Steven Brower & Mercedes Ellington: Duke Ellington: An American Composer and Icon (Rizzoli). 224 pages. $35.48
The scores of photos, illustrations and reproductions of documents make this book a valuable supplement to the growing stack of Ellington biographies: Bennett’s watercolor painting of Ellington, the 10-piece 1920s band looking bemusedly at the camera, Ellington peering over the feathered headdresses of Cotton Club chorus girls, President Eisenhower’s note of appreciation, Duke playing a piano duet with actor Jimmy Stewart. Some material is seen for the first time. In the essays, Mercedes Ellington’s remembrance of her relationship with her grandfather illuminates the fragmented nature of his personal life. Co-author Brower contributes an invaluable 16-page timeline that traces the high points of Ellington’s life and career. Quincy Jones, Tony Bennett, Dan Morgenstern, Jon Batiste and Dave Brubeck discuss what Ellington means to them. Lack of IDs for many photos is a flaw that should be fixed before the next print run.
It’s April First. We have no Rifftides April Fool jokes, tricks, cartoons or gag shots. We have Billie Holiday. This is a 1937 recording with Buck Clayton, trumpet; Buster Bailey, clarinet; Lester Young, tenor saxophone; Teddy Wilson, piano; Freddie Green, guitar; Walter Page, bass; and Jo Jones, drums. Ms. Holiday sings about the saddest kind of fooling.
Beginning in 2012, the Detroit Jazz Festival has teamed players of varied backgrounds in all-star bands. At the 2015 festival, thorough preparation resulted not in a typical festival jam session, but a program of new music by participants who played with zeal and combined into a genuine unit. The sophisticated vibraharpist Gary Burton and the smooth-jazz tenor saxophonist Kirk Whalum may seem unlikely colleagues, but this album shows that combining them with hard-core, hard-bop members of younger jazz generations was a fine idea. Trumpeter Freddie Hendrix and pianist Christian Sands inject youthful surges of adrenalin that the veteran drummer Carl Allen and bassist Christian McBride match. In an impressive example of her mature style, soprano saxophonist Tia Fuller’s solo on her composition “Decisive Steps†stirs the festival audience to full-cry response. Hendrix nearly matches her passion, and Allen explodes with drum power on the out-chorus. 
No vacation can deflect the march of time. I am sad to learn of the death yesterday at 84 of the trombonist, cellist, composer and music educator David Baker. He is pictured here, on the right, with Dizzy Gillespie. Baker founded Indiana University’s Jazz Studies program and taught at IU for decades. Dozens of his students went on to distinguished jazz careers. He was a trombonist with the Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson and Quincy Jones bands and then with George Russell’s quintet. Baker had to give up the instrument after his jaw was injured in a car crash. Eventually, he switched to cello but achieved his greatest renown and acclaim as a teacher and theorist. His instruction books include the influential 
I’m still on vacation, but I took time to check out Steve Cerra’s Jazz Profiles blog. Today, Steve republishes Gene Lees’ 2005 JazzLetter piece on the late alto saxophonist Herb Geller. It includes Geller’s reminiscences about the young Stan Getz, one of his early mentors, and about his lifelong admiration for Benny Carter. To read it, 
You may recall that a couple of weeks ago the Rifftides Monday Recommendation was an album of recently discovered recordings by the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. This evening, the PBS News Hour closed with correspondent Jeffrey Brown’s report on the continuing story of the band and the venerable New York City club where it was born. Anchor Judy Woodruff introduces the story following a message from a News Hour funder that supports independent non-commercial television news—an effort the Rifftides staff wholeheartedly endorses.
Continuing this week’s string of birthday observances that began with Quincy Jones and Charles Lloyd, we turn to Bill Frisell. The guitarist was born on this date in 1951. Frisell’s stylistic versatility allows him to operate with ease and authenticity in genres from folk to free jazz. One might not expect Frisell and the pianist Chick Corea to be natural collaborators, and in the first moments of their duet on “It Could Happen To You,†they themselves may not be convinced. But two superb improvisers work it out nicely.
Whether or not the river runs green where you live, this is the special day when the whole world is Irish. We bring you two versions of what may well be the most loved of all Irish songs. The first is a concert performance by Renee Flemming, the second a piano solo by Bill Evans from his 
Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
    
coincidentally with his recent Portland Jazz Festival appearance, Lloyd released a new album, 
Quincy Jones turns 83 today. His story has had many chapters since his early days in Seattle and his apprenticeship in Lionel Hampton’s trumpet section. Jones went on to lead an important big band, score motion pictures, become one of the most successful producers in pop music and be named an NEA Jazz Master. As I wrote a few years ago in reviewing a box set of 
Ernestine Anderson died on Thursday at the age of 87 at a retirement home in Seattle. The singer’s career of more than six decades began in that city when she was a teenager. She went on to be featured with the big bands of Johnny Otis and Lionel Hampton, record the classic album Hot Cargo and receive Grammy nominations and rave reviews for recordings she made after a comeback in the 1970s. For an extensive account of Ms. Anderson’s life, see Paul deBarros’s article in 
For your weekend listening pleasure, let’s follow up on the previous post’s review of organist Larry Young’s album of recently discovered Paris recordings. Here is “Paris Eyes†(a coincidental title) from Young’s Blue Note album 
guitar; Bill Leslie, tenor saxophone; and Jimmie Smith, drums. Young shows what he could do with—or for—a Great American Songbook classic. This was also recorded by Van Gelder (pictured).
Larry Young took the organ even further than Patterson beyond the conventions that Smith established for the instrument. Attentive to changes in music inspired by John Coltrane, Young absorbed harmonic practices of Coltrane’s pianist McCoy Tyner and applied them to the organ, using intervals of fourths and other Tyner chordal devices. Those dovetailed with what he learned in Newark as a piano student of Olga Von Till, who had studied in Budapest with Béla Bartók and Ernő Dohnányi, giants of twentieth century classical music. Young combined harmonic sophistication, highly developed keyboard technique and smoothness of touch with the joy of headlong swing.
together with trumpeter Woody Shaw and drummer Billy Brooks, all Newarkians in their early twenties reunited in Paris. Other tracks in the two-CD set combine the quintet with French musicians organized by pianist Jack DevÃal. Those octet performances include two long blues tracks, “La valse grise†and “Discothèque†that disclose how accomplished Young, Shaw and Davis were at this early stage of their careers. They also find the French tenor saxophonist Jean-Claude Fohrenbach in impressive form.
It’s not that Laurence Hobgood was buried during his 18 years as Kurt Elling’s musical director. Indeed, he was one of the most admired supporting pianists in modern music. But last year—evidently with Elling’s encouragement—Hobgood parted ways with the singer and launched his solo career. This album showcases the extent of his mastery. With bassist John Patitucci and drummer Kendrick Scott, Hobgood plays original compositions that include tributes to Bill Evans and Charlie Haden. He works a transformation in 7/4 time of Nat Cole’s “Straighten Up and Fly
Rightâ€, takes Stevie Wonder’s leisurely “If It’s Magic†at a brisk clip and makes the standard “Give Me the Simple Life†a three-way conversation with Patitucci and Scott. Hobgood dedicates the album to his own late father and to musical father figures Evans and Oscar Peterson.