Archives for 2014

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”TT4YMOkk9IbX4RX0PUQWYAhaS34jn2Pb”]

This morning a man came to the door, introduced himself as Francisco and said he was cutting the neighbors’ lawn. The neighbors were away. “Do you know about bees?” Francisco said. “Let me show you.” We walked over to a tree and there were two huge clumps of bees hanging from a branch.

Francisco said, “When I was a kid, one time I was out playing and disturbed a nest of bees and they started to come after me. We lived near a river, and the only way I could escape them was to jump in the river and come up once in a while to see if they were still there. Finally they went away. There’s no river around here, so I wondered if you knew who to call.”

I gave him a suggestion, and before long an old man arrived with what looked like a box—an empty hive. The apiarist recruited the queen, and soon, to Francisco’s relief, the hundreds of bees began assembling on it. By late evening, this is how it looked.

Tomorrow, we hope, the beekeeper will be back to take his captives to a new home.

If you think that telling you this story was an elaborate excuse to play a Duke Pearson recording from the 1960s, good guess. Here’s Pearson (1932-1980), piano; James Spaulding, flute; Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Ron Carter, bass; Mickey Roker, drums: “Sweet Honey Bee” from the album of that name.

Some of you may have forgotten about Pearson or have yet to encounter him. Go here for a biography and here for a generous representation of his work

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”dDyhSTr79gYGAKCxIhomZBkpUZsmrBzD”]

Joe Wilder, admired for his trumpet tone, range, stylistic flexibility and for his elegance as a musician and person, is gone. Wilder died at the age of 92 last Friday in New York. Despite his modesty and disinclination to assert himself, his skill put him in demand by big band leaders including Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, and Benny Goodman, as well as a wide range of Broadway and television producers. Among the dozens of musicians with whom Wilder recorded were Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Evans, Tom Talbert, Charles Mingus, Tadd Dameron, Carmen McRae and Terence Blanchard.

Here is an impression of Wilder’s impact in performance from a review I wrote For Texas Monthly of the 1980 Midland, Texas, Jazz Classic, which was packed with New York musicians of the first rank. The full piece appears in Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers.

Joe Wilder, a trumpeter whose studio obligations have kept him off the street for twenty-five years, is famous among his peers for a tone so lustrous that he has been engaged to play as few as four bars because only his sound would fulfill the demands of the arrangement. But Wilder is also a first-class improviser. If his soloing can sometimes seem too controlled, too smooth, he can surprise you with explosive quotes like the snatches of “Moose The Mooche” woven into his solo on “Exactly Like You” and with his plunger work on “Cotton Tail,” in which he evoked Cootie Williams’s days of glory with Duke Ellington.

Here is Wilder in 1956 with Hank Jones, piano; Wendell Marshall, bass; and Kenny Clarke, Drums.

Joe Wilder, RIP.

For extensive obituaries, go here and here.

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”eU8YgjHD3gXMIUOnpcZjatK14I2JyIm1″]

The winter of 2013-2014 was relatively mild in the Pacific Northwest. Still, there was plenty of snow in the Cascades. It is melting and filling the rivers, not to overflowing, but with water high and fast enough to pull trees out of the banks.

Here, you see the Yakima River at noon today carrying one of those trees southeast toward the Columbia. The National Weather Service reports that the Yakima is near flood stage in the river canyon between the towns of Yakima and Ellensburg, but no evacuations have been ordered for the few people who live there. So why even mention it? Because it’s a pretense for presenting Jimmy Rushing’s classic one-sided converation with a swollen river

Rushing’s accompanists were Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello. The track is from this album. For another recent Rifftides encounter with Rushing, go here.

Unrelatedly: happy Mothers Day to Rifftides readers and all you mothers.

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”l9zHFPSrBgX9qziE9L514OculJzaOSJV”]

Jerome Kern (pictured) wrote his last song nearly 70 years ago, but the freshness of its melody, hipness of its harmonies, surprise of its extended form and charm of Oscar Hammerstein II’s lyric make it seem perpetually new. Jan Clayton sang the new song, “Nobody Else But Me,” for Kern’s and Hammerstein’s 1946 Broadway revival of their 1927 masterpiece Show Boat. Lou Dinning had the vocal in Paul Weston’s popular early recording. Among the countless musicians entranced by the piece since then have been Sarah Vaughan, Stan Getz, Tony Bennett, Bill Evans, Jimmy Raney, Joe Pass, Irene Kral with Junior Mance, and Pinky Winters with Lou Levy and Monty Budwig.

A visit to YouTube can turn up versions of the piece by amateurs posting home videos as well as performances by seasoned professionals. In the latter category, one of the most recent features the team of Wesla Whitfield and her pianist husband Mike Greensill. It was filmed at last fall’s Allegheny Jazz Party, with guitarist Howard Alden, tenor saxophonist Harry Allen and bassist Kerry Lewis sitting in. They include the verse, a wonderful idea.

Whitfield and Greensill made “Nobody Else But Me” the title song of a 2006 CD.

While we’re at it, let’s listen to one of the great instrumental versions of Kern’s song. Here’s Stan Getz with Jimmy Rowles, piano; Bobby Whitlock, bass; and Max Roach, drums.

That Getz album includes some of his best work from the mid-1950s, with a variety of stellar sidemen.

Have a good weekend.

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”ZRikcL5pfPd5cAbbJIjdTbagy2S7nVBw”]

It has been slightly more than two years since the Rifftides staff has alerted you the invaluable work of Mr. P.C. He is a counselor to musicians who takes to the web to address problems that are often so sensitive that his clients find it necessary to use clever pseudonyms (“Ted,” for instance) to protect their livelihoods and reputations. “Mr. P.C.,” of course, is not a pseudonym. It is the given name of the Seattle pianist “Bill Anschell,” which is a pseudonym. Here is an exchange from Mr. P.C.’s most recent posting.

Dear Mr. P.C.:

Philosophical question for you: How can I be more like myself than I am?

I was at a rehearsal before a high-profile gig, and the bandleader took me aside to tell me I was playing fine, but needed to ‘play more like Ted.’

Is this even possible? —Ted

Dear Ted:

Of course it is — you just need to start copping your own licks! Listen to all your recordings of yourself and pick out your best lines. Transcribe them, learn them in all 12 keys, and you’ll be playing more like yourself in no time.

Of course if you sound too much like yourself you may wind up stealing your own gigs, which can cause resentment and self-loathing. That, of course, is what disguises are for.

There is hardly a need to point out how invaluable that kind of advice can be to a troubled working musician. To read all of Mr. P.C.’s May column, go here.

Here is “Bill Anschell,” with his frequent partner Brent Jensen playing curved soprano saxophone. The bassist is Aaron Miller. The tune is Rodgers and Hart’s “Have You Met Miss Jones?” from a 2009 workshop concert at Brigham Young University Idaho.

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”qng7CdV8vke0quBV3QWspbWu8dRiDvzC”]

Gwen Terry told me today that at 93 her husband continues “as a tribune of survival.” The trumpeter, singer and NEA Jazz Master continues to confront his mobility and vision problems at home under ‘round-the-clock care paid for in great part by fans and admirers. For details about how to help, go here. To the left, we see Mrs. Terry congratulating her husband last fall on his induction into Lincoln Center’s Neshui Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame. She said today that his physical difficulties and an embouchure out of shape from a long layoff have made it impossible for him to play. Gwen reports that he is receiving visits from colleagues and admirers and that he is teaching students who come to CT world headquarters in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, from all part of The United States and Canada.

“My back hurts after I sit up for a few hours,” Clark said recently. “But I do the best that I can to get up every day for as long as I’m able, especially when friends come to visit.”

Dozens of trumpeters have advanced technique, but from his earliest days as a professional, it was apparent that there was much more to Terry than formidable chops. He saturated his music-making with his personality. Count Basie and Duke Ellington, great nurturers of individualism, cherished that quality in the young Terry. After he became a mainstay of the Tonight Show band on NBC-TV millions discovered it. Among them was John McNeil, a distinctive trumpet stylist who came to maturity in Terry’s wake. Here’s McNeil on CT:

As the BBC host Humphrey Lyttlelton predicts in the half-hour clip you’re about to watch, Terry’s association with Bob Brookmeyer in their quintet developed from their already tight friendship into a one of the most beloved modern jazz partnerships. In 1965 they were guests on the BBC-TV program called 625. The rhythm section is British—Laurie Holloway, piano; Rick Laird bass; and Alan Ganley, drums. The proceedings include a visit from Mumbles, the character CT introduced in a 1964 recording with Oscar Peterson.

For the latest Clark Terry blog entry, see his website. For the most recent Rifftides post about John McNeil, go here. I also recommend a visit to McNeil’s website.

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”Em0JeDIncJodW1DxUiGHLBlMATyV6vpN”]

Smalls Jazz Club is in the eighth year of its most recent incarnation as a bastion of uncompromising jazz in New York City. A couple of blocks down 7th Avenue from the Village Vanguard, a couple up from The Garage, it is in a part of Greenwich Village that may be as close as we’re going to see to a 21st century equivalent of the 52nd Street of the 1940s and ‘50s. In addition to presenting established musicians—Jimmy Cobb, Ethan Iverson, Jeremy Pelt and Peter Bernstein, among others—Smalls’ primary resuscitator, the pianist Spike Wilner, seeks out rising young players. Tonight, for instance, guitarist Avi Rothbard, tenor saxophonist Tivon Pennicott and bassist Spencer Murphy will lead successive groups, with Murphy playing after hours until the unspecified closing time.

Smalls produces CDs and live video performances streamed on the internet. Among the 40 CDs in its Live At Smalls catalog are three recent ones by Johnny O’Neal, David Berkman and Frank Lacy, all recorded at the club.

O’Neal is a Detroit pianist who made a splash in New York in the 1980s, then was largely unheard from for a couple of decades until his comeback in 2010. Self-taught, he is often mentioned as having technique that compares with Art Tatum’s, although there are no overt Tatum references in his CD. What grabs the listener as O’Neal’s Live At Smalls recording opens is his grainy singing of “The More I See You,” impeccable in swing and intonation. Elsewhere in the album, his vocal performances are less even. It’s O’Neal’s pianism that carries the day. The album includes a delicious exercise in dynamic variety and keyboard touch on “Blues For Sale,” an intriguing version of Walter Davis’s “Uranus,” a reflective unaccompanied “Goodbye,” and energetic compatibility with bassist Paul Sikivie and drummer Charles Goold in a medley of Roberta Flack’s “Where is the Love” and Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed.” O’Neal’s fierceness and execution are absolute in his solo on Billy Pierce’s “Sudan Blue.” Wilner acquits himself nicely as he sits in on piano to accompany O’Neal’s vocal and to solo on “Tea For Two.” O’Neal wraps up with “Let The Good Times Roll,” a title that sums up the collegial feeling of the album and his connection with the audience. O’Neal was featured in a recent New York Times profile.

Pianist David Berkman’s album for Smalls has the recognition advantage of featuring trumpeter Tom Harrell as a sideman, but it’s not Harrell’s star quality that accounts for the group’s success. It is Berkman’s musicianship and the interaction that he, Harrell bassist Ed Howard and drummer Jonathan Blake achieve. On the trio piece “For Kenny,” Berkman’s fluidity, energy and harmonic intensity make it clear that this relatively unknown Clevelander who teaches at Queens College in New York is in the top tier of contemporary pianists. His compositions “Ghost Wife” and “Small Wooden Housekeeper” are demanding vehicles that stimulate Harrell to intriguing, and frequently witty, harmonic solutions. Berkman and Harrell make their unaccompanied duet on “Body and Soul” an intimate conversation that Harrell seasons by working a quote from “The Gypsy,” of all things, into a place where it might not be reasonably expected to fit. It is refreshing to hear a contemporary group bring bebop verve to John Lewis’s “Milestones” and lace it with new harmonic daring.

Trombonist Lacy is one of the most flamboyant practicioners on an instrument that lends itself to blowsiness, but in his Smalls CD he is relatively restrained at the helm of a sextet of bright young New Yorkers. That is not to say that Lacy doesn’t burst forth with keenly placed blurts and blats, as in his harmonically rich “Spirit Monitor,” but at times he is downright lyrical. His colleagues in the front line are tenor saxophonist Stacy Dillard and trumpeter Josh Evans, both impressive for enthusiasm and command of their instruments. Dillard switches to soprano sax for an exotic, chancy solo on “Spirit Monitor.” Reaching high enough that he occasionally shows a bit of strain, Evans nonetheless manages logic and continuity in his flow of ideas on “Carolyn’s Dance,” which features Lacy’s granular voice in the passionate lyric to his love song. The rhythm section is Theo Hill, piano; Rashaan Carter, bass; and Kush Abadey, drums. According to the evidence here, Abadey is a listening drummer who designs accents and off-beats in reaction to the ideas of the soloists. In his solo on Joe Bonner’s “Sunbath,” Lacy manages to meld impressions of desperation and self-assuredness, after which Hill, unfazed by the contradiction, constructs a piano solo of quiet serenity. Without succumbing to crass imitation, Evans evokes Freddie Hubbard on Hubbard’s “The Intrepid Fox.”

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”NzFBw7aNlwmITnaAaFgyeyrK9awIWBpU”]

All day, we had fierce winds, grey skies threatening rain—and then at sunset:

An evening like ours might have made Jimmy Rushing feel a little better about things than when he recorded this with Count Basie in 1936:

Basie, piano; Lester Young, tenor saxophone; Jo Jones, drums; Walter Page, bass; Freddie Green, guitar. You’ll find it in this comprehensive package of early Basie.

Rifftides was at ebb tide most of this week while I jumped in to help the Yakima Symphony Orchestra teach a couple of thousand children about music. The Chicago composer James Stephenson (pictured) was scheduled to be the narrator for his Compose Yourself, a 50-minute tour through instruments of the orchestra, long scheduled for the YSO’s annual children’s concert. An unforeseen development—the need for the orchestra’s musical director and conductor Lawrence Golan to be elsewhere—meant that Stephenson had to conduct. Since he couldn’t lead the band and narrate at the same time, I was called upon to be the speaker.

A year ago, I had the pleasure of narrating Mr. Stephenson’s moving Civil War tone poem Two Brothers, and I was delighted to be involved with another of his works. Rehearsals and the performance occupied a couple of days. The experience was worth every minute of it. There’s nothing like a theater full of enthusiastic fourth-graders to stimulate optimism about the future. They loved the trombone demonstration and the rather more serious bassoon demo, both shown here with other sections from an earlier performance of Compose Yourself with a different narrator. There are slight pauses between the sections. A trombone piece by Louis Seltzer and assorted other Stephenson clips are tacked by YouTube onto the end of the Compose Yourself excerpts as part of the package and can’t be detached, so enjoy as much of it as you have time for.

To hear the first half of a previous performance of Compose Yourself with a different narrator, go here. For more about Jim Stephenson, go here.

Today is the 115th anniversary of the birth of Duke Ellington, whose standing among the world’s great figures in music grows with each passing year. Miles Davis long ago summed up Ellington’s importance when he said, “At least one day out of the year all musicians should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.”

We see Ellington on the left at a 70th birthday gala in Paris in November of 1969. Seven months after the anniversary he was still being feted at celebrations around the world. The most notable of the parties was on April 29 at the White House. Leonard Garment and Charles McWhorter of the White House Staff and Willis Conover of the Voice of America persuaded President Richard Nixon to honor Ellington by throwing a party and awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The United States Information Agency, disbanded in the 1990s by the Clinton administration, made a short documentary about the affair. Evidently, only a snippet of the film is available. It is invaluable as a reminder of the occasion and of the bond between Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.

Conover put together the band for the tribute concert. Below you see its members rehearsing in the East Room the afternoon of the party, April 29, 1969. From left to right: Hank Jones, Jim Hall, Milt Hinton, Gerry Mulligan, Paul Desmond, Louie Bellson, Clark Terry, J.J. Johnson, Bill Berry, Urbie Green. Guest artists included Dave Brubeck, Billy Taylor, Earl Hines and the singers Joe Williams and Mary Mayo.

Excerpts from my notes for the album of the evening’s music that finally came out in 2002:

Sitting behind Ellington, I heard him remark to Cab Calloway as Hinton appeared, ‘Look, there’s your bass player.’ Hinton hadn’t been in Calloway’s band for twenty years. When Desmond did a perfect Johnny Hodges impression during ‘Things Ain’t What They Used To Be,’ Ellington sat bolt upright and looked astonished, a reaction that pleased Desmond when I decribed it.

Urged onto the platform, Ellington improvised an instant composition inspired, he said, by ‘a name, something very gentle and graceful—something like ‘Pat.’ The piece was full of serenity and the wizardry of Ellington’s harmonies. Mrs. Nixon, who looked distracted through much of the evening, paid close attention. The host and his wife turned in, but he invited us to stay for dancing and a jam session…The party lasted until 2:45 a.m.

As he left, Ellington said, ‘It was lovely.’ At 8:00 a.m. he and his band were off to an engagement in Oklahoma City. For Duke, it was back to business as usual but, as Whitney Balliet wrote in The New Yorker, the maestro ‘was finally given his due by his country.’

Addendum: Ellington’s motion picture career started early. Here’s the band in the 1930 film Check and Double Check.

Duke Ellington & his Orch.: Arthur Whetsol, Freddie Jenkins, Cootie Williams (t) Joe Nanton, Juan Tizol (tb) Barney Bigard, Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney (reeds) Duke Ellington (p) Fred Guy (bj) Wellman Braud (b) Sonny Greer (d) & The Rhythm Boys—Bing Crosby, Al Rinker, Harry Barris.

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”TF0RvtLdQicNQ4GO9OHklpGjtOx3qwkF”]

Bassist Chuck Deardorf called my attention to a video from the early 1960s, when jazz on the west coast of the US was attracting attention around the world. Many big band sidemen settled in southern California in the 1950s, joining the Los Angeles jazz community that had been vibrant for more than a decade. The former Woody Herman and Stan Kenton trumpeter Shorty Rogers was one of the spark plugs of what critics decided to label West Coast Jazz. By the time Oscar Brown, Jr. hosted Rogers’ quintet on his Jazz Scene USA television show, Rogers had had become influential as a composer, arranger and leader in L.A.’s recording, film and TV studios.

Jazz Scene USA production is a bit stiff. The show is made to appear as if it had a live audience, but the applause smacks of having been dubbed later. In their closeups when Brown introduces them, the guys in the band exhibit their police lineup faces. But the music, the video and the sound are excellent. In this 25-minute segment of the telecast, Rogers, saxophonist and flutist Gary LeFebvre, pianist Lou Levy, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Larry Bunker play “Greensleeves,” “Time Was,” the blues “Martians Go Home”—which for a time in the mid-fifties had been a modest hit for Rogers— and Lefebvre’s edgy “The Outsider.”

Peacock, the survivor of that group, has been a member of the Keith Jarrett Standards Trio since 1983.

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”OMJP0sOse81KrK6HI0qR6LKFshsKiM9t”]

It has been a long time since we shared a video creation by the poet and broadcaster Lynn Darroch. One of his latest stories recalls Duke Ellington’s relationship with Oregon, beginning in a time when innovation, courage and acceptance made it possible to tour with an all-black band despite restraints in a segregated land.

Clay Giberson was the pianist, John Nastos the alto saxophonist. Lynn Darroch is a teacher, journalist and writer. He broadcasts on KMHD-FM in Portland, Oregon.

[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”Jkb76eMXmGCYV5pAHUHIBRPo8KWnU57E”]

Herb Wong, an academic scientist who became prominent as a jazz critic, record company executive and festival producer, died this week. A PhD in Zoology, he was a native of northern California’s Bay Area. Wong continued to follow his boyhood enthusiasm for jazz as he developed an academic career, teaching at the University of California at Berkelely and Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. A gentle man with infectious enthusiasm for all of his interests, Wong taught science, administered university departments and developed jazz studies courses.

In addition, he produced the Palo Alto Jazz Festival, designed a jazz oral history exhibit for the Smithsonian Institution and in the course of his career headed two jazz record companies, Blackhawk and Palo Alto. He was also a disc jockey with the Bay Area radio station KJAZ-FM. In addition, he wrote scores of liner essays for albums. Internment will be at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California. Services are yet to be announced. Herb Wong was 88.

Herb was notably proud of a 1984 Phil Woods Quintet album that he produced for his Blackhawk label. It was called Heaven after the Duke Ellington title tune and featured Woods, alto saxophone; Tom Harrell, trumpet; Hal Galper, piano; Steve Gilmore, bass; and Bill Goodwin, drums.

Herb Wong, RIP

It was a full day, and the holiday greeting is late, but heartfelt. Happy Easter, everyone. Here’s one of the great sequences from the Fred Astaire-Judy Garland-Irving Berlin film Easter Parade. I hope that it makes you happy.

For another great Astaire dance and drum sequence from the Rifftides archive, click here.