Before Chick Webb died in 1939 at the age of 30, he established himself as a model for jazz drumming and his band as a gold standard of swing that humbled even Count Basie and Benny Goodman. In addition, Webb discovered Ella Fitzgerald. He became her mentor, guardian and protector as she developed from a street kid into a great singer. “If it wasn’t for Chick, we wouldn’t have had Ella,” arranger and composer Van Alexander says in a new film bout Webb.

Webb’s importance is firmly underlined in a documentary, The Savoy King, making its world premiere this weekend at the Seattle International Film Festival. I screened an advance of the film today. It is impressive for its research and production values; even more for its sensitivity in capturing the essence of the gutsy little man who transcended poverty and physical deformity to become one of the most admired musicians of the swing era. Seventy-three years following his death, Webb’s influence on drummers continues. His band’s recordings are still thrilling.

Veteran director and producer Jeff Kaufman melds appearances by people who knew Webb, archive footage and photos from the 1930s, and music by Webb’s band and others. Van Alexander, trumpeter Joe Wilder, dancer Frankie Manning and drummers Roy Haynes and Louie Bellson are among those who discuss Webb’s impact on them and on jazz. Director Kaufman uses Bill Cosby to voice Webb’s words, Kareem Abdul-Jabar to speak Dizzy Gillespie’s, Janet Jackson as Ella Fitzgerald, Jeff Goldblum as Artie Shaw, Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts as critic Stanley Dance and actors including Tyne Daley, Andy Garcia and Danny Glover as the voices of other figures in Webb’s life and career.

This promotional clip captures some of the flavor of Harlem in the period, and the Savoy Ballroom’s crucial role in Webb’s rise to fame and in breaking New York’s segregation barrier.

The film builds emotional impact through its straightforward, if not entirely unsentimental, account of a man whose constant pain and illness could not overcome the joy he found in music and in life. The premiere is at Seattle’s Harvard Exit Theater, with showings on Saturday and Sunday. I have been unable to find out where it goes from there, but if you are lucky, The Savoy King will come to your town. For more information, see the film’s website.

Whether the mercantile strictures of 21st century television will ever again permit cultural programming of substance on the commercial networks is anybody’s guess. The field has largely been left to public television, which has met the challenge with various degrees of responsibility and effectiveness.

In the medium’s early days, serious music may not have been welcomed with open arms on the major US networks, but it did make it onto the schedules. NBC-TV’s The Subject Is Jazz ran once a week in 1958, during what more than one commentator has referred to as New York’s last golden age of jazz. The program presented prominent representatives of several jazz eras who were at work in the city. Gilbert Seldes was the host, with pianist Billy Taylor (1921-2010) as the viewer’s articulate guide through the mysteries of improvisation, orchestration and swing, among other aspects of the music. Seldes (1893-1970) was a prominent cultural critic whose books, included The 7 Lively Arts and The Public Arts. He had considerable influence on Americans’ understanding of cultural matters.

Seldes may have been a bit stiff on television, but he prepared his questions and comments with care. Taylor exhibited the same relaxation and expertise that later made him an attraction on CBS-TV’s Sunday Morning. Here they are discussing rhythm and leading into a segment that features guitarist Mundell Lowe, bassist Eddie Safranski, drummer Osie Johnson and Taylor in the rhythm section. We hear solos by trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, baritone saxophonist Tony Scott and—in a brilliant bebop chorus from his pre-Tonight Show days—trumpeter Doc Severinsen.

YouTube has several segments from The Subject Is Jazz. To view them and see Ben Webster, Lee Konitz, Bill Evans go here to make your selections.

Last night the Emil Viklický Trio appeared at the small Seattle club Lucid, following up the film screening described in yesterday’s post. Lucid has the intimacy, camaraderie and absence of a cover charge reminiscent of jazz clubs in the 1950s and ‘60s. One significant difference from those days; at Lucid, as at many clubs today, the pianist must supply his own instrument, the kind that plugs into the wall. In the first set, Viklický, bassist Clipper Anderson and drummer Don Kinney concentrated on the pianist’s compositions from his recent Sinfonieta album and others inspired by his admiration for the Czech composer Leoš Janáček.

The second set sitters-in included solo vocalist Berenika Kohoutova from Prague and three other actors from Rhythm On My Heels, the motion picture discussed in the previous exhibit. The music ranged from standards by Victor Young, Hoagy Carmichael and Sonny Rollins to “Bim-Bam,” a Czech popular song from 1941 that is a highlight of the movie. Thanks to photographer Stacey Jehlik for these shots of the festivities.

The west coast tour over, on his way home to the Czech Republic Viklický will play Monday night at Dizzy’s Club in New York City’s Lincoln Center. He, bassist George Mraz, drummer Billy Hart and the Czech singer and screen star Iva Bittová will reprise music from Mraz’s album Moravian Gems.

The central characters in the new Czech film Rhythm On My Heels are young jazz musicians and their friends. They are ensnared in a plot by the communist party’s intelligence wing to concoct a case branding them anti-communist activitsts. This powerful film is directed by Andrea Sedláčková and acted by a vibrant cast. It is based on Josef Škvoreckýs book The Tenor Saxophonist’s Story. Many in the audience for last night’s screening at Seattle’s Town Hall lived through the communist occupation of Czechoslovakia (1948-1990). The emotions of that debilitating period of the nation’s history showed in their faces as they watched the film, which was shot on location in Prague. This paragraph is from the program for a screening last week in New York.

The story takes place in Czechoslovakia in the fifties and is “a musical tragedy” about love. Main character Danny is the alter ego of Josef Skvorecky himself. Danny is passionate about beautiful girls and jazz, but at the wrong time in a country where communist regime considers this music be way too imperialistic for young people. Danny and his friends form a jazz band and try to live a normal life in a strange world, where one’s destiny is shaped by politics, secret police and undercover agents who might as well be those beautiful girls.

Screened at international film festivals, the film had showings this week in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. Pianist Emil Viklický, who composed the soundtrack, attended the screening and followed it with a concertby his trio. Six of the young actors from the film joined them to sing the title song and other music from the score. They are Vojtech Dyk, Jan Meduna, Berenika Kohoutova, Marika Soposka and Margareta Hruza. Ms. Kohutova (pictured) also sang a few standards. She has the potential to become a superior jazz vocalist.

Bassist Clipper Anderson and drummer Don Kinney rounded out the Viklický rhythm section. To read about their concert on a previous US visit by Viklický, click here. To read about his connection with Škvorecký, go here.

Wayne Jehlik, the Czech consul in Seattle, reports that efforts are afoot to arrange for US distribution of a DVD of Rhythm On My Heels. For its dramatic content, acting, Ms. Sedláčková’s directing and Viklický’s vivid music, the film is worthy of theatrical release here.

Every May 30 of the nearly seven-year history of this web log I have posted an observance of the passing of Paul Desmond. As the staff and I were puzzling over a new approach on this 35th anniversary of his death, Rifftides reader Svetlana Ilicheva wrote from Moscow with her translation of part of a Russian jazz musician and columnist’s appreciation of Desmond.

Paul Desmond is well-remembered and highly valued here in Russia by genuine jazz lovers. On the Russian portal Джаз.ру (Jazz.ru), trumpeter Alexander Fischer (pictured) in an essay titled “Melodies That Narrate” writes, among other things, about Desmond’s solo on “Tangerine” with the Dave Brubeck Quartet in Copenhagen in 1957.

“…Just Listen how Paul Desmond is doing that on his alto saxophone. You can hardly find in his solo empty notes or passages, gratuitous display of technique or special effects. It seems to me that his musical statement reflects human thought in all its diversity, versatility, flexibility, logic and the presence of nooks, ‘dark’ and ‘light’ places…”

If you know Russian, you can read Mr. Fischer’s complete column here. If you happen to have Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond at hand, you can read along with the “Tangerine” solo on pages 194-199. Pianist Bill Mays and his friend Arne DeKeijzer have transcribed all 13 choruses. In his commentary, Bill writes, “Sequential melodic development is something all improvisers employ in solos—Paul uses it beautifully and liberally throughout.”

At the risk of being obvious, allow me to encourage special attention at 4:30 to an expression of the blues heart that beats just beneath the surface of so much of Desmond’s playing.

Thinking of Desmond at this time of year, I remember what Dave Brubeck told me long ago as his family was gathering at his house for the annual Memorial Day observance of which Paul had so often been a part:

“Boy,” he said, “I sure miss Paul Desmond.”

If you’re ready for four-piano fun, see the reply to the last comment in this Rifftides post.

The photograph is of CDs that have accumulated on my office floor because shelf space is a distant memory. The little yellow things are an effort to create a sense of order, tagging sections of boxes by arrival date. It doesn’t work very well.
With notable exceptions for which I am grateful, the publicity releases inserted in the packages with CDs don’t work very well, either. The surplus of both is a problem that did not exist for reviewers in the days when there was a handful of record companies releasing a few albums a month. Big companies still exist, but now there are legions of independent operators taking advantage of the ease of digital record production. Today, a record company may be your auto mechanic or your dentist who moonlights as a trumpet player on weekends, cuts a CD with his fellow moonlighters and hires a publicist in hopes of getting reviewed. They’re out there by the hundreds. I’ve thought of writing (again) about the phenomenon, but my blogging colleague (blogeague?) Marc Myers of JazzWax beat me to the punch, so why not let him do the work? In his latest installment, Marc leads with a paragraph I might have written.

Because I review CDs each week here and contribute to the Wall Street Journal, I’m often bombarded by publicists trying to pitch me their clients’ CDs. Truth be told, 50% of these e-releases are sent to the trash unread based on their subject lines. Another 20% are trashed within seconds after opening. And another 20% are trashed because they don’t inform fast enough. Which leaves 10% that I actually read.

Marc writes about e-releases and MP3 downloads, but the glut of physical albums and publicity releases stuffed into the CD envelopes is even more difficult to deal with. There is no trash button to push to get rid of the unwanted ones. He goes on:

This post is addressed to musicians who scratch their heads and wonder why they don’t get coverage by the print or electronic media. But I warn you, what follows is tough love about the music-promotion business and the media. My hope is that publicists will pick up some pointers and be better at what they do. And that musicians will come to realize that getting the word out requires more than postage stamps and bubble envelopes.

Here’s what publicists and the media won’t tell you about people like me who review music:

I will steal only the first two of Marc’s 10 points and leave it to you to discover the rest of his post. As usual, he includes imaginative illustrations to illustrate his points.

1. I don’t care about your album. Many musicians and publicists seem to believe that offering me free music is some sort of eagerly awaited prize, like sardines to seals. The truth is I have all the new music I will ever want or need. Good publicists know that reviewers have to be seduced with a great sales pitch.


2. Don’t make me work. Asking me to download music is the kiss of death. Downloads are a pain because I have to break away from writing to download, import into iTunes, and then extract from iTunes if I don’t like what I hear. Way too much time and work. It’s much easier to trash.

For the rest, go to JazzWax.

It’s been too long around here since we’ve heard and seen Peggy Lee. Here she is with her husband Dave Barbour and his quartet in a 1950 Soundie. Soundies used to run on machines called Panorams, coin-operated juke boxes in bars, restaurants, factory break rooms, even some corner service stations. They played short films. In went your quarter and out came Count Basie, Claude Thornhill, The Sons of the Pioneers, maybe the Hoosier Hot Shots or, if you were lucky, Peggy Lee.

By the time that was made, Panorams had largely disappeared from taverns and nightclubs. For a few years in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, the more sophisticated Scopitone succeeded them. For a Scopitone memory including a brief history, a demonstration with two of its big stars and the story of Dangerous Desmond’s investment scheme, see this Rifftides archive post.

Two stalwart jazz broadcasters sent previews of their next appearances.

This week on Jazz Northwest, Jim Wilke previews new releases by several Northwest resident jazz artists including Scott Cossu, Pearl Django,and Kareem Kandi as well as sampling some of the musicians featured at next weekend’s Bellevue Jazz Festival. Included are The Clayton Brothers, Hubert Laws, Thomas Marriott and Jovino Santos Neto. There’s also info about other upcoming jazz events.

Jazz Northwest airs Sundays at 1 PM PDT on 88.5, KPLU and streamed at kplu.org. The program is also available as a podcast following the airdate.

Saxophonist, composer, bandleader and radio maven Bill Kirchner writes from New Jersey:

Last February, I did a second show on the ever-expanding art of two-piano jazz. The growing number of CDs in this idiom makes a third show essential.

This third edition will have the greatest stylistic variety: from the virtuoso stride pianos of Dick Hyman and the late Dick Wellstood (from their aptly-named 1986-87 album “Stridemonster!”) to recent post-modern explorations by Brad Mehldau and Kevin Hays, and Andy Milne and Benoit Delbecq.

The show will air this Sunday, May 27, from 11 p.m. to midnight, Eastern Daylight Time.

NOTE: If you live outside the New York City metropolitan area, WBGO also broadcasts on the Internet at www.wbgo.org.

To whet your two-piano appetite, here are Wellstood and Hyman in 1986 at the Bern International Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, a musician whose artistry erased categorical boundaries, died last week at 86. In his appreciation of Fischer-Dieskau, New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini wrote of the great baritone’s “seemingly effortless mix of vocal beauty and verbal directness.” Here is a gem-like example of what Tommasini described—Fischer-Dieskau and Sviatoslav Richter in 1978, having a great time with Franz Schubert’s “Fischerweise.”

Fischer-Dieskau was perhaps the definitive interpreter of Schubert’s lieder masterpiece “Wintereisse.” To hear and see him with pianist Alfred Brendel in all 73 minutes of “Wintereisse,” go here.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, RIP.