Charlie and Sandi Shoemake write from Cambria, California, in response to these comments on Jake Hanna’s riposte following the death of John Lennon:

Whether your stance on Jake Hanna is that of being appalled like your super politically correct reader Jansen or understood as just a dark comedy aside (which has always been part of the jazz experience) like your reader Lang, one thing remains. That is that Jake Hanna is one of our countrys finest drummers and the possessor of a wit that has been making musicians laugh for decades. Jakes’ style of humor always reminded me of the late Jack E. Leonard (who was also not known to be politically correct much of the time). His hundreds of asides are legend in the jazz community, one of my favorites was told to me by bassist Luther Hughes. Jake and Luther were stuck one evening playing with a terrible pianist who not only played his songs badly but played his songs LONG and badly. During one marathon of incorrectness, Luther happened to glance over at Jake and heard him (while continuing to play) say….COACH! TAKE ME OUT!

Jake will be playing our series here in January with trombonist Dan Barrett.

PS: We still like the commentary you made in your Jazz Matters book about Bruce Springsteen and playing in “tough” keys like B flat. None of the Beatles was able to read or write music, so when one of the true musical geniuses of the 20th century, Bela Bartok, died in poverty as did countless jazz greats (Kenny Dorham and Hank Mobley to cite just a couple) I think it’s only natural to have a few dark comedy remarks appear.

The resignation this week of American Red Cross President Marsha Evans stirred up old complaints and doubts about the charity. The former Navy rear admiral was the fourth Red Cross head in six years to walk. The failure of the organization’s Louisiana and Mississippi chapters to get relief to the victims of hurricane Katrina again raised questions about the ability of any Red Cross president to administer effectively. With a huge board that appears incapable of organizing operations or of trusting the top officers it appoints, the Red Cross’s structural weakness was illuminated in a blaze of news coverage. Before another major disaster strikes, the charity that collects more money than any other needs top-to-bottom evaluation.
In the story of the money Paul Desmond left it, there is a small indication of the obtuseness of the organization’s leadership. He designated the Red Cross his principal beneficiary. Over the years, Desmond’s executor, Noel Silverman, has sent the American Red Cross, in $25,000 increments, the royalties from “Take Five,” “Wendy,” Paul’s other compositions and his recordings under his own name. Desmond died in 1977. A quarter of a century later, Silverman had never received more than pro forma thanks to the estate. Here’s part of the story, from Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond.

“For 25 years,” he (Silverman) said, “they just collected money and collected money and once in a while I got an acknowledgment that obviously bore no relation to the size of the gift, the extent of the gift or any awareness of who Paul Desmond was.”

On August 12, 2002, Silverman wrote a letter to J. Logan Seitz, senior vice president of the American Red Cross, giving him the background of the legacy, outlining Desmond’s career and prominence and informing him that the total contribution now was more than three million dollars.

This was the final paragraph of the letter:

It is easy to accuse the Red Cross of ingratitude. I suspect that that may be less than accurate. It may simply be that the organization is poorly run, badly mannered, or understandably not concerned with gifts which are not dependent on whether or not they are acknowledged. Come to think of it, organizational ungraciousness may not be such a bad description after all.

Weeks went by during which Silverman received another impersonal, misaddressed form letter acknowledging a $75,000 installment, and then yet another robotic form letter. At last, a meeting with a living, breathing Red Cross officer led to improvement.

Finally, the Red Cross informed Silverman that at the annual dinner dance of the organization in New York, Desmond would be honored with a posthumous tribute. On April 8, 2003, Silverman accepted the honor in Paul’s memory. He announced at the banquet that Desmond’s total contribution to the Red Cross had reached four-million dollars and was growing.

The bequest now approaches five-million dollars. In the light of recent events, it is impossible not to wonder how efficiently Paul’s legacy is being used.

Regarding the posting about Denny Zeitlin, Rifftides reader Dave Berk writes:

It was the early seventies, and the Trident was the Sausalito stop for a date, good jazz and some
marvelous petrale sole. Ah,
but the view……
Well, the visit with Dr.
Zeitlin evokes memories of
tastings above the California Wine Merchant in
the Marina, and listening
to Chuck Wagner (the owner of Caymus) “pleading” for one
to buy his cab for $100/box.

Things are a bit different, now.

Yup. Adjusted for inflation, the $100 for a case of Caymus cabernet in 1972 is $456.11 in 2005 dollars. However, you won’t get the current Caymus cab at that price. nomerlot.com is offering the 2001 at $1,403.99, plus shipping. That’s an example of price adjustment dictated by the law of supply and demand. Cheers.

Rifftides reader Peter Bergmann in Berlin responded to the posting about Ben Webster.

Great Webster.

Ben Webster is buried in Copenhagen, close to Kenny Drew with whom he frequently played at the Cafe Montmartre in the 6o’s and early 70’s.
His legacy is alive in Copenhagen – and the rest of Europe.

Jack Tracy’s story about Jake Hanna’s reflexive quip the night he learned of John Lennon’s murder inspired an assortment of responses from readers of the Jazz West Coast listserve. Here is one exchange, courtesy of the JWC list:
From: Jeff Jansen
Subject: John Lennon Anecdote

Is this what jazz people consider humor: celebrating the murder of one
musician and wishing for the murders of three more? Oh, yeah I forgot the
jazz credo: if it’s not jazz, it’s not music; and if you don’t play jazz
you’re not really a musician. I guess we can now add: if you’re any other
kind of musician, you deserve to die soon.

Jake Hanna is a bastard for making the joke, and Jack Tracy is a bastard for
loving Jake for saying it, but neither deserves to die before his time.

Jeff Jansen | Portland, Oregon | USA

From: joseph lang
Subject: RE: John Lennon Anecdote

Jeff,

I do not know your age, but I have seen several comments about the Jake
Hanna anecdote off-list that lead me to conclude that the reaction to Jake’s
comments might to be generational. I do not believe that Jake, or anyone,
welcomed Lennon’s death in any real sense. He was just smugly reacting to
the effect that the advent of the Beatles had on musical tastes, and the
concomitant effect that it had on the music business, especially for jazz
players. The Beatles, and rock music in general, certainly did not help
jazz musicians, except for those who benefitted from studio gigs on rock
recordings. I can understand how one could be offended by reading Jake’s
comment in the abstract, but, given the kind of humor that is often a part
of the jazz culture, Jake’s comment does not seem any more insensitive than
a lot of other comments by jazzmen that have been passed along through the
years. To those who put Lennon on a pedistal as some kind of super cultural
icon, a judgement that I do not share, I guess that they could never
understand the whimsy of Jake’s comment. I personally considered many of
Lennon’s positions, particularly his rather public acknowledgement of his
involvement in the drug culture, to be as offensive to me as Jake’s comment
is to you. I guess that it is all a matter of perspective.

Joe Lang

For information about subscribing to the Jazz West Coast list, click here.

Many Rifftides habitues also visit Terry Teachout’s About Last Night. Indeed, many of you first came here because Terry referred you. As you may know, TT has been in the hospital for several days. I just talked with everyone’s favorite arts polymath as he was packing his bag to return home. He will be writing about his ordeal and his prospects when he resumes blogging. Let us hope that will be soon. In the meantime, his About Last Night co-conspirator, Our Girl In Chicago, is holding the fort.

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.—George Eliot

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness—Maya Angelou

Rifftides reader Bob Walsh writes:

Almost every review of GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK has applauded the rich tenor saxophone work of Matt Catingub on the soundtrack. But no one has mentioned that the work owes much to Ben Webster…and that Matt is the son of Mavis Rivers. (I saw them together at the Monterey Jazz Festival in the early 70s.)

Good points, especially the one about Ben Webster. I will dodge no opportunity to bring Webster to the attention of people who have not made his acquaintance. A good first step is to get his sound in your mind. Once you do, it is unlikely to leave. Follow this link for a short but complete sample of his tenor saxophone ballad artistry. Don’t bother clicking on the album cover you see there; it doesn’t take you to the album displayed, but the next Rifftides link does. The CD is Ben Webster at the Renaissance, in which he plays with Jimmy Rowles, Jim Hall, Red Mitchell and Frank Butler. Years later, when Ben was at a low point in his life and career, he said, “Why can’t I play with guys like that anymore?”
In Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers, I began a chapter called “Unabridged Webster” with this paragraph:

On the day my friend Swartz turned forty, he had a revelation. Entering my office at what for him was a gallop but for most of us would be a saunter, he announced that he had just heard on the radio a saxophonist named Ben Webster. He accurately described the fullness and the breadth of Webster’s tenor saxophone sound, his unmatchable phrasing, his gruff softness. Swartz added, with the sheepishness of one who realizes that he has just discovered something obviously long in the public domain, that there must be a lot of Ben Webster to catch up on.

It is nearly impossible to go wrong with a Webster CD. If you’d like to get started with him, here are three indispensable albums from among dozens available.
Duke Ellington:The Blanton-Webster Band
Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster
Ben Webster and Associates
Webster was born in 1909 in Kansas City, Missouri. He lived most of his final decade in Europe and died in Amsterdam in 1973.

The following message appeared today on the Jazz West Coast listserve.

With all the ink flowing about this being 25 years since John Lennon
bought the farm, I must tell you how I heard about it.

I was at Dante’s jazz club in the San Fernando Valley and the TV set
above the bar was on and showing the Monday night football game. The
band was on a break. Howard Cosell made his now-notable announcement
that Lennon had been shot and killed. It was silent. Then Jake Hanna
looked up at the screen from his bar seat and proclaimed firmly in his
best W.C. Fields voice, “One down, three to go.”

I love Jake.

Jack Tracy

Jack Tracy is a former editor of Down Beat.
Jake Hanna is a great drummer.

John Schaefer, Drew McManus and I had a good time addressing the proposition: to applaud or not to applaud. It was on WNYC Radio’s Soundcheck program. The discussion included calls from listeners with intelligent observations. If you missed it, you can listen to it by going to the Soundcheck page on WNYC’s website. You’ll be able to hear the whole hour or choose individual segments.
Following our get-together, John brought on Judy Kaye and Donald Corren, stars of the Broadway play Souvenir, which tells the story of the classical diva (ahem) Florence Foster Jenkins, likely the worst singer ever to maintain a career. We hear clips of Jenkins’ caterwauling and a live performance of Judy Kaye approximating it. There is a priceless sketch from the play in which Corren, as accompanist Cosme McMoon, attempts to teach Madame Jenkins to syncopate “Crazy Rhythm.” Florence Foster Jenkins was awful to the point of unintentional comedy, but she loved to sing and her sincerity was touching. All of that is probably why her recordings, including this one, still sell like hotcakes.