It is impossible to review even a smattering of the dozens of albums that land in the Rifftides mailbox. With the Sweden trip looming, time allows for mentions of a few relatively recent releases that have caught the staff’s attention.   Maryanne de Prophetis, Tell A Star … [Read more...]

Roscoe Mitchell, Bells For The South Side (ECM) If you have followed Mitchell’s searching music over the past 50 years, Bells For The South Side will reassure you that the septuagenarian composer, saxophonist and tireless avant-garde inspiration continues to innovate. Mitchell’s music makes … [Read more...]

On July 12 we lost Joe Fields. During his long career Fields was the guiding spirit of record labels committed to unalloyed jazz. He started the Cobblestone label and later changed its name to Muse. Among the dozens of musicians he recorded on Muse over three decades were Woody Shaw, Houston Person, … [Read more...]

Before long, the Rifftides staff will be flying to Europe for the 2017 Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival. As always, the festival lineup will include prominent visiting American artists. Among them are tenor saxophonists Jerry Bergonzi and Joshua Redman, trumpeter Tim Hagans, drummer Al Foster and … [Read more...]

Today’s early morning cycling expedition took me past a magnificent pear orchard in the hills west of town. Here is the orchard… …and here are pears taking on color and that lovely pear shape. Apples are the principal cash crop in this area of Eastern Washington State, but in a good … [Read more...]

Our" Rifftides Russian correspondent, Svetlana Ilicheva, writes that one of her favorite listening spots in Moscow is the Zhurfac café. Not far from the Kropotkinskaya metro stop on Gogol Boulevard, the Zhurfac is in a neighborhood of major cultural interest because of the State Art Museum named … [Read more...]

With the abeyance of certain physical annoyances, cycling is back in more or less full swing. Glorious weather makes it a pleasure to be on the road again, but only if the cyclist leaves before the morning heat gets serious. August temperatures here on the dry side of the Cascade Mountains often go … [Read more...]

Moments after I posted yesterday’s Riftides review of Fanny Gunnarsson’s Mirrors, I came across a video of the pianist and singer with her quartet performing a piece from the album. Again, the quartet members are Ms. Gunnarsson, piano: Karolina Almgren, soprano saxophone; Kristian Rimshult, … [Read more...]

Kurt Rosenwinkel, Caipi (RAZDAZ Records) From his emergence in the 1990s, Rosenwinkel has been a relaxed guitar improviser even when negotiating the complex pieces that make him one of the most interesting composers at work today. He retains his leisurely approach to soloing in this collection, … [Read more...]

An annual Rifftides reminder Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. —Benjamin Franklin America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. … [Read more...]

It is always a challenge to decide how Rifftides should celebrate the anniversary of the independence of The United States Of America. In 2017, we are observing it with pieces by artists whose careers began on the west coast of the US before their names and their music became familiar around the … [Read more...]

Alan Broadbent, Developing Story (Eden River Records) Broadbent’s title composition is in concerto form, although it is not described as a concerto. His piece combines jazz and classical sensibilities in a flow that evolves with logic rarely achieved when genres are blended. Broadbent’s … [Read more...]

Geri Allen died today of cancer. She was 60. Ms. Allen was a pianist of uncommon technical achievement and fluency and inspired a generation of younger pianists. Recently a resident of Pittsburgh, Ms. Allen grew up in Detroit, where she began piano lessons at age seven. While at Cass Technical High … [Read more...]

The following post appeared on Rifftides nine years ago this spring. What thoughts does it stimulate in readers now? Have there been significant changes in jazz since 2008? Originally posted on March 4, 2008 Rifftides reader George Finch sent this message in reaction to a ten-year-old article in … [Read more...]

Rifftides readers following the discussion about this week’s Monday Recommendation, Bengt Hallberg’s Dinah, may be interested in the information that Ivan Sundberg sent from Sweden. He wrote: Hallberg"´s album did reach the shores of the US. Already a year after the original Phillips release in … [Read more...]

Thelonious Monk, Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (Sam Records/Saga) In the summer of 1959 in New York, Thelonious Monk recorded music for the sound track of the Roger Vadim film Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Adapted loosely from a 1782 novel by Choderlos de Laclos, the film’s erotic nature led … [Read more...]

Bengt Hallberg Trio, Dinah (Phillips) When the Swedish pianist Bengt Hallberg died four years ago at the age of 80, most of his obituaries included a quote from a 1950s Miles Davis blindfold test that included Stan Getz’s celebrated recording of “Ack Värmeland du sköna,” (aka ”Dear Old … [Read more...]

…because you feel like hearing Shank play something you’ve never heard him do. You look around on the internet and see what you can find. There he is in Sao Paulo in 2004 at the Chivas Jazz Festival with Bill Mays, piano; Bob Magnusson, bass; and Joe LaBarbera, drums. They play “Nature … [Read more...]