, two superb sidemen and the first leader assignment in the bassist’s distinguished career. Berghofer gets the music underway by playing the melody of “Miss Brown to You.” The stentorian sound of his bass is beautifully captured by engineers Talley Sherwood and Bernie Grundman. La Barbera and Lundgren gently escort Berghofer into a chorus of improvisation. Lundgren follows with his first solo in a CD full of work that makes this the best recording so far by a remarkable pianist. In the Journal piece, I wrote:

…it is the first all-Rainger album since pianist Jack Fina managed to reduce Rainger’s tunes to dreary cocktail music in a 1950s LP. Mr. Lundgren, a brilliant Swedish pianist, plumbs the songs’ harmonic souls. He illuminates even the prosaic “Blue Hawaii,” which — to Rainger’s horror — became a huge hit in 1937. “It will disgrace us,” he told Robin. “It’s a cheap melody . . . a piece of c—-.” 

(In a touch of irony that Rainger must have come to appreciate, sheet music sales of “Blue Hawaii” barely exceeded 40,000, but sales of Crosby’s recording of the song skyrocketed and it was on Your Hit Parade for six weeks.) 

It is not only Lundgren’s harmonic ear and gift for chord voicings that elevate his work here, but also his unforced swing and an easy keyboard touch that puts him in a class with Jimmy Jones, Ellis Larkins, Tommy Flanagan and his countryman Bengt Hallberg. His tag ending on “Sweet is the Word for You,” with Berghofer walking him home and La Barbera nudging every fourth beat, is exhilarating. Lundgren’s wry interpolations are a significant part of the fun. They show deep familiarity with, among other sources, Lester Young, as In two quite different uses of a phrase from Young’s 1943 recording of “Sometimes I’m Happy.” 

Throughout, La Barbera reminds listeners why, from his days with Bill Evans, he has been one of the most respected drummers in jazz. His touch with brushes equates to Lundgren’s at the piano, and he employs it to construct a full-chorus solo on “Blue Hawaii” proving that a drum set can be a melody instrument.

Sue Raney is the guest artist for two of Rainger’s best-known songs, “If I Should Lose You” and “Thanks for the Memory.” They are perfectly served by the richness of her voice and interpretations. The performances are among her best on record.

With his unaccompanied “Love in Bloom,” Lundgren banishes recollections of Jack Benny’s violin clowning. He finds harmonic treasure beneath the surface of that abused melody, as he does in another solo piece, “Faithful Forever.” Hugely popular in the 1930s, those songs are less known today than many of Rainger’s others. The jaunty “Havin’ Myself a Time,” which Lundgren and Berghofer perform as a duo, is nearly forgotten, but the harmonic possibilities Lundgren finds in it show that it is worthy of revival. 

In addition to the trio music, the CD has a ten-minute final track that amounts to a little documentary. Lundgren introduces a 1937 interview with Rainger. Bank, the producer, introduces a segment of a1940 ceremony of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in which Rainger plays the piano and his partner Leo Robin sings “Love in Bloom.” The 32-page CD booklet is packed with information and photographs. If I make all of this sound like an exercise in nostalgia, do not be misled. The musical material may be standard songs from the 1930s, but Lundgren, Berghofer and La Barbera constitute one of the hippest trios of our time. This album is on my top-ten list for 2008 and will be permanently installed in my CD player for a long time.

Other Places: Wilke To The World

It seemed for a few years that jazz on the radio was doomed to isolation on niche FM stations with weak signals and short wavelengths. As rock, pop, rap and hip-hop shouldered aside the attraction of jazz for mass audiences, the music all but disappeared from AM radio.

Then, the internet made it possible for radio stations to stream their programming around the globe. Jim Wilke, whose Jazz Northwest programs we sometimes tell you about Jim Wilkein advance, is a veteran jazz broadcaster who long ago took to the air via satellite and reaches a huge international audience with Jazz After Hours. Erik Lacitis of The Seattle Times recently profiled Wilke. His story includes a little about Wilke’s modus operandi and a lot about the impact of his work on listeners in all parts of the US as well as in Tunis, Ankara and Paris, among other places. Lacitis takes us on a visit to the studio in Wilke’s house.

It is in this basement that Wilke — in a voice variously described as “butter smooth” and “sonorous” — records shows that run Friday and Saturday nights around the country on 70 radio stations, and with the Internet, throughout the world.

To read the whole thing, go here. For more about Wilke, including links to many of the stations that carry his show, visit the Jazz After Hours website.

Aftermath

Dave obit photoProfound thanks to the dozens upon dozens of Rifftides readers who sent messages and comments following the death of my brother Dave. Your words are a great comfort. Please understand my failure to respond to you individually.

In the photograph, Dave is arriving at our house for Christmas a few years ago. His obituary is in the hometown newspaper. If you care to read it, click here. Again, thank you all.