Archives for January 2010

The pianist and singer Joyce Collins died recently in Los Angeles following a long illness. She was 79. Highly respected in jazz circles, Collins played with a sensitive touch and subtle use of chords. Her singing was an outgrowth of those values, with attention to interpretation of the meaning of songs and, as Marian McPartland put it, “…deep feeling, a way of lingering over certain phrases, telling her story in a very poignant way.” Collins’s recorded debut as a leader had Ray Brown on bass and Frank Butler on drums. Earlier, she worked with Bob Cooper and Oscar Pettiford, among others, later toured and recorded as a pianist and vocalist with singer Bill Henderson and played with Benny Carter. Collins’s following included many musicians who sought out her gigs, which became increasingly rare in recent years as she depended increasingly on teaching for a living. Most of the recordings under her own name and with Henderson have become collectors items going for elevated prices on Amazon or as bargain LPs on eBay, but one of her best, Sweet Madness, with bassist Andy Simpkins and drummer Ralph Penland, is still in print.
Collins was born in Nevada and went to college in northern California, but not for long, for a reason I explain in Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond.

…Joyce Collins, like Desmond, was a musician not majoring in music. Dave Brubeck heard her in 1947 playing in a bar in Stockton, where she was a student at Stockton Junior College. He thought she was too good a musician for Stockton J.C. and recommended that she move to San Francisco and study with his piano teacher, Fred Saatman.
“I don’t know why,” she said, “since I didn’t know who he was, but I took his advice. I went to San Francisco State, enrolled as a liberal arts major, called up Fred Saatman and started with him.”
She found herself in two classes with Paul Desmond, one on Shakespeare, another on the American novel.
“I’d go plugging along, never missed a class, studied hard. Lucky to get a C. He rarely came to class. He’d breeze in, always looking sleepy. Literarily brilliant, but sleepy. And of course he got A’s. I was so shy and so in awe of him, I was tongue-tied. It was hard for me to make conversation, but I always used to say to him, ‘We’re the hare and the tortoise.’ He was so witty. He was talking to a girl and I kind of overheard him, and he said, ‘There’s a vas deferens between us.’ I thought it was the wittiest thing I’d ever heard. It went around. People quoted that.”

For more about Joyce Collins, including a rare piece of video, see Bill Reed’s blog, The People vs. Dr. Chilledair.

If you have seen videos filmed at the Montmartre club in Copenhagen in the 1950s and ’60s, you may have wondered about the stylized wall masks that often show up in the opening moments. Rifftides reader Dave Bernard has wondered about them, too. Mr. Bernard researched the masks and reports the results in the comments section of a recent post about Bud Powell. To see the masks and what he has learned, go here.
While we’re at it, we may as well enjoy more of Powell at the Montmartre with bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and drummer Jorn Elniff in 1962. During the first minute of the video, there is a wide shot of the wall of masks. Despite YouTube‘s lower-third card, the proper title of Thelonious Monk’s piece is “‘Round Midnight,” not “Around Midnight.”

1947 was a good year for movies. It saw the release of Miracle on 34th Street, Gentleman’s Agreement, Life with Father, Lady from Shangai and Out of the Past, among other excellent films. New Orleans also hit the screen that year. It began life as an Orson Welles project, but Welles dropped it and went on to other things. If he had developed it, the movie might not have been in a league with Citizen Kane, but it would likely have had more to recommend it than the music. Unlike the other films mentioned above, New Orleans had an absurd story line, leaden dialogue and mediocre direction. Its take on the history of jazz is pure cliché, except for one element: the importance of Louis Armstrong. He, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, Kid Ory and a raft of other musicians save the film and make it worth seeing again and again, even if you have to grit your teeth waiting for the next song.
In his new biography of Armstrong, Terry Teachout quotes the 1947 review by critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times: “Put it down as a fizzle in every respect but one. That is the frequent tooting of Louis Armstrong on his horn.” Maybe Crowther dozed off during “The Blues Are Brewin’,” with Holiday, Armstrong and Herman. Herman’s alto saxophone half-chorus demonstrates that he is underrated as a soloist. Holiday’s long solo confirms that she is not.

Maybe it was the holidays. Maybe I’ve been busy writing for a living. Maybe I’m lazy. Well, no matter. You finally have a new edition of Doug’s Picks. Consult the center column for the latest recommendations.

Here is a lovely opportunity to hear and see two masters toward the ends of their lives. Oscar Peterson played at the Montreal Jazz Festival in July of 2004 with bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, guitarist Ulf Wakenius and drummer Alvin Queen. The piece is “Cakewalk.”

NHØP died the following April, Peterson in December of 2007. To see other videos from their Montreal concert, go here.

A few days into his 79th year, tenor saxophonist Hadley Caliman is thriving in the Pacific Northwest, starring in the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra and leading his own group. As a high school youngster, Haliman was a part of the yeasty Los Angeles jazz community of the late 1940s and early ’50s. After college, he went on to record extensively and work with musicians as varied as Gerald Wilson, Don Ellis, Freddie Hubbard, Santana and The Grateful Dead. Jim Wilke recorded Caliman in a recent Seattle Art Museum concert and will present it on his Jazz Northwest program this Sunday, January 24 at 1 pm PST, 4 pm EST. To hear it in the Seattle area, dial up KPLU-FM at 88.5. On the internet, go to KPLU’s web site.
Trumpeter Thomas Marriott (pictured with Caliman) is in the quintet with pianist Eric Verlinde, bassist Chuck Kistler and drummer John Bishop.
Here is video of Caliman a couple of years ago playing in the atrium of Seattle’s City Hall with some of the other major jazz artists who live in that city. Julian Priester is the trombonist, with Bob Hammer, piano; Buddy Catlett, bass; and Clarence Acox, drums. The sound quality is, well, like something you’d hear in an atrium, but it’s an opportunity to listen to five remarkable players in a remote corner of the United States with a rich fund of jazz talent.

Why consider in the same piece albums by pianists as unalike as Matthew Shipp and Greg Reitan? Because in different ways the ghost of Bud Powell informs their music; because pairing them may lead partisans of one to listen to the other and find unexpected rewards; because the profound dissimilarity between the iconoclast Shipp and the modern traditionalist Reitan typifies the wide variety of satisfactions to be found in jazz; and because they are more or less simultaneously releasing new CDs.
Matthew Shipp, 4D (Thirsty Ear).
Shipp’s initial inspiration was Bud Powell, who to a great extent is the underpinning of his music. The unfettered approach of the formidable technician and free adventurer Cecil Taylor is a potent strain in Shipp’s work, but no matter how far out he goes, Shipp’s sense of chord and line movement puts him closer to Powell than Taylor ever was. That is evident throughout the solo album 4D, nowhere more emphatically than in the roiling forward movement and occasional bebop phraseology of “Equilibrium,” which also has hints of Thelonious Monk and Earl Hines. In its opening bars, “Teleportation” bows even lower in Powell’s direction.
Throughout the album, Shipp glimpses other presences; John Coltrane in “Dark Matter” and “Stairs,” Taylor in “Jazz Paradox,” Ellington in “Prelude to a Kiss.” But to dwell on evidence of his influences is to ignore Shipp’s originality, which is bolstered by redoubtable technique. He sometimes holds his keyboard prowess in reserve, but when he unleashes it, as he does in a joyful “What is This Thing Called Love,” it can be dazzling. In addition to the two standards named above and his compositions (or spontaneous creations; it’s difficult to be certain), Shipp applies his daring, ferocity and wit to “Autumn Leaves,” “Greensleeves,” “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and “Frere Jacques.” “Frere Jacques?” Yes. Shipp proves that it is possible to operate out there on the edge without losing sight of the fundamentals.
Greg Reitan, Antibes (Sunnyside).
Reitan’s inner Bud Powell filters through Bill Evans and Denny Zeitlin. If there is direct Powell influence, it is more in his adaptation of harmonic concepts than in a reflection of Powell’s manic energy. His keyboard touch and chord voicings are firmly in the Evans school. He shares with Evans, Zeitlin and–consciously or unconsciously–with Keith Jarret, the floating time feeling that comes from rhythmic placement relating chords to individual notes. His interpretations of Evans’s “Re: Person I Knew” and Zeitlin’s “Time Remembers One Time Once” are notable in that regard. The trait also manifests itself in “For Heaven’s Sake,” the exquisitely understated “In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning” and pieces by Jarrett and Wayne Shorter. Bassist Jack Daro and drummer Dean Koba are effective in support.
The tracks with Reitan’s own writing are the ones I keep going back to in Antibes. He told Orrin Keepnews, who wrote the admiring liner notes, that when he was preparing the album he had been listening to Glenn Gould play J.S. Bach. The title tune, the unaccompanied “September” and “Salinas” are direct reflections of that experience. Reitan so skillfully conceived them with Bachian rhythmic and harmonic principles and plays them with such precision and dynamic touch that one might almost be willing accept that Gould had come back as a jazz artist. Reitan’s Some Other Time was an impressive debut album last year. Antibes shows impressive growth and even greater potential.

No one could play like Bud; too difficult, too quick, incredible!–Thelonious Monk

Bud is a genius.–Charlie Parker

Bud is a genuine genius.–Duke Ellington

He laid down the basis of modern jazz piano.–Dizzy Gillespie

Bud was the most brilliant that a spirit might be, a unique genius in our culture.–Max Roach

He was the foundation out of which stemmed the whole edifice of modern jazz piano; every jazz pianist since Bud either came through him or is deliberately attempting to get away from playing like him.–Herbie Hancock

If I had to choose a single musician according to his artistic merit and the originality of his creation, but also for the greatness of his work, it would be Bud Powell. Nobody could measure up to him.–Bill Evans

…and you just know she loves Bud Powell.–Alan Broadbent to Gene Lees, on seeing a beautiful girl pass by.

Once again, Bill Crow’s The Band Room column in the New York musicians union Local 802 newspaper, Allegro, is packed with anecdotes. Here are two.

Outgoing (Local 802) President Mary Landolfi told me this one: Her husband Pat and another tuba player, Lew Waldeck, had arranged to meet at the Carnegie Tavern after a benefit at Carnegie Hall. The major attraction at the benefit was Frank Sinatra, and when Lew came into the Tavern afterward, he was all agog. “Pat,” he said excitedly, “I just met Frank Sinatra, and he spoke to me!” “What did he say?” asked Pat. “He was coming down the stairs just as I was going up, and he said, ‘Get the f*** out of my way!'”

Woody Herman had profound distaste for the fiscal hassles and burdens that made his life miserable in his final years. This story from Bill’s column perfectly captures Woody’s feelings about the business aspects of his profession.

John Altman once had Al Cohn as a houseguest, and Al took John to meet Woody Herman. Al introduced him, saying, “John has a big band.” Woody grabbed John’s outstretched hand, looked earnestly into his eyes, and asked, “Why?”

To read all of Bill’s column, go here.
San Francisco pianist Roberta Mandel sent this excerpt from an interview with drummer Shelly Manne. The story has been around for a long time. I haven’t been able to track down the source of the interview, but anyone who has dealt with ignoramus producers will hear the ring of truth.

Interviewer:
Have you ever gone into the studio and had someone say, “I want you to sound like the guy who did the drums on … ?”
Shelly Manne:
I did a date with Jimmy Bowen, the song was “Fever.” I had never worked with Jim, but I had made the original record of “Fever” with Peggy Lee. It actually said on my part, “play like Shelly Manne.” So I played it just like I played it originally. The producer stormed out of the control room, walked over to me and said “Can’t you read English? It says “play like Shelly Manne.”
When I told him I was Shelly Manne, he turned around and went back into the booth. I think he’s selling cars now.

James Moody is in Detroit this week. Mark Stryker, the music critic of The Detroit Free Press, heralded the event with a column that begins:

James Moody is my hero, and he should be yours. At 84, the irrepressible saxophonist and flutist remains a ferociously creative musician, playing with passion, energy and a sense of wonder at the endless possibilities of music.

Stryker provides a sketch of Moody’s career, then a section that includes this exchange:

Q: Do you practice every day?
A: I try to. If I don’t, I get a little cranky.

A sidebar to the column describes a few recommended Moody albums. To read the whole thing, go here.
Mark Stryker sent a couple of Moody anecdotes as Rifftides supplements to his column.

I heard two stories in recent days that encapsulate Moody’s lifelong approach to learning and evolving as a musician. Dave Liebman told me that one of his early tours with Elvin Jones was part of package with a Giants of Jazz group that included Moody. Moody comes to the back of the bus to ask Liebman and fellow saxophonist Steve Grossman to write out some stuff for him. At one point, Illinois Jacquet turns around and shouts something like, “They ain’t into nuthin'” — at which point Moody says to them, “Don’t listen to moldy figs.”
Then James Carter told me he was on a tour once with Moody and every day it was, “You show me something on the horn and I’ll show you something.” Those two stories occurred some 30 years apart.

The Rifftides staff thanks Mr. Stryker.
For a sample of Moody’s energy, sound and harmonic inventiveness, here is a performance of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Ow” at a Swiss festival in 1985, when Moody was a mere 60 years old. The composer is on trumpet. The bassist is Ray Brown, who was on Gillespie’s 1940s big band with Moody. Gene Harris is the pianist, Grady Tate the drummer.

Wednesday night, the 2010 NEA Jazz Master awards went to pianists Kenny Barron, Cedar Walton and Muhal Richard Abrams; arranger, composer and band leader Bill Holman; saxophonist and flutist Yusef Lateef; vibrahaphonist Bobby Hutcherson; singer Annie Ross (pictured at the ceremony); and record producer George Avakian. They received their medals and checks in a National Endowment For The Arts ceremony at Lincoln Center. To read accounts of the event by Nate Chinen of The New York Times and my artsjournal.com colleague Howard Mandel, click on their names in this sentence.
Congratulations to all of the recipients.

An American jazz master who relocated to Europe nearly four decades ago died yesterday in Denmark hours after eight of his peers were honored in New York. Drummer Ed Thigpen succumbed to heart and lung problems in a hospital in Copenhagen, his home since 1972. He was 79. Thigpen was universally admired for his technique, which he applied with taste and musicianship that made him one of the best known drummers in the world during his long run as a member of the Oscar Peterson Trio. Here, he is featured with Peterson and Ray Brown in Italy in1961, playing Clifford Brown’s “Daahoud.”

I made the tenor sax – there’s nobody plays like me and I don’t play like anybody else. – Coleman Hawkins

If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it’s like the human voice. – Stan Getz

The tenor’s got that thing, that honk, that you can get to people with. – Ornette Coleman

Speaking of Seamus Blake (see the item below), I looked for a video clip with him in action and came across one of the 28-year-old Blake in heavy company. He follows the late Michael Brecker in solo on Charles Mingus’s “Goodbye Porkpie Hat.” All of the other information I can give you is that this was in Japan in 1999 and that the pianist is David Kikoski. The camera work suggests that this was filmed during an earthquake of at least 6.5 on the Richter scale. You may want to take a seasickness pill before you watch. Still, the sound quality is good. Young Blake calmly follows an astonishing solo by an established master and develops one of his own.