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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Weekend Extra: Ellis Marsalis

In fifty years the New Orleans JazzFest has evolved from a three-day pure jazzimages event into a musical spectacular that also encompasses rock, folk, zydeco, gospel, and genres that may not yet have names. As a weeklong citywide gala, it is second only to Mardi Gras. Ellis Marsalis was there from the festival’s birth in 1968 and has matured into one of the city’s celebrated patriarchs—in more than one sense. He is the father of Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo and Jason, themselves celebrated musicians. Over the years Ellis has been featured on the festival, playing at the Unknown-2beginning for hundreds of listeners in the old Civic Auditorium and in recent years for thousands at the Fair Grounds.

During the 2014 JazzFest Marsalis pere had fun with “Sweet Georgia Brown.” He, son Jason on drums and Jason Stewart on bass played in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood at the record store called the Louisiana Music Factory. At an electric piano rather than his customary nine-foot concert grand, Mr. Marsalis worked his pointillist way into the piece to the amusement of his sidemen.

Ellis Marsalis will turn 82 in December, we hope with that swing and humor intact.

Ystad: The Wrapup

It was impossible to hear all of the music at the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival. I came as close as allowed by festival scheduling and the need for a minimal amount of sleep. Here are brief notes wrapping up this series of Rifftides reports on Ystad 2016.

Swiss harmonica player Grégoire Maret reached peaks of excitement whenG. Maret he
and drummer John Davis faced off in rhythmic flurries that amounted to mutual solos. They were particularly gripping in Maret’s “The Angel Gabriel.” The British singer Zara McFarlane vocalized a clever unison line with Maret in one piece, but in another the banal lyric of a song called “Diary of a Fool” took the edge off her effectiveness.

 

Mathias LandaeusThe courtyard of the Hos Morten Café was crowded for The Other Woman, a new group headed by Swedish pianist Mathias Landaeus. Landaeus’s solos streamed along highly personal harmonic lines. He is a pianist to take note of. Landaeus had solid rapport with bassist Johnny Åman and the impressive young drummer Cornelia Nilsson. In “I’ll Be Around,” the idiosyncratic vocalist Ellekari Sander interpreted the song with fragility that suited it.

 

In the Ystad Theatre, Avishai Cohen unleashed hisUnknown bass, his trio and his athleticism. His concert was an experience in unremitting energy. Nearly everything Cohen, pianist Omri Mor and drummer Daniel Dor played either directly reflected their Israeli heritage or had a broad Middle Eastern inclination. An exception was Thad Jones’s blues ballad “A Child Is Born.” In it, Cohen explored and expanded the harmonies to create a moving statement.

 

A concert by vocalist, composer and arranger Iris Bergcrantz drew on herimages recent album. As in the recording, her band included her trumpeter father, Anders Bergkrantz; her mother, pianist Anna Lena Laurin; and her sister Rebecca singing backup vocals. The music was experimental, imaginative and successful. A haunting approach to “Eleanor Rigby” found levels of meaning beyond The Beatles. Anders Bergcrantz’s trumpet solos matched the audacity of his daughter’s concept.

 

Unknown-2A young Dane, Kathrine Windfeld, has assembled a big band for which she writes and arranges with brilliance, humor and originality. In her piece called “Aircraft,” repetition of a six-note figure helped establish a Scandinavian ambience that was apparent throughout the band’s set. Her arrangement set up trombonist Göran Abelli for a riotous solo that brought him huge applause. Ms. Windfeld is bound to have an important future.

 

(Thanks to Markus Fägersten and his superb Ystand festival photo staff for supplying pictures.)

2016 Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival: Further Impressions

Petri, Fischer, LidbergNearly as old as jazz itself, Svend Asmussen celebrated his 100th birthday in February. The Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival honored him in a concert by two violinists, Bjarke Falgren and Gunnar Lidberg, who were inspired by the centenarian. Asmussen’s longtime guitar colleague Jacob Fischer was also a part of the band, along with bassist Mattias Petri and drummer Andreas Svendsen. Above, we see Petri and Fischer, with Lidberg in the background. The concert was in the ancient Per Helas Gard courtyard, which was packed with Asmussen admirers. To the surprise of the band, the festival staff and the audience, an unexpected listener arrived—Asmussen himself, with his wife Ellen. Press office director Itta Johnson captured them at Per Helsas Gard in this impromptu portrait.
Svend_Asmussen_ Ellen_Bick_Asmussen_1_YSJF_2016-08-05_foto_Itta_Johnson

Asmussen, who no longer plays, listened intently to his proteges.

A master of the art of duo playing, Dave Liebman toured and recorded extensively with pianist Richie Beirach in the 1980s and has combined in duets with a number of other musicians. His rich history also includes work on soprano and tenor saxes with Miles Davis, Elvin Jones and Chick Corea, among others. In 1973 he founded the group Lookout Farm with Beirach and guitarist John Abercrombie.

Liebman’s partner at the Ystad festival was the French pianist Jean-Marie Machado. They opened their recital at the KlosterkyrkanMachado, Liebman 1 with Machado’s “Little Dog Waltz,” a piece as spritely as its title suggests, and went on to several more Machado compositions and Liebman’s dramatic “Breath.” In that work, Liebman pushed air and partial notes through his horn as if struggling to get them out, before he settled into abstract lines. The Kosterkyrkan’s eccentric acoustics were as challenging as they had been to Joachim Kuhn and to the Heinz Sauer-Michael Wollny duo earlier in the week. Like them, Liebman and Machado adjusted to the sound delay, even took advantage of it. In another piece, whose title I heard as “Blue Spice,” Liebman improvised alone for more than a minute before Machado entered behind him streaming notes like rippling waters. Both indulged in aggressive passages with blues leanings. In the traditional Portuguese Fado “So a Noithina Saudade,” Liebman enhanced the Latin feeling with popping sounds that he generated with his mouthpiece. Machado’s and Liebman’s encore in this multifaceted set was Maurice Ravel’s short song “Le Reveil de La Mariee,” furbished and expanded through their imaginations in ways that the impressionist Ravel might well have approved.

Jan L. String Q 1In addition to introducing every festival event, hosting a public breakfast discussion with the Swedish jazz magazine Orksterjournalen’s Magnus Nygren, sitting in with tenor saxophonist Bernt Rosengren and being generally omnipresent, artistic director Jan Lundgren played two major concerts. He, bassist Mattias Svensson and the Bonfiglioli Weber String Quartet repeated last year’s Ystad tribute to the influential Swedish pianist Jan Johansson (1931-1968). That version is now out on CD. TheyJan L. SQ 2 concentrated on music from Johansson’s popular and musically satisfying albums of Swedish and Russian music and, for good measure, threw in two Hungarian pieces from another of his albums. Lundgren’s and Svensson’s integration with the strings was once again a demonstration that in the right hands the jazz and classical idioms can not only blend but also enhance one another. The demonstration included improvisations by members of the string quartet, until a few years ago something that classical musicians either were incapable of or kept secret.

Lundgren,Galliano, Fresu

Lundgren also reunited with flugelhornist Paolo Fresu and accordionist Richard Galliano in the trio they call Mare Nostrum, to play music featured on their second CD, and some from their first. Highlights were Lundgren’s “Giselle” and “The Seagull” and Galliano’s “Chat Pitre.” They closed with Lundgren’s “Loveland,” which, he told the audience, “means Ystad.”

Galliano standing O.

The evening before, Galliano received two standing ovations for his solo accordion concert at the beautiful Santa Maria church in the center of Ystad.

Ystad: Joe Lovano, The Bohuslän Big Band & Others

As the Rifftides staff flies home, digital magic allows us to continue reporting on highlights of the 2016 Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival.

In the first of two Ystad appearances accompanying soloists, Sweden’s formidable Bohuslän Big Band backed singer LaGaylia Frazier. The Bohusläns opened the concert with “St. Louis Blues” in an arrangement that had touchesJ. Rolandsson reminiscent of Thad Jones and incorporated a reference to Fletcher Henderson’s “King Porter Stomp.” It had a peak moment in a Joakim Rolandsson alto saxophone solo that emulated Charlie Parker and Phil Woods without imitating or directly quoting them. Every time I hear him, Rolandsson (pictured) is increasingly impressive.

Ms. Frazier, an American who has lived in Sweden for 15 years, is a woman of a certain age who has the energy and demeanor of a hyperactive teenager. Singing all-out all of the time, she poured her dynamism into a variety of songs that ranged from the Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends” through Lerner and Loewe’s (sp) “On The Street Where You Live,” Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night In Tunisia” and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “One Note Samba.” Lagaylia 2Rapping between songs, she described herself as a soul singer, but in “The Shadow Of Your Smile,” she included the verse and interpreted the lyric with sensitivity that had little to typecast her in any genre; it was simply good singing. Her hand jive and her dancing to Stefan Wingefors’ piano interlude could have been distractions, but she integrated them into the performance. Her jumping around and yelling during Fats Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose” were distractions, ‘way over the top. Following the Waller and a piece by Stevie Wonder, Ms. Frazier chose the Swedish song “Cecilia Lind” as an encore, comfortably wrapping herself around its minor harmonies.

Later in the week, the Bohuslän Big Band collaborated with tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, as he explored pieces from his quarter of a century recording for the Blue Note label. During the set, Lovano received frequent endorsement by the Bohuslän reed section as their heads shook and jaws dropped when he negotiated feats of virtuosity transcending the most advanced saxophone method books. The arrangement of his composition “Bird’s Eye View” contained a saxophone soli passage that established the Bohuslän saxophonists’ own collective virtuosity.

A few other high points of the concert:

  • Pianist Wingefors’ switch to accordion for a romp with Lovano through “Streets Of Naples.”
  • A gorgeous reading of Charles Mingus’s ballad “Duke Ellington’s Sound Of Love.”
  • Lovano roaring through the demanding harmonic changes of fellow tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson’s “Inner Urge.”
  • A great (term used advisedly) solo on “A Portrait Of Jenny.”
  • Lovano indulging his Italian operatic passion in “Viva Caruso.”

The Ystad festival’s printed program describes the German pianist Joachim Kühn as “a world class musician whose playing style defies catergorization.” He lived up to that evaluation in his solo concert at the Klosterkyrkan. The stone walls and high ceiling of the 13th century church give it acoustic properties that produce a sound delay of as much as six seconds. That may be Joachim Kühna challenge for the Klosterkyrkan’s choir. It is certainly one for the player of a nine-foot Steinway concert grand, but Kühn was unfazed. Indeed, he thrived in the resonant atmosphere. A piece that Kühn said originated with the rock band The Doors had a dissonant left-hand pattern that seemed to come from all parts of the room. A theme from Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby swelled with the peculiar mystery and beauty of that film. Kühn did not identify some of the music he played—or when he did, his heavily accented English obscured his words—but Gil Evans’s “Blues For Pablo” needed only a perfunctory introduction. Kühn played the piece with a stormy, nearly Lisztian aspect that gave way to sunshine. For his encore, he chose Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady.” He embraced the melody and answered it with runs redolent of complex layers of chromatic harmonies that Kühn may have learned in listening to Art Tatum.

The Klosterkyrkan also hosted a pair of duet recitals involving pianists. The 83-year-old German tenor saxophonist Heinz Sauer teamed with Michael Wollny, a countryman less than half his age. The empathy they have developed in ten years of collaboration made their concert spellbinding.
Woolly, Sauer
Not tethered to standard form, harmonies or concepts of swing, the two played through a succession of pieces that riveted the audience’s attention. Playing or at rest, Sauer stood gazing above the heads of his listeners as if searching for something in the back of the church—or beyond. Wollny was a study in motion. He bobbed and weaved on the bench, his right foot fluttering the piano’s sustain pedal, his left jabbing the soft pedal. He reached into the instrument with his left had to pluck or swipe across strings as his right ranged through the upper octaves. Sauer often seemed to be meditating, hands to his forehead. They did not announce the names of tunes. Audience reaction indicated that no announcement was needed for Thelonious Monk’s “Evidence.” They flawlessly played the melody of Monk’s famous study in hesitancy and blew freely on the changes—and often also without regard to them. They played abstractions on “Everything Happens To Me,” working in a phrase from Billie Holiday’s “Don’t Explain” as the piece ended, and concluded with a hymn-like song appropriate to the surroundings. Listening to Sauer and Wollny is like overhearing an intimate conversation.

Next time: Another Klosterkyrkan duo, and more, from Ystad 2016.

Pete Fountain

Pete-Fountain-1960-billboard-1548As I prepared to leave Ystad, I learned that clarinetist Pete Fountain died on Saturday in New Orleans. By way of his recordings and television exposure, he became an unofficial and effective cultural spokesman for his beloved hometown and was happy to return there following his years in the 1950s with Lawrence Welk’s TV show. Despite the renown it brought Fountain, the Welk relationship was not a musical marriage made in heaven. He was happier in his Bourbon Street club than he was soloing in front of the Welk band.

From the beginning of my tours of duty in New Orleans in the 1960s and again in the late 70s, Pete made me feel welcome. He was a congenial and entertaining guy to hang out with. I used to try to persuade him to move out of his traditional-music comfort zone and make a quartet record with, say, Tommy Flanagan, Ron Carter and Billy Hart. He had the musical adaptability and depth to do that, but he felt that New York players in the modern jazz idiom wouldn’t accept him. He would have surprised them and, I imagine, himself. I wish it had happened.

I’ll miss Pete. For an obituary that covers his career, see this article in The Los Angeles Times. Here he is as Johnny’s Carson’s guest on NBC’s Tonight Show.

Pete Fountain, RIP.

Ystad Report # 2

When bassist Avishai Cohen and his trio wrapped up their concert after midnight on Sunday, the 2016 edition of the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival became history. For this listener, the festival’s five days of music included opportunities to hear several artists in person for the first time. One of M. VerPlanck 2016 Ystadthem was Marlene VerPlanck, a veteran singer whose repertoire overflows with material from the A-list of songwriters and lyricists—among them Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Victor Young, Sammy Cahn, Arthur Schwartz, Peggy Lee, and Jimmy Van Heusen.

She was superb from her opener, Berlin’s “The Best Thing For You,” to “The Party Upstairs,” a new song whose lyric tells a subtle story of longing for love, with a clever use of the title as the punch line. The New York singer worked with a British trio headed by pianist John Pearce. Suited, necktied and dignified, they looked as if they might have just come from a meeting of a bank’s board of directors. They accompanied her beautifully. Not primarily a scat singer, Ms. VerPlanck nonetheless scatted her way into “Speak Low” paying canny attention to the song’s chords and generating irresistible swing. That swing characterized every up-tempo song she performed. She caressed two ballads, Billy Eckstine’s “I Want To Talk About You” and “The Lies Of Handsome Men.” The latter is in this 2013 album. Her encore was Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “It Might As Well Be Spring,” which had one of several tricky key changes in her concert. She executed them all seamlessly.

The Polish violinist Adam Baldych and his Norwegian rhythm section enraptured the audience in the recital hall of the Ystad Art Museum. At some points the band verged on free jazz, with a sense of time more implied than stated. Heads that nodded and feet that tapped testified that their rhythmic feelingAdam Baldych ran strong through the hall. That compelling aspect of their music was occasionally in contrast with harmonies as old as Renaissance madigrals. Drummer Per Oddvar Johansen enhanced the atmosphere of freedom when he reacted to Baldych’s adventuring with mallets on tom-toms and sharp pops with sticks on snare drum rims. On a piece whose title was not announced, as Baldych’s pizzicato interaction with Helge Llien’s piano was underway, a cell phone with remarkably similar sound qualities gave its call. Running in a crouch, head down, the phone’s owner removed its surprising but not entirely objectionable contribution. The Baldych quartet listened to one another intently and brought an adventurous spirit to the festival.

Further impressions of the festival will be coming—later today if possible; or if not, when the staff returns to Rifftides world headquarters. Please check in from time to time.

Ystad Festival

The Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival is in its fourth day. It is so jam-packed and tightly scheduled that this is my first opportunity to begin reporting on it. The early posts will be a series of observations rather than full reviews. As always at this festival, things get underway with the Swedish variation on a traditional New Orleans street parade—making its way through the streets of this charming medieval town on the Baltic Sea.

Ystad 2016 parade

The first evening, in the magnificent Ystad Theatre, three of Sweden’s best- known female jazz vocalists gave a concert accompanied by guitarist Ewan Svensson, bassist Mattias Svensson (no relation) and drummer Cornelia Nilsson. The singers, Vivian Buczek, Anna Pauline and Hannah Svensson (relation; she is Ewan’s daughter) performed in solo pieces, duets and trio numbers that imbued familiar standards and Swedish songs with rich harmonies and interwoven vocal lines. Ms. Pauline’s arrangements were notable for their harmonic subtlety.

3 Swedish singers

(L to R) Hanna Svensson, Vivian Buczek, Ewan Svensson, Anna Pauline

If there is a report on the concert that Bill Mays and I performed on Wednesday, it will have to come from elsewhere. Journalistic objectivity and (ahem) modesty will allow me to say only that the audience was kind to us, even to the extent of demanding an encore. Of course, that alone is no great distinction; Ystad audiences inevitably insist on encores. Bill played at the top of his game. As always, it was a pleasure to work with him.

To Sweden

Swedish flagAs I fly to Sweden this morning, I’ll be humming “Ack Värmeland du sköna,” the patriotic folk song Swedes love so much. It is, in effect, the country’s unofficial national anthem. Here it is, sung by the great Swedish tenor Jussi Björling in 1959.

When Stan Getz recorded the song in 1951 with pianist Bengt Hallberg and other Swedish musicians, it was retitled “Dear Old Stockholm.” Decades later another tenor saxophonist, Scott Hamilton, recorded it with pianist Jan Lundgren, bassist Jesper Lundgaard and drummer Kristian Leth.

Lundgren, the pianist you just heard, is the artistic director of the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival. Pianist Bill Mays and I are headed to Europe to be a part of it. For details, go here.

Following our performance, Bill and his wife Judy will spend a few days in Copenhagen. I’ll remain in Ystad and do some reporting on the festival. Please check in to Rifftides now and then for updates.

Compatible Quotes: Life In Music, Music In Life

Rachmaninoff 3

Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music!—Sergei Rachmaninoff

charlie_parker

They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.—Charlie Parker

Beethoven Statue

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.—Ludwig Van Beethoven

coltrane-1

My goal is to live the truly religious life and express it through my music. If you can live it, there’s no problem about the music, because it’s part of the whole thing.—John Coltrane

Recent Listening In Brief: Zeitlin On Shorter

Denny Zeitlin, Solo Piano: Early Wayne (Sunnyside)

UnknownOver the years, Zeitlin has made clear his affinity for Wayne Shorter’s compositions. In previous Sunnyside albums he explored the harmonic depths and structural challenges of “Deluge” and “Footprints,” and in a MaxJazz CD more than a decade ago, the composer’s seminal “E.S.P”. On Early Wayne, Zeitlin expands his appreciation of Shorter. He revisits “E.S.P.”—including an attention-getting passage of neo-stride piano—and plays nine other Shorter pieces. He finds freshness in music that already has an aura of modernity despite Shorter’s having written most of it decades ago. Zeitlin unleashes his imagination and formidable technique in interpretations of “Speak No Evil,” “Nefertiti,” “Infant Eyes,” “Teru,” “Toy Tune,” “Paraphernalia,” “Miyako,” “Ju Ju” and “Ana Maria,” Shorter’s moving tribute to his wife, who died in a 1996 plane crash. They are all first and only takes, performed before an audience at the Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland, California. The piano sound, recorded by Vadim Canby, complements the personal qualities of Zeitlin’s performance and Shorter’s compositions. This is an important addition to Zeitlin’s discography, and to the growing list of recordings honoring Shorter, who turns 83 next month.

Claude Williamson 1926-2016

Claude Williamson, a piano mainstay of jazz in California for seven decades, died on July 16 in Los Angeles. He had been in decline since he fell in his home in 2015 and broke a hip.
Claude WilliamsonAfter Williamson moved from Boston to L.A. in 1947, he played with Charlie Barnet’s band for two years and was the featured soloist on the widely popular recording “Claude Reigns.” Barnet named the piece after him. Williamson’s harmonic sophistication and responsive timing made him an ideal accompanist for instrumental soloists and singers. After serving for two years as June Christy’s accompanist, In 1953 Williamson joined The Lighthouse All Stars, a quintessential band in what came to be called West Coast Jazz. Later, he co-led a quartet with saxophonist and flutist Bud Shank and worked with Red Norvo, Frank Rosolino, Barney Kessel, Art Pepper and other central figures in Southern California jazz. In a New York visit, he also recorded with two hardcore east coasters, bassist Sam Jones and drummer Roy Haynes.

Initially inspired by Teddy Wilson, the young Williamson came under Bud Powell’s spell and absorbed the bop pioneer’s example into his own style. From his 1995 album Hallucinations, here is Williamson with bassist Dave Carpenter and drummer Paul Kreibich in Powell’s “Bud’s Blues.”

A live recording from The Jazz Bakery, also with Carpenter and Kreibich, catches Williamson in fine latter-day form in a mix of Powell compositions and songbook standards. See this Los Angeles Times obituary for an extensive account of Williamson’s career.

Claude Williamson, RIP

Monday Recommendation: DeJohnette, Coltrane, Garrison

Jack DeJohnette, Ravi Coltrane, Matthew Garrison, In Movement (ECM)

91s5qawjNeL._SX522_Drummer DeJohnette leads John Coltrane’s saxophonist son Ravi and Jimmy Garrison’s bassist son Matthew in an album that has majesty, reflection, calm and flashes of fire. The senior Coltrane and the senior Garrison were inspirations to DeJohnette’s generation. In a note, he expresses fatherly feelings for the sons, to whom he was close as they were growing up. The younger Coltrane gives his father’s “Alabama” a somber tenor sax reading enhanced by DeJohnette’s hushed cymbals commentary. On soprano he make an impressionist exploration of “Blue in Green,” whose original Miles Davis recording featured his father. Garrison’s subtle use of electronics is effective. DeJohnette plays piano on “Soulful Ballad.” Throughout, whether conversational in Earth, Wind and Fire’s “Serpentine Fire” or explosive in tribute to fellow drummer Rashied Ali, DeJohnette reminds anyone who may have forgotten that he is a drummer of infinite invention and flexibility.

Speaking of Bill Mays…

After posting (see the previous exhibit) last night’s piece about Bill Mays and our impending visit to Sweden, it occurred to me that I failed to include an example of Mr. imagesMays’ prowess as a solo pianist. His gift has been on display since he came to prominence in California in the early 1960s. Bill was one of the pianists featured in the lamented Concord Records Maybeck solo piano collection. Why Concord let so valuable a series go out of print is fodder for a congressional investigation. Fortunately, at least one example of Bill’s contribution survives on the internet.

Bill’s Maybeck album hasn’t entirely disappeared. It is available at this website.

Ystad Beckons Again

2016 Ystad #2Bill Mays and I are looking forward to being a part of the 2016 Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival. We have done our concert “A History of Jazz Piano” twice in The United States and are delighted that Jan Lundgren, the festival’s artistic director, invited us to Ystad to present it for the first time in Europe. Bill will play music composed by 27 jazz pianists in a stylistic range from Jelly Roll Morton to Cecil Taylor. My role is to talk a bit about each of the pianists. We will be at the venerable Ystad Theatre the afternoon of August 3. In the photograph, Bill and I pose with our instruments following a 2015 presentation.

Mays, Ramsey, Seasons 101015

In its seven years, the Ystad festival in the eleventh century town on the Baltic coast has become one of Europe’s best-known summer jazz events. Artists performing over its five days will include European and international stars, among them this year’s guest of honor, accordionist Richard Galliano. Host Lundgren (pictured) and bassist Mattias Svensson will give a concert with theJan Lundgren facing left Bonfiglioli Weber String Quartet. From the United States there will be saxophonists Joe Lovano and Dave Liebman, bassist Avishai Cohen, pianist Bob James and vocalist Marlene Ver Planck. Trumpeter Hugh Masakela will come from South Africa, guitarist Martin Taylor from Scotland, trumpeter Paolo Fresu from Italy. For full details of the schedule, see the festival’s website.

I have reported on four previous Ystad Jazz Festivals. Being there on stage will be a new experience for me, and it will be Bill’s Ystad debut. If you are going to be at the festival, please seek us out and say hello. Bill and I will enjoy meeting you.

The Clouds Part. We’re Back

Many thanks to artsjournal.com commander-in-chief Doug McLennan (pictured) for posting the previous item while Rifftides was in a digital shambles that rendered us incommunicado. The photo Doug used to accompany the announcement symbolized the chaos. As the problem got worse over a couple ofDoug McLennan weeks and we finally lost all contact, I spoke with countless Charter Communications technicians. Toward the end, we had visits from two—Jake, yesterday and Zach, today. Collaborating with an electronics wizard from Charter headquarters in St. Louis, Zach now has us back on the internet, and with one phone line in operation. There is more to be done, but we can post again, and those guys are the new heroes of the Rifftides staff.

But, post what? The annoyance of the breakdown was a preoccupation that consumed hour after hour, day after day. Nothing is ready. So I’m taking a logical way out and showing you a pretty picture from a recent pre-disaster bicycle expedition through the southern hills of the Yakima Valley. Let’s follow it with an appropriate piece of music.
Cloudy
From a 1960 Coleman Hawkins session, here is the man who adapted the tenor saxophone to jazz. Hawkins always encouraged adventurous musicians from younger generations, including Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie early in the bebop era. Here, he chose Thad Jones, trumpet; Eddie Costa, piano; George Duvivier, bass; and Osie Johnson, drums. The piece is “Cloudy.”

The sessions that included “Cloudy” were on two LPs of the Crown label, long defunct. They have been reissued on one CD.

Down, Busted, Out-Of-Order, Dead In The Water…

280931618_7692459a07_o

Image: Flickr user SB

Our fearless blogger Doug is currently living in a universe that offers no internet or phone connection. None, nada. While the good technicians from the cable company labor tirelessly to resolve the problem, blog updates are suspended. Doug will be back as soon as the tech gods deign to make it so.

Monday Recommendation: Peggy Stern

Peggy Stern, Z Octet (Estrella Productions)

P. Stern Z OctetIt has been 16 years since Peggy Stern last applied her piano, composing and arranging talents to a mid-sized ensemble. Z Octet was worth waiting for. The sonic textures, harmonic subtleties, rhythmic variety and instrumentation draw upon classical chamber music in several pieces, including “Anomie” and “Zinfandel.” In “The Elephant’s Tango” and “Jury Duty,” Latin cadences create pulsing undercurrents. Stern’s writing weaves piano, clarinet, cello, trombone, flute, bass and drums into rich and often surprising textures. Vocals by her and Suzi Stern (no relation) enrich three tracks. In the solo piano piece “Time @ Time/Hymn,” Stern experiments her way into the chords, but not the melody, of “Time After Time.” “Whenever Sunrise” also borders on free jazz. The CD ends with an unlisted bonus track that makes enchanting use of cello, trombone and flute. The whole album is a bonus.

Other Matters: Demagoguery

Poodie 169 X 260With the Republican nominating convention in the US presidential race underway, a passage in the novel Poodie James comes to mind. The mayor, Torgerson, is trying to drive Poodie, the title character, out of town, claiming that he’s connected with a civic threat from hobos who camp along the railroad tracks. Poodie and one of the hobos are heroes because they recently rescued the engineer from the locomotive of a burning freight train. The publisher of the local newspaper, Winifred Stone, is discussing the situation with her editor and thinking of a recent meeting with an acquaintance of Poodie who may be a madam. The editor says, “What I don’t understand is what he hopes to gain by going after Poodie James.”

Winifred Stone stood at her office window in The Dispatch watching cars go in and out of the hotel garage on the corner. She thought of her conversation with Angie Karn.

“He seems to have friends all over town, all kinds,” she said. “The mayor thinks he can tar Poodie with the hobo brush. In a funny way, Poodie’s joining the hobo in the rescue might help Torgerson’s cause. It’s hard for me to imagine that people think much about hobos one way or the other around here, but it wouldn’t be the first time a politician was able to get the populace stirred up about an imaginary threat. Demagoguery works.”

Weekend Extra: Monk Plays and Dances

The Thelonious Monk Quartet delivers an invigorating 1963 performance in Japan. With Monk are tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, bassist Butch Warren and drummer Frankie Dunlop. The video has an episode of Monk’s occasional urge to incorporate a bit of impromptu terpsichore. The piece is “Evidence,” which Monk constructed on the harmonies of the standard song “Just You, Just Me.”

I hope that you’re having a good weekend.

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Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, … [MORE]

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  • Lucille Dolab on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Donna Birchard on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside