The first annual International Jazz Day came and went on April 30 with no mention on Riffitdes, a lapse I regret. Fellow arts journal blogger Howard Mandel, president of the Jazz Journalists Association, has a fine report at his Jazz Beyond Jazz site. Howard includes a great quote from United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon (pictured) and a tribute to Herbie Hancock, who came up with the idea of such a day. A video posted on YouTube gives a scattershot idea of some of the events at the UN that inspired Howard’s enthusiastic account.
Miscellany From The West
It may have been news to many that there was a trace of jazz left anywhere on AM radio, but that doesn’t make a report from Los Angeles easier to take. Here’s the lead paragraph from Kirk Silsbee’s story in today’s L.A. Times.
A silence has descended on Los Angeles’ AM radio band. On April
2, KABC’s longtime morning man, Doug McIntyre (pictured), acquiesced to his management’s request that he no longer program jazz. Although he hosts a current events show 5 to 9 a.m. weekdays, McIntyre represented the last vestige of AM jazz, with his variety of big band bumper music, full songs and on-air interviews of jazz personalities.
The station apparently sees jazz as hindering its bid for a wider audience. In its place, rock music now serves as McIntyre’s bumper music.
To read the whole story of the corporate karate chop to jazz, go here.
Staying with Los Angeles, archivist Jim Harrod has a new blog devoted to the history of Pacific Jazz, the Southern California label that did much to make west coast jazz famous. The two installments so far profile Richard Bock, who
founded the label. They cover Bock’s early involvement with Discovery Records, his work at the club called Haig and the advent of Pacific Jazz. There are photographs of Dizzy Gillespie, Art Pepper, Hampton Hawes and others, pages from PJ catalogs and lots of record labels, like the one on the right, that are likely to induce ripples of nostalgia. To see Harrod’s most recent post, click here. Scroll down to part one to get to the early history.
Before Bock moved to Los Angeles, before west coast jazz became a category, there was plenty of substantial jazz activity on the lower left coast. On the periphery of much of it, and sometimes at the center, was the pianist, guitarist, singer and protohipster Slim Gaillard (1916-1991). He had a duo, Slim and Slam, with bassist Slam Stewart. In 1938, the success of their “Flat Foot Floogie†made them famous on radio and jukeboxes. If you can’t 
bring Gaillard to mind, think “vout†and “oroony,†words that enriched the language. Gaillard moved to L.A. in the early 1940s, appeared in several movies and played in clubs including Billy Berg’s. His musicianship and verve attracted artists beyond the arena of novelty and comedy in which he primarily operated. They included Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, who appeared as guest soloists on a few of Gaillard’s recordings, including this one.
Here is Slim Gaillard as guest performer on a television program, presumably in L.A. If you have more information about it let us know by way of a comment.
Vout!
Finally in this west coast wig bubble, here’s a link to a piece from Oregon Music News, written by old pal Jack Berry, who was desperate for a column idea.
Cornelia, McNeil, Carter And Will
The next time I visit New York, which can’t be soon enough, I will make it a point to visit the Cornelia Street Café. The restaurant in Greenwich Village has intrigued me with its 
digital notifications about performances by musicians, singers, poets and uncategorizable others. Eclecticism seems to be the café’s guiding principle. The latest schedule speaks of poetry events—recreated conversations of the German composer Hanns Eisler—a lecture on “The Pathological Sublime and The Anatomical Unconscious”—the travel writer Ralph Potts—a trio made up of two singers and a bassist—a vocalist named Brianna Thomas of whom the Cornelians quote Will Friedwald as saying that she “may be the best young straight-ahead jazz singer of her generation” (who knew?)—and an array of adventurous jazz players of the downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn jazz scenes.
What brought Cornelia Street to mind was a message from the trumpeter John McNeil inviting me to his next engagement there with his band Urban Legend. Alas, I can’t go, but this presents an opportunity to share with you writing of the kind McNeil often disseminates in advance of his gigs.
In the message, McNeil wrote this about Urban Legend:
Steve Cardenas, Bill McHenry and I have had this band for something approaching eight years, with a changing cast of bass and drums. On the bandstand I’m the leader and ostensibly the music is mine, but in eight years band members have contributed major changes to all of it. McHenry and Cardenas have done the most, but I always tell the various bassists and drummers that ideas are welcome, and they come through with a lot. Matt Penman in particular changed a lot of harmony, bass lines etc.
Cardenas and I have collaborated on a tune or two also, and the result of all this is a book that is diverse but maintains a consistent vibe. What that vibe is I can’t really say, but like porn, I know it when I hear it.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I admire McNeil not only for his wit, general musicianship and trumpet virtuosity, but also for his fortitude in the face of vicissitudes that might have persuaded many of us to close up shop. If you follow this link, you’ll see a Rifftides archive piece explaining that. It includes video of a performance with his quartet.
Other Matters: Dandelions
Dandelions may be the gardener’s curse, but they have their place. Around here in springtime, their place is in the orchards. On the most recent cycling expedition, this was a good reason to stop.
Preserving Ted Williams’ Photographs
If you follow jazz even tangentially, you have seen photographs by Ted Williams. Most of us have also seen his shots of major figures in news events of the second half of the twentieth century. This picture of Martin Luther King is one of them.
When Williams died in 2009 at the age of 84, he left tens of thousands of his prints and negatives in shoeboxes and notebooks. Most of them have never been published. They are not cataloged. The father and son team of Lou and Max Modica are spearheading an effort to preserve, organize and display Williams’ work. This paragraph is from the website they have created as part of the fundraising needed to see that the photographs survive and become available to the public.
Williams (pictured) was one of the first African-American photographers to attend Chicago’s Institute of Design, where he heard
lectures on photography by such luminaries as Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange. He began taking pictures of musicians in the late 1940’s and his body of work consists of more than 90,000 images. His first major magazine article was a 21-page spread for Downbeat magazine when he covered the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. He went on to regularly contribute images for many music and national publications and took part in the exhibit “Images of Music: Classical through Rock†at New York’s Soho Triad Fine Arts Gallery.
In his early days, Williams photographed many of the musicians who lived in Chicago or appeared there. Lou Modica has provided Rifftides with a photograph of one of the visiting artists and Ted Williams’ account of what happened the night he took it.
CHARLIE “YARDBIRD†PARKER  Chicago 1953
The town buzzed for weeks in anticipation of Bird’s scheduled six days at The Bee Hive. The Hive was essentially a bar — a narrow room with a bar running the length of one wall. Bird was to be working with a local rhythm section plus, this time, another local musician that doubled on trumpet and tenor — I imagine to cover any absence on Bird’s part. I am not usually a First Nighter. But in Parker’s case I make an exception, the first night might be his only night!
Even with an added cover and minimum, the place was packed…leaning room only. Set time comes — no surprise — no Bird. Ira Sullivan played valiantly but the patrons paid for The Yardbird and they could hear Ira anytime — no cover, no minimum!
Rumors that Bird is in the house relieve some of the tension. Next set — Bird is on the stand, horn in hand. Within minutes he is nodding out, leaning against the piano! Poor Ira is going nuts — soloing on the trumpet — soloing on the tenor — the grumbling gets louder — the club owner is on the phone to the musicians union — Bird sleeps.
Had it been anyone but Charlie Parker, the place would have been vacant — customers clutching their refunds in hand and long gone. But nobody wanted money back — we came to hear Bird and if he played one note we would be there to hear it!
Between sets he begins to show signs of life — the bartender made him something tall and milky and Charlie was sucking it up through two long red straws. On the stand he calls loudly to the piano man “The blues in A!†What followed was the most unexpected but absolutely brilliant exhibition of blowing that I have heard from anyone! The whole set was his!! As Duke might have said ‘beyond category.’
When he finished the set, Bird called out to the union rep — “Do you still want my card, m___f___?â€
(©Ted Williams, used with permission)
The campaign headed by the Modicas includes an opportunity for donors to acquire copies of Williams’ photographs in return for contributions. If you are interested in the preservation of a valuable trove of pictorial history, visit this website and see if you think the effort is worthwhile. The site has more of the photos, a video that includes Williams discussing his work and information about the fundraising organizers.
A Blues By Bird
I couldn’t find a Parker recording of a blues in the key of A to follow the Ted Williams story. Let’s settle for E-flat. Here’s Bird with Al Haig, piano; Percy Heath, bass; and Max Roach, drums, recorded in 1953, the same year as the Bee Hive gig in Chicago.
Have a good weekend.
Shelly Manne: Checkmate
The previous item about the Blackhawk triggered thoughts of Shelly Manne (1920-1984) and the quintet he led in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. As chance would have it, this morning I encountered videos of a superb edition of that band. The pieces are from Manne’s 1961 album Checkmate. The drummer’s group had pianist Russ Freeman, trumpeter Conte Candoli, tenor saxophonist Richie Kamuca and bassist Monty Budwig. For the 2002 CD reissue of the album, I wrote this summary:
Long before he composed the music for Jaws, the Star Wars series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and dozens of other major motion pictures, John Towner Williams was Johnny Williams, jazz pianist. He
began writing for films and television in the early 1950s, and in much of his earlier work the jazz influence was still strong. Shelly Manne worked with Williams on Hollywood sound stages and was taken with his music for the TV series Checkmate. Manne adapted seven of Williams’s themes from the show for his band, Shelly Manne & His Men. Because Williams was tuned in
to trends in jazz, some of the pieces reflected modal approaches recently taken by forward thinkers like Miles Davis and John Coltrane. “The King Swings,†as an example, is nearly identical in form to Coltrane’s “Impressions.†Accordingly, Manne and his quintet, one of the best small groups of the 1960s, plumb Williams’s unusual television music for all of its considerable improvisational possibilities.
Here is “The King Swings†from a1962 installment of the excellent Jazz Scene USA program hosted by Oscar Brown, Jr.
Budwig and Freeman introduce “The Isolated Pawn,†also from the Checkmate album. The modal bent is again strong. Candoli’s muted trumpet may not be the only thing that reminds you of another quintet of the era.
Concord seems to have dropped Checkmate from the OJC catalog. It has become an expensive collectors item, although used copies of the CD or LP occasionally pop up for less than twenty dollars.
The Blackhawk Gets Its Due
In my notes for the final volume of Shelly Manne & His Men At The Blackhawk, I wrote:
During my years of labor at KGO-TV in San Francisco, I never passed the parking lot a block away at Turk and Hyde without regretting the injustice of a world that puts more value on the storage of automobiles than on preserving historical landmarks. To be accurate, the Landmark Preservation Commission never actually got around to trying to save the Black Hawk or even mounting a brass plaque at space number five, the approximate location of the door where Elynore Caccienti and Susan Weiss collected one-dollar entry fees and dispensed wisdom. All right: the matter never came to a vote, never even came up for discussion.
Nonetheless, officially recognized or not, history was made in the dust and dimness of that temple of gloom. “I’ve worked and slaved to keep this place a sewer,†Guido Caccienti used to say of the joint he ran with his partner, George Weiss. In the 1950s when the club was in its florescence, Count Basie set a new world record for compacting musicians by cramming sixteen men onto the Black Hawk’s little stand, adding Joe Williams, and still finding room to swing. Cal Tjader’s and Dave Brubeck’s groups were more or less headquartered at the Black Hawk and did some of their best live recording there. The first ten-inch LP by the Gerry Mulligan Quartet was made in September, 1952, while Mulligan, Chet Baker, Carson Smith and Chico Hamilton were at the Black Hawk refining their alchemy. The Miles Davis Quintet with Hank Mobley recorded two albums there, commemorating that regrettably short partnership. Although he recorded it in a hall a few blocks away, it was during a Black Hawk engagement that Thelonious Monk made a solo piano album notable for the beauty and serenity of his playing.
That was 11 years ago. Now, thanks to the Uptown Tenderloin Historic District, justice has been done. The corner is again a parking lot, but a bronze plaque embedded in the sidewalk commemorates one of the most important clubs in the history of jazz. In addition to Manne’s five Blackhawk albums, the club was the site of recordings by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and others named on the plaque.
The Tenderloin, an area of about 50 square blocks was famous, and infamous, long before Dashiell Hamett made it the locale of his 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon. Uptown Tenderloin project manager Sarah Wilson reports that the Blackhawk plaque is one of nine marking historical sites in the district. The ninth will be dedicated tomorrow at 11 a.m. PDT in front of Hyde Street Studios, founded by Wally Heider in 1969. Heider, legendary for the quality of his recordings, captured dozens of live performances, including Cal Tjader’s Saturday Night/ Sunday Night At The Blackhawk, San Francisco (Verve). Maybe Uptown Tenderloin, Inc. can convince United Music, the custodian of that gem in Tjader’s discography, to finally reissue it on CD. Here is Tjader outside the Blackhawk getting ready for a gig with his Afro-Cuban quintet. Inside the van is drummer Johnny Rae. (Photo courtesy of David Murray).
And here is Tjader on vibes recorded at the Blackhawk in 1957 with his quartet—Vince Guaraldi, piano; Eugene Wright, bass; Al Torre, drums.
If you live in San Francisco (lucky you) or plan to visit, you may want to tour the sites commemorated with those bronze plaques.
Wally Heider Recording, 245 Hyde St.
Blackhawk Jazz Club, corner of Turk & Hyde Sts.
California Labor School, 240 Golden Gate Ave.,
Gene Compton’s Cafeteria, 101 Taylor St.
Original Joe’s, 144 Taylor St.
B’nai Brith, 149 Eddy St.
Screening Room, 220 Jones St.
Arcadia/Downtown Bowl, current Boedekker Park, Jones & Eddy Sts.
Blanco’s Café, current Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell St.
Just seeing the name Original Joe’s makes me hungry. The plaques are only a beginning. Uptown Tenderloin, Inc., is planning a museum dedicated to preserving the history of one of the most interesting, quirky and vital parts of an interesting, quirky and vital city. For details, go here.
To spend a few memorable minutes in the Blackhawk, watch the video in this Rifftides archive piece.
The proper spelling of the name—Blackhawk or Black Hawk—has never been satisfactorily resolved. Take your choice.
Passings: McKusick, Charles, Muranyi, Jones
We have been losing important musicians in batches. In the past few days we said goodbye to four men who were not well known to general audiences but were appreciated—even revered—by jazz listeners and by their fellow artists.
Hal McKusick’s early career found him in two of the most influential big bands of the late forties, Boyd Raeburn’s and Claude Thornhill’s. Accomplished on saxophones, clarinet and flute, McKusick was also a talented composer and arranger. Among his close colleagues on records and off were George Russell, Art Farmer, Bill Evans and Jimmy Guiffre. He has the alto saxophone solo this 1956 recording by the George Russell Sextet that included Farmer and Evans. In his later years, McKusick taught music at a private school on Long Island, New York. He was 87 when he died on April 11.
McKusick’s contemporary Teddy Charles died on April 16, three days after his 84th birthday. Charles was a vibraphonist, pianist and composer whose
playing, arranging and leadership abilities made him an important figure in the New York jazz milieu of the 1950s. They also led to his producing albums for a number of important musicians, among them Zoot Sims and John Coltrane. Charles’ adventurous tentet sounds fresh more than half a century later, as in the Mal Waldron piece called “Vibrations.†In the middle 1960s, Charles walked away from his career in music to become a charter boat captain in the Caribbean. He continued in the charter boat business after returning to New York in the 1980s, sometimes holding jam sessions at home and, in 2009, making his first new album in four decades.
Clarinetist Joe Muranyi gained a bit of fame as a member of the last edition 
of Louis Armstrong’s All-Stars in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. Muranyi may have had in mind a career in modern jazz when he studied briefly with Lennie Tristano, but his love for earlier styles sent him toward Eddie Condon, Roy Eldridge, Jimmy McPartland, Danny Barker and Red Allen, among other leaders of swing and traditional bands. Following Armstrong’s death in 1971, he freelanced extensively as a musician and as a writer of liner notes and articles. At his death, he was working on a book about Armstrong. Muranyi was 84. To see and hear him with Armstrong in London in 1968, click here.
Among the busiest trumpeters of his generation, Virgil Jones worked with an array of major jazz artists, beginning, when he was 20, with Lionel Hampton. After moving to New York from his native Indianapolis, he toured with Ray
Charles, played in the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra and Dizzy Gillespie’s big band and Bobby Rosengarden’s band on the Dick Cavett Show. Versatile in brass sections and a good soloist, Jones appeared or recorded with Milt Jackson, Philly Joe Jones, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Heath and Frank Foster among others, and was in orchestras for Broadway shows including Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Jelly’s Last Jam. You can hear Jones at the top of the ensemble and soloing in this 1963 recording with Roland Kirk. Jones made hundreds of recordings with others but never had an album under his own name. Jones was 72.
Readers Choices 2012 (4)
Here is the final round of Rifftides readers’ listening choices. Thanks to all who responded for introducing me—and many others, I’m 
sure—to music or musicians that I would not have known otherwise. Without this exercise, among other recordings The Mars Volta, cellist Claire Gastinel and the marvelous O Grande Circo Mistico by Edu Lobo and Chico Buarque, would have escaped me.
Looking over the playlists of recommended albums by young jazz musicians and sampling their wares, I wondered again why budding composers in their late teens or early twenties think that 10 or 12 of their original compositions can sustain interest through an entire CD. Yes, I know about works of youthful genius by, say, Mozart, Schubert and Charlie Parker. I’ve heard no recent evidence that there is another like them among us. A leavening of songbook and jazz standards would help most albums of originals by musicians in their salad days. It’s amazing how a dose of Porter, Ellington, Gershwin, Shorter, Mandel or Dameron can break the monotony and give the listener a familiar handle.
If there is enough interest, we may do this again some day when the staff has forgotten the hours of finding and inserting html code for links. For those new to this sort of thing, the links are the album titles in blue. They are clickable.
Please use the “Speak Your Mind†box at the end of this post to comment on Readers Choices or anything else——well, just about anything else.
The Mars Volta, Noctourniquet.
Starlicker, Double Demon.
William Parker, I Plan To Stay A Believer.
John Zorn, The Gnostic Preludes.
Michael Sentkewitz
This is just today:
Milt Jackson, To Bags With Love, Memorial Album, Pablo.
Andy Bey, Ballads Blues & Bey, Evidence Music.
Carmen McRae, Carmen Sings Monk.
Bill Charlap: He’s played throughout the day.
Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster, Verve.
Other frequently heard singers: Joe Williams, Pinky Winters, Joe Mooney and Frank Sinatra.
Lots of classical music stored on my Media Player and also available at YouTube.
Carol Sloane
Stoneham, Massachusetts
USA
Dave Brubeck, Moscow Night— includes my all time favourite version
of “Take Five‗Dave’s playing is superb.
Paul Desmond, The Paul Desmond Quartet Live.
Gerry Mulligan, Midas Touch.
Al Cohn & Zoot Sims, Body & Soul.
Bruce Babad, A Tribute To Paul Desmond.
John Bolger
Greystones, Ireland
UK
Ben Allison, Little Things Run The World.
Robert Glasper, In My Element.
Branford Marsalis, Braggtown.
Art Ensemble of Chicago, A Jackson in Your House/A Message to Our Folks.
Music By Ry Cooder (Selections from films he has scored).
Jason Moran, Same Mother.
Barry K. Schmidt
Yakima, WA
USA
Joe Henderson, Double Rainbow.
Norah Jones, Little Broken Hearts.
Enrico Rava/Stefano Bollani, The Third Man
Kate Bush, 50 Words For Snow.
Chuck Mitchell
New York, NY
USA
Chick Corea, Eddie Gomez & Paul Motian, Further Explorations.
Dorian Ford Trio, The Bill Game (The music of Bill Evans)

Julian Lage Group, Gladwell
.
Phil Palombi, Re: Person I Knew.

Craig Urquhart, Songs Without Words.
Jeff Lorber Fusion, Galaxy.
Jake Shimabukro, Peace, Love, Ukelele.
Kenny Burrell, Tenderly.
Mark Mohr,
Spokane, WA
USA
Tom Warrington, Nelson.
Jeff Hamilton, Red Sparkle.
Dave Tull, I Just Want To Get Paid.
Bob Curnow, Pat Metheny.
Larry Hathaway
LA Jazz Society
(Curnow recently released a followup big band album, Plays The Music Of Pat Metheny And Lyle Mays, Vol. 2—DR)
Clark Terry & Bob Brookmeyer, The Power of Positive Swinging.
Joe Lovano, Hank Jones, Joyous Encounter.
Bonnie Raitt, Slipstream.
Duke Ellington At Fargo, N.D., 1940.
Art Pepper, Winter Moon.
James Bruce
North Carolina
USA
Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues.
Dave Brubeck Quartet, Brubeck Time.
Shelly Manne, Yesterdays.
Ben Johnston, String Quartets 2,3,4,& 9.
Keith Jarrett, Live at the Blue Note.
Peter Straub
New York City
USA
Music in the house with Bose speakers upstairs and down. In the car, I favor a heavy sound such as big bands. Count Basie Encounters Oscar Peterson is onboard today. Because of Jack Brownlow, I have every Bill Evans CD, but Evans is too subtle for car listening.
Lee Kilburn
Kirkland, WA
USA
Lars Jansson Trio, Worship of Self.
Clare Fischer Orchestra, Continuum.
Amina Figarova, Sketches.
Grant Stewart, Estate.
Warren Vache/Alan Barnes, The London Sessions.
Chick Corea/Gary Burton, Hot House.
Paolo Fresu Quintet, Songlines.
Don Emanuel
Gillingham, Kent
England
Brad Mehldau, Ode.
Matt Wilson, An Attitude for Gratitude.
Anne Gastinel / Claire Désert: Cello Sonatas.
Chick Corea, Further Explorations.
And because there was a discussion of the BBC series Sailing on a blog
I regularly read, Rod Stewart’s “Sailing” has been my most recent
earworm.(It’s in this album—DR)
Stan Jones
Yarmouth, Nova Scotia
Canada
Cassandra Wilson — Loverly
Mark Murphy — Memories of You (dedicated to Joe Williams)
Brubeck/Desmond — Dave Digs Disney
Bird — Live Recordings on Savoy
Brookmeyer/Evans — The Ivory Hunters
Barry Harris — Plays Tadd Dameron
Jim Brown
Santa Cruz, CA
USA
Readers Choices 2012 (3)
Thanks to the dozens of Rifftides readers who sent lists of music that they have been listening to. The sweepstakes is now closed (no drawing, no prizes, no winners, no losers). It will take at least a day or two longer to get everyone’s list posted. I have been impressed with the range of interests among you. If you find this sort of exercise worthwhile, let me know. We may do it again in a few years.
Richard Strauss, Don Quixote, Yo Yo Ma, cello, with Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa.
Strauss, Burleske for Piano and Orchestra, Martha Argerich, piano; Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado, conductor.
Toots Thielemans, Yesterday and Today, Brasilian Collaborations.
Clark Terry, Porgy and Bess Suite, Jeff Lindberg cond. Chicago Jazz Orchestra, arrangements by Gil Evans (originally for Miles Davis—CT is better, IMO!).
Bob Brookmeyer—especially the arrangements for the Vanguard
Orchestra back to the time of Thad & Mel; also the final album, Standards, Brookmeyer arranger, conductor; Fay Claasen, vocals.
Charlton Price
Seattle, Washington
USA
Quartet West (Haden, Watts, Broadbent, Motian) “Lonely Woman” Nice 1988, French Radio Broadcast.
Gordon Sapsed
UK
Phil Woods, American Song Book.
J.J. Johnson, Standards (Village Vanguard).
Roger Kellaway, Remembering Bobby Darin.
John Birchard
Washington, DC
USA
In response and in requiem, the great Brookmeyer, shuffling between
The Essential Collection, The Blues Hot and Cold, and Kansas City
Sounds. True originality in absolutely great company.
Brian Hope
Currently listening to Miles Davis live in Paris with Sonny Stitt.
Dynamite !!!!
Gary Brisbane
Ajax, Ontario
Canada
Audra McDonald, How Glory Goes.
Vic Lewis Swings Nelson Riddle.
Curtis Fuller, Soul Trombone/Cabin In The Sky (a nice two-LP-on-one-CD
set).
Seth MacFarlane. Music Is Better Than Words.
Roland Hanna Solo Piano, Free Spirit.
The US Army Blues Jazz Ensemble, Blues at Thirty Five.
Sam Cooke, The RCA Albums Collection.
Aaron Copland, The Copland Collection, Orchestral & Ballet Works, 1936-1948.
Wes Montgomery, Echoes of Indiana Avenue.
Gerry Mulligan Sextet, Legends Live, Liederhalle, Stuttgart November 22, 1977.
Hal McKusick Now’s The Time.
The Complete Atlantic Studio Recordings of the Modern Jazz Quartet (1956-1964).
Bucky Pizzarelli, Challis In Wonderland.
Pat Goodhope
New Castle, Delaware
USA
I just, this minuite, came back in the door from seeing an Edu Lobo
show, live, so I’ve put on his CD w/Jobim, Edu & Tom, and it’s
even better than I remember. A masterpiece! (Although tonight he was
performing the music from another of his greatest records, O Grande
Circo Mistico, and he was wonderful). Also, another Brasilian genius: everybody should listen to a Francis Hime record, or all of ’em (Bill Evans recorded his music). Try the Album Musical, maybe. Today I also listened to Teté Montoliu, as I often do (with undiminished delight and amazment). His SteepleChase sides—trio and Solo—are unbeatable.
Red O’Sullivan
Rio de Janeiro
Brazil
Readers Choices 2012 (2)
Rifftides readers’ recent listening choices are still coming in. We
intend to get them all posted as production time allows. Scroll down to the April 15 item to see the simple guidelines. If you respond, please end with your name and where you live.
Use the “Contact Me” link above the Rifftides title to send your choices. The deadline is midnight PDT, Thursday, April 19.
Charlie Parker 1946, Jazz At The Philharmonic (reading Granz biography, new interest in JATP).
Stan Getz w/ Oscar Peterson Trio.
Billy Hart, All Our Reasons.
Derek Montgomery
Big Bags, Milt Jackson Orch. arr. Tadd Dameron & Ernie Wilkins.
The Magic Touch, Tadd Dameron Orch.
Ernie Wilkins, The Everest Years.
Sergio Mendes Presents Edu Lobo.
Memphis Underground, Herbie Mann.
Symphonique, Le Vent du Nord.
Fool on the Hill, Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66.
West of the Moon, Ralph Burns & Lee Wiley.
Peter Fox, Official You Tube Channel.
Tom Myron, Composer/Arranger
Northampton, MA
Dear Old Stockholm: Americans in Sweden 1949-1953.
Maurice Ravel, Daphnis et Chloé, L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ernest Ansermet, 1959.
Hank Jones,For My Father.
Modern Jazz Quartet, Blues on Bach.
Peter Bergmann
Berlin
CT Needs Help
Clark Terry’s long siege of ill health, and recent drastic surgeries, have left him in need of help to meet medical expenses. Later this month, the Jazz Foundation of America will hold a special New York fundraising event for CT. The concert will bring together dozens of musician friends and admirers who will perform at St. Peter’s Church. Whether or not you can attend, please consider a donation. For details, click here.
Readers Choices, 2012 (1)
Responses to the invitation in the previous post are arriving in sizeable batches. Briefly, the idea is for you to let the rest of us know what you’ve
been listening to. How to do that? The April 15 post tells you to use the “Contact Me†link at the top of this page. Remember to include your name and location.
It takes time for the staff to develop links for those who want to investigate the music mentioned by fellow readers, so please be patient if your list has not yet appeared. Here are some of the first responses.
George Colligan, Living For The City.
Maria Bethania Sings The Vinicius De Moraes Songbook.
The track, “Paris In Blue” by Jackie Paris with Charles Mingus.
A homemade CD containing pretty much every single recorded by Mark Murphy in the late 1950s and early 1960s. (The link may take you to some of them—DR)
Cha Cha
Astoria, Queens, New York
Einojuhani Rautavaara, Cantus Arcticus & 3rd Symphony.
Jens Buchert, compilation of electronic mood music.
Wagner, Meistersinger von Nuremberg, cond: Kubelik.
Miles Davis, In a Silent Way.
Leo Ferre, La Vie d’Artiste.
Christopher St. Clair
Billie Holiday, Lady In Satin.
Stan Getz, Focus.
Kenny Harris,
Suffolk, UK
Roland Hanna: Colors From a Giant’s Kit.
Evan Weiss: Math or Magic.
David Perrine
Tierney Sutton, On The Other Side.
Renee Rosnes with strings, Without Words.
Paul Desmond Quartet, Live (in Toronto)
Jimmy Owens, The Monk Project.
Charlie Parker with Lennie Tristano,Complete Recordings. (Here’s the link, but don’t get your hopes up. It’s out of print.—DR)
Loudon Wainwright III, 40 Odd Years. (box set)
Jon Foley,
Scenic Petaluma, CA, USA
We’ll have more listeners’ reports soon——maybe even tomorrow.
Readers’ Choices
Six years ago when Rifftides was a year old, we asked readers to send information about the music they were turning on, and vice versa. There was a deluge of replies. It took several days of long posts to accommodate the responses. It’s time to do it again. The invitation went something like this:
The Rifftides staff is interested in what our readers around the world are listening to. Please take a moment to send a message with your name (if you care to disclose it), your location and the most recent music on your iPod, smartphone, CD player, tape deck, wire recorder, turntable or cylinder machine. Many of you listen to a wide range of music that the rest of us would like to know about. Don’t worry about genres; who needs pigeonholes? We will keep track of your responses and compile a report when we have a sizeable list.
The last time we did this, it took extensive post-production work to get all of the responses published, but it was worth it. Part of the staff is saying, “Oh, no, not again,” but they’ve been overruled. To send your choice or choices, click on “Contact Me” at the top of this page.
I’ll get the ball rolling:
Kenny Garrett, Seeds From the Underground.
Brian Lewis (violin), London Symphony Orchestra, Bernstein: Serenade, McLean: Elements. I recently heard Lewis play the McLean with Lawrence Golan and the Yakima Symphony Orchestra and ordered the CD the next day.
Doug Ramsey,
Yakima, Washington, USA.
They Said Goodbye To Brookmeyer
Wednesday night’s memorial service for Bob Brookmeyer attracted friends and admirers from many compartments of his productive life. The valve trombonist, composer and arranger—influential in jazz since the early 1950s— died at the age of 81 last December 15. The memorial was at St. Peter’s Church in Manhattan, long a site of worship services incorporating jazz, and of events commemorating the music and its makers. The Rifftides
staff thanks saxophonist, composer and bandleader David Sherr, who attended the memorial and sent this account.
The program included music and reminiscences by family and long-time friends and associates—speakers and musicians who had known Bob Brookmeyer for years, in at least one instance since he was a teenager.
Featured throughout was the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, with which Brookmeyer had been associated since its formation in the 1960s as the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. Bill Kirchner organized the event and gave “special thanks to John Mosca, Maria Schneider, Judy Kahn, Douglas Purviance, Elizabeth Mosca, Nancy Oatts, Kristy Kadish, and Bill Prante.â€
In addition to Kirchner, the speakers were drummer Dave Bailey, bassist Bill Crow, record producer John Snyder, author and critic Terry Teachout, Greg Bahora (one of Brookmeyer’s stepsons), the poet and drummer Michael Stephans, trumpeter Jimmy Owens, Brookmeyer’s student Darcy James Argue, Joel Thome, Ed Dix*#151;in whose band a teenage Brookmeyer was featured—trumpeter Clark Terry, who spoke via audio tape; and guitarist Jim Hall. There was a video presentation by composer and Brookmeyer colleague Maria Schneider, Ryan Truesdell, and Marie Le Claire with recordings, photographs and film clips going back more than 60 years. The video presentation, edited from still photos and film clips, will soon be posted on YouTube.
Between speakers were performances by the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and various other ensembles. The Orchestra began the program with “Hello and Goodbye,” composed and arranged by Brookmeyer. Rich Perry, tenor saxophone, and Scott Robinson, baritone saxophone, were the soloists.
After Bailey and Kirchner spoke, a small ensemble played two Brookmeyer compositions, Open Country and Remembering. Along with Robinson (pictured)
and Perry were Oliver Leicht, clarinet; Ed Neumeister and Christian Jakso, trombones; Kenny Werner, piano; Brad Shepik, guitar; Martin Wind, bass and John Hollenbeck, drums.
Bill Crow and John Snyder were the next speakers, after which the full Orchestra played Hoagy Carmichael’s Skylark in Bob Brookmeyer’s arrangement. Dick Oatts was the alto saxophone soloist and spoke briefly after the performance.
Terry Teachout, Greg Bahora and Michael Stephans spoke, and Stephans offered a poem in memory of Brookmeyer. The Orchestra followed with “First Love Song,” composed and arranged by Brookmeyer and featuring Jim McNeely as piano soloist and speaker.
Jimmy Owens spoke and played an unaccompanied flugelhorn solo in tribute. He was followed by Darcy James Argue, a composer who introduced himself to Brookmeyer online and wound up studying with him.
Joel Thome’s remarks were from a different perspective; he had been Brookmeyer’s composition and conducting teacher. Joel had a stroke in the late 1990s and was in the hospital for seven months. During that time, Brookmeyer called him daily. I have known Joel since before the stroke and have always found him to be a relentlessly positive person. But he said that during the seven-month hospital stay he considered suicide. I’m not sure I believe that it was a serious consideration but he credited Bob’s wisdom and sense of humor for getting him over the idea.
Bill Kirchner played a beautiful solo version of “Body and Soul” with Steve Kuhn, piano, one of only two pieces on the program with which Bob Brookmeyer had no connection. It was followed by “In a Rotten Mood,” composed and arranged by Brookmeyer and played by John Mosca, trombone; Steve Kuhn, piano; Bill Crow, bass and Michael Stephan, drums.
Ed Dix, who knew Brookmeyer when they were teenagers, spoke next. Bob had played both piano and slide trombone with Dix’s band in the middle 1940s.
The final two musical selections were “Seesaw,” composed and arranged by Bob Brookmeyer and featuring John Hollenbeck on drums with the Orchestra, and “I Remember You” (the only piece other than Body and Soul with which Brookmeyer had no involvement) played by Lee Konitz, alto saxophone, and Kenny Werner, piano. Brief remarks by Jim Hall (pictured) ended the program.
Throughout the evening, every speaker made reference to Brookmeyer’s wonderful playing and writing, his biting wit, his honesty and his wisdom.
Shortly after the memorial service Bill Crow, who played bass with Brookmeyer in the Gerry Mulligan Quartet and Mulligan’s big band—among other mutual associations—sent this:
The Brookmeyer memorial tonight was a great program. Vanguard jazz ork sounded beautiful, and played the S out of Bob’s compositions. Lots of good memories from the speakers, including me, Dave Bailey, Jim Hall, and one of Bob’s stepsons. A recorded encomium from Clark Terry was played, and Maria Schneider put together a film presentation of photos through Bob’s life accompanied by music from his early Kansas City days through the last CD with the New Arts Orch. Very touching. I played a couple of tunes with Steve Kuhn, Bill Kirchner and Michael Stephans, Lee Konitz did a duet with Kenny Werner, and Scott Robinson led an octet in a couple of Bob’s tunes. It was good to see so many old friends, and a few young ones.
They read your nice contribution at the beginning.
My contribution, requested by Mr. Kirchner, was this:
With Bob, jazz was never a Last Chance. No matter what the Bracket, no matter what The Wrinkle, even when he was In A Rotten Mood over Big City Life, for Brookmeyer music was always Open Country.
Kirchner also read what Brookmeyer’s contemporary and peer Bill Holman wrote for the occasion:
The term “highly evolved person” is being thrown about a lot lately, but no one personified it more than Brookmeyer.
I met him in 1957 when, after reading in a record review that his playing
was “erudite,” and wanting to meet such a person, I introduced myself at the Lighthouse in LA. Fifteen minutes later we were at a liquor store buying a jug of Scotch. I imagine that he paid; he was always a tabgrabber.
Intelligence, humor, honesty (brutal), enthusiasm, patience, care, and most of all, love. These are a few of the words that come to mind, though there are probably others that haven’t been coined yet.
Bob had a way with words as well as with music; could have been a literary writer. When he was living in LA he made a few rehearsals with my band, and one day I asked him what he thought of a chart that I had brought in and rehearsed. His answer: “Glad you did, wish you hadn’t.”
That was a friend.
Finally, Bob at work: a good way to remember him.
It’s Spring, After All
The apricot tree is in blossom and the daffodils are daffodilling.
The Rifftides staff hopes that it’s nice where you are, too.
Getz from an album recorded in his late period, with Lou Levy, piano; Monty Budwig, bass; and Victor Lewis, drums.
Jazz Archeology: A New JATP Record
In the Seattle Times, critic Paul deBarros tells of a man named Bill Carter finding in a storage container “a treasure chest from the golden age of jazz.†The unearthing may not equal the importance of the discovery by another Carter—Howard—of King Tut’s tomb, but it is creating excitement among devotees of classic mainstream jazz. deBarros writes:
Among the hundreds of tapes Carter retrieved from that container was a recording of a 1956 Seattle concert that featured Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, the Modern Jazz Quartet and Stan Getz — yes, all on the same show.
Hard to believe, but proof positive has arrived with “Jazz at the Philharmonic: Seattle 1956…
That JATP concert also included Sonny Stitt, Roy Eldridge and Gene Krupa, among others. The recording is being released today. To get the whole story, click here.
Long after the era of this post card, I heard a lot of music in the old Civic Auditorium, including the JATP concert deBarros writes about. I listened there to, among others, Frank Sinatra at the height of his powers, Dmitri Mitropoulos conducting the New York Philharmonic, and guitarist Andres Segovia all alone on the stage of that big old barn, playing to a full house. After a Dave Brubeck Quartet concert, I stood backstage at the edge of a crowd of Seattle musicians as Eugene Wright explained how to count in 5/4, a time signature with which Brubeck and company had recently intrigued the jazz world. “You’ve got to think, ‘1,2,3 – 1,2’†he said. “If you try to count 1,2,3,4,5,†you won’t swing.â€
In the mid-1950s, the big sign outside the Civic bore a message that became a part of jazz lore:
TONIGHT: STAN KENTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA FEATURING THE LOVELY KAI WINDING
Other Places: Sounds Like A Fair Trade
There are indications that the economy is slowly improving. There are few signs that it is improving for musicians. Times are also hard for dining and 
drinking establishments, so some of them try to better a lose-lose situation by persuading musicians to perform for nothing. The usual enticement is the argument that it’s an opportunity for self-promotion. The following fishing expedition and reply are lifted, with permission, from Bill Crow’s “Band Room†column in the April issue of Allegro, the magazine of New York AFM Local 802.
Here’s a Craigslist ad that was sent to me by several people including Ian Royle, Jim Emerson and Scott Robinson:
We are a small & casual restaurant in downtown Vancouver and we are looking for solo musicians to play in our restaurant to promote their work and sell their CD. This is not a daily job, but only for special events which will eventually turn into a nightly event if we get positive response. More Jazz, Rock & smooth type music, around the world and mixed cultural music. Are you interested to promote your work? Please reply back ASAP.
Here is Howie Smith’s reply:
Happy new year! I am a musician with a big house looking for a restaurateur to promote their restaurant and come to my house to make dinner for my friends and me. This is not a daily job, but only for special events which will eventually turn into a nightly event if we get positive response. More fine dining & exotic meals and mixed Ethnic Fusion cuisine. Are you interested to promote your restaurant? Please reply back ASAP.