You needn’t be a demon sight reader to enjoy Rifftides reader Andy Wiliamson’s blog called Jazz Licks. Wililamson transcribes phrases from solos, mostly by saxophonists (he is one). He posts the transcriptions and provides audio clips so that you can read along with the licks as you listen to them. You can check out licks by Stan Getz, James Carter, Wardell Gray, Hank Mobley, Joe Henderson, Miles Davis and others by going here.
Even if your music reading development stopped after the first John Thompson piano book, you won’t have much trouble following the lines. Warning: this may prompt you to seek out the records. It could get expensive.

Sonny Rollins has returned home from Stockholm, where he was awarded the Polar Music Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy. Terri Hinte, publicist nonpareil, traveled with him and alerted us to the web site that carries photographs of Mr. Rollins and his co-winner Steve Reich receiving their prizes from the king of Sweden. The site also has a section of pictures of the beautiful people who attended, a history of the prize and its previous winners, and a forty-seven-minute video. I wish you better luck than I had downloading the video.
Each year, the winners are chosen from disparate fields of music. Pairing Rollins and Reich has a nice symmetry; two of the most daring musicians in their not-so-disparate bailiwicks. A collaboration between them could have more potential than if there had been one between the 1995 winners, Mstislav Rostropovitch and Elton John, or between the Russian conductor Valery Gergiev and Led Zeppelin last year. The 1993 winners were Dizzy Gillespie and the Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski. What a joint project that could have been.

We’re heading into Memorial Day weekend, the thirtieth anniversary of Paul Desmond’s death.

Musically, what I remember about Paul is how hard he could swing in that really understated way. He had the most amazing time feel in his playing. People never really talked about that part of his playing. He could really swing. There’s a lot to Paul Desmond besides that beautiful sound and those beautiful melodies. He was a really strong cat.
–Don Thompson
I more or less said that found him the best company of anyone I’d ever known in my life. I found him the most loyal friend I’ve ever had in my life. I found him the most artistic person I’ve ever known in my life. I said that his leaving will make this planet a smaller and darker place for everyone.
–Jack Richardson recalling his speech at Desmond’s memorial service.

Both quoted in Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond
Last year around this time, I was also in the grips of nostalgia and sentimentality.

Posting will be scant and seldom this week. I am still cranking on a flurry of assignments that must be completed before I take off for the Swing ‘n Jazz fiesta in Rochester, New York.
One of the pieces is for the next George Mraz CD, which involves the remarkable Czech singer, violinist and actress Iva Bittova. This piece of video has her with the Stampa quartet in what appears to be the St. Nicholas Church in Prague, performing two Janacek songs. I have listened extensively to Bittova and watched several of her videos. She reminds me of no one as much as Elis Regina, the Brazilian marvel who died several years ago. The comparison is not of idiom but of musicianship and irrepressible spirit.

A message from Rubén González:

I´m reading regularly with pleasure Rifftides from Rosario, Argentina…

Sr. González includes a link to his web site and the story of his encounter with jazz in Dublin, Ireland. His account is in Spanish and English and includes video of three Irish musicians named Buckley playing, and playing well.

News releases from publicists come in waves by snail mail, e-mail and that ancient technology the fax machine. By rough estimate, at least half concern the latest CDs, concerts or club appearances of legends:

…the legendary _____________(fill in the blank)

…a legend of the (piano, drums, bass, trumpet, oboe ____________(fill in the blank).

Let’s consult a dictionary. The one in the answers.com dictionary will do; it essentially agrees with the definitions in the Random House and Webster’s dictionaries and adds an interesting usage note.

leg·end (lÄ•j’É™nd) n.
1.

a. An unverified story handed down from earlier times, especially one popularly believed to be historical.
b. A body or collection of such stories.
c. A romanticized or popularized myth of modern times.

2. One who inspires legends or achieves legendary fame.
[Middle English, from Old French legende, from Medieval Latin (lēctiō) legenda, (lesson) to be read, from Latin, feminine gerundive of legere, to read.]
USAGE NOTE Legend comes from the Latin adjective legenda, “for reading, to be read,” which referred only to written stories, not to traditional stories transmitted orally from generation to generation. This restriction also applied to the English word legend when it was first used in the late 14th century in reference to written accounts of saints’ lives, but ever since the 15th century legend has been used to refer to traditional stories as well. Today a legend can also be a person or achievement worthy of inspiring such a story–anyone or anything whose fame promises to be enduring, even if the renown is created more by the media than by oral tradition. Thus we speak of the legendary accomplishments of a major-league baseball star or the legendary voice of a famous opera singer. This usage is common journalistic hyperbole, and 55 percent of the Usage Panel accepts it.

I’ll try to keep the wisdom of the Usage Panel in mind the next time I read a news release or a liner note about some 23-year-old singer who is a legend. If she’s a female singer, she is, of course, a legendary diva.
There’s no perbole like hyperbole.

Welcome to Rifftides readers in:

Sydney, Melbourne and Berkeley Vale, Australia

Moscow, Russia

Stockholm and Vastra Gotaland, Sweden;

Baden-Wurttemberg and Niedernhausen, Hessen, Germany

Lisbon, Portugal

Vaud, Switzerland

Marbella, Spain

London, Birmingham and West Ham, Newham, UK

Toronto and York Mills, Ontario, Canada

an unspecified location in Nigeria

Places in the United States from Ephrata, Washington to Ephrata, Pennsylvania

In the Jack Sheldon piece (see the next exhibit), I forgot to mention his work on the most recent Tierney Sutton CD. To read about it, go here.
Sheldon brought interesting comments, including one from a man who went to school with him. Click on the “Comments” link at the end of the next piece.

Some time ago, Rifftides reader Steve Sherman wrote, more or less in haiku form:

Jack Sheldon, unpretentious,

one of the best living singers, trumpet players,

always swinging, often touching.
Maybe write something.

I agree with Mr. Sherman’s evaluation of Sheldon. I am happy to write something, but first here are passages from a message that came even longer ago from the trombonist, singer, bandleader and alcoholic beverage maven Eric Felten (he is the author of the the “How’s Your Drink?” column in the Saturday Wall Street Journal). Mr. Felten was responding to what I wrote about a solo that came fairly early in Sheldon’s career.

I am in total agreement with you that the Jack Sheldon solo on “Then I’ll Be Tired of You” is one of the great moments in jazz.

The solo was on the The Hi-Los and All That Jazz (dumb title), a 1958 album that has been in and out of print (mostly out) for decades. Sheldon plays the bridge of the song, eight bars of melody. By inflection and a few grace notes, he makes it an endearing personal statement. I wrote in that 2005 posting:

Inexcusably, Columbia has allowed The Hi-Los And All That Jazz to go out of print, but “Then I’ll Be Tired of You” is included in this compilation.

Here’s more of Eric Felten’s message:

I resisted the urge to mention my own recent disc during the Bill Perkins discussion (though my record is dedicated to Perk, who was supposed to be part of the session and died a month ahead of the recording date) because I enjoy being part of the Rifftides discussion and haven’t wanted to muck that up with self-promotion.

Oh, go ahead, promote away.

Let me mention my disc to you in the Jack Sheldon context. Jack is on the record and he plays brilliantly. He still has that big fat swaggering sound, and still alternates between broad melodic statements and tumbling bebop lines. And in the studio he keeps everyone in stitches with the bluest jokes imaginable (the sort of jokes that have gotten him barred from a number of L.A. jazz clubs). In other words he’s still Jack Sheldon.
Perhaps because he’s on the West Coast; perhaps because he was so involved in television; or perhaps because of the blue humor: whatever the reason, Sheldon has never received the credit he deserves as an essential jazz musician. But to me he achieves one of the most important things a jazz musician can do — he has an original and distinctive voice. This is a discrete thing, in my mind, from the question of being an “innovator.” As crucial as innovation is, I think that it is just as valid for a musician to find his own distinctive voice even if the idiom in which he is working is not at the cutting edge.

I won’t give you Sheldon’s history as a trumpeter, singer, comic, television star, motion picture actor and swimming instructor. The biography on his web site will supply all of that. I will tell you about a few recordings of the hundreds he has made.
This Amazon.com page has all four of the albums Sheldon made in the 1950s as a member of the Curtis Counce Quintet with bassist Counce, tenor saxophonist Harold Land, pianist Carl Perkins and drummer Frank Butler. He was a brilliant soloist in a brilliant band.
Capable of drive, hard swing and humor in his playing, Sheldon has a quality of wistfulness that has made him attractive to film composers and producers. He is part of the music that made two abysmal movies worth attending. One was The Sandpiper, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and a bird. Sheldon plays “The Shadow of Your Smile.” His treatment of Johnny Mandel’s main title theme is as unforgettable as the song itself. Fortunately, you don’t have to see the movie to hear the sound track. If you’re lucky, you’ll find it here. The other film was The Subterraneans, a Jack Kerouac story about the Bohemian life in San Francisco. It translated badly to the screen, despite the presence of Leslie Caron. André Previn’s score was sublime. Sheldon’s playing in the orchestral portions of the soundtrack is memorable. The directing and acting are not. After I wrote recently about Previn’s music for the picture, he sent a message:

I always liked The Subterraneans score, although the film was dreadful. I am pleased and flattered that you remembered the music so kindly.

Who wouldn’t remember it kindly?
Now available only as a fairly pricey import CD, drummer Shelly Manne’s interpretation of My Fair Lady features Sheldon singing as Henry Higgins, with Irene Kral as Eliza Doolittle. It’s a classic.
Here are a few CDs I recommend from the many Sheldon has made as a leader:
Jack Sheldon All-Stars. Mid-fifties big band with Chet Baker, Herb Geller and Conte Candoli, among others. Sheldon plays ravishing melody on “I Had The Craziest Dream.”
Class Act. Sheldon in duets with the late Ross Tompkins, his piano sidekick of decades. You will have to imagine Tompkins’ deadpan reactions to Sheldon’s beyond-the-edge humor. You’ll have to imagine the humor, too. But the playing is gorgeous.
Hollywood Heroes. Sheldon singing and playing in 1988 in superb form, with a quartet that includes the stompin’ pianist Ray Sherman, a secret too well kept.
JSO Live! Recent Sheldon with his big band. Exhilirating.
California Cool. Even more recent, with his quartet featuring pianist Milcho Leviev, bassist Bruce Lett and drummer Nick Martinis.
Jack Sheldon in New Orleans. This is a DVD made at a club on Bourbon Street with Dave Frishberg on piano, bassist Dave Stone and guitarist John Pisano. There’s nothing quite like Sheldon live, and this catches him at his playing and singing best.

Deadlines galore: Lead review for Jazz Times (Ron Carter’s next CD). Notes for two CDs, George Mraz’s Moravian Gems, and Mad Duran’s Simply Mad. I’m reading and evaluating the manuscript of a new book by a major jazz biographer. Nonetheless, I have something in mind to post tomorrow or the next day.