Pinky Winters is one of the treasures of the vocal world. I would suggest that any endeavor to locate her recorded work is well worth the effort. I am partial to Rain Sometimes, Cellar Door Records CCLR 101, recorded in 2002, also produced by Bill Reed. She is masterfully accompanied on piano by … [Read more...]

The Rifftides piece about pianist John Williams incorrectly identified him as a former mayor of Vero Beach, Florida. Williams sent a postcard with an aerial view of Vero Beach, where he lives now, setting the record straight. Thanks for very generous—if unwarranted— warm words in Rifftides. But … [Read more...]

After my daily journalism days ended, I spent several years educating professional journalists about issues they cover in economics, science, the environment, foreign affairs and other fields. One of our key areas at the nonprofit Foundation For American Communications (FACS) was ethics. That … [Read more...]

Bill Kirchner's next Jazz From The Archives on WBGO, the Newark, New Jersey, jazz station, will feature the 1960s Columbia recordings of pianist Denny Zeitlin. The program will be an opportunity to hear some of Zeitlin's important work for Columbia that has never been issued on CD. Bill will include … [Read more...]

Jim Harrod writes concerning the Rifftides item about Pinky Winters: I enjoyed your recent celebration of Pinky’s Mandel CD. If readers inquire where they might acquire this gem for less than $40, I would heartily recommend Early Records in Tokyo. The owner, Hiroshi Tanno, sells it for "¥2,800 and … [Read more...]

COMMENT 1 Here's a message from Bill Crow following the recent Rifftides piece about pianist John Williams. There is a recent release on Hep Records of a Spike Robinson CD, The C.T.S. Session, on which John is the pianist. I am the bassist, and Peter Cater of London is the drummer.Louis Stewart … [Read more...]

The veteran vibraharpist Charlie Shoemake writes in response to yesterday's John Williams item: I bought the John Williams 10' inch LP while in high school. (Stephen F. Austin in Houston). I still have it today and it's in excellent condition. I play it every once in awhile. I also bought during the … [Read more...]

During long stretches of 1953 and ‘54, John Williams was the pianist in Stan Getz’s quintet and quartet. Wiliams is often described in biographies as a disciple of Bud Powell who was also influenced by Horace Silver. That is true. It is also true that oxygen influences flame, a fact that tells … [Read more...]

Pianist and singer Patti Wicks saw yesterday's post about Antonio Carlos Jobim and sent a link to video of Jobim, widely known as "Tom," and his friend the incomparable Elis Regina singing his "Aguas de Marco." I've played it a half-dozen times and can't get enough of seeing the joy they found in … [Read more...]

Eleven years after his death, the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim is as universal as that of Gershwin, Berlin and Porter. Yet, until the issue of the new boxed set The Prime of Antonio Carlos Jobim, the three albums in it were out of general circulation except for a brief reappearance shortly after he … [Read more...]

Julius La Rosa, naturally, has a considerable interest in lyrics and lyricists. He called my attention to these little verses by Yip Harburg, one of the greatest American lyricists (“Over the Rainbow,” “April in Paris,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” among 600 or so others). No matter how … [Read more...]

A few Rifftiders—if that’s the term (and it might as well be)—have asked about our mid-week visit to tulip country in the Skagit Valley of western Washington State. Briefly, then: The first day was warm and sunny. We walked around the charming waterfront town of La Conner, population 750, … [Read more...]

While I was away in the tulip fields, On An Overgrown Path posted a piece on the late Michel Petrucciani. It includes a link to a thirty-eight-minute video about the pianist. In it, Petrucciani talks about his aversion to applause, his fear of death, his love of the piano. It's an important film. … [Read more...]

The most recent concert at The Seasons was by a Russian group I went to hear out of curiosity. I knew that the members of Trio Voronezh were classically trained at the conservatory in Voronezh, a city near the Don river 250 miles south of Moscow. I knew that they played instruments I had never … [Read more...]

The new Doug's Picks in the right column include CDs by Roland Kirk and Herb Geller. Kirk's is a live recording made in Hamburg in 1972. Geller lived in Hamburg then, as he does now. In a coincidence that I don't possess enough imagination to have made up, Geller attended Kirk's concert. He read … [Read more...]

No blogging for a couple of days. I'm off the see the tulips. You are invited to browse the Rifftides archive. You'll find the archive gateway in the right-hand column. Just click and you can travel back in time...but only as far as June 15, 2005, our launch date. … [Read more...]

Observe, please, that in the right column we have brand new Doug's Picks. They are three CDs by saxophonists who could hardly be less alike, a DVD to replicate a great night out, and a book that may make you wish you could drop back into a special time in San Francisco. Of course, it could be argued … [Read more...]

The brilliant pianist Kenny Drew, Jr., has reached the boiling point over the condition of black popular music in the United States. Here are two excerpts from his current essay on the All About Jazz website: ...when I first started studying music I was told that music had to consist of three … [Read more...]

The great football player, singer, actor and activist Paul Robeson was born on this day in 1898. Like legions of other Americans, he made the mistake in the 1930s of thinking that Communism had the solution to problems of inequality in the United States. He went to the Soviet Union to investigate … [Read more...]