New Orleans is mourning the death on Friday of Charles Neville, saxophonist and ever-smiling presence in the Neville Brothers band from 1977 to 2015. Charles was a focal point with his brothers Cyril, Art and Aaron in the family band that became one of the city’s most successful and celebrated musical groups. For years, they were a fixture of the New Orleans Jazz And Heritage Festival. Neville died at home in Huntington, Massachusetts.He moved to New England in the 1990s, returning frequently to his hometown for performances and family reunions. In a 2011 concert at Angel Park in Williamsburg, MA, he and bassist Tyler Heydolph played Horace Silver’s “Song For My Father.â€
The close attention Neville paid to Heydolph’s solo was typical of his bandstand relationships. For more about his life and music, see New England Public Radio’s obituary.
Charles Neville, RIP.
In the aftermath of Bob Dorough’s death on Monday, increased attention is going to his extensive body of songs. Among Dorough’s greatest admirers is the Swedish trumpet player and singer Mårten Lundgren. With bassist and vocalist Helle Marstrand, pianist Sven-Erik Lundequist and drummer Espen Laub von Lillienskjod, Lundgren 
Dorough’s greatest fame in popular culture stemmed from his central role in the enormously successful television series Schoolhouse Rock. The program informed and entertained children, and many adults, from 1973 to 1985.
Years of playing together have refined the compatibility that saxophonist Lovano and trumpeter Douglas have displayed since their initial collaboration in the San Francisco Jazz Collective in 2004. Their fascination with the music of Wayne Shorter is evident in Sound Prints not only in their arrangements of two of Shorter’s best-known compositions, “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum†and “Juju,†but also in original pieces by the co-leaders. Bluesy, riff-like repeats in Douglas’s “Ups and Downs†constitute one example of Shorter’s influence. Two others are Lovano’s reflective “Full Moon†with its entwining horn lines, and the skittering energies in his short “High Noon,†a track whose solos would be welcome at greater length. Douglas’s “Libra†opens with the harmonic riches of Lawrence Field’s piano chorus. Douglas and Lovano achieve an album high point in their rich unison ensemble in that piece. Bassist Linda Han Oh and drummer Joey Baron round out the quintet. They and Fields constitute a tight rhythm section, abetted in Lovano’s “Full Sun†by Baron’s stick work and joyous cymbal splashes, Douglas’s rising swoops of high notes and Linda Oh’s crisply intoned bass solo.
playlist includes two of his pieces, including the celebrated “Southern Nights.†It also has his piano performances of compositions by Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Fats Waller, Earl Hines and—perhaps to the surprise of some listeners—Bill Evans’ “Waltz For Debby.†Toussaint’s appreciation ran a wide gamut. Sidemen here can be surprising, among them guitarist Bill Frisell, saxophonist Charles Lloyd and lap steel guitarist Greg Leisz. On 19th Century New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s “Danza,†Amy Shulman is at the harp. In his playing, Toussaint gives his chords a flow akin to running water. He sings one song, Paul Simon’s 1973 “American Tune.†It remains as moving as when Simon did it.
Sulieman (1923-2002) was a distinctive early bebop trumpet player. His experience as a young man included McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, the Earl Hines big band, Sid Catlett and Cab Calloway. His range and flexibility allowed him later to be featured with Thelonious Monk, the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland band and Gerry Mulligan’s Concert Band. Sulieman was notable for his fluency, a kind of edgy lyricism, and the cavernous sound he achieved with a cup mute. This double CD album was recorded in Algeria at a Tangiers radio station and in a New York City studio. It features the little-recognized pianist Oscar Dennard, bassist Jamil Nasser and drummer Buster Smith. Dennard’s harmonic gift triumphs over a piano that it would be kind to call adequate, but his solos are so interesting that the unfortunate instrument barely matters. Sulieman and company are particularly incisive in Charlie Parker’s “Visa.†This is a good way for anyone unfamiliar with Sulieman to learn what he was all about.
composer†his longtime bass-playing associate Jeff Johnson is. The three pieces that Johnson contributed to Cubist leave no doubt about his writing ability. The title tune plus “Kiwi,†“Artists†and “Scene West†give Galper, Johnson and drummer John Bishop plenty of challenging material. They make the most of it. Galper’s post-bop credentials with Cannonball Adderly, Chet Baker and Phil Woods, among others, are part of his solid history. A few years ago he began to explore the challenges and charms of time-play, rubato, bypassing strict tempo—â€stealing time,†as the Italians sometimes put it. The approach requires that all hands feel the time or non-time at the same intensity, with the same flexibility. Galper, Johnson, Bishop and tenor saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi feel it together. “Scene West†is thirteen minutes of slowly building intensity capped by a bear-growling Johnson bass solo. Galper rounds out the album with compatible pieces not written by Johnson; Miles Davis’s “Solar,†Johnny Carisi’s “Israel,†a relaxed Ellington “In A Sentimental Mood†with another superb Johnson solo and laid-back, adventurous Bergonzi, and Galper’s own “Scufflin’,†which has stretches of Bishop in strict time that is not entirely unwelcome.
And magnolia blossoms 15 feet from the kitchen window.
Pianist Green’s earlier album Altered Narratives put strings with his trio on three tracks. The melding with a string quartet worked nicely. One Day It Will carries the idea to album length, with excellent arrangements by Green and smooth interaction among a string quartet and the trio featuring bassist Justin Grinnell and drummer Julien Cantelm. Among many highlights: the evocative languor of Green’s “October Ballad,†Cantelm’s accents amounting to commentary behind Green’s dancing solo on “As The Parrot Flies,†Grinell’s solo on the waltz “Lemon Avenue,†the richness of Kate Hatmaker’s violin on “As The Parrot Flies.†Sound quality is superb.
They were hot in more than one sense. Pelt, pianist Victor Gould, bassist Vicente Archer, drummer Jonathan Barber and percussionist Jacuelene Acevedo had established their unity and fire in the earlier 
The Kairos Sextet are protégés of the superb Cuban drummer Dafnis Prieto, who assembled them from among his students at Miami’s Frost School of Music after he came to the US a decade ago. The group has been in demand for work supporting major players including Dave Liebman and Joe Lovano, but in Transition, they are on their own, gloriously so. Prieto’s guidance may have been essential in the band’s formation, but trumpeter Sam Neufeld, saxophonists Sean Johnson and Tom Kelley, pianist Nick Lamb, bassist Jon Dadurka and drummer Johnathan Hulett have evolved into an ensemble whose solo abilities and big collective sound put them in the first rank of contemporary groups. The pieces are original compositions by the members, except for Victor Schertzinger’s classic “I Remember You.†Kelley gives it a stirring arrangement with minor-key flavors.
upscale music magazines used to call a basic repertoire item. The Three Sounds thrived for a few years under the leadership of pianist Gene Harris. For most of the group’s existence, Andy Simpkins was the bassist and Bill Dowdy the drummer. Engineer and celebrated on-air host Jim Wilke recorded the group when he presented them in live broadcasts that became steady fare for Seattle-area listeners. The trio has sometimes been described as representative of jazz-rock, but their music was deeper and broader than the term suggests, as this album’s “Yours Is My Heart Alone,†“The Night Has A Thousand Eyes†and “The Shadow Of Your Smile†attest. It’s not just a question of repertoire, but of musicianship and the blues feeling with which Harris, Simpkins and Dowdy infused everything they played. That includes Ray Brown’s “A.M. Blues,†Toots Thielemans’ “Bluesette†and Three Sounds specialties like “Rat Down Front†and “The Boogaloo.†Kalil Madi or Carl Burnett substitute on drums for Dowdy on a few tracks and carry the torch splendidly. Resonance Records and Wilke deserve praise for preserving the music and finally releasing this album. Warning: It could make you decide to dust off your 1960s boogaloo moves.
Leave it to readers to keep the Rifftides staff up to date. Otherwise, it might have skipped my attention that this is Denny Zeitlin’s 80th birthday. As you will momentarily see and hear, Zeitlin has retained the vigor and style that have helped keep him one of the most consistently interesting pianists of his generation; indeed, of any generation. In one of his recent annual concerts at the Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland, California, Zeitlin featured works of Thelonious Monk. Here, he introduces one of Monk’s best-known compositions and explains its geneology.
from the first of two Jazz Greats Of Our Time sessions that the prolific composer and arranger (pictured) recorded in the 1950s—one with star east coast musicians, the other with some of the most prominent west coast players. Albam made the east coast “Millmoss†in New York in 1957 with Gerry Mulligan, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Phil Woods, Bob Brookmeyer, Nick Travis, Art Farmer, Osie Johnson, Milt Hinton and Hank Jones. In the video, the soloists are identified by name, for which Erlendur Svavarsson, who posted the track, deserves great credit. (Photo: Monk Rowe)
Cecil Taylor, a pianist who fashioned his music from myriad styles and sources, died yesterday in New York. He was 89. From his earliest recordings in the mid-1950s with bassist Buell Nieidlinger, drummer Dennis Charles and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, Taylor pursued daring and swam upstream against jazz orthodoxy. This is how critic Ben Ratliff put it in an obituary in today’s New York Times.
Composer, saxophonist, bandleader and author Bill Kirchner is the subject of two new articles that recognize his decades of creativity. One piece is in the new issue of Allegro, the magazine of New York’s American Federation of Musicians local 802. The other is in the Canadian bassist Steve Wallace’s admired weblog. In his extensive evaluation of Kirchner’s career, Wallace writes,
It would be tempting to attach a video clip to each of those names, but we don’t want to keep you up all night. Let’s be arbitrary and let Scott LaFaro be the surrogate birthday artist for all 26 of the performers born on this day. His composition “Gloria’s Step†is one of the pieces that LaFaro played with pianist Bill Evans’ trio in their celebrated Sunday at the Village Vanguard performances of 1961. LaFaro’s skill, creativity and ingenuity as a bassist and his interaction with Evans and drummer Paul Motian were central to the trio’s musical achievement. He influenced virtually every bassist who succeeded him. His innovations were crucial to a redefinition of jazz rhythm sections. LaFaro’s death in an automobile crash at 25 devastated Evans, who required a long recovery before resuming his career.
Pianist-composer-arranger Simon is engrossed in jazz, his heritage in Latin-American music and his studies of Buddhism. Sorrows & Triumphs blends those and other aspects of his preoccupations, and Simon refines the individuality that has made him one of the most interesting—although insufficiently recognized—musicians to have emerged in the past three decades. The album, due for release this month, brings together the combo known as the Imani Winds with Simon’s ensemble Afinidad and vocalist Gretchen Parlato. Afinidad includes alto saxophonist David Binney, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade. Percussionist Rogerio Boccato and Luis Quintero and guitarist Adam Rogers are guest artists. If that rundown reads like the description of a contemporary all-star group, it is.
recognition as one of the premier arrangers of the 21st century. Since joining the UNT faculty in 2010, DeRosa has written brilliantly for the school’s legendary One O’Clock and Two O’Clock Lab Bands and for other orchestras in the United States and abroad. Perseverance provides copious evidence of his mastery. It includes a dazzling version of Ellington’s “Take The ‘A’ Trainâ€; a fugue full of wit and complexities; perfectly integrated electronics in the title tune; a quiet, reflective version of the Wayne Shorter ballad “Infant Eyesâ€; the expansive five-part “Suite For An Anniversaryâ€; and a tribute to the longtime UNT jazz program head Neil Slater. Slater’s work fills this 
Lawrence was one of the young saxophonists all but consumed by John Coltrane’s revolutionary transformation of the instrument’s role in jazz in the 1960s. Elementals establishes that on soprano and tenor sax, he continues as a loyal Coltrane disciple. Particularly on the title track, the Latinate “Brazilian Girls†and “African Chant,†he reestablishes his dedication to Coltrane’s expansiveness and vitality, although with little evidence of his mentor’s tonal graininess on tenor. Pianist Benito Gonzales is correspondingly loyal to McCoy Tyner’s energetic approach. Drummer Marvin “Smitty†Smith is supportive and energetic throughout. Guest guitarist Greg Poree adds atmospheric touches to “Solar Winds.†An odd matter of titleing: the piece called “Koko†bears no apparent relationship to the classic Charlie Parker composition of the same name that was based on “Cherokee.†The album is enjoyable and stimulating not in spite of but because of what we might call its Coltraneity.
what happened with American Classic. When the minimally packaged 2009 advance release finally popped out of hiding, I hoped that it would be a worthy successor to Nelson’s 
arranger and member of the vocal group The Beachcombers, who were a very popular lounge act at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. They also opened in the main room for such acts as Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne (Jerry wrote special material for her) and Nat Cole; Jerry even appeared on Cole’s television show. Such arrangers as Gene Puerling (The Hi-Los) and Bob Alcivar (The Fifth Dimension) have named him an important influence in group vocal music. I learned about act writing and conducting from him (among many other things), eventually working with him orchestrating and producing recordings. When I met him in 1973, he was still active in a business when singers of all types were performing in clubs, auditoriums, casinos and television. I heard many acts over the years: bona-fide stars, television actors who needed a few numbers to play live venues and increase their visibility, and near-amateurs who had money and a dream. Jerry and I would discuss them.
Mirtle’s monumental discography on May, so this is new information. With the amount of television, motion picture and recording work happening on both East and West coasts, arrangers gladly helped each other finish work that was needed in a hurry. In New York, several arrangers lived within a short area of Central Park West and streets in the 70s blocks and helped each other on record dates and live television shows.
Rifftides is delighted that Jeff Sultanof has agreed to contribute another piece. A distinguished expert on arrangers and arranging, Mr. Sultanof is the author of the invaluable book 
on projects that had a variety of issues not easily solved (he and Dylan Canterbury just completed Ellington’s “Black, Brown and Beige,†and Rob has plenty of stories about that). In addition, he is a master at computer engraving. Although I am still learning Finale, for this project I use my own shorthand and I can write fairly quickly, proofreading against the parts as a final check. There is indeed something wonderful about seeing each part added and watching the music be re-created. My routine is to write out the music, bring it home and look at it, then proof it the next time I am at Schomburg. I specialize in finding valuable scores and correcting them; in many cases Rob goes to various archives and sends them to me, and works on many of these scores himself.
one can look at the trombone parts to see if they were written with the same pitches, but that’s not a hard-and-fast rule. Not everything may be straightforward; most times the answer is there or can be deduced. But when one looks at a Thad Jones (pictured) or Gil Evans score, one has to use the clues supplied because answers may not be so obvious. So often in my classes, I tell my students, “Use your clues,†and they find their way. For instance, in many cases when Evans wrote for Claude Thornhill he would write an orchestral sketch in the piano part,  so notes can be checked easily, and obvious errors fixed that way.
Robert Farnon (pictured) told me that he knew his music wasn’t prepared carefully when it was published for sale back in the fifties, but he appreciated that it was being looked at and finally fixed. As one arranger told me, “Back then, we were treated with either no respect or just plain ignored until we were desperately needed; sometimes we had to bug people to get paid. We did what we did and forgot about it. That was the way it was. It is so nice to know this music means something to people.†One very famous arranger was truly surprised that his music was still being listened to and written about many years after the fact. “You guys are legends to many people!†I told him. So often, the music is wonderful; sometimes it is extraordinary!
Resonance Records specializes in jazz archeology, releasing music by figures who might otherwise fade in the memories of jazz listeners. One not likely to disappear is the organist Larry Young (1940-1978), who made several successful Blue Note and Prestige albums. His presence in one of the more adventurous bands of Miles Davis’s semi-rock period gave him additional exposure, as did his role in drummer Tony Williams’ Lifetime, a trio that also included guitarist John McLaughlin. Resonance acquired recordings that Young made in live broadcasts in Paris in the mid 1960s. They remained in the archive unheard until now. The Paris recordings recall Young’s relatively restrained approach to the organ during an era dominated by players like Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff who were capable of using the instrument as a sonic battering ram. Six tracks of the ten in the Resonance set find Young with the trumpeter Woody Shaw, who was amazingly advanced at the age of 18. The set also gives us the opportunity to hear two superb tenor saxophonists, the American Nathan Davis and the Frenchman Jean-Claude Fohrenbach, who combined aspects of Stan Getz and John Coltrane. The two CDs thrive on blues and blues-tinged pieces and, in the case of Young’s “Luny Tune,†the harmonies of “I Got Rhythm,†that perennial source of jazz originals. Not from the Resonance album but from that period of Young’s life, here is “Tyrone.†It’s on his Into Something! Blue Note CD, with Sam Rivers, tenor saxophone; Elvin Jones, drums; and Grant Green, guitar.
most sensitive and adaptable masters of the art of jazz drumming. Along the way, he fell in love with the Brazilian music that went worldwide with the bossa nova explosion ignited by João Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Elis Regina, Baden Powell and others. JAZZaNOVA expresses Tana’s feeling for that music and his appreciation for superior singing. The voclalists are Brazlians Claudio Amaral, Maria Volonté and Claudia Villela, and three American steeped in Brazilian music, Carla Helmbrecht, Sandy Cressman and Jackie Ryan.
Hembrecht—and  Ms. Cressman’s caressing of Jobim’s “Caminhos Cruzados.†Ms. Ryan pours emotion into Jobim’s “Por Causa de Vocé.†Branford Marsalis is the guest tenor saxophonist on Lins’ “Love Dance,†sung by Ms. Helmbrecht. On Caetano Veloso’s “Aquele Frevo Axé,†he shares the final chorus in a gentle obbligato behind Mr. Amaral’s vocal.