Woke up this morning (no, that is not going to be the beginning of a blues lyric)…

…and made this the background music to preparations for the day.

I chose it because I wanted something that had solos I could sing, hum and whistle along with as I fixed breakfast. Every note of Horace Silver’s second Blue Note album, the first by the Jazz Messengers, has been embedded in my brain since shortly after it was released in 1955. My record collection then consisted of 10 or 12 LPs. This was one of them. I played it so often that Silver’s, Kenny Dorham’s and Hank Mobley’s solos and Art Blakey’s drum choruses became part of my mind’s musical furniture. Silver, Blakey and bassist Doug Watkins comprised a rhythm section that was the standard for what came to be called, for better or for worse, hard bop. Dorham and Mobley, with their deep knowledge of chord-based improvisation, constructed some of their most memorable solos. Silver’s compositions—and one by Mobley—are classics.

Having heard “Room 608,” “The Preacher,” “Doodlin’” and the other tunes on this indispensable album this morning, I’ll feel good all day. Listen, and you will, too.

New video has surfaced from an engagement that trumpeter Marcus Printup played with the Emil Viklický Trio during Printup’s visit to the Czech Republic in 2007. YouTube identifies the first piece as “In Holomoc Town,” but that is likely a misspelling or alternate spelling of “Olomouc,” the name of Viklický’s Moravian hometown. And where is Olomouc, you might ask. It is southeast of Prague (Praha) and northeast of Brno (thanks for the map, Google).

Viklický is the pianist, Petr Dvorsky the bassist, Laco Tropp the drummer. The gig was at a jazz club with the unlikely name Tibet, in Olomouc.

Steel yourself for an untimely end to ”A Night in Tunisia” just when Laco Tropp is on a roll——among other drum strokes. But the shock is softened by what has gone before.

Word is that on his current visit to the US, Viklický recorded a duo album with his sometime collaborator Scott Robinson, the Jim Thorpe of jazz multi-instrumentalists.

Periodically, we post brief alerts to recordings the Rifftides staff finds worthwhile. The mini- or micro-reviews are not intended as deep analysis, but as guideposts. Some of these albums are recent arrivals. We select others, not quite at random, from accumulations in the music room and office, stacks like those on the left. Beneath the piles of CDs is my desktop. I remember it fondly.

Bill Cunliffe, How My Heart Sings (Torri).

The album has pianist Cunliffe’s ingenious sextet arrangements of 10 songs by Earl Zindars, a friend and favorite composer of Bill Evans. Zindars’ work is notable for lyricism, charming melodies cloaked in harmonic sophistication and, often, metric daring. Some of the pieces here, including the title tune and “Elsa,” gained recognition through Evans’ recordings. Others, like “City Tune” and the complex “Heads or Tails,” are barely known. Cunliffe’s sextet includes Bob Sheppard on saxophones, flutes and clarinet; Bobby Shew on trumpet and flugelhorn; Bruce Paulson, trombone; Joe LaBarbera, drums; and Jeff D’Angelo, bass. Flugelhornist Justin Ray augments the band on two tracks. Solos by Cunliffe, Sheppard, Shew and the underrated Paulson are superb. Shew must be singled out for his flugelhorn work on “Elsa.” This collection was a sleeper when it came out in 2003. For Zindars’ compositions and the high quality of these performances, it deserves an audience.

Luciano Troja, At Home With Zindars (Troja).

Troja, an Italian pianist, recorded 14 of Earl Zindars’ songs and one of his own. Playing unaccompanied, he clearly has Evans in mind but does not imitate him. Among the pieces are the familiar—”Mother of Earl,” “How My Heart Sings,” “Silverado Trail”—and new ones like “Joy,” “Nice Place” and “Roses for Annig” that Troja discovered when he had access to the composer’s manuscripts during stays with Zindars’ family in California following Zindars’ death in 2005. Troja gives a splendid two-part treatment of one of Zindars’ best-known tunes, “Sareen Jurer” (“The Mountain’s Water”). His tribute piece “Earl and Bill” parallels the reflective character of Zindars’ own writing. The pianist’s touch, both firm and delicate, is an essential element of his success in negotiating the dimensions of dynamics in Zindars’ works.

Wadada Leo Smith’s Organic, Heart’s Reflections (Cuneiform).

The trumpeter’s playing, writing and ability to field-marshal combinations of acoustic and electric instruments come together in another epic two-CD set. In a large sense, it is a continuation of Smith’s electronic approach in 2009’s Spiritual Dimensions. His music owes something to Miles Davis’s electric period, but the power of his personality and vision guarantees the kind of distinctively individual music we get here. Employment of multiple amplified guitars would seem to threaten electronic goulash, but even when four of them improvise freely at the same time, they blend rather than clash. Piano, violin, drums, two alto saxophones and—I swear— two laptops enrich Smith’s palette. From it, he applies tonal colors, sometimes in flecks, more often in swaths saturated with blues. In addition to Smith’s virtuoso playing, full of risk-taking and humor, I must mention the supercharged drumming of Pheeroan akLaff and lovely piano lines by Angelica Sanchez.

Ruby Braff, For The Last Time (Arbors).

Another two-CD set, another trumpeter (well, cornetist). Another world, one might think. And yet, Leo Smith and Ruby Braff are connected in the jazz tradition and the joy of spontaneous creation. I can imagine Smith getting a kick out of listening to Braff here. In this concert at the 2002 Nairn Festival in Scotland, Braff was playing with his customary verve and inventiveness and announcing tunes with his usual wit— often acerbic—as he kidded with the musicians and the audience. The repertoire is ten standards, fully explored; the longest track is nearly 16 minutes, the shortest about five. Braff’s frequent companions tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton, pianist John Bunch and guitarist Jon Wheatley are aboard. With Bunch and Wheatley in the rhythm section are bassist Dave Green and drummer Steve Brown, UK sidemen often sought out by visiting leaders. The proceedings are relaxed and happy, the level of inspiration high. Braff’s choruses on “Rockin’ Chair” and “I Want a Little Girl” are saturated with feeling. There is nothing in his playing to disclose that he was ailing, but he opened up the tunes to more frequent solos by his colleagues than he might have in healthier days. Braff died six months later; thus, the title of an album that is a good way to remember him.

Fay Claasen, Sing! (Challenge).

The Dutch singer with uncanny control, intonation, swing, and English with no trace of an accent sings 12 songs associated with singers from Bessie Smith to Björk. She is as convincing in “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby” (Dinah Washington”) and “A Felicidade” (Elis Regina) as in Joni Mitchell’s “Be Cool” and Abbey Lincoln’s “Throw it Away.” Her overdubbing of three ad-libbed improvisations on Miriam Makeba’s “Unhome” is astonishing, as are her flawless unison passages with the ensemble on “Tea for Two” (Anita O’Day). Michael Abene conducts. Claasen soars on Abene’s beautifully crafted arrangements and on support by the WDR Big Band. Bonuses abound in excellent solos by trumpeter John Marshall, alto saxophonists Johan Hörlen and Karolina Strassmeyer, pianist Frank Chastenier and other WDR members. The exclamation point in the title is warranted.

Ray Bryant died on Thursday in a New York hospital following a long illness. He was 79. A pillar of modern mainstream piano, Bryant was often categorized as a blues pianist. He was certainly that, a great one, but his stylistic breadth, powerful swing and harmonic flexibility put him in demand not only by blues singers and players but also by the most sophisticated modern jazz artists from the 1950s on. A list of a few of his colleagues and employers gives an idea of Bryant’s range: Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Jack Teagarden, Carmen McRae, Zoot Sims, Betty Carter, Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie and Jimmy Rushing. Bryant was from a Philadelphia family that included his bassist brother Tommy, who died in 1982, and three nephews prominent in jazz—Robin, Kevin and Duane Eubanks.

Among his compositions adapted by others, “Cubano Chant” and “Blues Changes” were influential. He had hit records in “Little Susie,” “Madison Time” and “Slow Freight.” Bryant’s first solo album, Alone With the Blues (1958) is a basic repertoire item, essential to any reasonably comprehensive jazz collection. The CD and vinyl versions are, inexplicably, out of print and going at auction for as much as $185. The album can be had for significantly less as an MP3 download. It includes his memorable treatment of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Rockin’ Chair.”

 Apologies, (2018). Evidently someone, probably the music’s copyright holder, has denied further access to that video. To see and hear the performance, click here and be taken to YouTube.)

For more about Ray Bryant, see Nat Chinen’s obituary in The New York Times.

Lee Konitz, Brad Mehldau, Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, Live at Birdland (ECM).

When he’s working with people whose knowledge and ears he trusts, Konitz sometimes simply begins. The first track starts with seven seconds of silence. Then, Konitz, accompanied by Motian’s brushes, embarks on an alto saxophone abstraction. The listener who hasn’t looked at the listing on the CD box has no idea what tune this is going to be—and wonders if the rhythm section knows. After a few seconds, Mehldau’s piano and Haden’s bass appear, but it isn’t clear what will emerge from Konitz’s pensiveness. Thirty seconds in, vague recognition dawns. He’s not giving away the melody, but there’s something about those chord changes. At 59 seconds, he plays an approximation of the first phrase of the bridge of “Lover Man,” not an outright quote; a hint. Blatancy is not his way. This one-chorus solo is a new melody created by an 81-year-old who has played the song hundreds of times. It’s a safe bet that none of those solos had the shape of this one. This may even be the first time that he slipped in a bar of “The Last Time I Saw Paris.”

Not all of the standards by this ad hoc quartet begin as mysteriously as “Lover Man.” From the top of his introduction, Mehldau gives away “Lullaby of Birdland.” That’s good enough for Konitz. He builds another tower of dreams, then yields to Mehldau whose stunning solo might be the highlight of the album if his dazzle on “Solar” and “Oleo” didn’t match or surpass it. Haden’s deliberative solos are the antithesis of the school of high, fast, acrobatic bass playing. The ones on “Lullaby of Birdland” and “I Fall in Love Too Easily” are as heartening as country walks with a friendly sheep dog. Haden’s and Motian’s empathy began building forty years ago when they were together in Keith Jarrett’s group. Their rhythmic extrasensory perception is the foundation of these performances. Motian’s and Konitz’s interaction in the opening duo section of “Oleo” is a wonder.

I was at The Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles in 1997 when Haden, Konitz and Mehldau played a two-night gig. It was Konitz’s first encounter with the pianist, and he privately expressed concern about being thrown together with “another young virtuoso.” In the course of the performances, his edginess evaporated. The engagement produced a splendid recording, but this new one is in a different dimension. To compare the 1997 and 2009 versions of “You Stepped Out of a Dream” is to hear how the addition of Motian’s drums transforms the music.

In the happiest circumstances, a jam session can be the essence of the jazz experience. Here, four musicians came together with no plan, no arrangements, no tune list. They depended on their musicianship, taste, mutual knowledge of standard songs and senses of adventure and humor. The music they made has the freshness of spontaneity and the wisdom of experience. The ECM publicity about this album indicates that it was a one-time band. “There are no reunion gigs planned,” it says.

Plans—and non-plans—can change.

There is someone I think of every Memorial Day, and many other days. Cornelius Ram and I were among a collection of young men who accepted the United States Marine Corps’ bet that we weren’t tough or smart enough to wrestle commissions from it. It quickly became apparent to everyone, including the drill instructors charged with pounding us into the shape of Marines, that Corky Ram would have no problem. He was a standout in the grueling weeks of officer candidate competition and then in the months of physical and mental rigor designed to make us worthy of those little gold bars on the collars of our fatigues. After high school in Jersey City, New Jersey, he had served a hitch as a Navy enlisted man, and then got a college degree before he chose the Corps. He was two or three years older than most of us, and a natural leader. He could tell when the pressure was about to cave a green lieutenant exhausted from a 20-mile forced march with full field pack or demoralized after a classroom test he was sure he had flunked. Corky knew how to use encouragement or cajolery to restore flagging determination. He helped a lot of us make it through. The picture on the left is how I remember him from that period.

Unlike most of us who served our few years and got out, Corky made the Marine Corps his career. He served two tours in Viet Nam. Here is the official 5th Marines’ Command Chronology of what happened to him and another officer on his second tour in January of 1971, as the war was slogging to its demoralizing conclusion:

“On 10 January Major Ram (2/5 XO) and Captain Ford (E Co., CO), while attempting to aid two wounded Marines, were killed by a 60mm surprise firing device.”

There’s a bit more to the story. Major Ram, Executive Officer of 2/5 Marines, and Captain Ford (of Glen Rock, NJ), Commanding Officer of Echo Company, were overhead in a command helicopter when they spotted the wounded Marines in the open and in the path of oncoming enemy troops. The helicopter pilot, convinced that the open area was mined, refused to land in the vicinity of the wounded Marines and instead put down at a distance. Major Ram and Captain Ford exited the helicopter and began to cross the open area toward the wounded men. The pilot was right – the area was mined, and both Major Ram and Captain Ford died as a result. At least one of the two wounded Marines survived; he visited the Ram family several years later and described the circumstances.

Corky Ram was one of 13,085 Marines who died in hostile action in Viet Nam. I knew others, but he was the one I knew best. More than once, I have stood gazing at his name on the wall at the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington, DC. When Memorial Day comes around, he symbolizes for me the American service men and women who have died in the nation’s wars. What we and all of the free world owe them is beyond calculation.

After the American Red Cross acknowledged the millions of dollars Paul Desmond left the organization (see this recent item), it also named a training room after him. The facility is in the national Red Cross headquarters in Washington, DC. We’re working on getting a picture of the training room and what goes on in it. In the meantime, Rifftides reader Frank Roellinger (thank you, sir) persuaded someone at the ARC to get a photograph of the plaque outside the room.

Desmond died on Memorial Day, 1977, which also fell on Monday. To once again quote what Dave Brubeck said on another such anniversary:

“Boy, do I miss Paul Desmond.”

Today is the 85th anniversary of the birth of alto saxophonist and flutist Bud Shank. One of the most respected of the musicians who flourished on the west coast in the fifties, he went on to gain worldwide popularity. Shank was especially popular in Brazil, whose music he was one of the first American jazz artists to adapt when he made the Brazilliance recordings with guitarist Laurindo Almeida in 1954. Here is a good way to remember him, in São Paulo in 2004, playing his composition “Carousels.” The rhythm section is one of Shank’s favorites, Bill Mays, Bob Magnusson and Joe La Barbera. (note: the sound track seems to be restricted to the right channel, but you can hear everything.)

Bud Shank died in April of 2009, hours after his final record session.

James Carter, Caribbean Rhapsody (Emarcy)

Carter tailors his saxophone virtuosity to “Caribbean Rhapsody” and “Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra,” by the American composer Roberto Sierra. Sierra studied with György Ligeti, the Hungarian master of tone clusters and chromaticism, but there is no Ligeti atonality here. Sierra bases the pieces in lyricism and accessible melody. In the concerto with the Sinfonia Varsonia of Poland, and the rhapsody with a string quintet led by cellist Akua Dixon, Carter moderates the tendency toward excess that has marred some of his work. His playing on tenor and soprano saxophones is in a range between gruff expansiveness and tip-toe delicacy, always within the mood established by Sierra’s scores. The last of the concerto’s three movements, titled “Playful—Fast (with Swing)” evolves into a blues with hip changes. Carter declaims on tenor, incorporating a boogie woogie figure leading to an orchestral ending with the power of a supercharger.

Sierra opens spots in the title piece for Carter to roam without accompaniment. He does so observing the spirit and harmonic tendencies of the composition, which may remind listeners that the composer is from Puerto Rico. Carter has a series of brilliant exchanges and mutual improvisation with a guest soloist, his violinist cousin Regina Carter, another virtuoso from Detroit. He employs to sensible effect the pops and honks that in some of his previous performances have been irritants. The two Carters achieve dance-like joy, even abandon, in tune (in every sense) with Sierra’s Latin intentions. The piece is a delight.

In two unaccompanied interludes, Carter on tenor alludes to the character of the concerto and on soprano to that of the rhapsody. Untethered to prescribed outlines, he nonetheless displays discipline and order that have not always been apparent when he was on his own.

Sue Raney with Alan Broadbent, Listen Here (Sinatra Society of Japan)

Raney is an interpreter of classic popular song whose creative gift and technical skill are matched by few singers in any category. Her empathy with Alan Broadbent was on display in their last collaboration four years ago. In that instance, her accompaniment was an orchestra that Broadbent arranged and conducted. This time, the orchestra is Broadbent at the piano, providing support and full partnership. After years of mutual admiration and occasional gigs, they have come forth with the duo album their admirers yearned for. It is a collection of ballads, but that by no means indicates that it lacks rhythmic interest. These two can swing at any tempo. That gift is striking in the medium bounce of “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.” “Aren’t You Glad You’re You?” and “It Might As Well Be Spring” with Broadbent’s “Joy Spring” introduction. In slow tunes, Raney can break hearts and moisten eyes. She finds the pathos in “He Was Too Good To Me;” uncloying sentiment in “My Melancholy Baby;” the poetry of longing in “Skylark,” “The Bad and the Beautiful” and “Listen Here,” the inspired title song with words and music by Dave Frishberg.

When Raney enters a note, it is never by a side door. When she bends one, it is to enhance mood or feeling. Broadbent comps and solos with chord voicings that enrich not just a song’s harmonies but its meaning. Their version of “There Used to be a Ballpark” could almost make you forget Sinatra’s. This collection of 14 songs is bound to become a classic, if it reaches an audience. That could be a problem for an expensive album on the label of the Sinatra Society of Japan, which has limited distribution.

Chuck Deardorf, Transparence (Origin)

Deardorf’s prowess is hardly unknown outside Seattle, even though he rarely leaves the Pacific Northwest. For a quarter-century or more he has been a mainstay of the Seattle scene and a primary on-call bassist for dozens of visiting musicians including Chet Baker, Zoot Sims, George Cables, Art Farmer, Jimmy Rowles and Kenny Burrell. In Transparence, he is out front in a collection that underlines his musicianship, versatility and leadership. The settings encompass a variety of moods and genres—mainstream bop, Brazilian impressionism, standard ballads, a flirtation with freebop, a bow toward Deardorf’s rock beginnings. But it is far from a hodgepodge. Despite changing combinations of players from track to track, the strength of Deardorf’s overarching musical personality provides consistency.

The wholeness is enhanced by his choice of sidemen, not only Seattle and Portland stalwarts like saxophonists Hans Teuber and Richard Cole, drummers Mark Ivester and Gary Hobbs, and pianist Jovino Santos Neto, but also visiting firemen, pianist Bill Mays and guitarist Bruce Forman. Among the highlights: Deardorf’s “Collage” with Teuber, Mays and Hobbs; duets with Mays on Alec Wilder’s “Moon and Sand” and Forman on “Sweet Lorraine;” the atmospherics Deardorf generates on electric bass in Lennon and McCartney’s “Dear Prudence” and on acoustic bass guitar with Santos Neto on “De Mansinho.” Deardorf is the melody voice in a memorable colloquy with Mays’ piano and Teuber’s tenor sax on Rowles’ “The Peacocks.” This is an album of substance.

Chris Brubeck writes about the death of jazz film producer and director Bruce Ricker:

The entire Brubeck family shares in the sorrow and shock of Bruce’s death. We were aware of his hospitalization but felt comforted that modern medicine would triumph as usual. This time it didn’t and I think Bruce Ricker’s passing is a huge loss for his family, friends and also for the entire jazz community. Bruce had incredibly unique passions and talents which he poured into his film projects. There are thousands of great musicians in the jazz world but very few filmmakers who have the passion, vision, knowledge and discipline to create moving and exciting documentaries.

Bruce was so respectful of our family and went to great lengths to try to capture the dynamics and rhythms of our clan. When I saw the film for the first and only time, I was with my father and the rest of my family on Dave’s 90th birthday. We watched it on television when it was broadcast across America. I expected a lot of nuts and bolts about Dave’s storied career but I was surprised because the overall tone of the film was of a spiritual nature. Bruce opened the film with a poem by my brother Michael, who had passed away recently; he closed it with footage of our family climbing a wooded hill into the light. This reflected what he felt, that Dave’s unusual life took us all on a family journey.

Bruce really deeply understood the unsung heroine of Dave’s career, our mother Iola Brubeck. It was a beautiful , emotional (and with all the footage of us as kids when we are now hovering in the 60ish zone) a surreal experience to watch the movie. In fact I wrote to Bruce that I could only watch it once, it was an uplifting yet “heavy” experience. I am so glad that I wrote to him so he knew the depths of my appreciation for what he accomplished. Now, with Bruce’s passing, and knowing this was the last film he will complete, I have yet another reason why it will take some time before I can watch his “art” again. He was a very perceptive man who understood the music and the people who created it. His films about jazz will enlighten and inspire generations of jazz musicians and fans in the coming years. Perhaps even more importantly, his insightful films will lead non-jazz fans to explore this wonderful music.

(Photo of Chris and Iola Brubeck by Dr. Jazz)

The cycling schedule is full again. So are the rivers around here, swollen with snowmelt from the mountains, and roaring. Here’s some of what I saw on a ride this afternoon, a section of the Yakima roaring along muddy and almost into the fields and towns. In the upper center, you see an enormous tree that the force of the water tore out of the bank somewhere upstream.

Fifty yards from the river, all was serene. The view is west, toward the Cascades, where in spring the snow becomes water that runs down into the tributaries that fill the Yakima, which feeds the mighty Columbia.

The Columbia, as Woody Guthrie made everyone aware, rolls on.

The veteran writer and broadcaster Ted Panken has joined the burgeoning community of folks who blog about jazz. His weblog is called Today Is The Question. I have added it to the blogroll in the right-hand column. If you want to be sure Ted knows what he’s blogging about before you punch him up, read this first. It comes from pianist George Colligan’s jazztruth, whose address also goes into the blogroll. It’s getting crowded down there. You can’t blame anyone for wanting to get into so lucrative a field. Welcome to the club, gentlemen. Tip: periodic naps help.

We are happy to report that the artsjournal.com technical wizards have tracked down and liquidated the gremlin that was disabling the “Older Posts” function at the bottom of the main page. Now, when you click on that command, 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. There are two other ways to search Rifftides:

1. Scroll down to “Archives” in the right-hand column. Select the month and year you want to see.

2. Enter a name or term in the box under the artsjournalblog logo at the top of the right column and click on “Search.” I just tried it with Count Basie and came up 83 Rifftides items about Basie or mentioning him. Happy exploring.

Here’s a reward for paying attention to our little tutorial. The clip is from an episode of Art Ford’s Jazz Party, a program that survived for eight months of 1958 on WNTA-TV in New York. This kind of eclectic assemblage of musicians was still possible then. The tune is “I’ve Found a New Baby.” The players are Tyree Glenn, trombone; Coleman Hawkins, tenor saxophone; Johnny Windhurst, trumpet; Hank D’Amico, clarinet; Alex Templeton, piano; Mary Osborne, guitar; Teddy Charles, vibes; Morey Feld, drums; Doc Goldberg, bass.

Rifftides reader Charlton Price alerts us to an article that provides detail about Bruce Ricker’s days in Kansas City (see the post below) and the genesis of his film The Last of the Blue Devils. The piece is by Steve Paul in The Kansas City Star. It begins:

Some of the details remain hazy, but it was 1975 in a small midtown supper club where a crowd of serious jazz people gathered to celebrate the past.
Bruce Ricker, an attorney turned local activist and filmmaker, had been spending time here with a graying generation of musicians, recording their memories, stories and music from the heyday of Kansas City jazz.

And now he and his fellow filmmakers, John Arnoldy and Eric Menn, were showing a sprawling rough cut of the film…

To read the whole thing, go here.