Readers of Safford Chamberlain's An Unsung Cat: The Life and Music of Warne Marsh--indeed, anyone interested in that staunch individualist among saxophonists--will want to investigate The Warne Marsh Site. The web pages developed by Rifftides reader Jack Goodwin include a thorough discography, a … [Read more...]

Terry Teachout, our favorite polymath arts blogger, has cleaned out and reorganized his clearinghouse of cultural blogs and websites, to my knowledge the most extensive such guide on the internet. It's worth a look. For TT's preamble to the revision, go here. When you see the extent of his choices, … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Don Emanuel alerted us to video of Supersax nineteen years ago at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland. The band organized by Med Flory was devoted to Charlie Parker solos transcribed and harmonized for a saxophone section. It played them with accuracy and feeling that gave their … [Read more...]

You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.--Charlie Parker If Charlie Parker was a gunslinger, there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats.--Charles Mingus … [Read more...]

In Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond, I told of having heard Desmond's "Take Five" on a music box in a Prague gift shop and in a number of other unlikely places including the Mexico City subway and my neighborhood gas station. There are sheet music arrangements of "Take Five" … [Read more...]

A message from Bill Crow: Here's a YouTube video I found, of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet in Rome, 1959, playing my tune. Bill Crow The composer is featured on bass. The trumpeter is Art Farmer, the drummer Dave Bailey. The Chinese Shadow Show effect is interesting. Just try to disregard the … [Read more...]

Frances Lynne, Remember (SSJ). Often discussed but seldom heard, Ms. Lynne is a charming singer. She worked with Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond and Norman Bates in 1948. Recalling their time with her at the Geary Cellar and the Band Box, all of them told me that they were moved by her clarity, phrasing, … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Peter Luce has a question: I'm wondering if someone in Rifftides' knowledgeable readership can help clarify some conflicting information I've read about Ellington's used of trumpet, trombone and clarinet in the original recording of "Mood Indigo." John Edward Hasse, in The Life and … [Read more...]

Graham Collier, Hoarded Dreams (Cuneiform). Here we have further, but not recent , adventures of the pioneering British composer, arranger and leader. Hoarded Dreams is a seven-part suite commissioned by the Bracknell Jazz Festival in 1983. Following its one performance by a band of European stars … [Read more...]

(An annual Rifftides reminder) Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.--Benjamin Franklin America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed … [Read more...]

André Previn, Alone (Emarcy). When in the mid-1960s Previn committed himself to classical conducting, composing and performing, he did not leave jazz behind. Technique, taste and touch intact, he plays thirteen pieces using his range of dynamics, rhythmic subtlety, harmonic sensibility and capacity … [Read more...]

Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond in duo were one of the great treats of the seventies even as Desmond contended with the lung cancer that was soon to end his life. Someone caught one of their reunions on tape--a short blues performance culminating in the "Audrey" or "Balcony Rock" melody that they … [Read more...]

If you are planning on attending the Newport Jazz Festival, keep in mind that it is no longer held over the Fourth of July weekend but in the second weekend in August. For a rundown on this year's event, go here. For a three-CD compilation scanning the festival's fifty-one-year history, try this … [Read more...]

Over the next few postings, the Rifftides staff will attempt the impossible--to catch up with recordings. The best I can do is single out a few and offer observations in hopes that they will provide Rifftiders guideposts as they decide which CDs in the endless stream are worth their time and money. … [Read more...]

Generally, I'm against exclamation points. The one in the headline is a justified exception. If you miss Art Farmer as much as I do, follow this link. The YouTube information line tells you that the rhythm section is Ray Brown, Jacky Terrason and Alvin Queen. It doesn't tell you that the tune is … [Read more...]

Anat Cohen has not quite taken New York by storm. In this culture, only rock stars or politicians who campaign like rock stars do that. But Cohen has established herself in the jazz capital of the world as one of the bright new reed artists. The story of her becoming a jazz musician in Tel Aviv, her … [Read more...]

I value the decades I spent in television news. Helping people to understand the events and issues of the day was important work that brought satisfaction and, at its best, promoted the democratic ideal of an informed citizenry. Now from the Society of Professional Journalists come two items about … [Read more...]

I used an hour and a half of the fifteen-and-a-half hours of daylight on this first day of summer for a morning ride on the Bianchi.The bike took me (with a little help) up a series of hills, past the golf courses and expensive housing developments that are pushing farms farther out from town and up … [Read more...]

A recent reimmersion in things Tristano led to the mini-review of the Warne Marsh book in the latest batch of Doug's Picks (right-hand column). It included several viewings of a video of Lennie Tristano's quintet at the Half Note in 1964. The picture quality may have been fine originally, but it … [Read more...]