In jazz improvisation, speed for the sake of speed is often self-defeating. Beyond a certain velocity, fingers tend to outrun brains. The automatic pilot kicks in and a musician ends up merely–as a standard phrase in the critic’s lexicon has it–running the changes. Even Art Tatum and Charlie Parker had episodes of auto-pilotitis when fast tempos produced visceral excitement and little else.
Saturday evening at The Seasons, I heard the Bill Charlap Trio play “In The Still Of The Night” at a clip unmeasurable by a metronome unless it could register well over 320 beats a minute. Following Charlap’s piano introduction spiced with allusions to Thelonious Monk, he, Peter Washington and Kenny Washington were off like synchronized rockets.

Through chorus after chorus, despite the tempo Charlap fulfilled Lester Young’s ideal for soloists; he told a story, never falling into content deficit. That wasn’t the only fast performance of the evening. The trio took Irving Berlin’s “The Best Thing For You,” Cole Porter’s “All Through The Night,” George Gershwin’s “Nice Work If You Can Get It” and Charlie Parker’s “Passport” at rapid tempos, but “In The Still Of The Night” must have come close to setting a new land speed record for piano trios.

 

 

 

Bill Charlap   Peter Washington   Kenny Washington

It seemed to me that in medium-tempo pieces and in ballads, there was more subtle interaction among Charlap’s piano, Kenny W’s drums and Peter W’s bass than when I have heard the band before. Porter’s rarely heard “Where Have You Been” was achingly beautiful. As in the trio’s recent Village Vanguard recording, George Wallington’s “Godchild,” drew on Gerry Mulligan’s famous Birth Of The Cool arrangement. The encore–only two days late–was “My Funny Valentine,” taken slowly. In an effective departure, Charlap interpolated the song’s verse as a solo interlude,.
If Keith Jarrett hadn’t taken the name, The Standards Trio could describe Charlap’s group. Their repertoire is largely based in classic American songs to which audiences relate. Within those recognizable frameworks, Charlap and the Washingtons create new music. It’s a formula whose success is enhanced by three superior musicians whose decade of experience together results in unusual empathy. Every time I’ve heard them lately, they’re better. And faster.

This week, I’ll be reporting from the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Moscow, Idaho and the Portland Jazz Festival in Oregon. It will be the first Hampton festival completely under the direction of its new major domo, John Clayton. Because the events overlap, I’ll be getting to Portland for only the last two days of the festival’s ten. The good news is that I’ll get to hear Nancy King (with Kurt Elling and Steve Chrisopherson), Anat Cohen and Joshua Redman.

The artsjournal.com technical team has restored the Rifftides comments section. The staff thanks them profusely. You will find a comments link at the end of each post. You are welcome to also comment directly by e-mail.
Please do.

To read a Rifftides post about bassist Dennis Irwin’s predicament, click here. Mike Quinn of Jazz Times writes:

I’ve built and posted a website for Dennis Irwin, my old high school
buddy. Will be adding more material this coming week since I’m
heading to NYC for three weeks to attend both benefits. The site
contains some bio stuff, some video and a donation page which allows
direct PayPal donations. Will post fotos of Vanguard gig on Tuesday.
This is the Irwin web site.

There is a baritone saxophonist in Spain who sounds amazingly like Gerry Mulligan. Rifftides reader Tyler Newcomb sent the alert:

Man, that Joan Chamorro plays so much like Gerry, if you closed your eyes you’d swear it was him. Plays just behind the beat like Mulligan, improvises the same type of lines and ideas, and his sound is drop-dead the same. All he needs is some red hair to go on tour with a Chet Baker clone and recreate the original Quartet.

This is a link to Chamorro’s quartet playing, “Bernie’s Tune,” “Love Me Or Leave Me” and, somewhat less successfuly, “Makin’ Whoopee.” All of the pieces were staples of the early Mulligan quartet repertoire. The tape runs out before “Love Me Or Leave Me” finishes. The other players are Toni Belenguer, trombone; David Mengual, bass; and David Xirgu, drums. Chamorro’s channeling of Mulligan is uncanny, but for originality of ideas, pay close attention to Belenguer. Things are happening in Barcelona. The video opens with less than a minute of Ben Webster’s tune “Go Home.”
Searching the web for more about Chamorro, I came across this short video clip of him playing the bass saxophone not on a stand, as most bass saxophonists do, but holding the monster–a feat in itself. Maybe confining his playing to the baritone range makes the horn seem lighter.

You Tube may have removed all of its Chet Baker videos, but it turns out that there is still Baker to be seen and heard on the web. Two days late, we are able to link you, after all, to a Japanese site that has Chet singing and playing “My Funny Valentine” in a superior performance from late in his career. Only the bassist, Heyn Ven De Geyn, is identified. The pianist is likely to be Harold Danko. If you know who the drummer is, please send an e-mail message.
Comment
Ty Newcomb writes:

LINE-UP:
Chet Baker – trumpet, vocal.
Harold Danko – piano
Hein van de Gein – bass
John Engels – drums

(I thought that solo sounded familiar. It is available on a CD, the brilliant Chet Baker In Tokyo. Recorded in 1987, the year before he died, his playing on that concert is proof that even toward the end of his life, which was a study in self abuse, Baker was never a burnt-out case musically. — DR)

First Published July 8, 2005

A reader of Rifftides or Take Five (both, I hope) has been listening to Jim Hall’s 1974 Concierto CD in which Hall’s sidemen are Paul Desmond, Chet Baker, Roland Hanna, Ron Carter and Steve Gadd. She sent a message asking a question at which musicians tend to guffaw when civilians ask it, one that arises out of genuine interest and does not deserve scorn. Here’s the exchange:
Q: The track “Concierto de Aranjuez” is hauntingly beautiful. Do the musicians totally improvise, or do they each have a kind of musical outline around which they create? You can guess from the question I’m not a musician, but it’s something I’ve wondered about.
A. Except in the most unfettered avant garde improvisation, there must be a plan or the result will be random noise, which, come to think of it, describes the most unfettered avant garde improvisation. Virtually every piece of music has some sort of tonal organization, whether or not there is a formal chord structure. In the case of “Concierto” on the Jim Hall album, the musicians improvise around the simple and quite lovely harmonies that Joaquin Rodrigo wrote into the adagio section of his famous “Concierto de Aranjuez.”

There’s more. To read the whole thing, go here.
Comment

Was she the cousin of the airline stew who asked PD, “How many people are there in your quartet?”?
Concierto is my nomination for the greatest jazz combo LP/CD in the most recent generation (since 1975). Not only their jazz version of the Aranjuez second movement, but also “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” the lead track, I think. Baker-Desmond counterpoint, Steve Gadd’s fills gloved to the soloists’ lines, Roland Hanna flying effortlessly in the last of the solo turns….
Charlton Price

“My Funny Valentine” was one of Chet Baker’s signature songs, and I’d love to give you a link to a clip of him singing or playing it. Sorry, that’s not possible. A few days ago You Tube removed all of its Baker videos because of a copyright wrangle, so I looked to see who else they have performing the piece. It turns out there are dozens of versions on You Tube, maybe hundreds; I quit sampling them after the fourteenth page. You may have better things to do than roam through all of the possibilities, so here are links to six of the better ones. To watch, click on the name of the performer.
J.J Johnson with Rob Schneiderman, piano; Rufus Reid, bass; Akira Tana, drums.
Keith Jarrett, piano; Gary Peacock, bass; Jack DeJohnette, drums.
Duke Ellington’s band with solos by Jimmy Hamilton, clarinet, and Quentin Jackson, trombone.
Paolo Fresu, Flugelhorn, assisted by an unidentified trumpeter who may be Franco Ambrosetti.
Wynton Marsalis in 1980 at age 19, with Art Blakey’s band. The pianist is James Williams.
Tony Bennett with Buddy Rich, drums; Ralph Sharon, piano; an unidentified tenor saxophonist and a bassist who looks like John Burr.
Happy Valentine’s Day.

If you live in or plan to visit the Washington, DC, area, you may be interested in this communique from a Rifftides reader:

There is a fabulous exhibit titled “Jam Session: America’s Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World” coming up at the Meridian International Center in Washington, DC. Aside from material covered in Penny Von Eschen’s book*, there will be previously-not-publicly-shown photos on display. Here is a link to the exhibit:
Katja

*Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War (Harvard)

Whether sponsored by the State Department or off to see the world on their own, the Dave Brubeck Quartet practiced their share of cultural diplomacy in the 1950s and ’60s. You Tube, that never-ending source of surprises and occasional frustrations, has come up with video of the DBQ on a 1962 Australian television program. The story goes that the tape of the show was lost for more than two decades and barely saved from destruction once it was found. It includes contrived conversations that, like the host’s introductions, sound scripted. Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Gene Wright and Joe Morello appear amused by the awkward show-biz schtick. Their playing is correspondingly light-hearted.
The program includes a rarity in the Brubeck canon, a guest vocalist, Laurie Loman, who manages to lose track of the number of bars in “When You’re Smiling.” Unfazed, Desmond follows with a solo on a song he may have been playing for the first time. He works in a quote from “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” perfect for the circumstances. The program is divided into seven You Tube segments, all of which you will find on this page.
Brubeck disbanded the quartet in 1967, so he could devote his time and energy to composing long-form works. The next year he completed his oratorio The Light In The Wilderness, which he still presents when he can marshal the musical troops it requires. He gave the piece its fortieth-anniversary performance last night in Athens, Georgia. As usual, his wife is on the road with him. In The Atlanta Journal-Constituion Bo Emerson has a story about Brubeck working with an orchestra and chorus to prepare the piece.

Iola Brubeck is in the adjoining room at the Holiday Inn in Athens, working on a laptop, busy writing the history of the man she married 65 years ago. A laptop? Dave Brubeck doesn’t mess around with that kind of keyboard. Says his longtime conductor Russell Gloyd, “Dave has trouble with the pause button on his tape player.”
The tape player may outfox him, but Brubeck handles larger forces with aplomb. During a weeklong residency at the University of Georgia, which continues through Friday, he will (with Gloyd’s assistance) command a 140-voice choir, a full-sized symphony orchestra, a big band, a jazz vocal ensemble and his quartet.

To read all of Emerson’s story, go here.
Comment On The Australian Video

In 1962 I was still at school in New Zealand,and I flew up from my home
town to Auckland in a DC-3 so I could see the concert.
They must have gone to New Zealand either before or after the Australia
tour.
I still have the program somewhere!
John Pickworth

Dave Frishberg asks in one of his songs, Do You Miss New York? Yes, I do, every day. So it was a pleasure to get a small New York fix from an unexpected source, an e-mail ad from a clothing store. The tour through a favorite part of lower Manhattan made me homesick for one of my many former hometowns. To take it yourself, click here. Rifftides has no stock in or connection with Ralph Lauren Rugby, but for making me feel good Ralph gets a plug. Full disclosure: I once bought a shirt there. On sale.

Several years ago, I quit the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in frustration over the academy’s treatment of jazz. I returned my dues statement with the notation that I needed the $75 more than Celine Dione did. If anything, jazz has been shoved further down the ladder since then. The jazz categories in the awards list start at number 45, and they begin with what the academy members obviously think is the most important, “Best Contemporary Jazz Album,” often populated with oatmeal-music nominees, but — to give due credit — this year it had albums of greater substance than usual. The winner in that category was Herbie Hancock’s River:The Joni Letters, which also won the overall album-of-the-year award for all categories.
Clearly, the academy voters were paying tribute to Joni Mitchell at least as much as they were recognizing Hancock, but the outcome is good for both of them. It may even stir a bit of general interest in jazz, although I’m skeptical about that. As I pointed out in this month’s Picks, River contains some of Hancock’s and saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s best playing together, but that’s not why it won the big award. It won because the academy has a pop mentality and its members regarded River as a pop album. Good. No harm done, and maybe something will rub off on other jazz artists, but I’m not going to deprive myself of oxygen while I wait for that to happen.
The only other jazz Grammy winner Rifftides reviewed was Maria Schneider’s sublime Sky Blue. One track, “Cerulean Skies,” won the award for best instrumental composition. Go here for a lengthy appreciation of Sky Blue and Ms. Schneider.
Michael Brecker’s posthumously released Pilgrimage won as best jazz instrumental album. I did not review the CD, but following Brecker’s death in January of 2007, there were several Rifftides items about him, including this long, loving tribute by Randy Sandke.

The artsjournal.com shop foreman tells me there is a good chance that the Rifftides comment section will be repaired and back in action by the end of the week. In the meantime, please use e-mail (that’s a link) to send your comments.

While the Rifftides comment capability is being repaired, we are relying on e-mail to receive your comments. Jim Brown writes from Santa Cruz, California:

From my rather distant perspective as a Baker fan, this very real spat seems to be the result of a big corporate entity (You Tube) being intimidated by the threat of a lawsuit based on copyright of material that they don’t care a whit about. While the wonderful jazz on YouTube is a delight to jazz fans, it isn’t even a pimple on the back side of owners of that site, and the potential costs of defending a lawsuit isn’t worth the hassle as compared with the loss of advertising on what must certainly be a minority audience.
Yes, an owner of copyright would be exercising lousy business judgement about this material being on YouTube — legal purchased copies are virtually always of significantly better quality. What these copyright owners OUGHT to be pursuing is setting up (or improving) legal distribution of the material they own, for profit or otherwise. I gladly purchase every jazz video I can find of artists I enjoy, and having clips on YouTube causes me to search them out!
Another important point re: the pimple aspect of this. The costs of mastering and distributing program material of interest to an audience that is a tiny minority of the public and limited avenues for distribution can easily exceed the income received from sales. About five years ago, my partner and I released two well recorded and well produced CD’s of Carmen McRae that got 4 and 4 1/2 stars in Down Beat. The musicians and the estate were paid. For a while, the CDs were in retail outlets like Tower and Borders. While I’ve got what I consider to be a very fair relationship with my partner, my share of the profits (about $700) have yet to approach my costs in recording the material. We have the rights to a third CD which is all Carmen accompanying herself at the piano, as well as to a fine performance by Sylvia Syms. Although both are mastered and ready to press, we currently don’t have a commercially viable way to distribute them that will pay the artists and have a chance of paying our costs!
Jim Brown
I want to thank you so much for your comments on the Baker controversy. I’m a friend of Naftali/Bob Levin and of Itsartolie, who had the best jazz channel on You Tube, and who was shut down because of this. He presented musicians in the most respectful and elegant way. If you ever watched his channel, you know this, of course.
Lorraine Jones

In the following communique, I have taken the liberty of minor editing in the interests of clarity or good taste.

Removing Chet Baker Performances from U-tube….WTF. This Guy is Almost completely forgotten as far as I’ve seen except for “My Funny Valentine”. I can’t tell you the last time I saw a CD ‘Bin-Slot’ in a Music Store for Chet Baker…..Really!! And these Idiots can’t seem to realize this is FREE Advertizing…Subscribers doing this for FREAKIN’ FREEEE!!! What is this Chet Baker Foundation ? Where did they come from ?? I read that Baker died almost a Pauper and NOW he has a Foundation?????? RU kidding me??????
CopyRight My A__….and this LEVIN ‘Suit’ prolly doesn’t realize it’s 2008….NOT 1958 either. I guess anywhere there’s a potential to squeeze a few PITTANCE you’re gonna have a few **wish Types recognize that potential. They can all go to hell!…. and removing Chet Baker from You Tube is completely INDEFENSIBLE. I hate them.
Thanks,
John
Lol. You did the best you could for both clarity and good taste, but alas, liquor wins every
time.
Bob Levin

I’m curious about how you determined that Al Porcino was playing lead on the clips in question. He is sitting on the left side of the section (looking at the band) and thus not in the lead chair. I agree with you that Al is formidable — in fact I think he’s probably my all time favorite lead player from the ’50’s and ’60’s, but it appears to me that the guy next to Al is playing lead.
Jack Greenberg

For the answer, we went to a Jones-Lewis expert:

At the time, Al was the lead player. Lynn Nicholson (formerly with Maynard Ferguson) probably was playing second, Earl Gardner third, and Frank Gordon fourth (the jazz chair). All except Frank were capable of playing lead and probably did so at some point–those guys like to pass parts around the section in order to give the lead player some rest.
Al was also breaking in Earl as a lead player, and Earl went on to be the resident lead player (with T&M, and later both Mel and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra) for many years–until recently, in fact.
Bill Kirchner
God, what a pleasure to wake up this morning and click on Thad Jones and Mel Lewis in Germany! Has there ever been a better big band drummer than Lewis? Most of my favorite big band records of the 60’s have something in common – Mel in the drum chair: Terry Gibbs’ Hollywood Dream Band and Gerald Wilson are two examples.
And I first became aware of Thad’s solo work when he was part of the Thelonious Monk Town Hall ’59 band, always going unexpected places in his cornet solos.
When Thad-n-Mel’s first LP came out (on Solid State), I dropped the needle on “Once Around” and in moments the hair was rising on the back of my neck! Talk about head-long momentum from bar one… and then Mel’s brief-but-extraordinary solo and fills at the end…perfecto.
I had the pleasure of emceeing a big band night at the New Haven (CT) Coliseum back in the 70s. The program was Stan Kenton’s band and Thad-n-Mel. Kenton was fine, but when Jones-Lewis came on, they set fire to the place. In his first solo, Jon Faddis entered from the stratosphere and took it up from there. And Billy Harper scorched the earth. I was goggle-eyed with amazement and delight. The writing, the spirit of that band were something to behold – just a buncha guys hangin’ out at an old funky night club in the Village on Monday nights. Thanks for reviving a flagging spirit.
John Birchard

I wanted to add this to the last comment posted about Sue Raney:
Joe Morello told me Paul Desmond did not like chick singers. I wonder if Sue Raney could have been an exception. Joe does enjoy her singing.
If Sue happens to read this, I’ m very eager for another newly recorded CD. And, maybe even a visit to us here in NYC.
Jerry Bogner

Back in the antediluvian era of jazz blogging (early 2005), there weren’t many of us. Terry Teachout thinks that when Rifftides debuted, it was the first jazz blog. Maybe so. At any rate, now there are jazz blogs galore. Some are promotional vehicles for musicians, record companies, magazines, talent agencies–the gamut of music business interests. Others deal with substance. Some of the substantial ones are linked under Other Places in the Rifftides right-hand column.
A new blog that shows promise was launched a few days ago by a man named Bob Levin. It is called Jazz My Two Cents Worth. I am adding an Other Places link to it. Mr. Levin’s current topic is a decision by YouTube to remove Chet Baker videos put up by a contributor known as Itsartolie. The spat involves one Chet Baker foundation in Oklahoma and another in Canada, claims of copyright violation, and competing claims of copyright ownership. Mr. Levin, hoping for a cooperative solution, is offering to be a mediator.

If the Chet Baker Foundation in Oklahoma chooses to do nothing about this, then it’s a legitimate question to ask how much they actually care about their mission. If they contact the Canadian (foundation) side of the coin to find out who has the rights to this material, and a fight ensues, we know that jazz must continue to fight jazz in order for jazz to be preserved. It’s life through the looking glass. And if both Chets (foundations) get it worked out and YouTube is unresponsive, then I’ll be happy to write a post about YouTube trying to kill jazz while allowing its many virulently racist and anti-Semitic posts to remain.
We will also know the truth if someone from Chets (foundations) tries to contact Itsartolie. I’ll be happy to help with that.

YouTube has apparently removed all of its video clips of Chet Baker playing. At least one Baker fan is uninterested in the legal fine points. To read more about all of this, go to Jazz My Two Cents Worth.

Gone From YouTube, But Not Forgotten
If you have comments on this, please send an e-mail message. The Rifftides comments section is in the shop for repairs.

When the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra flourished, one of the complaints by the guys in the band was that Jones didn’t assign himself enough solos. They loved to hear him play. Who wouldn’t? A video has just surfaced in which at a 1970s concert in Germany the band plays “Cherry Juice” and Thad takes the first solo, on flügelhorn. No wonder they liked to hear him play. The other soloists are the little known tenor saxophonist Larry Schneider and the better known pianist Harold Danko. The lead trumpeter is the formidable Al Porcino. To see and hear “Cherry Juice,” click here.
On the same occasion, the Jones-Lewis band played “My Centennial,” featuring long, satisfying solos by Pepper Adams on baritone saxophone and Mel Lewis on drums. This time, Thad sets the pace with a cowbell. Bill Kirchner, reliable chronicler of the Thad and Mel band, informs us that although the YouTube headline says 1978, the performance was in 1976. For “My Centennial,” go here. Feel free to dance.

It is a pleasure to find Poodie James mentioned with fellow artsjournal.com blogger Alex Ross’s landmark book The Rest Is Noise. Richard Kamins of the Hartford Courant managed to put my little novel and Alex’s study of twentieth century music under the same roof in his column “See! Hear!”