Archives for 2009

The newest addition to jazz.com’s “The Dozens” series is Bill Kirchner’s recommendation of twelve tracks by pianist Denny Zeitlin. Five of the pieces appear in the new Mosaic compendium of Zeitlin’s 1960s trio recordings for Columbia. The others are from single albums, some available, others rare. Typical of Kirchner’s keen musician’s guidance through the tracks is this evaluation of Zeitlin’s “Stonehenge:”

This modal burner deserves to be more widely performed. One reason it isn’t probably has to do with a complex polyrhythmic interlude that requires an authoritative lead sheet to be executed properly. Since Denny Zeitlin’s own lead sheet isn’t commercially available (I have a copy, and trust me, it’s not music you’d want to transcribe), that leaves the piece in limbo.
From a listener’s standpoint, though, this is a compelling performance, and one of Zeitlin’s earliest indications of his gifts as a composer. It has McCoy Tyner-esque sturm und drang, but Zeitlin’s vocabulary is quite different and gives his improvisation a character of its own. The climax is (drummer) Freddie Waits’ solo over a roaring vamp by Zeitlin and (bassist) Cecil McBee.

From this listener’s standpoint, that sort of guidance is helpful. Perhaps it will be to you, too. To read the whole thing, go here. You may find that Kirchner’s article works hand-in-hand with a piece I wrote about Zeitlin in The Wall Street Journal last March.

Bobby Shew’s Breakfast Wine is so rare that it does not appear in the Shew discography on the trumpeter’s own web site. Nonetheless, the PAUSA long-playing vinyl album released in 1985 is a highlight not only of Shew’s recording career but also of all jazz releases in the last two decades of the twentieth century. I lost my copy of Breakfast Wine in a move, so when I was rummaging through the used LP bin in a Seattle store the other day and came across a pristine copy, I gave a whoop. That prompted another customer to amble over and see what the fuss was about. I showed him the cover. He stared at it blankly and went back to the rock section. Good. I didn’t want to have to fight him for the LP.

Shew’s rhythm section on the record included the stalwart drummer Sherman Ferguson, pianist Makoto Ozone and bassist John Patitucci. Ozone and Patitucci were in their early twenties, at the launch points of their substantial careers. They shared with Shew the enthusiasm he had rekindled after deciding to walk away from his career of lead trumpet work with Woody Herman, Buddy Rich and other big bands, and from the Hollywood studios in which he had spent hundreds of lucrative hours.

“After all the Woodys and Mork and Mindys,” he told the liner note writer (full disclosure: I was the liner note writer), “I realized I wasn’t doing what makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. So I threw it all over, and now I’m playing jazz in clubs and doing clinics for student musicians about 200 days a year. I don’t make the kind of money I used to as a studio musician. But I love everything I do. It’s a self-inflicted eccentricity. And I’ve discovered it works not only in an artistic sense, but in a business sense too. I’m doing what I love and life is good.”

And that, essentially, is what Shew has been doing for a quarter of a century. He has recorded more than two dozen albums as a leader since, but Breakfast Wine has a special place in his output because of the sense of discovery in his playing, the freshness of the emerging Ozone and Patitucci and, not least, because of the title tune. Randy Aldcroft’s intriguing “Breakfast Wine” has made its way into the repertoires of many musicians and into fake books. The recording that introduced it should make its way back into general circulation as a CD reissue.
In the meantime, if you get lucky, as I did, you may find the LP. This web site lists several copies ranging in price from expensive to ridiculous. They include an offer from an outfit in France that will sell you the LP and a CD-R transfer for a mere $78.84 US.

On his web site, Old And New Swingin’ Dreams, Bruno Leicht gathers together four versions of “Chinatown, My Chinatown” and its latterday nom de déguisement “Sax No End.” The clips run from Fletcher Henderson in 1930 to the Clarke-Boland band in 1967, the Oscar Peterson Trio a year later and, finally, an undated video performance by Clarke-Boland. Along the way, we hear solos by, among others, Rex Stewart, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Johnny Griffin, Sahib Shihab, Ronnie Scott and the shamefully ignored alto saxophonist Derek Humble. The assemblage of these audio and video clips is a good idea well executed. I wish I’d thought of it. The public service aspect of Leicht’s idea is the reminder to jazz players of all generations that this is a great set of changes to blow on — if that’s not too old fashioned a concept.
Go here to take the ride.
Nor should we overlook Louis Armstrong’s big band version from 1931, notable for his spoken nonsense, the glory of his long-lined trumpet solo when he finally gets around to it, the way he swings the band, and his splendid high D-flat at the end. To hear it, click here.

JazzTimes magazine announced today that it will come back to life with an August issue. A post on the magazine’s web site says that a Boston company, Madavor Media, has acquired JazzTimes. It describes Madavor as “a market-leading enthusiast publishing and trade-show group.”
Jazz Times announced in early June that it was temporarily suspending publication. A New York Times report today says that Madavor bought the JazzTimes brand and assets from publisher Glenn Sabin. Sabin’s father, Ira, founded the publication in 1970 as Radio Free Jazz, a newsletter that he transformed into a tabloid-sized paper and, 19 years ago, a slick magazine that reached a circulation of more than 100,000. JazzTimes won this year’s Jazz Journalists Association award as best jazz magazine, an honor it received for several years.
The New York Times story quotes JazzTimes editor-in-chief Lee Mergner as saying that contributors will get fees the magazine owes them. Mergner told the Times that he and managing editor Evan Haga will remain aboard and use the same staff of free-lance contributors.
More than a month ago, we wrote:

With the suspension last year of the Canadian magazine Coda, the absorption of Britain’s Jazz Review by Jazz Journal and the conversion of JazzIz to a quarterly, jazz listeners’ choices of major print information about the music are disappearing fast. The question, unanswerable at this point, is whether web sites and blogs can provide the same depth and width of coverage generations have received from jazz magazines. This is a small manifestation of the larger challenge facing free societies as newspapers shrink or disappear. A democracy can only suffer from diminution and fragmentation of the flow of information upon which we base our judgments.
Let us hope that JazzTimes survives its reorganization. More important, let us hope that we do not lose news organizations serving mass audiences. They help bind us together.

Congratulations to JazzTimes.

Martial Solal Live at the Village Vanguard (CamJazz). The CD’s subtitle is I Can’t Give You Anything but Love. In this recital, the French pianist gives his listeners more than love. We get architectural thinking, drollery, daring, virtuosity that includes astonishing mastery of meter, and chord voicings that illuminate like fireworks. Solal was 80 when this was recorded in 2007. His command of the instrument and his intellectual resources were in full operation. He interprets seven standards with insights into the natures of the songs, deep harmonic substance and inflections of his endearing wit. Among other delights, following his deep ruminations during “‘Round Midnight” he makes pointed allusions to other Thelonious Monk compositions; integrates crippled cadences into “On Green Dolphin Street;” plays abstractions of the melody, astringent parallel harmonies and stride flurries in “Corcovado.” Solal has always managed to integrate profundity and entertainment without sacrificing anything of either. Two of his own compositions, “Ramage” (French for “flower patterns”) and “Centre de Gravite,” have characteristics suggested by their titles and give the impression of pure improvisation, whether or not they are.
Because of his command of the piano, Solal is often compared with Art Tatum. Fair enough; what jazz pianist of his generation with the technical ability to emulate Tatum was not under the influence of that master? Bud Powell is less often mentioned as a component of Solal’s musical makeup, but on this night at the Vanguard, Powell was a beatific presence peering out of Solal’s solos. A listener might also hear traces of other pianists of several eras and styles; Bill Evans, Teddy Wilson, Al Haig or Solal’s young countryman Michel Petrucciani. Still, when this CD ends, Solal has confirmed yet again that he is unclassifiable, a thorough original.

Here’s a look at Martial Solal in performance with a trio in a video pastiche. YouTube does not identify the sidemen, but they appear to be the Moutin brothers, Francois on bass and Louis on drums.

It was 97 degrees today and time to get the apricots off the tree. In 2008, the tree produced two apricots. This year, it compensated, loading its branches with huge fruits. Eat your hearts out. Or, better, visit Rifftides World Headquarters and eat an apricot. The two bushels are perhaps a fifth of the tree’s output.

What does this have to do with jazz? It’s summertime. Here’s Sidney Bechet.

In Barcelona, there is a baritone saxophonist named Joan Chamorro. As might be expected of a young player of his instrument, he is under the spell of Harry Carney, Gerry Mulligan and Pepper Adams. I can find no recordings under his own name, although here and here, Chamorro is listed as a sideman. Jordi Pujol sent the Rifftides staff a message in which he mentioned that this year his Fresh Sound label will release a CD with Chamorro as leader. Based on what I have heard of his playing, that seems something to anticipate.
On YouTube and Google there several videos of Chamorro at work with his quartet. In the lengthy clip below, he pays tribute to Mulligan with a medley of quartet pieces. The first number, incomplete, is Ben Webster’s blues “Go Home,” followed by “Bernie’s Tune,” “Makin’ Whoopee” and “Love Me or Leave Me.” The other musicians are Toni Belenguer, trombone; David Mengual, bass; and David Xirgu, drums. Despite their adherence to the form of the Mulligan pieces, the individuality of Chamorro and the others leaps off the screen and out of the speakers, particularly in the final choruses of “Love Me or Leave Me.” Unfortunately, the performance is summarily executed before it finishes. The sloppy production is typical of web videos, but we get spirited playing that indicates more good work to come from Spain.

Len Dobbin, a man of many parts in Montreal, died last night. Among his other roles, over the years Mr. Dobbin was a broadcaster, reviewer, photographer and producer intimately involved in the Canadian jazz scene. For details, go here. Len was a frequent and knowledgeable correspondent to Rifftides. The Rifftides staff will miss him.

(This item originally appeared in Rifftides on July 19, 2005)
A Little “Rifftide” Geneology
Annie Kuebler, the Mary Lou Williams archivist at the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies, gives us further insights into “Rifftide.” That is the 1945 Coleman Hawkins recording that inspired the name of this blog. She does not say that Hawkins stole the tune from Williams, only that it is likely to have been lodged in his mind when he played on a little-known record date with Mary Lou a couple of months before his own session. In the mid-forties, Hawkins and Williams were major swing era musicians encouraging and aiding the younger players who were developing bebop. Hawkins gave Thelonious Monk one of his most important early jobs as a pianist. Wiliams had a profound influence on the new music’s pianists. She told Ira Gitler in an interview for his book Swing To Bop, “We were inseparable, Monk, Bud Powell and I. We were always together every day, for a long time.”

Here is the note Ms. Kuebler sent us about “Rifftide.”

On December 15, 1944, Moe Asch recorded six cuts titled Mary Lou Williams and Her Orchestra in New York City. Williams’s arrangement of “[Oh] Lady Be Good” is nearly identical to Hawkins’s “Rifftide”–and one doesn’t need a musicologist to explain it. It just takes a listen. The only real difference is the breaks to accommodate the various musicians.

Originally recorded on 78 rpm Asch 552-3 as a three record set, the recording is now available on CD on the Chronological Classics Series # 1021, Mary Lou Williams 1944 -1945. The personnel for four of the cuts is Hawkins – tenor sax; Joe Evans – alto; Claude Green – clarinet; Bill Coleman – trumpet; Eddie Robinson – bass; Denzil Best – drums; and, of course, Williams on piano.

Obviously, this recording precedes “Rifftide,” attributed to Hawkins, from Hollywood Stampede on February 23, 1945. I don’t believe enough time had passed that Hawkins forgot the source, but that’s an opinion. Since my music manuscript archivist career began with Duke Ellington’s Collection, I am not judgmental about these things — just like to lay the facts out. In such matters, I am always reminded of Juan Tizol’s reply when asked if Ellington stole songs, “Oh, he stole. He’d steal it from his own self.”

Hope this helps. Thank for naming your website after a great underrated artist’s arrangement.

Before she joined the Institute for Jazz Studies five years ago, Annie Kuebler spent twelve years at the Smithsonian Institution. There, among many other achievements, she accomplished the massive task of organizing the manuscripts in the Smithsonian’s Duke Ellington collection. Her contributions to preserving large segments of American art and culture are invaluable. Thanks, Annie

To my knowledge, there is no video of Coleman Hawkins or Mary Lou Williams playing “Rifftide” or “Oh, Lady Be Good” and certainly not “Hackensack,” Thelonious Monk’s appropriation or adaptation of the line. So, we’ll have to settle for Stan Getz and John Coltrane accompanied by Oscar Peterson, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. This was 1960 in Dusseldorf. There are several dubs of this clip floating around the internet. This one has the clearest picture and sound.

For some time–years–I have been bothered by the further deterioration of a craft that too often has not achieved the status of serious criticism. I write, sad to say, of jazz reviewing, in which assignments all too often go to the lowest bidder, or to no bidder. These days, they go less frequently than ever to those who know something about music or are willing to learn about it, or who have qualifications beyond an eagerness to get free records or free admittance.

When a Canadian acquaintance sent me the Montreal Gazette review of last week’s Maria Schneider concert at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, I thought it was a spoof of incompetent, malevolent, reviewing. It is not. It is the real thing, incompetent and malevolent. It is also misogynist.
Here are the headline, byline and first few sentences:

Jazz fest 2009: Maria with the long bare arms
By JEFF HEINRICH
07 02 09
My high-school jazz band was never conducted by a woman, let alone a middle-aged American blonde with a penchant for sleeveless black tops that show off her Pilates-styled arms. But then, again, if my high-school jazz band had been conducted by such a woman, I might have been too distracted and never become a gifted clarinet player. Actually, that’s a lie; I gave up the clarinet pretty early. So what was so bothersome about the show Maria Schneider and her jazz orchestra gave the other night (Tuesday) at Théâtre Maisonneuve? Well, a couple of things: Schneider’s irritatingly stiff body-language and the equally stiff sound of her musicians, as excruciating visually and aurally as your run-of-the-mill high-school jazz band. It was creepy, the way the soloists schlumped across the stage to do their number then schlumped back to their seats and their music stands, like adolescents in uniforms going through the paces.

The in-depth misogynism comes in the rest of the article. To read the whole thing, go here. Then scroll down to read responses from readers of the Gazette, nearly all of whom know more about Mr. Heinrich’s subject than he does and all of whom are more articulate and civil, even the one who wrote, “Your an idiot.” To paraphrase many of them, what were the editors of the Gazette thinking when they assigned Mr. Heinrich to review something for which he had a priori contempt? What were they thinking when they examined his copy before they published it? Did they put it through the editorial process at all? Any answer to those questions is disturbing.
Mr. Heinrich’s level of gratuitous nastiness is not typical of most jazz reviewers. All too often his level of ignorance of the subject is typical in both specialty and general publications. There are jazz critics who pride themselves on writing from a base of knowledge, perception, taste and fairness. They have worked, studied, researched and listened hard to achieve that standard. There are, alas, countless editors and publishers who do not hold their staff writers or free lance contributors to high professional values. That is bad for everyone–readers, listeners, musicians and, ultimately, newspapers, magazines and the journalism profession.
As jazz magazines go out of business and coverage budgets at general circulation publications dry up, one part of conventional journalism wisdom is that the web, specifically bloggers on the web, will take up the slack. Please don’t let it disturb you if I point out that most bloggers work for nothing more than the challenge, the thrill, the contacts or the loss-leading benefits of using their blogs as adjuncts to whatever they do for a living. It would be a mistake to count on them (us) to provide the standards and oversight that print publishers are unwilling or unable to observe and practice. In journalism as in the rest of life, generally you get what you pay for.

Asked to define jazz, Louis Armstrong replied, “If you have to ask what it is, you’ll never know.” That’s one answer. Here’s another, provided by Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Hank Jones, Rufus Reid and Mickey Roker at Gillespie’s 70th birthday concert on October, 21, 1987. The composition is Gillespie’s blues “Wheatleigh Hall.” In the preamble, Gillespie and Rollins praise one another, then Willis Conover introduces the performance. If you have full-screen capability on your computer, please do yourself a favor and use it. I have watched and listened to this four times tonight and will play it again before I turn in.

To find the 1957 Gillespie-Rollins recording of “Wheatleigh Hall,” which also has Gilespie duets with Sonny Stitt, click here.
Have a good Sunday.

(An annual Rifftides reminder)
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.–Benjamin Franklin
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.–Abraham Lincoln

Sheila Jordan has a farmhouse retreat in Upstate New York where the 80-year-old singer goes to develop new music. In The New York Times this week, Lisa A. Phillips wrote a charming story about Jordan and her country life. Here is a sample:

“When I come up here,” she said, “I feel totally undressed musically. I feel I can try out any kind of idea I have.”
On her five and a quarter acres of land atop Canady Hill, her only close neighbors have been the cows the farmer next door once kept. “I called them the bebop cows,” Ms. Jordan said. “They didn’t like ballads. If I sang them a slow tune, they left. If I sang bebop, they came running over.”

To read the whole thing, go here. Do not miss the audio slide show embedded in the article.
Here is Sheila during a Austrialian tour in a tribute to one of her heroes, Billie Holiday. Mike Nock’s trio accompanies her.

When the video clip ends, you will see links to other Jordan performances on YouTube.

If all of July is like this, I’ll be a happy cyclist. My Italian friend Vigorelli Bianchi and I did 22 morning miles. The air and light had a crystalline quality more usual In October than summer. The cherry crop looks splendid, loading the trees so heavily that in places the branches bowed low near enough to the road that I could almost have plucked the fruit as I rode by. This is the stage at which cherry growers pray for no rain.
Thinners are in the apple trees making room for the fall fruit to develop. The orchards have all the earmarks of a bumper apple crop.
Fruit workers waved and smiled as I passed, approaching motorists nodded and lifted fingers from their steering wheels in greeting, dogs barked more out of a sense of duty than intent to pursue, and not one pickup truck tried to run me into the ditch. It was one of those rides when I felt stronger at the end than the beginning. It was great out there.
I had to tell someone.