Archives for November 2005

In the adjoining exhibit, under Doug’s Picks, are the Rifftides staff’s latest recommendations. We hope that you find them worthwhile. Either way, let us know, please. The e-mail address is also in the right column.

It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not. It’s feeling—Bill Evans

Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all. Music expresses itself—Igor Stravinsky

My heavily-traveled weekend with an assemblage of couples out for a good time included an evening at Jazz Alley in Seattle eating well and hearing Toots Thielemans, Kenny Werner and Oscar Castro-Neves. Thielemans is a member of that astonishing corps of world-class jazz octogenarians (Hank Jones, Marian McPartland, James Moody, Dave Brubeck, ClarkTerry, Buddy DeFranco) who seem uninterested in slowing their pace, let alone retiring. At eighty-three, his polish, harmonic daring and swing on the harmonica keep him the undisputed champion not only of that unlikely jazz instrument but of all instruments that show up in the jazz magazines’ “miscellaneous” poll categories.
When it comes to Thielemans’ level of musicianship, categories don’t matter. He would likely be as creative if he played comb and tissue paper. Thielemans and Werner, long established as a formidable duo, became a virtual chamber orchestra with the addition of Castro-Neves’ guitar. There were moments at Jazz Alley when the piano, guitar and harmonica melded into chords so expansive and deep, it seemed impossible that they came from only three instruments. The authenticity of Castro-Neves’ Brazilian rhythms and bossa nova spirit were an essential part of the set’s air of happiness. An inveterate quoter, Thielemans now and then broke himself up with some of his allusions. He threw sly glances at Werner as he worked snatches of several other Frank Sinatra hits into his solo on “All The Way.”
On some pieces, Werner supplemented his piano with an electronic keyboard. His goal may have been to create atmospherics, but rather than enhance the sublime quality of the ensemble, his synthesizer “sweetening” diluted it. A pianist of his protean capabilities needs no digital reinforcement, as he demonstrated in brilliant solos on “The Dolphin,” “Chega de Saudade,” and an unlikely neo-samba treatment of “God Bless America.”
The trio’s treatment of the Irving Berlin classic inspired a standing ovation, then a short speech by Thielemans about how jazz and the American people drew him to move to the United States from Belgium in 1957 and to become a US citizen. He talked about his love of Louis Armstrong. Then, as an encore, Thielemans, Werner and Castro-Neves played “What a Wonderful World.” For the ninety minutes of their set, the world, the band, the audience, the club, were wonderful. Everything was wonderful.

The islands of Puget Sound are among the glories of the Pacific Northwest. Vashon Island, where we celebratory couples spent the night after we left Jazz Alley, is one of the loveliest. Because the only way to get to it is on the water, Vashon has managed to retain much of its rural and small town charm despite its proximity to Seattle.
For now, and I hope forever, to get on and off Vashon, you drive, bicycle or walk onto one of the boats of the Washington State ferry system and take a fifteen-minute ride. The ferries run frequently and usually on time. They provide essential transportation for commuters and sightseeing opportunities for visitors.
From time to time there has been talk of building a bridge from Seattle to Vashon. If that happened, the developers would eradicate the place’s character quicker than you can say bulldozer. Island people are frustrated when they miss a ferry or it runs late, but most of those who live on Vashon will regard you with horror if you mention the word bridge. When you find yourself in this part of the world, carve out time to take a ferry boat ride.

The veteran Pennsylvania broadcaster Russ Neff is once again doing a jazz program, but he’s streaming it on the internet. He writes that he was inspired by Jim Wilke’s Jazz After Hours to return to jazz radio.

I’d not been on the air since 1991 and since no local station was interested in my services, I decided that online audio was the way to go…audio streaming is my chosen vehicle.

To hear Russ’s current My Favorite Things, click here and then on “Listen Here.” The program has a minimum of talk from Neff—all of it informative—and a generous, mellow and varied supply of music, some of it unexpected. As I write this, he has just played B.B. King singing and Eric Clapton gargling “Come Rain or Come Shine” and segued into “The Quintessence,” by Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass.

Jessica Williams has entered the blogosphere. She is a most welcome entry. Her blog, The Zone, is unlike any other, just as Ms. Williams is unlike any other pianist. Here is some of what she wrote in a posting called “Making Oneself Available.”

Never rehearse a moment. Too much practice kills all magic, all spontaneity. Being spontaneous is the highest form of calculated artistic achievement. Calculated only in that it’s a plan not to have a plan. Sitting alone at home at the piano, I become the piano.

Most piano players see the piano like a big black bull. They go to the bullfight as toreadors, they fight the bull, they are either gored or they are bull- killers.

By becoming the piano, you become music, you become a musician.

Never strive to be a pianist.

To read the whole thing, click here, and then roam through Ms. Williams’ other postings. I am adding her blog to the Other Places list in the right-hand column.
Please don’t forget to return to Rifftides, and spread the word.

Dick McGarvin writes from Los Angeles:

I’ve been catching up on stuff, including a backlog of Rifftides (high tide?), which brings me to…

I’m not sure why, but your letter to Gene Lees about Willis Conover touched me even more than when I first read it in the Jazzletter. Maybe it’s because of reading TAKE FIVE and knowing more now about that great 1969 New Orleans Jazz Festival and your relationship with Willis. (By coincidence, I just recently was playing the Gary McFarland album PROFILES on which Willis Conover makes the introduction.) Ironic and sad that one of the most important broadcast figures in this country’s history is one of the least known.

This slightly belated response to your item about Willis Conover was also prompted by the news that, yesterday, as I’m sure you know, this year’s Presidential Medal of Freedom awards were presented. There were fourteen recipients, including Alan Greenspan, Muhammad Ali, General Richard Myers, Aretha Franklin, Frank Robinson, Andy Griffith, Carol Burnett and Paul Harvey.

I agree that Willis Conover should have been on that list years ago and, if there is ever a petition to have him awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously, I would like to add my name.

P.S. – All this got me to wondering if Edward R. Murrow (another recent Rifftides
subject) ever received the honor, so I checked. He did. In 1964.

I hate music, especially when it’s played—Jimmy Durante

Wagner’s music is better than it sounds—Mark Twain

The pianist Roberta Mandel was at San Francisco State College in the 1940s with Paul Desmond, Jerome Richardson, Cal Tjader, Ron Crotty, Dick Collins and Vernon Alley, among other young musicians who went on to fame. She later sang with Boyd Raeburn’s trail-blazing band in broadcasts on NBC and CBS and was a member of the instrumental-vocal group Three Beaux and a Peep. In Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond, you can read her account of a final encounter with Desmond during his last days.
A working pianist in her eighties, Ms. Mandel keeps up with music, in part by going to New York a couple of times a year and making the rounds of jazz clubs. She went there recently. When she got home, she sent friends a report. She gave me permission to let you read it just as she wrote it. The Rifftides staff added links to information about some of the people and places she mentions.

I heard Bill Charlap at the Village Vanguard. He played all show tunes, most of which I have never heard of. His mother is a famous vocalist and sang “The Boy next Door” and broke up the place.

Next was Eldar at the Blue Note. He is 18 years old and has chops, musical taste, a very large repertoire of tunes. He is a chaming young man and speaks to the audience as if he has been doing so for years. Hard to believe what I heard and saw.

At the Knickerbocker grill I heard Joanne Brackeen. She had a great bass player and played excellently as usual. The noise was so loud I could barely hear her. Folks talked and did not listen.

Went to the Blue Note again to hear the Dizzy Gillespie alumni All stars. They were: James Moody; Slide Hampton; Roy Hargrove; Mulgrew Miller; John Lee; Dennis Mackrel and Paquito D’Rivera. They played all Dizzy tunes of course. Great night.

Went to the new jazz at Lincoln Center on 60th St. in the Dizzy Gillespie Coca Cola Room. George Cables and his group were there. Jeff Tain Watts on drums, Gary Bartz on sax. I was too close to the drums to suit me. A large dinner party was sitting near to George.

I got to the new Modern art museum. it is now 6 stories high and covers an entire block from 6th ave to 5th on 49th st. We could take pictures so I did. It is huge and I could not find anything I was looking for. I could, before they remodeled.

I also got to the Metropolitan Museum. The outside is being painted and was all covered. The Van Gogh exhibit had 200 folks lined up that Saturday. I did not wait for it. They now allow picture taking in the Met, so I did photograph all the instruments in the 2 music rooms. The old pianos with ocean waves at their feet, and mermaids were the feet. All the saxes of Adolph Sax were in one large case. Brass instruments ancient and contemporary; drums old and new; violins, violas; basses old and new. SO many things to see. Amazing place.

It rained for the 2 weeks I was there; the wind was strong and the temperature hovered between 43 and 50. I was even glad to leave, which I never have been before.

To go to Frankie Nemko’s only slightly dated interview with Roberta Mandel (Jerome Richardson has since died), click here.

Rifftides reader Jon Foley writes:

Thank God someone has finally brought up this subject. I thought I was the only one who thought this phenomenon was ridiculous. What could be more annoying than, let’s say, a tenor player finishing a beautiful ballad solo, the crowd completely hushed and enthralled to that point, and then as the pianist starts his solo, an eruption of applause, whistling and yelling, completely destroying the mood? And I don’t think it’s a genuine expression of appreciation, as evidenced by the fact it occurs after every solo, good or bad; I think it’s nothing more than a desperate attempt to appear hip by an unfortunately large number of pathetically unhip people.

If anyone wants to start a petition to get rid of this silly practice, I’ll be the first one to sign. In the meantime, we can all do our part by just not doing it.

I’ll sign.

Jon Foley explains that his messages tend to come in batches.

Yesterday, I was listening to a west coast jazz station over the internet, and a track came on, a quintet, I believe. The rhythm section caught my attention, even when the horns were soloing. When it came time for the piano solo, I was riveted. You know how sometimes you’re listening to musicians solo, and they’re all good, and then one plays and immediately makes you think, wow, this guy’s on another level completely? I didn’t recognize him right away, so I waited for the announcer to give the personnel. She finally came on, gave the line-up, and the pianist was, of course, ……….Bill Charlap.

Bill Kirchner took time out of his busy schedule to send a response to a review.

Thanks for commenting on jazz audiences’ “self-conscious rote clapping” after every solo. This to me is the most mindless of all jazz customs. (Where did this idiocy come from–does anyone know?) It usually prevents audiences from hearing the beginning of each solo–and hearing the opening phrases is often the key to understanding an improviser’s intent.

I once read a “jazz for kids” booklet that told them to clap for each solo, lest the performers be insulted. God help us!

Bill Kirchner’s latest CD is Everything I Love. The instrumentation is his soprano saxophone, Eddie Monteiro’s accordion and Ron Vincent’s drums and percussion. Monteiro equips his instrument with MIDI ( musical instrument digital interface), making it possible for him to sound like a string section, which he does sparingly and in impeccable taste. The effect, combined with Vincent’s variegated drumming, allows Kirchner to achieve a floating feeling, as if he were playing among clouds. Additionally, Monteiro vocalizes in unison with his accordion lines, often giving his solos an ethereal quality. And yet, for all its eclecticism, the music is, most satisfyingly, jazz.
The album includes the gorgeous Cal Tjader waltz “Liz Anne,” which is rarely played these days; “Aquamarine” ( “Body and Soul” in a new guise); a daring and intriguing tribute to the late Steve Lacy by Kirchner playing four overdubbed soprano saxes; Kirchner’s beautifully phrased reading of the title tune; and Toninho Horta’s “Beijo Partido,” nicely sung by Monteiro.
The CD has a lovely and welcome surprise, two vocals by the enchanting Jackie Cain, recording for the first time since the death of her husband and partner Roy Kral. A great ballad artist, she sings two pieces by Kirchner, “Try to Understand,” with lyrics by Jay Leonhart, and “I Almost Said Goodbye,” with lyrics by Loonis McGlohon. The return of Ms. Cain is an event to be celebrated. That it happens in such eminently suitable surrounding is a bonus.
The CD booklet is informative, with good pictures of the artists and a vintage cover photograph that is wildly at odds with the music and extremely funny.

The Jazz Times website now has my reviews of the Bill Charlap and Gary Hobbs performances at the Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle. Here is some of the Charlap piece:

From the first blowing chorus on “Who Cares?” the trio locked into one another. The Washingtons are brothers in time, Kenny exemplifying with his mastery of brushes his lineage from Jo Jones, Kenny Clarke and Philly Joe Jones, Peter recalling such sturdy predecessors as Paul Chambers and Doug Watkins. The complexity and clarity of Charlap’s work and the trio’s unity were compelling, nearly mesmerizing. Their listeners were frequently so engrossed that they abandoned the self-conscious rote clapping after each solo that jazz audiences have come to believe is an obligation. The audience’s concentration on the music was a far greater expression of appreciation than little explosions of applause.

To read the whole thing, click here. At the bottom of the Hobbs section is a link to Thomas Conrad’s review of other Earshot events. He can write. Here’s his lead paragraph:

In Seattle, late October arrives like an act of hostility. The low sky turns black. The seagulls circling overhead begin to look like vultures. The rain spits at you as the wind blows it sideways. And then, as if flipping you the bird, Daylight Saving Time stops. But for Seattle’s jazz community, late October contains a major consolation: the Earshot Jazz Festival.

A career in print and broadcast journalism may have hardened my conviction about the importance of a free press in a democracy, but it seems to me that every American should see the motion picture Good Night, and Good Luck. George Clooney, the film’s guiding spirit, the son of a television journalist, understands why Edward R. Murrow’s exposure of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witch hunt in the 1950s was a courageous and patriotic act. Murrow’s and Fred Friendly’s pursuit of McCarthy inspired the Senate investigation that brought McCarthy down. It also cost Murrow his authority at CBS News and ultimately drove him out of the news division that he largely created and that he inspired for twenty-eight years. During that time he became a symbol of excellence in broadcast news.
CBS head William S. Paley’s demotion of Murrow established the primacy of network profit over news integrity. It set up conditions for the MBA mentality that meshed with technology and the rise of cable networks to produce the broadcast and cable news we have today in which, with few exceptions, the line between information and entertainment has been blurred beyond distinction. The other day, I tuned in to the last half hour of the Today Show to get the latest on Iraq, the White House investigation and the peril facing earthquake survivors in the Himalayas as winter moves in. I was treated to the spectacle of the Today Show principals, including the newscaster, cavorting and joking in Halloween costumes. They broke for a clownish weather report, but they scrubbed the newscast. Why distract viewers from Halloween hilarity and depress them with the state of the world?
Paley cannot be blamed directly for the deterioration of the Today Show or of NBC News. He did not run NBC or ABC, he competed with them. But when he neutralized Murrow, he helped to create the atmosphere that brought about this Today Show debacle. Over on ABC the next day, Good Morning America presented news, but before and after her reports the news anchor, Robin Roberts, diluted her credibility by joining in fun and games with hosts Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer, journalists who now spend much of their air time as entertainers. Roberts crossed, and stomped on, that fine line. I wonder if she knew it. Harry Smith seems to have maintained his dignity, or most of it, on the CBS Early Show. Could that be why viewers have relegated him to third place among the network morning programs? Can the democracy survive if the flow of information is choked with trivia? See Good Night, and Good Luck and think about that question.

Good Night and Good Luck’s period atmosphere is supplied, in part, by Diane Reeves singing standards. She is important to the movie as a dramatic element. On the sound track and on camera, she does some of her finest work in the uncomplicated setting of a rhythm section and a tenor saxophonist. Reeves and her record producers have rarely seemed to understand that she is at her best just singing songs, without elaborate orchestral trappings, overlays of soul or forced emotion. The film’s sound track CD is the purest recorded expression in years of her remarkable talent.

As articulate with words as he is at the piano, Bill Charlap gave a talk preceding his concert at the Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle the other night. He spoke about the music that he, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington were about to perform, songs of George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein. In conversation with Seattle Times jazz critic Paul deBarros, Charlap contrasted Gershwin with Beethoven. Beethoven was a development composer, he said, and demonstrated how Beethoven married melody and harmony as he developed beyond the opening theme of his Fifth Symphony.
“With Gershwin,” Charlap said, “the melody and the harmony were not welded together, but they were cast.” He illustrated with the harmonic structure of “A Foggy Day” and Gershwin’s chord choices. He used “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise” to point out Gershwin’s use of the seventh interval, “so American, so forthright.”
Asked where the standard songs of thirty-five or forty years from now will come from, Charlap pointed out that the musical theater that produced Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, Kern and Arlen no longer exists, that Bernstein was the last of it. Stephen Sondheim’s songs “don’t quite meet our needs,” he said, “nor do the chords of Bob Dylan and R.E.M.”
The trio’s concert was splendid. I covered it for Jazz Times. I’ll let you know when the review is up on the JT website.
DeBarros mentioned Charlap’s recent duo CD with his mother, the singer Sandy Stewart, and came up with a question that turned out to be a straight line:

DeBarros: How many pianists get to accompany their moms?

Charlap: How many singers give birth to their accompanists?

Top 10 Sources has honored Rifftides by including us in its list of the top ten jazz sites on the web. To see the company we’re in and what the other nine sites are up to, go here. Thanks to Quentin Palfrey and all of the Top 10 Sources folks.

Many state and local governments have elections tomorrow. Politicians making last- minute speeches might benefit from this 500-year-old wisdom.

Words which do not satisfy the ear of the hearer weary him or vex him, and the symptoms of this you will often see in such hearers in their frequent yawns. You, therefore, who speak before men whose good will you desire, when you see such an excess of fatigue, abridge your speech, or change your disourse; and if you do otherwise, then instead of the favor your desire you will receive dislike and hostility—Leonardo da Vinci