Rifftides

There is only one reason to bring you Manny Albam’s “Poor Dr. Millmoss”—it is a delight. It’s from the first of two Jazz Greats Of Our Time sessions that the prolific composer and arranger (pictured) recorded in the 1950s—one with star east coast musicians, the other with some of the most prominent west coast players. Albam made the east coast “Millmoss” in New York in 1957 with Gerry Mulligan, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Phil Woods, Bob Brookmeyer, Nick Travis, Art Farmer, Osie Johnson, Milt Hinton and … [Read more...]

Cecil Taylor, a pianist who fashioned his music from myriad styles and sources, died yesterday in New York. He was 89. From his earliest recordings in the mid-1950s with bassist Buell Nieidlinger, drummer Dennis Charles and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, Taylor pursued daring and swam upstream against jazz orthodoxy. This is how critic Ben Ratliff put it in an obituary in today’s New York Times. At the center of his art was that dazzling physicality and the percussiveness of his playing — his … [Read more...]

Composer, saxophonist, bandleader and author Bill Kirchner is the subject of two new articles that recognize his decades of creativity. One piece is in the new issue of Allegro, the magazine of New York’s American Federation of Musicians local 802. The other is in the Canadian bassist Steve Wallace’s admired weblog. In his extensive evaluation of Kirchner’s career, Wallace writes, I was left puzzling over two questions. One, how in the world could one man, no matter how multi-talented, find the … [Read more...]

The Jazz West Coast list serve often begins its posts with the names of jazz people born on the current date. The April 3 list is a profusion of such names. • Paul Abler, guitar, 1957 (d. March 3, 2017) • Jamie Davis, vocal • Doris Day, vocal, 1922 • Terry Deane, tenor sax, 1972 (d. March 19, 2017) • Bill Finegan, arranger, leader, piano, composer, 1917 (d. June 5, 2008) • Stan Freeman, piano, celeste, vocal, arranger, 1920 (d. Jan. 13, 2001) • James Gelfand, piano, 1959 • Art Harris, … [Read more...]

Recent Listening In Brief Edward Simon, Sorrows & Triumphs (Sunnyside) Pianist-composer-arranger Simon is engrossed in jazz, his heritage in Latin-American music and his studies of Buddhism. Sorrows & Triumphs blends those and other aspects of his preoccupations, and Simon refines the individuality that has made him one of the most interesting—although insufficiently recognized—musicians to have emerged in the past three decades. The album, due for release this month, brings together … [Read more...]

Today, Rifftides offers the second installment of scholar, teacher and historian Jeff Sultanof’s essay on pleasures and challenges in the craft of correcting arrangements.  Exploring Buried Treasure in Plain Sight, Part 2 By Jeff Sultanof A tangent: I was fortunate to have Jerome Graff (pictured) as a mentor and colleague for thirty-five years. Graff was one of the top vocal arranger/conductors in the music business, initially as the chief arranger and member of the vocal group The … [Read more...]

Technical difficulties are delaying the posting of part 2 of Jeff Sultanof's guest article on arrangers and arranging. We think that help is on the way but, after all, this is a holiday weekend. Watch this space. In the meantime, however long that may turn out to be, Rifftides wishes you and your loved ones a happy Easter. We hope that you see fuzzy friends like these in your back yard. … [Read more...]

Rifftides is delighted that Jeff Sultanof has agreed to contribute another piece. A distinguished expert on arrangers and arranging, Mr. Sultanof is the author of the invaluable book Experiencing Big Band Jazz: A Listener’s Companion. One of the book’s running themes is the essential role of arrangers. Jeff’s current project involves scores written for Nat “King” Cole. A great jazz pianist who became one of the most popular singers in the world, Cole (1919-1965) worked with some of the best … [Read more...]

Chummy MacGregor was born on this day in 1903 and died on March 9, 1973. It’s the rare listener to modern jazz who doesn’t know of the MacGregor composition “Moon Dreams,” which he wrote when he was a pianist and arranger with his longtime boss Glenn Miller. “Moon Dreams” is one of the most familiar pieces from Miles Davis’s Birth Of The Cool sessions of 1957. Gil Evans’ arrangement of MacGregor’s song had much to do with Evans’ early recognition as a central figure in the music. In case you … [Read more...]

The John Coltrane project described in this post is completed and awaiting release by Concord Jazz. However—I am happy to report—other free lance assignments have developed. Rifftides progress slows a bit while I work on them, but in the next few posts we’ll call your attention to recent listening that may interest you. Some of the albums have been out a while. Others are quite new. First, an invaluable Larry Young discovery made in Paris: Larry Young In Paris: The ORTF Recordings … [Read more...]

Their recording histories encompass dozens of collaborations, but in their new albums two of the most prolific recording artists in modern music go it alone.   Bill Frisell, Music Is (Okeh) Guitarist Bill Frisell reaches into his storehouse of compositions to revisit several that he has recorded before, and to play others for the first time. Frisell is alone, yes, but with the help of producer Lee Townsend and engineer Tucker Martine he overdubs guitar layers and uses looping, … [Read more...]

(This post originally ran in 2014, but a record company or an agent or a publicist or fate removed the videos. The Rifftides staff has patiently reassembled the piece and restored the music. If Youtube or the previous culprit strikes again, we give up. But please note the link to an invaluable Bird box set.) # When buried in deadlines and unable to create sparkling new material, give ‘em some Charlie Parker, that’s my motto. Here is Parker on September 15, 1944, at the WOR studios in New … [Read more...]

Reader comments have converted what began a couple of weeks ago as a <em>Rifftides</em> post about Claude Thornhill’s version of ”Robbins’ Nest” into a seminar on keys, pitch, “Cornet Chop Suey,” Fletcher Henderson, “Stardust” and Glenn Miller, among other matters. It makes for a long, interesting read. If you’d like to catch up, go here and scroll down. … [Read more...]

This Sunday, March 11, Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest broadcast will present highlights of the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra’s recent concert of music composed by Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond. Jim reports that the SRJO will play “Take Five,” “In Your Own Sweet Way, “The Duke,” “Wendy” and other pieces in new arrangements expanded for 17-piece band. During its seventeen years, the Dave Brubeck Quartet featuring Desmond was consistently at or near the top of jazz groups in popularity and record … [Read more...]

A few weeks ago the Rifftides Monday Recommendation was Jeff Sultanof’s new book Experiencing Big Band Jazz. You can read the recommendation here. Sultanof (pictured right) was recently the guest on Michael Fitzgerald’s Jazz Forum program. Discussing his motivation to write the book, he told Fitzgerald what the publisher expected There was no big band book that was available at the time that wasn’t a fan book. This is a book that—you want to listen to the music?—this is the music. This is not a … [Read more...]

The Coltrane project (two items down) is progressing to the extent that I was able to get out the office for a short bicycle excursion. Tooling around the neighbohood, I saw these harbingers of spring thriving near the trunk of a venerable birch tree. The calendar says that spring is officially two weeks away, but it’s close enough that songs about the season are calling. Here are two versions of one of the best, Burke and Van Heusen’s “Suddenly It’s Spring.” First, June Christy sings it … [Read more...]

Research on yet another extracurricular (i.e., non-Rifftides) project involving John Coltrane has led me into several byways that the great tenor saxophonist took in his pre-“Giant Steps” days of the 1950s. One of those paths branched off from the association with Miles Davis that formed a milieu in which Coltrane flowered. After he left Davis, he formed his own band and played an essential role in changing the music’s direction. In the studio on his own in the fifties, he often had Davis’s … [Read more...]

Martin Wind, Light Blue (Laika) Martin Wind gathers a coterie of distinguished colleagues and demonstrates why for two decades he has been a mainstay bassist in the US and Europe. In settings that range from a piece inspired by “Sweet Georgia Brown” to the edge of free jazz in “Power Chords,” Wind employs the energies and imaginations of drummers Matt Wilson and Duduka Da Fonseca, saxophonist Scott Robinson, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, clarinetist Anat Cohen and pianists Gary Versace and Bill … [Read more...]

Now that the powerful tenor saxophonist Pete Christlieb has moved from Los Angeles to the Pacific Northwest, he frequently collaborates with elite Seattle-area jazz musicians. One who recently asked him to join her for an engagement is the increasingly impressive vibraharpist Susan Pascal. They played at the vital downtown Seattle club Tula’s. Jazz Northwest host Jim Wilke says that in his broadcast on Sunday, along with tributes to ChickCorea and Oscar Peterson, Pascal and Christlieb will … [Read more...]

Rob Clearfield, Wherever You’re Starting From (Woolgathering Records) The Chicago pianist’s low-key approach to solo piano might lead to wool-gathering that would justify the name of his label. But he bolsters the album’s harmonic depth and melodic originality by including Johannes Brahms’ B-flat-minor Intermezzo and John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.” Every other track on the recording, including Clearfield’s interpretation of the Coltrane piece, takes a harmonic back seat to his … [Read more...]