Search Results for: Dave Brubeck

A few weeks ago, writing at length about a new CD of music by the Charles Mingus Sextet, I referred to a forthcoming DVD of that remarkable band on its ’64 European tour. The disc is one of a set of eight in the second release of Jazz Icons DVDs. I am viewing and reporting to you about them as time allows.
Charles Mingus Live in ’64 (Jazz Icons). It is a revelation to see this edition of the Mingus sextet at work during one of his happiest periods. Explosive temperament under wraps, the bassist is downright avuncular in three concerts with Eric Dolphy, trumpeter Johnny Coles, tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan, pianist Jaki Byard and drummer Dannie Richmond. Dolphy the incredible flutist (and saxophonist and bass clarinetist) was a primary source of Mingus’s satisfaction, but far from the only one. This was a unit attuned and interlocked, every soloist in his creative prime, the band’s power and responsiveness at a peak. Video (black and white) and audio quality are excellent. Direction and camera work provide plenty of intimate looks into the working relationships among the musicians, particularly the bond between Mingus and Richmond. All that we need to know about the depth of his admiration is expressed in Coles’ gaze on Dolphy as the saxophonist solos.
The Brussels “Meditations On Integration” is a milestone performance. The one in Stockholm a few days earlier is not far behind. All eleven pieces on the DVD are at the highest level. “Take The ‘A’ Train” in Oslo nearly equals the intensity of that Belgium “Meditations.” We witness a touching moment during a rehearsal. Mingus tells Dolphy that he will miss him when the band returns to the US and Dolphy remains in Europe. Mingus asks how Dolphy long he will stay. Probably a year or so, Dolphy says. Within weeks, he was dead in Germany following an episode of diabetic shock. Mingus went into depression. He recovered, and his career had further periods of distinction through the sixties and seventies, but he never again had a band, large or small, that reached the heights of this sextet.
Duke Ellington Live in ’58 (Jazz Icons). This concert in Holland is typical of the Ellington band in the late fifties. Old hands like Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney and Ray Nance combine comfortably with relative newcomers — Clark Terry, Paul Gonsalves, John Sanders. The repertoire is a survey of Ellingtonia. The exception is “My Funny Valentine,” in which clarinetist Jimmy Hamilton and trombonist Quentin Jackson play the melody so beautifully that variations would be redundant. We get a romp through “Rockin’ in Rhythm,” an extended Sam Woodyard drum solo, Hodges sliding with implacability and the essence of swing in “All of Me” and “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” Ozzie Bailey’s heartfelt vocals, a ten-minute medley of ten Ellington hits, and the amazing Nance singing, dancing, and playing cornet and violin with gusto. The capper is “Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue,” with Gonsalves featured in the tenor sax interval that made him famous at Newport two years earlier. He is just as bluesy, although this time at not quite the same length or intensity.
Conducting from the piano or in front of the band, announcing or digging the soloists, Ellington is coolness itself, leaving the audience in no doubt that he does love them madly. The band members, as they usually did, alternate between looking bored (but hip) and amused. Sound is good. The director is occasionally asleep at the switch when shot changes would be appropriate, but, generally, we see what we’re hearing. What we’re hearing is the Ellington band on a very good night.
Next installment: The Sarah Vaughan and Dave Brubeck Jazz Icons DVDs.

Frances Lynne, Remember (SSJ).
Often discussed but seldom heard, Ms. Lynne is a charming singer. She worked with Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond and Norman Bates in 1948. Recalling their time with her at the Geary Cellar and the Band Box, all of them told me that they were moved by her clarity, phrasing, feeling and interpretation of lyrics. She went on to sing, but not record, with the Charlie Barnet and Gene Krupa bands and kept on singing after she married trumpeter John Coppola, a veteran of the Barnet, Stan Kenton and Woody Herman bands. Finally, in 1991, she recorded for their private label, Lark, with Coppola’s medium-sized orchestra, which included strings and French horn. The album had virtually no distribution when it was released in 1999 and still has little, but it has been nicely repackaged by the Japanese label SSJ and is available from at least one web site (click on the link in the title above).
Ms. Lynne includes the seldom-heard verses of several songs. In his liner note message, Brubeck tells her that at the Band Box “there were many times you gave me goosebumps.” It may have been singing like her treatment of the verses of Irving Berlin’s “Remember” and the Oscar Hammerstein’s-Jerome Kern song “Can I Forget You?” that affected him. The CD is all the more precious for the presence of a pair of rarities, Kern’s “The Touch of Your Hand” and Harry Warren’s “Spring Isn’t Everything,” beautifully sung by Ms. Lynne. The superb arrangements of a dozen classic songs are by Mike Abene, who also conducts. The classy bass and drums are by Bill Douglass and Eddie Marshall. Soloists are Abene on piano, trumpeters Coppola and Johnny Coles, tenor saxophonist John Handy and–on alto sax and clarinet–Herbie Steward, one of the original Four Brothers of the Woody Herman Second Herd. Their vigor complements Ms. Lynne’s restraint and mature wistfulness. For most of us, Frances Lynne’s singing was mythical. This CD brings it happily to life.
For an account of the Geary Cellar-Band Box milieu long before there was a Dave Brubeck Quartet, see Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond.

If you are planning on attending the Newport Jazz Festival, keep in mind that it is no longer held over the Fourth of July weekend but in the second weekend in August. For a rundown on this year’s event, go here. For a three-CD compilation scanning the festival’s fifty-one-year history, try this boxed set. You’ll find a wide range of performances from Louis Armstrong’s “Tin Roof Blues” to John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things.” Among the treasures are the famous Duke Ellington “Dimineundo in Blue” with Paul Gonsalves’ marathon tenor sax solo, Sarah Vaughan’s “Black Coffee,” the Dizzy Gillespie big band with “I Remember Clifford” and the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s piquant version of Ellington’s “Jump For Joy.”

A contributor with the internet handle Astrotype just sent YouTube five videos taken from a 1966 Dave Brubeck Quartet concert in Germany. If you’re thinking of Paul Desmond on this thirtieth anniversary of his death, you may remember him even more kindly as you listen to a “Take Five” solo unlike any other I’ve heard from him, and a four-minute Desmond rumination on the minor blues of “Koto Song.” Brubeck, Desmond, Wright and Morello were in great form, collectively and individually. Rebutting critics who loved to rail against Brubeck, Desmond often praised his friend’s sensitive accompaniments. This version of “Take the ‘A’ Train” offers evidence for the defense. It also has Morello and Brubeck in a spirited, and well photographed, exchange of four-bar phrases.
For Astrotype‘s menu of five Brubeck videos from the German concert, three new ones of John Coltrane and four of Thelonious Monk, go here, and you’ll be glad you stayed home this Memorial Day weekend. Isn’t this more fun than being in a traffic jam?*
*For Rifftides readers in other countries, this American form of expression reaches its fullest flower on the weekend set aside to honor those who have fallen in war. Millions of us pile into cars and trucks (also known as SUVs) and park on the roads and freeways, honking horns and swearing oaths in remembrance.

Rifftides reader Jon Foley recommends a YouTube clip of the Dave Brubeck Quartet with the comment, “They were in a good mood that night!”
They sure were. I thought that we had linked to this performance before, but I can find no trace of it in the archive. The clip isn’t dated, but it is amost certainly from the quartet’s 25th anniversary reunion tour in 1976. The piece is “Three To Get Ready.” I have no idea what set off the merriment, but the silliness was contagious and brought out Brubeck’s inner Cecil Taylor. To join in the fun, click here.

A new jazz radio station in England, theJazz, recently conducted a poll of its listeners to determine–as they put it–the “best ever jazz record.” This was the result, as reported on the BBC web site.

TOP TEN

1. Miles Davis – So What

2. Dave Brubeck – Take Five

3. Louis Armstrong – West End Blues

4. John Coltrane – A Love Supreme

5. Miles Davis – All Blues

6. John Coltrane – My Favourite Things

7. Weather Report – Birdland

8. Jamie Cullum – Twentysomething

9. Duke Ellington – Take The ‘A’ Train

10. Miles Davis – Blue In Green

If you go to the web site of theJazz and examine its list of the top 500 records, you will discover that recordings by Jamie Cullum, a young British singer and pianist, placed 29, 32, 33, 46, 53 and 54. Do listeners to theJazz hear something that puts him in a league with Davis, Brubeck, Coltrane and Ellington? Or is there just the slightest chance–shocking to suggest it, I know–that there was a bit of ballot stuffing by Jamie Cullum interests?
This sort of thing accentuates the absudity of surveys and polls that rank the popularity of art. It may encourage some of us to reevalute the wisdom of taking part in, for instance, critics polls.

In their seventeen years in the Dave Brubeck Quartet and when they occasionally got together in the decade before Paul Desmond’s death, the pianist and the alto saxophonist loved to play “These Foolish Things.” The song presented lyrical and harmonic possibilities that Brubeck and Desmond never tired of exploring. It was part of their standard fare in quartet concerts, and they included it in their superb but strangely little-noticed Duets album.
A “new” version of “These Foolish Things” more than eight minutes long has surfaced on video. The occasion was a concert in Rome in 1959. Desmond, Brubeck and bassist Eugene Wright all have excellent two-chorus solos. From the look on his face as he wraps up his solo, this was one of those times when Desmond approved of what he had just played. The camera angle during Wright’s solo allows a sustained look at the hand-in-glove relationship between the bassist and drummer Joe Morello. To see and hear the performance, go here. Fans of harmonic surprises may enjoy the modulation from E-flat to E in the coda.

The classic Dave Brubeck Quartet (Brubeck, Desmond, Morello and Wright) frequently opened their concerts with Billy Strayhorn’s “Take The ‘A’ Train.” At a 1966 concert, German television caught back-to-back performances of “‘A’ Train” and Brubeck’s “Forty Days.” They have surfaced on the Daily Motion web site. Audio quality is good, black and white video quality acceptable. Camera work and direction are excellent. The lengthy clip–nearly sixteen minutes–provides a reminder of the Brubeck rhythm section’s finely attuned empathy, of Paul Desmond’s melodic ingenuity and of his imperative to make each solo a fresh statement. To see and hear the video, go here.

An accomplished pianist in New York, not famous but not obscure, told me about her attempts to find work. They were discouraging. There seemed to be no work. Then, the owner of an Italian restaurant made her an offer. She could play in the restaurant, but only Italian songs or those associated with Frank Sinatra. Oh, and one other thing: there would be no pay. It was an offer she refused. But look on the bright side. The owner didn’t tell her that she would have to pay him. Many musicians these days aren’t that lucky.
In the last century–not so long ago, really–the best bands in jazz became the best by working together in jazz clubs night after night, week after week. In the 1950s and ’60s, it was not unusual for a group to have two, three and even six-week engagements in New York clubs like The Half Note, The Five Spot, Slug’s, The Village Vanguard and The Jazz Gallery. There were counterparts elsewhere; the Jazz Showcase in Chicago, the Black Hawk in San Francisco, Sardi’s and Shelly’s Manne Hole in Los Angeles, The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach. In the clubs during long runs, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, the Lighthouse All-Stars, the Miles Davis Quintet, Shelly Manne and His Men, Cannonball Adderley’s Quintet, the Bill Evans Trio, the Modern Jazz Quartet, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Cal Tjader’s quartet and many other groups perfected their music. None of them got rich playing clubs, but they grew together musically. Their exposure and popularity in the clubs led to record contracts and fame.

For Example
Club owners were not philanthropists. They were in business to make money, but they knew that in the long run if a band brought in enough customers, the economics would make sense for all concerned. Well, the long run is back there in the twentieth century, with recording contracts. Like nearly everything else in the most affluent economy the world has ever known, we want results now, the money now, return on investment now. Why should club owners be different? They are not, so many of them devise formulas whereby the musicians who play their clubs guarantee the club owner a profit. If you would like to know more about that, let Marvin Stamm explain it from the musician’s standpoint. He does so in the most recent edition of his excellent electronic newsletter, Cadenzas. Yes, musicians now sometimes have to pay to play in clubs. If that comes as news to you, if it shocks you, wait until you read the details in Stamm’s piece.

Marvin Stamm
Here is an excerpt:

Many club owners refuse to take any chances with musicians and their groups, and are rarely willing to expend an effort to develop any kind of working relationship with them. The artist is expected to assume total responsibility; rarely do you find a club willing to share any of the risk. This is a very sad situation, particularly for some of the newer groups or lesser-known artists, because it places many clubs more or less off limits except for an off-night or those times when or if the musician shows a willingness to “pay to play,” a practice with which I strongly disagree. The “pay to play” syndrome is something I don’t remember occurring when I came to New York in 1966. It now seems to have been going on for a good while and exemplifies what I have been writing about.

If an artist or group is new or unknown, some clubs – even the larger clubs – will ask that the artist or group’s record company guarantee that the club will break even. If there is no record company to back the artist, then he will probably have to guarantee this himself. An example of this is something I was told recently by someone close to me about a young saxophonist approaching the booker or owner of a club about bringing his quintet into the club on an off-night. The club agreed to pay the quintet five hundred dollars, but the musician had to guarantee the club attendance by thirty people for their performance – at twenty-five dollars a head, or a total of seven hundred and fifty dollars. If the artist didn’t draw those initial thirty people, the difference had to come out of his pocket. So, in essence, the leader of the quintet had to “pay to play.” Sad! Disgusting!

That is a small portion of a long, troubling article. To read the whole thing, go to Cadenzas and scroll down to “New York Jazz Clubs.” Fortunately for Marvin Stamm, talent and forty years of hard work have elevated him to a place where he doesn’t have to depend on night clubs to make a living. But he is worried about the next generation. It has never been easy for young musicians to find places to polish their art and be heard. Now, it’s even tougher, and they may be forced to pay for the opportunity.

Francis Davis, who monitors developments on the outer edge, writes in this week’s Village Voice about the avant garde tenor saxophonist David S. Ware’s new CD of standard ballads. Davis suggests that Ware may be playing to an audience for whom classics by Kern, Gershwin, Porter and other popular song writers of the first half of the last century have no meaning.

…who under the age of 50 has the lyrics to those songs going through his or her head now? Standards figure in the marketplace today largely as a way of letting aging rock stars play dress-up, and I often find myself having to explain to younger people what I even mean by the word.
The only remaining incentive for a jazz instrumentalist to do standards–the best reason all along–is what they have to offer harmonically.

That seems reason enough. It is interesting to learn from Davis that the adventurous clarinetist Andy Biskin has reached back even further than Ware and recorded an album of songs by Stephen Foster. Since Dave Brubeck in his 1959 album Southern Scene (out of print), few jazz musicians have recognized the improvisational possiblities in Foster’s songs. To read Davis’s Voice column, go here.

When Pandora Internet Radio first popped up on the web a year ago, I visited it often but in the press of business and activities gradually forgot about it. Today, I remembered. I’m glad I did. Over the course of an hour or so, out of Pandora’s box came, in succession, Cannonball Adderley, Von Freeman, Donald Harrison, Hank Mobley, Eddie Higgins, Dave Brubeck with Gerry Mulligan, Russell Malone, Ellis Marsalis, Clara Nunez (new to me), Elis Regina and Lee Morgan.
Pandora, powered by something called the Music Genome Project, customizes playlists based on the music you request. It asks you if you like the piece you’re hearing. You reply by clicking on a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down icon. By this interactive means, before long Pandora knows your taste and preferences and offers you options for change.
Pandora seems able to find virtually any jazz, pop, country, Latin or rock musician, but offers no classical music. When I requested Aaron Copland, I got this query: “Do you want the artist Aaron Comess?” When I asked for Charles Ives, “Do you want ‘Charles Ives’ by Frank Zappa?” A request for Franz Schubert brought, “Do you want ‘Franz Schubert’ by Kraftwerk?” You can have Dr. Dre but not Debussy, Cash but not Callas, Springsteen but not Shostakovich.
A disappointment for information junkies is that Pandora does not give the names of sidemen, only of leaders or featured performers. Who was the other guitarist I just heard dueting with Emily Remler? But why complain? Pandora is free, supported by advertising on the screen and also, I presume, by a percentage of sales to those who follow its links to websites and buy CDs. In return for the existence of that bit of commerce you can, in effect, build a rotating library of music you like and occasionally be delivered a surprise. A version free of advertising is available by subscription for thirty-six dollars a year.
Addendum
From Rifftides reader Mel Narunsky :

It should be pointed out that this service is available only in the US – anyone outside the US will not be able to log in to this service.

I have long been convinced that one of the predominant reasons listeners took the classic Dave Brubeck Quartet to their hearts was visual. In the late fifties through the sixties, it was hip for jazz musicians to turn their backs–literally or figuratively–on the audience and each other. In contrast, it was obvious that the quartet enjoyed one another’s company and music and didn’t feel that it was uncool to show it. Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello paid close attention as the music unfolded, and reacted to it. As a result, audiences were drawn in, not shut out.
A fetching example of that camaraderie has surfaced in a piece of video, probably from 1976, when the quartet reunited for its 25th anniversary tour. The piece is “Three to Get Ready,” often the basis for fun and games among the four. You may notice that Brubeck and Morello are casually dressed and wearing fashionably long hair, and that Desmond and Wright are as Brooks Brothersish as ever. To see and hear the clip, click here.
A longer “Three to Get Ready” from the same tour and with the same degree of mirth is included on the DBQ’s 25th anniversary reunion album.

That may be a conservative estimate of the number of times Dave Brubeck has played “Take Five” since Paul Desmond’s infectious tune became a massive hit forty-six years ago. The Brubeck Quartet’s 2006 Newport Jazz Festival peformance is not the most recent; wherever Brubeck played last night, he played “Take Five.” But in July the cameras were rolling, or whatever digital cameras do (dig?) at Newport and caught a jovial 85-year-old leader and his band in good form and a beautiful setting. Notice the clouds reflected in the piano’s surface. Brubeck is laughing as the piece starts because the group had just completed an outrageously swinging “Margie,” of all things. I have seen that clip on the MSN video internet site, but can’t seem to find it again. If anyone has the url for “Margie,” please report it to Rifftides World Headquarters.
In the meantime, here’s a thirteen-minute “Take Five.” You will be treated to a short commercial going in, but from there it’s clear sailing (after all, this was Newport).

Here is the third report on the survey of what Rifftides readers are listening to these days.

·Today I have two CDs in my car player: A lovely duo recording by Randy Sandke and Dick Hyman, and a CD reissue of one of my favorite LPs, Boss of the Blues, with Joe Turner and a dynamite studio band arranged by Ernie Wilkins.
Bill Crow
New City, New York, USA

·I’m currently knocked out by a net recording from website Dimeadozen from Vienna’s Opera House in June 2006 of Sergio Mendes current band. How he has manged to update his sound after 40 years amazes me. The Austrian audience is grooving, just shows how Brazilian music can get to the most staid (assumed) audience.

I’ve also just discovered Duke’s Cosmic Scene, great stuff, Gonzalves and Terry are sublime.

Plus a lovely record by Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi Fellini Jazz with Chris Potter, Kenny Wheeler, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian. Lovely stuff from all concerned with some exquisite themes.
Don Emanuel
Kent, England

·I have been utilizing my aging El Camino recently. Its tape deck won’t play bebop. That said, I’ve been listening to a home-made compilation of Benny Goodman material from the 1940’s Columbia era, with the likes of Mel Powell, Sid Catlett, Vido Musso, Cootie Williams, Billy Butterfield, Dave Tough, Peggy Lee, Lou McGarrity and those fine Eddie Sauter arrangements such as “Benny Rides Again,” “Perfidia,” “Scatterbrain,” “The Man I Love,” if you will. Indeed, at the end of the day I’m ready for some Artie Shaw.
R.H. Godfrey
Wenatchee, Washington, USA

A virtuoso double trifecta of words and phrases. Bravo, Mr Godfrey.

·Listening to Erik Truffaz’s Face a Face
Kevin Wehner
Kansas City, Missouri, USA

·Lee Morgan, Tom Cat (car)
John Coltrane, Live Trane: The European Tours (iPod)
Patrick J. Whittle
Washington, DC, USA

·The car CD changer currently has on:
Trio de Paz, Somewhere
Very recently:
Louis Armstrong, In Scandinavia Vol 1
Bryn Terfel, An Die Musik: Schubert favorites
Charlie Parker Studio Chronicle 1940-1948 discs C & D
Oscar Peterson Trio At the Stratford Shakespearean Festival
Fredrik Ullen, Ligeti Complete piano music
Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus
Karrin Allyson, Ballads: Remembering John Coltrane
Garret Gannuch
Denver, Colorado, USA

·Pianist Frank Kimbrough’s new CD Play, and: Various Artists: From Ragtime to Rock: A History of American Music This rare LP (supposed only 100 were pressed) features live performances from the January 13, 1970 Today Show, including Lionel Hampton, Bud Freeman, Dave Brubeck & Gerry Mulligan, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and more. Issued by Mrs. Paul’s Kitchens!
Ken Dryden
Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA

·Right now, I’m listening to and enjoying Change Of Heart by Martin Speake Quartet on ECM, and the Dutch Jazz Orchestra’s 1996 collection of Billy Strayhorn compositions, Portrait Of A Silk Thread. Also, Brad Mehldau’s and Renee Fleming’s Love Sublime on Nonesuch, but I don’t know how I feel about that one yet. I enjoy Rifftides. Thanks for keeping it going.
Chuck Mitchell
Kinnelon, New Jersey, USA

·Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band at the Olympia, Paris, Nov.
19, 1960, a 2-CD set.
Jon Foley
Providence, Rhode Island, USA

·Reuben Rogers, The Things I Am

Tim Garland, If The Sea Replied

Frank Kimbrough, Play

Ray Brown, Something For Lester

Fay Claassen is a wonderful and extremely inventive singer. Her recording titled RHyTHMS & RHyMeS ( yes, that’s the correct typeset ) is very fine indeed with a wonderful arrangement of “Seven Steps to Heaven,” but the whole recording is at a very high standard. Toots Thielemans; Joe Locke; Steve Davis; Kenny Werner assist.
Tom Marcello
Webster, New York USA

Tomorrow, the Rifftides staff has a day of rest. The final batch of listeners’ choices will appear on Monday, so if you have been holding back, now’s the time to send yours.

At a concert, Louis Armstrong almost invariably said, “And now, we’re going to lay one of those good old good ones on you.” He used variations of that introductory line during his entire career. Here’s an example, on video, from 1933. I’m borrowing Pops’s line and applying it to two albums from the mid-1950s. This fits in with Deborah Hendrick’s (she has a last name, after all) request to suggest CDs she can recommend to friends who are neophyte jazz listeners.
Concord, through its Fantasy, Inc. subsidiary, has just released another batch of RVG Remasters, named for Rudy Van Gelder, the gifted engineer who recorded them and has digitally updated his original work. It includes Walkin’: The Miles Davis All-Stars, two sessions from April, 1954 with brilliant playing by Davis, trombonist J.J. Johnson, tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson, alto saxophonist Dave Schildkraut, pianist Horace Silver, bassist Percy Heath and drummer Kenny Clarke. Most jazz musicians and many listeners who came up in the fifties and sixties know the album’s solos by heart, particularly those on “Walkin'” and “Blue and Boogie.” The title tune has become a part of the basic repertoire. Davis had yet to make what repeater-pencil jazz writers persist in describing as his “comeback” at the Newport Jazz Festival the following year. He had never been away. He was yet to record the series of Columbia albums that brought him widespread fame, but he was a major figure in jazz. He, Johnson, Thompson and Silver were inspired in their improvisations on the sextet date. Their solos so quickly became ingrained in the minds of jazz musicians everywhere that within weeks of the album’s release, you could hear paraphrases of them in jam sessions and, before long, in other recordings. More than half a century later, they are a part of the lingua franca of jazz.
In the quintet session, the other horn was Schildkraut, whose alto playing so closely resembled Charlie Parker’s that no less a Parker intimate than Charles Mingus thought that he was hearing Parker when Leonard Feather played Schildkraut’s “Solar” solo for him in a blindfold test. Throughout both sessions, the rhythm section demonstrates that perfect accompaniment can be as satisfying as the improvisation it supports. Focusing on Heath’s bass lines alone can bring great rewards. This is a record to go back to time and again for deeper discoveries.
In 1956, Cal Tjader recorded Cal Tjader Quartet, an album that received little critical notice and sold modestly but over the decades has proved one of the most enduring of the vibraharpist’s dozens of recordings. By 1956, Tjader was becoming better known for his role in the development of Afro-Cuban jazz than as the straight-ahead musician who debuted with the Dave Brubeck Octet and later was the drummer and occasional vibist in Brubeck’s trio. In a pickup date while he and his bassist Eugene Wright were in Hollywood, Tjader brought in pianist Gerald Wiggins and drummer Bill Douglass. Everything clicked. They produced a collection notable for its consistent sensitivity and good feeling. Their “Battle Hymn of the Republic” is one of the finest jazz versions of that piece. The album has an engaging balance of swinging peformances with three slower ones that demonstrate Tjader’s seldom-recognized status as one his generation’s most effective players of ballads. His “For All We Know” solo alone proves that, and his playing on Wright’s “Miss Wiggins,” incorporating the “new blues” harmonic changes introduced by Charlie Parker, gives insights into his understanding of the blues.
Wiggins’ comping complements Tjader in quite a different manner than that of the funkier Vince Guaraldi, who was Tjader’s regular pianist at the time. Wiggins’ solos are a delight. He manages to combine harmonic and melodic delicacy with muscular swing. The sturdy, dependable Wright melds with Douglass, one of the great brush artists among drummers, into a mutual surge that floats the entire enterprise. The instrumentation inevitably brings to mind the Modern Jazz Quartet, which was riding high in 1956, but too much has been made of the comparison. This is music with its own flair and personality.
Concord deserves credit for keeping this and other valuable music available in the Fantasy Original Jazz Classics reissue program. But how long the OJC program will last is anybody’s guess. I recommend prompt action if you want to acquire these and other CDs in the OJC series.

After Fathers Day activity (a present, a card, a few phone calls) subsided, I listened to two CDs, one because the publicist for the band keeps calling and asking if I’ve heard it, the other because I try never to go longer than a month without a Harry Allen fix.
Harry Allen
Allen is a thirty-nine-year-old tenor saxophonist from Rhode Island who managed to grow up in the post-Coltrane era without absorbing a detectable trace of John Coltrane’s influence. His Encyclopedia of Jazz entry says that his favorites are Ben Webster, Stan Getz and Scott Hamilton. Hamilton, twelve years older than Allen, is another Rhode Islander. He, too, is Coltrane-free. Maybe it’s something in the salt water taffy up there. Whether or not it was Allen’s or Hamilton’s aim, by not playing like Coltrane they got attention in a world crowded with Coltrane clones.
In Allen’s latest album, Hey, Look Me Over, co-led with guitarist Joe Cohn, his Getz influence is notably apparent in “Danielle,” a ballad by Cohn’s father Al, whose tenor sax spirit is also present in Allen’s playing. They include three of Al’s tunes in the CD, and Allen is torrid on “Travisimo.” It seems to me that Allen’s Ben Webster component is channeled through Zoot Sims, who in his last years increasingly exhibited Webster’s gruff tenderness. But he invests full-bore Zootness in his solo on “With the Wind and the Rain in Your Hair.”
Since he debuted in the late 1980s, Allen has recorded twenty-eight albums as a leader and appeared on dozens of others. He and Cohn have worked together for fifteen years and developed, among other elements of their ESP, an uncanny approach to counterpoint. It is demonstrated to a faretheewell throughout “Pick Yourself Up.” That track and their romp on Charlie Christian’s and Benny Goodman’s “Seven Come Eleven” make me realize how much I miss the improvisational counterpoint that seems to have largely faded from jazz since Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond, Clark Terry and Bob Brookmeyer, Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz employed it.
Cohn is an ingenious soloist, a resourceful accompanist and, when he is moved to practice it, an effective rhythm guitarist. Throughout the album, bassist Joel Forbes and drummer Chuck Riggs, the other regular members of Allen’s quartet demonstrate that having a working band can assure benfits of rhythm and cohesiveness. This is a consistently satisfying group.
The Reptet
The album the squeaking-wheel publicist kept plugging, nicely but persistently, is Do This! by a Seattle band, The Reptet. In common with Harry Allen’s group, they do not have a piano. Nor do they have a guitar, which leaves the sextet free of a chording instrument to provide harmonic guidance. That leads to some soloists being cast adrift on the waters of free jazz without a paddle, but there is a redeeming sense of joy, whimsy and almost reckless abandon in much of the skilled ensemble writing and playing. Some of it has echoes of Hindemith, Milhaud, and, in keeping with that line of musical thought, voicings remarkably like those in certain pieces by the Dave Brubeck Octet. There are also elements of street-corner brass bands, third stream composers and the Charles Mingus of Tijuana Moods, to single out only three of the disparate influences I think I hear.
Much of the writing is by the trumpeter Samantha Boshnack, with additional pieces by reed players Tobi Stone and Izaak Mill and bassist Benjamin Verdier. The other members are trombonist Ben O’Shea and drummer John Ewing. Stone, Mills, O’Shea and Ewing have stimulating solo moments. I admit that I was moved to listen to The Reptet by, in addition to the phone calls, the fact that four of the compositions are titled “Zeppo,” “Harpo,” “Chico” and “Groucho.” I am happy to report that they live up to their names. And, yes, “Harpo” gets an introduction by an actual harp. I also like the occasional unexpected, but quite discreet, group and individual vocal touches that include shouts and moans. Great fun.

As he moves toward the middle of his eighty-sixth year, Dave Brubeck is not slowing down. He’s picking up speed—and honors—and preparing a major work. Today he is at his alma mater, University of the Pacific, to collect another medal. For a story about Brubeck’s whirlwind week and his new project, go here.

Last July, Rifftides examined the pilot program for the Public Broadcasting System series Legends of Jazz. Here is part of that posting.

It was a charming and engaging program. It lacked the intensity, focus and video artistry of the immortal 1957 The Sound of Jazz on CBS-TV, Ralph Gleason’s Jazz Casual series of the sixties and the Jazz At The Maintenance Shop programs directed by John Beyer for PBS in the late seventies and early eighties. But, after all, it was a pilot and a promo. We may hope that when the series hits in the fall, it will reflect the values of those earlier programs—creative camera work for directors who know how to use it, good sound, lighting without gimmicks, and a minimum of explanation (The Sound of Jazz, the best program of its kind, ever, had almost no talk). In his notes for the long-playing record of the music from that show, Eric Larabee wrote that because of the artistic, if not commercial, success of the television program, there was talk of a series. He said that Whitney Balliett and Nat Hentoff, the critics whose taste and instincts guided the show, should remain in charge.

But one wonders if the miracle can happen twice. Part of the reason that Balliett and Hentoff were let alone was that no one in high authority really understood what they were up to. Now the secret is out and there will be many hazards.

Larabee was right. No successor to The Sound of Jazz, let alone a series, emerged. That does not mean that it couldn’t happen.

Nearly a year later, has it happened? No. Since the 1950s, television has accumulated so many layers of technical advances, production oversight, marketing skills, promotion know-how and showbiz values that even if a producer wished in his deepest being to create a program with the straightforward simplicity of The Sound of Jazz, it is doubtful that he could prevail over what television has become: slick.
Thus, Legends of Jazz is slick. And entertaining. I mean that in the kindest way. In format, it resembles Ralph Gleason’s Jazz Casual. Each program in the series is a half hour. In TV time, a half hour is 24 minutes and 27 seconds. The host is pianist Ramsey Lewis, who does a relaxed job of briefly interviewing the principal performers. The rest of the time, minus opening and closing credits, is devoted to music.
Some of the highlights of the shows I have seen on the air or on DVD:
Alone at the piano, Chick Corea generating as much swing in “Armando’s Rhumba” as if he were driven by a rhythm section.
Benny Golson on tenor saxophone, pouring himself into a performance of his “Killer Joe.”
Clark Terry in his incarnation as “Mumbles,” playing and mumbling beautifully, ending with “If I keep talking like this, I might get elected.”
Singers Kurt Elling and Al Jarreau, inventive on “Take Five,” surpassing what either might have done alone.
In another duet, Dave Brubeck and Billy Taylor collaborating at two grand pianos on “Take The ‘A’ Train” with humor, grace and the wisdom of 85-year-olds.
Dave Valentin in a flute performance full of Latin rhythm and pzazz, marred only by a few seconds of showboating at the end.
John Pizzarelli in an astonishing moment of vocal accuracy and control as he executes doubletime in guitar-voice unison during his solo on “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.”
Roy Hargrove expresssing astonishment in conversation when Chris Botti describes his record company’s elaborate promotion scheme: “What record company is that?”
To be inclusive and reach the wide audience marketing studies encourage, the program presents a range of music including genres that have accreted around jazz without quite being jazz. It gives us the master alto saxophonist Phil Woods not with one of his peers—say, Bud Shank, Charles McPherson or Jackie McLean (who was alive when the show was taped last year)—but with the smooth-jazz player David Sanborn. The producers team Clark Terry and Roy Hargrove with the pop-jazz trumpeter and singer Chris Botti, rather than with Ryan Kisor, Jeremy Pelt, Terell Stafford or one of a dozen other top-flight young jazz trumpet artists. Jane Monheit, a creation of publicity, is the one female vocalist in the series; not, for example, Karrin Allyson, Diane Reeves, Nancy King, Tierney Sutton or Meredith d’Ambrosio—singers steeped in jazz. Under the “contemporary jazz” label, Legends of Jazz brings together the rock-jazz-soul-funk fusion experts Marcus Miller, George Duke and Lee Ritenour. They are good at what they do. They are entertaining, and so are the urban blues singers and guitarists Robert Cray and Keb’ Mo’.
Maybe those are the kinds of compromises producers must make in the 21st century to get a “jazz” television program on the air. Or, it could be that they believe Sanborn, Monheit and Ritenour are jazz artists.
A word or two about production: The sound is excellent. The lighting on the performers is superb. The shifting, often pulsating, colored light effects in the background are a distraction from the music. The quick shot changes, swooping pans and frequent zooms are irritating. Television producers and directors brought up on action films and cartoons believe that pictorial stillness and calm are to be avoided at all costs. The seasick viewer pays the costs. Constant motion is de rigueur, and if there’s no motion in the subject, directors produce it by moving the camera. The car-chase mentality of shooting and cutting now extends to all television, even news programs. One of the wonderful things about The Sound of Jazz and Jazz Casual was that the camera and the director served the music, drew the viewer into it, allowed us to observe people simply doing what they do best. There should be no distractions.
The house band of pianist Willie Pickens, bassist Larry Gray and drummer Leon Joyce, Jr., deserves more credit than a lightning roll-by in the end titles. How about spoken credit by Ramsey Lewis or the old-fashioned, and effective, technique of superimposing their names in the lower third when they appear on screen? That may not be acceptably hip in the post-MTV school of television production, but it sure lets you know who you’re seeing and hearing.

Eric Felten’s call for suggestions of odd or unexpected pairings brought enough responses that we’ll run them in two installments. My first thought was simply to list the names of the musicians and their performances, but the comments accompanying your messages were as interesting as the couplings themselves. Wherever possible, the Rifftides staff has provided links to pertinent recordings. Some of the pairings don’t seem all that disparate, but perhaps oddity is in the ear of the beholder.
I’ll get the ball rolling with two unusual Duke Ellington partnerships. The first was Bing Crosby singing “St. Louis Blues” with the Ellington band in 1932. At 27, Crosby was in the early stage of his stardom. If you have doubts about how much he owed Louis Armstrong, be sure to hear this. Mae West does “My Old Flame” in full insinuando backed at one point by gorgeous Ellington voicings for clarinets. She sang several numbers accompanied by the Ellingtonians in the 1934 film Belle of the Nineties.
Now, it’s your turn

Doug:

One of the oddest pairings in jazz, I think, was between Gil Evans and the music of Jimi Hendrix on Evans’ Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was supposed to participate on the project, but he died before it could happen.

My favorite unexpected pairing of people was between Ray Charles and Milt Jackson for the album Soul Brothers, Soul Meeting.

Regards,

Carl Abernathy

Cahl’s Juke Joint

Doug:

I have a few off the top of my head.

The first one I offer may not be deemed as successful by most, and it certainly was miles from commercially successful, but I think it is surprisingly effective, Stan Kenton and Tex Ritter (Rare Capital LP from 1962-The cover has a spur dangling from a Mellophonium! ) particularly “Wagon Wheels.”

(Note: There have been reports recently that Capitol will reissue Stan Kenton and Tex Ritter and, as a masochism bonus, Kenton Plays Wagner. DR)

Dizzy Gillespie and Bobby Hackett

(Note: the Hackett-Gillespie album comes up again in the next installment. I’ll offer a reminiscence. DR)

Bing Crosby and David Bowie (Crosby Christmas TV Special doing a medley on ‘Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy’, yes, not an album but amazingly good.)

Dave Brubeck and Louis Armstrong (‘Summer Song’ from The Real Ambassadors.)

T-Bone Walker and Johnny Hodges (Doing ‘Stormy Monday Blues’ on JATP tour 1967. This is GREAT.)

Cheers,

Pat Goodhope

“Avenue C”

WVUD FM 91.3 or WVUD.org

University of Delaware Public Radio

Doug —

I thought Brubeck and Anthony Braxton on that old Atlantic LP from
the late Seventies worked. With time, I don’t consider it to be such
a strange pairing, but as a 21-year-old at the time, it was a real
headscratcher.

John Chacona

Doug:

I don’t know if this qualifies, but here goes: 1972”s BILL EVANS-GEORGE RUSSELL album.

The late pianist Bill Evans was a mere sideman on several of composer George Russell’s highly experimental late 50s recordings, but in 1971, with a major contract with Columbia Records, he commissioned a work from the notoriously uncompromising Russell for his second release for the label. The result was the album Living Time, one lengthy, often raucus avant-garde piece in eight “events” — some with rock rhythms – that was so radically removed from Evans’ lyrical pianistic style, that he got lots of hate mail, and his Columbia contract was dropped. With Evans’ well-known penchant for a conservative, inwardly developmental approach to his own art, it still makes one wonder “What was he thinking?”

Jan Stevens

The BILL EVANS WEBPAGES