Here’s an item purloined (with his permission) from bassist Bill Crow’s column “The Band Room” in Allegro, the publication of New York Local 802 of the American Federation Of Musicians.

Zoot Sims was one of the many tenor saxophonists who took Lester Young’s style as a starting point for their own development. But Zoot also idolized Coleman Hawkins (pictured left). He once told me, “Hawk never played a wrong note in his life.” Zoot had a classic Volvo that he was very fond of. He had it completely overhauled, had it painted red, and polished up the chrome. He was showing it to Hawkins (pictured left) one day, and when Hawk turned the handle on the passenger door, the handle came off. He handed it to Zoot, who went around to the driver’s side and opened the door for Hawk, and then put the handle in the glove compartment. Because the door handle had come off in the hand of his idol, Zoot never had it repaired. The handle remained in Zoot’s glove compartment for the rest of his life.

If Bill’s story put you in a mood to listen to Zoot, you’re in luck. Here he is at the Cannes Jazz Festival in 1958 with Walter Davis, Jr., piano; Arthur Taylor, drums; and Doug Watkins, bass. They play, “I’ll Remember April.”

Franco Ambrosetti Quintet, Long Waves (Unit)

The Swiss trumpeter and flugelhornist assembles a group of contemporaries to play his compositions and a couple of cherished standard songs. Ambrosetti’s fluid improvisations, sometimes with a Miles Davis bent, are consistently impressive. So, too, is the work of the star-filled rhythm section of pianist Uri Caine, guitarist John Scofield, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Among the highlights are Ambrosetti’s “Silli’s Waltz,” named for his wife. Although one may usually think of Scofield as an earthy player, his solo on the piece discloses that he can be downright lilting and lyrical in 3/4 time. Caine gives Willard Robison’s classic “Old Folks” a delicate introduction that inspires Ambrosetti to a solo with touches that may trigger remembrances of Charlie Parker’s unforgettable recording of the piece half a century ago.

Son of the pioneering Swiss saxophonist Flavio Ambrosetti and father of one in a new generation, Gianluca, Franco Ambrosetti continues as one of his country’s finest musicians. In the company of a remarkable rhythm section, he reminds us that at its international best, jazz is the world’s music.

Chet Baker devotees may be intrigued to learn that some of the best music of his last few years has been released as a superb set of LPs. The box is titled Chet Baker: The Legendary Riverside Albums. It contains five LPs that Baker recorded in New York in the late 1950s. Among the giants of the era who accompany him are Philly Joe Jones, Bill Evans, Pepper Adams, Kenny Burrell, Sam Jones, Johnny Griffin, Zoot Sims and Kenny Drew. I was honored that producer Nick Phillips asked me to write the liner essay for the album. That piece includes a reference to a television interview I did with Baker as he was about to open at the Half Note club in Manhattan in 1974, following a long layoff. Here is an excerpt:

“Jeez,” he fretted before we began filming, “what if nobody comes?”

He needn’t have worried. People came–not only those who remembered his first brush with fame in Gerry Mulligan’s group, but also fans who had followed his playing and singing ever since through dozens of albums for a variety of record labels. There were also young listeners intrigued by the opportunity to hear in person for the first time a famous and controversial celebrity.

Recorded a decade before Baker’s murder or accidental death in Amsterdam in 1988 (the case has never been solved), this collection has some of the best playing and singing of his New York period. The box also contains one LP of outtakes and alernates.

It is sad to report that the great trumpeter Jack Sheldon has died at the age of 88. Sheldon sang with spirit, style, phrasing and good humor that paralleled his trumpet playing. This video is from his 1984 appearance at Lulu White’s Mahogany Hall in the New Orleans French Quarter. The other members of his band were Dave Frishberg, piano; John Pisano, guitar; and Dave Stone, bass. Reader Peter Levin’s comment is correct; the drummer is Frankie Capp. The tune is Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.”

For more about Sheldon’s multi-faceted career, see this Don Heckman article in The Los Angeles Times.

Jack Sheldon, RIP

Many thanks to the Rifftides readers who have expressed concern about the lag between postings. It has, indeed, been several days since a new entry. The interregnum has been for a good cause…continuation of the blog. Sometimes that depends on meeting other obligations, as in this case. I took on a pair of freelance assignments that required lots of research, interviews and, of course, writing. In both cases they were notes for new albums. One CD is for a welcome Summit Records release by trumpeter Carl Saunders. He is accompanied by two west coast veterans, bassist Chuck Berghofer and drummer Joe LaBarbera. Josh Nelson, a young pianist in great demand in Los Angeles jazz circles, completes the Saunders rhythm section.

The second project is notes for a new series of duets by French pianist Martial Solal and American saxophonist Dave Liebman. Masters In Paris follows their earlier Masters In Bordeaux, also a duet encounter, that was greeted with enthusiastic reviews. Both albums are for Sunnyside Records. The Saunders and Liebman-Solal projects each required extensive listening, and that was a major part of the reward of writing about them.

Normal Rifftides activity, whatever that turns out to be, will resume soon.

Keith Jarrett, Munich 2016 (ECM)

Among pianist Keith Jarrett’s succession of solo concert albums going back more than four decades, Munich 2016 is remarkable even by his standards. The depth and variety of his improvisations make it so. Except for three standard songs here, he invented all of the music that he made three years ago in performance at Philharmonic Hall in Munich, Germany. It is heard as seven parts under the overall title “Munich.”

Into those spontaneous compositions Jarrett integrates layer upon layer of melodic invention using the harmonic ingenuity and rhythmic power that he has continually refined since his early days with groups led by Roland Kirk,Tony Scott, Art Blakey and Charles Lloyd. This is part III from Munich 2016.

YouTube has a limited selection of pieces from the Jarrett Munich album and only one of the standard songs that he evidently included as encores. This is “It’s A Lonesome Old Town.”

That was from Keith Jarrett’s most recent album, Munich 2016, an invaluable addition to his discography.
Coincidentally, the TCB label has reissued one of Jarrett’s albums with tenor saxophonist Charles Lloyd in one of Lloyd’s most significant quartets. Jarrett’s band mates were Lloyd, tenor saxophone; Ron McClure, bass; and Jack DeJohnette, drums. From the original issue of that collection, which was called Dream Weaver, here is Lloyd’s composition “Love Ship.”

All of us at Rifftides hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

We remember the life of Paul Desmond, who bequeathed us decades of memorable moments in American music. We lost a great musician, and I one of my dearest friends, when Paul died in his early fifties. He was born on November 25, 1924. From his earliest days in San Francisco through decades as Dave Brubeck’s alto saxophonist partner and with an enthusiastic following of his own, Desmond became one of the most celebrated soloists in jazz. Here is one reason, his 13-chorus solo on “Tangerine,” recorded with the Brubeck quartet in Denmark in 1957.

For my biography of Paul Desmond, pianist Bill Mays and his friend Arnie DeKeijzer, transcribed the entire Desmond “Tangerine” solo. Hardback copies of that biography are long gone, but it is available as an e-book with all of its photographs and illustrations intact.