Sorry to learn that composer, arranger and bandleader Patrick Williams died yesterday at 79. Prolific in his work for motion pictures and television, Williams was sometimes taken for granted—but never by fellow members of the arranging fraternity or by the musicians who took part in recordings of his ingenious, often demanding, arrangements. Frank Sinatra chose Williams to do the arrangements for the singer’s final studio albums. Williams’ work on television series brought him several Grammy nominations. His music accompanied Colombo, Lou Grant, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show, among others. He worked with with singers as varied as Michael Bublé, Natalie Cole, Tierney Sutton, Jack Jones, Andrea Bocelli, Paul Anka, Peter Cincotti, Neil Diamond, Gloria Estefan and Michael Feinstein.
Let’s hear “Aurora” from Williams’ 2010 The Big Band. Soloists are Andy Martin, trombone); Tom Scott, alto sax; Bob Sheppard, tenor sax; and Chuck Findley, trumpet.
Many jazz listeners were introduced to Williams by way of his 1973 album Threshold, which won a Grammy the following year. It has ascended into the Collectors Item stratosphere in terms of price, but  is still available.
For a thorough Williams obituary, see today’s Variety.
Patrick Williams, RIP
Whatever the title Electric Miles might lead you to expect, chances are that it wouldn’t be an album of non-electric big band music. A Louisiana alto saxophonist long since ensconced in New York, with skill and imagination Pillow arranges eight of the pieces with which Miles Davis surprised—even shocked—the jazz establishment in one of the trumpeter’s many influential next steps following the last phase in which he led a conventional quintet. The Bitches Brew album opened a new path for Davis and, to a considerable extent, for jazz. Pillow includes “Bitches Brew,†as well as “Sanctuary,†“In A Silent Way†and five other pieces from Davis’s electronic ventures. His writing for 16 pieces is alternately peaceful and stirring. In addition to his own soprano and alto solos, Pillow showcases trumpeters Tim Hagans and Clay Jenkins and, on “Black Satin,†David Liebman on soprano sax.
#
When you search for information about a wide variety of jazz subjects, chances are good that you will find it on Noal Cohen’s site. Experienced as a drummer, writer and researcher, Mr. Cohen (pictured) is particularly knowledgeable and helpful about music of the 1950s and ’60s, but his expertise extends well beyond that period. He recently posted an exhaustive retrospective of Miles Davis’s Capitol Records period in 1949 and 1950. It serves as an introduction to his work as a historian chronicling a jazz era whose influence is powerful all these decades later. Here—in case you haven’t heard it for a few days—is one reason.
Nine years following their first album, Apti,alto saxophonist Mahanthappa’s trio further expand on the possibilities in combining music from his double heritage, American and Pakistani. Accompanied by the formidably energetic drummer and tabla player Dan Weiss and Rez Abassi—a searching guitarist also of Pakistani heritage—Mahanthappa includes a canny use of electronics to paint brilliant, sometimes startling, colors across a shifting landscape that is rocked by Weiss’s tectonic rumblings when he is not being lyrical (yes, a drummer can be lyrical). In “Revati,†the album’s longest piece, the three develop compelling interaction. In “Alap,†the short track that introduces the double album, Mahanthappa establishes his alto saxophone mastery and individualism. He underlines those attributes throughout this stimulating collaboration.Mahanthappa produced the album and seems to be distributing it digitally and physically from his website at 
Lux is a Chicago bassist who has worked with a variety of musicians from the city’s mainstream to the avant garde, George Freeman to Rob Mazurek and beyond. His quartet includes the intriguing cornetist Ben Lama Gay and Jayve Montgomery, whose multiple instruments include something called the clarinumpet. The notes imply that Lux wrote all of the pieces except for one named “Gris/Bleu,†which is credited to tenor saxophonist Lester Young. It required three hearings of that short track at the end of the album for me to realize that the tune is a transcription of Young’s indelible solo on “Fine And Mellow†from Billie Holiday’s appearance on the 1957 CBS program The Sound Of Jazz. Why that fact is withheld from record buyers is a mystery. To the best of my knowledge, an improvised solo can’t be copyrighted and, in any case, Prez isn’t around to sue. Regardless of that, outcats seem to be thriving in Chicago, and this electronics- and rhythm-laden LP of Lux’s helps to prove it
Half of the Collective’s members are leading lights among jazz artists in their forties and early fifties. They include trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, tenor saxophonist Wayne Escoffery and pianist Xavier Davis. The younger trombonist James Burton III, bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Jonathan Blake blend into a modern mainstream sextet inspired, at least in part, by Wayne Shorter’s writing during his Art Blakey period (and since) and by Miles Davis’s pre-electronic bands. Among the highlights are Escoffery’s title tune alternating intricate passages with floating ones and featuring his burly tenor solo. Throughout, Pelt’s trumpet solos soar and dip. Increasingly impressive as a composer, Pelt contributes a pair of ballads: “And There She Was, Lovely As Ever†and “Pretty,†which lives up to its name. With his witty improvisation on Davis’s “When Will We Learn,†trombonist Burton reinforces his growing reputation. On the same piece, Davis reminds us what a substantial piano soloist he is, and has been since his 1990s debut with singer Betty Carter.
Tom Waits. Using “Woodstock,†“Let It Be†and “Take It With Me†as bases for her interpretations makes musical and promotional sense, but her title tune, the accurately named “Slightly Off-Center†and the delightful “I Got Rhythmâ€-ish original called “Over And Out†demand equal, if not greater, attention. Dutch bassist Jasper Somsen and drummer Jasper Van Hulten complement Arriale’s rhythmic flexibility and harmonic imagination. The album was recorded in Belgium except for the final track, a quiet, reflective version of Waits’s “Take It With Me†sung by Kate McGarry accompanied only by Arriale’s sensitive piano.
Duck Baker (Richard Royal Baker IV) may not be a household name among jazz devotees at large, but in his career of more than four decades he has become a hero to other guitarists. He has led or been involved in dozens of recordings of folk music from all over the world, and several varieties of ragtime, gospel, bluegrass and blues. Baker is an exemplary performer and teacher of what is often called fingerstyle or fingerpicking guitar. To oversimplify the approach, let’s just say that he plays using his fingertips and nails rather than a pick held in the right hand. That creates not only technical challenges, but also harmonic opportunities that Baker masterfully exploits. In concentrating on music by Thelonious Monk, Baker melds his own imagination and daring with the deep harmonic and rhythmic implications of Monk’s compositions. In his notes accompanying this Vinyl LP, he recalls that in his teens he graduated instantly from rock and roll to jazz when he heard Monk’s album 
Drummer Cosgrove gets composer credit for all but one of the ten pieces in this collection. The exception is Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman,†the album closer. Coleman, of course, was a pioneer of free improvisation in modern jazz. For their adventurousness and interactive chance-taking, tenor saxophonist Robinson and bassist Filiano deserve equal credit because to a large extent this is improvisation as composition, or vice versa. In other words, it’s free jazz that extends the Coleman tradition. Cosgrove is a protégé of Paul Motian, the Bill Evans Trio drummer who, with pianist Evans and bassist Scott LaFaro, was central to liberating rhythm sections from the tyranny of strict time. Highlights include Robinson’s excursions into the tenor’s altissimo range, Filiano’s beautifully articulated bowing and in “Rays Of Dawn,†Cosgrove’s quiet cymbal splashes and brush work. This album rewards total concentration by the listener.
Rifftides readers sent so many interesting comments about the passing of Bill Watrous, and about Alexandra Leh’s remembrance the following day, that the staff has voted to reward you all with video of the trombonist in a remarkable ballad performance. It’s from a 1976 television appearance. I have no information about the name of the program. Watrous is accompanied by Chick Corea, piano; Ron Carter, bass; and Billy Cobham, drums. Maybe that was the best he could do for a rhythm section at the last minute. The piece is “Nancy With The Laughing Face.†The video is fuzzy. The music is not.
The gifted New Orleans pianist Henry Butler has died. He was 69. Noted for virtuosity at the keyboard and soulful depth as a singer, Butler pursued his career primarily in his home city, with frequent tours overseas. Blinded by glaucoma as an infant, he excelled academically at all levels and dazzled other musicians with his skill. In recent years, Butler lived in the Bronx borough of New York City. In today’s New York Times, Jon Pareles’ 
Trombonist Bill Watrous died yesterday in Los Angeles at the age of 79. Celebrated for his skill, range and speed, Watrous employed those attributes in a career that began with Billy Butterfield and included work with the big bands of Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Maynard Ferguson and Johnny Richards. In the early 1970s he recorded with his own big band, Manhattan Wildlife Refuge. Fellow trombonists admired Watrous for his technical achievement, but they may have envied him equally for his way with ballads. One of his best known performances was of “A Time For Love†from his 
Cyrille Aimée is not a gypsy, but she has Roma fervor and intensity reminiscent of Django Reinhardt’s. It’s no wonder; when she was a little girl in northern France she sneaked out at night to join the neighborhood gypsies who sang and played around their campfires. Some of them had known Reinhardt. Their spirit has never left her. She combines it with intensity and accuracy of musicianship that compel the audience to occasionally participate in this performance at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge nightclub. Whether they are reinventing pieces by Stephen Sondheim, Michael Jackson or Thelonious Monk, the singer and her band transmit their infectious joy at making music. Aimée’s and guitarist Michael Valeanu’s “Each Day†is a highlight, as is the band’s nearly eight minutes of joyous complexity in Monk’s “Well, You Needn’t (It’s Over Now)â€. Indeed, the album itself is a highlight of the year.
Beethoven. One of the great Beethoven stories is about the flamboyant pianist Daniel Steibelt (seen right) challenging Beethoven (seen left) to an improvisation contest, in effect a musical duel. Steibelt played first. When it was Beethoven’s turn, he used
a few notes of Steibelt’s score, turned the page upside down, mocked his opponent’s first notes and built a brilliant improvisation. In that early nineteenth century cutting contest, Steibelt was humiliated. The younger man announced that he would leave Vienna, never to return as long as Beethoven lived there. Beethoven died in Vienna in 1827. Steibelt, as promised, stayed away.
Many of today’s classical musicians are also master improvisers. One of the most flexible, prolific and daring is Mandhira de Saram, a British violinist of Sri Lankan origin. She is, among other things, the founder and leader of the Ligeti String Quartet. In this video provided by the British Music Collection, she discusses her music and introduces performances by a variety of colleagues, including pianist Steve Beresford and the Ligeti Quartet.
For all the subtlety and intricacy of the group’s interaction, their music commands attention because of sheer musicianship and their ability to apply rhythmic muscle without losing the chamber-music character of their work. In their most recent album, Destinations, their approach to “Solar†by Miles Davis (or Chuck Wayne, if you prefer)* is a perfect example of Scenes’ duality—the abstraction created in Stowell’s guitar solo melding into the undercurrent of swing generated by Johnson and Bishop. The principle applies firmly in another standby, Schwartz and Dietz’s “You And The Night And The Music,†as it does in originals by the musicians. Johnson’s loose, loping “Long Prairie†follows Stowell’s opening “The Mandy Walk,†with its hints of the melody of “Everything Happens To Me.†Stowell wrote five of the album’s ten pieces, including “Für Heide,†in which he intersperses occasional chords in a gripping solo made primarily of single-note lines. Johnson’s powerful bowing dominates his “T.I.O.†Throughout that track Bishop manages to sound like two drummers, one using resonant tom-toms, the other, cymbals.
Willard “Woody†Woodward writes a straightforward account of the career of the keyboard artist who pioneered the Hammond B3 organ in jazz. Milt Buckner paved the way for later organ heroes including Jimmy Smith, Don Patterson and—more recently—Joey DeFrancesco. His legacy encompasses the parallel-chords or locked-hands technique that Buckner developed as a pianist and transferred to his organ playing. Woodward, a pianist and organist inspired by Buckner, is thorough as he traces Buckner’s development, including his breakthrough in the early 1940s with Lionel Hampton’s band. In addition to his solid story telling, Woodward discusses details of Buckner’s settings of the pullout stops that determine the B3’s variety of sounds. It’s fascinating stuff, not too technical for most readers. If you are unfamiliar with Buckner’s work (it’s possible), 
For the first weekend of summer, Jazz Northwest features a collection of resident duos and trios playing music for those lazy summer days and nights.