The Rifftides piece on Monk In North Carolina brought this response from the painter Norman Sasowsky.

I lived in NYC in the 50s and 60s and went to the Five Spot to hear Monk and others. Jazz music had a great influence on my painting and I did a few paintings influenced by my experiences. Visit my web site, if you are interested in seeing them.

I went to his site, was intrigued by Sasowsky’s paintings, then did a web search to learn more about him. Among the items I found was a piece of video with Sasowsky talking about and showing his work. If the expressive development he describes and illustrates seems to parallel the process of creative growth in jazz improvisers, perhaps it is no coincidence. Sasowsky’s choice of the Poulenc clarinet sonata as background music hooked me at the start. To see the video, click here.

Matthew Shipp, Piano Vortex (Thirsty Ear). Nearly twenty years ago, Shipp chose the jazz avant garde over the classical career he had prepared for at the New England Conservatory. For the most part, he has applied his formal technique to music that observes few traditional boundaries and guidelines. Keeping company with such intrepid explorers as David S. Ware, Roscoe Mitchell, Daniel Carter and Joe Morris, he has left the impression with some listeners that he is a Cecil Taylor disciple. I have not heard his playing that way and hear it even less so in Piano Vortex. Shipp hews closer to the jazz piano trio tradition than in anything else I have heard from him. That is hardly to say that you will mistake him for Tommy Flanagan, Oscar Peterson or Bill Evans. His work here is closer to the stylistic center of jazz than much of his recent recording, certainly closer than his electronic ventures, but he is still wild, unpredictable and often startling.
Pieces titled “Sliding Through Space,” “Quivering With Speed” and “Slips Through The Fingers” proceed with wild bursts, salvos of repetition, explosions in the lower regions of the piano and plenty of dissonance. Yet, in “Sliding Through Space,” he ends with a passage that has the delicacy of Delius or a French impressionist. “Keyswing,” urged along by Morris’s walking bass and the drumming of Whit Dickey — on this track as locked into bebop as Philly Joe Jones or Shelly Manne — becomes a free jazz riff, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. Much the same can be said of “To Vitalize,” which has an impressive solo from Morris. Morris is better known as a guitarist, but his pizzicato bass work here is fine. Elsewhere, his bowing is considerably less successful. Although at a couple of junctures, “Quivering With Speed” suggests John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” its primary characteristics are not harmonic interest but velocity and Shipp’s flurries of notes.
In previous recordings, Shipp’s music has often made me nervous. There are moments in Piano Vortex where it makes me smile.

As the fiftieth Monterey Jazz Festival wound down, we received this communique from Rifftides reader and Montery veteran Robert Walsh.

Thanks for passing along the NPR coverage of the 50th anniversary of the Monterey Jazz Festival, venue of many of my most cherished memories. (Jimmy Lyons and I worked together on the American College Jazz Festival sponsored by American Airlines in the early 1970s,) Here are some of those memories:
Saturday afternoon blues shows. Black ladies in red jump suits sashaying around with bright parasols. Jimmy Witherspoon and Joe Williams “cutting” each other for a half hour or more.
Joyous, spontaneous jitterbugging in a corner at stage left.
Thursday night “cast parties” featuring broiled tuna caught a day or two earlier off Montauk Point on Long Island by Percy Heath. Relaxed background jazz led by Mundell Lowe and his wife, Betty Bennett
Fending off bogus “press” (always with their whorish girl friends) while a volunteer at the gate. They tried every ruse in the book.
Watching the charismatic Black Jesus pimp and his entourage slithering through the lounge.
Raving about the superb high school all-stars on Sunday afternoons. I think Matt Catingub (Mavis Rivers’ son) was one. Another was young Ted Nash. The pro guests went all out themselves.
Eavesdropping on guitarist George Benson rehearsing “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” with the MJQ. Georgeous; don’t think it was ever recorded.
Meeting an affable Buddy Rich (long on the outs with Jimmy Lyons because of a costly overtime performance), who had volunteered to fill in for an ailing Stan Kenton, despite having broken a big toe poolside at home. He goosed up “Intermission Riff” a tad, to the obvious delight of the band members, and playing his (to me, unique) Channel One Suite.
I wish more credit for the depth, diversity and quality of MJF performances was given to John Lewis, its music director for many years. He was constantly checking out new talent (e.g., Ornette Coleman) and people suggested to Jimmy Lyons. My personal example: I asked Jimmy at one point why Marian McPartland had never been invited to MJF. He told me John had long felt Marian was too derivative. But when, presumably at my belated prompting, Jimmy asked John to take another look at Marian, John found that she had at last found that elusive “voice.” (PS, John once told me his favorite jazz pianist was, of all people, Thelonious Monk.)
Bob Walsh

If you are not at the Monterey Jazz Festival’s fiftieth anniversary celebration this weekend — even if you are — we can direct you to a report that captures some of the festival’s history and flavor. Occasional Rifftides contributor Paul Conley of KXJZ in Sacramento, California produced a Monterey piece for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. When you get to the site (that’s a link), click on the red and white “Listen” button.

Thelonious Monk’s importance and influence keep growing. As they do, his value to the culture at large gains deeper recognition. A major university is honoring Monk in the most meaningful way, erecting a monument made of his music and other arts it influences.
Thirty-seven years ago, Monk appeared with his quartet at the Raleigh, North Carolina, nightclub called the Frog & Nightgown. His performances there were the only times that Monk played in his home state. He was born in Rocky Mount, NC, in 1917 and moved with his parents to New York City the next year. Tonight, the two surviving members of the1970 edition of Monk’s quartet are playing a concert at Duke University in Durham, near Raleigh, a major event of Following Monk, Duke’s six-weeks of programs honoring the pianist.
From the series brochure:

The most original musician in jazz history was born in a dirt-road town in the plains of eastern North Carolina, all cotton fields, railroad tracks, and tobacco warehouses. Following Monk retraces a jazz prophet’s links to his native state, returning home to pay respect to a talent that transcends place.

In a concert billed as “Thelonious Monk’s Homecoming: Raleigh’s Frog & Nightgown, 1970,” Tenor saxophonist Paul Jeffrey and drummer Leroy Williams will be joined by another Monk veteran, bassist John Ore. From the new generation affected by Monk, Jason Moran will be at the piano. They are recreating the Frog & Nightgown dates. Concertgoers will also hear a recording of the 1970 Monk engagement.
The series opened last Saturday with a concert by the Kronos Quartet, Monk admirers and interpreters since before their genre-busting Monk Suite CD in 1985. Subsequent events will feature modern dance; a theatrical production, Misterioso, inspired by Monk; lectures by critic Stanley Crouch and historian Robin D.G. Kelley; and concerts by Jason Moran, Johnny Griffin, Henry Butler, Charles Tolliver, Andy Bey, Kenny Barron, Randy Weston, Jessica Williams, Barry Harris, Charlie Haden with Hank Jones, and Jerry Gonzalez with his Rumba Para Monk.
For dates, times and further information about this Monk festival, see the Duke Performances web site. Any time is a good time to be in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill region of North Carolina. With this Monk fiesta, now is a perfect time.
While you’re in a Monk’s mood, I recommend Thelonious Monk Live at the 1964 Monterey Jazz Festival, one of a new series of previously unissued Monterey concerts. It’s the classic Monk quartet with saxophonist Charlie Rouse and drummerBen Riley. But in this case, bassist Steve Swallow was conscripted at the last minute from Art Farmer’s quartet. In those days, Swallow had not yet abandoned the upright acoustic bass. He knew the tunes, fit in seamlessly with the Monk band, added an element of pzazz and played a splendid solo on “Bright Mississippi.” The regulars are in good form, too. The quartet becomes an octet for “Think Of One” and “Straight No Chaser” with the addition of four horns and arrangements by Buddy Collette. Trumpeter Bobby Bryant has a solo on “Think Of One” that is at once deeply thoughtful, logical and full of excitement. This is a solid addition to the Monk discography.

Finally, there is a Carmen McRae web site. It’s creators call it a tribute site. That designation smacks of fanzinedom, but don’t be misled; the McRae site is put together with knowledge as well as appreciation. It does not have a formal discography, but it lists, describes and in some cases illustrates her recordings decade by decade. It borrows an adequate short biography from the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz and has a chronology excerpted from Leslie Gourse’s biography of McRae. Gourse’s book is dreadful, but this sample from her coverage of Carmen in the 1960s is right on the money:

Carmen hires pianist Norman Simmons as her accompanist, though he is wary of working with her because of her reputation for being tough, outspoken, and highly opinionated. Simmons soon learns to love and respect his boss on a professional level; he observes that she simply doesn’t let any one “stomp around” in her life.

That’s an understatement, as Carol Sloane makes plain in her story in a section of essays about McRae.

Carmen McRae
Each page of the site is loaded with photographs from all phases of Carmen’s life. The McRae site includes a reduction of the essay I wrote for the booklet accompanying the two CDs of her 1976 performances at Ratso’s, a club in Chicago, not, as the site reports, in Florida. Here is the unreconstituted version:

Carmen McRae never had to confront the kind of Tin Pan Alley songpluggers’ dross that her idol Billie Holiday was handed in the 1930s, but she had the same ability to transform ordinary material into something of value. Anyone who recalls the transitory Top Forty versions of the 1970s pop songs McRae sings here will marvel as she fashions them into proper companions for imperishable classics. She brings Bob Lind’s “Elusive Butterfly” and Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself” into the room with Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo” and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Dindi” and makes them welcome. “Elusive Butterfly” and “All By Myself” may not be great songs, but they had quality in a decade whose hit parade did not overflow with deathless works. Carmen had an unfailing ear for the best material.
For her, the main attraction of some of these songs may well have been the lyrics. A thorough musician who knew the implications of a song’s every chord, Carmen was also a supreme vocal actress, homing in on the emotional heat that would bond her to the audience. She often said that words were more important to her than melody. In her incomparably literate and deeply felt interpretations of lyrics, you can hear her love of the meaning in verbal connection. The pain and the catch in her throat are real when she sings, “I won’t let sorrow hurt me, not like it’s hurt me before.”
This collection also has generous samples of another aspect of her ability to communicate. As an audience schmoozer, Carmen was in a league with Dizzy Gillespie and Cannonball Adderley. Listen to the spontaneity of her funny asides during “‘Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do” and her earthy ones in “Just A Little Lovin’.” In her twenties and thirties she was gorgeous, with an exotic luminosity that glowed through the wariness she accumulated on the road in tough bands and rough clubs. As she aged, she took on an earth mother solidity and an armor of irony, but when she was pleased her face lit up with the young Carmen’s smile.

Browsing the McRae site accomplishes what a good music site should; it makes you want to hear the music. It leads the reader to dozens of McRae recordings. If I had to choose just one for my desert island, it would be The Great American Song Book, a dumb title for a great album. This brilliant 1972 collaboration at Donte’s in Los Angeles with pianist Jimmy Rowles includes “The Ballad of Thelonious Monk” and an “I Cried For You” that sets a singers’ standard for up-tempo relaxation.
You Tube has a generous handful of Carmen McRae performances. I recommend all of them, but be sure not to miss this one and this one. And take a look at that web site. It’s worth your time.

The veteran singer Bob Stewart’s stock in trade is superior ballads delivered with intelligent interpretation, good phrasing and deep feeling. His new compilation CD, Did I Remember? gathers tracks from several of his collections and finds him generally at his best. Stewart’s support troops include pianist Hank Jones, saxophonist Frank Wess, bassist Michael Moore and drummer Mel Lewis. His backing on two tracks is by the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, on others by string ensembles and studio orchestras. Among songs like the title tune, “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” “If I Love Again” and “Prelude to a Kiss, his cover of the Barbra Streisand eighties hit “Someone That I Used to Love” is a ringer. Stewart gives the song his best shot, but it doesn’t hold up to the other material. He compensates with his sensitive treatment of “The More I See You.”
To hear and see Stewart in a combo with Frank Wess on tenor saxophone in obligato and soloing, click here for “Never Let Me Go.”
Coming soon, maybe even tomorrow: the continuation of our random survey of recent recordings.

A few of the things that are keeping my ears and eyes busy:
Bud Shank and Bill Mays: Beyond The Red Door (Jazzed Media). Old friends and co-conspirators in alto saxophone/piano duets at the highest level. Their melding of Russ Freeman’s “The Wind” and Jimmy Rowles’ “The Peacocks” is exquisite.
Sam Yahel: Truth And Beauty (Origin). Yahel’s Hammond B-3 Organ, Joshua Redman’s tenor sax and Brian Blade’s drums. They were good when they were known as Ya Ya. They’re better now.
Miles Davis Quintet Live At The 1963 Monterey Jazz Festival (MJF). Davis, George Coleman, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams when Davis’s new sidemen kept him on his toes and Williams liked to throw Miles off-balance to test his reflexes. That was good for Miles. You can hear the exhiliration and feel the tension.
Vern Sielert Dektet: From Here To There (Pony Boy). I heard Sielert the other night as the trumpet soloist with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra in his piece “Matranga’s Tonk.” He knocked me out. That piece is here, along with ten other examples of his high-level writing and playing. I’d love this CD if all it had was Tom Varner’s French horn, Rich Coles’ tenor sax and Sielert’s solos on “Matranga’s.” Sielert is an academic who can.
Gigi Gryce: Nica’s Tempo (Savoy). Gryce’s writing for a Birth-of-the-Cool size ensemble in this 1955 album is just cool enough for Art Farmer, Oscar Pettiford, Jimmy Cleveland, Eddie Bert, Horace Silver, Julius Watkins and Cecil Payne, among others. The four quartet sides feature Thelonious Monk as Gryce’s sideman in the title tune and Monk’s wonderful “Gallop’s Gallop.”
Charles Mingus Live in ’64 (Jazz Icons). This is one of the new batch of DVDs in the invaluable Jazz Icons series. It captures the Mingus sextet with Eric Dolphy, Jaki Byard, Clifford Jordan, Johnny Coles and Dannie Richmond in three stops on their European tour. It is absorbing to witness the relationships among this extraordinary band while hearing everyone play so beautifully. More later on this series.
Stories of Anton Chekhov. If you haven’t read Chekhov in a while, you may have forgotten how depressing he can be in his subject matter while lifting you to the skies with the beauty of his writing and his ability to delineate character in the sparest brush strokes of prose.

Mark your calendars, set your clocks. Rifftides Washington, DC, correspondent John Birchard reports that next Monday’s concert in tribute to Willis Conover will be broadcast live on the Voice Of America. Start time is 7:30 pm EDT, September 17. You can hear the concert on the VOA’s live internet stream (that’s a link).
Paquito D’Rivera will lead the band with Milcho Leviev, George Mraz, Valery Ponomarev and Horacio Hernandez. Birchard reports one other important fact: He, John Birchard, will be the on-air host of the program.
For further details, go here.

Rifftides reader Scott Mortensen has created two web sites worth investigating. One is dedicated to the vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, a major figure in jazz since the 1960s. The site includes a discography, photos, a substantial biography containing links to information about Hutcherson’s recordings, and suggestions of additional resources for scholars and listeners.
Among the things Mortensen writes about Hutcherson are these:

Hutcherson’s work remains entirely compelling. He brings something special every time he plays. In recent years, it’s especially noticeable on his recordings as a sideman. If he doesn’t play on a particular track, you miss him. When he does play, everyone sounds better.
Hutcherson is not especially well-known for his composing skills, but I think he’s a terrific and terrifically-underrated jazz composer. At some point, another jazz musician should do a tribute CD and record nothing but Bobby’s compositions. I think it would be wonderful, and it would show the breadth and depth of Hutcherson’s composing abilities.

Mortensen’s Hutcherson site is not a scholarly endeavor devised to please academics and researchers. It is a fan’s appreciation of a musician who has certainly not fallen through the cracks but who deserves more attention than he gets.
Before you move on to the next section, take a few minutes to watch Hutcherson in tandem with his hero and greatest influence, Milt Jackson, not long before Jackson died.
You may have heard the recording of Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival in which, just as he begins playing, bells in the village chime polytonaly against the chords he is using. He says, “Ah, Charles Ives.” Jazz musicians have known and loved Ives for generations. Mortensen’s Ives web site contains a page called “Essays and Ruminations,” in which he hits on one of the basic reasons so many jazz players and listeners are drawn to Ives:

Ives’ music is not tidy. It can’t be contained by normal musical forms because these structures do not accurately represent the way that Ives perceives the world. (This is one of the reasons why Ives constantly tinkers with traditional forms: adding or removing movements from the four-movement symphony; creating “sets” from pieces that defy any conventional structure; recycling music again and again from a one work to another.) Ives’s music acknowledges that our perceptions of the world–and the understanding that we construct from those perceptions–are in a constant state of flux. It is never-ending process. Therefore, from Ives’ point of view, creating a work of art and presenting it as complete is disingenuous.

Mortensen’s Ives site includes a survey of the composer’s works, recordings of them, essays by Ives, books about him, quotes, FAQs and a news section. It is not a substitute for the site of the Charles Ives Society, but works hand-in-hand with it.
This sentence from the conclusion of the biography could use updating:

One thing is certain: nearly 50 years after his death, Ives’ influence is greater now than it has ever been.

Make that “more than 50 years after his death.” Ives died in 1954. Time flies when you’re having fun with Ives.