[contextly_auto_sidebar id="GG4cSaJMjbqOMHFSUMzsXv7wGebsuhvE"] Rifftides reader Ted Arenson writes in response to yesterday’s posting about bees and a piece of bee-oriented music: How about Hamp and the Ellingtonians great recording of "Buzzin 'Round with the Bee?" That’s a … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="TT4YMOkk9IbX4RX0PUQWYAhaS34jn2Pb"] This morning a man came to the door, introduced himself as Francisco and said he was cutting the neighbors' lawn. The neighbors were away. “Do you know about bees?” Francisco said. “Let me show you.” We walked over to a tree … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="dDyhSTr79gYGAKCxIhomZBkpUZsmrBzD"] Joe Wilder, admired for his trumpet tone, range, stylistic flexibility and for his elegance as a musician and person, is gone. Wilder died at the age of 92 last Friday in New York. Despite his modesty and disinclination to assert … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="eU8YgjHD3gXMIUOnpcZjatK14I2JyIm1"] The winter of 2013-2014 was relatively mild in the Pacific Northwest. Still, there was plenty of snow in the Cascades. It is melting and filling the rivers, not to overflowing, but with water high and fast enough to pull trees out of … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="l9zHFPSrBgX9qziE9L514OculJzaOSJV"] Jerome Kern (pictured) wrote his last song nearly 70 years ago, but the freshness of its melody, hipness of its harmonies, surprise of its extended form and charm of Oscar Hammerstein II’s lyric make it seem perpetually new. Jan … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="ZRikcL5pfPd5cAbbJIjdTbagy2S7nVBw"] It has been slightly more than two years since the Rifftides staff has alerted you the invaluable work of Mr. P.C. He is a counselor to musicians who takes to the web to address problems that are often so sensitive that his clients … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="qng7CdV8vke0quBV3QWspbWu8dRiDvzC"] Gwen Terry told me today that at 93 her husband continues “as a tribune of survival.” The trumpeter, singer and NEA Jazz Master continues to confront his mobility and vision problems at home under ‘round-the-clock care paid for … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Em0JeDIncJodW1DxUiGHLBlMATyV6vpN"] Smalls Jazz Club is in the eighth year of its most recent incarnation as a bastion of uncompromising jazz in New York City. A couple of blocks down 7th Avenue from the Village Vanguard, a couple up from The Garage, it is in a part of … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="NzFBw7aNlwmITnaAaFgyeyrK9awIWBpU"] All day, we had fierce winds, grey skies threatening rain—and then at sunset: An evening like ours might have made Jimmy Rushing feel a little better about things than when he recorded this with Count Basie in … [Read more...]

Rifftides was at ebb tide most of this week while I jumped in to help the Yakima Symphony Orchestra teach a couple of thousand children about music. The Chicago composer James Stephenson (pictured) was scheduled to be the narrator for his Compose Yourself, a 50-minute tour through instruments of the … [Read more...]

Today is the 115th anniversary of the birth of Duke Ellington, whose standing among the world’s great figures in music grows with each passing year. Miles Davis long ago summed up Ellington’s importance when he said, “At least one day out of the year all musicians should just put their … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="TF0RvtLdQicNQ4GO9OHklpGjtOx3qwkF"] Bassist Chuck Deardorf called my attention to a video from the early 1960s, when jazz on the west coast of the US was attracting attention around the world. Many big band sidemen settled in southern California in the 1950s, joining … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="OMJP0sOse81KrK6HI0qR6LKFshsKiM9t"] It has been a long time since we shared a video creation by the poet and broadcaster Lynn Darroch. One of his latest stories recalls Duke Ellington’s relationship with Oregon, beginning in a time when innovation, courage and … [Read more...]

[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Jkb76eMXmGCYV5pAHUHIBRPo8KWnU57E"] Herb Wong, an academic scientist who became prominent as a jazz critic, record company executive and festival producer, died this week. A PhD in Zoology, he was a native of northern California’s Bay Area. Wong continued to follow … [Read more...]

It was a full day, and the holiday greeting is late, but heartfelt. Happy Easter, everyone. Here’s one of the great sequences from the Fred Astaire-Judy Garland-Irving Berlin film Easter Parade. I hope that it makes you happy. For another great Astaire dance and drum sequence from the … [Read more...]