The central characters in the new Czech film Rhythm On My Heels are young jazz musicians and their friends. They are ensnared in a plot by the communist party’s intelligence wing to concoct a case branding them anti-communist activitsts. This powerful film is directed by Andrea Sedláčková and acted by a vibrant cast. It is based on Josef Škvoreckýs book The Tenor Saxophonist’s Story. Many in the audience for last night’s screening at Seattle’s Town Hall lived through the communist occupation of Czechoslovakia (1948-1990). The emotions of that debilitating period of the nation’s history showed in their faces as they watched the film, which was shot on location in Prague. This paragraph is from the program for a screening last week in New York.

The story takes place in Czechoslovakia in the fifties and is “a musical tragedy” about love. Main character Danny is the alter ego of Josef Skvorecky himself. Danny is passionate about beautiful girls and jazz, but at the wrong time in a country where communist regime considers this music be way too imperialistic for young people. Danny and his friends form a jazz band and try to live a normal life in a strange world, where one’s destiny is shaped by politics, secret police and undercover agents who might as well be those beautiful girls.

Screened at international film festivals, the film had showings this week in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. Pianist Emil Viklický, who composed the soundtrack, attended the screening and followed it with a concertby his trio. Six of the young actors from the film joined them to sing the title song and other music from the score. They are Vojtech Dyk, Jan Meduna, Berenika Kohoutova, Marika Soposka and Margareta Hruza. Ms. Kohutova (pictured) also sang a few standards. She has the potential to become a superior jazz vocalist.

Bassist Clipper Anderson and drummer Don Kinney rounded out the Viklický rhythm section. To read about their concert on a previous US visit by Viklický, click here. To read about his connection with Škvorecký, go here.

Wayne Jehlik, the Czech consul in Seattle, reports that efforts are afoot to arrange for US distribution of a DVD of Rhythm On My Heels. For its dramatic content, acting, Ms. Sedláčková’s directing and Viklický’s vivid music, the film is worthy of theatrical release here.

Every May 30 of the nearly seven-year history of this web log I have posted an observance of the passing of Paul Desmond. As the staff and I were puzzling over a new approach on this 35th anniversary of his death, Rifftides reader Svetlana Ilicheva wrote from Moscow with her translation of part of a Russian jazz musician and columnist’s appreciation of Desmond.

Paul Desmond is well-remembered and highly valued here in Russia by genuine jazz lovers. On the Russian portal Джаз.ру (Jazz.ru), trumpeter Alexander Fischer (pictured) in an essay titled “Melodies That Narrate” writes, among other things, about Desmond’s solo on “Tangerine” with the Dave Brubeck Quartet in Copenhagen in 1957.

“…Just Listen how Paul Desmond is doing that on his alto saxophone. You can hardly find in his solo empty notes or passages, gratuitous display of technique or special effects. It seems to me that his musical statement reflects human thought in all its diversity, versatility, flexibility, logic and the presence of nooks, ‘dark’ and ‘light’ places…”

If you know Russian, you can read Mr. Fischer’s complete column here. If you happen to have Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond at hand, you can read along with the “Tangerine” solo on pages 194-199. Pianist Bill Mays and his friend Arne DeKeijzer have transcribed all 13 choruses. In his commentary, Bill writes, “Sequential melodic development is something all improvisers employ in solos—Paul uses it beautifully and liberally throughout.”

At the risk of being obvious, allow me to encourage special attention at 4:30 to an expression of the blues heart that beats just beneath the surface of so much of Desmond’s playing.

Thinking of Desmond at this time of year, I remember what Dave Brubeck told me long ago as his family was gathering at his house for the annual Memorial Day observance of which Paul had so often been a part:

“Boy,” he said, “I sure miss Paul Desmond.”

If you’re ready for four-piano fun, see the reply to the last comment in this Rifftides post.

The photograph is of CDs that have accumulated on my office floor because shelf space is a distant memory. The little yellow things are an effort to create a sense of order, tagging sections of boxes by arrival date. It doesn’t work very well.
With notable exceptions for which I am grateful, the publicity releases inserted in the packages with CDs don’t work very well, either. The surplus of both is a problem that did not exist for reviewers in the days when there was a handful of record companies releasing a few albums a month. Big companies still exist, but now there are legions of independent operators taking advantage of the ease of digital record production. Today, a record company may be your auto mechanic or your dentist who moonlights as a trumpet player on weekends, cuts a CD with his fellow moonlighters and hires a publicist in hopes of getting reviewed. They’re out there by the hundreds. I’ve thought of writing (again) about the phenomenon, but my blogging colleague (blogeague?) Marc Myers of JazzWax beat me to the punch, so why not let him do the work? In his latest installment, Marc leads with a paragraph I might have written.

Because I review CDs each week here and contribute to the Wall Street Journal, I’m often bombarded by publicists trying to pitch me their clients’ CDs. Truth be told, 50% of these e-releases are sent to the trash unread based on their subject lines. Another 20% are trashed within seconds after opening. And another 20% are trashed because they don’t inform fast enough. Which leaves 10% that I actually read.

Marc writes about e-releases and MP3 downloads, but the glut of physical albums and publicity releases stuffed into the CD envelopes is even more difficult to deal with. There is no trash button to push to get rid of the unwanted ones. He goes on:

This post is addressed to musicians who scratch their heads and wonder why they don’t get coverage by the print or electronic media. But I warn you, what follows is tough love about the music-promotion business and the media. My hope is that publicists will pick up some pointers and be better at what they do. And that musicians will come to realize that getting the word out requires more than postage stamps and bubble envelopes.

Here’s what publicists and the media won’t tell you about people like me who review music:

I will steal only the first two of Marc’s 10 points and leave it to you to discover the rest of his post. As usual, he includes imaginative illustrations to illustrate his points.

1. I don’t care about your album. Many musicians and publicists seem to believe that offering me free music is some sort of eagerly awaited prize, like sardines to seals. The truth is I have all the new music I will ever want or need. Good publicists know that reviewers have to be seduced with a great sales pitch.


2. Don’t make me work. Asking me to download music is the kiss of death. Downloads are a pain because I have to break away from writing to download, import into iTunes, and then extract from iTunes if I don’t like what I hear. Way too much time and work. It’s much easier to trash.

For the rest, go to JazzWax.

It’s been too long around here since we’ve heard and seen Peggy Lee. Here she is with her husband Dave Barbour and his quartet in a 1950 Soundie. Soundies used to run on machines called Panorams, coin-operated juke boxes in bars, restaurants, factory break rooms, even some corner service stations. They played short films. In went your quarter and out came Count Basie, Claude Thornhill, The Sons of the Pioneers, maybe the Hoosier Hot Shots or, if you were lucky, Peggy Lee.

By the time that was made, Panorams had largely disappeared from taverns and nightclubs. For a few years in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, the more sophisticated Scopitone succeeded them. For a Scopitone memory including a brief history, a demonstration with two of its big stars and the story of Dangerous Desmond’s investment scheme, see this Rifftides archive post.

Two stalwart jazz broadcasters sent previews of their next appearances.

This week on Jazz Northwest, Jim Wilke previews new releases by several Northwest resident jazz artists including Scott Cossu, Pearl Django,and Kareem Kandi as well as sampling some of the musicians featured at next weekend’s Bellevue Jazz Festival. Included are The Clayton Brothers, Hubert Laws, Thomas Marriott and Jovino Santos Neto. There’s also info about other upcoming jazz events.

Jazz Northwest airs Sundays at 1 PM PDT on 88.5, KPLU and streamed at kplu.org. The program is also available as a podcast following the airdate.

Saxophonist, composer, bandleader and radio maven Bill Kirchner writes from New Jersey:

Last February, I did a second show on the ever-expanding art of two-piano jazz. The growing number of CDs in this idiom makes a third show essential.

This third edition will have the greatest stylistic variety: from the virtuoso stride pianos of Dick Hyman and the late Dick Wellstood (from their aptly-named 1986-87 album “Stridemonster!”) to recent post-modern explorations by Brad Mehldau and Kevin Hays, and Andy Milne and Benoit Delbecq.

The show will air this Sunday, May 27, from 11 p.m. to midnight, Eastern Daylight Time.

NOTE: If you live outside the New York City metropolitan area, WBGO also broadcasts on the Internet at www.wbgo.org.

To whet your two-piano appetite, here are Wellstood and Hyman in 1986 at the Bern International Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, a musician whose artistry erased categorical boundaries, died last week at 86. In his appreciation of Fischer-Dieskau, New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini wrote of the great baritone’s “seemingly effortless mix of vocal beauty and verbal directness.” Here is a gem-like example of what Tommasini described—Fischer-Dieskau and Sviatoslav Richter in 1978, having a great time with Franz Schubert’s “Fischerweise.”

Fischer-Dieskau was perhaps the definitive interpreter of Schubert’s lieder masterpiece “Wintereisse.” To hear and see him with pianist Alfred Brendel in all 73 minutes of “Wintereisse,” go here.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, RIP.

The great (term used advisedly) arranger and bandleader Bill Holman celebrated his 85th birthday this week. Steve Cerra posted on his Jazz Profiles blog a repeat of the Holman profile he put together on another occasion. It includes a brilliant assessment of Holman’s work by André Previn, photographs, and a selection of liner notes I have contributed to Holman albums over the years. To see Steve’s post, go here and scroll down the left column until you come to the classic John Reeves photograph of Willis, chin in hand, smiling.

For more on Holman and his music, see this post from the Rifftides archive.

Miles Davis’s birthplace, Alton, Illinois, has announced that it will honor its famous son by erecting a statue. Here are excerpts from the story by Kathie Bassett in Alton’s newspaper, The Telegraph.

Alton Mayor Tom Hoechst unveiled the plan to put a life-sized statue in the heart of Downtown’s entertainment district on Third Street.

This is awesome,” said Brett Stawar, president of Alton’s CVB. “We believe in Miles Davis’ legacy, and I’m excited to see the plan evolve to include a statue that will add another layer to Alton’s visitor experience.”

The initial concept for the statue is that it most likely will mirror the renowned trumpeter’s sinuous pose featured on the commemorative stamp set to be issued on June 12 in New York City, said Charlene Gill, founder and president emeritus of the Alton museum.

To read the whole story and Telegraph readers’ comments, go here.

Miles would no doubt be pleased, but he might very well say, “So What.”

Steve Provizer (pictured, left) posted on his Brilliant Corners blog a treatise on vibrato. He was inspired to do so by Sidney Bechet (1897-1959), the cantankerous genius who made the soprano saxophone a jazz instrument and was the king of vibrato. Steve includes links to performances by celebrated vibratoists, including Bechet, and one by Wild Bill Davison that borders on parody. He also sends us to antivibratoists like Miles Davis, Bix Beiderbecke and Lester Young. You could easily spend an hour just listening to Steve’s links. To see his post, click here.

As sometimes happens in the blogosphere, Provizer’s post inspired Bruno Leicht (pictured,right), halfway across the world in Cologne, to follow up with thoughts about Harry James. James is perhaps not the first trumpeter you would think of if you were in search of vibrato-free playing. Nonetheless, Bruno provides a lovely example of him playing a ballad with a big, fat, nearly vibratoless tone. To hear it, go to BrewLite’s Jazz Tales here.

As for Bechet, here he is in the late 1950s with musicians in France, where he made his home from 1951 until his death. He uses vibrato throughout and with a vengeance toward the end of his long sustained high G or A-flat (or, in this film, somewhere in between).

Judi Silvano, Indigo Moods (Jazzed Media)

As anyone knows who has heard her in duet with her saxophonist husband Joe Lovano, Judi Silvano is capable of dramatic, even eccentric, uses of pitch, harmonic intervals and time. She calls upon those abilities in this collection of cherished standard songs, but her main point in the album is—to borrow Ruby Braff’s phrase—adoration of the melody. In “If You Could See Me Now,” she honors Tadd Dameron’s tune by altering it only with little touches of phrasing and a few vocalise fills. She gives Irving Berlin’s “It Only Happens When I Dance With You” and Billy Strayhorn’s “A Flower is a Lovesome Thing” straight readings, changing nary a note (well, one in the Strayhorn), yet manages to infuse those songs with the piquancy of her style.

For all of her concentration here on melodies, Ms. Silvano is not reluctant to depart from them. Trading fours with trumpeter Fred Jacobs for 16 bars of “If I Had You,” she improvises as skillfully as any instrumentalist. Her wordless vocal chorus in Jobim’s “If You Never Come to Me” (“Initul Paisagem”) captures the song’s Brazilian nature. She brings bluesy variations to “Mood Indigo.” She plays with time and syllables in a Latinized introduction to “Embraceable You.” Still, the album gets its character—her character—through “Skylark,” “I’ll Be Seeing You,” “Let’s Fall in Love,” “But Beautiful,” “Still We Dream” (Monk’s “Ugly Beauty” with words) and the Dameron and Strayhorn songs adorned only with Ms. Silvano’s compelling personality. Trumpeter Jacobs and pianist Fred Tomlinson are her only companions in the album’s 14 songs. They provide support, sensitive accompaniment, tasteful solos and the opportunity for Ms. Silvano to be her very musical self.

Kenny Dorham, Una Mas (Blue Note)

This is a reissue only in the sense that in 1999 engineer Rudy Van Gelder remastered the album he recorded in 1963. There are no newly discovered pieces, no bonus tracks, no alternate takes. There is just Kenny Dorham playing trumpet at the top of his game with his ideal foil, tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, and a rhythm section of Herbie Hancock, Butch Warren and Tony Williams. Dorham did not get his due in his lifetime (1924-1972). A few perceptive young 21st century jazz players have been inspired by the example of his melodic gift and his ingenious use of harmonies, it would be a shame if this essential musician’s life and work were forgotten. KD still has a lot to offer. If you haven’t discovered Dorham, this album is a good way to get acquainted.

For more on Dorham, including rare video of him playing, see this Rifftides archive post.

While the real photographer was setting up for the atmospheric shots used in Bud Shank’s 2001 sextet album On The Trail, I snagged this one of Conte Candoli as he entertained the band and bystanders with the theme from The Godfather.
In addition to Shank and Candoli, On The Trail features Jay Thomas on tenor saxophone and a favorite Shank rhythm section: Bill Mays, piano; Bob Magnusson, bass; and Joe LaBarbera, drums. I was enlisted to write liner notes. When the recording at Raw Records in Port Townsend, Washington, was done, Mays and LaBarbera invited Candoli and me to join them in a game of tennis. We explained that we weren’t tennis players. “That’s okay. We have extra rackets. It’ll be fun,” Mays said.

We found a high school tennis court; two real players in tennis whites and two guys in street clothes. I was wearing sneakers, but Count’s shoes had leather soles. Our mismatched doubles teams batted the ball back and forth to great hilarity as the rank amateurs played like rank amateurs, Candoli’s Guccis frequently slipping on the asphalt. Finally, he made a flying lunge at a ball headed out of bounds, slid out of control, fell and rolled. We all rushed over, determined that nothing was broken and helped him up. Concluding that discretion was advisable, Count and I retired to the sidelines and cheered the survivors.

Less than four months later, Count was dead of a cancer no one had suspected in August. At the center of my many fond memories of him is the day he played so well on the record date and his childlike pleasure in that ad hoc fooling around on the court. His longtime colleague Bud Shank left us in 2009.

Here’s a good way for all of us to remember Count—with LaBarbera, Pete Jolly at the piano and Chuck Berghofer on bass. The piece is Candoli’s “Secret Passion.”

Stan Getz with Eddy Louis, organ; Renè Thomas, guitar; Bernard Lubat, drums, from a 1971 French television program. The piece is “Dum Dum.” Getz’s tone led John Coltrane to say of him, “We’d all sound like that if we could.”

“Dum Dum” is included on Getz’s Dynasty, which Verve Records has dropped from its catalog. The album is on its way to becoming a collectors item.

*la·gniappe (lan-yap), noun

Chiefly Southern Louisiana and Southeast Texas . 1.a small gift to a customer by way of compliment or for good measure; bonus. 2.a gratuity or tip. 3.an unexpected or indirect benefit.

I met a grown man the other day who came right out and admitted that he had never heard Sonny Rollins play “Wagon Wheels.” We were in public and I didn’t want to embarrass him, so I took the only civilized option that sprang to mind. I promised him that if I could find it on the web, I would post the track for him and anyone else similarly deprived. Here it is, with Ray Brown on bass and Shelly Manne on drums, from Way Out West (1957), a basic repertoire item if ever there was one.

“Wagon Wheels” debuted in the Ziegield Follies in 1934. Among several successful recordings over the years were those by—strange though it may seem—Jimmy Lunceford, and Tommy Dorsey with strings. It was a hit for Spade Cooley and Paul Robeson, too, but the record permanently installed for a decade in the jukeboxes of my hometown was by The Sons of the Pioneers. You may find it a contrast to the Rollins version. Click here.

Gil Evans, who enriched the art and craft of jazz arranging, was born 100 years ago today. National Public Radio this morning ended one of its hours on Weekend Edition Sunday with a remembrance of Evans and his work. To listen to it, go here and click on “Listen Now.”

Here are three pieces arranged by Evans for an all star orchestra featuring Miles Davis on a 1959 Robert Herridge CBS-TV special. They are from the 1957 Davis album Miles Ahead. Herridge introduces them.

To see a one-hour documentary about Evans, go here.

Alto saxophonist and flutist Gary Foster writes from Los Angeles:

Just in case you haven’t seen this. We recreated music from the three Miles-Gil recordings at the Hollywood Bowl in 2010 and at Monterey last September. The edited recording from Monterey is being broadcast by NPR. With Vince Mendoza conducting and Terence Blanchard playing the solos, to experience the music from inside the orchestra has been extraordinary. There is a rumor that we may play it in Southern California again and make a commercial recording in 2013.

Ending as we began, with NPR, go here to listen to the JazzSet hour of Evans arrangements with Blanchard in the solo trumpet chair.

Orchestra Members

Wayne Bergeron, Chuck Berghofer, Annie Bosler, Gene Cipriano, Wade Culbreath, Marcia Dickstein, Peter Erskine, Miles Evans, Dan Fornero, Gary Foster, Gary Grant, Larry Hall, Greg Huckins, Alan Kaplan, Charlie Loper, Bob McChesney, Charlie Morillas, Mike O’Donovan, Bill Reichenbach, Bob Sheppard, Rick Todd, Brad Warnaar.

Under Doug’s Picks in the right column, and for a time in the main column, you will find the Rifftides staff’s newest recommendations for listening, viewing and reading. This time around: a big box of mainstream classics, two fine and rather different pianists, Monk alone, and the charm and humor of a great Dane who chronicled an unparalleled time of jazz abundance in New York.

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we’ve forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We’ve separated music from life.—Ornette Coleman

If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.—Charlie Parker

What we play is life.—Louis Armstrong

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.—Emily Dickinson

Thelonious Monk with Charlie Rouse, Butch Warren and Frankie Dunlop in Japan in 1963, playing “Epistrophy.”

*la·gniappe (lan-yap), noun
Chiefly Southern Louisiana and Southeast Texas . 1.a small gift to a customer by way of compliment or for good measure; bonus. 2.a gratuity or tip. 3.an unexpected or indirect benefit.

Here’s a first: trumpeter, composer, teacher, blogger and frequent Rifftides correspondent Bruno Leicht (seen here) has dedicated a new composition—a suite, no less—to this weblog. Mr. Leicht, who is based in Cologne, explains on his own blog that he bases the composition on several important pieces of music sharing certain harmonic characteristics. The piece has yet to be premiered or recorded.

How did Rifftides get involved? Go here for Bruno’s explanation and a lead sheet. Then, come back and click here for added background in a post from the Rifftides archive. If you click on all of the links in Bruno’s post, it will be a while before you get back here. That’s okay. We’ll wait.

The Rifftides staff thanks Mr. Leicht for the honor. We look forward to someday hearing “A Bad Lady In Six Flats.”