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Dick Vartanian, a trumpet player, was one of many San Francisco jazzmen who served in World War Two and returned home to see if they could make a living playing music. He and a clarinetist, Paul Breitenfeld, had become good friends at Polytechnic High School. The war behind them, the young Army veterans attended San Francisco State College, worked gigs in and around the city and played together for a time at the Feather River Inn, a resort in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We see them pictured above at a 1949 jam session at San Francisco State. Breitenfeld changed his main instrument to alto saxophone, changed his last name to Desmond and hooked up with a pianist named Brubeck. Full disclosure: Mr. Vartanian was an invaluable source when I was writing Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond.

Vartanian switched to piano and worked for decades with his trio and as a soloist in a variety of Bay Area clubs and restaurants. Approaching his 90th birthday, he has published an account of his life. It is in a little book called Ivories and Brass. It tells of his early days jamming with Desmond and Jerome Richardson; travails and pleasures of life as an Army musician; encounters with Harry James, Jonathan Winters, Victor Borge, Vernon Alley and Frank Sinatra (among many others); the Chinatown club owner who insisted that he wear a turban; a wild horseback ride with the 11-year-old Natalie Wood; and songs that he wrote for a revue starring Johnny Mathis before Mathis became a pop star. The book is rough-hewn, readable and replete with wry reflections. It is short and priced accordingly.

To hear one of the Mathis songs from 1955 and see a picture of Vartanian and Mathis together, go here.

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Lester Young, tenor saxophone; Teddy Wilson, piano; Roy Eldridge, trumpet; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Gene Ramey, bass; Freddie Green, guitar; Jo Jones, drums. This Year’s Kisses. Prez, Teddy, Roy, Vic, Gene, Freddy, Jo. “This Year’s Kisses” from Jazz Giants ‘56.

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Nick Travis (1925-1964) played trumpet in a variety of big bands including those of Woody Herman, Ray McKinley, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Ina Ray Hutton and Jerry Wald; all of those in the 1940s. The list got longer in the ‘50s, when he worked with Herman again, and with Jerry Gray, Bob Chester, Elliott Lawrence, Jimmy Dorsey, the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra and Maynard Ferguson’s Birdland Dream Band. Travis was active in New York studios in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s and was a prominent member of Gerry Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band. In demand as a lead player, he was also a more than capable soloist in small groups led by Zoot Sims, Al Cohn and others. He had his own quintet album on RCA.

A recent discussion among jazz researchers turned up a rare kinescope recording of Travis performing with former Duke Ellington cornetist Rex Stewart in 1958 on one of the Art Ford’s Jazz Party broadcasts. Their version of “There Will Never Be Another You” may well have been arranged on the spot.

The bassist was Vinnie Burke, frequently featured on the Ford program. YouTube identifies the drummer as Barry Miles and the pianist as Ray Bryant. The pianist, however, is someone else. Bryant is seen wandering toward the piano in the closing seconds of the film. If you know who the pianist is, please send a comment.

(Footnote 1/28/15. Jan Lundgren suggests in his comment below that the pianist may be Eddie Costa [1930-1962]. Costa fits the time frame and general appearance, but since there is no piano solo, it’s difficult to base a conclusion on playing style.)

Pianist on the video                                                             Eddie Costa

 

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Stan Kenton Alumni Band, Road Scholars (Summit)

Before he died, Stan Kenton ruled that there would never be a Kenton ghost band. Nor has there been. Still, 35 years after his death there is considerable demand for the expansive Kenton approach. The 18-piece road band led by former Kenton trumpeter Mike Vax goes a long way toward satisfying that demand. Half of the band’s members worked for Kenton. The others are from the rich pool of southern California musicians with extensive big band experience.

Vax and his troops recorded the CD’s 14 selections on a 2013 tour through six states and the District of Columbia. He includes Bill Holman’s imperishable arrangements of “Yesterdays” and “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” but the album is not primarily a nostalgia trip. There are impressive new arrangements by trombonists Scott Whitfield and Dale DeVoe, both Kenton veterans. Whitfield’s charts on Johnny Mandel’s “Cinnamon & Clove” and Quincy Jones’ “Stockholm Sweetnin’” incorporate energized vocal passages by him and his partner Ginger Berglund. Lennie Niehaus’s “Lullaby of Broadway” opens with an obvious reference to “Intermission Riff,” an early 1950s artifact. But “Lullaby” and Ray Brown’s “Neverbird,” staples of the Kenton book, maintain their freshness

With the drama of its contrasting lines among the horn sections, trumpeter Steve Huffsteter’s arrangement of his composition “Sneaky” is one of the album’s creative high points, his muted trumpet solo another. Vax showcases his own upper register virtuosity in Puccini’s “Nessum Dorma.” There are solo highlights elsewhere from trumpeters Carl Saunders and Don Rader, and from saxophonists Pete Gallio, Kim Richmond and Rick Condit. Bassist Jennifer Leitham and drummer Gary Hobbs drive the band compellingly, aided in the rhythm section by the young pianist Charlie Ferguson. Considering that the album was recorded live under varying conditions in several locations, the sound quality is admirable.

So many noteworthy releases have arrived in recent months that it is impossible to do more than point you toward a few of them. So:

Emil Viklický & George Mraz, Duo Art: Together Again (ACT)

Mraz’s and Viklický’s collaborations on the sublime albums Morava and Moravian Gems left no doubt about their love of the music of that celebrated region of their native land, or of their ability to infuse it with jazz values. Mraz, one of the world’s great bass virtuosos, reunites with Viklický, a pianist, composer and arranger of vast scope. They interpret Viklický compositions, his arrangements of Moravian folk songs and pieces by Czech composers Leoš Janáček and Zdeněk Fibich. Mraz has lived in New York for years. Viklický keeps Prague as his home base. When they get together, all the world is Czech.

John Coltrane, Offering: Live At Temple University (Impulse)

No matter how deep you are into late Coltrane, this is demanding listening. Toward the end of his life, the great tenor saxophonist said that he was in search of the universal sound. Critic Jack Fuller once pointed out in a discussion of late-period Coltrane that the sound of the universe is “random noise.” Coltrane achieves that here. In terms of overall balance and fidelity, it’s a substandard recording, but his horn is in bold relief. Coltrane is so important to music that familiarity with this record is of consequence in understanding him.

Nels Cline & Julian Lage, Room (Mack Avenue)

Cline, an established guitar hero, and Lage, a new one, play duets on two of Lage’s compositions and eight of Cline’s. Their mastery of the acoustic and electric versions of the instrument will have other guitarists shaking their heads in disbelief, frustration or admiration. The collaboration was reportedly inspired by the late Jim Hall’s example. Despite the dazzle of their virtuosity, however, Cline and Lage do not rise to the level of Hall’s ability to impart a sense of wonder.

 

Jeremy Pelt, Tales, Musings and other Reveries (High Note)

Pelt’s sense of wonder and adventure has never been in question. It has sometimes led the trumpeter into experimentation and risk-taking that might have paid off better. That is not the case here. He teams up with the intriguing Italian pianist Simona Premazzi, bassist Ben Allison and two drummers, Billy Drummond and Victor Lewis. The drummers energize Pelt and he them. The entire album is stimulating, but Pelt’s and the drummers’ romp through Clifford Jordan’s “Glass Bead Games” is extraordinary.

 

The Mike Longo Trio Celebrates Oscar Peterson Live (CAP)

The pianist pays homage to Oscar Peterson for his tutelage and inspiration during Longo’s six months of intensive private study with him during a formative period. On “Tenderly,” one of Peterson’s signature pieces, Longo demonstrates that he got the message when Peterson commanded him, loudly and with heat, never to imitate anyone, including Peterson. His individuality is unmistakable in this concert with longtime colleagues bassist Paul West and drummer Ray Mosca. The pianist’s glistening melodic inventions in Irving Berlin’s “Always” and Victor Schertzinger’s “I Remember You” are highlights.

More reviews coming soon.

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Ward Swingle, who founded a vocal group that melded J.S. Bach with bebop rhythm and scat singing, died on Monday in Eastbourne, England. He was 87. The announcement came from the Swingles, successor to the Swingle Singers, many of whose albums were best sellers in the US and Europe in the 1960s. Born in Alabama, Mr. Swingle was an American pianist with classical training who went to Paris for study with pianist Walter Gieseking and became involved in the city’s classical and jazz communities. He joined Mimi Perrin’s Les Double Six, a French group that did vocal recreations of swing and bebop classics. Then with his own Swingle Singers, he expanded the repertoire to include Bach and Mozart, bringing to their compositions jazz feeling and vocal improvisation. In this performance of the Sinfonia movement of Bach’s Partita No. 2, Christiane Legrand is the featured soloist. We see Ward Swingle on the right.

Mr. Swingle’s survivors include his wife of 62 years, violinist Françoise Demorest. For an extensive obituary, go here.

The original version of the post misidentified Ward Swingle in the video. He is, indeed, on the right. Thanks to an alert reader named Bob for the correction.

In remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on the national holiday dedicated to his leadership of the civil rights movement, here is the John Coltrane Quartet playing Coltrane’s “Alabama.” The performance is from Ralph J. Gleason’s Jazz Casual television series

John Coltrane, tenor saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; Elvin Jones, drums.

Coltrane made the initial recording of “Alabama” on November 19, 1963, two months following the white supremacist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist church in Birmingham. Four girls—three of them 14 years old, one 11—died in the blast, leading King to wire Alabama Governor George Wallace,

…the blood of four little children … is on your hands. Your irresponsible and misguided actions have created in Birmingham and Alabama the atmosphere that has induced continued violence and now murder.

It was a crucial event in the movement for federal civil rights legislation, which passed in 1964. Dr. King was assassinated in 1968.

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Courtesy of National Public Radio Jazz, we travel back two years to join pianist McCoy Tyner with two all-star groups at the opening of the splendid SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco. NPR’s Patrick Jarenwattanon provides background.

Few pianists have been as influential to modern jazz practice as McCoy Tyner. His harmonic and rhythmic conceptions, notably displayed as a member of John Coltrane’s “classic” quartet, are instantly recognizable. And at age 74, you can still hear his driving left hand and dense chordal suggestions in fine form. For the opening of the SFJAZZ Center, Tyner called his strolling “Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit,” with a multi-generational quartet. Then he played a happy blues to welcome some Bay Area jazz royalty: alto saxophonist John Handy and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. Hutcherson has emphysema, and requires an oxygen supply; his entire being lit up when it came time to play with the pianist he’s collaborated with for nearly 50 years.

Tyner’s first group has Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone; Esperanza Spalding, bass; and Eric Harland, drums. Following a somewhat confused transitional announcement by Bill Cosby, Bay Area heroes Hutcherson and Handy join Tyner, along with guitarist Bill Frisell, tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman and bassist Matt Penman. Harland remains on drums. They play Tyner’s classic “Blues on the Corner.”

For news about the second season of SFJAZZ, including artist schedules, visit the institution’s website.

Have a good weekend.

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Red Garland, Swingin’ on the Korner: Live At Keystone Korner (Elemental)

A new Red Garland album: a nice surprise from a time just after the pianist released himself from self-imposed isolation. Garland made his name as a member of the seminal 1950s Miles Davis Quintet that also included tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones. His exposure with Davis, followed by years of success with his own trio, made Garland one of the most recorded, best known and influential pianists in jazz. Then in 1965 he went home to Dallas, worked rarely and in 1975 stopped practicing. He told me in 1979, “The record royalties were coming in, so I did nothing. I watched television for eighteen months.”

Finally, a Dallas club owner coaxed him out of his house. He started playing at the Recovery Room and worked fairly often there, and in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco until illness stopped him. He died in May, 1984. Always, Garland exuded the blues he absorbed as a youngster and threaded his playing with sophistication that could lead him to incorporate Beethoven into an improvisation. In this previously unissued recording, he works Für Elyse into his introduction to “Love For Sale,” the opening number of this two-CD set recorded in 1977 at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco. As usual with Garland in such cases, the quote is a part of the flow of his invention. The tune established, Garland is off and away for nearly 12 minutes of energy and bonhomie shared with his old teammate Jones and the stalwart bassist Leroy Vinnegar.

Garland solos extensively throughout the album, and in the course of the hour-and-a-half, so do Jones and Vinnegar, to the delight of the Keystone Korner audience. The repertoire comes from tunes made classics by the Davis group—among them ”Billy Boy,” “Dear Old Stockholm” and “On Green Dolphin Street. Others are from the vast playbook he developed during the post-Davis years when he recorded a couple of dozen albums, some with guests including saxophonists Coltrane and Oliver Nelson, trumpeter Donald Byrd and other horn players. Garland was partial to superior songs from musical theatre and film. He has sensitive treatments here of “If I’m Lucky,” “On a Clear Day,” “I Wish I Knew” and “Never Let Me Go”, ending the latter by alternating hands in a thrilling trip down the keyboard through the harmonic changes.

As for the blues that Garland cherished, the collection includes Milt Jackson’s “Bags’ Groove,” Thelonious Monk’s “Straight No Chaser” and Kenny Dorham’s exhilarating “Blues in Bebop” from 1947. The Dorham piece is notable for Philly Joe’s nonpareil snare drum chatter prodding Garland back into form when he succumbs to a moment of ennui. Vinnegar was famous as one of the great walking bassists. He does plenty of walking, and swinging, here, but on “Bags’ Groove,” he has a horn-like solo that’s a highlight.

This Keystone Korner discovery finds Garland slightly down slope from peak form but still capable of generating excitement and, in the ballads, beauty so personal that no other pianist has ever quite managed to approximate the Garland touch. And it’s a treat to hear him late in his career rising to Philly Joe’s challenges.

The CD’s 44-page booklet has commentary by former Keystone Korner owner Todd Barkan, his producing partner Zev Feldman, Nat Hentoff, Ira Gitler, producer Don Schlitten, appreciations by pianist Benny Green and drummer Kenny Washington and—full disclosure—an article that I wrote about Garland years ago for Texas Monthly.

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Joe Pass was born on this day in 1929. Nearly 21 years after his death in 1994, he is remembered as one of the great guitar virtuosos not only in jazz but in all of music. For background, here is a section of the notes I wrote for the 2010 reissue of Virtuoso, the album that made it clear Pass had conquered his problems and was making the transition from respected journeyman to cherished star.

Joe Pass was 44 when he recorded Virtuoso in 1973. After 30 years as a professional musician, he became an overnight sensation. For ten of those years he was in obscurity and a struggle with drug addiction. After he summoned his courage and conquered his habit, he spent another decade as a studio musician and touring sideman and began to attract attention.

The moment his peers heard the 1961 album Sounds of Synanon, named for the rehabilitation center where he got well, they spotted Pass’s stunning ability. In the 1960s, musicians wore copies of his LPs down past the vinyl surfaces. They recognized Pass as one of the greatest of all guitarists. General acclaim took years longer. Virtuoso inspired a shower of enthusiastic reviews. Big sales followed, and his fame began to radiate beyond the jazz community. The year following Virtuoso’s release in 1974, Pass went to the top of the guitar category in the Down Beat critics and readers polls. For the rest of his life, he won polls, awards and the devotion of the listening public. Since his death in 1994 there has been exponential growth of the awe he strikes in players of his instrument. Guitarists revere Joe Pass as pianists esteem Art Tatum and saxophonists adore Charlie Parker.

Before we see and hear Pass in concert with one of his closest colleagues, let’s listen to a track from Virtuoso, the first of his series of albums incorporating that title.

Pass’s collaboration with bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (1946-2005) began a year or so before Virtuoso when producer Norman Granz put them together with Oscar Peterson for the album called The Trio, recorded live at Chicago’s London House. For the next two decades, they worked often as a duo, including at the 1991 Jazz Baltica festival at the Opernhaus in Kiel, Germany.

At the microphone following a solo by his star alto saxophonist, Duke Ellington often said, “Thank you for Johnny Hodges,” and it sounded as if he might be addressing the deity. I never mind stealing from Ellington: Thank you for Joe Pass.

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A memorial service for Charlie Haden, who died last July, is set for this week in New York City. Here is the poster.

For a reminder of what keeps Haden in the memories of all those distinguished musicians, here is “First Song” performed with his Quartet West: Haden, bass; Alan Broadbent, piano; Gary Foster, tenor saxophone; Larance Marable, drums.

Complete details about the memorial service are at the Town Hall website. For the Rifftides announcement of his death, see this post from the archive.

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Lena Seikaly, Looking Back (Seikaly)

In her third album, the Washington DC singer applies her mezzo-soprano, swing, taste and pure intonation to 10 songs written between 1918 and 1939, with a futuristic side trip to 1950 and Duke Ellington’s “Love You Madly.” She scats her way into the Ellington anthem, which, until Ms. Seikaly got hold of it, was pretty much under the sole ownership of Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Williams. The performance is a duet with bassist Zack Pride. He walks her briskly along and takes a brief, impressive solo. Her scatting is based not on the unfocused desire to be hip that leads so many inexperienced singers to grief, but on fidelity to harmonic principles.

In another duet, with pianist Chris Grasso, she uses a superb sense of dynamics to explore the sense of loss and wracking emotion in Irving Berlin’s “Suppertime.” When guitarist Paul Pieper and drummer Lenny Robinson make the band a quintet on the Gershwins’ “Fascinating Rhythm” and Layton and Creamer’s “After You’ve Gone,” the sentiment is exhilaration. Any singer electing to interpret “I Cover the Waterfront” has Billie Holiday looking over her shoulder. Ms. Seikaly avoids imitation. Indeed, she achieves the individuality that Ms. Holiday was known to urge on singers who tried to sound like her. This video was shot as she recorded the song.

If Ms. Seikaly’s treatment of superior songs from the 1920s and ‘30s encourages other young singers to adapt what many of them may consider ancient material, good for her. Good for them. Good for us.

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It is an essential part of jazz history: Louis Armstrong’s life as a New Orleans street kid and his consignment in 1913 to the Colored Waifs Home where he learned to play the cornet. He wrote about it himself, memorably, in his autobiography. Armstrong historians and biographers may have thought that they had learned everything there was to know about Armstrong’s early years. Now, they are finding that there is more to the story. Newly surfaced documents from the Waifs Home have led in turn to the discovery of newspaper stories about Armstrong escapades even earlier than his arrest for exuberantly firing a pistol into the air.

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune story about what those records show:

At the top of the page, “colored” is typed in parentheses. “Daily Census for the month ending Jan. 1910,” it says below that. In the upper right corner is a handwritten note: “Louis Armstrong in the Nov. report of 1910. Pending trial. Dis Nov. 8, 1910 to aunt.”

and

On May 31, just over four months after Armstrong landed in the Colored Waifs Home for at least the second time, The Daily Picayune described the home’s band on parade the day before, with Armstrong, then 11, as its charismatic leader.

and

“This is mind-blowing,” said Ricky Riccardi, archivist at the Louis Armstrong House and Museum in New York City’s borough of Queens and author of What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years. “I’ve been spending half my life researching Armstrong, and this is a breakthrough.”

For the extensive Times-Picayune story by reporter James Karst about the discovery, photographs of the documents and news stories, and details about what they disclose, click here.

For a reminder—if you need one—of Armstrong’s brilliance after he left New Orleans, please listen to this (try to ignore the paper sleeve ballet, but not Armstrong’s solo):

Louis Armstrong, trumpet; Fred Robinson, trombone; Jimmy Strong, tenor saxophone; Don Redman, alto saxophone; Earl Hines, piano; Dave Wilborn, banjo; Zutty Singleton, drums. December 5, 1928, Chicago.

Whew.

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The Denny Zeitlin concert mentioned here recently will be broadcast this week. It was recorded December 5 at the Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland. Zeitlin’s solo piano explorations of Wayne Shorter compositions will be on Jim Bennett’s program on KCSM-FM in the San Francisco Bay Area from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. PST Thursday, January 8. Local listeners may find it at 91.1 FM. On the web, the program will be streamed live at kcsm.org

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Perhaps best know for his work with Vince Guaraldi, Cal Tjader and Earl Hines, Dean Reilly plays bass in the San Francisco Band Swing Fever. For a time, the band included Buddy DeFranco. In observance of DeFranco’s passing last week, Mr. Reilly sent a remembrance written by Bryan Gould, Swing Fever’s trombonist and leader (pictured with DeFranco). Here’s an excerpt:

“Here’s a little something to think about,” Buddy said to me one time, “contrary to what everyone thinks, Charlie Parker did not play better when high on heroin. Often he played considerably worse.” Nonetheless it was Parker he said, who really opened his ears and sent him headlong into bebop.

He had a very low opinion of dope in general, and especially of the rockers who he felt led a lot of young people to abuse. He held the rockers of the ‘60s responsible for ruining a lot of lives.

For a jazz musician, Buddy was a very upright traditional sort of person. This made him a nice balance to the madcap Terry Gibbs. Terry jabbed him with wild spirit; Buddy brought Terry (according to Buddy) down to earth. (On our tour with Terry; I can personally say that I have never seen Terry Gibbs down to earth.) Their partnership was felicitous.

To read all of Gould’s essay, go to the Swing Fever website. To see and hear the DeFranco/Gibbs felicity that Gould mentions, click on the white arrow below.

Jim Wilke has retired as host of the syndicated and streamed Jazz After Hours, but not from Jazz Northwest. Jim supplies the tip:

One of the best jazz piano trios in the Pacific Northwest, or anywhere, is featured in performance on Jazz Northwest, Sunday, January 4 at 2 PM Pacific on 88.5 KPLU and streaming at kplu.org. The program will also be available as a podcast at jazznw.org following the broadcast. Pianist Dave Peck, long a mainstay on the Seattle jazz scene, leads his trio with Jeff Johnson, bass and Eric Eagle, drums in a program of American standards recorded during a two-night engagement at Tula’s in Seattle.

Dave Peck emerged as a sideman in the late 70s, often backing touring artists as diverse as Chet Baker Sonny Stitt, Art Farmer and Clifford Jordan. He toured and recorded with Bud Shank in the 90s, and has concentrated on his own piano trio in recent years. Bassist Jeff Johnson and drummer Eric Eagle are his regular collaborators in this trio.

In this video, however, the drummer is Joe LaBarbera.

News has arrived that pianist George Ziskind died in December. He was 86. In his Chicago youth, which included study with Lennie Tristano, Ziskind won a piano competition that included his friend Lou Levy. Drug problems derailed his career for a time, but he reestablished it after moving to New York. He sometimes played at Bradley’s, the Greenwich Village piano showcase that thrived in the 1970s and ‘80s. For an obituary, go here.

Here is Ziskind playing “Sunday” in a duo engagement at Bradley’s with bassist Red Mitchell. You may detect his fondness for Bill Evans and, toward the end, for Thelonious Monk.

Mr. Ziskind’s frequent messages and occasional Rifftides comments were valuable for their knowledge and their salty forthrightness. George Ziskind, RIP.

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The past seven days have seen the deaths of three musicians who came to prominence as young men and had long careers in the swing, bebop and post-bop eras.

Buddy DeFranco, who in the 1940s was the first to successfully adapt the clarinet to the complexities of bebop, died the day before Christmas at age 91. In recent years he and his wife Joyce lived in Panama City, Florida. DeFranco was the principal influence onvirtually every major clarinetist who played the instrument in modern jazz. Born in Camden, New Jersey, he attended music school in Philadelphia, was a professional at 16 and before he was 20 had worked with the big bands of Gene Krupa, Ted Fio Rito and Charlie Barnet, then with Tommy Dorsey and Boyd Raeburn. His quartet with pianist Sonny Clark, bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Bobby White was an acclaimed group in the mid-1950s. He worked steadily until illness slowed him in his eighties. For more about DeFranco, see the obituary by Don Heckman in The Los Angeles Times.

Drummer Ronnie Bedford died Saturday December 20 in Powell, Wyoming, where he had lived since 1986. He and his wife were attracted to the relaxed pace of life in the west after years in New York City. Before and after the move, he worked and recorded with a range of jazz artists including Benny Carter, Red Norvo, Teddy Wilson, Toshiko Akiyoshi , Benny Goodman, Rod Levitt, Buddy DeFranco and Harry Edison. Bedford was 83. For an obituary, go here.

DeFranco and Bedford, colleagues in their New York days, had a reunion at a 1990 Wyoming jazz festival that Bedford organized. Reed Gratz is the pianist, Peter Huffaker the bassist.

Al Belletto was so attached to New Orleans that he returned to his hometown in midcareer and spent almost all of the rest of his life there. The saxophonist and bandleader died Friday night at home in the Crescent City suburb of Metairie after a long struggle with Huntington’s disease. He would have been 87 on January 3. No public obituary has yet appeared, but his family prepared one and has permitted us to share it with Rifftides readers. We have added photographs, and a bit of music by the Belletto big band.

Al was born in his beloved New Orleans on January 3, 1928. He died at home on December 26, 2014, following a prolonged encounter with Huntington’s disease. His long career in jazz made him one of the city’s best known and most treasured musicians.

The young clarinetist switched to alto saxophone at Warren Easton high school and began working as a professional musician while a teenager. His early experience came with a variety traditional New Orleans bands including those of Sharkey Bonano, Wingy Manone, Leon Prima and the Dukes of Dixieland. Following his graduation from Loyola University as a music major, Al earned a master’s degree in music at Louisiana State University and was an expert clarinetist and player of alto and baritone saxes.

Although he loved the traditional jazz that he played in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the bebop> pioneered by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie captured Al’s attention. Many older New Orleans players and fans were cold to modern jazz, but Al got encouragement from a few, among them Monk Hazel, the drummer of the legendary New Orleans Rhythm Kings. He often recalled with a big smile, that Hazel told him, “Just play your horn, baby.” In 1952 he founded the Al Belletto Sextet. Encouraged—sponsored, really—by big band leader Stan Kenton, he recorded for the Capitol, Bethlehem and King labels.

The records showcased his sextet’s ability to sing as well as they played and brought Al national attention. No small part of the recognition came because the Belletto sextet’s recording of “Relaxin’” was the theme of Dick Martin’s “Moonglow With Martin” program on WWL Radio. The station’s powerful signal sent the program across half the United States. Martin kept his listeners informed about where the band was playing. Here’s a 1997 remake of “Relaxin’” by the Belletto big band from the Jazznocracy CD. Al has the alto sax solo.

In several cities, fans filled clubs when the sextet appeared. The group became a part of Woody Herman’s big band for State Department tours of South America in 1958 and 1959. Despite those successes, Al couldn’t get New Orleans out of his system.

He came home in the sixties determined to spend as much time as possible in his native city. Orleanians’ tastes had changed to encompass modern sounds, and through the years as he worked with his quartet, sextet and big band, Al became a major figure in the city’s cultural community. As music director of the Playboy Clubs, he still traveled, but the New Orleans club became his base and he brought major jazz artists and entertainers to appear there.

In the late sixties, Al was a member of the board of directors of the original New Orleans jazz festival known as JazzFest. He successfully pressed for a policy guaranteeing not only that many of the city’s prominent black musicians would be presented at the festival but also that they would be paid on a scale commensurate with that of white musicians. In the midst of the civil rights era, it was one of his proudest achievements.

Flooded out in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, Al and Linda moved for a time to Dallas to be near Al’s son Bradley and his family. They returned to their new home in Metairie a few years ago.

Among the members of Al’s bands over the years were such prominent musicians as Johnny Vidacovich, Ellis Marsalis, Carl Fontana, Willie Thomas, Michael Pellera, Don Menza, Richard Payne, John Mahoney and Rick Trolsen. Players who worked for Al had a title for him that reflected their admiration for his musicianship, his leadership and the warmth of their feelings for him. They called him Coach. Along with Linda, Bradley and Al’s countless friends around the world, former sidemen are among the survivors remembering him with love. Plans for a memorial service are to be announced.

We thank Linda Belletto for allowing us to publish her husband’s obituary, and we send deep condolences.

YouTube’s Al Belletto pages have dozens of tracks from his albums.