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Pianist Spike Wilner, the proprietor of Smalls and Mezzrow’s in New York’s Greenwich Village, sends occasional email newsletters about who is playing at his clubs. Now and then he includes sidebar items about things that interest him. It’s a list that jazz listeners may enjoy being on for the asides as much as for the schedules. Here’s an entry from a recent issue:

Been reading further from Eddie Condon’s (and Hank O’Neal’s) Scrapbook of Jazz—wonderful anecdotes. But the best thing is the forward, which was written by none other than John Steinbeck, who it turns out was a good friend of Condon’s. They had a mutual admiration for each other’s work. Condon even tried his hand at some prose “in the style of Steinbeck”. I wanted to quote something from Steinbeck’s intro which made me smile:



I have known musicians Рnot as you have Рbut a little. They are the most confused, childish, vicious, vain people I know. On the other hand they are the most generous. Their wills are like those of children. Their cruelties have no more sadistic background than has a small boy when he pulls the wings off flies. Their domestic relations are a mixmaster type. Business confuses them, and so does politics. They almost seem in themselves to live outside ordinary law and common ethics. Now, the reason I am saying all of this is that it is also true that I know of no group which has such direction in work. They aim at excellence and apparently nothing else. They are hard to buy and if bought they either backslide into honesty or lose the respect of their peers. And this is a loss that terrifies them. In any other field of American life, great rewards can be used to cover a loss of honesty, but not with jazz players Рa slip is known and recognized instantly.Ӊ۬

What astute observation from one of America’s greatest writers! I am thankful! – Spike

If that puts you in the mood for Steinbeck, maybe it’s time to reread Of Mice and Men or Tortilla Flat. If it puts you in the mood for Condon, click on the little white arrow in the frame below.


Condon, guitar; Will Bill Davison, cornet; Edmond Hall, clarinet; Cutty Cutshall, trombone; Gene Schroeder, piano; Cliff Leeman, drums; and Bob Casey, bass. 1952.

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Billy Strayhorn was born 99 years ago today. He wrote the music and the wan, world-weary lyric of “Lush Life” when he was a sixteen-year-old in his native Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Having arranged to meet Duke Ellington backstage at a concert when he was in his early twenties, he demonstrated the song and others he had written. Impressed, Ellington said that he would send for Strayhorn. Before long, he called the young man to New York and launched a collaborative partnership that further enriched Ellington’s music. Among other contributions, Strayhorn wrote the band’s theme, “Take The ‘A’ Train.”

He stayed mostly behind the scenes, but Strayhorn was an indispensable part of the Ellington band until his death in 1967. His compositions and arrangements were woven into the band’s personality to such a degree that it is not always possible to distinguish between his contributions and Ellington’s. That seems to have been how they both wanted it.

Strayhorn never arranged “Lush Life” for Ellington, and it never entered the band’s repertoire. Now and then, however, Ellington asked his friend and protégé to play it, as he did at a 1948 Carnegie Hall concert. There is a recording of that occasion. Strayhorn accompanied the band’s vocalist, Kay Davis. Introducing “Lush Life,” Ellington calls it a new tune, even though he surely knew that Strayhorn wrote it when he was in high school.

Other Ellington Carnegie Hall concerts are widely available on CD. The one from 1948 is rare but still available.

Now, here’s Strayhorn, a skilled pianist, called on stage by Ellington to play one of the most famous of all big band themes.

Shortly after Strayhorn died, Ellington took his band into the studio to pay tribute in an album of Strayhorn compositions and arrangements. The pieces include “Lotus Blossom,” “Rain Check,” “Day-dream” and “My Little Brown Book.” “Blood Count,” written as Strayhorn was dying, features an impassioned Johnny Hodges solo that speaks of the sorrow Ellington and the band felt at the loss of their friend. The indispensable …And His Mother Called Him Bill is a highlight in Ellington’s massive body of recordings

Three cheers, five stars and a slap on the back for Sony. I was trapped interminably in the electronics company’s voice mail system. Sony made up for it when I finally got a robot voice that said,

Due to an unusually high volume of calls, all of our associates are busy with other customers. Your call will be answered in the order in which it was received.

The robot did not say, as nearly all voice mail robots do, “… in the order it was received.” A victory for clear English—a tiny one—but it helped keep my spirits up during the next interminable wait.

I know: picky, picky, picky. But good usage matters. Tell your children. And give them this book for Christmas.

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Into his waking hours Denny Zeitlin manages to work fly fishing, mountain biking, master-level wine connoisseurship, the practice of psychiatry and—let’s see, there was something else. Oh yes, he plays the piano. In his mid-seventies, Zeitlin shows no inclination to slow down in any of his pursuits, least of all at the keyboard.

Following a remarkable recording debut with the flutist Jeremy Steig in 1963, the pianist went on to record frequently with trios that have included some of the music’s most celebrated bassists and drummers. In the past few years, he has frequently also appeared unaccompanied on recordings and in person. His next solo date is scheduled for a week from this evening at the Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland, not far from his home in Marin County, California. In a note, Zeitlin commented on the hall’s unusual sound qualities.

The venue is unique: The Piedmont Piano Company has a large showroom, packed with all makes and styles of piano, breaking up the standing wave phenomenon that haunts many performance spaces. The resultant acoustics are great, and the choices of instrument for the performer are phenomenal.

In the meantime, or if your plans don’t include a stop in Oakland, here is Zeitlin unaccompanied at the 1983 Berlin Jazz Festival, playing his composition “Quiet Now.”

“Quiet Now” was adopted in the 1970s by piano icon Bill Evans, giving the musical aspect of Zeitlin’s career and, no doubt, his ego, a substantial boost. It remains one of the Zeitlin compositions most often recorded by others.

This is a national holiday in the United States, important ever since the newly arrived Pilgrims and the native Wampanoag gave thanks in 1621.

To Americans observing it, the Rifftides staff sends wishes for a happy Thanksgiving. To readers in the US and around the world: thank you for your interest, readership and comments, which are always welcome.

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…The mailman and the UPS and Fedex folks bring bills, the junk mail that metastasizes around holidays, and—if you’re in the reviewing game—recordings, lots of recordings.

This was the start of unpacking two weeks’ worth of packages containing dozens of CDs and a few audiophile LPs from record companies and artists hoping for reviews, mentions and votes in the polls that proliferate at the end of the year. There’s a lot of (I hope) rewarding listening to do. It is impossible to catch up, but fun to try.

It’s good to be home.

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Today is Paul Desmond’s 90th birthday. Years after Paul’s death, his guitar companion and good friend Jim Hall (1930-2013) said, “He would have been a great old man.” The last birthday Desmond celebrated, his fifty-second, fell on Thanksgiving, 1976. He spent it with Jim and his wife Jane at their daughter’s tiny apartment in New York City. He had taken a hiatus from his lung cancer therapy to play the Monterey Jazz Festival and an engagement at Barnaby Conrad’s El Matador in San Francisco. From Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond, this is an account of that Thanksgiving day. The photographs are courtesy of his hostess, Devra Hall, who had known Paul since she was a little girl.

Back in New York, Desmond resumed his chemotherapy treatments and spent time with friends. Jim and Jane Hall’s daughter, Devra, had been graduated from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusets and was living on 89th Street between West End and Riverside Drive. Her mother announced to her that now that she had her own place, Devra would be hosting Thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving and Desmond’s 52nd birthday came on the same day, November 25, 1976.

“I told her, ‘Okay, but you have to bring Paul,'” Devra said. “I knew what Mom would do, so I went to the market on Broadway and got this turkey and, mind you, my kitchen was the size of a small bathroom. To open the oven, you had to stand outside the kitchen door. This is New York, my first apartment and my first turkey, I’m growing up and very pleased with myself. I followed all the instructions, turned on the oven and put it in. We all knew Paul was sick. I think he had just finished a chemo treatment, but he said he felt up to it, and he and my folks came to this tiny one-room apartment. There was no bed, just a pullout couch; it was all folded up. Paul was sitting in the little brown canvas sling chair. There was an upright piano that my dad had bought me for my birthday, a chest of drawers and a drop leaf table at which we had dinner. That was it for furniture. Well, they’re sitting there. My mother says, ‘So, how’s the bird? I say, ‘Well, go check it out.’ She opens the oven–I couldn’t go in there with her; there was no room–and she closes the door and she’s laughing. You know, I’m mortified. I can’t imagine what’s wrong.

“Paul’s saying, ‘What’s wrong, didn’t she turn on the oven?’ Jim can’t decide whether I’m going to cry or what. It turns out that I had put the turkey in the oven upside down. Don’t the legs go on the bottom? I mean, isn’t that how the bird stands? We later determined that I was ahead of my time. Today, that’s the chef’s secret to keeping the meat moist. It turned out fine. It was a very quiet dinner. Paul was not feeling well, but he was clearly happy not to be home alone. He didn’t have to say a word around my folks. They talked a blue streak, usually, but he was just very comfortable. My fondest recollection is that I made him dinner on his last birthday.”

The senior Halls and Desmond went back to Jim and Jane’s apartment when they left Devra’s, and on the way stopped at the Village Vanguard. Thelonious Monk was performing there. Between sets, they all gathered in the Vanguard’s kitchen, the closest thing the club has to a Green Room.

“It was the most coherent conversation I ever had with Thelonious,” Hall said, “in the kitchen with Paul and me and Thelonious. I had a sort of nodding acquaintance with Monk, but he and Paul really connected. I’m not even sure what they talked about, just standing around in that kitchen, going through old memories and things. It was nice.”

During the life of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Desmond rarely recorded apart from Brubeck. Albums under his leadership on Fantasy, Warner Bros and RCA were exceptions. After Brubeck disbanded, Desmond recorded occasionally with other pianists. One of the most memorable such encounters accomplished something he had talked about, even joked about, for years; a recording with the Modern Jazz Quartet in concert.

Anticipating this 90th Desmond birthday, Rifftides reader Frank Roellinger sent a communiqué suggesting that in Paul’s solo on “You Go to My Head” with the MJQ he may have inserted a tribute to his friend and Town Hall band mate John Lewis, the quartet’s pianist.

From about 03:58 to the end of his solo, it sounds as though Paul is paying homage to Lewis by playing in a style very similar to John’s— especially near the end at 04:36 where he plays that minor second interval in a rhythm exactly the way John would have done it. That’s what first tipped me off. It might be interesting so see whether any of your readers agree with this.

The track is from Paul Desmond & The Modern Jazz Quartet, recorded at Town Hall in New York City on Christmas night, 1971.

As for what it was like to know Desmond, I cannot improve on what the playwright Jack Richardson said at Paul’s memorial service on June 20, 1977:

I found him the best company of anyone I’d ever known in my life. I found him the most loyal friend I’ve ever had in my life. I found him the most artistic person I’d ever known in my life. His leaving will make this planet a smaller and darker place for everyone.

For The Sound Of A Dry Martini, Paul Conley’s classic National Public Radio profile of Desmond, go here and click on “Hear the Documentary.”

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Near the windup of our visit to southern California, we took a walk along the beach in Santa Barbara. Not far from our host’s house, we stood for a long time admiring the ocean and the sky’s patches of blue expanding and contracting as the weather tried to make up its mind. In the third year of a drought, people were hoping for rain. They got sprinkles. Those dots on the far horizon near the middle of the photograph are oil rigs.

Santa Barbara is a magnet for tourists and travelers. The streets and parks attract homeless people. Some of them extend their temporary residencies to weeks or months. The city seems hospitable to them or tolerant of them, at least. This man was lying on his side reading a book when we first saw him. Walking back, I saw that he had gone to sleep and waited a while in hopes that he was only snoozing. I’d like to have learned where he’d been on that loaded bicycle, pulling that loaded trailer, and where he was going. He slept on. We had a dinner appointment to keep. I’ve been thinking about him and imagining what his life must be like.

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The Rifftides staff’s vacation visit to California coincided with an appearance by Kristin Korb on her US tour. The bassist and singer appeared at a Santa Barbara Jazz Society concert at the downtown restaurant called Soho. Korb, pianist Magnus Hjorth and drummer Snorre Kirk were winding up a string of concerts that began in the state of Washington and took them south through Oregon and California. The tour ended tonight in San Diego. The Santa Barbara concert followed the outlines of Korb’s appearance at the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival covered here last summer. The trio was, if anything, more tightly unified than in its impressive work at Ystad. The swing and solidity of Korb’s bass playing in the Ray Brown tradition continues to deepen. She incorporated pieces from the trio’s newest album and added a few from earlier CDs, including her vocalese treatment of tenor saxophonist Stan Getz’s solo on his 1955 recording of “East of the Sun.”

Soon, the sidemen will be flying home to Copenhagen. Korb will be off to Canada to teach at workshops and seminars in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, before she, too, returns home to Denmark.

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This news is five days old, but perhaps I’m not the only one who has been on the road and out of touch. The young Chicago trumpeter Marquis Hill won the Thelonious Monk Institute’s big award. Charles Gans of the Associated Press included that fact as the final paragraph in his story about a retired tenor saxophonist and government official, seen above with pianist Herbie Hancock at the ceremony. For the full AP story, go here.

For a sample of Hill’s work with his Blacktet, see the video below. Hill, trumpet; Dustin Laurenzi, tenor saxophone; Justin Thomas, vibraphone; Joshua Ramos, bass; Makaya Mccraven-drums.

Nate Chinen’s New York Times report has more about Hill and the Monk Institute award ceremony in Los Angeles.

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I was saddened to learn on the road that Buddy Catlett died yesterday. I remember him looking as he does in this photograph made around the time we were both involved in Seattle’s vibrant jazz community in the early-to-mid 1950s. He left town to work with a variety of large and small bands. By the end of the decade Buddy had joined the big band his childhood friend Quincy Jones took to Europe that also included Seattleites Floyd Standifer and Patti Bown. For an obituary, read the Seattle Times article by Paul de Barros, the leading chronicler of Seattle’s rich jazz history.

Buddy solos on Thelonious Monk’s “Straight No Chaser” with a combo from the Jones band in 1959. His companions are Phil Woods, alto saxophone; Clark Terry, trumpet; Patti Bown, piano; Quentin Jackson, trombone; Sahib Shihab, flute; and Joe Harris, drums.

Jim Wilke of Jazz After Hours fame will make his Jazz Northwest broadcast on Sunday a tribute to Buddy. Here is Jim’s announcement.

Jazz Northwest will remember him with several unpublished recordings of the Local 493 Reunion Band on Sunday, November 16 at 2 PM Pacific on 88.5 KPLU and kplu.org. The group included veterans of the Black musicians union Local 493 in the years before it merged with the white musicians union Local 76.

The recordings of the Local 493 Reunion Band date from the 90s and include Buddy Catlett, Floyd Standifer, Jabbo Ward, Billy Wallace, and guests, Ed Lee, Freddie Greenwell, Brian Nova, Jack Perciful and others. Some have been broadcast once before, but none has been issued on commercial recordings.

Quincy Jones wrote: ‘RIP to my brother and bandmate Buddy Catlett, one of the greatest bass players to ever take the stage. From Charlie Taylor’s and Bumps Blackwell’s bands when we were starting out in Seattle to my Free and Easy tour of Europe, we traveled the world playing the music we love. A lot of notes, a lot of laughs, a lot of great memories. We will all miss you Buddy, but you will live on in our hearts.’

Jazz Northwest is recorded and produced by Jim Wilke exclusively for 88.5 KPLU and kplu.org. The program is also available as a podcast at kplu.org following the broadcast.

Buddy Catlett, RIP.

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On the way south, we spent a couple of nights in Fort Bragg on the northern California coast. In addition to admiring the bird pictured in the post below, we took time to visit with Mark Ruedrich and Doug Moody. They are the president and senior vice president of the North Coast Brewery, the biggest—and by far the hippest—employer in that Mendocino County town, population 7,200. Among his other achievements, Brewmaster Ruedrich developed a Belgian ale inspired by a pianist (pictured) known to Rifftides readers.

Ruedrich and Moody installed in the brewery’s restaurant and taproom a jazz club that presents performances by California musicians, many of them national figures. They also founded a record label whose income, in addition to some of the brewery’s, taproom’s and company store’s profits, are earmarked for support of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. Many of label’s artists, including trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, singer Gretchen Parlato and saxophonist Wayne Escoffery are alumni of the Monk Institute. Considering the brewery’s other philanthropic contributions in Mendocino, we got the impression of a vital force in the craft brewing field and in a small town that Doug Moody claims with a degree of seriousness hard to gauge, is “in the middle of nowhere.”

This page of the North Coast Brewery website contains a half-hour film that traces the history of Monk’s namesake ale. The mini-documentary, prominently featuring Thelonious’s son T.J. Monk, also outlines the history and processes of craft beer making in the United States. I always wondered what happens to those spent hops.

Cheers.

You never know who you’ll run into when you’re on vacation. This morning, this guy was on the balcony railing outside our room in Fort Bragg on Northern California’s Mendocino coast. He’s a Pacific Gull, I believe. He was good at looking hungry. We had nothing to contribute to his breakfast.

Sorry about the headline. While I waited in line at the supermarket, I was infected by tabloid newspapers.

Jenner didn’t play trumpet or sing. Baker is not known for decathlon victories. What he is famous for is captured in a video made in Laren, The Netherlands, in 1975, 13 years before his death. He was captured in concert with alto saxophonist Bob Mover, pianist Harold Danko, bassist Dave Shapiro and drummer Beaver Harris. The guest artist is soprano saxophonist and flutist Jacques Pelzer, with whom Baker had a close connection during his later years in Europe. Baker had recovered from the loss of several teeth after he was beaten in San Francisco in 1968, most likely over a drug deal. Plagued by his addiction, he could still produce moments of the lyricism that made him one of the best known musicians of his time. His playing on “I Waited For You” here is an example of his ability to caress and embellish a melody.

You may want to set aside time for this. The segment runs 40 minutes.

Chet Baker, 1929-1988.

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Not terribly sorry, actually. The Rifftides staff needs a vacation, so we’re taking one. There may be occasional blogging through the magic of digital delays, so please check in once in a while. There’s a Chet Baker piece coming up In a day or two, for instance. If anything of interest takes place or comes to mind along the way, we may overcome the objections of family members who point at the laptop and say, “You’re not taking that thing with you, are you?” We will occasionally examine email messages. We have not determined a return date.

In other words, I’m going to try to make “off” mean “OFF.” In the meantime, please browse the archives by way of the “Search The Site” box (top right) or “Archives” (right column). I will be thinking of all of you whenever I get a chance. See you soon…more or less.

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The weather around here has been what meteorologists call, for lack of a more scientific term, variable. That means warm, cold, cloudy, sunny, rainy and—while all that is going on—fierce wind gusts blowing the beautiful fall leaves off the trees. Last evening, the cloudy and sunny elements combined to paint a sunset that lasted barely long for me to dash inside from the deck, grab a camera and get back in time to catch the final seconds of the show.

It was too windy for any mockingbird to be out. Besides, they’ve all headed south. But we’re in luck. We can hear Duke Ellington’s “Sunset And The Mockingbird.” Here are two versions, Ellington’s from The Queen’s Suite, and Tommy Flanagan’s from his album that took its title from the name of the piece.

Improvisations in 1959 were by Ellington on piano and Jimmy Hamilton on clarinet. Pianist Flanagan’s 1998 trio included bassist Peter Washington and drummer Lewis Nash.

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On Steve Cerra’s Jazz Profiles blog, today’s subject is Paul Desmond’s Complete RCA Victor Recordings featuring Jim Hall, a fine companion to your morning coffee. Steve put together one of his celebrated videos incorporating photographs and music, in this case Desmond’s recording of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” with strings, and pictures by Chuck Stewart, Ray Avery, William Claxton and Ted Williams. The written matter consists of essays by Paul and me. To visit Jazz Profiles click here.

Enjoy Steve’s work, then come back to Rifftides and browse the archive’s nine years of posts. You can do that by entering a term in the “Search The Site” box at the upper right or by picking a month and year under “Archives” in the right column.

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From 1960 to 1972 in Hollywood, drummer Shelly Manne operated Shelly’s Manne Hole, one of the great jazz clubs in the world. It was headquarters for his quintet known as Shelly Manne And His Men, which over the years included many of the era’s premier players, among them Charlie Mariano, Bill Holman, Richie Kamuca, Conte Candoli, Joe Gordon, Stu Williamson, Leroy Vinnegar, Russ Freeman, Victor Feldman and Monty Budwig.

Now and then, though, Manne brought in a few friends for short-term appearances at the club. One night in 1970, his all-star quartet du jour consisted of Manne, tenor saxophonist Bob Cooper, pianist Hampton Hawes and bassist Ray Brown. They played a blues in what seems to be A-flat (although I’m not sure I trust the pitch of the film sound track), and followed with “Stella By Starlight.” Then came ”Milestones,” which Manne kicked off at a tempo about as fast as it’s possible for musicians to play coherently. Brown gives Manne a grin that seems to say, “You devil,” but the four manage without difficulty.

Shelly was forced to close the Manne Hole because the music was causing problems for Wally Heider’s recording studio next door. He reopened for a time in L.A.’s Wilshire section, but the club lasted less than a year at the new location. Manne thrived until shortly before his death in 1984, always in demand, one of the most admired drummers and bandleaders in the history of the music.

Have a good weekend.