During a 2005 trip to New York to promote Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond, one of my rewarding encounters was with the longtime broadcast journalist Bill Vitka. After we talked about Desmond for CBS Radio News, Vitka mentioned that he had recently interviewed Kurt Vonnegut. … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Jon Foley recommends a YouTube clip of the Dave Brubeck Quartet with the comment, "They were in a good mood that night!" They sure were. I thought that we had linked to this performance before, but I can find no trace of it in the archive. The clip isn't dated, but it is amost … [Read more...]

If you are new to Blogville and wonder what those underlined words in blue are all about, you should know that they are links. When you click on a link, you are spirited away from Rifftides to another place on the internet that amplifies, explains or demonstrates the linked term. Happily for … [Read more...]

From time to time, Rifftides Washington, DC correspondent John Birchard reports on musical events in the US Capital City. NO STEREOTYPES, PLEASE The Smithsonian Jazz Café hosted a 70th birthday celebration for guitarist Gene Bertoncini on Friday, April 20th. What words come to mind when you think … [Read more...]

The British musician Graham Collier is an astute observer and a good writer. (Rifftides recently reviewed one of his early recordings.) In the current entry on his web site, Collier comments favorably on artsjournal.com blogger Terry Teachout's review in Commentary of Alyn Shipton's massive A New … [Read more...]

Just in case you have lost track of the famous white plastic Grafton alto saxophone that Charlie Parker played for a time, here's a reminder. The horn, actually cream-colored and made of acrylic, was among items sold at Christie's in London when the Chan Parker Collection was auctioned in 1994. … [Read more...]

It was the kind of success that resists analysis, but it undoubtedly involved the contrast presented by (Dave) Brubeck and (Paul) Desmond, the pianist openly touching on the pensive, the boisterous, and the bombastic, the saxophonist a self-effacing master of a coolly detached, liquid … [Read more...]

Regarding the poll described in this item, a singer who requests anonymity for reasons of "career protection and seemliness" writes: Your Jamie Cullum piece is spot-on, but it is worth noting that, unlike those many jazz singers who self-produce, Cullum is on a prominent European label (and a label … [Read more...]

Carol Sloane has joined the ranks of bloggers, telling stories accumulated during her career as one of the best singers on earth. Her first entry has an introduction and a gripping story about the time she went to prison. I look forward to regularly reading SloaneView.I have added it to the links in … [Read more...]

A new jazz radio station in England, theJazz, recently conducted a poll of its listeners to determine--as they put it--the "best ever jazz record." This was the result, as reported on the BBC web site. TOP TEN 1. Miles Davis - So What 2. Dave Brubeck - Take Five 3. Louis Armstrong - West End … [Read more...]

The traditional record industry is imploding. It is impossible to say what will emerge from the turbulence. Some analysts of the music business are predicting that the compact disc will quickly go the way of the LP, the cassette, the eight-track tape, the 45, the 78 and the cylinder. They say it's … [Read more...]

Responding to the Rifftides review of the Cannonball Adderley CD in the current batch of Doug's Picks, its producer writes: A somewhat important point needs to be made about the current ownership of a significant, if relatively small, segment of the records produced by Orrin Keepnews. I'm in a … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Eric R. Quick writes from Gaithersburg, Maryland about one of the CDs reviewed in this recent posting and about the valuable collection of which it is a part: With regard to Red's Good Groove - you say get it while you can (I already have the CD) Will the OJC catalog (or much of it) … [Read more...]

After reading the Rifftides remembrance of Tony Scott, Jair-Rohm Parker Wells sent a message from Stockholm. Mr. Wells discusses a facet of Scott's musical life about which few people may have known. I'm a bass player. I played with Tony in Germany in the mid-seventies and then in the US in the … [Read more...]

Bobby Broom, Song And Dance (Origin). Accompanied by bass and drums, the Sonny Rollins and Dr. John guitarist plays a relaxed program of his compositions and others by Schwartz & Dietz, The Beatles, Charlie Chaplin and Jimmy Webb. A highlight: Broom's harmonic adventuring in an extended cadenza in … [Read more...]

In an attempt to keep my head above the rising tide of incoming CDs, in the next few posts I will offer impressions of a few recent arrivals. Not all recent arrivals are new. Graham Collier's Deep Dark Blue Centre (disconforme) has been around for forty years, but it is as fresh as last week. A … [Read more...]

The May issue of Jazz Times has a Before & After listening test to which the pianist Jessica Williams subjected herself at my request. She was forthright, smart and funny in her comments on ten recordings. This is some of what she said about Fats Waller's "Smashing Thirds," recorded in 1929. It's … [Read more...]

The Rifftides staff offers a belated welcome to Larry Blumenfeld, a new artsjournal.com blogger who recently launched Listen Good: Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and other sounds. Blumenfeld, a New Yorker, has established a three-months residency in New Orleans. He is covering efforts of the jazz … [Read more...]

It was not my intention today to serve as a referral service to other peoples' work, but the two blogs mentioned in the above item deserved referral. The next recommendation demands it. Gene Weingarten wrote the story for last Sunday's Washington Post. It is about the classical violinist Joshua … [Read more...]