Has anyone else noticed that radio and TV weather people report or predict “warm temperatures” or “cold temperatures.” Temperatures are not warm or cold. Air is warm or cold. Temperatures are high or low, or somewhere in between. Please, weather people.

And another thing, as Andy Rooney would say: Gene Lees, refusing to submit to the PC usage “weatherpersons,” called them “weatherthings.” Boy, do I miss him.

At 82, Herb Geller is still living in Germany, still touring in Europe, with occasional—too rare—visits to his US homeland. Here he is last February in Aberdeen, Scotland, at a club called the Blue Lamp. His rhythm section is pianist Paul Kirby, bassist Martin Zenker and drummer Rick Hollander. They play Billy Strayhorn’s “Johnny Come Lately.”

What’s the reason for posting this performance? Listen.

Several days ago in the course of conducting a web search, Vicki Overfelt came across a 2008 Rifftides mini-review of a Rosa Passos album, Romance. She used the comment function to ask if anyone could help her find the object of her search. She wanted the words to “Desilusión,” a song Passos wrote with lyricist Santiago Auserón and recorded on her 2006 CD Rosa. Skeptical that other trollers might find her plea so long after the initial item, we nonetheless posted the query.

Lo and behold, yesterday Rubén González sent a message from Rosario, Argentina, with the Spanish lyrics to “Desilusión.” We thank Sr. González. To see the original review in its Recent Listening, In Brief setting and the chain of correspondence containing the lyrics, go here.

Please take advantage of the Rifftides archives. You might find something you’ve been looking for or get a surprise. You can enter a term in the box to the left of “Search” just below the artsJournalblogs logo at the top right of the page. Or you can scroll down to “Archives” in the right-hand column, choose a month—or several months—and just rummage around. There are more than six years of posts to roam in. Enjoy.

The animated digital robot spoofs springing up on the internet include several aimed at the jazz-insider culture, in particular at the hipper-than-thou talk exchanged among students of the art who may be ever so slightly over-educated and just too cool—but not too cool for words. There are plenty of words in these cartoons. One of the most inviting targets for robot satire is the school of musicians who pattern themselves on the playing and teachings of Lennie Tristano and his accolytes. If you haven’t encountered the Tristano film, it might be a good idea to watch it before you get to the video below. The cartoon comes in two parts, here and here. It’s advisable to have impressionable young children out of the room. Following the viewing, come back to Rifftides for the next exhibit.

The deadly serious, quasi-religious devotion of those who are “so lucky to be Tristanoites” is prime material for lampooning. Whether Tristano (1919-1978) would be amused, we’ll never know. But it would be unfortunate if people seduced by the cleverness of the cartoons concluded that Tristano’s music was less than important. It occurred to members of the Rifftides staff that some of the younger fans of these little films may miss the point that the subject is the Tristano cult, not Tristano. Some readers may never have heard his music. We can fix that. Here he is in solo in Copenhagen in 1965.

The concert from which that piece came is on this DVD.

If you’d like to invite Tristano into your record collection, I suggest that Intuition is a good place to start. The CD has the 1949 Capitol recordings that led composer and historian Bill Kirchner to write that they are “among the greatest in the history of recorded jazz—triumphs of conception and execution by a group of musicians who had been in close collaboration for a year.” That group included saxophonists Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh and guitarist Billy Bauer. Intuition also contains 1956 sessions with saxophonists Marsh and Ted Brown and pianist Ronnie Ball, Tristano students all.

Those cartoon robots’ ribbing of the Tristanoite disciples may be something to laugh at. Tristano’s music is something to hear.

Trummy Young and Johnny Mercer wrote “Travelin’ Light.” Billie Holiday owned it. This version with an unidentified pianist was made in Paris in 1959, the year she died. It is one of her most affecting treatments of a song that became one of her signature pieces.

For more about Billie and “Travelin’ Light,” including her original recording of the song and an unusual version by Chet Baker, visit Bruno Leicht’s new blog entry.

The logical followup to the piece below about Chris Byars’ hero Lucky Thompson is a piece by Thompson. Here’s a film from Paris in 1959 at the Blue Note. The rhythm section is Bud Powell, piano; Pierre Michelot, bass; Jimmy Gourley, guitar; Kenny Clarke, drums. The compostion is Dizzy Gillespie’s and Charlie Parker’s “Anthropology.” The video clip ends before the tune does, but this is a rare opportunity to see the great tenor saxophonist in action with a band of his peers.

Make that two pieces by Thompson. This is from a 1957 French television broadcast. The song is “I’ll Remember April.” Michelot and Clarke are again in the rhythm section. This time the pianist is Martial Solal. Thompson’s ingenious exploitation of the chords is an example of the harmonic inventiveness that won him the admiration of musicians from the 1940s to this day.

Chris Byars, Lucky Strikes Again (Steeplechase).
This album by a gifted saxophonist, composer and arranger has several things to recommend it.

It presents 10 pieces written and arranged by Lucky Thompson (1924-2005), a saxophonist whose brilliance and originality as a player and writer failed to make him as well known as equally gifted contemporaries like Miles Davis, Stan Getz and Milt Jackson. Byars painstakingly transcribed most of the arrangements from recordings of a 1961 Thompson concert broadcast in Germany. Others, he arranged based on Thompson quartet records. Pieces like “Old Reliable,” “Could I Meet You Later?” “Another Whirl” and other discoveries are substantial additions to known compositions by Thompson.

Byars’ arrangements for an octet cast the tunes in the not-small, not-big format that offers tonal colors impossible in a quartet or quintet, with flexibility and subtlety difficult to achieve with the weight of a standard 15- or 16-piece big band. His sidemen include some of New York’s finest club and studio jazz musicians. Among them are trumpeter Scott Wendholt, alto saxophonist Zaid Nasser and trombonist John Mosca. Byars’ own playing evidences affection for Thompson’s, without indulgence in slavish imitation. His treatment of “Just One More Chance,” a major Thompson recording, is impressive.

The music reflects lessons Thompson learned from his contemporary Tadd Dameron, an arranger whose work was a pervasive influence in jazz from the late forties to the mid-sixties and has never lost its freshness. As Mark Gardner points out in his interesting album notes, Dameron’s example helped form Quincy Jones, Gigi Gryce, Benny Golson and Oscar Pettiford. With this work, Byars can claim a place in that line. He deserves credit for reminding listeners, by way of this stimulating collection, of Lucky Thompson’s importance.

Shortly after Thompson’s death six years ago, Rifftides posted a summary of Thompson’s career and a guide to some of his recordings. To see it, click here.

Tony Emmerson’s blog Prague Jazz has come out of hibernation after several months of dormancy. It was, and presumably again will be, a prime source of information about music in one of eastern Europe’s great centers of culture. The main re-entry item is an interview with saxophonist Julian Nicholas, like Emmerson a native of the UK who has developed strong ties to the Czech Republic. The interview is capped with video of Nicholas in performance with the Emil Viklický Trio. The quirky cinematography is presumably by way of Viklický’s unmanned camera perched on his piano. The sound quality is good. To read the interview and see the performance, go here.

A friend just pointed out that this is the birthday of Joe Henderson (1937-2001). The Rifftides time clock says that I’m punched out for the holiday, but to post a remembrance of Joe I’m sneaking past the security guards and putting up this remarkable performance of a piece associated nearly as closely with Henderson as with the man who wrote it, Kenny Dorham. The initial recording of “Blue Bossa” was in 1963 with Dorham on Page One, Henderson’s debut as a leader. It was one of a remarkable series of Blue Note albums they made together. Perhaps it is not out of the question to imagine that during this 1994 performance in Munich, Henderson was thinking of his old pal. He is the only soloist, soaring on the support he gets from bassist George Mraz, drummer Al Foster and pianist Bheki Mseluku and ending with a quixotic coda—two of them, in fact.

Here’s a cheery version of Irving Berlin’s classic holiday song. It’s by Jimmie Lunceford’s band, recorded in 1939. The vocal and exuberant trombone solo are by Trummy Young. Have patience, please. It takes the Garrard disc jockey a while to get it cued up, giving you nearly 15 seconds to read the record label.

Happy Easter.