More than a hundred men who were commissioned Marine Corps second lieutenants together a long time ago are gathered at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia. We visited the Officer Candidate School on the banks of the Potomac where we spent twelve weeks convincing the Corps that we were good enough … [Read more...]

When the Four Freshmen were winning 1950s Down Beat polls as the top vocal group and their recordings were ubiquitous on radios and juke boxes, I was more impressed by their contemporaries, the Hi-Los. The Hi-Los’ mix of voices was richer and more varied, their arrangements more harmonically … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Martin Fritter writes, I've just discovered Benny Carter's alto playing, which seems of absolutely the highest caliber. Could you recommend some basic discs? With pleasure. This is the best assignment I’ve had in weeks. I envy anyone’s hearing Carter for the first time. He’s … [Read more...]

Jim Brown writes about a couple of points with which he takes issue in a recent Rifftides piece, Harmony And History. First, I take great pleasure in sitting in a Starbucks or other small restaurant and hearing QUALITY music in the background (or even the foreground). It appears that Starbucks did a … [Read more...]

I am working tonight in an airport hotel. Tomorrow morning, I shall clamber aboard an airplane and head for Quantico, Virginia, and a reunion with a bunch of guys who took their commissions away from the Marine Corps a long time ago. Most of us haven’t seen each other since. Someone told me that … [Read more...]

I made a one-day trip to the Centrum Port Townsend (Washington) jazz festival over the weekend for a book signing and to hear as much music as I could take in. Copies of Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond moved quite nicely, thank you. The music I heard was in the four-hour … [Read more...]

In Rifftides a month or so ago, you may have read, Jazz albums should have program notes. Listeners want and deserve information about the music. You can read the rest of that post by clicking here. I admit self-interest; I sometimes write album essays. Nonetheless, as a listener, I count on … [Read more...]

Fellow artsjournal.com blogger, indefatigable all-purpose arts critic and small-town New Yorker Terry Teachout is visiting home, down where Missouri meets Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky. He customarily refers to it as Small Town USA, but by giving us a link to the hometown paper, he's blown the … [Read more...]

It is unlikely that there will be a new posting today. The Rifftides staff is on deadline. But, you never know, we could finish early and file something. Watch this space. As always, we appreciate it when you tell people interested in jazz and other matters about our venture and direct them to … [Read more...]

I am adding the writer and musician John Robert Brown’s website to the Other Places list in the right-hand column, and not just because he wrote this: Occasionally a publication changes one’s thinking. Take Five is such a book. I am old enough to have attended several of Desmond’s concerts … [Read more...]

Rifftides is not a way station for announcements, but if something comes up that I think you'd want to know about, well, of course. This is from trumpeter Marvin Stamm. If you are of a mind - and awake - please tune tonight - July 26 - to JaiJai Jackson's new jazz radio show at … [Read more...]

In his newsletter, Blowing My Own Horn, the pianist Hal Galper (Cannonball Adderley, Phil Woods, his own trio) writes,"In truth, I'm a free player in bebopper's clothing." You might find my history of free playing illuminating. In my early Boston days (the 1960's) I had the good fortune to … [Read more...]

To your right, you will find a brand new batch of Doug's Picks. … [Read more...]

Regarding the Rifftides posting about the late Tom Talbert, and comments in later editions, Larry Kart writes from Chicago: I bought Bix Duke Fats when it came out (in the days when you could listen in your local record shop to things by people you'd never heard of before) and since have acquired … [Read more...]

A reader sent a message taking me to task for shameless hucksterism. Can a week go by without you plugging your book? I count 21 mentions since mid June. So many? I'll try to watch it. I won't tell you the subject of my interview with Megan Marlena of KKJZ, Los Angeles. I guess you'll just have to … [Read more...]

It is a challenge to create eleven songs on demand, which is why so many albums consisting entirely of originals are less than compelling. The success rate is high in A Sense Of Wonder, a compact disc of songs written by the veteran Australian tenor saxophonist Laurie Lewis and his lyricist wife … [Read more...]

If you would like to get in touch—I hope—use the e-mail address under Contact in the right-hand column. I try to answer communiques with all possible dispatch. In other words, if it take a few days, please be patient. The Rifftides staff would appreciate your recommending us to your friends and … [Read more...]

The CBS Radio Weekend News Roundup is running Correspondent Bill Vitka's report on Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. Based on Vitka's interview with the author, it is a brilliantly produced min-documentary about four minutes long. Wait 'til you hear what he did with … [Read more...]

DevraDoWrite went to guitarist Jim Hall’s concert last night at the 92nd Street Y in New York. She liked it. My reaction is favorably biased, of course, as Jim is my dad, but it was a great concert, really. I’m not going to review it — hopefully someone else will, but I will tell you that my … [Read more...]