Rifftides reader Svetlana Ilyicheva (pictured) now and then sends reports about concerts she attends in Moscow—Russia, not Idaho. Here is her account of a recent performance by visiting American musicians. A few days ago (April 3) I was at the concert given by the Dave Liebman Quartet at the … [Read more...]

"  Steve Coleman, Functional Arrhythmias (Pi) For more than 30 years, Coleman has been a leader in music on the forward edge of jazz. This album synthesizes and focuses concepts that the alto saxophonist and composer developed through the M-Base movement he founded in the 1980s. The … [Read more...]

The next few Rifftides posts will be devoted to reviewing—or at least acknowledging—some of the hundreds of recent album arrivals that have given my mailman an aching back and made an obstacle course of the office and music room. My intention is to choose wisely among a bewildering … [Read more...]

To compensate for lateness in posting a birthday tribute to Gerry Mulligan (1927-1996), the Rifftides staff is pleased to bring you videos of Mulligan from three stages of his career. First, we find him at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 with his quartet; Mulligan, baritone saxophone; Art … [Read more...]

Small town newspapers sometimes provide surprisingly interesting coverage of world-traveling jazz artists who pass through or live in their communities. For decades, Marvin Stamm and his wife Nancy have been residents of the Westchester County town of North Salem, an hour north of New York City. … [Read more...]

Here’s a followup to the Sarah Vaughan birthday post of March 27. In his Crown Propeller’s Blog, Armin Büttner published a picture of the great singer in interesting company at the Crown Propeller Lounge in Chicago. The club thrived as one of the city’s most vital nightspots from the late … [Read more...]

Here’s the latest in the Rifftides spring series. The snow is melting fast in the mountains and the rivers are running high. From today’s early afternoon cycling expedition, you see the Naches River just before it merges into the Yakima and below that, a branch of the Yakima River near … [Read more...]

We are back from vacation, and look what sprang while we were gone. We'll have apricots. There is regrouping, listening, reading and blogging to do. Stay tuned. But, how do we live up to that headline? Ah...of course; Stan Getz, Lou Levy, Monty Budwig and Victor Lewis, 1981. … [Read more...]

Vacationing in Santa Barbara, Ojai and environs does not preclude observing Thad Jones's 90th birthday. There's no better way to do that than with Thad conducting the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra's extraordinary version of Jerome Richardson's "The Groove Merchant." This is from a European … [Read more...]

The Rifftides staff is on vacation, but we took a vote and decided that Sarah Vaughan’s birthday warrants a break. We came across a couple of videos from Sarah’s 1985 appearance at the Satin Doll in Tokyo. They have not had the hundreds of thousands of YouTube hits awarded some of her other … [Read more...]

I was saddened to learn this morning of the passing of Anthony Lewis, the New York Times columnist and, earlier in his career, nonpareil Supreme Court reporter. Lewis had a nearly unmatched ability to make complex issues clear and understandable. He set standards. For a comprehensive obituary and … [Read more...]

Journalist, trombonist and bandleader Eric Felten continues his multifaceted ways. He has added internet television to his repertoire, presenting, interviewing and sometimes sitting in with prominent jazz artists. His latest Wall Sreet Journal op-ed piece recalls how a tax rule now nearly forgotten … [Read more...]

No sooner do I review the new Ian Carey album (see the previous exhibit) than “Nemuri Kyoshirō” pops up on YouTube with moving pictures of another installment of that Evan Francis (tenor sax)-Kasey Knudsen(alto sax) blues chase and fresh solos by Carey and pianist Adam Shulman. We get a bonus … [Read more...]

It’s time to catch up with a few of the CDs that make their way into my house from what is often described, puzzlingly, as the dying jazz scene. If jazz is dying, the people recording and distributing all this music haven’t noticed. Hey, at least I got the piles of recordings off the floor. Now … [Read more...]

I missed Marian McPartland’s birthday. Now, she’s 95 plus one day, and I wish her all the best. Here she is in 1955 with her Hickory House trio, Bill Crow on bass, Joe Morello on drums (courtesy of Steve Cerra's Jazz Profiles), then in solo with her ballad “Afterglow” at the Monterey Jazz … [Read more...]

The Brubeck Institute Festival—underway since Monday—gets into full swing tonight in Stockton, California, with a concert by the Tom Harrell Quintet. Other major musicians involved include The Brubeck Brothers Quartet, Gunther Schuller, Wynton Marsalis and Joe Gilman. Paul Conley reports … [Read more...]

...it's another; in this case that pesky gremlin. Rifftides finally banished him after two weeks of intermittent computer attacks, so he moved on to disrupt power to the western data center that provides the energy artsjournal.com blogs need to get on the internet. Rifftides was out of business for … [Read more...]

Twitter and I are not strangers, but I recognize the addictive potential of tweeting and try not to get hooked. Still, occasional Rifftides announcements via Twitter turn up followers whom I, in turn, follow. A new one is Ken Pickering, the artistic director of the Vancouver, Canada, Jazz Festival. … [Read more...]