Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest broadcast this Sunday will feature four of Seattle’s most prominent jazz artists. Here is his announcement.
Clarence Acox & the Legacy Quartet Seattle Art Museum concert airs on Jazz Northwest on January 24
Drummer Clarence Acox is a widely heralded teacher who leads the award winning Garfield Jazz Ensemble and is co-director of The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra. He was the drummer for the long run of Floyd Standifer’s quartet at The New Orleans Creole Restaurant. A legendary trumpeter, Standifer led the group until he died in 2007. Clarence renamed it The Legacy Quartet in honor of Floyd, with various horn players rotating in Standifer’s place. Acox continued the tradition until the restaurant closed in 2013.
This Art of Jazz concert presented by Earshot Jazz, reassembled the quartet at the Seattle Art Museum, not far from the Pioneer Square restaurant where it played Wednesday nights for 27 years. The quartet includes saxophonist Tony Rondolone, Bill Anschell, piano, Phil Sparks, bass and Clarence Acox on drums. They play standards and range from swing to bop to movie themes. Many in the large, appreciative, audience at the concert first heard the group at the New Orleans Creole Restaurant.
Jazz Northwest airs Sundays at 2 PM Pacific time on 88.5 KPLU and streams at kplu.org.
Continuing the struggle to keep up, the Rifftides staff once again plunges into the accumulation of more-or-less-recent albums and selects a few to tell you about. The stacks you see below include the 50 or so review copies of CDs that have come in since January 1. Keeping up seems to be out of the question.
worked his way into the front rank of a new generation of jazz players. Now with ten CDs of his own and dozens with other leaders, Pelt continues to capitalize on technical skill, a tone of penetrating warmth, and subtle humor centered in rhythmic phrasing. His new collection’s centerpiece is bassist Ron Carter’s “Einbahnstrasse,†which debuted 50 years ago in an 
called “Old Theme.†It is not the first sign of unabated vitality in the collection; Vitchev, drummer Mike Shannon, bassist Dan Robbins and pianist Weber Iago have elevated moments throughout. “Old Theme,†“The Invisible Stairway,†“It May Backfire†and the joyful “Without Words As The Full Moon Shines†provide contrast to the relaxation, lyricism and air of nostalgia that characterize much of the album. A Bulgarian who settled in the San Francisco Bay area, Vitchev has an even guitar touch, creates long improvised lines and has a compositional style that encompasses Latin, Eastern European and post-Coltrane jazz elements. The moments when the quartet seems intent on making background music don’t last long.
As on previous observances of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, Rifftides remembers him with one of the most eloquent pieces of music to arise out of the civil rights struggle in the United States in the 1960s. The John Coltrane Quartet played it on Ralph Gleason’s Jazz Casual telecast in 1963.
One of the great pleasures of my years in New Orleans was a friendship with Danny Barker (1909-1994). After he moved back to his hometown from New York, Danny became a guiding light to young musicians, curator of the New Orleans Jazz Museum and a living link to the city’s musical past. The countless youngsters who learned from him came to know his history as a member of the influential Swing Era bands of Lucky Millinder and Cab Calloway, one of the music’s great rhythm guitarists and a writer of songs that last. I’m a day late in remembering what would have been his 107th birthday and happy to recognize it with this recording of Danny performing his most celebrated composition. At 01:46, watch for a photo of Danny with his wife, the fine blues singer Blue Lu Barker. Following that, you’ll see him with his Cab Calloway colleague bassist Milt Hinton.
The clever album title stands as a fair description of the tenor saxophonist’s approach. Person is a melodist who finds the heart and essence of a tune and, within a few notes, puts his trademark on it. His choice of songs here is as satisfying as his choice of colleagues. As annotator Willard Jenkins suggests, Person internalizes what he plays—from the harmonic content to the flow of melody and the importance of the words. In common with his predecessors Ben Webster, Lester Young, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, the listener senses Person thinking a song’s lyric. It’s true in “Crazy He Calls Me,†the Ruth Brown classic “Teardrops From My Eyes,†Irving Berlin’s “Change Partners,†Jimmy McHugh’s and Dorothy Field’s “On The Sunny Side of the Street.†It is true of all 10 songs here, including Benny Golson’s “I Remember Clifford,†the longest and most heartfelt performance on the album.
A veteran jazz and classical bassist, Bren Plummer heads a trio with fellow Seattleites John Hansen, piano, and Reade Whitwell, drums. He applies his incisive bowing technique in Duke Ellington’s and Billy Strayhorn’s “The Star-Crossed Lovers†and—in one chorus of pure melody supported by a filagree of Whitwell’s cymbal strokes—in the impressionistic title tune composed by drummer Joe Chambers for a 1968 Bobby Hutcherson recording. The trio is full of vigor on Lee Morgan’s “Boy, What a Night,†energizes the 1942 Tommy Dorsey-Frank Sinatra hit “In the Blue of Evening†and plays Miles Davis’s “Take Off†in the neo-bop spirit of the original Blue Note recording.
The movie had been out for about a minute-and-a-half when Ethel Waters went into the studio for the first big cover recording. Through the 1940s and ‘50s singers including the Mills Brothers, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Mel Tormé, Paula Kelly, Toni Tennille, the Al Belletto Sextet and probably a dozen others followed suit. In recent years, videos of the song by Wesla Whitfield and Nikki Yanofsky have been memorable for different reasons.
A longtime favorite in Canada, Susie Arioli’s fame could spread abroad on the strength of her singing in this collection. Indeed, strength is a fair description of her work, not in terms of force or volume but of lyric interpretation, phrasing and time feeling that sends her gliding through a song. Whether at sprightly tempos, as in her composition “Loverboy,†in ballads or a classic blues like “Evenin’,†she is in cool control, her alto voice impeccably in tune. An ensemble of Canadian stars assembled by veteran producer John Snyder and headed by multi-instrumentalist Don Thompson puts her in compatible company. There are notable solos from Thompson, saxophonist Phil Dwyer and trumpeter Kevin Turcotte. Bassist Neil Swainson, drummer Terry Clarke and guitarist Reg Schwager are the forthright rhythm section. Of her originals, Ms. Arioli’s drinker’s lament “Can’t Say No,†tinged with remorse, could cross into C&W territory. 
Mozart is the archetype of the child musical genius. Over the centuries, many successors have been proclaimed.
In the long run, few have qualified. The current child-genius nominee is Joey Alexander, a pianist from the Indian Ocean Island of Bali. Whether it is accurate—indeed whether it is fair to a 12-year-old—to declare him a genius, is now beside the point. The publicity machinery is in full, inexorable, motion. Last night, CBS Television’s 60 Minutes featured young Mr. Alexander. Coverage by that venerable news program is the 21st century counterpart of being on the cover of TIME Magazine. The campaign is underway.
Again this year, I swore off voting in what has become an epidemic of jazz popularity contests, also known as critics polls, with one exception. I don’t seem to be able to say no to the persuasive Francis Davis, who conducts the National Public Radio Jazz Critics Poll. How I voted on the day I succumbed doesn’t necessarily reflect how I might have voted a day—or a week—sooner or later. Here’s my ballot:
The mystery, melancholy and minimalist magic of Mette Henriette Martedatter Rølvåg’s music stems in part from her family origins in the Sámi, the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia. The young Norwegian tenor saxophonist and composer shares qualities of Nordic cool and daring that have brought attention to such established ECM artists as Jan Garbarek and Ketil Bjørnstad. The first CD of her debut album for the label presents her with cellist Katrine Schiott and pianist Johan Lindvall in pieces approaching pure impressionism. At first, she keeps her saxophone in a minor role. When it emerges, her quiet authority on the instrument commands attention. The second disc finds Ms. Rølvåg with a 13-piece ensemble in which she establishes a significant composition and arranging talent. In a piece like “Wind on Rocks,†her playing and the entwined subtlety of her writing make her doubly impressive.
The heart of Mr. Cerra’s feature is the essay that I wrote for the 1996 release of an eight-CD box compiled from the Harris tapes. His post also includes producer Orrin Keepnews’s recollections of his long association with the pianist. Among the sidemen who appear on the album are drummers Philly Joe Jones, Marty Morell and Arnie Wise. The bassists are Teddy Kotick and Eddie Gomez. To see the Jazz Profiles post about Evans, 
Today’s exception is “England’s Carol,†John Lewis’s orchestral variations on the traditional English Carol “God Bless Ye Merry, Gentlemen.†Lewis (pictured) and the Modern Jazz Quartet included the piece in their repertoire, and he expanded on it in his 1958 European Windows album with members of the Stuttgart Symphony. Percy Health and Connie Kay, the MJQ’s bassist and drummer, played on the date. As soloists for the piece, Lewis chose the English baritone saxophonist Ronnie Ross and the Czech flutist Gerald Weinkopf. Your responses to this in previous Christmas seasons made us think that perhaps you would enjoy hearing it again.
could sell him a record. Gerry told Bock that the group hadn’t recorded yet, and Bock said, “Well, how much does it cost to make a record?†When he found out that it could be done for just a few hundred dollars, he got the quartet into a recording studio, and the Pacific Jazz label was born. It went on to successfully record many West Coast jazz groups.
With a subdued manner and undercurrents of strong feeling, the Oregon singer ranges across a dozen songs of varying genres. Among them are standards by the Gershwins, Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, Charles Trenet and Harry Warren; a Horace Silver classic; and three impressive compositions of her own. She unifies the pieces with a rhythmic pulse, musicianly phrasing and the subtlety of a slight terminal vibrato on note endings. Her “Danger in Loving You†and a gospel treatment of Sarah Masen’s “Carry Us Through†have qualities that could send them onto soul charts. Accompanied by piano, bass and baritone saxophone, she scats half a chorus of “Our Love Is Here To Stay,†exhibiting an understanding of the chords, a trait not rampant among scat singers. With conviction, Ms. Loren delivers the message of Silver’s “Peace,†whose unidentified lyricist deserves credit.
(pictured), recorded it as “Moonlight On Kinkakuji” with bassist Jay Leonhart and drummer Joe Ascione in his 2009 Venus album 
became “Almost Christmas.†Sickler made videos of three versions of the song featuring Washington, DC, vocalist Lena Seikaly (pictured). Here, Ms. Seikaly sings it accompanied by the veteran pianist-bandleader Cecilia Coleman and bassist Kanoa Mendenhall, whom Sickler describes as “an 18-year-old rising star.â€
However, I am filled with the spirit of celebrating Sinatra’s 100th, so I want to point out the time and place of my special: Sunday evening Dec 13, 7PM -11PM Eastern Time. If you are near your radio or have access via your computer or mobile device I hope that you will join me. 91.3FM or 
Coltrane legacy, A Love Supreme’s effect on succeeding jazz by instrumentalists and vocalists has continued to grow. The titles of the piece’s sections are indications of the depth of the saxophonist’s metaphysical transformation in 1957 from post-bebop striver with drug and alcohol problems into a seeker of peace and enlightenment through creative expression, religion and mysticism. The titles are “Acknowledgement,†“Resolution,†“Pursuance†and “Psalm.â€