No doubt there is marvelous jazz being broadcast all over the world this weekend, but here are two instances that we know about. One program is hosted by Jim Wilke on the west coast of the US, the other by Bill Kirchner on the east coast. Both are available to Rifftides listeners through the magic of digital communication.
The blurb from Wilke’s publicity juggernaut:

A surprisingly inventive duo plays spontaneous improvisations on Jazz Northwest on Sunday April 18 at 1 PM PDT on 88.5, KPLU. Pianist Bill Anschell and soprano saxophonist Brent Jensen have found each other molto simpatico when freely improvising on standards. Astute listeners as well as players, the two musicians often sound as if one mind is guiding ten fingers as they dissect familiar music in the course of playing it, examining and comparing fragments before reassembling a song. On this concert recorded at an Art of Jazz Concert at The Seattle Art Museum, the duo plays music ranging from Fats Waller to Thelonious Monk and several familiar standards.

On the web, go here at the appointed hour and click on “Listen Live.” Here are Anschell and Jensen playing Thelonious Monk’s “Ask Me Now.”

For a Rifftides review of an Anschell-Jensen concert last fall, go here.
Bill Kirchner describes his broadcast:

Recently, I taped my next one-hour show for the “Jazz From The Archives” series. Presented by the Institute of Jazz Studies, the series runs every
Sunday on WBGO-FM (88.3).
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Claudio Roditi (b. 1946) is one of Brazil’s foremost jazz exports. A resident of the United States since 1970, he has become equally renowned for his interpretations of straight-ahead jazz and Brazilian music.
We’ll hear Roditi on trumpet, flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet, and vocals on several albums under his leadership. Among his cohorts are trombonist Slide Hampton, pianists Mulgrew Miller and Helio Alves, and drummer Duduka da Fonseca.
The show will air this Sunday, April 18, 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.

In this video, Roditi plays his rotary valve flugelhorn with fellow Brazilians Helio Alves, piano; Leonardo Cioglia, bass; and drummer Duduka da Fonseca. Filmed at the Rising Jazz Stars studio in Beverly Hills, California, they play “Bossa pra Donato.”

Have a good weekend.

The Jazz Journalists Association has announced the nominees in its 2010 awards competition. Darcy James Argue (pictured) did not come from out of nowhere, but the young band leader, composer and arranger has moved up fast and made a big impression. Argue is nominated for the first time, in five categories. For a complete list of the nominees, go here.
Rifftides is flattered to be in the running for blog of the year. We are in fast company. Here are the nominees:
The Gig, Nate Chinen
A Blog Supreme, Patrick Jarenwattananon
Do The Math blog and webzine, Ethan Iverson
JazzWax, Marc Myers
Rifftides, Doug Ramsey
The awards will be presented June 14 in New York.

Ashley Kahn’s profile of Bruce Lundvall in The Wall Street Journal captures the Blue Note label president’s importance as a developer of talent and identifies his partial retirement as a marker of what is happening to the business of recorded music.

To many, Mr. Lundvall’s exit from Blue Note’s day-to-day operations, officially announced earlier this year, symbolizes the forced transition of an entire industry. Rocker-songwriter (Richard) Marx says: “I know Bruce has been very frustrated in the changes that have eliminated this thing called ‘artist development.’ The way the industry is heading, it’s really not the kind of thing that Bruce would want to be a big part of anyway.”
Mr. Lundvall’s words express as much: “This is the most challenging time I’ve ever seen in what used to be called the record business, now the digital music business. People download and don’t want hard copies of music. Jazz and classical buyers will probably help keep the physical formats going for a long time, but the idea is to try and monetize the digital world. It’s not easy to make a lot of money in this business anymore.”

Kahn’s article is titled, “Dr. Yes Will Hear You Now.” To find out why and read the whole thing, go here.

Music for voice, flute and guitar is rare in any idiom. In jazz, it is singular. When flutist Hubert Laws, singer Tierney Sutton and guitarist Larry Koonse performed together at a fund-raising event last fall in Los Angeles, the creative spark that materialized pleased and intrigued them. They made room in their busy musical lives for further collaboration. The three artists’ individual prominence alone would make this cooperative group worth notice. But last weekend in one of their rare concerts, it was merit, not the novelty of a troika of stars, that verified the value of the idea.
In the perfect acoustics of The Seasons performance hall in Yakima, Washington, Sutton, Laws and Koonse held a near-capacity audience in thrall from their opening “Pure Imagination” to the encore, “You Must Believe in Spring.” The intimacy of their blend, interaction and regard for one another was evident. Introducing “All The Things You Are,” which flowered into spontaneous counterpoint, Sutton said, “This is sort of like chamber music, isn’t it?”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Laws said.
Koonse began a stately “Ill Wind” with a slow chorus leading into Sutton’s vocal supported by obbligato from Laws. Chamber music, yes, and art song as effective as Schubert or Wolff. If the ballads were redolent of music from the romantic period, the up-tempo pieces had the bite of bebop. In “‘S Wonderful” Sutton made effective use of melisma at warp speed. “Joy Spring” had Sutton and Laws in a wordless unison chorus, then Sutton nailing Jon Hendricks’ ingenious lyric, followed by Laws’ blistering piccolo solo, Koonse chording his solo, and Sutton and Laws wrapping it up in an exchange of fours. Other highlights: the groove intensifying through “Lullaby of the Leaves;” Sutton’s beautiful reading of Gene Lees’ lyric to Bill Evans’ “Very Early;” Laws’ evocation of Ravel as Sutton sang Alan and Marilyn Bergman’s words to Dave Grusin’s “A Child is Born;” the empathy of Koonse and Laws in their duet on “Stella by Starlight.”
Throughout, the trio listened, tuned and adjusted to one another. The sense of mutual appreciation on stage was palpable. The concert ran a good half hour past its scheduled conclusion. No one seemed to mind. Near the end, as she was introducing “Cherokee,” Sutton told of placing third years ago in a Thelonious Monk vocal competition. Of the unnamed first and second place winners she said, “They’re not doing a gig tonight with Hubert Laws and Larry Koonse.” The three will continue to go their own ways, Sutton leading the Tierney Sutton Band (“I’m here tonight with their permission,” she said), Laws and Koonse traveling the world to perform. They say that they will appear together as often as possible and that they will record. That is something to look forward to.

The few precedents of music for voice, guitar and flute seem to be outside of jazz. Igor Stravinsky came close to the combination with “Four Russian Songs” for voice, flute, guitar and harp, as did the contemporary American composer Daniel Asia with a series of “Sacred Songs” for voice, flute, guitar and cello. The operatic soprano Victoria de los Angeles recorded a group of Sephardic songs from the Spanish renaissance with flute and guitar accompaniment. “Pure Land,” a setting by the Serbian-American composer DuÅ¡an Bogdanović, is for flute, guitar and poetry of Patricia Capetola. It appears not to have been recorded. Brazilian guitarist Laurindo Almeida arranged pieces by Fauré and Schubert for voice, flute and guitar. Here is Fauré’s “Pavane” played by Almeida with mezzo-soprano Salli Terri and flutist Martin Ruderman.

In conversation with a casual listener who said he wanted to know more about jazz, I mentioned that the creation of melody in improvisation is not limited to what are generally considered melody instruments. I said that some drummers play melodic, even lyrical, solos.
“What do you mean?” he said, clearly puzzled. I tried, rather clumsily, I’m afraid, to explain that through combinations of phrasing, dynamics and tone control, a drummer who is so inclined (not all are) can create trains of musical thought as cogent as those of a horn player. I mentioned a few names, beginning with Jo Jones. They meant nothing to the man. I didn’t think he was buying my proposition. I promised to look for an example and alert him.
For my acquaintance, and for anyone else interested, here’s a case in point. Joe LaBarbera is one of the contemporary masters of melodic drumming. In the 1979 video clip below, he is featured with Bill Evans’s last trio. Marc Johnson is the bassist. LaBarbera solos with wire brushes and with sticks, and exchanges phrases with Johnson. Concentration on not only LaBarbera’s rhythm but also, to borrow Lester Young’s term, his story-telling, may help our friend grasp the concept.
One further thought before you click on the play button: in this year before Bill Evans died, he more and more often returned to the muscularity that characterized his playing in the late 1950s and early ’60s. In this version of a tune that he loved, that strength is apparent.

Cycling is in full, if often chilly, swing. Fruit trees and wildflowers are blossoming. On today’s 30-mile expedition through the back country heights, I came across this field in bloom and didn’t want to keep it to myself.

“Hello To The Season,”( to quote the title of a piece from Gary McFarland’s Point of Departure with Richie Kamuca, Jimmy Raney, Willie Dennis, Steve Swallow and Mel Lewis). I thought that this exquisite 1963 album had long since lapsed into unavailability. But this web site claims to have it as a CD. If that is true, run, don’t walk, to order it while it’s still around. At any moment, it could disappear again.

I have no idea how Sharkey Bonano (see the April 9 item below) felt about Art Farmer’s playing or, indeed, whether he was aware of Farmer. They were from different eras and different styles. My guess is that Farmer’s lyricism would have appealed to Bonano, whose own playing carried a trace of Bix Beiderbecke DNA.
In this video from a 1966 program on the Dutch TV station NCRV, Farmer collaborates on “Just Friends” with alto saxophonist Lee Konitz and the Swedish trombonist Ake Persson. The rhythm section is pianist Pim Jacobs’ trio, with Stu Martin on drums. We don’t see the bassist, but most likely he is Ruud Jacobs, his brother’s more or less constant sideman during this period. The date was under Oliver Nelson’s leadership. Near the end of the performance, we catch a glimpse of Nelson and his tenor saxophone.

Sharkey Bonano was born on this day 98 years ago. He died in 1972. During my first residency in New Orleans, I was fortunate that Sharkey was still around and working. Late in his career, when Bonano was able to resist his cornball urges, he was capable of superb trumpet playing of the kind he did in the 1920s and ’30s with Gene Goldkette, Ben Pollack and his own Sharks of Rhythm. In this photograph from 1968 or so, he is in his customary derby standing next to Pete Fountain at an impromptu jam session. It was the first time in a quarter of a century that Fountain had set down his clarinet and played tenor saxophone, something he has rarely done since. The trombonist in the picture is Eddy Edwards, a survivor of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. The clarinetist is Harry Shields, brother of Larry Shields, the original clarinetist of the ODJB. The drummer’s name escapes me, but one of you alert Rifftides readers will let me know.
Bonano is usually described as under the influence of Louis Armstrong. That is true, but he rubbed up against Bix Beiderbecke in Goldkette’s band and, ever after, ripples of Bix surfaced in his work. In the soundtrack of the shaky amateur photo montage below, you will hear traces of both Armstrong and Beiderbecke as Bonano leads a superb version of his band through “High Society.” The front line includes two young New Orleans stars, clarinetist Irving Fazola and trombonist Santo Pecora. Sharkey’s former leader, Pollack, is on drums, Thurman Teague bass and Frank Frederico, guitar. The pianist is the 19-year-old Clyde Hart, later to make the transition to bebop and play with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Listen to the ease with which Fazola nails the traditional Alphonse Picou clarinet solo. From Sharkey, Faz went on to Glenn Miller, Bob Crosby and Claude Thornhill, among others.
This is a fine memory of Sharkey Bonano.

The 2010 Brubeck Festival opens today at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. Occasional Rifftides contributor Paul Conley of Capitol Public Radio in Sacramento spoke with Dave and Iola Brubeck about the history of the institute. Among the stories is Brubeck’s recollection of the early connection between one of his brothers and an emerging young band leader and arranger named Gil Evans. To hear Paul’s report, go here and click on “Listen.”

Kirk Knuffke, Amnesia Brown (Clean Feed). Knuffke’s trumpet tone is notable for softness, fullness and evenness. The audacity of risk in his improvisational concept would be the envy of the Flying Wallendas. The contrast between his sound and the content of his work is a source of fascination throughout this collection of miniatures. Even though his collaborators number only two, Knuffke has plenty of company in 16 little art songs without words, all his compositions. Drummer Kenny Wollesen is a three-decades veteran of adventures with musicians as various as John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Jessica Williams, Tom Waits, Sean Lennon and the Crash Test Dummies. Doug Wieselman’s track record includes work with Zorn, Jenny Scheinman, Wayne Horvitz and other prominent artists who typically populate the edge of New York’s downtown jazz community. From track to track, he alternates between clarinet (generally calm) and guitar (tending toward mania).
The three develop their solos and interactions from themes built on folk simplicity in “Leadbelly” and “Totem,” instrumental chanting in “Practical Sampling” and serene trumpet layered over guitar distortions and raucous drum and cymbal patterns in “Please Help, Please Give.” The album’s opening “How it Goes” begins with trumpet/clarinet counterpoint that could be Knuffke reflecting on Shorty Rogers and Jimmy Giuffre circa 1954, however unlikely that may seem. It ends with lyricism, Knuffke and Wieselman giving sotto voce unison farewell to the delicate melody of “Anne.” The unusual name of the album’s title tune? It memorializes one of Knuffke’s great-grandfathers, who claimed that he forgot he had a wife and family after he established a second set in another town and changed his name. The piece has a nostalgic, even old-timey, quality and a certain goofiness in the solos that is underlain with a Wollesen percussive effect like rapid water over loose stones.
In a development that may be an indication of growing maturity in free jazz, the longest track runs less than five minutes. Perhaps, after all, full expression doesn’t require extraordinary length. One thinks of Miles Davis’s celebrated advice to John Coltrane when Coltrane explained that he had trouble stopping his solos; “You might try taking the horn out of your mouth.” These guys do, and it works.
For the past six months or so, Knuffke has been a member of Matt Wilson’s quintet. For a Rifftides review of one that band’s performances shortly after he joined, go here.

Yesterday was Gerry Mulligan’s birthday (1927-1996). Today is Billie Holiday’s (1915-1959). If only there were video of them together.
There is, of course; one of the most famous pieces of film ever made of a jazz performance. It is from the kinescope recording of the 1957 CBS-TV program The Sound of Jazz. “Fine and Mellow” featured Holiday with a group of horn soloists for which the designation All-Stars seems barely adequate. Holiday’s choruses of her classic blues alternate with solos by Ben Webster, Lester Young in an inexpressibly moving reunion with Holiday, Vic Dickenson, Mulligan, Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge. The muted trumpet obbligato is by Doc Cheatham. Seeing this every so often is like revisiting a great painting. Its depth grows with each viewing.

It took all night, but the intrepid Rifftides technical crew found the key. The right-hand columns, with their troves of invaluable information and links, are restored and we can get back to the business at hand. Thanks for your patience.

As you may note by the disappearance of the two right-hand columns, Rifftides is undergoing technical problems. The staff is hard at work to locate the cause and hopes that the difficulty will be resolved soon. We appreciate your forbearance.

Jazz this week lost John Bunch, a pianist whose imagination and adaptability kept him in demand for more than 60 years. Establishing his career in New York following his World War Two military service, Bunch slid smoothly from swing into bop and remained a reliable sideman and soloist who incorporated aspects of both eras in a personal approach of great flexibility. He was as comfortable and effective with Benny Goodman as he was with Wes Montgomery, or alone. This celebrated album is a superb Bunch solo recital. To read Nate Chinen’s obituary of Bunch in The New York Times, go here.
Bunch leads off a round of solos on “Sweet Georgia Brown” in this video of Scott Hamilton’s quartet. Chris Flory is on guitar, Phil Flanigan, bass and Chuck Riggs, drums.

That’s quite enough passings for a while, don’t you agree?

Last summer, I had the privilege of presenting the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award of the Jazz Journalists Association to Mike Zwerin, my successor in the chain of winners of that honor. Mike was unable to make the trip from his home in France and accepted in absentia. That missed opportunity meant that I will never have the pleasure of a personal meeting with a cherished colleague. Mike died early this morning in a Paris hospital at the age of 79, following a long illness. Our correspondence over the years provided me insights and great satisfactions. His end of it was witty and acerbic, in keeping with his columns in the International Herald Tribune and, in later years, Bloomberg News.
Zwerin’s books Swing Under The Nazis: Jazz As A Metaphor For Freedom and The Parisian Chronicles are essential items in any serious collection of writing about jazz. His first fame was as a fine valve trombonist and bass trumpeter, a member of the original Birth of the Cool band led by Miles Davis in collaboration with Gerry Mulligan, Gil Evans and John Lewis. In his journalism career, in addition to his award-winning work for the International Herald-Tribune, he wrote for The Village Voice, Rolling Stone and Down Beat, among other publications. Mike’s writing style inspired Bill Kirchner to describe him as “Mezz Mezzrow meets Jack Kerouac meets Hunter Thompson.” Zwerin provided a rare combination of wisdom and spice. His readers, this one most emphatically included, will miss him.

Dániel Szabó Trio Meets Chris Potter, Contribution (BMC). Szabó is a 34-year-old pianist and composer with impressive academic and performance credentials and awards in Hungary and the US. One of his professors at the New England Conservatory was Bob Brookmeyer, who sent a copy of Szabó’s CD with a note strongly suggesting that his former student deserves close attention.
This album commands close attention.
Szabó’s compositions have lines with binding energy that urges forward motion, and chord structures of challenging densities, prompting Brookmeyer to refer to it as “highly evolved music.” Throughout, currents and undercurrents of Eastern European rhythms and minor harmonies inform both writing and improvisation. Szabó, bassist Mátyás Szandai and drummer Ferenc Németh previously recorded with guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel in an album I have yet to hear. It seems clear that it takes musicians of Rosenwinkel’s and Potter’s virtuosity and openness to ideas to navigate in Szabó’s deep, sometimes stormy waters. Conversely, it requires musicians of these three Hungarians’ advanced techniques and jazz sensibilties to hold their own with Potter, a soloist of daunting power, swing and imagination. His work is riveting on tenor and soprano saxophones, and bass clarinet in the nostalgic piece called “Melodic.” Szabós piano playing, founded in post-Bill Evans harmony and dynamics, is of a piece with the advanced concepts of his writing. His exchanges and counterpoint with Potter are natural, unforced.
This album was recorded in Budapest. Potter’s domestic ties to Hungary seem to take him there frequently. If that means we may expect further collaboration between him and the Szabó trio, so much the better. This is, indeed, highly evolved–and highly satisfying–music. Here are Szabó, Szandai, Németh and Potter at their CD release party in an extended version of “Attack of the Intervals,” the first piece on the album.

Herb Ellis died last night at home in Los Angeles. He was 88 years old and had Alzheimer’s disease. Ellis was most celebrated for his guitar playing with the Oscar Peterson Trio that also included bassist Ray Brown. For more than half a century, he was one of a handful of guitarists recognized as masters of the instrument. Musicians of several generations cherished him as a colleague. A few of them were fellow guitarists Barney Kessel, Joe Pass, Charlie Byrd and Laurindo Almeida; trumpeters Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge and Harry “Sweets” Edison; saxophonists Ben Webster, Plas Johnson and Stan Getz; and Ella Fitzgerald.
In the notes for one of Ellis’s last recordings as a leader, I wrote:

In the 24 bars of his unaccompanied introduction to “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” Herb Ellis sketches the elements of his musicality.

• Harmonic sophistication

• Fleet execution

• Expression of abstract ideas in earthy language

• Bred-in-the-bone familiarity with the blues

• Distinctive Southwest twang

• Humor

• Perfect time

When Peterson modeled his trio on Nat Cole’s in 1950, he at first had Brown on bass and Cole’s former guitarist irving Ashby. Then Barney Kessel signed on for a year. Ellis replaced Kessel and spent five years with Peterson. The trio became one of the most celebrated groups in jazz. Their concert recordings contain some of the most exciting music ever captured on record. Peterson, Ellis and Brown agreed that the album from the Stratford, Ontario, Shakespeare Festival in 1956 caught them at their peak. They may not have again quite reached that apogee during their time together, but they came close in this 1958 performance at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Ellis simulates bongos, solos with all of the facets listed above, and demonstrates his skill as a rhythm guitarist.

As far as Peterson was concerned, Ellis was irreplaceable. When Herb left the trio in 1958, Peterson did not consider hiring another guitatist. He brought in drummer Ed Thigpen. That was a great trio, too, but the electricity and empathy of Peterson, Ellis and Brown was unique.
You will find a trove of Ellis albums here.
Herb Ellis, RIP.

Skipping along through 65 years of the history of a superior popular song gives us an idea of its evolution as a subject for jazz improvisation. Indeed, our examples provide an idea how jazz improvisation itself has evolved. The song is Johnny Burke’s (words) and Jimmy Van Heusen’s (music) “Aren’t You Glad You’re You?” As Father O’Malley, Bing Crosby introduced it in the 1945 film The Bells of St. Mary’s. He had a substantial hit record of it the same year. Among the singers who did covers (did they call them covers in those days?) were Frank Sinatra, Doris Day and Julius LaRosa. Later, Bob McGrath and Big Bird sang it…often… on Sesame Street. Their version is afield from our discussion, but if you’re interested, you can hear it by clicking here.
“Aren’t You Glad You’re You” is a perfect marriage of optimism and sunshine in the lyrics, melody and harmony. It has a couple of chord changes that are unexpected enough to spice it up for blowing, and it’s fun to sing or play. Crosby’s recording seems to be unavailable on the web. LaRosa’s record enjoyed a good deal of air play in the early 1950s and works nicely for our purpose. He takes mild liberties with the lyrics, employs interesting phrasing and radiates the song’s happy outlook.

There may have been jazz versions of “Aren’t You Glad You’re You” before 1952, but the first one I know of was on Gerry Mulligan’s initial quartet album for Pacific Jazz. Mulligan had gone from insider favorite to general popularity with his pianoless quartet co-starring Chet Baker. In the early 1950s it was not illegal for jazz to have general popularity. Mulligan, baritone saxophone; Baker, trumpet; Chico Hamilton, drums; Carson Smith, bass. YouTube, for reasons best known to its contributor, gives Chet the credit and the cover shot.

Cut in a sequence of pages flying off a calendar and, whaddaya know, it’s November, 2009, and the John McNeil-Bill McHenry Quartet is on the stand at the Cornelia Street Café in New York. Joe Martin is the bassist, Jochem Rueckert the drummer. It may seem that after the melody chorus, our intrepid modernists leave Mr. Burke’s chord scheme behind but, as I keep telling you, listen to the bass player. If McNeil seems amused by McHenry’s initial solo flurry, it’s for good reason.

McNeil and McHenry did not include “Aren’t You Glad You’re You?” in Rediscovery, their CD excursion into the bebop and west coast past. Perhaps it will show up on the sequel. Perhaps there will be a sequel.
Have a good weekend. Aren’t you glad you’re you?