Archives for 2014

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The American bassist and singer Kristin Korb has lived in Denmark the past two years. In her Per Helsas GÃ¥rd concert, she included songs from her next album, Finding Home, about the effects of the move and the peace she has found in her marriage and her adopted country.

A protégé of the late Ray Brown, Ms. Korb’s bass playing is the foundation of her musicianship. She is an increasingly clever lyricist in the songs she writes, arranges and sings. “58 Boxes” was about “missing my stuff” during the weeks it was in transit from the US. She worked melodies from Miles Davis’s “All Blues” and references to James Brown’s “I Feel Good” into her introduction to Bob Dorough’s “Better Than Anything.” The lyric she set to “Groove Merchant” and her bass lines were perfect matches for the spirit and churchy harmonies of Jerome Richardson’s classic piece. Pianist Magnus Hjorth, played several impressive solos in the set. The other member of Korb’s trio, drummer Snorre Kirk, was buoyantly propulsive throughout.

In the first of his two appearances, the Ystad Festival’s artistic director Jan Lundgren and his trio hosted Grégoire Maret. The Swiss harmonica player is often mentioned as the new Toots Thielemans, the instrument’s modern jazz pioneer. Lundgren alternated solo and trio pieces with those that featured Maret. Veterans Jesper Lundgaard, on bass, and drummer Alex Riel played together in the pianist’s first trio. The rapport they established with him in the 1990s has, if anything, deepened. Their backing of Maret in “Velas,” Brazilian composer Ivan Lins’ tribute to Thielemans, had a blend of rhythmic muscle and lyrical sensibility that matched Maret’s interpretation. In “The Man I Love,” one of the pieces on Lundgren’s forthcoming solo album, Maret played in response to Riel’s drum figures. The two took the music beyond the edge of Gershwin’s harmonies, which inspired further adventuring by the quartet as they went out in a long, leisurely tag ending based on one chord.

In a Wall Street Journal article today about the festival and the state of jazz in Sweden, I cover Lundgren’s other performance in Ystad. The Journal is available at newsstands and, to WSJ subscribers, online.

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The Ystad Jazz Festival was packed with performances so tightly scheduled that time for blogging—and sleeping— was at a premium. Here are impressions of a few of the events.

In the splendor of the 19th century Ystad Theater, back-to-back concerts by the quartets of tenor saxophonists Joshua Redman and Charles Lloyd offered contrasting approaches to modern mainstream jazz.

Ebullient, Redman led his troops through three of his compositions and one by pianist Aaron Goldberg before he put his stamp on an American classic. After opening with “I’ll Go Mine,” Redman’s body language kicked in on “What We Do.” For the rest of the concert , his bobbing, weaving and spontaneous knee lifts served as visual counterpoint to the music. “Come What May” featured a Reuben Rogers bass solo of exceptional harmonic continuity. The rhythmic understanding between Rogers, Goldberg and drummer Gregory Hutchison gives the Redman quartet the buoyancy that was apparent throughout the concert, even on slower pieces. Goldberg opened his “Shad” alone in an introduction that was reflective but nonetheless set the atmosphere for the wild waltz-time adventure that developed.

With canny strategy, following four originals that challenged his listeners, Redman played the unadorned verse and first chorus of “Stardust,” one of the purest of all melodies. After that, the crowd was open to a treatment of the piece that sometimes verged on free jazz. “Curlicue,” a blues with altered harmonies, followed, then “Stagger Bear.” Redman said the piece was inspired by a dream he had about a drunk Teddy Bear. “Don’t ask,” he said. The encore was Dizzy Gillespie’s “Bebop” at a pace as fast as—maybe faster than—Gillespie’s original recording. The young veteran Hutchison dazzled the audience with his solo on “Bebop,” indeed, with his solo work throughout the concert.

Charles Lloyd opened his concert with the quartet playing what sounded like simultaneous improvisation, his beautiful tone floating above the rhythm section. Joe Sanders’ hefty bass sound and precise attack set up a transition into a blues dominated by Lloyd’s keening tenor saxophone. When he wasn’t playing, Lloyd moved around the stage, often stationing himself behind pianist Gerald Clayton and listening intently. Like Redman’s, Lloyd’s body language is an apparently unconscious aspect of his performance. Sometimes, he simply stands, weaving or swaying slightly. He announced the titles of none of the tunes. Lloyd said, in fact, not a word all evening. What I can refer to only as a flute thing in ¾ found him matching the heat of an exceptionally hot rhythm section. Sanders and young Justin Brown demonstrated the importance of bass-drum relations, obviously playing to and for one another, smiling and nodding in mutual approval. Back on tenor sax, Lloyd played abstractions decorated with Clayton piano interjections. The audience demonstrated its acceptance and approval of Lloyd’s curiously edgy yet relaxing music with a standing ovation and typical European unison handclaps that rang through the theater for minutes on end.

In an Ystad park, Gunhild Carling led a big band composed primarily of her family members. She sang, shimmied, strutted and played trumpet, trombone, flute and bagpipes. Between numbers she delivered a nonstop stream of Swedish patter. Although her breathless pacing and fervor sometimes bordered on the absurd, Ms. Carling’s instrumental solos were substantial improvisations. On bagpipes, she played a blues solo notable for content, pacing and phrasing. In a piece of shtick straight out of 1920s vaudeville, she did the splits as she executed a downward trombone glissando, but her plunger mute solo on the next number was an accurate impression of Duke Ellington’s great trombonist Tricky Sam Nanton. Several members of the band played solos that reflected the swing era and edged on bebop. The Carling Big Band delivers credible jazz in the context of easily digestible comic entertainment.
(Carling photo by Markus Fägersten)

With her quartet, the young tenor saxophonist Ida Karlsson dipped into the legacy of John Coltrane and other post-bop musicians who came to prominence in the 1960s. Their music was equally based in the northern European reserve and subsurface power of Jan Garbarek and other Nordic artists who record for the ECM label. In the photo below, l to r, Gunnar Åkerhielm, Josef Karnebäck, Ms. Karlsson, Kristoffer Rostedt.

“Remember,” guitarist John Scofield said backstage before his performance at the Ystad Jazz Festival, “this is my rock band.” Is it ever. Formally named The John Scofield Über Jam Band, the quartet operates with an array of electronic and digital enhancements that gives it volume and intensity that a big band—even a couple of big bands—might be hard-pressed to equal.

“We should be tight,” Scofield said. “We’ve done 24 concerts in 27 days on the road in Europe.” Indeed, the solidarity of the group was impressive as it challenged the ability of the 120-year-old Ystad Theatre’s foundations to withstand shaking. Scofield and rhythm guitarist Avi Bortnick operated a collection of foot controls, and Bortnick a laptop computer, that made the Über Band concert a techno adventure. And yet, in pieces like “Snake Dance,” “Boogie, Stupid” and “Snap, Crackle, Pop,” it was sophisticated harmonic content as the guitarists interacted with one another and with electric bassist Andy Hess that justified the band’s inclusion in a jazz festival.

Quivers and shakes at the ends of phrases are trademarks of Scofield’s performances, and at Ystad there were plenty of them. Drummer Terence Higgins reacted to Scofield’s and Bortnick’s emphatic rhythmic turns with snaps, crackles, pops and other licks that complemented the guitarists’ ideas. The way he and Hess locked up was one indicator that the band is as tight as Scofield claimed. Higgins’s musical heritage is evident in his adaptations of the parade-beat tradition of his native New Orleans. Advanced electronica may not have been the main interest of an Ystad audience whose average age looked to be well above 50, but the Über Jammers inspired a standing ovation

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Packed to capacity, the 11th century Saint Mary’s Church in the center of Ystad hosted a magnificent performance of music from Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts. A citizen who lives nearby told me, “There are more people in this church than there were on Christmas Eve.” Eva Ekdahl conducted her 34-voice Stockholm choir and eight instrumentalists in her husband Anders’ adaptation of Ellington’s work.

From the first bars of “Ain’t But The One,” it was evident that the performers grasped not only the religious conviction that Ellington put into his religious pieces but also the essence of swing that is crucial to their effective interpretation. Helen Larsson, a soprano of astonishing flexibility and accuracy, sang solos that Ellington wrote for his friend the great Swedish singer Alice Babs. The members of the four-man horn section were faithful to the styles of stars of the Ellington band who graced the music’s original performances. Patrik Skogh’s plunger-mute trumpet solos and alto saxophonist Pär Gerbacken’s evocations of Johnny Hodges were notably effective. Baritone saxophonist Victor Sand recalled Harry Carney, trombonist Åke Lännerholm Lawrence Brown. When the concert ended, bassist Anders Johnsson and drummer Per Ekdahl exchanged wide grins and a hearty handclasp that symbolized the good feeling permeating musicians and audience in the ancient church.

A footnote: Among its other fine qualities, the performance was a family affair; drummer Per and guitarist Bo Klum Ekdahl are the sons of conductor Eva and pianist-arranger Anders Ekdahl.

(Photos: Markus Fagersten)

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If you have wondered why Rifftides chose to cover Sweden’s Ystad Jazz Festival for the second time, here is one reason—seen from my hotel window overlooking the Baltic Sea.

It’s summer in Scandinavia, glorious summer, when Swedes flock to beaches to soak in the sun that Nordic weather denies them nine months of the year. It has been unusually hot here in recent days, with temperatures as high as 37 degrees Celsius (about 99 degrees Farenheit). Shorts, swimming trunks, flip-flops, sandals and abbreviated upper-body wear are acceptable, even necessary, which can make for interesting sightseeing.

The trip to Europe from the west coast of the US is always long, loved only by those who relish jet lag. A delay in my departure from Seattle caused a missed Amsterdam-to-Copenhagen connection. What was scheduled as a 13-hour series of flights from Yakima, Washington, to Ystad metastasized into a 24-hour adventure that included a sprint with two bags the full length of the Amsterdam airport’s endless D concourse, the missed flight, four hours in line to arrange for another flight to Copenhagen and a train trip to Ystad that replaced the car ride erased by the late arrival. But, who’s complaining? The hot Swedish air is full of music. Our next installment will be a report on some of what I’ve heard so far. Please stay tuned.

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The Rifftides staff leaves tomorrow morning for Ystad on the southern Baltic coast of Sweden. The ancient seaside town will host the Ystad Jazz Festival in its fifth year. The festival will present such well known musicians as Joshua Redman, Charles Lloyd, Roy Hargrove, Jan Lundgren, Diane Schur, Jon Scofield and Abdullah Ibrahim, plus an extensive sampling of veteran and youthful European artists. In addition to posting from Ystad for Rifftides, I will write a piece for The Wall Street Journal about the state of jazz in Sweden as reflected at the festival.

Our son Paul is flying from Santa Barbara to meet me at the Copenhagen airport for the hour trip south to Ystad. I know from having covered the festival in 2012 that Ystad in summer is a popular tourist destination usually drenched in sunshine, a happy contrast to the gloomy place portrayed in the Wallender novels and television series. It is unlikely that he’ll be around, but we will keep an eye out for the inspector (pictured right). We may have to check out a dark tavern or two.

Blogging for the next several days will be as often as the festival schedule allows. To see the schedule, go here.

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Today’s cycling expedition through eastern Washington’s Naches Valley took me where orchard country and cattle country merge for a few miles. Waving above a prosperous looking ranch house was this enormous American flag.

A mile or so up the road, another rancher was not to be outdone.

The flags reminded me of two versions of “America The Beautiful” that I did not include in the 4th of July Rifftides post. There are several videos of the song by Ray Charles. This one with the Raelettes is seen less often than most. He perfected a routine for this piece, but within the pattern every performance was an original, because it was by Ray Charles.

The other “America The Beautiful” is by a trombonist we lost in 2003. Carl Fontana was held in awe by colleagues and aficionados. He deserved wider fame for his musicality, swing, astonishing control of his instrument and the humor in his work.

Carl Fontana, trombone; Al Cohn, tenor Saxophone; Richard Wyands, piano; Ray Drummond, bass; Akira Tana, drums, from Uptown Records’ The Great Fontana. For an extended live version of “America The Beautiful” by Fontana, go here. The audio quality is a bit compressed, but you can hear everyone. Your close attention will be rewarded.

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Events in Ukraine, Israel, Palestine and Nigeria—to name the locations of a few of the world’s festering sores—make it appropriate to revisit a post from the Rifftides archive. It appeared during the first year of this blog.

(July 22, 2005)

Following the most recent rounds of atrocities—Iraq, London—a friend wanted to talk. He did not have comforting insights into mankind’s oldest philosophical question, nor did I. I don’t know whether Miller Williams has the answer, but in his collection Some Jazz A While this distinguished American poet ponders the question beautifully. With his permission, here is one of his finest poems. Like all poetry, it is best read aloud.

Why God Permits Evil:
For Answers to This Question
Of Interest to Many
Write Bible Answers, Dept. E-7
—ad on a matchbook cover

Of interest to John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas
for instance and Job for instance who never got

one straight answer but only his cattle back,
With interest, which is something, but certainly not

any kind of answer unless you ask
God if God can demonstrate God’s power

and God’s glory, which is not a question.
You should all be living at this hour.

You had Servetus to burn, the elect to count,
bad eyes and the Institutes to write;

you had the exercises and had Latin.
the hard bunk and the solitary night;

You had the neighbors to listen to and your woman
yelling at you to curse God and die.

Some of this to be on the right side;
some of it to ask in passing, Why?

Why badness makes its way in a world He made?
How come he looked for twelve and got eleven?

You had the faith and looked for love, stood pain,
learned patience and little else. We have E-7.

Churches may be shut down everywhere,
half-written philosophy books be tossed away.

Some place on the South Side of Chicago
a lady with wrinkled hose and a small gray

bun of hair sits straight with her knees together
behind a teacher’s desk on the third floor

of an old shirt factory, bankrupt and abandoned
except for this just cause and on the door:

Dept. E-7. She opens the letters
asking why God permits it and sends a brown

plain envelope to each return address.
But she is not alone. All up and down

the thin and creaking corridors are doors
And desks behind them: E-6, E-5, 4, 3.

A desk for every question, for how we rise
blown up and burned, for how the will is free,

for when is Armageddon, for whether dogs
have souls or not and on and on. On

beyond the alphabet and possible numbers
where cross-legged, naked, and alone,

there sits a pale, tall, and long-haired woman
upon a cushion of fleece and eiderdown

holding in one hand a handwritten answer,
holding in the other hand a brown

plain envelope. On either side, cobwebbed
and empty baskets sitting on the floor

say In and Out. There is no sound in the room.
There is no knob on the door. Or there is no door.

©1999 by Miller Williams

Williams wrote and read the inaugural poem at the beginning of President Bill Clinton’s second term in 1997, four years after Maya Angelou was the inaugural poet as President Clinton began his first term. In a PBS program, The Inaugural Classroom, a 12th grader asked Williams how it felt to be compared to Angelou. This was his answer:

She writes opera and classical music, and I write jazz and blues.

The late poet John Ciardi summed up Williams this way:

Miller Williams writes about ordinary people in the extraordinary moments of their lives. Even more remarkable is how, doing this, he plays perilously close to plain talk without ever falling into it; how close he comes to naked sentiment without yielding to it; how close he moves to being very sure without ever losing the grace of uncertainty. Add to this something altogether apart, that what a good reader can expect to sense, coming to these poems, is a terrible honesty, and we have among us a voice that makes a difference.

“Why God Permits Evil” appears in Williams’s collected poems, Some Jazz a While. To learn more about Miller Williams, go here.

Top photo of Williams: Dan Hale, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

My attitude is never to be satisfied. Never enough. Never.

Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don’t want it.

Critics have their purposes, and they’re supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did.

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Until recently, admirers of the great trumpeter Clifford Brown heard him speak only a few words on the album The Beginning and the End. Recently, however, a YouTube contributor who identifies herself as Nespasisi posted a segment of Brown being interviewed by Willis Conover of The Voice of America. Nespasisi explains that she found the fragment “on one of my dusty old cassette tapes.” The discussion was shortly before Brown died in an automobile accident on June 27, 1956, four months short of his 26th birthday.

Clifford Brown with Lou Donaldson, alto saxophone; Elmo Hope, piano; Percy Heath, bass; and Philly Joe Jones, drums, playing “Brownie Speaks,” included on this album. If you’re in the mood for more about Clifford, listen to Nat Hentoff talk about him with Clifford Brown, Jr., in a Philadelphia Institute of the Arts symposium.

For even more, go to this Rifftides archive piece.

Rudy Royston, 303, (Greenleaf Music)

Since his emergence from Denver (area code 303) nearly a decade ago, Royston’s drumming has graced bands led by Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, JD Allen, Tom Harrell and other leaders in 21st century jazz. With 303, Royston becomes a leader himself. As he has since he first attracted attention playing for Denver trumpeter Ron Miles, Royston is notable not only for the dynamics of his technique but for empathy with his fellow musicians and the reactive support he gives them. His drums are prominent in the mix, but for all of his technical adroitness, he does not put himself on display, even in the rockish insistencies of “Goodnight Kinyah” or the vaguely Latin ones that develop into an intense drum solo with horn accompaniment in “Gangs of New York.”

Royston is equally at home coverng Radiohead’s “High and Dry” and adapting Mozart’s “Ave Venum Corpus” as an anthem in which his brush work floats under Jon Irabagon’s alto saxophone. Royston gives Irabagon, trumpeter Nadja Noordhuis, pianist Sam Harris and guitarist solo opportunities of which they take impressive advantage. He uses two basses, played by Mimi Jones and Yasushi Nakamura, not for novelty but to provide texture and harmonic coherence.

Hannah Svensson, Each Little Moment (Volenza)

In a 2012 collection of duets with her guitarist father Ewan, Ms. Svensson exhibited charm, clear intonation and a confident approach to lyrics. Her new album finds the young Swedish singer again with her dad, plus the masterly pianist Jan Lundgren, bassist Morten Ramsbøl and drummer Kristian Leth. She is affecting in four pieces associated with Billie Holiday, notably so in “It’s Easy to Remember,” whose rarely heard verse she includes. She gives a personal blues spin to a slow “Fine and Mellow,” which has effective solos from Svensson, Sr., and Lundgren. She and Lundgren give glowing performances in “My Foolish Heart.” Few singers her age would be attracted to Louis Jordan’s 1944 hit “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby.” Ms. Svensson takes it on with verve and makes amusing, bluesy, use of her tendency to slide up into notes. Other highlights of the track: Ramsbøl’s powerful bass work and the harmonic riches of Lundgren’s solo. For a Rifftides review of her previous CD, go here.

More Recent Listening coming soon

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The announcement none of us wanted to hear came early this afternoon from Tina Pelikan of ECM Records.

It is with deep sorrow that we announce that Charlie Haden, born August 6, 1937 in Shenandoah, Iowa, passed away today at 10:11 Pacific time in Los Angeles after a prolonged illness. Ruth Cameron, his wife of 30 years, and his children Josh Haden, Tanya Haden, Rachel Haden and Petra Haden were all by his side.

Every note Charlie Haden played came from conviction. His sincerity and commitment affected every musician with whom he worked. He used the insistency and quiet power of his music to express his beliefs. He did not compromise.

The first of two pieces in remembrance of Haden is by his beloved Quartet West. The second is from one of his albums with pianist Hank Jones.

For an obituary, go here. Charlie Haden, RIP

While we’re at it, let’s watch the National Endowment for the Arts video made when Haden became a 2012 NEA Jazz Master.

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Following the death of Horace Silver on June 18, Bill Kirchner called my attention to trumpeter John McNeil’s remembrance of his time in Silver’s quintet in the late 1970s. It appears on the New Music Box website. McNeil’s essay gives insights into traits and practices that formed Silver’s leadership qualities. For one thing, he insisted that his sidemen be on time. If they weren’t, he fined them twenty-five dollars.

The on-time rule also applied to getting back to the bandstand after a break. I ran afoul of this one time when I had been busy at the bar, chatting up a member of the opposite sex. All of a sudden I heard Horace play a little arpeggio and realized everyone was on the bandstand but me. I rushed up on stage and as I went by the piano, Horace, without looking up, said, “Twenty-five bucks. Good lookin’ though.”

The thing is, being on time wasn’t just some rigid rule of his. What really mattered to Horace was that being late and keeping other musicians waiting was disrespectful.

To read all of McNeil’s recollection of his formative time with Silver, go here. His concluding anecdote speaks volumes about Horace’s moral integrity.

For Rifftides thoughts about Silver’s importance, see this, posted the day after his passing

The latest post on Steve Cerra’s Jazz Profiles blog is about S. Duncan Reid’s biography of Cal Tjader (1925-1982). The subtitle of Reid’s book identifies Tjader as “The Man Who Revolutionized Latin Jazz.” There may be those who assert that Dizzy Gillespie, Machito and Tito Puente should get at least equal credit as revolutionaries in the field, but there is no question that Tjader’s pioneering attracted huge attention to Latin idioms. He was as successful in mainstream as in Latin jazz. Among the major sidemen he attracted were Eugene Wright, Clare Fischer, Vince Guaraldi Al McKibbon, Paul Horn, Willie Bobo, Mongo Santamaria and the brilliant young bassist Freddie Schreiber. In the course of his career, he managed to gain the respect of his peers in Latin music, sell large numbers of records, and fill clubs, concert halls and jazz festivals.

Without being a spoiler, Cerra summarizes the book by quoting from it and from Tjader admirers including Hank Jones, Scott Hamilton and critic Ted Gioia. He incorporates two well-chosen videos of Tjader in performance. I don’t wish to be a spoiler either, so here’s Tjader in a different video, as a guest with Gillespie. Whoever posted this on YouTube gave no information about when and where the performance was taped, but I am reasonably certain that the voice at the end is that of Jimmy Lyons, the impresario of the Monterey Jazz Festival. He mentions flutist Roger Glenn, and Mickey Roker on drums. The guitarist looks like Al Gafa, the electric bassist like Earl May. That indicates the early 1970s. I am unable to identify the conga drummer and the miscellaneous percussionist. Perhaps you can.

Full disclosure: I wrote the foreword to the Duncan Reid book, and I approve this plug.