In the e-mail today came yet another news release using one of the favorite clichés of record company publicists. It announced the release of "the sophomore album" of a young saxophonist. A sophomore is a second-year student at a high school, college or university. You could look it up. The word is … [Read more...]

The world may have known about it, but I just stumbled upon a rich cache of Elis Regina video clips on YouTube. They come from a 1973 Brazilian television special. The program seems to have been available on a DVD that quickly disappeared from the market. Amazon, CD Universe, Netflix and several … [Read more...]

Browsing the works of my fellow artsjournal.com bloggers this morning, I discovered in his blog Overflow a piece by Harvey Sachs that illuminates the condition of American popular culture in the new century. Mr. Sachs, the distinguished biographer of Arturo Toscanini and Artur Rubinstein, recently … [Read more...]

No one ever accused Stan Getz of phoning in a solo. Not infrequently, however, he gave the appearance of detachment as he played while surveying the audience with eyes wide open. When he closed those cool blue eyes and leaned into a solo, something special was likely to happen. In Italy in 1961, … [Read more...]

You don't rehearse jazz to death to get the camera angles. - Stan Getz A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other's ideas. - Stan Getz The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to … [Read more...]

Over at JazzWax, Marc Myers is conducting a multi-part interview with Laurie Verchomin, the "Laurie" of Bill Evans's famous composition. During the final year-and-a-half of his life, when he was in physical deterioration and creative resurgence, Evans and Verchomin had a romantic and intellectual … [Read more...]

Months ago, Bill Kirchner sent a note about examples he was using in one of his New School classes for emerging composers. I set it aside, meaning to enlarge upon it. I just came across the tickler file reminding me. Clearly, my tickler system needs work. Here is Kirchner's message. Where possible, … [Read more...]

Bill Evans was born 80 years ago today. He enriched music. Bill Evans, 1929-1980 … [Read more...]

By way of his splendid JazzWax blog, Marc Myers alerts the Rifftides staff that our little slice of bandwidth gets a bit of notice. In my naiveté, I didn't know there was such a thing as a blog rating service, but Marc points to Invesp Consulting. If you go there, you will see several segments in … [Read more...]

Rashied Ali, a drummer who applied his advanced technique to free jazz, died today in New York. He was 76. Born Robert Patterson, Ali became a disciple and close colleague of his fellow Philadelphian John Coltrane. He played on some of the most uninhibited recordings of Coltrane's final years, … [Read more...]

Les Paul, who affected the course of popular music in profound ways, died today at the age of 94. Jazz devotees may remember the guitarist most fondly from the days in the 1930s when he collaborated with Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge and Art Tatum, or his involvement with Jazz At The Philharmonic … [Read more...]

John Stowell, Solitary Tales (Origin). The CD's title suits the guitarist, a peripatetic performer who roams the world. I recently heard a musician say, "You never know where he'll show up." Although Stowell often plays with others, some of his most stunning work, as here, is unaccompanied. He … [Read more...]

When The National Endowment for the Arts study on Public Participation in the Arts came out a few weeks ago, the survey's bad news about the size of the jazz audience caused ripples of concern. It showed that over a six-year period, the number of Americans attending jazz events dropped to a low of … [Read more...]

The Boston Globe's Steve Greenlee reports from the resuscitated Newport Jazz Festival that he found the weekend's best music in the festival's outlying precincts.  Hiromi (she goes by her first name) started picking out a pretty stride version of "I Got Rhythm,'' but it erupted … [Read more...]

As the Alps tower over Swiss villages, stacks of compact discs tower over me. Sampling, auditioning, listening at length when something grabs my ear, I make my way through the CD Alps that surround me. If I live to be 115, which is my plan, there is no possibility of my fully hearing more than a … [Read more...]

Marc Myers' JazzWax wraps up a four-part interview with Denny Zeitlin, packed with good questions, and answers that give insights into an intriguing man. For decades, Zeitlin has maintained parallel careers as a jazz pianist and a practicing psychiatrist. Myers asked him how empathy plays a role … [Read more...]

Yesterday was Louis Armstrong's 108th birthday, and I forgot to mention it. To make up for that oversight, Rifftides brings you Armstrong in 1958. Pops's singing and playing partner is his pal of 30 years, Jack Teagarden. Louis was 57 years old and playing beautifully on every level -- range, tone … [Read more...]

One day I heard a pianist play `Honeysuckle Rose,' ... and I was hooked. I said, `What is that?' He said, `jazz,' which was a word I had never heard, and I asked him to spell it for me. My life was changed after that. - Joe Zawinul I am an improviser, ... I improvise music. Whatever you want to call … [Read more...]

Put aside all of the old arguments about whether this is jazz, jazz-rock, fusion, world music, ethnic music, R&B, funk or something else. The arguments don't matter anymore, if they ever did. This is truly, to borrow Ellington's overused phrase, beyond category. There is no more stunning instance of … [Read more...]