The tenor saxophonist and composer Alex Coke wrote me from his home in Austin, Texas, asking if I would listen to his new CD. After going to his website, I replied, with misgivings, that if he sent the album, I would. Music advertised as being on a social mission is almost certain to end up on the … [Read more...]

Early tomorrow, I'm headed back to Seattle and the Earshot Jazz Festival to cover the Bill Charlap Trio for Jazz Times. I'll be traveling light; that is, without the laptop, so the probability of new Rifftides posts is small for the next couple of days. Unlike some foresightful bloggers, this one … [Read more...]

If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 22, it would have changed the history of music... and of aviation—Tom Stoppard … [Read more...]

Bob Brookmeyer periodically posts Currents, his reflections—not all of them ascerbic—on music, life, love, war and other matters. The next one is often a long time coming. The last one was on July 5, shortly after a club gig in New York. The Jazz Standard is a very fine place and the people who … [Read more...]

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness—Mahatma Ghandi … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Doug Freeman reports from Los Angeles that he has finished reading Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. Perhaps more than any biography I've read, yours leaves me wanting to know this man, to hang with him as you were fortunate enough to do. Mr. Freeman has a … [Read more...]

My problem is that I appeal to everyone that can do me absolutely no good—Rodney Dangerfield They say you should be nice to everyone on your way up because you might need them on your way down. I haven’t seen anyone I know on the way down—Jack Sheldon … [Read more...]

The posting about Willis Conover brought the following message from one of his Voice of America colleagues, John Birchard. I came to VOA in 1993, hired as a news broadcaster on the late night shift. Because of my hours, I almost never saw Willis, except for once in a while when he would be out on … [Read more...]

The White House did once treat Conover with respect. In 1969 it chose him to organize the musical portion of the 70th birthday party that President Nixon gave for Duke Ellington. Willis recruited the all-star band and produced and narrated the concert. I took a picture of him that afternoon at the … [Read more...]

Thanks so much for your piece about Willis Conover, and for all your other writing. I read your site regularly and am enlightened and informed every time. My one experience with Willis Conover is worth sharing if only to mirror your sentiments. Years ago, probably 30 or so, a old family friend who … [Read more...]

Bill Kirchner, a musician who is also an educator, writer, editor and producer, knew Willis Conover. Like at least ninety-nine percent of jazz musicians, he is a fan of Johnny Mandel, one of whose arrangements recorded by Conover’s big band more than fifty years ago is responsible for setting off … [Read more...]

To the complaint, "There are no people in these photographs," I respond, "There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer." —Ansel Adams Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there —Miles Davis … [Read more...]

Rifftides Reader John Thomas noticed the recent postings about Johnny Mandel and kindly loaned me a CDR copy of a rare vinyl album containing Mandel’s arrangement of “The Song Is You.” The 1953 Brunswick LP has been out of print for at least forty years and reissued on CD only in a limited … [Read more...]

I intended to mention in the Rifftides ad hoc survey of recent trio CDs some by the Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi. Pieranunzi is another pianist who has retained the Bill Evans ethos and used it as the foundation for a style of his own. As if to remind me, today the mailbox disgorged the … [Read more...]

A Rifftides reader writes: Keep up the great work on your site. It's a beacon of taste and erudition in the sometimes dispiriting world of jazz criticism. All right. Another day or so. … [Read more...]

Jaki Byard, Sunshine of My Soul (Prestige Original Jazz Classics). Byard, piano; David Izenson, bass; Elvin Jones, drums. I wrote in a blurb for the 2001 reissue of this album, “Byard was one of the most disciplined and one of the least inhibited of all jazz improvisers.” With Ornette … [Read more...]

Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them, well, I have others—Groucho Marx … [Read more...]

As usual, there are piles of incoming compact discs in my office and the music room. Among those that I will want to hear more than once are several by the piano-bass-drums combination that for at least sixty-five years has been at the core of jazz. The piano trio, of course, functions as the rhythm … [Read more...]

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt. —Sir Francis Bacon … [Read more...]