Iola Brubeck, whom Paul Desmond described as “the incomparable, regal Iola,” sent a comment about the Rifftides 2012 Crop Forecast. She included the words of a choral piece by her husband, whose name is Dave. To see her comment, Mr. Brubeck’s lyric, photographs of ripening fruit, and to listen to Wayne Shorter and Eric Satie (not together) go here.

The massive Detroit Jazz Festival happens over Labor Day weekend. Because it collects an astonishing array of major musicians and presents them in outdoor performances at no charge, it is a festival I have long meant to attend some day. Rifftides reader Larry Peterson has gone several times. He sent a message about Wayne Shorter (photo by Jarrad Henderson) that made me wish this had been my year.

Walking to a concert of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music from Hart Plaza, where Kenny Garrett failed to capture my interest, I asked a guy wearing a Media pass if he might be Mark Stryker, and he was. I introduced myself as the person you urged him to meet a few years ago when I was headed to the Detroit festival.
Then we talked about the performance Wayne Shorter’s Quartet gave last night. Only a short while before I ran into Mark, I had begun to wonder if the performance had ruined my prospects for ever enjoying another concert, because the experience of listening and seeing the playful, joyous interaction of the players was so amazing, thrilling, and satisfying.

 Mark was also thrilled. He referred me to his review of the concert.

And I, in turn, refer you to the column by Mr. Stryker, the music critic of The Detroit Free Press, who wrote that Shorter’s group performed,

…the most thrilling and transcendent set of music that I have heard in 17 years of attending the event.”

To read Mark’s entire account, click here.

As an indication of the reaction, interaction, close listening and mutual support that Mark and Larry observed, here’s a sample of the Shorter quartet in 2010 at Jazz à Vienne, France.

In the United States this is Labor Day, since 1894 a national holiday that celebrates working peoples’ contributions to the nation. Although the calendar says that summer doesn’t end until September 21 this year, many Americans consider that Labor Day marks the close of the season. This three-day weekend, they pile into their automobiles despite four-dollars-a-gallon gasoline. They range through the land to camp out, have picnics, visit lakes and ocean beaches, and watch fireworks. This being an election year, some seek out rallies and listen to candidates. It is also a day when many working people go to work because the stores that employ them have huge Labor Day sales. The irony.

There is no official song for this holiday, although Pete Seeger’s “Solidarity Forever,” Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons” and Dolly Parton’s “9 To 5” always get Labor Day airplay. From 1962—when the average price of a gallon of regular gas was 31 cents—here is the unofficial Rifftides Labor Day song for 2012. Cannonball Adderley introduces it. His sextet has Nat Adderley, Joe Zawinul, Yusef Lateef, Louis Hayes and Sam Jones.

Happy Labor Day.

No sooner had I added Thomas Cunniffe’s website Jazz History Online to the Rifftides blogroll (bottom of the right column) than Tom posted an essay about the last period of Paul Desmond’s musical life. That was the era, all too brief, of Desmond’s Canadian quartet. The piece did not come as a complete surprise to me. As he was in the final stage of preparing it, Tom asked me to help him get permission to use a fine Ron Hudson photo of the quartet. The picture appears in my biography of Desmond. On the left here, you see a reduced section of it.

The essay is a fine summary of the Canadian quartet’s history and its concert, club and recording activity. Mr. Cunniffe discusses the music and the players with insight and humor, and Paul’s final days with sensitivity. The layout and graphics are tasteful. He includes helpful links to sources and references. What’s not to like? I would not go so far as to suggest that you read it instead of my book, but I heartily recommend it. For “Paul Desmond and the Canadians,” click here and the digital magic carpet will take you to Jazz History Online.

After you have read Cunniffe on Desmond, come back and listen to Desmond with the Canadians at Bourbon Street in Toronto. Whoever uploaded the track to YouTube identifies himself as “paganmaestro.” Paul would have liked that, I think.

Comments

Ted O’Reilly says:
September 1, 2012 1:17 pm

Excellent item, and website. Interestingly, the ‘original’ Canadian quartet of Ed Bickert, Don Thompson and Terry Clarke were all in the same room two weeks ago, and Rob McConnell was there in spirit. Ed was a special guest (in the audience) at a concert by a reunited Boss Brass at the Prince Edward County Jazz Festival in small-town Picton, Ontario, about 2 hours east of Toronto. I took pictures at the concert.

The fest’s creative director Brian Barlow was the band’s long-time percussionist, and with star soloist Guido Basso (a County resident) got the alumni band together for a single concert to remember Rob, and the great fun the guys had playing his music. Rick Wilkins rehearsed and conducted, appropriately, as he was a long-serving reedman in the band, and had carte blanche from McConnell to write anything he wanted for the band.

Don Thompson played piano (he first played with the Boss Brass as its percussionist, then as the bassist, finally at the piano), Terry Clarke was on drums, as he was for most of the band’s life, and in Ed Bickert’s guitar chair, his “musical son” Reg Schwager. Steve Wallace was on bass, creating a powerful engine room for a great orchestra. ‘Twas a memorable night of music!

Most jazz listeners know Hall Overton (1920-1972) for his orchestrations of Thelonious Monk piano solos. Those arrangements are a major factor in the success of Monk’s concert with a 10-piece band at New York’s Town Hall in 1959, preserved in this essential album. Musicians familiar with Overton’s other accomplishments and broad scope respect him for his knowledge of music and his effectiveness in sharing it. During Overton’s time at Juilliard, he learned from great teachers, including the legendary educator of composers
Vincent Persichetti. Following his graduation from Juilliard in 1951, Overton taught at his alma mater as well as at Yale University and The New School, and became part of New York’s community of composers. We see him here with Aaron Copland.

The tip comes from Jim Wilke in Seattle, a suburb of Port Townsend.

This is Charlie Parker’s birthday. If he had lived, he would be 92. I wish that he had taken better care of himself.

With less than a month of summer to go (in the northern hemisphere), this is timely.

East of the mountains, we live in apple country ——and pear, peach, cherry and hop country. Those dark green areas in the picture above are orchards typical of those that cover the hills and valleys. The orchards were quiet on Sunday during our photo expedition, but before long they will be alive with pickers and the warehouses full of packers preparing fruit for shipping all over the world. The Washington Apple Commission is predicting the second biggest harvest ever, nearly 109 million bushels. These are Red Delicious, no longer the dominant variety but still hugely popular.
Many growers have torn out acreages of Red Delicious and replaced them with Gala, Pink Lady or Fuji, some of the newer varieties with crisper textures or sweeter taste, or both.
I wonder what Wayne Shorter’s favorite is.

Regarding the Singers Unlimited item in the following exhibit, Rifftides reader David Perrine writes:

Bill Kirchner sent a description of his next program in the Institute of Jazz Studies “Jazz From The Archives.” He will feature a vocal group with close ties to jazz, that for more than a decade reached a wide audience with its rich series of recordings and continues to amass new fans. Here’s Bill’s announcement.

Every once in a while, a reader asks how to find items in the Rifftides archive. Rummaging through the blog’s seven-year history, you may discover interesting things you missed. Here’s a way to get started. Scroll down to the “Older Posts” function at the bottom of the main page. Click on that command and it will take you to the previous 20 posts. Click on it again, you will see another 20, and so on back through the mists of time to the primitive beginnings of this blog in June of 2005.

The subject line of Scott Weiss’s e-mail was “trumpet stuff.” His message included a link to video Weiss took of Bobby Shew and Carl Saunders. For decades, the trumpeters played together in big bands including those of Buddy Rich, Bill Holman and Bob Florence. On his website, Weiss quotes Shew as saying that he and Saunders have been, “thick as thieves since around 1961.” In a rare combination of talents, each of them is a major improvising soloist also capable of the most demanding lead trumpet work.

The death a week ago of Annie Kuebler prompted a flood of tributes from writers, academics and researchers who benefited from her expertise, kindness, unfailing good humor and friendship. Ms. Kuebler was the archivist at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. Her name is unfamiliar to most jazz listeners, but they are likely to have learned indirectly from her about the music by way of books, articles, blogs and liner notes written by people she helped. Annie died August 13 of a brain hemorrhage. She was 61. Matt Schudel’s obituary in The Washington Post summarizes her career and the tragedy she overcame to turn her life around to become, among other accomplishments, the leading scholar of the work of Mary Lou Williams.

In response to readers’ requests, Rifftides has added a way to subscribe by e-mail. Scroll down to the third item in the right column and follow the easy instruction.

First of all, I never strive for identity. That’s something that just has happened automatically as a result, I think, of just putting things together, tearing things apart and putting it together my own way, and somehow I guess the individual comes through eventually.

Before the 83rd anniversary of Bill Evans’ birth fades away, at least in this time zone, let’s listen together to “Gloria’s Step,” a masterpiece from his 1961 Sunday At The Village Vanguard album. The trio, of course, was Evans, bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian.

Rifftides reader Red Sullivan (pictured), who is Irish, plays the flute and lives in Rio de Janeiro, wrote a comment and question about the Swedish folk song cum jazz standard mentioned in the review of the recent Quincy Jones celebration at the Ystad festival. Others may be interested in the music that prompted his curiosity. The comment and reply are posted with the Jones item four exhibits down. For those who might otherwise miss them, here they are: