Archives for October 2007

The Rifftides staff directs your attention to the right-hand column, where you will find a new batch of Doug’s Picks.

Here is a bit of Terry Teachout’s review of Poodie James in Contentions, his CommentaryMagazine.com column.

I’ll cut to the chase: Poodie James is a very good book. Not only is it handsomely and lyrically written, but Ramsey’s snapshots of small-town life circa 1948 are altogether convincing, and he has even brought off the immensely difficult trick of worming his way into the consciousness of a deaf person without betraying the slightest sense of strain. I especially like the scene in which he tells us how it feels for the title character to “listen” to Woody Herman’s big band at a local dance:

A man with a big smile walked out holding a clarinet. The musicians sat up and brought their horns to their mouths. The man raised his hand and brought it down. The force of the sound hit Poodie and traveled through his chest as a tingle…. Poodie wondered if the dancers got the same sensation from hearing the music that he did from feeling it, radiance in the belly, warmth around the heart.

I wish I’d written that.

Well, I am flattered that Teachout wrote that. To read all of his review, go here.

The Seasons Fall Festival wrapped up over the weekend in Yakima, Washington, with concerts that featured two Bill Mays trios. James Moody also starred, performing at eighty-two with the wisdom of age and the energy of a teenager.
Friday night, it was Mays, piano; Marvin Stamm, trumpet and fluegelhorn; and Alisa Horn, cello – the Inventions Trio. Their recently released CD is superb, but their collaboration has taken on profundity and polish since they made the recording two years ago. Their reworkings of Rachmaninoff, Borodin and other classical composers, their treatment of standards and new pieces by Mays and Stamm, had the audience enthralled. Mays’ six-part suite inspired by the Delaware River’s run from the mountains to the sea was a journey encompassing grandeur, nostalgia, folksy humor including a hoedown, and avant garde audacity. It also incorporated spoken segments of regional reminiscing that disclosed the musicians’ unsuspected talents as vocal actors.

Inventions Trio
For years, Stamm and Mays have performed as a duo exploring the possibilities in classical themes. The addition of Horn, the young cellist, has resulted in a group capable of a remarkable store of textures. She has extensive classical training and rich technique, but is relatively new to jazz. Under Mays’ and Stamm’s tutelage, she has learned to swing when she’s bowing, and to play pizzicato a la Oscar Pettiford, Percy Heath and Ron Carter. It was a joy to witness the passion she brought to the performance. Mays and Stamm are jazz and studio veterans whose discipline and versatility make possible this group’s demanding chamber music. They achieve complexity without sacrificing swing or zeal. They are a pleasure to watch as well as to hear. Few groups have as much fun making music as this trio.

Wilson, Mays, Wind
One that does is Mays’ trio with bassist Martin Wind and drummer Matt Wilson. Two years ago they inaugurated the former Christian Science church as a performance hall. Their appearance at The Seasons has become an autumn event, and they were as astonishing as ever. One of the great piano trios of the day more than lived up to their reputation. With Wilson aboard, there is always bound to be a surprise. In 2005, it was his action-theater piece having to do with free range chickens and the chant, “Set them free.” Last year, he crafted a musical setting for Carl Sandburg’s poem Choose and conscripted the audience as a Greek chorus. This time around, Wilson debuted a composition inspired by a swimming party the night before in his hotel pool, possibly involving minimal clothing. He called it “Yakimaquatics” and introduced it with a drum solo that incorporated the breast stroke, the backstroke, the butterfly and the crawl, all executed with rhythmic exactitude and leading into a melody with a harmonic pattern possibly influenced by Pat Metheny. Fun and games out of the way, Mays, Wind and Wilson dug in. It was a fine first half.
Following intermission, the Mays trio became the rhythm section of the James Moody quartet. Moody had his famous flute along, but it never left the case. He stayed on tenor saxophone through the set, except when he was singing or telling uproarious stories. In a pre-performance discussion, he spoke about the harmonic education he received early in his career from Dizzy Gillespie and Tom McIntosh. In concert, he demonstrated the extent to which that harmonic sense has progressed in the past sixty years or so. Applying chord extensions on top of chord extensions, he danced through “Woody’n You” and “Giant Steps” with dazzling mastery. If the audience had Coleman Hawkins in mind when Moody began “Body and Soul,” his ingenious creation of new melodies and his audacious expansion of the chord pattern brought them thoroughly up to date.
Mays, Wind and Wilson were in swinging lock step with Moody throughout the concert, but their participation went far beyond accompaniment. They gave the old master nudges that inspired him to explore beyond what in more routine settings is often a polished bag of phrases and devices. Clearly, he was pleased with the collaboration. When Mays was soloing, Moody stationed himself in the curve of the piano, listening intently. When Wind was bowing one of his virtuosic arco solos, Moody edged nearer. When Wilson soloed, Moody stood beaming at him.

James Moody
Of course, he did “Moody’s Mood For Love,” singing his own famous solo and, in split throat-tones, the piano solo from the original 1949 recording. Earlier, he said that audiences never let him get away without doing it, so he builds it into his every appearance. The Moody concert was a rousing and entertaining conclusion to more than a week of stimulating music.
I once wrote (in Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers):

Like every art form, jazz has a fund of devices unique to it and universally employed by those who play it. Among the resources of the jazz tradition available to the player creating an improvised performance are rhythmic patterns, harmonic structures, material quoted from a variety of sources, and “head arrangements” evolved over time without being written. Mutual access to this community body of knowledge makes possible successful and enjoyable collaboration among jazzmen of different generations and stylistic persuasions who have never before played together.

The Moody concert was a demonstration of that truth. I overheard the rehearsal. It went more or less like this:

Moody: Do you know “Woody’n You?”
Mays: Yeah, we know that.
Moody: “Giant Steps?”
Mays: Sure.
Moody: How about “Invitation?”
Mays. Yep
Moody: Okay. We’ll be cool.

And they were.

While a bunch of us were standing around waiting to be seated at a restaurant following Saturday night’s concert at The Seasons (see the previous item), the conversation turned to singers. Jo Stafford came in for prominent and enthusiastic mention. The next morning, I was checking out Marc Myers’ Jazz Wax blog and found this link to a wonderful Stafford performance from 1947. The band is identified as that of her husband, Paul Weston, but it doesn’t look like Weston conducting. The only player I recognize is the phenomenal guitarist George van Eps.
The singing is perfection. But then, it’s Jo Stafford.

The British Columbia newspaper Peace Arch News has a report about the success of Libros Libertad, the publisher of Poodie James.

With five books released so far – and as many on the way by year’s end, the imprint is rapidly gaining stature and credibility with its up-market style paperbacks.
Poodie James, a novel by veteran U.S. broadcaster Doug Ramsey has already become a break-out hit, selling out its first printing. The Passage of Sono Nis is a definitive collection of works by internationally respected author J. Michael Yates – who is also senior editor for the company. And well-known jazz writer/lyricist Gene Lees (“Yesterday I Heard The Rain,” “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars”) is readying a novel, Song Lake Summer, for release by Libros Libertad.

To read the whole thing, go here and click on the “entertainment” tab.

One of the finest jazz pianists in the world is barely known in the United States. His many CDs are on Japanese, Spanish and Scandinavian labels that sometimes show up in US stores despite their limited distribution in this country. Jan Lundgren visits the US infrequently, usually to record for foreign companies. His most recent tour was last month’s series of concerts in Japanese cities. When I mention Lundgren to musicians and canny jazz listeners who keep up with developments in music, I often get blank looks. After I persuade them to seek out Lundgren’s work, they respond with enthusiasm.

Jan Lundgren
My first encounter with Lundgren’s playing was in the mid-1990s when I was preparing to write notes for Bill Perkins’ Perk Plays Prez. Perkins and producer Dick Bank wanted a pianist who could play Count Basie and Teddy Wilson to Perkins’ tenor saxophone evocation of Lester Young–without apeing Basie or Wilson. Bank brought in Lundgren. The young pianist more than filled the bill. He had already earned the enthusiasm of Lou Levy, always tough in his evaluations of other pianists, and of another exacting old pro, alto saxophonist Herb Geller. Bank recruited Lundgren for Geller’s You’re Looking at Me.
Some of Lundgren’s Fresh Sound (Spain) and Marshmallow (Japan) CDs are available at this address. His most recent trio collection is sold in the US by Eastwind, a distributor with an internet retail operation. Swinging Rendezvous (Marshmallow) includes Lundgren’s long-time bassist Jesper Lundgaard and drummer Alex Riel, Scandinavian veterans who have played with a cross-section of the best European and American musicians. It is a trio of rare swing and cohesion. Their workout on Thelonious Monk’s “Well, You Needn’t” is a masterpiece of common intent, interaction and reaction. Lundgren supports his improvisational wizardry with speed, precision, dynamic mastery and a sense of romance. He is a modern bebop pianist at the highest level. If you think that “modern” and “bebop” constitute an oxymoron, listen to Lundgren.
All but one of the CD’s 11 pieces were written by major jazzmen, among them Monk, J.J. Johnson, Mal Waldron and Oscar Pettiford. The exception, the folk ditty “Billy Boy,” is so closely associated with Red Garland that many people no doubt think Garland wrote it. Lundgren tackles two pieces by Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers’ ebullient “Whims of Chambers” and “Third World” by Herbie Nichols. He and Lundgaard interpret the elusive harmonic nuances of Nichols’ music so effectively that he makes me wish the trio would take on more of Nichols’ eccentric compositions. Indeed, interpretation, not imitation, is what Lundgren practices. Waldron, Nichols, Kelly, Bud Powell, Bill Evans, Bengt Hallberg, Oscar Peterson and other predecessors inspired Lundgren, but he has absorbed and melded their elements into a style that Japanese and Scandinavian listeners have taken to their hearts. It may be that now is Lundgren’s time in the United States.
Go here and here for Rifftides reviews of previous Lundgren CDs.

Veteran journalist Ed Stover reviews Poodie James in today’s Yakima Herald-Republic.

Ramsey’s journalistic writing style carries the story along. It’s a good story, too, a page-turner that offers up romance, attempted murder, a Snidely Whiplash rascal of a mayor, a Dudley Do-Right police chief, a noble bum, a nosy reporter and a whorehouse. Set in the late 1940s, there is even a visit by President Truman.
Finally, there is Poodie, the loveable little junk collector who becomes the target of the wrathful mayor. Put it all together and you have a book that has become a best-seller for Libros Libertad, the Surrey, British Columbia-based literary small press that published the novel in early August.

To read all of Stover’s article, click here.
I’ll be doing a signing and reading tomorrow, Saturday, at 2 pm at Inklings Bookshop in Yakima. If you’re in the neighborhood, please drop by and say hello.

Last evening, fortunate listeners at The Seasons Fall Side-By-Side Music Festival heard the world premiere of a work that has everything it takes to become a staple in the classical piano trio literature. It was composer Daron Hagen’s Angel Band Trio #4, played by the Finisterra Trio. Based on humble themes in the Appalachian gospel song “Angel Band,” through its six movements the trio blooms into a big chamber piece graced with a melding of peculiarly American melodic strains, dissonant conflict and satisfying resolution. It is a modern statement rooted in tradition, soaring on rhythm, shot through with gripping harmonic patterns and saturated in emotion.
Hagen (pronounced like the first name of the ice cream), found his inspiration for the work in the story of Joyce Strosahl, a former concert violinist and the matriarch of the family that founded The Seasons. The trio was commissioned by three of her sons. The Finisterra Trio–pianist Tanya Stambuk, violinist Kwan Bin Park and cellist Kevin Krentz–poured themselves into the piece with a passion that left the audience in a state of mild shock at the end of the volatile rondo movement and brought them to their feet when the final notes faded.

Daron Hagen
The evening began with a discussion among the composer and the members of Finisterra, shepherded with his usual skill, knowledge and good humor by composer and conductor Bill McGlaughlin, the host of public radio’s St. Paul Sunday. During the conversation, Krentz, who was headed for a career as a singer before he ended up as a cellist, accompanied himself by strumming his instrument and sang “Wayfaring Stranger,” the inspiration for a previous Hagen work, Wayfaring Stranger, Piano Trio #3. He, Park and Stambuk then played the evocative second movement of that piece, setting up the performance, of the new work, which was a triumph for the composer and Finisterra.
For a description of Angel Band Trio #4, go to this page of Hagen’s web site. To see the schedule for The Seasons Fall Festival, which runs through Saturday, October 6, click here.
Saturday night at the Capitol Theater, McGlaughlin conducted the Yakima Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of his Béla’s Bounce. That’s a whimsical name for a serious work that reflects on what might have happened if Béla Bartok and Charlie Parker had met when they were living in New York in the early 1940s. The references to Parker’s “Billie’s Bounce” are subtle and integral to the piece. McGlaughlin incorporates Bartokian uses of strings and percussion with deep understanding of Bartok’s methods, but not in imitation. It’s a delightful work. Béla’s Bounce and Angel Band Trio #4 deserve to be on CD, and soon.

Karrin Allyson
The other guest artists for the YSO concert were McGlaughlin’s wife Karrin Allyson and her quintet. Allyson sang with her customary charm, musicianship and irrepressible energy, occasionally spelling pianist Joe Chindamo at the keyboard while he played accordian. Chindamo, an Australian new to me, was impressive as an accompanist and in solo. His piano chorus on Leonard Bernstein’s “Some Other Time,” alluding to Bill Evans, was a highlight of the evening. Bassist Jeff Johnson, guitarist Dan Balmer and drummer Todd Strait frequently beamed as they luxuriated in the surroundings of the full orchestra playing McGlaughlin’s arrangements. Allyson included several Brazilian pieces, mainly by Antonio Carlos Jobim. She has an affinity for samba and announced that she has a Brazilian project in the works. Let us hope that it includes a recording. Allyson and her band perform again tonight, sans symphony orchestra, at The Seasons.
Between Allyson sets, McGlaughlin conducted the YSO in three movements of Stravinsky’s The Firebird. First, in his Philadelphia Scots accent, he regaled the audience with a summary of the legend on which Stravinskly based the work. “Apparently the firebird had a voice just like a bassoon,” he said. Ninety-eight years after its premiere, The Firebird still sounds revolutionary. McGlaughlin was obviously pleased with the performance the musicians gave him. At a gathering later, I overheard him tell Brooke Creswell, the orchestra’s music director and regular conductor, “Who’d have thought to find such a band in Yakima, Washington.”

Pardon my pride, but less than a month after seeing the light of day, Poodie James has gone into a second printing. Thank you.

For further information (how to order, for instance), click here.