{"id":1671,"date":"2009-03-30T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-30T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/?p=1671"},"modified":"2009-03-30T01:05:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-30T08:05:00","slug":"ben_websters_cetennary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2009\/03\/ben_websters_cetennary\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Webster&#8217;s Centenary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since <em>Rifftides<\/em> began nearly four years ago, I have posted frequently about Ben Webster &#8211; but not frequently enough. That would be impossible. Few improvising <span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/Ben%20Webster%20Portrait.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Ben Webster Portrait.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/assets_c\/2009\/03\/Ben Webster Portrait-thumb-128x150-4343.jpg\" width=\"128\" height=\"150\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left; margin: 0 20px 20px 0;\" \/><\/a><\/span>artists have achieved Webster&#8217;s level of supremacy at speaking their pieces with eloquence and brevity. I would not suggest that eloquence has fled; it is possible to be eloquent at length. But in the post-Coltrane age of solos as tests of endurance it may be unnecessary to point out that succinctness is not one of the guidelines in most jazz playbooks. Webster is an antidote to the ennui induced by long-windedness.<br \/>\nThis year is the 100th anniversary of Webster&#8217;s birth. You may count on my finding every opportunity to call to your attention the art of that incomparable tenor saxophonist. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2008\/04\/correspondence_on_ben_webster.html\"target=\"_blank\">This is a link<\/a> to a recent piece that addresses a reader&#8217;s distress with a tenor saxophonist who pays tribute to Webster. It also leads you to video of a heartbreakingly beautiful Webster ballad performance and a series of comments from <em>Rifftides<\/em> readers. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2005\/11\/james_joyce_and_ben_webster.html\"target=\"_blank\">This link<\/a> takes you to a piece from 2005 in which a woman who is neither a musician nor a critic encapsulates in a sentence the essence of Webster&#8217;s musical persona.<br \/>\nHere is Webster in two videos that materialized on <em>YouTube<\/em> just last November. He is with Oscar Peterson, piano; Niels-Henning \u00c3\u02dcrsted Pedersen, bass; and Tony Inzalaco, drums. The first piece is the blues he called &#8220;Poutin&#8217;.&#8221; The second is &#8220;Sunday,&#8221; one of his favorites for decades. This would seem to be early 1970s. Webster died in 1973.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><object width=\"440\" height=\"355\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/YgqrnvyDvWI&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/YgqrnvyDvWI&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"440\" height=\"355\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><object width=\"440\" height=\"355\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/c9MpEm2sdk4&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/c9MpEm2sdk4&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"440\" height=\"355\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since Rifftides began nearly four years ago, I have posted frequently about Ben Webster &#8211; but not frequently enough. That would be impossible. Few improvising artists have achieved Webster&#8217;s level of supremacy at speaking their pieces with eloquence and brevity. I would not suggest that eloquence has fled; it is possible to be eloquent at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}