Terry Teachout's ecstatic review of pianist Roger Kellaway's new drummerless trio makes me want to hop a plane to New York. Kellaway has lived in California for years. He is back in The Apple for an engagement at the Jazz Standard. The three men opened the set with a super-sly version of Benny … [Read more...]

The Before & After test I did with Miguel Zenon at the Portland Jazz Festival appears in the June issue of Jazz Times, now on news stands. Here's a sample of his acute hearing and assessments: 3. Gonzalo Rubalcaba “Los Buyes” (from Paseo, Blue Note). Rubalcaba, piano; Luis Felipe Lamoglia, … [Read more...]

The ambitious multiple blogger Jerry Bowles has put together blognoggle, a clearinghouse for several blogs. In a message to Rifftides, he writes: I started blognoggle pages on new music, business and politics because I realized that only a small fraction of internet users now bother with RSS readers … [Read more...]

The distinguished audio expert Jim Brown saw the Rifftides piece on the possible demise of the last jazz radio station in Los Angeles and sent this reminder that the music is threatened at stations across the nation. Although I've just completed a move to Santa Cruz, I did learn during a recent … [Read more...]

A Rifftides reader writes I just came across Rifftides, as I was searching for Coleman Hawkins' Centennial CD/DVD package. I was at a loss in identifying some of the players on the DVD, and your post from 2005 helped a great deal. Especially in introducing me to Harry Sheppard and Dickie Thompson, … [Read more...]

As he moves toward the middle of his eighty-sixth year, Dave Brubeck is not slowing down. He's picking up speed—and honors—and preparing a major work. Today he is at his alma mater, University of the Pacific, to collect another medal. For a story about Brubeck's whirlwind week and his new … [Read more...]

A story in today’s Los Angeles Times has this headline: Straight-ahead jazz may lose its KKJZ-FM gig And this quote: "KKJZ is a very famous jazz station and there aren't many more around like them," said Frank Sinatra Jr., son of the singing legend, and a professional musician who lives in West … [Read more...]

What can be hoped of an art which must necessarily depend on the favor of the public—of such a public, at least, as ours? Good work may, does sometimes, succeed. But never with the degree of success that befalls twaddle and vulgarity. Twaddle and vulgarity will always have the upper … [Read more...]

John Birchard writes from Washington, DC. Reading TT's disgusted remarks about the American Masters Nat King Cole show brought to mind the only time I saw Cole in person. It was 1956. I was in Uncle Sam's Air Force, stationed at Craig AFB outside Selma, Alabama. A jazz fan friend of mine and I … [Read more...]

artsjounal.com neighbor Terry Teachout suggests that I pass along an item from his About Last Night. As a followup to recent Rifftides discussions about the quality of television music programming, here it is—a public service: If you missed last night’s PBS American Masters documentary on Nat … [Read more...]

Very interesting (fascinating actually) subject, I think. Doug, I am thrilled that you are exploring the origins of the Jazz Messiahs and the emergence of Ornette Coleman. Pianist Don Friedman mentioned to me that this band played several gigs in the Pacific Northwest and Vancouver during this … [Read more...]

Matthew Lurie writes from Chicago: I just thought I'd drop a line and link to an article I wrote about Legends of Jazz for Time Out Chicago. Because Ramsey Lewis is from here (as are the rhythm section of Larry Gray, Willie Pickens, and Leon Joyce) and the show was shot here, we viewed it as our … [Read more...]

Coincidentally, on the heels of yesterday's Rifftides piece about the Legends Of Jazz television series, an e-mail message alerted me to a video performance that demonstrates the visual restraint, taste and directorial discretion that is missing in the Legends series. It is a solo piano performance … [Read more...]

Doug: I watched the Legends of Jazz episode that featured Jim Hall and Pat Metheny and found it disappointing. Jim and Pat and associates played fine--as expected, of course. But the overall "happy talk" tone was rather shallow and not very enlightening; for that, the producers and writers are … [Read more...]

Last July, Rifftides examined the pilot program for the Public Broadcasting System series Legends of Jazz. Here is part of that posting. It was a charming and engaging program. It lacked the intensity, focus and video artistry of the immortal 1957 The Sound of Jazz on CBS-TV, Ralph Gleason’s Jazz … [Read more...]

Django Reinhardt died on this date in 1953. He was forty-three years old. Reinhardt melded jazz and the wild élan of the gypsy music he grew up with in Belgium and France. He began to be noticed in 1930 when he was twenty. By the mid-1930s he, violinist Stephane Grappellii and the Quintet of the … [Read more...]

The May issue of Allegro, the monthly publication of the New York local of the American Federation of Musicians, has reviews by Bill Crow of Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond, the reissue of Gene Lees’ superb biography The Worlds of Lerner and Loewe, and the first volume of … [Read more...]

The You Tube website has put up a seven-minute video of the Dave Brubeck Quartet playing Brubeck's "London Flat London Sharp" at the North Sea Jazz Festival. Sound, production qualiy, camera work and direction—except for one brief asleep-at-the-switch moment—are excellent. Bobby Militello's alto … [Read more...]

While you're there, don't miss Elis Regina singing Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Aguas de Marco." This is the irreplaceable Elis in solo, apparently a predecessor to the video of her doing the song with Jobim. … [Read more...]