I have no intention of posting about every jazz person’s birthday. There are other sites on the web for that. I have every intention of acknowledging Dizzy Gillespie’s 95th, which is today.

The video below finds him sitting in with Johnny Griffin’s quartet at Châteauvallon, France, in August of 1971. Gillespie was 53 and at a peak of one of the great playing periods of his life. Vince Benedetti is the pianist, Alby Cullaz the bassist, Arthur Taylor the drummer. The same band appears on the Griffin DVD that is a current Rifftides recommendation (see the right-hand column). This piece, “I’ll Remember April,” is not included in the DVD.

You may think it’s about time the Rifftides staff gave you new recommendations. So do I. Therefore, merciless taskmaster that I am, the staff has complied by finding three CDs that are quite different from one another, a DVD that has one grand jazz master sitting in with another, and a readable book that can go a long way toward telling you everything you wanted to know about the jazz repertoire. You will find the recommendations in the right column under Doug’s Picks and, temporarily, also on the main page. Happy listening, viewing and reading.

Anita O’Day was in Chicago born 93 years ago today. From my notes for the 2009 O’Day Jazz Icons DVD, this is a summary of her importance:

Anita O’Day was the last of the great female jazz vocalists who emerged in the swing era. She survived Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee and Carmen McRae. She had perfect time and pitch, a voice virtually without vibrato and the ability to swing as hard as the top horn players of her era, which was long. Her feistiness matched her musicianship and she had the respect of her instrumental colleagues, an honor not always accorded singers. O’Day knew with precision what she wanted from supporting musicians. An anecdote circulated after she died in 2006 at the age of 87. She was overheard correcting her drummer. He told her not to tell him how to play. “I’m not telling you how to play,” she said, “I’m telling you when to play.”

Here’s O’Day from a television appearance in Tokyo in l993, performing two of her favorite songs. Pianist Bob Corwin traveled to Japan with her. Drummer Takeshi Inomata, bassist Tatsuro Takimoto and sxophonist Tadayuki Harada were members of the big band that played behind her on the show.

It has just been called to my attention that this is the birthday of Art Tatum (1909-1956). Before the day expires, at least in my time zone, here is one of the few instances of Tatum’s being caught on film. The clip is from the 1947 movie The Fabulous Dorseys. It finds the great man in a jam session with his peers—as if he had any. This may not be the most stunning Tatum ever recorded, and he gets only one chorus of a fast blues, but we see as well as hear the pianist who awed his contemporaries, including Earl Hines, Teddy Wilson, Vladimir Horowitz and Artur Rubenstein. Tatum’s colleagues are identified in the opening frames.

Musicians at the Oregon Coast Jazz Party can count on a busy weekend. If this jewel of a little festival had a theme, it would be compatibility. Regardless of whether the musicians she assigns have previously played together, music director Holly Hofmann assembles the players and singers in combinations that yield results. For three days, she was on target, relying on her instincts as a musician and producer and on her faith in the common language of jazz.

Ms. Hofmann put Ken Peplowski at the helm of a quintet with trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, pianist Bill Mays, drummer Chuck Redd and bassist Dave Captein. Playing tenor saxophone, Peplowski kicked off the set with a fast “Blue ‘n Boogie,” delivering the Dizzy Gillespie line in unison with Gordon and giving all hands plenty of solo space. He followed it with a standup routine of wit that in its dryness and quickness was a match for his playing. Whenever he spoke during the party, he had musicians and the audience chuckling or, often, laughing out loud. Peplowski reserved his seriousness for the music. He introduced Rodgers and Hart’s “A Ship Without a Sail” (1929) as “a ballad that too few people know about.” He played it on clarinet with deep tones and phrasing that captured the song’s sense of longing. “Rhythm-a-ning” brought out the vaudevillian in Gordon, whose trombone choruses incorporated an update of the early New Orleans jazz practice of imitating body and animal sounds. He did it with astonishing virtuosity. Following Mays’ impressive choruses on the Monk tune, Gordon returned, equally startling playing his slide trumpet. Redd’s crackling drum solo was his first statement of a weekend that saw the Washington, DC, veteran also playing vibes in a variety of settings.

Peplowski and company wrapped up with another Monk piece, “Hackensack,” the leader on tenor and Gordon putting vaudeville tendencies aside. His solo on the “Lady Be Good” changes was serious, straight-ahead and stimulating, in keeping with the example Mays set in his choruses.

The Clayton Brothers Quintet opened with alto saxophonist Jeff Clayton’s “Cha Cha Charleston,” which achieved the neat trick of combining those disparate rhythms. The piece’s metric challenges underlined the crucial relationship among bassist John Clayton, his pianist son Gerald and drummer Obed Calvaire. In his solo Calvaire combined rhythmic looseness and total control as Jeff Clayton and Terell Stafford punctuated with unison horn stings. Other highlights of the Clayton segment:

          John Clayton’s impassioned bowing in Billie Holiday’s “Don’t Explain.”

          Stafford’s solo, lightning fast and full of complexities, on “Runway.”

Holly Hofmann and Jeff Clayton combining their flutes in “Touch the Fog” from the Clayton Brothers CD The Gathering, her solo exotic, his on bass flute colored with humming/playing gruffness.

The impressionism of Gerald Clayton’s solo on “Touch the Fog” and his soloing throughout; he has become one of the music’s major young players.

In one of two late-night jam sessions at the Shilo Inn, vocalist Kenny Washington, captivated listeners most of whom were hearing him for the first time. In a typically perceptive OCJP mix-and-match, Hofmann teamed Washington with Calvaire, Captein, Gordon and guitarist Graham Dechter. By the time Washington and singer Denise Donatelli shared leadership of a set the next night, Washington had accumulated new admirers of his swing, cheerfulness, vocal technique and a range that equals Bobby McFerrin’s. On another set, Donatelli headed a trio with Dechter and Portland bassist Tom Wakeling. Warmed up, minor intonation adjustments out of the way, she combined personal phrasing and time feeling with a smoky quality that melded into crystal clarity in the high register on “If You Never Come to Me” and “Darn That Dream.”

Bill Mays’ History of Jazz Piano concert for a morning audience covered pianists from James P. Johnson to Herbie Hancock. Teddy Wilson, Bill Evans and Bud Powell were among the 13 whose styles Mays summoned without surrendering his individuality. Tommy Flanagan and Sonny Clark had to be set aside when time ran short. I had the privilege of providing narration leading into each of Bill’s segments. That put me in the second best seat in the house in the curve of the nine-foot Steinway as Mays poured himself into interpreting some of the pianists who influenced his development. It was a great experience, with a responsive audience, and so much fun that we’re thinking of doing it again sometime, somewhere.

Three Portlanders—bassist Captein, drummer Gary Hobbs and pianist Tony Pacini—teamed with Chuck Redd on vibes for a set that included a superb Captein solo on “Come Fly With Me.” Listening backstage, Hofmann said, “He is so solid.” In Duke Ellington’s “Main Stem,” Hobbs used brushes on cymbals and floated through a solo that incorporated air as an element. In the second jam session at the Shilo, the former Stan Kenton drummer showed another side of his talent as he propelled a sextet with Stafford, guitarist Dechter (pictured), Peplowski, Redd (vibes) and John Clayton. In a quintet session Saturday night, on Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing,” Stafford and Gordon explored different degrees of rambunctiousness. Old pals John Clayton and Jeff Hamilton followed, trading eight-bar phrases as they grinned at one another. Other high points of the set were Gordon’s trumpet and singing on “Black and Blue” in tribute to Louis Armstrong, and Gerald Clayton’s sensitive playing on the intriguing harmonies of his “Sunny Day Go By.”

The Sunday Morning wrap session began with Mays updating and expanding the repertoire of his CD Mays at the Movies. He, Wakeling (pictured) and Redd concentrated on music from films he admires, has written for, or on whose soundtracks he played. The admiration category included the classics “Laura,” “The Very Thought of You” and “Smile.” His own “Cool Pool” was a Miles Davis “All Blues” clone that he wrote for a producer who didn’t want to pay a heavy licensing fee to use the Davis original. He played on the sound track of the Coen Brothers’ Fargo, and gave the Newport audience a trio version of the film’s theme by Carter Burwell, which Mays described as “not a bad piece of music.” Mays’ composition “Judy” appeared in the appallingly violent Willem Dafoe psychological thriller Anamorph. Accordingly, he, Wakeling and Redd played it as what Mays called a “group grope,” free jazz with simultaneous improvisation that ended with the trio wreathed in smiles.

Atsuko Hashimoto reappeared as the head of a trio with Peplowski on tenor sax and Hamilton on drums. In “If I Had You,” she affirmed the B3’s capacity for dynamic subtlety as well as displays of power when she built to a crescendo, sustained it momentarily, then let the volume fall away without losing momentum as Peplowski reintroduced the melody. Hashimoto does not speak English but evidently understands it. Peplowski served as the trio’s spokesman. He reduced his leader and the audience to nearly helpless laughter after he promised that they would play Wagner’s Ring Cycle, then introduced “Shiny Stockings” by reminding Hamilton, “this is the tune we first danced to.”

The fun and games continued with the Clayton Brothers band augmented by Wycliffe Gordon. The trombonist, Terell Stafford and Jeff Clayton comprised a powerhouse front line in blues pianist Al Copley’s “Friday Night Strut,” with solos in kind by all hands. Stafford’s had a series of chromatic descending lines so logical, it sounded composed, as of course it was—on the spot. They followed with “This Ain’t Nothin’ But a Party” and spirited soloing on the 16-bar piece written by Jeff C., who led the audience and the band in a singalong. The crowd quickly picked up the lyrics, which consisted of the title sung repeatedly. It was nothin’ but a party all weekend, and it closed with the group jam on “Perdido” with which we began this series of Newport reports three days ago and three items below.

Hammond B3 organist Atsuko Hashimoto bookended the Oregon Coast Jazz Party. The diminutive bundle of energy from Osaka performed on opening night, again on Saturday and in the Sunday morning wrap session. Her set with drummer Jeff Hamilton and guitarist Graham Dechter began with the ballad “All or Nothing at All” from their most recent CD. She and Hamilton kicked it off at a blistering non-balladic tempo, as later they did “Yours is My Heart Alone,” another piece that began life as a tender expression of sentiment and takes on a different character at top speed.

In their decade of playing together, Hashimoto and Hamilton have developed an easy relationship into which Dechter fits as a full partner. The trio locked in tightly through Hank Mobley’s “Soul Station,” “Always Trust Your Heart” with Hamilton’s hand drumming introduction, and “I’ve Never Been in Love Before.” The closing blues had stop-time breaks for Dechter, Hamilton’s compelling shuffle beat and Hashimoto in flurries that swelled and receded in waves up and down the keyboard. The three smiled continually through the piece.

They were back the next morning, each playing an unaccompanied solo in a set that also included clarinetist Ken Peplowski, bassist John Clayton, pianist Gerald Clayton and vibraharpist Chuck Redd. In the Sunday wrap session, Hashimoto, Hamilton and Peplowski—this time on tenor saxophone— played an organ trio set that began with “Sunny,” leading Terell Stafford, listening backstage, to say of Peplowski, “Wow, he sounds like Stanley Turrentine.” They followed with “If I Had You,” Hashimoto applying dynamics reminiscent of Jimmy Smith, her early inspiration. Peplowski announced the final tune of the set as “Wagner’s Ring Cycle. We’re going to try to get through it in three-and-a-half hours.” He looked over at Hashimoto shuffling through lead sheets and said, “She’s looking for the music.” The piece turned out to be “Shiny Stockings.”

Tomorrow morning, I am off to Newport, Oregon to attend the 2012 Oregon Coast Jazz Party. The three-day event used to be called The Newport, Oregon, Jazz Festival, but I’m told that it became necessary to rename it because of concerns that it could be mistaken for another festival. Perhaps you can guess which one. This poster, perhaps commissioned by the chamber of commerce or the tourist commission, clearly shows that the Oregon Newport is on the left coast. If you look closely, you will see that it illustrates some of the things I could do if I weren’t going to be in windowless rooms listening to music.

Sorry to hear of Eddie Bert’s passing last week. He was a trombonist who loved to play so much that if there were no paying gigs, he would find a band to sit in with. Bert was 90 years old and worked until shortly before he died. He was an asset in combos as well as big bands. His resume included work with Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Charles Mingus, The Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and several repertory bands, including the American Jazz Orchestra.

No one promised me a rose garden, but that’s what I got, and a resident rose expert who manages to keep it glorious well into autumn.

If you’re keeping up with the adventures of the Brubeck Brothers Quartet in Russia, read Chris Brubeck’s latest blog post, an account of the BBQ’s good will mission to a country town. The band held a concert for the citizenry and, in return, heard some of the locals, including “extremely sturdy Russian women playing the melody of “In The Mood” with their balalaikas.”

Everything else in life has not quite come to a standstill while I race the deadline for the Dizzy Gillespie project mentioned in the “Sweet Lorraine” post of September 20. It only seems that way.

Responding to the Brubeck-Desmond item in the previous exhibit, David Evans writes: