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April 2015 is the twelfth observance of National Jazz Appreciation Month. Founded at the Smithsonian Institution in 2002 by the jazz scholar, Duke Ellington biographer and musician John Edward Haase, the celebration is intended, in the words of Quincy Jones, to “…recognize that our indigenous music — jazz — is the heart and soul of all popular music, and that we cannot afford to let its legacy slip into obscurity.”

Jones’s quote is on this page of the National Endowment for the Humanities website, along with information about the history of the observance and links to programs, films and suggestions about how communities and individuals can transmit and proliferate their enthusiasm for jazz.

This year’s poster boy for Jazz Appreciation Month is Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967), whose compositions, arrangements, wisdom and guidance were major contributions to the Duke Ellington Orchestra and Ellington’s legacy. Communities all over the country will hold celebrations observing National Jazz Appreciation Month. One of the first will be tomorrow in Philadelphia, honoring pianist McCoy Tyner, a native son.

Our contribution to the launch of the month-long observance, this video from the 1985 Berlin Jazz Festival has trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Woody Shaw sitting in with the Freddie Hubbard Quintet. Hubbard plays flugelhorn. Kenny Garrett is the alto saxophonist, with Mark Templeton on piano and Ira Coleman playing bass. After you hear and see this, it is likely that you’ll remember April.

The Jazz Journalists Association website has an interesting Jazz Appreciation Month question-and-answer page.

Riftides wishes you a month of rewarding listening.

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The master trumpeter, composer, arranger and bandleader Thad Jones would be 92 if he had lived to celebrate his birthday yesterday. He died in 1986. Fortunately for us, Jones practiced his profession in an age of ubiquitous recording. There is a living museum of CDs, LPs and videos of the work he did in many contexts, including the magnificent band that Jones and Mel Lewis co-led for nearly 15 years. His “Central Park North” rarely failed to stoke the fires that burned in the hearts and souls of the 17 members of that distinguished collection of musicians.

Remembering Thad, let’s revisit “Central Park North” in a performance captured by Danish television in Copenhagen in 1969. Members of the band used to tell Jones that he didn’t assign himself enough solos. This concert was an exception; he has the first one. There are also extended solos by trumpeter Snooky Young, soprano saxophonist Jerome Richardson and co-leader Lewis on drums.

Thad Jones, flugelhorn & conductor
Al Porcino, trumpet
Richard Williams, trumpet
Snooky Young, trumpet
Danny Moore, trumpet
Eddie Bert, trombone
Jimmy Knepper, trombone
Garnett Brown, trombone
Jerome Richardson, soprano sax
Eddie Daniels, clarinet
Jerry Dodgion, alto sax
Joe Henderson, tenor sax
Pepper Adams, baritone sax
Cliff Heather, bass trombone
Roland Hanna, piano
Richard Davis, bass
Mel Lewis, drums

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Blogging has been slow recently, or some days nonexistent, because I am deep into the writing of notes for a compilation of recordings by pianist Jan Lundgren. The project is less demanding than the annotation for his recent album All By Myself, but is nonetheless consuming most of my attention. The tracks will come from albums produced by Dick Bank for the Fresh Sound label and include highlights of Lundgren’s productive career over the past 25 years. They feature Jan in trio settings and as a sidemen for leaders including Bill Perkins, Conte Candoli, Herb Geller and Arne Domnérus. The compilation will not have anything from All By Myself, so here’s what we might call an advance bonus track from that solo album. I thought you would be intrigued by his harmonies.

The Lundgren compilation will be out later this year.

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In 1990, Concord Records put together a collection of recipes provided by jazz artists, writers and other folks associated with the music. The project came up when I was in the thick of my bread-making phase. There were weeks when I experimented with two or three new kinds of bread. The variety that got the biggest response around the house was popular enough that it received a name. The name is explained below. Here is the recipe.

1 package yeast
1/8 tsp ginger
1 cup bread flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup wheat germ
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp molasses
1 12-oz can evaporated milk
2 Tbsp salad oil
1 cup cracked wheat
1 cup boiling water
Handful of sesame seeds
Handful of poppy seeds
Handful of sunflower seeds

Begin by covering the cracked wheat with the boiling water. Set it aside to cool; stirring it a bit will speed the cooling process. Mix the rest of the ingredients in the order listed. Add the cooled wheat, then the seeds. A handful of seeds is enough to fill the cupped palm of an average-sized hand. Do not use Dexter Gordon’s hand, or for that matter, Ruby Braff’s.

Knead the dough after mixing and let it rise twice, punching it down vigorously. Or make it easy on yourself and use an automatic bread machine. If you bake conventionally, use a standard bread pan and bake the loaf in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for 40 minutes. The automatic bread machine I used is the DAK Auto Bakery, a dandy. I hope it’s still available. Since this is a hefty bread, you may want to try a slightly longer baking time, depending on the accuracy of your oven’s thermostat.

When I was doing the experiments that resulted in this recipe, I was listening to Duke Ellington’s suite The River, hence the name of the bread.

To whet your appetite for the suite, if not for the bread, here is the movement titled, “The River Spring,” played by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Neeme Jarvi.

The full suite is half of this album.

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Jim Wilke keeps producing broadcasts on his Jazz Northwest that are hard to resist, so it’s hard to resist alerting you to them. Here’s his announcement about tomorrow’s program.

The poll-winning, critically acclaimed international clarinet star Anat Cohen played two concerts with The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra in February. The concerts, billed as “A World Viewof Jazz” were among the highlights of the 20th anniversary season of the SRJO, co-directed by Clarence Acox andMichael Brockman. The sold-out Sunday concert at Kirkland Performance Center was recorded for Jazz Northwest and will be broadcast on Sunday, March 15 at 2 PM PDT on 88.5 KPLU and stream at kplu.org.

Born in Tel Aviv where she began her music education, Anat Cohen came to the US to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston. There she came in contact with musicians from Latin America and developed a great love for music of Brazil, Cuba, Argentina and Colombia. She plays music representative of those countries and others in this concert with the SRJO. She is particularly adept at Brazilian music including choro, the predecessor of samba and bossa nova.

Recently, two sets of Rifftides readers have told me that they look forward to the photographs that occasionally pop up here when I remember to take a camera on cycling expeditions or other excursions around the Pacific Northwest. I’m happy to oblige now and then, but not—I promise—to the extent of making the blog resemble a FaceBook page. In this case, obliging was easy because spring has come to the valley. As evidence, above is the apricot tree in the little orchard on the Rifftides world headquarters south forty. It went from buds to full bloom in about four days. The peach tree won’t be too far behind.

Despite the paucity of snow in the mountains over the winter, the nearby canal was full and yesterday we cranked up the neighborhood irrigation system for the season. We know what it’s like in other regions, and we know how lucky we are.

Have a good weekend.

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Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.

You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.

Any musician who says he is playing better either on tea, the needle, or when he is juiced, is a plain, straight liar. When I get too much to drink, I can’t even finger well, let alone play decent ideas. … You can miss the most important years of your life, the years of possible creation.

Charlie Parker died 60 years ago today.

But, as John O’Hara said when he heard that George Gershwin was gone—I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to. Neither do you.

Charlie Parker, alto saxophone; Miles Davis, trumpet; Duke Jordan, piano; Tommy Potter, bass; Max Roach, drums. New York, 1947

Thank you for Charlie Parker.

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When the news is discouraging, when—to quote James Moody quoting his grandmother—”Folks is dyin’ what ain’t never died befo’,” it’s good to have someone to turn to for reassurance. Whether in the close jazz community or in the great world at large, we need the balance and wisdom of an adviser who can place things in perspective.

And who do we call? No, we don’t have ghosts to bust; we want to banish the feeling that the center is not holding. Of course: we call Mr. P.C.

Dear Mr. P.C.:

Is there really a “Jazz Industry”? That makes it sound like there are thousands of people slaving away at their craft for little or no compensation. How is that possible in America? Is that why they call it “The land of the free”? I know that’s more than one question, but this is so disturbing.

—Olympia Oliphant

Dear OO:

I’m sure you know that there are great jazz musicians all around the world, but apparently you don’t recognize the threat they pose to American jazz wages and job security. There is indeed a jazz industry in America, and it has to set wages low so they won’t be undercut by artists abroad.

Do you really want to see our gigs outsourced—songs sung in undecipherable Indian accents; cheap Chinese licks flooding the market; charts written from right to left, performed by underfed children working long hours in unsafe clubs? It’s not fair to them, it’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to America, where jazz was born and must remain.

That’s why the industry—of the jazz musician, by the jazz musician, and for the jazz musician—protects you by keeping your pay at bare subsistence level.

If you think that was helpful, wait until you see the rest of Mr. P.C.’s new column. It and his entire archive of columns are posted at All About Jazz, where he is a regular feature.

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The sad notes keep coming. Trumpeter Lew Soloff died early today. His daughter, Laura Solomon, reported on her Facebook page that Soloff was with her and her family on their way home from a New York restaurant when he collapsed with a massive heart attack . He was 71. Born in New York City, a trumpeter from age 12, Soloff developed into a stalwart in jazz who was also in demand in New York’s studios. He reached his greatest general renown as a member of Blood, Sweat and Tears from 1968 to 1973. In the jazz community, he was respected for his strength and reliability in brass sections and for the imagination, daring—and idiosyncracy—of his solos.

Soloff made his first professional breakthrough with the Machito orchestra and went on to play with Maynard Ferguson, Gil Evans, Joe Henderson, Clark Terry, George Russell, Urbie Green and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, among many other prominent bands. Millions were familiar with his solo on the Blood, Sweat and Tears hit “Spinning Wheel.” Here’s the version from Woodstock in 1969. The video quality is substandard, but the sound is fairly good, and the solo is typical Soloff of the period, that is, full of the excitement and adventurous turns that endeared him to listeners and his colleagues.

Here’s Soloff in an extended solo with the Mingus Big Band in 1992. His musicianship is clear, and so is the idiosyncracy.

For an obituary, see this JazzTimes article. Lew’s daughter is quoted as saying that plans for a memorial service will be developed.

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On his Jazz Northwest broadcasts, Jim Wilke frequently features recordings of live performances that we feel compelled to tell you about. One of them will be aired later today. Here is Mr. Wilke’s announcement about a tribute to a great musician by a band of distinguished colleagues.

Kenny Wheeler (1930-2014) was born in Toronto but lived in London from the 1950s on, playing trumpet and flugelhorn and composing in a unique style that ranged from soft lyricism to explosive free expression. His many recordings for ECM and CAM Jazz are widely praised by critics and studied by musicians. In a pair of concerts at The Royal Room in Seattle, Steve Treseler and Ingrid Jensen co-led a Tribute to Kenny Wheeler featuring two evenings of his music. Joining Ingrid Jensen on trumpet and Steve Treseler on tenor sax were Geoffrey Keezer on piano, Martin Wind on bass and Jon Wikan on drums, with vocalist Katie Jacobson.

Jazz Northwest is recorded and produced by Jim Wilke for 88.5 KPLU. The program airs every Sunday afternoon at 2 PM Pacific and streams at kplu.org. A podcast of each show is available after the broadcast at jazznw.org

This Tribute to Kenny Wheeler was produced by Earshot Jazz, John Gilbreath, Executive Director, and was recorded by Jim Wilke for NPR’s Jazz Night in America, and KPLU’s Jazz Northwest. NPR music shot a video of the evening. The musicians also spent a day in the studio recording this music for a future release.

For a Rifftides remembrance of Kenny Wheeler, go here.

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In the year of his 70th birthday, Dizzy Gillespie toured extensively in Europe with prominent jazz artists who had played with him in various phases of his career. On February 27, 1987, he gave a concert at the Theaterhaus in Stuttgart, Germany. It included a set by his quintet with Sam Rivers, tenor saxophone; Ed Cherry, guitar; John Lee, electric bass; and Ignacio Berroa, drums. It also had a memorable interlude with pianist Hank Jones and Gillespie playing a duet on the trumpeter’s incomparable ballad “Con Alma.” Here, the quintet opens with the Gillespie composition “Tanga.”

The entire concert was carried by ZDF-TV, the German public television service and hosted (in German) by pianist George Gruntz. It also featured Slide Hampton, Johnny Griffin, Jon Faddis, Arturo Sandoval, Eddie Gomez and Ed Thigpen. To see and hear the entire hour and 23 minutes, go here.

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The influential jazz producer, record company head and author Orrin Keepnews died today at his home in El Cerrito, California. He would have been 92 tomorrow. Keepnews guided the recording careers of Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Wes Montgomery, Sonny Rollins and many other leading jazz artists of the 20th Century. The announcement of his death came from his son Peter Keepnews, who with his brother David had flown from New York to their father’s bedside two days earlier. Keepnews is pictured with his four Grammy statuettes, two for albums he produced, two for album annotations that called on his skill as a jazz journalist.

In the late 1940s, as managing editor of The Record Changer, Keepnews wrote one of the first extensive articles about Monk, then an obscure pianist. With Bill Grauer, Keepnews founded Riverside Records in 1953. They signed another pianist, Randy Weston, to Riverside a year later, and in 1955 signed Monk, whose series of Riverside albums brought him to prominence. Successful Riverside albums followed by other artists, including Evans, Montgomery, Rollins, Cannonball Adderley and Abbey Lincoln. After financial struggles and Grauer’s death, Riverside went out of business in the early sixties. Keepnews went to to co-found the Milestone label and then Landmark.

Among the Bill Evans albums Keepnews produced were those of the pianist’s trio at the Village Vanguard in New York in 1961. They were among the most influential jazz recordings of the period and helped to determine directions that jazz took as it developed through the rest of 20th century and into the 21st. Evans showed his regard for Keepnews by titling one of his compositions as an anagram of “Orrin Keepnews”—“Re: Person I Knew.”

For an extensive biography, see Nate Chinen’s obituary in The New York Times.

I will miss Orrin as a close friend of more than half a century.

Note: the first version of this post had an error in the title of “Re: Person I Knew.” It has been corrected.

For those Mount Hood devotees who enjoyed seeing the mountain’s west side the other day, here’s how it looks facing east. This is the view from the town of Mount Hood, Oregon,

The original post misidentified Mount Adams as Mount Hood. The real Mount Hood replaces that shot. Apologies to fans of both mountains in the Cascades chain and thanks to Rifftides readers Larry Peterson, Paul Morris and Karen Merola Krueger for catching the goof (me).