Jane Ira Bloom, Mental Weather (Outline). This 2008 quartet album by the soprano saxophonist deserved Rifftides attention long before now. Bloom is noted for her control, intonation and full-bodied sound on a notoriously thin and cranky instrument, but those qualities merely serve her creativity, … [Read more...]

Terry Teachout, Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong (Houghton Mifflin, 474 pages, $30) A good biography of a musician makes the reader want to listen. Alexander Wheelock Thayer triggered that compulsion with his life of Beethoven, Marion Hildesheimer with Mozart, Richard Sudhalter with Bix Beiderbecke. … [Read more...]

Critical carping and misguided stylistic arguments aside, in every period of his career Louis Armstrong was formidable in his playing and singing. His appearance with the All-Stars at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival reminded many who had taken Armstrong for granted of the power of his art. Through … [Read more...]

Drummer Jake Hanna died last night in Los Angeles of complications from a blood disease. He was 78. Versatile across all jazz styles, in small groups and large Hanna swung with unremitting flexibility and power. He was the spark plug of big bands led by Woody Herman, Maynard Ferguson and Harry James … [Read more...]

Author Nick Catalano recently had occasion to revisit the JazzHouse in Copenhagen. The club is the successor to the Montmartre, which presented dozens of the world's best jazz artists in the 1950s and '60s. Rifftides pieces about Bud Powell and the Montmartre's masks stimulated considerable … [Read more...]

It is the custom of trumpeter John McNeil to disseminate notices about his band's engagements at Puppet's, a Brooklyn, New York, night club. Late today, he issued a special edition: Tonight's gig at Puppets is cancelled. Don't know why... … [Read more...]

Once in a great while, I encounter a photograph so good that it is necessary to dream up a reason to use it. In the case of the one beow, no dreaming was necessary. The lighting, sharpness and definition are so right, the shot looks like 3-D. The tenor saxophonist is Hadley Caliman. The conductor … [Read more...]

With fairness, it could be charged that Rifftides has been too concerned lately with the old and the dead. Well, certain observances and acknowledgements needed to be made. But let's move on. David Liebman wrote with an antidote. Here's his message: ok--it's a cliche now that "they"(meaning the … [Read more...]

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.--Friedrich Nietzsche It is all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date.--George Bernard Shaw For God's sake give me the young man … [Read more...]

What three administrations in the White House have refused to do, the people have done. They have recognized Willis Conover, the Voice of America broadcaster who may have been America's greatest cultural diplomat of the Cold War. He now has his own Facebook page, The Willis Conover Club. Will that … [Read more...]

Sad news from London that Johnny Dankworth --Sir John Dankworth-- has died at 82. The alto saxophonist, composer and band leader and his wife, the singer Cleo Laine, have been pillars of jazz in England since the early 1950s. To read the BBC's announcement of his death, go here. John Dankworth … [Read more...]

Browsing YouTube, I came across what must be among the rarest pieces of jazz film, a sequence of Woody Herman's Second Herd, the celebrated Four Brothers band. We hear Herman's vocal and a bit of Stan Getz's tenor saxophone on "Caldonia," then most of "Northwest Passage," both pieces holdovers from … [Read more...]

In today's New York Times, classical music critic Steve Smith gives an account of a rare encounter between improvising jazz musicians and a work of Franz Josef Haydn. To read it, go here. … [Read more...]

Rifftides Washington, DC, correspondent John Birchard has rediscovered pianist Mike Wofford and filed this appreciation: I've been listening lately to Mike Wofford. I first heard his work on an Epic LP titled Strawberry Wine back in the early 60's and was impressed, especially with a couple of his … [Read more...]

Daedalus Books and Music is a company that sells remaindered or overstocked books and recordings. It is the beneficiary of what we might conservatively call a state of flux in the fields of book publishing and recorded music. Daedalus and similar overstock specialists gather the fruits of catalogs … [Read more...]

GOING To repeat: I have no intention of Rifftides becoming an obituary service, but as James Moody says his grandmother told him, "Folks is dyin' what ain't never died before," and some passings demand to be observed. John Norris died yesterday in Toronto at the age of 76. He was the founder of the … [Read more...]

The pianist and singer Joyce Collins died recently in Los Angeles following a long illness. She was 79. Highly respected in jazz circles, Collins played with a sensitive touch and subtle use of chords. Her singing was an outgrowth of those values, with attention to interpretation of the meaning of … [Read more...]

If you have seen videos filmed at the Montmartre club in Copenhagen in the 1950s and '60s, you may have wondered about the stylized wall masks that often show up in the opening moments. Rifftides reader Dave Bernard has wondered about them, too. Mr. Bernard researched the masks and reports the … [Read more...]

1947 was a good year for movies. It saw the release of Miracle on 34th Street, Gentleman's Agreement, Life with Father, Lady from Shangai and Out of the Past, among other excellent films. New Orleans also hit the screen that year. It began life as an Orson Welles project, but Welles dropped it and … [Read more...]