Barbara Nessim, the artist known for her Rolling Stone, TIME and New York Times Magazine covers, among other works, has a fascinating website tracking her output from the beginning of her career in the 1960s to the present. It includes a piece of video showing Nessim’s hands as she invents place cards for one of her dinner parties. I haven’t seen a more effective on-screen demonstration of improvisatory graphic art since the 1955 Henri-Georges Clouzot film, The Mystery of Picasso.
A tour of Nessim’s site stimulates thoughts about lines: her ability to express complete ideas in one or two sweeping lines, and the thin, shifting and indefineable line between commercial art and “serious” art. The parallels with jazz are obvious.

The Jazz Journalists Association announced its annual awards last night in New York. Roy Haynes was honored for lifetime achievement in jazz. Sonny Rollins was named musician of the year, Dafnis Prieto up and coming musician of the year, Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall, album of the year. And there was this:
Best Book About Jazz
Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond (Parkside), by Doug Ramsey
Many thanks to JJA’s members. Recognition by one’s colleagues is the most valuable and humbling honor possible.
To see the complete list of forty-one winners, go here.

After Fathers Day activity (a present, a card, a few phone calls) subsided, I listened to two CDs, one because the publicist for the band keeps calling and asking if I’ve heard it, the other because I try never to go longer than a month without a Harry Allen fix.
Harry Allen
Allen is a thirty-nine-year-old tenor saxophonist from Rhode Island who managed to grow up in the post-Coltrane era without absorbing a detectable trace of John Coltrane’s influence. His Encyclopedia of Jazz entry says that his favorites are Ben Webster, Stan Getz and Scott Hamilton. Hamilton, twelve years older than Allen, is another Rhode Islander. He, too, is Coltrane-free. Maybe it’s something in the salt water taffy up there. Whether or not it was Allen’s or Hamilton’s aim, by not playing like Coltrane they got attention in a world crowded with Coltrane clones.
In Allen’s latest album, Hey, Look Me Over, co-led with guitarist Joe Cohn, his Getz influence is notably apparent in “Danielle,” a ballad by Cohn’s father Al, whose tenor sax spirit is also present in Allen’s playing. They include three of Al’s tunes in the CD, and Allen is torrid on “Travisimo.” It seems to me that Allen’s Ben Webster component is channeled through Zoot Sims, who in his last years increasingly exhibited Webster’s gruff tenderness. But he invests full-bore Zootness in his solo on “With the Wind and the Rain in Your Hair.”
Since he debuted in the late 1980s, Allen has recorded twenty-eight albums as a leader and appeared on dozens of others. He and Cohn have worked together for fifteen years and developed, among other elements of their ESP, an uncanny approach to counterpoint. It is demonstrated to a faretheewell throughout “Pick Yourself Up.” That track and their romp on Charlie Christian’s and Benny Goodman’s “Seven Come Eleven” make me realize how much I miss the improvisational counterpoint that seems to have largely faded from jazz since Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond, Clark Terry and Bob Brookmeyer, Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz employed it.
Cohn is an ingenious soloist, a resourceful accompanist and, when he is moved to practice it, an effective rhythm guitarist. Throughout the album, bassist Joel Forbes and drummer Chuck Riggs, the other regular members of Allen’s quartet demonstrate that having a working band can assure benfits of rhythm and cohesiveness. This is a consistently satisfying group.
The Reptet
The album the squeaking-wheel publicist kept plugging, nicely but persistently, is Do This! by a Seattle band, The Reptet. In common with Harry Allen’s group, they do not have a piano. Nor do they have a guitar, which leaves the sextet free of a chording instrument to provide harmonic guidance. That leads to some soloists being cast adrift on the waters of free jazz without a paddle, but there is a redeeming sense of joy, whimsy and almost reckless abandon in much of the skilled ensemble writing and playing. Some of it has echoes of Hindemith, Milhaud, and, in keeping with that line of musical thought, voicings remarkably like those in certain pieces by the Dave Brubeck Octet. There are also elements of street-corner brass bands, third stream composers and the Charles Mingus of Tijuana Moods, to single out only three of the disparate influences I think I hear.
Much of the writing is by the trumpeter Samantha Boshnack, with additional pieces by reed players Tobi Stone and Izaak Mill and bassist Benjamin Verdier. The other members are trombonist Ben O’Shea and drummer John Ewing. Stone, Mills, O’Shea and Ewing have stimulating solo moments. I admit that I was moved to listen to The Reptet by, in addition to the phone calls, the fact that four of the compositions are titled “Zeppo,” “Harpo,” “Chico” and “Groucho.” I am happy to report that they live up to their names. And, yes, “Harpo” gets an introduction by an actual harp. I also like the occasional unexpected, but quite discreet, group and individual vocal touches that include shouts and moans. Great fun.

Alec Wilder (1907-1980) wrote sonatas, suites, concertos, operas, film scores, ballets, art songs, woodwind quintets, brass quintets and music for French horn. In his composing, he was as prolific as he was ingenious and eclectic, but his work was politically incorrect in the sense that it did not fit the preconceptions of the classical establishment of his time. The individuality, substance and pronounced American character of Wilder’s concert music cannot be denied, but little of it gained widespread peformance or widespread popularity.
A few of Wilder’s songs, however, became standards, including “I’ll Be Around,” “Moon and Sand,” “While We’re Young” and “Lady Sings the Blues.” Those and a few less famous Wilder songs are among jazz musicians’ favorites. It is strange, then, that there have been only a half dozen jazz albums of Wilder pieces. One of the most important has been unavailable for decades. Bob Brookmeyer made the elegant 7 X Wilder in 1961. Verve has never seen fit to reissue it on CD, the same fate the company has dealt several other essential Brookmeyer albums. Jackie Cain & Roy Kral and Marian McPartland recorded Wilder collections, as did guitarist Vic Juris and saxophonist David Liebman.
Recently, a 2002 CD of Wilder songs made its way into my hands. It is Walk Pretty, by the Ben Sidran/Bob Rockwell Quartet. The album is on a small Danish label and worth finding. Although Sidran’s interests cover rock and roll, radio broadcasting, record producing, music journalism and oral history, he is an accomplished jazz pianist and a singer whose qualities may remind you of Mose Allison and Dave Frishberg. Rockwell is an American tenor saxophonist and flutist who moved to Denmark nearly thirty years ago. He remained there and is little known in his native land. The bassist is Billy Peterson, the drummer Kenny Horst. Like Rockwell, neither is famous. Both are excellent.The quartet approaches the Wilder songs with relaxation, fresh harmonies and respect for the melodies.
Alec would have applauded that last point. When he heard a jazz player begin varying his tunes, he would grumble, “My God, couldn’t he at least play it straight for the first chorus.” During my New York years in the 1970s, I was privileged to know Wilder a little. Several of us would gather late at night in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel where Alec held court. On any given evening, the group might include Willis Conover, Marian McPartland, Paul Desmond and the great French hornist Jim Buffington, all devoted Wilder admirers. The Algonquin was Alec’s only home for a substantial part of his adult life. He loved the place, and the staff loved him for his kindness, his grumpiness and his wit.
“I like to sit here,” he once told a friend, “keeping an eye on who’s coming and going so I can separate the chic from the gauche.”
Alec behaved unconventionally in many ways but dressed in the conservative New England fashion he grew up with, almost always wearing a jacket and necktie. In an article in Down Beat at the height of hippie culture, with its tie-dyes, buckskin and fringes, Wilder said that he found it difficult to take seriously a musician wearing “a feed-bag reticule.”
With the invaluable help of James T. Maher, Wilder wrote American Popular Song, an indispensible work of analysis that is also a great read. Desmond Stone and Whitney Balliett wrote fine books about Wilder. For a short biography, go here. During his lifetime, much of Wilder’s music did not receive the acceptance it deserved, but it is making its way into the repertoires of more and more “serious” musicians. His fellow craftsmen in the songwriting business long ago put him in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Sidran-Rockwell recording helps remind us why he belongs there.

When I set out on a short bicycle ride yesterday, I had every intention of being at the computer by noon and writing the rest of the day. I ended up cruising along the Yakima River, and it captured me. The stream was swollen with snow melt from the Cascade mountains. This photograph shows the river at normal height. I’ve never seen the Yakima so full short of a major flood. It was roaring along, bound for the mighty Columbia ninety miles downstream, and I rode along with it miles farther than I had planned, enjoying every foot of the trip. By the time I got home, I was exhausted and exhilirated. Deadlines didn’t seem to matter. I lost a day of work, but the experience was a net gain.
See you tomorrow.

Jim Wilke, who produces and hosts the splendid Jazz After Hours program carried by radio stations across the land, is also an accomplished performance and recording engineer. He frequently combines his specialties in Jazz Northwest, a broadcast he does once a week on KPLU-FM, the Seattle-Tacoma jazz station. Sunday, June 18, Wilke will air a concert by the Jeff Johnson Trio, recorded at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Also in the trio are Mark Taylor, alto & soprano saxes, and Byron Vannoy, drums & percussion. From a Wilke communique, here’s what he wrote about the special bass that Jeff Johnson played.

The instrument Jeff brought to the Garden Court of the Museum was one I hadn’t seen or heard before. When I asked him about this beautiful instrument, he said “Ahhh, the CONTESSA! I dubbed her that because she is old royalty. She is definitely female because she will only dance in certain settings at her preference!”

When he first encountered her among several other basses he was trying out, he said he kept going back to the “old Bohemian lady.” She was discovered in a church in Budapest. Her ancestry is not known, possibly Italian, but very old for sure, possibly mid 1700’s. A sample of the varnish used gives evidence that oxblood was one of the materials (a la “The Red Violin”).
“I have never played a bass with such a dry and dark sound before,” Jeff said. “I can only use it in the studio and very special environments where I don’t have to play too hard. It has really become my ‘Sunday’ sort of bass. I LOVE it. Thanks for recording the CONTESSA … amazing recording you got in that space!”

My admiration for Johnson’s bass playing is no secret. I’ll be listening to KPLU at 1 pm Pacific Daylight Time next Sunday. If you would like to hear the concert, you will find Jazz Northwest on your computer by way of KPLU’s audio stream.

Following yesterday’s posting about Jeremy Steig’s Flute Fever (see the item below this one), Bill McBirnie was moved to expand on his enthusiastic evaluation. To wit:

Even though I am a self-declared disciple of Hubert Laws, Flute Fever is, without qualification, my favourite jazz flute recording. This album is in my view THE classic jazz flute record for all time. Jeremy was utterly on fire on this session…and he was teamed up for a “blowing session” with what proved to be an outstanding trio (including the young but fantastic Denny Zeitlin on piano). Although this album was recorded over forty years ago, it should still be required listening…as well as study…for every single flute player who is at all serious about performing on this instrument in an improvisatory setting.
I admit that all of the humming and buzzing in which Jeremy engages is not my cup of tea and that it does not reflect my preferred approach to the instrument. Nonetheless, Steig’s work on this album is absolutely staggering!…He is wild….He is untamed….He is THE jazz flute guy because he plays with such serious–though unorthodox–skill and, more importantly, deeply held conviction!
I was very fortunate in that someone in Calgary heard me singing the praises of this album a couple of years ago…as well as my corresponding lament that I no longer had the vinyl…and now I could not find it on CD either…Then he FOUND the record in a library…and somehow burned a copy/CD for me. I probably hadn’t listened to that album in at least 20 years but it hasn’t lost a thing to my ears…and it has been in regular rotation on my platter ever since. That album had an enormous influence on me…which I recognize now more so than I did when I was merely a kid (because I admit that Hubert’s pristine technique and very melodic sense were much closer to my own sense of musical direction as well as being more in keeping with my “classical roots”).
I might add that Bob Parlocha (who has probably the largest syndicated jazz show in the US) still gives “Flute Fever” a spin now and again…and that is about as reliable an endorsement of Jeremy’s work as one could ever ask for.
Thanks for the acknowledgement, Doug,…and now I don’t feel so alone about Flute Fever.

The fine Canadian flutist Bill McBirnie writes:

I am so glad to hear someone acknowledge what is truly a masterpiece…Flute Fever…with Jeremy Steig (flute) and Denny Zeitlin (piano). When will this album ever be re-issued on CD?!

That question has been asked frequently over the years (by me, among others). Eventually the A& R people at Sony/Columbia will get the message. But will the the guys who really matter, the Sony/Columbia accountants, get it?
When I tell you that McBirnie is a fine flutist, trust me. Or go here, listen to him on an MP3 of his recording of Nat Adderley’s “Teaneck” and find out for yourself.

Tag in a Jazz At Lincoln Center news release:

Brooks Brothers is the official clothier of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

Richard M. Sudhalter, the gifted cornetist, biographer of Bix Beiderbecke and invaluable jazz historian, needs help. Following a massive stroke nearly three years ago and a recent diagnosis that he has MSA (multiple system atrophy), Dick’s medical bills have mounted to proportions that he cannot begin to manage.
Sudhalter wrote Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contributions to Jazz 1915-1945. Following racist attacks by ignoramuses when it was published in 1999, it is now beginning to get the credit due it as one of the most valuable historical and analytical studies about jazz. He also wrote superb biographies of Beiderbecke and Hoagy Carmichael. Three books of their quality would be accomplishment aplenty for anyone. But Sudhalter is also a superb cornetist in the Beiderbecke tradition and beyond it. His contributions to the music and to the general culture are profound.
Friends are organizing a benefit concert to be held at St. Peter’s Church in New York on September 10, but Dick’s financial situation is crushing now. He is due to go to the Mayo Clinic for treatment. It’s going to be expensive. I am sending a check. I hope that you will also help, to whatever extent you can. Go here to find out how.