Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

A Tsunami Of Muck

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Like many blogs, Rifftides is under seige by lurkers filling the Comments bin with messages having nothing to do with Rifftides. Some days there are hundreds. The strictest filters do little to stem the tide of these unsolicited links to hard porn sites. In an attempt to delete en masse a batch of … [Read more...]

CD

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Ruth Naomi Floyd, Root to the Fruit (Contour). Ms. Floyd is a Philadelphia church singer whose jazz connections and finely tuned musicianship are as organic to her art as are her Christian convictions. In her fifth album, she leads ten musicians including saxophonist Gary Thomas, drummer Ralph … [Read more...]

CD

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BED, Bedlam (Blue Swing). BED is the acronym for vocalist Becky Kilgore, guitarist Eddie Erickson and trombonist Dan Barrett. The group also includes bassist Joel Forbes, but the name BEDJ wouldn't make much sense. What does make sense is Ms. Kilgore's sunny, flawlessly in-tune singing and the way … [Read more...]

DVD

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The Heath Brothers, Brotherly Jazz (DanSun). Part documentary, part concert, this engrossing film about the celebrated Philadelphia brothers was shot a year before elder brother Percy Heath died in 2005. Their life stories are varied--Percy the fighter pilot who became a major bassist--Jimmy, the … [Read more...]

Book

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Debra DeSalvo, The Language of the Blues (Billboard Books). From "Alcorub" to "Zuzu," Ms. DeSalvo combines solid research with humor, insight and straightforward description to explain the often arcane terms that populate blues songs. You may have an idea about the various meanings of "easy rider," … [Read more...]

Quote

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I never thought that the music called "jazz" was ever meant to reach just a small group of people, or become a museum thing locked under glass like all other dead things that were once considered artistic. Miles Davis … [Read more...]

Miles Davis: The Movie?

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For years, there have been reports that there would be a feature film about Miles Davis. No film has appeared. Pat Broeske writes in Sunday's New York Times that two such motion pictures may actually be on the drawing board. One would have a screenplay by Quincy Troupe, who co-authored Davis's … [Read more...]

Jazzitude

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The Rifftides staff has added Marshall Bowden's Jazzitude web site to Other Places in the right-hand column. Befitting its Louisiana origin, Jazzitude is a gumbo of a site. On the menu: news, reviews, features and history sections. If the free enterprise road to the internet future is advertising, … [Read more...]

Old Brubeck Blues

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Good old video keeps surfacing. The new Jazz Icons series of DVDs (about which, more later) is a prime example. Short clips show up on YouTube, Google, Yahoo and whatever new video sites have materialized in the past half hour. A recent addition to the YouTube gallery is a 1961 performance in … [Read more...]

Bob Brookmeyer: Spirit Music

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Like Brahms and Bartók late in their careers, Bob Brookmeyer has achieved increased profundity by clarifying his musical palette. The tensions and conflicts that continued to roil his compositions as he emerged from a period of electronics and experimentation in the first half of the 1990s may not … [Read more...]

Compatible Quotes

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Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second.--Maurice Ravel I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.--Igor Stravinsky It's the way you play that makes it . . . Play like you play. Play like you think, and then you got it, if you're going to get it. And … [Read more...]

Correspondence: On Emphysema

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Phil Woods responds to John Birchard's review of his recent Washington, DC, concert: Hey Doug, Upon reflection, I think the reviewer missed the point of emphysema - it is Nature's way of saying - "Stop playing all those 16ths and find a whole note that means something." Phil … [Read more...]

Radio: Brookmeyer and Kirchner

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It's not too late to put a reminder on your listening calendar. Bob Brookmeyer is the subject on Bill Kirchner's Jazz From The Archives tonight at 11:00 p.m. EST on WBGO radio, which you will find at 88.3 on your FM dial if you're in the Newark-New York area and at … [Read more...]

Phil Woods In Concert

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Rifftides reader John Birchard, a Voice of America newscaster, has been attending the Jazz Heritage series of concerts in Washington, DC, and sharing his impressions with us. Here is his latest report. The Rifftides staff has added links to Woods' recorded performances of some of the pieces John … [Read more...]

Mulligan, Fabulous

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Gerry Mulligan became famous well beyond jazz circles for his 1950s quartet that included Chet Baker on trumpet, succeeded by Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone. Mulligan achieved universal admiration among musicians and a large following of listeners with his Concert Jazz Band, which flourished in … [Read more...]

The Radio Morass

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Referring to the WKCR Lennie Tristano Festival and, on the other hand, the general white bread-with-mayonnaise quality of most radio today, particularly in regard to jazz, DevraDoWrite, observes: I know a lot of dee-jays who are nearly in tears because their bosses, not wanting them to break the … [Read more...]

Days Of Tristano

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As I write this, I'm hearing Lennie Tristano talk about his admiration for Charlie Parker. The archived 1973 interview with Tristano, who died in 1978, is a part of a four-day celebration of his music by WKCR, the radio station of Columbia University. WKCR is billing it as a Tristano festival. It … [Read more...]

Jay Thomas Live At City Hall

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A recurring theme of this blog is the universality and remarkably consistent quality of jazz in nearly every precinct of the globe. Jay Thomas has done his part to not only stimulate the growth of that quality abroad, but also to see that those of us in the music's homeland get to hear the new … [Read more...]