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Last evening’s opening concert of the 2014 Portland Jazz Festival found the pianist and singer Eliane Elias in joyous spirits that led her to, but never quite over, the edge of giddiness. With bassist Marc Johnson, guitarist Graham Dechter and drummer Mauricio Zottarelli, Elias concentrated on music from her and Zottarelli’s native Brazil, with side trips into pieces from her Chet Baker and Bill Evans tribute albums. Throughout, pianism inspired by Bud Powell and Evans was characterized by rhythmic excitement and by harmonies that she seems to deepen year by year.

Elias opened with a Gilberto Gil song whose title my inadequate ear for Portuguese forced me to miss. Dechter helped set up the powerful swing in Jobim’s “Chega de Saudade,” which had the first of several Johnson bass solos. Over-amplification of the bass’s low frequencies took a bit of the edge off Johnson’s sound but could not mask the brilliance of his improvisation. Introducing “I Thought About You,” the first of three songs inspired by Baker, Elias explained the trumpeter’s influence in Brazil as bossa nova was developing in the 1950s. Her vocal phrasing, particularly in “Embraceable You,” reflected the way Baker’s singing and playing glided across bar lines. She and Dechter added a nicely worked-out alternate melody to “This Can’t Be Love,” in which the intensity of her piano solo had the audience leaning forward in their seats.

Elias recalled not merely listening to Bill Evans when she was a child but, in an early adventure in ear training, transcribing his solos. After she became bassist Johnson’s wife, she said, he played for her a cassette tape of unpublished, unreleased music that Evans gave him shortly before the pianist died in 1980. She expressed the emotion of that experience by playing a moving unaccompanied version of Cy Coleman’s “I Love My Wife,” which Evans recorded in his 1978 New Conversations album. Evans recorded the piece overdubbing two piano tracks. “I have only one piano tonight,” she said, then employed her technique to come close to making it sound like two. Elias’s solo introduction to “So Danco Samba” coursed through snatches of Bud Powell’s “Hallucinations,” blues riffs, “Liza,” and a series of exchanges with Dechter before Johnson and Zottarelli joined in behind her vocal and a powerful final chorus. Dechter, a member of the band for the past few months, adds harmonic depth and rhythmic thrust. His solo moments were effective and too few.

For Dorival Caymmi’s classic “Rosa Morena,” Elias picked up a wireless microphone, left the piano and made her way to the front of the stage to dance as she sang the song. It was the visual highlight of evening. The festival banned photographs last night. The one above is from an appearance at another festival. It captures the mood. Following “Desafinado,” with its long, riveting solo by Zottarelli, there was a standing ovation. The crowd demanded two encores; first came “The Girl from Ipanema,” then Caymmi’s “Chiclete Com Banana” (“Chewing Gum With Banana”), which had another outing by Zottarelli that swung so hard it inspired Johnson to depart from his customary stolid posture and perform a brief dance of his own. Following “Chiclete” came standing ovation number two.

Leonard Bernstein took a bit of a thrashing here recently in the Sid Caesar spoof and some of the comments that followed it. So, it is only fair to let Maestro Bernstein (1918-1990) redeem himself. The Rifftides recommendation of Rudy Royston’s new album mentions that he includes Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus.“ The opening seconds of the performance that you’re about to watch show the sort of Bernstein mannerism that was fodder for Caesar’s satire. Still, eight months before his death, Bernstein and the Bavarian Radio symphony orchestra and chorus gave a gorgeous performance of the piece that Mozart wrote in 1791. “Ave Verum Corpus” inspired Lizst, Tchaikovsky, no doubt countless other composers—and Rudy Royston. This was in the basilica of the parish church in Waldsassen, Bavaria.

Here, she is featured with clarinetist Russell Procope in Ellington’s second sacred concert

Largely inactive in her later years, Ms. Babs had been under care for Alzheimer’s disease.

Dick Berk, a drummer admired as a developer of young talent and as a colleague of dozens of major jazz artists, died last Saturday at the age of 74. Berk had been undergoing dialysis treatment for some time in Portland, Oregon, his home in recent years. In his late teens he was Billie Holiday’s drummer, recording with her at the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival. In 1960 he went from the Berklee School of Music to New York City, where he played with Charles Mingus, Freddie Hubbard, Monty Alexander and the Ted Curson-Bill Barron group, among others. His Los Angeles years in the late 1960s and early ‘70s saw him working and recording with a range of musicians including Cal Tjader, Ray Brown, Milt Jackson, Blue Mitchell, Georgie Auld, Nat Adderley and Phineas Newborn, Jr.

Berk’s own band, the Jazz Adoption Agency, nurtured such young talents as baritone saxophonist Nick Brignola, tenor saxophonist Jay Collins and trombonists Andy Martin and Mike Fahn. During his two long residencies in Portland, he gigged and recorded with pianist Jessica Williams and bassist Leroy Vinnegar and continued to encourage developing young players. As a sideline, he had acting roles in films, including Idiot’s Delight with Jack Lemon, and in the television shows Hogan’s Heroes, It Takes a Thief and Emergency.

From Berk’s L.A. period, let’s listen to him with Nick Brignola’s quintet: Brignola, baritone; Bill Watrous, trombone; Dwight Dickerson, piano; John Heard, bass. The piece is Horace Silver’s “Quicksilver.” Berk’s time throughout, the vigor of his solo and the strategic placement of his cymbal splashes give us an idea why so many superior players loved having him on the bandstand.

Dick Berk, RIP

Before we leave our Slim Gaillard phase (at least for now), it seems appropriate to recall that he is a transcendental presence in Jack Kerouac’s definitive Beat Generation novel On The Road, published in 1957. One hallucinatory scene involves Sal Paradise, Kerouac’s roman à clef narrator, his traveling companion Dean Moriarty and Gaillard—or his apparition.

Nobody knows where Slim Gaillard is. Dean once had a dream that he was having a baby and his belly was all bloated up blue as he lay on the grass of a California hospital. Under a tree, with a group of colored men, sat Slim Gaillard. Dean turned despairing eyes of a mother to him. Slim said “There you go-orooni.” Now Dean approached him, he approached his God; he thought Slim was God; he shuffled and bowed in front of him and asked him to join us ; “Right-orooni,” says Slim; he’ll join anybody but he won’t guarantee to be there with you in spirit. Dean got a table, bought drinks, and sat stiffly in front of Slim. Slim dreamed over his head. Every time Slim said “Orooni,” Dean said, “Yes!” I sat there with these two madmen. Nothing happened. To Slim Gaillard the whole world was just one big orooni.

The website Schmoop, a word Slim might have invented had he thought of it, offers literary analysis of that On The Road passage.

Slim, in his simplicity of language, seems to provide something for Dean that few other characters can. Just as Dean speaks of “IT” to Sal without telling him what “it” really is, so Slim speaks in cryptic language (“orooni”) without any explanation. It may be that Slim fulfills the hero role for Dean that Dean does for Sal.

And it may be that this offers more enlightenment.

Gaillard with Bam Brown on bass and Scatman Crothers on drums.

Vout.

In a gathering of people even younger than I, when I mentioned Slim Gaillard three of them said in unison, “Who?”

“Flat Foot Floogie,” I explained, “Cement Mixer, Putti Putti,” “Matzoh ball Oroony,” and—just to make sure they understood—”Poppity Poppity Poppity Pop Go De Motorcycle.”

Their blank stares made me realize that there must be other folks in the 21st century in need of remedial cultural education. We’ll begin with an audiovisual aid.

That was Slim Gaillard on The Tonight Show. The music as he walked off was the theme during Steve Allen’s tenure as host of the program, so it was probably the mid-1950s. By then, Gaillard had behind him a couple of decades of success that began in the late ’30s with Slim and Slam, a duo of Gaillard and bassist Slam Stewart. Their big hits were “Flat Foot Floogie” and “Cement Mixer,” novelties executed with superb musicianship. Columbia’s The Groove Juice Special CD has 20 of their recordings. Later, Gaillard teamed with another bassist, Bam Brown. Their Laughing In Rhythm: The Best of the Verve Years has several tracks that include the great bop pianist Dodo Marmarosa and such other guests as Ben Webster, Dick Hyman, Ray Brown and Milt Jackson. Slim Gaillard at Birdland 1951 is a collection of performances when he was a regular at the New York club, with Art Blakey, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Terry Gibbs, Brew Moore and others sitting in.

Well aware of Gaillard’s musicianship, the fathers of bebop, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, were happy to be guests on his recording session in Los Angeles on December 29, 1945. Gaillard is the pianist and raconteur, Jack McVea the tenor saxophonist, with Bam Brown on bass with Zutty Singleton playing drums in this blues titled “Slim’s Jam.”

Accurate information about Gaillard’s earliest years is hard to come by. This Wikipedia article seems to have what is available. If you would like to sample Gaillard’s extensive output of recordings, YouTube has dozens of them. Go here. In his later years, Gaillard sometimes worked as an actor in television shows including Marcus Welby M.D., Charlie’s Angels and Mission Impossible. He continued to appear in clubs in the US and Great Britain. He died in London in 1991 at age 75.

Since we first encountered her at Sweden’s Ystad Jazz Festival in 2012, Hannah Svensson has toured with pianist Jan Lundgren, formed a quartet with the harmonica player and composer Filip Jers and is preparing to release a new album. With Lundgren and Ms. Svensson on the CD will be the guitarist with whom she appeared in Ystad, her father Ewan. They performed together recently in recital at a guitar shop in Gothenburg on Sweden’s west coast. Mr. Svensson composed the piece several years ago and titled it “Weird Blues.” Now with lyrics, it is known as “The Blues Are Never Far Away.”

For more about the Svenssons and a video from their Ystad concert, go here.

Despite a career that began in the 1940s, the Pacific Northwest pianist Jack Brownlow recorded only two albums under his own name. When he died in 2007 Bruno, as he was known to his friends, left a stockpile of tapes from rehearsals, casual encounters and record dates. It is unlikely that any of them will ever emerge on commercially available albums, but by special arrangement with the Brownlow estate we can now and then play a piece or two on Rifftides. Here is an untitled blues that Bruno invented—complete with his celebrated chord voicings—in Portland, Oregon, late one night in 1963. The bassist is Brownlow’s young protege Jim Anderson (1941-2004), who blossomed under Bruno’s tutelage.

For an obituary of Jack Brownlow, go here. For further Rifftides posts about him, enter his name in the Search box above the right column.

Have a good weekend.

Anyone aware of the importance of jazz to the structure and fiber of American culture must be pleased by the news about Max Roach and reassured that his country treasures his contribution. (Pictured, Roach and President Jimmy Carter on the south lawn of the White House in 1977.) This week, the Library of Congress acquired the great drummer’s personal papers, musical scores, tapes and recordings. The Max Roach collection will be preserved in the library’s archives and available for research and study. There’s a lot to study. As bebop evolved, Roach (1924-2007) followed Kenny Clarke to become the music’s most powerful, inventive and influential drummer. The collection includes a piece of hotel notepaper on which he wrote,

I attended the University of the streets in the ‘Harlems’ of the USA. My professors were Duke Ellington, Sonny Greer, Baby Dodds, Louis Armstrong … My classmates were Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Charlie Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis …

His students were all of the drummers who followed him and the scores of musicians who profited from his leadership and example. His inheritors are those of us who play or listen to modern American music.

Here is a celebrated recording Roach by the 1950s quintet he co-led with trumpeter Clifford Brown. This is Brown’s composition “Joy Spring;” Roach, Brown, tenor saxophonist Harold Land, pianist Richie Powell and bassist George Morrow.

To visit the Library of Congress announcement about the acquisition of the Max Roach collection, go here.

Two memories of Max: Following a 1970s Dizzy Gillespie concert rehearsal that my camera crew and I covered at Lincoln Center, Dizzy invited me to have lunch with him, Max, Percy Heath, Billy Eckstine and Eckstine’s new young wife. We had just ordered when the restaurant’s sound system played an old Fats Waller record. Max developed a huge grin and sang along with the main phrase, “Your Feet’s Too Big.”

When I was writing notes for the reissue of Diz And Getz (Gillespie, Stan Getz, the Oscar Peterson Trio and Roach), I called Max, who was noted for his strong feelings about race and about jazz styles, to ask what he remembered about the session. “Stan Getz!” he said. “I never recorded with Stan Getz. Why would we record with him?

“But Max,” I said, “you’re on the record.”

“I don’t remember,” he said.

He may also have not remembered that he was the drummer on Getz’s first recordings for Savoy in 1946.

I have been enjoying the new book by pianist Bill Mays, a memoir of his half-century career in music. Written with panache and a fine sense of the absurd, it is packed with anecdotes about his experiences in jazz clubs and concert halls around the world and his extensive work in the movie and recording studios of Los Angeles and New York. There are stories about his encounters with artists and entertainers as various as Paul Anka, Barbara Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Placido Domingo and a raft of A-list jazz stars. Here’s a sample.

For a Beatles “revisited” project I was hired by a Japanese producer to arrange and play on several Lennon/McCartney tunes. My trio recorded several tracks , and I arranged additional tracks using a string orchestra and alto saxophone added to my trio. The producer and I both agreed that “overdubbing” the great Phil Woods would add a lot to the music. Phil responded initially to the request for his services with, “That’s just what the world needs: another Beatles tribute. Count me out!” We cajoled, we pleaded, and he relented—and sounded absolutely marvelous. With Phil bringing his one-of-a-kind sound and his own personality to the music, the Beatles never sounded better!

Mays writes about the time he severed the radial nerve in his left thumb in a kitchen accident. After surgery, his hand was in a cast for weeks.

Some months earlier I had agreed to appear at a party and play some four-hands piano music with Harold Danko. I called and told him not to worry, that the cast would be coming off the week of the party, and that I could still make the gig. Ever the prankster, Harold asked me to bring the cast that the doctor had removed with a surgical saw. Conspiring before the performance, we put the cast back on my hand, with just enough Scotch tape to hold it in place. Harold made an elaborate announcement about how I had injured my hand, had had surgery, was still in a cast, but that we both had faith that my hand could be “made whole” for the evening’s performance. He brought me onstage, did a “laying on of hands” and in his best Jimmy Swaggart faith-healer voice, commanded, in the name of the Almighty, that I be healed and realize full restoration. With a shout and a rap of his fist, my cast flew off and across the room. Looking incredulous, I shook my hand, shouting “I’m healed, I’m healed!” Whereupon we sat down and played some outrageously righteous boogie-woogie piano together.

Mays is donating proceeds from sales of his self-published memoir to the Musicians Assistance Program of the American Federation of Musicians, a fine cause. For information about how to obtain the book, see his website.

Two things I would never have known if Rifftides readers hadn’t told me about them:

1. Alto saxophonist Grace Kelly was named one of Glamour Magazine’s top 10 college women for 2011. It takes some of us non-Glamour readers a while to get the word. Here’s Glamour’s video about Ms. Kelly. Sorry about the ads. They’re part of the package.

Other Glamour top 10 college women include a scientist, a cycling champion, a nature protection advocate and a songwriter. To see the article about Ms. Kelly, go here. She and her quintet will be at the Portland Jazz Festival and at The Seasons in late February. I’m planning to report here on several festival events and the Kelly concert the same week at The Seasons.

2. In Germany since 2002, there has been a band called the Puredesmond Quartet. If you’re wondering why they chose that name, watch this:

The quartet’s website, with a German-or-English language option, has information about the band’s origins, philosophy and recording history.

It occurs to me that I should mention something about the Grammy Awards. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences presented them Sunday evening in a proceeding that was televised with impressive, even spectacular, production values. These were the winners in the jazz category:

Best improvised jazz solo
“Orbits” — Wayne Shorter (pictured), soloist
Best jazz vocal album
Liquid Spirit — Gregory Porter
Best jazz instrumental album
Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue — Terri Lyne Carrington
Best large jazz ensemble album
Night in Calisia — Randy Brecker, Wlodek Pawlik Trio & Kalisz Philharmonic
Best Latin jazz album
Song for Maura — Paquito D’Rivera and Trio Corrente

Congratulations to all.

The jazz winners did not appear on the telecast, but received their awards in a pre-broadcast ceremony out of sight of the millions who watched the main event. That is how NARAS, with rare exceptions, has buried jazz and classical music at the Grammy ceremonies for the past couple of decades.

I was unable to watch the television broadcast. Then, thinking that I should know something about the acts (term chosen advisedly) that NARAS deemed airworthy, I went to YouTube and watched Macklemore, Lorde, Daft Punk, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and a few others in clips from the show. The only sensible conclusion is that what they do is primarily concerned with entertainment, social commentary, drama, shock and awe, and with music hardly at all. There is no use being worked up about it unless you want to get exercised about the societal and commercial values generating a cultural atmosphere that nourishes demand for such entertainment and makes it popular and profitable. It’s been a losing battle since at least “Three Little Fishies” and “How Much is That Doggie in the Window.”

Music of substance and lasting value is available. Those who prefer it can seek it out, wishing all the while, perhaps, that musicians who devote their lives to perfecting their art and craft in jazz trios or string quartets or symphony orchestras could be rewarded with even a small percentage of the adoration and money lavished on obscene hip-hop performers or vocalists who specialize in bumps, grinds and pelvic thrusts.

Maybe it’s just a phase we’re going through and modern equivalents of the big bands or the bossa nova or Frank Sinatra or the Brubeck Quartet or Miles Davis or whatever you miss most will come back to the Grammys. I’m an optimist, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

The Los Angeles Times has a complete list of Grammy winners.