Ted O’Reilly writes from Toronto:

Before Christmas (Dec. 22) you had some Plato and Aristotle observations on music. How about adding some good ol’ W. Shakespeare?

Lorenzo:

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.

(Merchant of Venice, Act V)

You just did. Thanks.

Bill De Arango, the guitarist who died at eighty-five the day after Christmas, might have become famous. While his colleagues Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie invited audiences into the new territory they had all opened together, he left New York in 1948 and went home to Cleveland. The next generation of guitarists, which included Jimmy Raney and Tal Farlow, gained followings that De Arango helped make possible. Even his contemporary Remo Palmier, who stayed on the New York scene longer, was better known. But considering his short time in the big leagues, De Arango appears on a surprising number of records.
His playing was characterized by technical skill, digital speed and canny application of harmonic understanding to create memorable melodic inventions. With Parker and Gillespie, De Arango was a part of Sarah Vaughan’s first recordings under her own name, but did not solo on them. A few days later in the spring of 1945, he recorded with bassist Slam Stewart’s quintet, which included Red Norvo and Johnny Guarnieri. With daring intervals in his improvised lines, on the Stewart sides De Arango bridged the divide between swing and bebop, notably in ”On the Upside Looking Down.” After recording in the swing mainstream with saxophonists Charlie Kennedy and Ike Quebec—both in 1945—he joined Gillespie’s seven-piece band for recordings that accelerated the pace of bebop’s acceptance. De Arango’s choruses on “Anthropology,” “Ol’ Man Rebop” and particularly his luminous solo on the second take of “52nd Street Theme” demonstrated why Gillespie, Milt Jackson, Al Haig and Don Byas, the other soloists on that landmark RCA Victor date in early 1946, accepted him as a peer.
De Arango appeared on four Trummy Young sides the trombonist cut in April, 1946. In May, two weeks apart, came two magnificent recording sessions that De Arango and the magisterial tenor saxophonist Ben Webster split as leaders. De Arango’s sextet session was a swing-to-bop transitional affair with Sid Catlett on drums, bassist John Simmons, clarinetist Tony Scott and trumpeter Idrees Sulieman, then still known as Leonard Graham. Argonne Thornton (aka Sadik Hakkim) was the pianist. Webster’s quartet date had the same rhythm section, except that Haig, another bop pioneer, took over the piano. De Arango and Webster made a glorious team and produced eight tracks that are among the best from a period when musicians of different styles and races mixed without a thought for the phony war some critics were promoting between bop and all other jazz. “I Got it Bad and That Ain’t Good” and “Blues Mister Brim” are sterling examples of the empathy between the two. Both sessions are reissued under Webster’s name.
De Arango next recorded with Eddie Davis, in the days before Davis appended the nickname “Lockjaw.” They did two blues and two “I Got Rhythm” variants, typical of quick record dates, with superior solos from De Arango. A favorite of tenor players, he was soon back in a studio with Webster, Scott, Haig, Simmons, Catlett and Sulieman for four septet sides under his own name on the Signature label. They seem never to have been reissued. In March, 1947, he joined Charlie Ventura in an all-star group with trumpeter Charlie Shavers, trombonist Bill Harris, pianist Ralph Burns, drummer Dave Tough, and bassist Chubby Jackson. They recorded four tracks, including “Stop and Go,” with De Arango’s electrifying solo the very definition of early bebop fleetness. A week later, the same group with Curley Russell on bass and Sid Catlett spelling Tough on one piece, played a concert at Carnegie Hall. It was recorded, but the only CD reissue seems to be in a gigantic Jazz At The Philharmonic box.
By 1948, De Arango was back in Cleveland. He opened a music store. He gave lessons. He continued to play—brilliantly, by all accounts—until illness prevented it in his last few years, but he was out of the spotlight, rarely recording. In 1954 he made a ten-inch LP using Stan Getz’s rhythm section of pianist John Williams, bassist Teddy Kotick and drummer Art Mardigan. It has not been reissued. De Arango returned to New York for a short time in the late 1960s and early 1970s, playing what his Cleveland colleague tenor saxophonist Ernie Krivda described as “heavy metal jazz.” An album he recorded in 1993 with Joe Lovano as a sideman gives the flavor of his playing in that period. But it was his dazzling work of the mid-forties that made him a model for other guitarists. If you follow the links in this posting, you’ll find nearly everything De Arango recorded when his talent flowered during a vital phase of jazz history.

In the right column, under Doug’s Picks, you will find three recommended CDs, a DVD and a book. You will notice that Jim Hall is involved in two of the picks. And why not? He had a birthday this month.

Quick, before it’s over, let’s wish the stalwart bassist and jazz anecdotist Bill Crow a happy birthday, his 78th.
After he saw the lingual postings below, Bill wrote to say:

And a happy Saturnalia to all!

Then he followed up on the recent Rifftides ski postings (here) and (here) to reminisce about his own ski adventures as a struggling youth.

I empathize with your efforts on the ski slope. I grew up in Kirkland, WA, where there was rarely any snow, and on trips up to the Cascades I had to borrow skis, being a depression kid. The skis I borrowed just had leather toe straps…no bindings…and on our hike back from the cabin that we had reached on a cross-country ski, one of my straps broke. On the flat I could skid it along, but on inclines I had to push the crippled ski ahead of me while sinking up to the hip on that leg. Thought I’d never get back to the car.

Bill was a drummer and valve trombonist around Seattle before he took up the bass, moved to New York and ended up playing with Stan Getz, Claude Thornhill, Terry Gibbs, Marian McPartland, Gerry Mulligan, Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, Quincy Jones, Benny Goodman, Clark Terry, Bob Brookmeyer and—well, you get the idea: everybody.

A Rifftides reader named Hatta writes from Russia about the multi-lingual Christmas greeting posted early today:

Well, you should wish that for Russian readers too 🙂
We don’t generally celebrate Christmas on December, 24, — in Russia it is celebrated on January, 7, so you could wish us a Happy New Year for now (in Russian that’s “С Новым Годом”) 🙂

Merry Christmas!

И к всему доброй ночи (And to all a good night).
Greetings in all languages will be happily accepted and posted during the holiday period. Tagalog? Swahili? Sanskrit?

The Rifftides staff wishes you a Merry Christmas, a splendid holiday season and good listening.

A most satisfying encounter in the flurry of interviews at mid-year about Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond was with Al Vuona of WICN-FM in Worcester, Massachusetts. The station has revived the program as part of its series The Public Eye. It is archived here and available for listening on demand. Vuona is a good listener and a shrewd questioner. We had a fine time. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on “listen.”

If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience

—John Cage

Well, the ski trip was sogged out. When we were five minutes from the lodge at White Pass, the skies opened. If it had been a few degrees colder, we’d have had a glorious snowfall. At 36 degrees, we got what my old Oklahoma chum Charlie Manwarring called a toad stabber. We looked up at the runs and saw downhill skiers resigning from the mountain in droves. Snowboarding and cross-country would have been possible but not enjoyable. We wheeled around and headed back down Highway 410.
Still it was a beautiful drive. We stopped at the Oak Creek feeding station and watched thousands of elk getting their ration of hay. The picture at this site shows you a few elk, but gives you ony a notion of the extent of the herd and the magnificence of the animals. We looked up at the ridge above the feeding station and saw dozens of elk in relief against the winter sky, waiting to get in line and make their cautious way down the steep, rocky trail to the free chow. Scroll down to see the pictures. Click in the video box on the right side of your screen for a two-and-a-half-minute narrated tour of the Oak Creek Wildlife Area and see elk moving through the forest.

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful—Plato

Any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole state, and ought to be prohibited . . . when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the state always change with them—Aristotle

As time passes and events accumulate, Katrina’s devastation of a region and disruption of lives fade into the background of the collective consciousness. But, as Russ Layne’s recent comment here reminded us, recovery is a down a long road. Trombonist Jeff Albert responds.

I am a New Orleans area musician. I was fortunate in that I still have a home and my family are all safe.

On behalf of all of the musicians down here, I’d like to thank people like Russ Layne who have gone out of their way to help the musicians of South Louisiana. It really does mean a lot to us.

Another good charity that has helped many of us is the MusiCares Foundation, which is run by NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences). I have spoken to many musicians who have received assistance through MusicCares.

The person poised awkwardly in this picture is not me, but might as well be, except for one thing—he or, possibly, she is upright. The other day I spent hours on a mountain in the Cascades, falling over. It was my first lesson in cross-country skiing. That may be my instructor, Carla, watching, trying to keep a straight face.
I was in condition. I’ve been working out on a Nordic Track for years. How hard could it be? Hah. But by the end of the day, I was falling less often, no more than every hundred yards, and once I learned to make a V to slow or stop, the mild downhill grades were thrilling. I’m going back up there today, freezing rain or no freezing rain. If you learn with a coat of ice on the snow, it must be easier when there’s powder, right? It may become an addiction. At any rate, this will be the last posting of the day. I’m heading for the hills armed with the deathless words of Dorothy Fields.

Nothing’s impossible I have found,
For when my chin is on the ground,
I pick myself up, dust myself off,
Start all over again.

Don’t lose your confidence if you slip,
Be grateful for a pleasant trip, and
Pick yourself, dust yourself off,
Start all over again.

Work like a soul inspired,
Till the battle of the day is won.
You may be sick and tired,
But you’ll be a man, my son

Will you remember the famous men,
Who had to fall to rise again, so
Take a deep breath, dust yourself off,
Start all over again.

Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, “Pick Yourself Up”

Rifftides reader Russ Layne writes from Chester, New York.

Wow, Just read the piece on Paul Desmond and the Red Cross. The first live jazz group I ever saw, a bar mitzvah present from my mother at age 13, was The Dave Brubeck Quintet at Fordham University (splitting the bill with Jackie Mason).

Anyway, as founder and executive director of Sugarloaf Music Series, Inc. in ‘downstate’ New York, my wife and I have developed a growing affinity to most Louisiana music, including Cajun. So…when we had the opportunity to help a group of Cajun artists in much need from New Orleans, The Bruce Daigrepont Cajun Band, and booked them into seven schools and venues with ALL proceeds going to the band, I reached out to the Red Cross, requesting that they help underwrite air fare for the band to Newark. After several connections with the NYC and local Goshen, NY offices, I was informed that they had no mechanism to facilitate our request. And now I’m learning that one of my original jazz idols, Paul Desmond and his estate has left nearly $5 million to the Red Cross. That I couldn’t get a penny to help some victims get work makes it even MORE of a
p—-r!

I was finally able to get Tipitina’s Foundation to handle that expense. I encourage all to funnel their contributions to that organization.

In April, my publisher, Malcolm Harris, and I were in Manhattan throwing a party at Elaine’s restaurant to announce the publication of my biography of Paul Desmond. Dave and Iola Brubeck were co-hosts. There was a gratifying turnout of Paul’s friends and colleagues, and of well-wishers, musicians and assorted literati. I was disappointed that Terry Teachout couldn’t be there. He was in Washington at a meeting of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Later in the week, Terry, Malcolm, I and another friend had lunch, during which I mentioned that I was looking for a new periodical, one that would accomodate more than occasional reviews and articles. That triggered general bemoaning of the state of magazines. Suddenly, Terry’s gaze shifted skyward and his mouth fell open. We all looked up through the glass wall and ceiling of the sidewalk restaurant to see what large object was about to come crashing down on us. Not to worry. It wasn’t a plane falling. It was an idea.

“Blog,” Teachout said. “You should be doing a blog, the first real jazz blog, and I know just how and where.”

Back at his apartment—which for good reason he calls The Teachout Museum—he showed me on his I-Book the technical steps he goes through to post his artsjournal.com blog, About Last Night. I understood them about as well as I understand the progression of equations needed to conceptualize cold fusion. Don’t worry about that, he said, the important thing is to put you in touch with Doug McLennan. He whipped off a message to McLennan, the artsjournal major-domo. In short order, after I returned to the west coast, Doug and I reached an understanding—mainly of my insistence that the blog would not be only about music—and Rifftides was launched within a few weeks.
I am indebted to old pal Teachout for having that flash of inspiration, for believing that I could come out of my techno-fog, for assuming that there would be an audience, and for sending his readers our way. “I owe you plenty, Bix,” I’ve told him on more than one occasion and if you don’t know where that semtiment comes from, listen to Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Vol. 1, The Early Years: Yankee Doodle Go Home (Spirit Of ’76). Terry knows it well.
When the news came that TT, after feeling lousy for a couple of weeks, was in the hospital, I was concerned, along with hundreds of his friends and blog devotees. It was congestive heart failure, but as he reported when he returned to the Museum and limited duty,

My heart muscle is weakened but undamaged. If I do as I’m told—exactly—I have a very good chance of being around for a very long time to come. I even get to go home for Christmas tomorrow morning.

That is where he is now, with his family in what he invariably calls Smalltown USA, following his doctor’s orders. I’m sure that he’ll learn to love Ry-Krisp and yogurt, and I wish him a deliberate, cautious, relaxed and complete recovery.

This morning, we’re going into the Cascade mountains for cross-country skiing. It has the makings of a long day, so further blogging is unlikely. Managing a laptop on the trails is so awkward, not to mention the difficulty of finding a wireless signal or a tree with a phone jack in a national forest at 4,500 feet.

One of the most satisfying aspects of Rifftides during this first year has been hearing from you. It is gratifying that so many good listeners and fine musicians are on board. Today’s postings all come from readers.

From Kent, UK, near London, Rifftides reader Don Emanuel writes about this Ben Webster posting. It included mention of four Webster CDs.

Thanks for keeping the memory of Ben Webster alive. I know it’s all a matter of taste and personal preferences, but how could you miss out the album he made with Tatum, in (I think) 1956 in your recommended Webster albums. I’ve got dozens of his albums and although Tatum appears to solo under Ben’s solos, which you would think would make the recording a complete mess, it turns out to be a true jazz masterpieice.

Has Ben’s sumptuous tone ever been captured better. Have the standards they play ever been interpreted any more lovingly?

Ben doesn’t actually improvise much on this album but his reading of the tunes played is so exquisite that I get goosebumps every time I play the album.

An album which is pure emotion to me.

It was not my intention to list, rate or rank Webster’s output. A search of Amazon or any of the other major internet CD outlets will turn up dozens of CDs by or featuring him. I don’t know of one in which he is boring or disappointing. I agree with Mr. Emanuel about the Tatum-Webster. It is, by most critical evalutions, the best of the Tatum Group Masterpieces series. Webster caressing the melody of “My Ideal” is one of the most affecting ballad performances on record. Big Ben, a Proper box, has four CDs with highlights of Webster’s work from 1931 to 1951, including a generous selection of pieces featuring him with the early forties Duke Ellington band.

Pianist Jack Reilly writes from New Jersey:

One can tell it’s Ben after one note out of his horn. I had the honor of touring Norway with him for three weeks in 1971. He was a quiet man before and during the gig. However, after hours he never shut up! It was always about his old boss, Duke.

He taught me a great lesson about improvising. He said, “Tell your story in one chorus, man. Don’t play chorus after chorus”!

He was reluctant and afraid to return to the States because he said all of his friends who did, died soon after their return to Europe. When he did come back for some award and returned to Denmark, he died within one year. The word of his death spread so fast that I received a phone call within two hours of his passing. I immediately sat down and composed a tribute to this giant, a five part suite I titled, “In Memoriam Ben Webster”. When I put the last note to manuscript, I cried like a baby. Those 3 weeks with Ben were like three years of post grad studies. God bless his talent. He communicated like no one else I have played with before or since. His heart was three times as big as his overwhelming physical presence.

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.