Sixty-three years ago—almost to the day—Shorty Rogers included “Infinity Promenade” in his classic Short Stops album. Let’s hear it again. The introductory cymbals magic is by Shelly Manne. Soloists are alto saxophonist Art Pepper, Rogers on trumpet, and pianist Marty Paich. However, what blows minds all this time later is the double trumpet lead near the end by Conrad Gozzo and Maynard Ferguson. I once wrote that together these two created for lead trumpeters a gold standard. It remains in effect today. In this Ray Avery photo from the following year, we see (L to R) John Best, Gozzo and Ferguson.

Complete personnel on “Infinity Promenade” was: Rogers (comp, arr, cond, flugel); Conrad Gozzo Maynard Ferguson, Pete Candoli, John Howell (tps); Milt Bernhart, John Haliburton, Harrt Betts (tbs); John Graas (fh), Gene Englund (tuba), Art Pepper Bud Shank (as); Jimmy Giuffre (ts),Bob Cooper (bs) Marty Paich (p), Curtis Counce (b), Shelly Manne (d).

The news of Robert Osborne’s passing was a bad way to start the day. We were friends from the day that our Delta Upsilon fraternity at the University of Washington assigned him to be my “big brother” and roommate. A fellow journalism major, Bob was confidant and adviser to this green freshman. Not long after his graduation, he took his love for the movies to Hollywood. For a time he pursued acting with Lucille Ball as his mentor (they are pictured together above). He became a columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, was an expert on the Academy Awards and literally wrote the book on the Oscars. Eventually, Turner Classic Movies hired him as their host. TCM exposure made him one of the most familiar television figures of his time. Here we see him with his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Oz and I stayed in touch by way of occasional telephone chats and email messages but saw one another far too seldom. Our mutual college friend and brother Ted Van Dyk wrote this morning,

Bob was a talented, honest and good human being. He also happened to become famous,which was last in importance. God bless him.

Amen.

Bob Osborne RIP.

Today is Lou Levy’s birthday. Until his death at 72, the great second-generation bop pianist (1928-2001) played with Boyd Raeburn, Woody Herman’s Second Herd, Tommy Dorsey, Dizzy Gillespie, Flip Phillips, Dizzy Gillespie and Shorty Rogers, among dozens of other major jazz artists. He was a treasured accompanist to singers including Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Anita O’Day and his longtime companion Pinky Winters.

Levy’s close relationship with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz went back to their time together in the Herman band from 1948 to 1952. I remember his concern and affection for Getz in the early 1990s when Getz had fallen ill from what turned out to be a fatal cancer. “I’m going over to Malibu again to hold that blue-eyed devil’s hand,” Levy told me. Here are the old friends in Levy’s quartet in Italy in 1961. Ray Brown is the bassist, Ed Thigpen the drummer. They play Gillespie’s “Woody’n You” and “Ah, Moore,” written by Al Cohn, Lou’s colleague in the Herman reed section. The sound is adequate but a bit muffled. You may want to crank up your volume a bit.

In Ella Fitzgerald’s centennial year, the great singer is being honored around the world. The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra began the celebration with a pair of tribute concerts ahead of The First Lady of Song’s April 25 birth date. The one that Jim Wilke recorded at the Kirkland Performance Center across Lake Washington from Seattle will air at 2PM PST today, March 5, on Jim’s Jazz Northwest program on KNKX, and be streamed on the web.

The SRJO invited vocalist Carmen Bradford to perform songs popularized by Ms. Fitzgerald, who recorded extensively, toured with the Count Basie and Duke Ellington orchestras and was featured on Jazz At The Philharmonic tours. Fitzgerald album sales top more than 40 million. If you’re in the Seattle-Tacoma area, tune in to KNKX, 88.5 FM. Elsewhere around the world, hear the stream on the internet at http://knkx.org.

In addition to presenting big national names, an appealing aspect of the PDX Portland Jazz Festival is that it taps into the deep reservoir of talent in the Pacific Northwest. Two cases in point: the Mile 22 Octet led by pianist, composer and arranger Mike Van Liew (pictured right) and Ezra Weiss’s Monday Night Big Band.

In an afternoon concert, Van Liew’s eight-piece ensemble filled downtown Portland’s Art Bar with tightly constructed arrangements of original music that ranged from tone poems to a piece whose Klezmer orientation called for exacting musicianship. With zeal and meticulous execution the players met the demands of the 9/8 time signature and Van Liew’s intersecting lines. The Klezmer piece and others featured notable work from Dick Titterington (pictured left), one of a cluster of first-rate trumpeters who grew up in Portland or moved here over the past few years. In the course of the afternoon everyone on the band soloed impressively. We see Mary Sue Tobin holding an alto saxophone in the photograph to the right, but in the Art Bar concert her muscular soloing and voluminous sound were on tenor sax. The other members of the octet were Tim Jensen, alto saxophone; Tom Hill, trombone; John Butler, guitar; Mark Schneider, bass; and Jason Palmer, drums.

Pianist Ezra Weiss has generated favorable notice in The New York Times, DownBeat, Jazz Times and other national publications. Down Beat’s Josef Woodard called him, “a bold, inspired figure in the contemporary jazz arranging scene.” At the Portland festival, Weiss led his Monday Night Big Band in the cozy confines of Lola’s Room, a listening space in the building that also houses Portland’s venerable Crystal Ballroom. Weiss, who teaches music at Portland State University, concentrated on conducting and left the piano playing to the talented young Dan Gaynor. The trumpet section was made up of four players who, like Titterington, choose to remain in Portland despite gifts that would keep them busy in New York or Los Angeles. Tom Barber’s solo on the opening number, whose title I didn’t hear, established that, as did Derek Sims, Conte Bennett and Charlie Porter in later solos. Tenor saxophonist Renato Caranto followed with the first of several solo spots that he filled with passion and evident satisfaction in taking chances.

Tim Jensen, heard earlier in the Mile 22 Octet, was applauded by fellow members of the saxophone section for his solo on “It’s You Or No One,” Julie Styne’s 1948 hit for Doris Day. Weiss featured Gaynor on piano in “Jessie,” Weiss’s piece named for his wife. The veteran tenor saxophonist John Gross took over for one of his solos in which he manages to be almost outrageously unorthodox at the same time that he’s being lyrical. To this point in the Weiss concert, I had been longing to hear the band settle into a 4/4 groove but broken time—not necessarily a bad thing—had seemed to be the rule. Then, with alto saxophonist John Nastos moving straight ahead in Weiss’s “The Promise,” the band was swinging in the foot-tapping sense, even though bassist Eric Gruber maintained an uneven line. Weiss made a medley of his arrangement of the Hebrew hymn “We Limit Not The Wrath Of God” and his own “Fanfare For a Newborn.” Following another John Gross tenor sax adventure in the medley, Weiss brought the band to an abrupt and surprising halt that made a few listeners gasp. Using his dramatic conducting style, he immediately cranked the band up again, and people laughed.

The first of two guest singers, Marilyn Keller, joined the band for a dramatic version of the folk classic “Wayfaring Stranger.” Her section of vocalese improvisation included an astonishing sequence of high notes. Weiss’s arrangement of Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints” featured Nastos on soprano saxophone, then a trumpet solo in which Charlie Porter invented harmonies so unorthodox and sophisticated that the musicians around him were shaking their heads.

Weiss brought on recording artist Jeff Baker, a Portland resident, for “Amazing Grace,” sung in a clear and pleasant voice. The piece also included a Porter flugelhorn solo that, while rewarding, did not equal the ingenuity he showed on “Footprints.” Weiss’s composition “Rise And Fall” included solos by Barber on both flugelhorn and trumpet and the only solo appearance of the evening by Mieke Bruggeman. Her huge baritone saxophone sound had anchored the band all evening. She soloed as if to relieve tension that built while she waited for her shot at self-expression. The audience reaction let her know that it was worth waiting for. As I headed for the door in order to catch the last streetcar back to my hotel, Weiss announced a piece whose title sounded like “Koom Len Getit,” I was compelled to pause and listen to trombonist John Moak deliver the final solo word. It’s always a pleasure to hear Moak. It had been a satisfying concert.

In the windows of a Target store on a busy street corner in downtown Portland is a display of art inspired by jazz. Scattered among classic album covers, the paintings are by students who learn about the music in a program developed by Joe Maita, the president of the PDX Jazz board of directors. You may know Maita as the prominent blogger Jerry Jazz Musician. He and other instructors in the Jazz In The Schools program familiarize youngsters with jazz by way of short lectures, discussions and listening sessions. They stimulate the kids to create paintings, drawings and sculptures that reflect what they hear. Many of the works by elementary and middle school students are remarkably advanced in the ways that they touch the spirit of the music. The pieces below are by students at the Rosa Parks Elementary School.

Maita was inspired to reach neighborhoods with underprivileged children, but the program extends to students of all socio-economic categories in schools across the city. Some of the paintings and sculpture
by high school pupils approach professional quality. Now that the program is becoming solidly established in Portland, Maita (pictured left) and his colleagues—all of them volunteers—are working to encourage other cities to follow suit. Such efforts have the potential to revive interest in America’s principal contribution to the world’s arts and culture.

With his marketing group and his work on the PDX Jazz Festival, Joe Maita’s blog is updated less frequently these days, but for jazz listeners it is a valuable source of information—always a good read. To visit it, click here.

Guitarist Larry Coryell died over the weekend in New York City. He was 73. A pioneer of jazz-rock and fusion, throughout his career Coryell was capable of delicacy and softness in guitar lines that had roots in mainstream jazz. Nonetheless, his earliest notice came as a result of his recorded work with drummer Chico Hamilton in which he generated a huge sound that verged on distortion. Coryell died in his sleep at a hotel shortly after weekend appearances at New York’s Iridium jazz club.

Here, we see and hear him in a performance last fall at Yoshi’s jazz club in Oakland, California. His colleagues are his son Julian Coryell, guitar; Cindy Blackman Santana, drums; George Brooks, soprano saxophone; and Gary Brown, electric bass.

Jimmy Heath is 90 years old. His kid brother Albert (Tootie) is 80. They don’t act or sound their ages. For their concert at the Portland Jazz Festival, the Heath Brothers were billed as paying tribute to Dizzy Gillespie in the 100th anniversary year of his birth. Indeed, they played in the bebop tradition that Gillespie and Charlie Parker pioneered, but most of the pieces were Jimmy Heath compositions. He told the audience that his tune “Winter Sleeves” is based on the harmonies of the standard song “Autumn Leaves.” “That way,” he said, “I’m the one who gets the royalties.”

Jimmy handled the introductions and the verbal and physical comedy, although from behind his drum set Tootie contributed a couple of jibes. With the looseness of a teenager, Jimmy broke into boogaloo moves or hand jive demonstrations to accompany his banter. When the comedy subsided, the fooling around ended. In his tenor and sopran0 saxophone solos, Jimmy demonstrated that he has lost none of his warmth, smooth phrasing and composer’s sense of continuity. Tootie continues as an incisive soloist and one of the most effective drum accompanists in jazz. He melded with bassist Michael Karn and pianist Jeb Patton to form a rhythm section that supported the elder Heath impressively and responded to Jimmy’s every solo turn. The power and story-telling aspects of Patton’s own improvisations stimulated bursts of applause, notably when he soloed in Thelonious Monk’s “’Round Midnight” and Jimmy Heath’s jazz standard “Gingerbread Boy.”
Replacing the ailing George Cables, Patton came back for the second half of the double-bill concert led by tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson. In this case the bassist was Corcoran Holt from Washington, DC, the drummer Willie Jones III from Chicago. Jackson’s guest was alto saxophonist Donald Harrison. Alumni of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, the saxophonists
opened with “One By One,” a staple of the Blakey repertoire. (Jackson photo by Mark Sheldon.) In that piece and in Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation,” the group achieved enormous momentum. Long solos were the order of the evening with Harrison indulging himself in an unaccompanied coda to “Misty” that went on several bars longer than its content justified. Jackson dedicated his “Mr. Sanders” to the saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders. In his lengthy solo he incorporated passages that may have been inspired by Sanders’s free-jazz rambles. Following an incisive Corcoran bass introduction, Jackson brought out his lyrical side for “When I Fall in Love,” a mid-1950s ballad hit for Nat Cole. Toward the end of the concert’s second hour, Jimmy Heath joined Jackson and Harrison for a guest turn on Heath’s “(There’s) A Time And a Place,” a tune frequently covered by other jazz players. It was a strong ending to a concert that was stimulating and—thanks to the voluble leaders Heath and Jackson—entertaining.

After guitarist John Abercrombie found it necessary to pull out of the Portland Festival, the management signed blues singer and guitarist James Blood Ulmer to fill the Sunday afternoon slot. It may have occurred to devotees of Abercrombie’s playing, which grew out of bebop, that Ulmer was an unlikely replacement. Still, he attracted a fair-sized crowd for a concert that resounded with the elements that have given him an audience. Tall, dressed dramatically in a white suit, seated on a piano bench facing a semicircle of speakers and amplifying equipment, Ulmer gave his listeners ninety minutes of blues, semi-blues and quasi-blues.

He introduced elements of R&B, reggae, rock, country and what a fellow listener told me was free funk. Worse luck, either Ulmer or the sound engineer added so much distortion to his voice that many of his lyrics were unintelligible. His devilish laughter in a piece called “Poor Devil” was quite clear. He occasionally executed guitar runs that had distinct bebop or post-bop flavors, but their intriguing musical content never lasted more than a few seconds. It would be interesting to hear him work out some of those ideas on a moderately amplified guitar without distortion. Ulmer’s last-minute festival billing was “Harmolodic Blues Solo Guitar.” That suggests a relationship with Ornette Coleman, who introduced the idea of harmolodics as a system of composition and playing unbounded by traditional notions of tonality, time and tempo. Fair enough, but a preponderance of what Ulmer delivered this time was muddled by acoustic distortion. And there was precious little solo guitar.

As always, thanks to Mark Sheldon for his wonderful photographs.

The Branford Marsalis Quartet and singer Kurt Elling combined in the first major concert of the 2017 Portland, Oregon PDX Jazz Festival. A packed audience in the capacious Newmark Theater heard a performance that drew upon their recent album Upward Spiral. The principals listened intently to one another and appeared to be enjoying their work as much as they did in this earlier encounter.

With his rich harmonic palette and hard swing, longtime Marsalis pianist Joey Calderazzo generated audience enthusiasm equal to that shown the co-leaders. The strong support of bassist Eric Revis and drummer Justin Faulkner intensified as they buoyed the proceeding when Marsalis, Elling and Calderazzo were soloing. Calderazzo’s—no other word for it—fierce playing on the opening number set a joyous mood that suffused the concert and moderated only when tempos slowed on ballads. One of those ballads was the 1950s Nat Cole hit “Blue Gardenia,” which

Elling sang with affecting simplicity. He finished the piece on a high note held longer than a human oxygen supply might be expected to last. Marsalis’s ballad triumph, on soprano saxophone, came in an Antonio Carlos Jobim piece, “Só Tinha de Ser Com Você,” that is little-known compared to much of Jobim’s extensive output.

Following the PDX festival audience’s customary standing ovation and cheers, the concert ended with “St. James Infirmary.” Marsalis performed the piece with the New Orleans flavor that characterizes his best work. Elling’s obbligato, using a water glass and his voice to suggest trombone sounds, was an unexpected touch that fell just short of being vaudevillian.

The Maria Schneider Orchestra filled the Newmark to capacity. She is a composer and arranger who conducts with a fluid style that parallels the poetic content of her music. Her program in Portland consisted of pieces from her orchestra’s albums over two decades or more, and some of her recent work. It began with “A Powder Song,” a new composition combining power and grace that provided the setting for a stunning extended accordion solo by Gary Versace. Yes, accordion. In the right hands it can be a musical instrument. Versace’s are the right hands. Trombone soloist Marshall Gilkes and trumpeter Greg Gisbert followed Versace, keeping the level of fluency high. “Gumba Blues” from Schneider’s first album (1994) is stylistic evidence of her study with the protean composer and arranger Gil Evans. It featured extended work from alto saxophonist Steve Wilson and another round of Versace’s accordion wizardry. This orchestra of gifted soloists has empathy that puts it in a category with the camaraderie of Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Claude Thornhill and—going back even more decades— Fletcher Henderson in the late 1920s and Duke Ellington’s 1940-41 band.

Other highlights of the concert:

 A complex new piece by Schneider in observance of the increasing power and threat of digital technology as it spreads into every aspect of our lives. She introduced it by quoting the scientist Stephen Hawking’s prediction that by 2035 the robots we have created will take over the world—and mankind. Called “Data Lords,” it featured an impressive young trumpeter, Mike Rodriguez.

 A magnificent baritone saxophone essay by Scott Robinson on “Winter Morning Walks.” Introducing it, Ms. Schneider read the Ted Kooser poem that inspired the piece and the title of her album featuring classical soprano Dawn Upshaw.

”Coming About,” from the 1996 album of that title. It had a long, satisfying piano solo by Frank Kimbrough and a Donny McCaslin tenor saxophone solo that gathered momentum as it developed and carried the orchestra with it.

 “Sky Blue,” with another Steve Wilson alto saxophone solo saturated with feeling; the feeling of the blues.

The powerhouse drummer Ralph Peterson took his trio, Triangular, into the Winningstad Theater. To their credit, his sidemen were not submerged by Peterson’s waves of energy—and to his credit, he adjusted his volume and enthusiasm to accommodate brothers Zaccai Curtis, a pianist, and his bassist brother Luques. The Curtises have lyrical tendencies and although they have become adept at playing Peterson’s games of strength and rhythmic complexity, their best moments of the pieces I heard were quieter ones. Scheduling circumstances meant that I had to leave before the concert was over. As I tiptoed out, they were massaging a Latin groove and building excitement into it. I was sorry that I had to leave it behind.

Go here for compete information about the PDX Jazz Festival..

The Rifftides staff will soon be crossing the Cascade Mountains and heading west through the Columbia River Gorge to report on the Portland Jazz Festival. To be accurate, the reports will cover some of the festival. It runs eleven days in large and small halls, intimate clubs, a university lecture room, clubs, restaurants and at least one hotel lounge. As with most large jazz festivals these days, events often overlap, making it impossible to hear everything. We will take in as much music as we can and make our reports as timely as the crunch allows.

One of the sidebar features at the PDX festival is a series of public conversations with featured artists. Impresario Don Lucoff has asked me to chat with tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson (pictured right). That will be on Friday, February 17 at 4:30 p.m. at the Art Bar in the lobby of the Portland Art Center, which houses the Newmark and Winningstad Theatres, the festival’s primary stages for major events. Jackson shares a bill the next night at the Newmark with brothers Jimmy and Tootie Heath. Among other musicians the festival will feature are the Maria Schneider Orchestra, Branford Marsalis and Kurt Elling together, drummer Ralph Peterson featuring the Curtis Brothers, the Yellowjackets and guitarist Mike Stern, and a parade of prominent pianists including Bill Mays, Craig Taborn, Aaron Parks, Amina Claudine Myers and the Russian Andrei Kitayev—in separate gigs.

In addition, there will be appearances by many of the Pacific Northwest’s most prominent musicians. The veteran drummer Mel Brown (pictured left) will lead his big band with trumpeter Jon Faddis as a guest soloist. Pianist Ezra Weiss will head his Monday Night Big Band. Trumpeter Dick Titterington (pictured right) and pianist Randy Porter will appear with their John Birks Society. Not to be outdone, trumpeter Thomas Barber will present his quintet in a concert billed as “Barber Does Dizzy.” To scroll through the PDX Festival’s full calendar of events, go here.

If you are going to be there, I hope to see you in Portland. I always look forward to visiting one of my favorite former hometowns, especially under these circumstances.

Going through the Rifftides archive to see what we did on Valentine’s Days back to 2005, I discovered that links to several versions of “My Funny Valentine” have been taken down for copyright reasons. So far, the Jim Hall-Bob Brookmeyer version from the 1979 North Sea Jazz Festival has survived. This is from a period when valve trombonist Brookmeyer and guitaritst Hall often toured in the US and abroad and almost always included a version of Rogers and Hart’s masterpiece.

I came in not long ago from shoveling four inches of new snow off the front sidewalk and the driveway. We’re expecting up to seven inches more tonight. Naturally, I thought of the most appropriate piece of music by which to recover from the shoveling and prepare for the next onslaught. What else but Woody Herman’s 1945 recording of “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow,” with one of Herman’s best and—regardless of his disclaimer below—most popular vocals. Correspondingly, the arrangement is one of Neal Hefti’s most brilliant. Quoted in the notes for the Columbia album The Thundering Herds, Herman said,

Neal did a wonderful arrangement of this. It was so good that it ruined our chances of getting a hit record. One reason is that the introduction must run about 198 bars and that’s too much for a pop record. But it was just so good that I couldn’t bear to leave it out. It was a case of letting our musical honesty carry us away. So Vaughan Monroe wound up with the hit record of the song.

Woody is the vocalist. Maybe you won’t mistake him for Vaughan Monroe.

Svend Asmussen, the Danish violinist who thrived in eight decades of stardom, died yesterday—three weeks short of his 101st birthday. He was one of the handful of violinists who in the 1930s proved the instrument capable of swing and emotional expression at the highest jazz level. He may well have been the only man still alive in the new century who had played with Fats Waller, Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli, Stuff Smith, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. Asmussen and his wife Ellen were surprise members of the audience at a concert in his honor at last summer’s Ystad Jazz Festival in Sweden.

Our first clip of Asmussen in action is with Alice Babs and guitarist Ulrik Neumann, who were known as the Swe-danes. They thrived in the late 1950s. This piece was a record, radio and television hit in Scandinavia for years.

Miguel Zenon Quartet, Típico (Miel Music)

Since first hearing Miguel Zenon’s quartet well over a decade ago, I have been intrigued by the band’s deepening identity as a unit. Virtuosos all, alto saxophonist Zenon, pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Hans Glawischnig and drummer Henry Cole have developed a collaborative personality. In his brief album note, Zenon refers to the importance of the rhythm section’s “individual sounds within OUR sound.” Masters of their instruments, not only do the quartet members listen intently to one another, but they are at a lofty level of mind meld. Such harmony of intent and spirit is a hallmark of a few seasoned classical chamber groups. In jazz it happened, for instance in the Count Basie band of the late thirties, the Miles Davis Kind Of Blue sextet and the Bill Evans Trio of the early sixties. The Zenon quartet achieves it throughout Típico.

A Rifftides reader has made us aware of a video featuring the remarkable Irish guitarist Louis Stewart. Stewart died at 72 in Dublin last August following a short battle with cancer. Video quality is fuzzy and the shot is static, but what matters most—the sound—is generally good. This performance of the Sonny Rollins composition “Oleo” was filmed during a tour of Wales in 1993. The second guitarist is Trefor Owen, with John McCormack playing bass and Steven Brown drums.