Terri Hinte provides this piece of news:

Sonny Rollins is one of five individuals who have been selected to receive the Kennedy Center Honors of 2011, it was announced today by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. These individuals’ “collective artistry has contributed significantly to the cultural life of our nation and the world,” said Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein.



Along with fellow recipients singer Barbara Cook, singer and songwriter Neil Diamond, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and actress Meryl Streep, Rollins will be honored at the 34th annual national celebration of the arts on December 4.
”I am deeply appreciative of this great honor,” says Rollins, who turns 81 today.

“In honoring me, the Kennedy Center honors jazz, America’s classical music. For that, I am very grateful.”



Other jazz artists who have been Kennedy Center Honorees are: Ella Fitzgerald (1978), Count Basie (1981), Benny Goodman (1982), Dizzy Gillespie (1990), Lionel Hampton (1992), Benny Carter (1996), Quincy Jones (2001), and Dave Brubeck (2009).

Rollins’s “masterful improvisation and powerful presence have infused the truly American art form of jazz with passion and energy,” said Rubenstein.

2011 is a good year for Rollins in the recognition department. In March in a White House ceremony, President Obama awarded him the Medal of the Arts. Rollins accepted “on behalf of the gods of our music.”

Bill Kirchner’s Jazz From The Archives next Sunday will feature Carol Fredette, a singer whose ability is far greater than her renown. Kirchner’s alert to the broadcast describes her as “a musicians’ and insiders’ favorite” and quotes Stan Getz: (“Carol Fredette possesses a very vivid voice, a voice of great quality. She’s as good as they come.” Bill promises several recordings featuring Fredette with pianist Steve Kuhn (pictured), a longtime collaborator. Here is a 2009 Rifftides mini-review of one of her albums.

Carol Fredette, Everything In Time (Soundbrush). This is Fredette’s first CD in more than a decade, and worth waiting for. I haven’t heard anyone do the Bing Crosby feature “Love Thy Neighbor” since John Coltrane in the 1950s. Fredette sings it with joy in her voice to equal the whooping exuberance of Trane’s solo. Her laughing, quacking take on the bossa nova classic “O Pato” is just one more of 15 reasons to admire this classy collection.

Jazz From The Archives will air at 11 pm EDT on WBGO-FM, 88.3, Newark, New Jersey, and around the world on the internet on WBGO’s website. When you go there, click on “Listen Now.”

In the early 1990s, as I was walking past a movie house on West 56th Street in New York, I spotted William Schuman in line with two women. I had seen them the night before at a concert tribute to him at Merkin Hall. Impulsively, I stopped, introduced myself and told him how much his music meant to me. He introduced me to his wife and her sister and said, “It’s always good to meet someone who listens.”

I have been listening to Schuman (1910-1992) for decades and intending for a long time to post something about this American composer whom I extravagantly admire. It puzzles me that, in common with Carol Fredette, he has never had the extent of performance or audience acceptance that his music warrants. In my notes, I recently ran across this from fellow artsjournal.com blogger and composer Kyle Gann:

There is a prejudice abroad that Schuman’s composing career was only propped up by his powerful position as President of first Juilliard and then Lincoln Center. Don’t you believe it.

To read all of Gann’s 2008 appreciation of Schuman, go here. The link in his post to an MP3 sample of Schuman’s Symphony No. 8 has expired, but you can hear the entire work on this CD in a superb performance by Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony.

If you would like to know more about Schuman, this video will fill you in on his history. Much of the story is in his own words. At the end, you’ll find a guide to the music used as background in the short film.

A Canadian, David Palmquist, and a Swede, Carl Hallstrom, have erected a new website devoted to Steve Voce’s writings about Duke Ellington and Ellingtonia. Voce is the veteran British broadcaster and author whom Palmquist and Hallstrom describe this way:

Steve broadcast for BBC Radio for more than 50 years and for 35 of them presented his own ‘Jazz Panorama’ programme. During these broadcasts he would telephone jazz musicians in the United States and talk to them live on air for an hour at a time. Steve has been writing a monthly column in Jazz Journal for more than 50 years and keeps insisting to the Editor that it is time he was taken out and shot – so that his obituary could appear in The Independent newspaper, for whom he writes all the obituaries for jazz musicians. Oh, and he wrote a book on Woody Herman but, since a fortnight after publication everyone except his mother had forgotten about it, he fell back exhausted and decided never to write a book again.

A sample lead paragraph from a 1966 Voce article in Jazz Journal:

‘A hundred shillings for bed and breakfast!’ The Ellingtonians were looking aghast at the bills which the Liverpool hotel had issued to them in advance. Lawrence Brown was fatalistic about the whole thing, and obviously regarded it as a mere extension of the ill-fortune which had made him a musician in the first place. I’m happy to report that he is still playing as well as ever, and still claiming loudly that his career is at an end, his lip is ruined, and that he could never play the trombone anyway. ‘All the muted work has ruined my lip.’

Good stuff. To visit the new Voce site, go here.

Requests keep coming for photographs from cycling expeditions. Here’s one from the latest. A number of people in the countryside hereabouts raise llamas for fun or profit. High on a hilltop, I came across this herd grazing, which is what llamas do when they’re not sleeping, packing or curiously watching passersby.

It seems logical to follow the photo with music by Peruvians, in this case Gabriel Alegria and his Afro-Peruvian Sextet at their club, Tutuma, on New York City’s east side.

Gabriel Alegria,trumpet; Yuri Juarez, guitar; Huevito Lobaton, cajon, cajita, quijada (jawbone); Ramone Debruyn bass; Shirazette Tinnen, drumset and cajon; Laurandrea Leguia, saxophone

Judith Schlesinger writes about one manifestation of a trend that is not confined to New York.

For many years, the Blue Note club in NYC, except for Monday night fill-ins, was pretty much booking people who could call themselves “jazz artists” without anybody snickering or throwing things.

Until now. On September 20, which is not a Monday, the Blue Note “jazz” club will feature… Kenny G.

OK, it’s a Tuesday, not a weekend. And one night only. But still.

Dr. Schlesinger is a contributor to All About Jazz. Her book The Insanity Hoax: Exposing the Myth of the Mad Genius, will be published in December.

Bill Crow sent an alert to a clip of the amazing musician Damian Draghici. Tricked by memory, I could have sworn that I had posted the video a few months ago, but the staff’s thorough search of the Rifftides archive turned up no trace of it. Draghici is a Romanian Gypsy as celebrated in his country for activism in behalf of the Roma people as for his mastery of the pan flute, an instrument rarely encountered in your average jam session. He studied at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, worked in Los Angeles and London and has toured extensively.

This performance is from a televised concert late last year in Bucharest. With Draghici are Eddie Daniels, clarinet; Randy Porter, piano; Scott Steed, bass; and Reggie Jackson, drums. Over the years, Charlie Parker’s (or possibly Miles Davis’s) “Donna Lee” has picked up velocity as musicians have mastered its linear complexity. This opening chorus probably sets a new land speed record.

For biographical information about Damian Draghici, go here.

Here’s something to engross you as you prepare for a new week. A man named Dan Cohen animates music in the most fundamental and entertaining way. You have no doubt heard the Miles Davis Sextet playing “So What” often enough that you can sing along with the solos. Well, in fairness, it would require a remarkably flexible voice to stay in unison with Coltrane, but enjoy singing along—or reading along—with Mr. Cohen’s tour of one of the great jazz recordings.

Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb, 1959.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Harry Connick and Branford Marsalis vowed to see that New Orleans musicians affected by the storm would get long-term help. Six years of their hard work and the cooperation of hundreds of others are about to make a tangible difference in the city’s musical community and beyond. A new center named in honor of Ellis Marsalis (pictured)—father of four famous sons in jazz and teacher of hundreds of musicians—is officially open and will be in full swing in the fall. In today’s New Orleans Times-Picayune, Keith Spera writes:

Were it not for Hurricane Katrina, there would be no Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.

“I was guilty of the same thing our city has been guilty of for 100 years: Resting on our traditions and thinking everything is going to keep on going status quo,” Connick said. “No one thought there would be a storm that would put the city under water. No one thought that the musical traditions would ever be in jeopardy.

“The storm really opened up a lot of dialogue.”

In the storm’s wake, housing was a more pressing concern. Connick and Marsalis partnered with New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity to develop the Musicians’ Village for musicians and others. From the outset, Connick said, the vision included a performing arts/community center.

The 72 single-family homes in the Village were built by thousands of volunteers. Habitat financed construction with donations and low-interest loans to the homeowners.

In a few weeks, the halls of the Marsalis center will ring with the music of its first class of students. To read Spera’s entire story, click here.

To see and hear Ellis Marsalis perform with his sons Branford, Delfeayo, Jason and Wynton, play this video.

Kristin Korb, you may recall, plays the bass as she sings or sings as she plays the bass. Take your pick; she does both equally well. This video is from a house-party concert she gave last year. The event was called Spring Soiree. The house provided a splendid view of the lights of Los Angeles. Korb’s colleagues in the rhythm section were her frequent pianist Llew Matthews, and drummer Matt Gordy. The clip gives a rare opportunity to hear former Stan Kenton alto saxophonist Mary Fettig, a veteran of touring with Airto Moreira and Flora Purim, Joe Henderson and Marian McPartland, among others. It also demonstrates that properly cared for, good old songs are never really old.

Ms. Korb recently married a Danish man and is moving to Copenhagen, which will be her headquarters and point of departure for touring.

I had hoped to include in the post below something from André Previn, who was Mr. Rasey’s colleague in the studios and, like him, is one of the few remaining members of the remarkable MGM orchestra of the 1940s and ‘50s. My request for a few words from Maestro Previn made its way to him a day late. He responded with this:

Thank you very much for your email. I have many remembrances of Uan, all of which are complimentary and flattering. He was not only the best trumpet player working at the film studios in Hollywood, but also a kind and good friend.

Please wish him the happiest of birthdays from me. I wish I could see him sometime soon.

With best regards,

André

My peripheral involvement in Bob Belden’s Miles Español project has refired a longstanding interest in music that combines Latin and jazz elements. A story by Larry Rohter in today’s New York Times added more fuel. It is about the restoration and DVD release of a film that played an influential role in bringing widespread attention to Latin music and, in particular, to the brand of salsa cooked up in New York’s Latin melting pot. Rohter begins by quoting the master percussionist Ray Barretto about his hopes for the film’s success in raising awareness. Then, he writes:

In 1971 Latin music barely existed on the margins of American consciousness. But Mr. Barretto, who died in 2006 at 76, was prescient. If salsa is today a globally popular and influential dance music style, that is due in no small part to “Our Latin Thing,” which documents a concert by the Fania All-Stars at the Cheetah club on 52nd Street in Manhattan on Aug. 26, 1971, and the chain of events it set in motion.

In the history of salsa music and Fania Records, which for many years were all but synonymous, “Our Latin Thing” and the Cheetah show occupy a singular position. It took another Fania All-Stars concert, this time for a crowd of more than 45,000 people at Yankee Stadium in 1973, to alert mainstream English-speaking America to the vast commercial potential of the Latin music market, but it was the Cheetah performance that may have been the ensemble’s artistic pinnacle.

The article includes an embedded performance excerpt from the “Our Latin Thing” film. To read it, go here.

It was time to put up a new post. With a house full of guests, ideal summer weather and the attractions of all outdoors, I looked for an easy out. The solution begins with a perfect trumpet chorus, then gets better.

The gorgeous arrangement was by Russell Garcia.

At this hour in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Laurie Verchomin is celebrating the 82nd anniversary of Bill Evans’ birth. She is at Alberta College reading from her book about the brief, intense relationship with the pianist that inspired him to write “Laurie.” The composition became a central part of Evans’ repertoire in his final years. Ms. Verchomin was with him on his final day in September,1980. On the left, we see Evans with photo booth shots of Laurie.

For a Rifftides mention of the book, go here. For Roger Levesque’s story in the Edmonton Journal about Ms. Verchomin and this evening’s event, go here. For a performance of “Laurie” by Evans, Mark Johnson and Joe La Barbera in Rome in 1979, don’t go anywhere. Play this video.

Gordon Jenkins (pictured) wrote the music and Joe Bishop the words to “Blue Prelude” in 1933. Shortly after, the Isham Jones band introduced the song on record. In the reed section was a young saxophonist and clarinetist named Woody Herman, who ultimately became leader of a cooperative band that some of Jones’ members formed after Jones retired in 1936. That group, in turn, became the first of Herman’s own bands, known as The Band That Plays the Blues. Herman was so attached to “Blue Prelude” that he made it his theme song. The recording with his vocal was a minor hit in 1939 and ‘40.

Over the years, performers in a variety of genres have recorded the piece. Among them are Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, Peggy Lee, Judy Garland, Helen Humes with Bill Doggett, Sonny Stitt, Sonny Criss, Charlie Ventura, The Moody Blues, Linda Ronstadt and Nina Simone. Simone’s version is in a three-way tie with Garland’s and Humes’ as the most wrenching. Gretta Matassa’s approach to the song is right in there with Peggy Lee’s as the hardest swinging. Here’s Matassa singing “Blue Prelude” last year in a Beverly Hills, California, appearance. The trio is Mike Garson, piano; Bob Leatherbarrow, drums; and Matassa’s bassist of longstanding, Clipper Anderson. This is one of those rare web videos that you can watch full screen without losing significant picture quality.

The Rifftides staff is springing—well, easing—(all right, slouching) back into action after near-total immersion in the Miles Español project described three items down. Here is a pleasant way to do it.

Word from Sweden is that the Ystad Jazz Festival organized and supervised by pianist Jan Lundgren in his hometown was a sold-out success. The four-day festival concluded last Sunday. I had hoped to cover it for you, but was unable to make arrangements. Maybe next year.

Fortunately for all of us, the Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen arranged with Swedish Radio P2 to play on his website a recording of Lundgren’s mellow concert on Saturday with Andersen, trumpeter Peter Asplund and the remarkable Korean singer Youn Sun Nah. Brush up your Swedish for the opening announcement, after which Lundgren introduces the tunes and musicians in English. To hear the entire hour-and-a-half, click here, then on the SverigeSRadio box. Afterward come back, please, for a Rifftides archive special.

The news from Ystad arrived in a conversation with Dick Bank that also included discussion of a recording that is a high point in Lundgren’s career as a pianist and in Mr. Bank’s as a record producer. It is Lundgren’s album with bassist Chuck Berghofer and drummer Joe La Barbera of songs by Ralph Rainger. When the CD was released two-and-a-half years ago, it received enthusiastic reviews, but in narrow precincts of the press and the web. It deserved more attention and still does. Therefore, below is that Rifftides rarity, a rerun.

This post is from December, 2008.

The release of a new CD, The Film Music Of Ralph Rainger, is the occasion for my piece in today’s Wall Street Journal. Coupled with an article about the contemporary motion picture composer A.B. Rahman, it is headlined, Another Who Has Been Unjustly Forgotten and begins: 

For years, Jack Benny opened his CBS radio and television broadcasts with “Love in Bloom.” The comedian’s violin butchery of his theme song became a running coast-to-coast Sunday night gag. As a result, the piece became even more famous than Bing Crosby had made it with his hit record in 1934. Generations of listeners and viewers heard Bob Hope close his NBC shows with “Thanks for the Memory,” which he introduced in a movie, “The Big Broadcast of 1938.” The song was inseparable from Hope’s career. 

Ralph Rainger, the man who wrote those songs, was a pianist and recovering lawyer from Newark, N.J., who also composed such standards as “Easy Living,” “If I Should Lose You,” “Here Lies Love,” “Moanin’ Low,” “June in January,” “Please” and “Blue Hawaii,” most often with lyricist Leo Robin. Rainger and Robin turned out dozens of songs for Hollywood movies. They were frequently on the hit parade with Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter and the Gershwins. George Gershwin died at age 38, Rainger at 41. But while Gershwin’s fame increased after his death, Rainger’s name faded. With their beguiling melodies and challenging chord progressions, Rainger’s works are frequent vehicles for improvisation. Yet, in my experience, most musicians who play those songs respond with puzzled looks when asked who wrote them. That might have been the case with bassist Chuck Berghofer, pianist Jan Lundgren, drummer Joe La Barbera and the incomparable vocalist Sue Raney until producer Dick Bank recruited them to record the CD “The Film Music of Ralph Rainger” (Fresh Sound). 

…it is the first all-Rainger album since pianist Jack Fina managed to reduce Rainger’s tunes to dreary cocktail music in a 1950s LP. Mr. Lundgren, a brilliant Swedish pianist, plumbs the songs’ harmonic souls. He illuminates even the prosaic “Blue Hawaii,” which — to Rainger’s horror — became a huge hit in 1937. “It will disgrace us,” he told Robin. “It’s a cheap melody . . . a piece of c-.” 

Bill Crow sent this followup to the August 4 Rifftides item:

I talked to Clark yesterday on the phone (my call interrupted his practicing the trumpet). He’s been home from the hospital for a couple of days and says he is concentrating on healing up. Sounded wonderful.He laughed a long time when I told him a joke. He’s an expert at hanging in there, and I hope that he hangs in for a long time.