When I was among the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award winners in 1997, there was a handful of us, barely more than a half-dozen. There has been an expansion of categories. They include not only writers and publishers of books, articles and liner notes, but also--observing new media reality--hosts and … [Read more...]

The next time you are looking for surprises on YouTube, do not bypass Tommy Flanagan playing Billy Strayhorn's "Rain Check." The 1991 performance at a club in Germany was with his trio; George Mraz on bass, Bobby Durham on drums. The video and audio quality are unusually high for a YouTube clip, … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Don Emanuel has managed to excerpt from a Polish television program a rare performance of "'Round Midnight" by Thelonious Monk. It was taped during the Monk quartet's 1966 European tour, with Charlie Rouse, tenor saxophone; Larry Gales, bass; and Ben Riley, drums. Watching Monk is … [Read more...]

Our latest check on Rifftides readers' whereabouts shows that some of you are in: Armadale North, Australia Azur, France Batnfjordsra, Norway Belleville, Canada Buenos Aires, Argentina Fulmer, UK Harlesdon, UK, Kihei, Hawaii Monterrey, Mexico Niederndorf, Germany Reykjavk, Iceland Schnborn, … [Read more...]

The Rifftides staff is headed to New York to receive the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond (still available, suitable for fancy wrapping and holiday giving). Posting from the road will take place as possible. … [Read more...]

Floyd Standifer was an essential member of the Seattle jazz scene in the 1950s when the city had dozens of superior players who banded together in a close-knit community. I hadn't seen him more than two or three times since those Northwest Jazz Workshop days, but recently I was pleased to encounter … [Read more...]

Thanks to Bill Kirchner, who calls me to account for an error in the previous item, Boxes, about Cannonball Adderley's tenure with Miles Davis. Cannonball was a member of the Miles Davis sextet from the gitgo--December 1957. Cannonball had been working for Miles since the fall of 1957, and Miles … [Read more...]

Publishers allow complete sets of Shakespeare and Faulkner to go out of print. Record companies are under no greater obligation when it comes to classics in music. In the free market, a label is at liberty to do whatever it pleases with its stock. Concord, the company that bought the Fantasy complex … [Read more...]

In the 1950s, the New Orleans saxophonist Al Belletto had a surge of international success with his sextet. A contemporary of Al Hirt and Pete Fountain, Belletto grew up steeped in traditional jazz as a clarinetist. But like Ellis Marsalis, Alvin Batiste, Ed Blackwell and other young New Orleans … [Read more...]

Excuse interruption of music festival, please, but would mind repeating excrutiating sound made with assistance of cat intestine? --Charlie Chan to son Tommy, who has been playing "jazz" violin. From the motion picture Docks of New Orleans, 1948 … [Read more...]

Saxophonist, arranger and leader Bill Kirchner writes: Anita O'Day's passing reminded me of a week I spent working with her in the summer of 1982 at the Blue Note in NYC. I was part of her backup quartet: Mike Abene, piano; Rick Laird, bass; her longtime partner John Poole, drums; and myself on … [Read more...]

Anita O'Day was my hero because she used four-letter words. That was really neat. I didn't myself say them for a long time, but I loved hearing her say them.--Carla Bley All I know is that there are four beats to a bar and there are a million ways to phrase a tune.--Anita O'Day ( Down Beat, circa … [Read more...]

Over the long weekend, we lost Anita O'Day, who died in Los Angeles on Thanksgiving day. She was eighty-seven. The stalwart bassist Walter Booker is also gone, dead in New York on Friday at the age of seventy-three. O'Day was the last of the great female jazz vocalists who emerged in the swing era. … [Read more...]

November 25 would have been Paul Desmond's 81st birthday. Less than two years before he died, he made a featured appearance at the 1975 Monterey Jazz Festival. He played Johnny Mandel's "Emily" with an all-star rhythm section that included pianist John Lewis, bassist Richard Davis and guitarist … [Read more...]

In our review of the Tony Bennett TV special, a question arose about the absence of arranger credits. The New York Sun's Will Friedwald, reviewing Bennett's Duets CD, provides a substantial clue that the charts were a team effort: Mr. Bennett's musical director and pianist Lee Musiker, string … [Read more...]

This is an important American national holiday. To those of the U.S. persuasion, the Rifftides staff sends wishes for a happy Thanksgiving. To readers around the world: we are thankful for your interest, attendance and comments. … [Read more...]

Our occasional Washington, DC, correspondent John Birchard sent a message that included the following observations about Tony Bennett, An American Classic, the special that ran on NBC Television last night. I thought The Old Man outclassed all the other performers. Bennett is in astonishingly good … [Read more...]

Nat Hentoff is a champion of the Jazz Foundation of America in its efforts to help aging musicians who lack the resources to provide for themselves. In his latest column in the Village Voice, Hentoff makes it clear that jazzmen and women who find themselves in want are not always those who failed to … [Read more...]