Harvey Pekar died this week at the age of 70. He will, inevitably, be more widely remembered for his seriously adult American Splendor comics and the movie they inspired than for his jazz criticism. As a writer about music he was—no surprise—eccentric and uneven but at his best wrote with precision and frankness about what he heard in his careful listening. Here is the conclusion of his Austin Chronicle review of the reissue of the Miles Davis Cellar Door Sessions.

Maybe Miles was thinking of himself more as the lead voice of a collectively improvising ensemble than a soloist. He plays in fits and starts, screaming, improvising complex but sloppily executed runs, not making good use of wah-wah effects. His efforts don’t hold together well. The loose group concept might be prime suspect in Davis’ cliché-filled performance, but there’s (Keith) Jarrett, member of the same group, playing so well. Jazz fans tend to think of and evaluate Davis’ fusion recordings as a whole, but actually there’s a wide variation in their quality, and that should be kept in mind when purchasing them.

To read the whole review, go here.
Pekar was infatuated with some of the least tethered free jazz. Writing about his avant garde heroes he sometimes went as far out as they did. Yet, he was capable of an open mind and an even keel, as in this observation from a review of the box set reissue that includes Ghosts, saxophonist Albert Ayler’s 1964 collaboration with Sonny Murray, Don Cherry and Gary Peacock.

Here we have characteristic and mature performances by Ayler. In evidence are his honks, above-the-normal-upper-register screams and squeals, lines played so fast they seem to be a blur of notes and a huge vibrato. His original compositions are also unique, so archaic sounding that they seem modern. The influence of both church and martial music is apparent in them.

Unlike some critics of his avant leanings who categorically rejected music of the so-called West Coast movement, Pekar learned to understand Chet Baker.

When I was exposed to jazz in the mid-Fifties, it was as a fan of robust hard bop, musicians like Sonny Rollins and Clifford Brown. The popular West Coast jazz of that time seemed to lack vigor and as a whole was less progressive. Baker was suspect because his trumpet playing was so quiet and introverted; it seemed to lack strength. But after listening to him for years I had to admit that he had a rich melodic imagination, putting his solos together smoothly and swinging gracefully. I grew to like his small, velvety tone, and eventually came to the conclusion that he was an original and admirable performer.

Readers will miss Pekar most of all for the penetrating honesty and sardonic humor of his social observations as a comics writer. They should not overlook his value as a jazz critic. Of the Pekar obituaries I have seen, by far the most comprehensive is the one by William Grimes in The New York Times.

More or less from the beginning of their association, Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond had an affinity for blues in minor keys. Three that achieved success to the point of indelible identification with them were “Balcony Rock,” first recorded in Jazz Goes To College (1954), the same theme recycled as “Audrey” for Brubeck Time (1956), and “Koto Song” from Jazz Impressions Of Japan (1964). “Koto Song” was a new entry in the quartet’s repertoire when they played it on television in Belgium in ’64. This is the group usually referred to as the classic Dave Brubeck Quartet, with Eugene Wright, bass, and Joe Morello, drums.

Next time: the final installment of this series of DBQ pieces from Belgium.

Bill Kirchner writes:

Recently, I taped my next one-hour show for the “Jazz From The Archives”
series. Presented by the Institute of Jazz Studies, the series runs every
Sunday on WBGO-FM (88.3).
Gene Lees (1928-2010) was one of jazz’s foremost essayists and biographers. And he wrote liner notes for a number of classic jazz albums: John Coltrane’s Ballads, Bill Evans’ Conversations With Myself and At The Montreux Jazz Festival, The Individualism of Gil Evans, and Getz/Gilberto, among others.
Lees also wrote memorable lyrics to music by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Bill Evans, Milton Nascimento, Lalo Schifrin, Roger Kellaway, Charles Aznavour, Manuel DeSica, and others. We’ll hear performances of some of those songs–some well-known, others obscure–by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Jackie Cain, Rita Reys, Nancy Wilson, and Lees himself.
The show will air this Sunday, July 18, from 11 p.m. to midnight, Eastern Daylight Time. If you live outside the New York City metropolitan area, WBGO also broadcasts on the Internet at www.wbgo.org.

To see Rifftides on Gene Lees, and readers’ comments, go here.

From a DBQ television appearance in Europe, we have the piece that served as the quartet’s concert opener for more than a decade. First, a couple of observations, one from me, one from Eugene Wright:
From me: Whoever decreed that white men can’t play the blues never really listened to Desmond and Brubeck personalize the idiom as they do in their solos here.
Gene’s observation is a quotation in a book about Desmond. The first part of it applies to his relationship with Morello from the beginning of their time together, when Wright joined Brubeck in early 1958.

Right away, Joe and I were as one. It was like Jo Jones and Walter Page with Count Basie. It was right from the beginning. Joe Morello and I locked up immediately. Joe’s out of New York and he had that thing–Ben Webster and all those guys loved him because he had that little extra thing you need. When musicians used to ask me how I could play with that band, I told them they weren’t listening. I told them I was the bottom, the foundation; Joe was the master of time; Dave handled the polytonality and polyrhythms; we all freed Paul to be lyrical. Everybody was listening to everybody. It was beautiful. Those people who couldn’t accept it were looking, not listening.

That was the major blues for this mini-series. Tomorrow, the minor blues.

Dr. Lonnie Smith, Spiral (Palmetto). Smith is a doctor in the same way that Captain Beefheart is a captain, but I’m willing to concede him the title because he knows how to make you feel good. Of the generation of post-bop organists who followed Jimmy Smith, he survived his near-namesake Lonnie Liston Smith, Don Patterson, Jimmy McGriff, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Shirley Scott, Jack McDuff and Jimmy Smith himself. At 68, he carries on the tradition employing the Hammond B-3 not only as a blues dynamo—although he is capable of that—but also caressing melodies, as in his title composition and an unlikely choice, the 1963 international pop hit “Sukiyaki,” which he somehow manages to divest of its corn.
Smith exemplifies his tasteful treatment of song book standards in a medium-tempo stroll through Frank Loesser’s “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” making thoughtful use of space to let the organ and the listener breathe. With Jamire Williams’s drums roiling and guitarist Jonathan Kreisbserg playing ostinato patterns, Smith makes Rodgers and Hart’s “I Didn’t Know What Time it Was” an exercise in compelling forward motion. He flirts with ¾ time in “Sweet and Lovely” without fully committing to it. The resulting rhythmic tension develops a push that energizes his and Kreisberg’s solos. “Beehive,” with its buzzing air of menace, would be perfect for the opening credits in a Stanley Kubrick movie starring Jack Nicholson. Smith takes Slide Hampton’s “Frame for the Blues” at a metronome pace of about 56 that would seem glacial if he and his sidemen didn’t invest it with powerhouse oomph and blues feeling that make it, to these ears, the album’s stealth piece de resistance.

This time, Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Gene Wright and Joe Morello play “In Your Own Sweet Way.” Because of the quality of the song, the quartet’s popularity and the Miles Davis seal of approval, by the time of this performance in 1964 it was a jazz standard. Attention, tune detectives: Brubeck’s Matt Dennis quote suggests that he might have been thinking of disbanding, but the quartet’s dissolution was five years away.

For the first part of this mini-series, see the July 10 entry below. There is more to come.

Every traveling jazz soloist knows that playing with pickup sidemen, or sidewomen, is a game of chance. There is a chance that there will be a disaster, a chance that the temporary colleagues will be adequate, and a long outside chance that something special will happen.
Thursday night at The Seasons in Yakima, Washington, Emil Viklický hit that outside chance. The Czech pianist and composer was in the Pacific Northwest for the premier of his Double Concerto for Harp, Oboe and String Orchestra at the national conference of the American Harp Society. Following the performance, he made the trip from Tacoma across the Cascade mountains to The Seasons for a trio concert in that acoustic marvel of a small nonprofit performance hall.

Pat Strosahl, the Seasons founder, engaged bassist Clipper Anderson, who drove in from Montana on his way back home to Seattle. The drummer was Don Kinney, head of the percussion section of the Yakima Symphony Orchestra and a seasoned jazz player. Kinney has distinguished himself at Seasons concerts with other visiting leaders including pianists Alan Broadbent and the Swedish star Jan Lundgren. Anderson and Kinney knew of one another’s work but had never played together. Viklický had played with neither. Viklický had e-mailed Anderson lead sheets for a few of his compositions

Because of Anderson’s late-afternoon arrival following his long drive, the three had time only for a 45-minute rehearsal. They ran through a few standards, and complex originals based directly on Moravian folk songs or on music by Czech national hero LeoÅ¡ Janáček. Janáček is one of the great classical interpreters of the Moravian musical tradition that also inspires Viklický.
At the concert, it was clear after the opening chorus of Cole Porter’s “Everything I Love” that this might turn out to be a memorable evening. It was evident not only because of the single-mindedness of the trio’s swing but also because of Viklický’s grin, which made frequent appearances. Introducing his adaptation of the folk tune “A Bird Flew Over,” he called Kinney and Anderson “my new Moravian musicians.” Several of the pieces were from Viklický’s latest trio record, Sinfonietta, with bassist George Mraz and drummer Lewis Nash. The live versions with Andersonand Kinney compared favorably. It was not just a matter of their considerable technique. The three connected, locked in, listened and reacted to one another on the same wave length. At the end of the concert, when the cheering stopped, the pianist was effusive in his compliments to his new Moravians.

In an evening of high points, the highest was the Viklický piece he tied to his delighted discovery that he was in the heart of Washington State’s celebrated wine country. He explained that “Wine, Oh Wine” grew out of his and his fellow Moravians’ love of a folk song often sung on special occasions, including weddings and funerals. It concerns the dilemma of whether to drink red or white wine. The correct Moravian answer, Viklický said, is “both.” Then, he, Anderson and Kinney celebrated that idea with a vintage performance that matched or exceeded the song’s natural exuberance. Swing doesn’t come much harder than what they achieved on “Wine, Oh Wine.” Three skilled musicians, the common language of jazz and the chemistry that developed in a chance encounter had, indeed, produced a memorable evening. Viklický’s grin migrated to every face in the house.

Unfortunately, there is no video from the Yakima concert, but here is Viklický with his Czech trio, bassist Frantisek Uhlir and drummer Laco Tropp. The tune is Ray Brown’s “Buhaina, Buhaina.”

Concert videos from out of the past continue to materialize on the internet. Recent emanations include several pieces from a 1964 appearance in Belgium by the classic Dave Brubeck Quartet. The excellent picture and sound quality and the absence of applause suggest that the performances were in a television broadcast. Over the next few days, we will bring you several of the clips, beginning with “Three to Get Ready.” It has a couple of rough edges, but with a band that had this much fun, who cares? Here is an unexpected bit of living history with Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Gene Wright and Joe Morello. Desmond’s “Auld Lang Syne” gag was still fresh enough to amuse his co-conspirators.

Joya Sherrill, the singer who died in late June at the age of 85, joined Duke Ellington and his Orchestra in 1942 following her high school graduation. One of her features through the mid-forties was the Billy Strayhorn-Rex Stewart collaboration “Kissing Bug.” The song received a good deal of radio air play and in its V-disc version became a favorite of the troops as World War Two wound down. Here is the V-disc performance, followed by a brief take on Ellington’s “Carnegie Blues.” Ben Webster’s successor in the band, Al Sears, is the tenor saxophone soloist.

Ms. Sherrill worked off and on with Ellington for most of her performing life. She was with the Benny Goodman band that toured the Soviet Union in 1962. In the 1970s, she hosted the childrens program Time For Joya on one of my alma maters, WPIX-TV in New York City.

Jazz developed in the United States, but it has long been an international music and many of its most prominent players are from other countries. The Dane Svend Asmussen is coming in for even more attention than usual lately. Attention is far from new in the career of the remarkable violinist, but when a musician is halfway through his tenth decade and still swinging, he gets extra notice. One who notices is Will Friedwald. He writes about Asmussen in today’s Wall Street Journal. Here’s the first paragraph.

“How are you doing?” That’s normally an innocuous question, except when you happen to be asking a 94-year-old violinist who is probably the oldest currently active major jazz musician in the world. “I do very well,” answers Svend Asmussen, speaking by phone from his home in a Danish fishing village outside of Copenhagen, “considering my extremely advanced age.”

To read the whole thing, go here. For a Rifftides review of two Asmussen albums, go here.