David Berger, leader of the Sultans of Swing, is an esteemed arranger who might be called a Duke Ellington specialist except that he is expert in all areas of big band jazz. He created The Harlem Nutcracker, incorporating new arrangements of Tchaikovsky pieces that Ellington and Billy Strayhorn … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Jim Sofra writes: Excellent topic, enjoyed it immensely! We were recently listening to 'Nicas Dream' and Monk and the stories started coming out about how Nica was devoted to the musicians in her life. Heres a pic of her with Theolonius Monk, one of my favorite pix of him as well. … [Read more...]

During the next week or so of travel, family activities and general holiday merriment, the Rifftides staff will post as often as possible, but you may note a diminution of blogtivity. Rifftiders and Rifftidings will be on our minds, and we hope to hear from you by way of the Comments function at the … [Read more...]

Count Basie was college, but Duke Ellington was graduate school. --Clark Terry At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.--Miles Davis Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.--Duke Ellington … [Read more...]

The Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter was known for her friendship with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and other leading musicians of the bop and post-bop periods. She was born a Rothschild -- as Jean Bach puts it, a vraie Rothschild -- of the English branch of the lavishly moneyed international … [Read more...]

Tom Sancton writes from Paris about the death of Kenny Davern: Beautiful piece. I am very saddened by Kenny's death. I met up with him this summer at a JVC concert called "Clarinet Marmalade." Hadn't seen him in a couple of years, but it was a warm, good-humored reunion. I gave him a signed copy of … [Read more...]

One of the hippest and most eclectic programs dealing with music and other cultural matters is Sound Check on WNYC-FM, New York. Monday, December 18, at 2:15 p.m. EDT I will be with Sound Check's host John Schaefer to discuss the best jazz recordings of 2006. To join us in the New York metropolitan … [Read more...]

The ferocious storm that disabled much of Seattle and other parts of western Washington state last night roared across the Cascades and into our valley, only slightly diminished. It was so powerful that the house shook when the first blast hit. The windows howled for hours as the wind tried to pry … [Read more...]

Like virtually everyone who knew him or his music, I was shocked by Kenny Davern's death on Tuesday. A heart attack--sudden and massive--took him at the age of seventy-one. The New York Times obituary by Dennis Hevesi offered the perfect description of Davern: "a radically traditional jazz … [Read more...]

Conventional wisdom, which--granted--isn't always dependable or even wise, holds that current sales of jazz recordings account for about three per-cent of the recorded music market and classical recordings another three per-cent. Fellow artsjournal.com blogger Greg Sandow has thoughts about that, … [Read more...]

Francis Davis, who monitors developments on the outer edge, writes in this week's Village Voice about the avant garde tenor saxophonist David S. Ware's new CD of standard ballads. Davis suggests that Ware may be playing to an audience for whom classics by Kern, Gershwin, Porter and other popular … [Read more...]

When Pandora Internet Radio first popped up on the web a year ago, I visited it often but in the press of business and activities gradually forgot about it. Today, I remembered. I'm glad I did. Over the course of an hour or so, out of Pandora's box came, in succession, Cannonball Adderley, Von … [Read more...]

In the Rifftides report on the ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards ceremony the other day, I mentioned that audience members were told not to take photographs through the windows of Jazz At Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Room. If that restriction --based on a claim of copyright-- sounded strange to you, … [Read more...]

The Rifftides staff is back at home base following a transcontinental flight and a drive through the snowy Cascade mountains. Posting from New York a few nights ago about the ASCAP Deems Taylor bash, in my bleary-headed condition at 2:30 a.m. I forgot to mention this: My thirty-second oration wound … [Read more...]

Rifftides offers a short list of recommended holiday music -- one old CD, two new ones. OLD: The umpteenth reissue of Vince Guaraldi's imperishable sound track to Charles Schulz's television classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Maybe I love it because the music is so good, so fresh, that listening to … [Read more...]