Following the posting about Paul Desmond playing “Take Five” in a youtube.com video, Rifftides reader Jon Naylor wrote from Seattle:

In regards to youtube.com, they have a great piece of history with Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie being presented a Down Beat music award by Leonard Feather and columnist Earl Wilson. Watch the look on Parker’s face when Earl Wilson refers to him and Dizzy as ‘you boys’ and the painful look on Feather’s face earlier when Earl tries to use some hipster lingo with the phrase, “Gimme some skin.” A classic.

Wilson’s clueless introduction preceded a performance of “Hot House,” with Parker and Gillespie accompanied by pianist Dick Hyman, drummer Charlie Smith and bassist Sandy Block. It is rare film of Diz and Bird together.
For those interested, see previous Rifftides postings on Parker (and others) on video here and here and here .

Later in the week, I’ll be posting from Rochester, New York, and the ninth annual Swing ‘n Jazz, an event supporting The Commission Project’s music education of young people. In this context, “Swing” refers to both music and golf. A tournament on Sunday raises money for the education. Workshops accomplish the learning during a three-day event, and throughout the year by way of commissioned works that provide educational opportunities for children of all ages. Trumpeter Marvin Stamm is the musical director of this year’s Swing ‘n Jazz. His faculty comes from the Eastman School, other educational institutions and the New York City jazz scene. Reversing the old axiom, this is a case in which those who can, do, and teach.
Last year’s faculty stayed over for two days and recorded a CD, The Swing ‘n Jazz All-Stars, under the direction of the trombonist Fred Wesley. It was just released. I can’t offer a full-fledged review, but I liked what I heard the first time through. Stamm is impressive throughout, and there’s a nifty bass duet by Jay Leonhart and Keter Betts. Sadly, Betts died not long after the session.

It is a truth so commonplace that it has become a cliché: You needn’t be American to be a first-rate jazz musician. The United States of America brought together and mixed the elements that made jazz. But it is not, after all, something in the water, the genes or the sociology of The United States that makes good jazz improvisers. Rather, it is talent, inspiration, hard work and experience–the combination that creates artists in any field. Some black musicians used to say of white ones, “They’re stealing our music.” Some American musicians used to say that of non-Americans. America gave jazz to the world. To borrow Dizzy Gillespie’s wonderful phrase, you can’t steal a gift.
Hardly a week goes by when the mail or the express truck does not bring at least one reminder that the gift is coming back, generously expanded, from all regions of the planet. I have yet to hear a jazz CD from Mongolia or Yemen, but when one shows up, I won’t be greatly surprised. Here is a list of a few recent arrivals that I have liked, with brief comments. Some of these albums will be hard to find. The links may help.
Roberto Magris Europlane, Check In (Soul Note). Forthright modern mainstream music from Magris, an Italian pianist. His quintet includes his countryman Gabriele Centis on drums, saxophonists Tony Lakatos (Hungary) and Michael Erian (Austria) and the impressive Czech bassist Robert Balzar.
Yaron Herman, Variations (Laborie). Herman is a young Israeli living in Paris. I might quibble with his harmonies on “Summertime,” but he takes stimulating solo piano flights on a couple of Fauré pieces, a rarity by Clare Fischer and several originals.
Flip Philipp-Ed Partyka, Something Wrong With You? (FF Records). The Austrian vibraharpist Philipp and American trombonist Partyka, superb players and writers, lead a ten-piece band populated mostly by Germans. Their music draws on the Birth of the Cool tradition, European avant-gardism and humor.
Hiromi, Spiral (Telarc). This tiny Japanese pianist (last name, Euhara) sometimes channels her formidable technique into new-age meandering. Her electronic keyboard manipulations can curl your teeth. But, as in the title track, she is capable of lyrical creativity.
Eldar, Live at the Blue Note (Sony Classical). The piano prodigy from Kyrgystan (last name, Djangirov), now nineteen, has chops to spare, but the surest sign here of his maturity is his restrained, beguiling Latin ballad playing on “Besame Mucho.”
Fay Claassen, Two Portraits of Chet Baker, (Jazz ‘N Pulz). Two CDs. In the first, the Dutch singer wordlessly replicates Baker’s trumpet in a recreation of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet. Baritone saxophonist Jan Menu plays Mulligan’s role, most impressively. In the second CD, Claassen sings, beautifully, songs that Baker sang. Jan Wessels handles the trumpet solos with a Baker orientation. Hein Van de Geyn is the noteworthy bassist.
Enrico Pieranunzi, Live in Paris (Challenge). Van deGeyn is also the bassist on this two-CD set, joining pianist Pieranunzi, the dean of modern Italian jazz pianists, and drummer Andre Ceccarelli. A stimulating couple of hours of trio music that owes much to Bill Evans.
The Dutch Jazz Orchestra, The Lady Who Swings the Band: Rediscovered Music of Mary Lou Williams (Challenge). “File Under Jazz/Historical,” it says on the back of the CD box. Don’t file at all, is my advice; play daily. Nine of these thirteen pieces by the brilliant composer-arranger have never before been recorded. If you’re not familiar with this sterling big band there is no finer introduction than this gem.
You will find further recommendations in the next exhibit.

Here are more recommended CDs by jazz artists not from the United States.
Gilad Atzmon, Musik: Rearranging the 20th Century (Enja). It is unlikely that Atzmon can separate himself from Israeli-Palestinian politics–or that he wishes to–but this CD is more about music and less about ideologies than, say, his Exile. The context of the album is, I suppose, world music, but it has plenty of Atzmon’s fearsome, lovely, sax and clarinet work. I have heard private recordings of his straight-ahead jazz tenor playing. Why isn’t that on CD?
Watch Out! Svensk Jazzhistoria,Vol. 10 (Caprice). The final box set in Caprice’s monumental survey of jazz in Sweden from its beginnings covers 1965-1969. It has Bengt Hallberg, Rolf Ericson, Monica Zetterlund, dozens of other Swedes, and distinguished visitors like Red Mitchell, George Russell and Don Cherry.
Ed Bickert, Out of the Past (Sackville). This comes from 1976, when guitarist Bickert, bassist Don Thompson and drummer Terry Clarke constituted the rhythm section of what Paul Desmond affectionately called his “Canadian Group.” Issued for the first time, this CD by the trio reaffirms the reasons for Desmond’s affection.
Moutin Reunion Quartet, Red Moon (Sunnyside). It opens with an exhilirating duet on “Le Mer” between French bassist Francois Moutin and his drummer brother Louis. When pianist Baptiste Trotignon and saxophonist Rick Margitza join for the title tune, the energy level–improbably–increases.
David Dorůžka, Hidden Paths (Cube Metier). A young Czech who studied at the Berklee School of Music in Boston and is back in Prague, Dorůžka is an abstractionist who often fragments or floats his lines. He can also dig in, as he does on Monk’s “Evidence.” A guitarist to watch.
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, The Bass in the Background (Storyville). A compilation of the late bassist in support of and soloing with Bud Powell, Coleman Hawkins, Svend Asmussen, Ben Webster, Zoot Sims and others. And what support. NHOP was a marvel.
NHOP is the bassist on Thad Jones and the Danish Radio Big Band Live at the Montmartre (Storyville). Recorded during a residency in 1978, before Jones moved to Copenhagen, this CD is packed with his extraordinary arrangements. The ensemble playing is superior. There are solos to match it by saxophonist Jesper Thilo, pianist Ole Kock Hansen, trombonist Vincent Nilsson, and trumpeters Allan Borschinsky and Idrees Sulieman. Jones’s only cornet solo–on “Old Folks”–is memorable.
ICP Orchestra, Aan & Uit (ICIP). The bizarre and the beautiful. The irrepressible pianist Misha Mengelberg seems to be the guiding spirit in this project of ten musicians, most of them Dutch, who include the avant garde drummer Han Bennink. Just when you think the hi-jinks are getting out of hand, a gorgeous piece of arranging takes over. Their treatment of Hoagy Carmichael’s barely-known “Barbaric” is a highlight. Now zany, now touching, this is music for the open-minded listener with a sense of adventure and a sense of humor.

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Twenty-nine years ago this weekend, Paul Desmond bid his girlfriend goodbye as she set off for London, urging her to have a good holiday. That was on Friday. He would be fine, he told her; he had friends coming the next day. But his only companion was the lung cancer that had ravaged him during the past year. His housekeeper found him dead on Monday, Memorial Day. Marian McPartland said, “It’s just like Paul to slip quietly away when everyone’s out of town, not to bother anybody.” Details of his passing—and his life—are in this book.
In a coincidence for which I am grateful, this morning I received a message guiding me to a newly discovered video clip of Paul playing “Take Five.” It was made at Lincoln Center in 1972 in a concert reuniting him with Dave Brubeck. Alan Dawson is the drummer, Jack Six the bassist. Unlike most of the videos of Desmond that pop up here and there, this one is in color. It lingers after the piece ends while Paul bows and thanks the audience. I have watched it three times. I gave up hard liquor many years ago, but I am going watch the clip once more tonight, make a toast and have a sip of Dewars. If you would like to join me, go here.

Like, dig! I’m in step.
When it was hip to be hep, I was hep.
I don’t blow but I’m a fan.
Look at me swing. Ring a ding ding.
I even call my girlfriend “man,”
‘cuz I’m hip…

—Dave Frishberg, “I’m Hip,”1965

It has been well said that ‘the arch-flatterer with
whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence is a
man’s self.’
—Francis Bacon, “Of Love,” 1605

Terry Teachout’s ecstatic review of pianist Roger Kellaway’s new drummerless trio makes me want to hop a plane to New York. Kellaway has lived in California for years. He is back in The Apple for an engagement at the Jazz Standard.

The three men opened the set with a super-sly version of Benny Golson’s “Killer Joe,” and within four bars you knew they were going to swing really, really hard. So they did, with Kellaway pitching his patented curve balls all night long, including a bitonal arrangement of Bobby Darin’s “Splish Splash” and what surely must have been the first time that the Sons of the Pioneers’ “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” has ever been performed by a jazz group.

To read all of TT’s hymn of praise, go here.
There’s nothing new about Kellaway’s wizardry. It’s just that for a few years his playing took a back seat to his composing and arranging. He came back into the public ear as a pianist with a flourish that coincided with the 2004 film biography of Bobby Darin, for whom Kellaway was once musical director. His solo CD of songs associated with Darin was one of the piano album highlights of last year. If you’re not a Darin enthusiast, don’t worry; you needn’t be to appreciate what Kellaway does with the music. Here’s a bit of what I wrote in Jazz Times about I Was There.

The quality of playing here is so high that it’s difficult to designate one track as an apogee among the performances. I lean toward Berlin’s “All By Myself,” with its headlong swing, orchestral depth and a shout chorus worthy of the Count Basie brass section in the Harry Edison-Buck Clayton days. But, then, “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” has Kellaway’s flawless runs and arpeggios complementing and commenting on the melody, putting that timeless ballad in a new light.

To read the entire review, go here. Kellaway followed up the solo album with a trio CD of music Darin sang, employing the drastically underappreciated guitarist Bruce Foreman and bassist Dan Lutz. If you’ve been asleep on Roger Kellaway, now’s the time to wake up.

The Before & After test I did with Miguel Zenon at the Portland Jazz Festival appears in the June issue of Jazz Times, now on news stands. Here’s a sample of his acute hearing and assessments:

3. Gonzalo Rubalcaba
“Los Buyes” (from Paseo, Blue Note). Rubalcaba, piano; Luis Felipe Lamoglia, alto sax; Jose Armando Gola, electric bass; Ignacio Berroa, drums. Recorded in 2005.
BEFORE: This is Gonzalo Rubalcaba’s group, all Cuban. Luis Felipe Lamoglia is a tenor player, but he sounds great on alto on this tune. It sounds like this is an arrangement of a Cuban traditional song. Great performance. Incredible band.
AFTER: Gonzalo is one of the most original voices on piano over the past twenty years. For me, he’s probably the most impressive pianist I’ve ever seen, in terms of playing the instrument with flawless technique and great sound. He’s one of those guys who can do anything he wants, at any moment. He’ll give you all the technique, but he also has a great feel and sensibility for improvisation.

The complete Before & After will be on the Jazz Times website eventually, with audio samples of the records he heard, but for now you’ll have to be content with the print version.

The ambitious multiple blogger Jerry Bowles has put together blognoggle, a clearinghouse for several blogs. In a message to Rifftides, he writes:

I started blognoggle pages on new music, business and politics because I realized that only a small fraction of internet users now bother with RSS readers and those who do become quickly overwhelmed by too
much information. My hunch is that web readers (particularly music lovers as opposed to techies) would much rather go to a web page where the most important and freshest posts from the best sources have already been automatically selected for them to quickly review.

A good idea. I, for one, don’t know from RSS. The blognoggle page on new music is here. Among other valuable leads, it will take you to video of an Art Tatum performance of “Yesterdays.” Tatum stuck pretty much to his virtuoso routine on the piece, but he always incorporated a surprise or two. In this case, listen for his “Salt Peanuts” fillips.
The blognoggle music page has links to Bowles’s politics and business pages. I’m adding a link to it—and by proxy, them—in the Rifftides Other Places guide in the right-hand column. Mr. Bowles is also the proprietor of the excellent Sequenza21 blog on classical music. Bravo, sir. Sequenza21 gets an Other Places link, too.