The question comes up every now and then. Here’s the answer from a posting in the early days of Rifftides, July 12, 2005.
Name That Blog
Now that you ask, the name Rifftides was inspired by a 1945 Coleman Hawkins piece, “Rifftide.” The tune was part of the celebrated 1945 Hollywood Stampede session that included trumpeter Howard McGhee, one of the bebop kiddies Hawk nurtured. Thelonious Monk had played with Hawkins the year before. Monk later recorded the tune and called it “Hackensack” Either way, it’s based on the harmonic structure of “Oh, Lady Be Good,” but copyright law doesn’t cover chord changes, and George Gershwin’s estate earned no royalties. Nor can titles be copyrighted, so I stole Hawkins’s and pluralized it.

The Rifftides staff is still on vacation but headed north and expecting to reach Rifftides World Headquarters sometime early next week. Today’s drive was up the California coast on the chain of hairpin curves known as US 1, mere inches from sheer drops into the ocean on one side and the possibility of crushing avalanches on the other. It was beautiful.

When Concord Music acquired the Fantasy, Inc. complex of labels a few years ago, the deal stirred apprehension that records preserving a wide swath of jazz history would disappear into the recording industry black hole known as Out Of Print. Concord took over the Fantasy, Prestige, Riverside, Contemporary and Pablo catalogues. More than three years later, as record companies struggle against the tide of the digital revolution or try to learn to navigate in it, listeners are still concerned that classic albums will sink out of sight. One of those listeners is Rifftides reader Andrew Dowd, who wrote:

Do you know why the owners of Fantasy Records (Ralph Kaffel??) sold out to Concord a few years back? As a lifelong jazz CD and LP collector, I was saddened to see that Fantasy sold.. Fantasy was one of the last jazz labels to keep a large and full catalog; they never discontinued anything. However, over the past couple years Concord has decimated the Fantasy catalog. The Riverside catalog has been almost completely wiped out – save for the classic releases by the major legends (Sonny Rollins, Monk, Wes Montgomery, etc). I think it’s a crying shame that Concord has discontinued most of the CDs by the lesser-known artists who recorded for Riverside. The Contemporary catalog was also greatly reduced in size. The Prestige catalog has fared much better, happily. I realize that opinions like mine are nothing new in the jazz world, but perhaps you might have the time and inclination to comment.

I asked Nick Phillips, the Concord vice president for jazz and catalog A&R (artists and repertoire) to respond to Mr. Dowd. His answer addresses not just the Concord-Fantasy question, but also the practicalities raising challenges to the entire recorded music business as it has been practiced for a century.

I can’t speak for Ralph Kaffel and Saul Zaentz as to why they sold Fantasy. But, I can hazard a guess that Ralph–who was running the Fantasy operation and was of “retirement age”–simply decided to retire and enjoy life free from the day-to-day stresses of running a record company.
Regarding certain releases in the catalog no longer being available in physical CD form, I have a couple of comments:
The record business in general has changed drastically since the time that Fantasy was acquired by Concord. Remember Tower Records? Gone. The retail stores that remain continue to reduce the number of CD titles that they carry. So, out of necessity not choice, the distribution and delivery method continues to lean more and more toward the digital arena (and not physical CD) these days, as there are fewer and fewer retail stores stocking CDs, especially the deep jazz catalog titles. And there are additional costs to continuing to keep an album available in the physical CD format (manufacturing minimum reorder quantity and cost, warehousing costs, shipping costs, returns from retailers, etc.)
Most titles in our catalog that were/are available on CD are available for digital download (via emusic.com, for example). So, we don’t consider titles that are at least available for digital download–and available for any and all that care to hear them–to be “out of print.”

For a related story from the Rifftides archive, click here

The current subject in Steve Cerra’s Jazz Profiles blog is Jack Tracy, a former editor of Down Beat magazine and producer of important records during a yeasty period of Chicago’s jazz history. His anecdotes about encounters with musicians include disclosure of an aspect of Dizzy Gillespie’s personality that is rarely emphasized. To read it, go here and scroll down to “Jimmy Yancey Memorial.” The piece includes a rare photograph reinforcing an essential point in Tracy’s story — that before he helped evolve bebop, Gillespie developed in an older tradition and never lost his respect for it.

To read a Rifftides post with other remembrance of Dizzy, click here.

Being on holiday, as our British friends say, does not preclude a minor post from the road. The first leg of our trip south ended with a drive through the mountains of southern Oregon between Klamath Falls and Ashland. As we negotiated the hills and curves of Oregon Route 66 up and down Mount Parker, we had sunshine, hail, snow and wind, separately and all at once. The accompanying picture was made in less interesting weather. Around every bend was a spectacle, cliffs hanging over us, deep valleys in cloud and sunshine below us.
Ashland is famous for its Shakespeare Festival. In our family, it is equally famous for Chateaulin, one of the best French restaurants outside of France. As our dinner was winding down, we heard wafting in from an adjacent dining room a tenor saxophone accompanied by bass and piano. The tune was “Sweet Lorraine.” Inquiry disclosed that the players, all Ashlanders, play at Chateaulin every Tuesday evening. The tenor player is Fritz Hunnicutt, the pianist Ben Gault, the bassist Michael Barth – no relation to Benny of The Mastersounds. They played standards, with no one overreaching or underachieving. Simple, as Red Mitchell reminded us, isn’t easy. Before we had to move on, a 17-year-old singer named Calysta Rupert-Anderson did a couple of songs. She was fine, too. Jazz is where you find it, even in a small town (albeit a very hip small town) in the Siskiyou Mountains.

The Rifftides staff is on vacation through the end of April. Blogging will be sporadic, if at all, inspired by the immediacy and spontaneity of events, if any.
We do not rule out the possibility of reports from the road.

Mike Harris is the Bill Evans devotee who surreptitiously recorded the Evans trio performances that comprise the music in the eight-disc boxed set Bill Evans: The Secret Sessions. Mr. Harris is a classically trained pianist who, long before he became addicted to Evans, learned to play the works of Sergei Rachmaninoff. In this article for Rifftides, he discloses that Evans, too, was a Rachmaninoff fan.

(coupled on the DVD with Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto, recorded some years later) together with superb recordings of the Tchaikovsky and Grieg concertos in particular (which are available, along with the Beethoven Emperor and Brahms Second, on separate discs in this series), reveal the young pianist at the very peak of his powers. His use of rhythmic and dynamic accents, along with his rather remarkable hand-mechanics, are but two of the treats awaiting pianists and others who avail themselves of the opportunity to view these live concerts. God bless whoever was behind the retrieval and release of these important historical and musical documents.
The pianist is accompanied on all these discs (other than the solo ones, one of which includes an unforgettable rendition of the original version of the Second Piano Sonata of Rachmaninoff) by the great Russian conductor Kirill Kondrashin, whose orchestral support is perfectly attuned and balanced to the pianists’s conception.
One of the interesting stories surrounding this performance of the Third Concerto has it that Sviatoslav Richter (who along with Emil Gilels was serving as a judge for this competition) became so irate at the low scores that he observed his fellow judges awarding Cliburn’s efforts in the early competition (after all, this First International show was intended to display to the world the Soviet Union’s cultural superiority), that he began awarding all Mr. Cliburn’s performances a 10, while awarding all the Soviet pianists scores of zero.
The story goes on to relate how two of the greatest pianists in history, Gilels and Richter, had to go to Premier Khruschev (who by the way is shown, along with Mikoyan, applauding at the end of the video) for permission to give the first-place award to the young American, to which Mr. Khruschev is said to have replied, “If he is the best, then give it to him.” You can buy that version or not, but the end result was certainly as it should have been.
At any rate, political shenanigans aside, the execution of this enormous work (to which I confess a certain affinity, having wrestled with it’s humongous difficulties and sublime beauties for several of the best years of my life) is utterly remarkable. While the 50-year old video-quality could be better, the audio is quite good and neither detracts one whit from the experience.
I am reminded of a statement by the Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman to the effect that: “One doesn’t LEARN a Rachmaninoff concerto, one LIVES it!” And amen to that.
All DVD’s in the VAI series are available on Amazon; the Rachmaninoff Concerto DVD, in particular, can be found here

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The Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings (Fantasy). The first CD of the set reissues Fantasy’s The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album from 1975 and Improv’s Together Again from 1976. It also has two previously unissued songs from the Together Again sessions, “Who Can I Turn To” and a rollicking run through Cole Porter’s “Dream Dancing” In which Bennett blends into the end of Evans’ solo as if the singer were an extension of the piano. Bennett’s delighted laughter at the end of the take symbolizes the rapport between the two. Oddly, in his excellent booklet notes Will Friedwald barely mentions the track.
The second disc contains 20 alternate takes from Together Again and five from The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album. There is nothing in these alternates to suggest that the wrong takes were selected for the original releases, but they are by no means failed attempts. In the case of “You Don’t Know What Love Is,” the two alternates give dramatic evidence of Billie Holiday’s influence on Bennett. Throughout, the alternates provide insights into the variety of Evans’s inexhaustible melodic creativity. Bennett and Evans together are an art song equivalent of Dieter Fischer-Dieskau’s and Gerald Moore’s artistry with German lieder, but we have the added element of Evans’ genius at improvisation.
Daryl Sherman, New O’leans (Audiophile). Hurricane Katrina’s assault on the Crescent City inspired Sherman to record this collection of songs, but it goes beyond the post-disaster blues to touch on many of the aspects that endear New Orleans to the world. Harold Arlen’s “Ill Wind” was an obvious choice. Louis Armstrong’s “Red Cap,” Irving Berlin’s “Shaking the Blues Away,” Henry Mancini’s “Moon River” and Dave Frishberg’s “Eloise” may seem unexpected companions in a New Orleans tribute until you hear how Sherman and her colleagues use them to evoke the city. Rhodes Spedale’s “S’Mardi Gras” needs no enhancement in that regard; it is a tour of Fat Tuesday locations and emotions. Guitarist James Chirillo and trumpeter Connie Jones are Sherman’s best-known sidemen. Reed man Tom Fischer and bassist Al Bernard, misidentified as “Menard,” are in the same league. Sherman plays piano on this drummerless date. The infectious good cheer in her voice will make you grin, except when she makes your eyes moist with “Mr Bojangles” and “Wendell’s Cat.”
Joe Sardaro, Protégé (Catch My Drift). The current short supply of effective male singers with jazz leanings makes the release of a new recording by Sardaro a welcome event. The market is not saturated with his albums. His last one, Lost in the Stars, was a 1986 LP with a combo headed by Shelly Manne. It has never been reissued on CD. The Boston-area Winiker Brothers Quintet accompanying him on the new CD is less widely known but excellent. Sardaro employs his light baritone to pleasant effect in a set of 16 well-chosen songs, some of them rarely performed. I haven’t heard anyone do Charles La Vere’s “Mis’ry and the Blues” since Jack Teagarden’s 1961 recording. It’s interesting to hear it in the company of songs by, among others, Jobim, Kern, Ellington and McCartney. Sardaro is touching in his revival of the Arthur Schwartz-Dorothy Fields rarity “Alone Too Long.” As I wrote in a review of his 1986 album, in the absence of a spectacular vocal instrument, Sardaro uses taste, swing, diction and lyric interpretation. The CD’s title recognizes Sardaro’s debt to Anita O’Day, who encouraged him when he was young and with whom he kept a close relationship for the rest of her life.
Mel Tormé, California Suite (Fresh Sound). This reissue has both versions of Torme’s suite honoring his adopted state, the 1949 recording for Capitol and the 1957 remake on Bethlehem. Tormé fashioned his words and music into a cantata for orchestra, his voice and his backing vocal quartet The Melltones. The 1949 recording with Hal Mooney’s orchestra was well received, but Tormé was never completely satisfied with it. He recruited arranger Marty Paich, with whose dek-tette he had recorded LPs now recognized as minor masterpieces. They revised the work, adding interest to the harmonic structures and investing it with jazz vitality that was underemphasized in the earlier version. As splendid a singer as Tormé was the first time around, by ’57 his voice had taken on added burnish, depth and intensity. Both versions are impressive, but the later one has improvements to the lyrics and an increased rhythmic sensibility. As the first one ends, the listener may wonder why Tormé wanted to take another run at it. When the second version ends, you’ll know.

Carol Fredette, Everything In Time (Soundbrush). This is Fredette’s first CD in more than a decade, and worth waiting for. I haven’t heard anyone do the Bing Crosby feature “Love Thy Neighbor” since John Coltrane in the 1950s. Fredette sings it with joy in her voice to equal the whooping exuberance of Trane’s solo. Her laughing, quacking take on the bossa nova classic “O Pato” is just one more of 15 reasons to admire this classy collection.
John Sheridan, Swing Is Still The King, featuring Rebecca Kilgore (Arbors). Kilgore, one of the purest of singers, is on more than half the tracks, a fine idea. Pianist Sheridan’s dandy mid-sized band includes tenor saxophonist Scott Robinson, trombonist Dan Barrett and drummer Jake Hanna.
Ann Hampton Calloway, At Last (Telarc). The customary question raised in most reviews of Calloway is whether she is a jazz singer or a cabaret performer. That’s a waste of space. She has a big, rich voice and sings beautifully. What else matters? Pianist Ted Rosenthal, bassist Jay Leonhart and drummer Victor Lewis are her rhythm section. Marvin Stamm, Rodney Jones and Wycliffe Gordon are among the guest soloists.
Diana Krall, Quiet Nights (Verve). It’s a familiar phenomenon, the assumption by elements of the jazz cognoscenti that if a jazz artist achieves wide success, she must have watered down the product. Krall is their current favorite target, a position formerly filled by Dave Brubeck, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis and Chick Corea, among others. She has never been a great singer or a great jazz pianist, merely very good, and appealing in both categories. Claus Ogerman’s arrangements suit her nicely in this bewitchingly low-key recital. Slipping in a “bonus” cover of the Bee Gee’s 1971 tearjerker hit “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” wasn’t the best idea Krall–or her producer–might have come up with. The rest of the CD is fine, with a touching treatment of Jobim’s “Quiet Nights” (“Corcovado”).
Kelley Johnson, Home (Sapphire). Johnson shines in her singing, composing and arranging on this fully realized recording, a balanced blend of the familiar and the daring. She has prime assistance from her pianist husband John Hansen on some tracks and Geoffrey Keezer on others. Johnson’s and Hansen’s duet on “Where Do You Start” is a highlight. Ingrid Jensen and John Wikan contribute an arrangement that teams Johnson’s voice with Jay Thomas’s trumpet and Keezer’s piano to channel “Moon River” through new harmonic territory. This collection deserves and rewards repeated listening.
To see Singers, Part 1, go here.

Tony Bill writes from Venice, California:

CINCO DE MAYO
When Bud Shank died on April 2 at 82, there were hundreds of
thousands, probably millions, who were reminded of his recordings,
concerts and performances. But there were also about a dozen guys who
remembered a single, private and magical half-hour of his life…and
their own.
I met Bud on a boat. He was a sailing pal of my brother, John – a
professional skipper who had raced on Bud’s boat, Xanalyn. I owned a
sailboat, too: Olinka. And in May of 1977, I decided to enter the
famous Newport to Ensenada race. My brother suggested Bud as one of the
crew. I wasn’t a big jazz fan, so Bud Shank’s name meant nothing
musical to me. I didn’t realize he was one of the world’s great
flautists, who would, only a few years later, give it up for other
instruments. But I knew he was a sailing man; one of the best.
There were 12 of us on the boat. Most of us already knew each other;
hard-core ocean racers, signed up for a good time on a beautiful, but
dated, wooden yawl. Built in Sweden in 1952, Olinka was also a handful
when racing; it took a dozen or more very good sailors to wring the
best out of her. And Bud was clearly qualified. We had a great time and
a great race, crossing the finish line at sunrise, ahead of the fleet.
First in class.
Bud went ashore with a few of us in Ensenada to stock up for our
celebratory breakfast: huevos; tortillas; tomates; cebollas; limones;
tequila; sangrita with a woman’s picture on the bottle. It was Cinco de
Mayo: the Mexican day of Independence. And on the way back to the dock
we passed through the sleepy, hungover, once-a-year swarm; past kids
setting off fireworks. There was an old blind man selling little
handrolled clay pipes with a few random holes punched in here and
there; little flowers and donkeys painted on next to the Ensenada BC;
the kind of souvenier trinket you’d buy for your kid to prove you’d
been to Mexico…and hope they didn’t try to play it.
So the guy holds up a pipe, and Bud gives it a quick try, buys it for a
buck (overpriced even 32 years ago) and sticks it in the grocery bag.
And we go back to the boat, fix breakfast, and settle down to catch
some of the sleep we lost during the 20 hour race. Then, rocking in the
early morning sun, watching the scores of boats still trailing across
the finish line, we start to hear Bud Shank, alone on the foredeck,
playing Antonio Carlos Jobim – purely and flawlessly – on what only moments
before was a crude, cheap toy; a piece of clay before that; and dust
before that. It was the most memorable outdoor concert of my life.
First in class.

(Mr. Bill produced The Sting, among other motion pictures. Films he has directed include Crazy People and Flyboys — DR)

Jim Wilke, the proprietor of Jazz After Hours, writes:

I thought you’d like to know I’m featuring several selections by Bud Shank in each hour of tonight’s program. Music ranges from his earliest World Pacific and Pacific Jazz records in the ’50s through his latest issued recordings. Please pass the word to others you think would be interested.

For a list of the 79 stations that carry Wilke”s syndicated program, go here. If you are in none of their listening areas, you can hear him on KPLU-FM’s streaming internet feed. Follow this link and click on “Listen Live.” The broadcast is from midnight to 4:30 a.m. PDT, 3:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m EDT, Saturday, April 11.
Shank, a major alto saxophonist, flutist, band leader and educator, died a week ago. To see the Rifftides item about his passing and his importance, go here
Kim Matas has a fine profile of Shank in her “Life Stories” column in today’s Arizona Star, his hometown paper.