Jim Wilke continues his long-running Jazz Northwest broadcasts this weekend with a group headed by Marc Seales, one of the region’s firmly established veteran pianists. In the announcement below, Jim tells you how to find the program:

Jim Wilke

KNKX and Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley are teaming up to present, on the last Monday of each month, a monthly series starring top jazz artists in the region. February’s event featured the Marc Seales Quintet playing a program that mostly featured the pianist’s compositions. Recorded for radio, the first part of the Seales program will air on Jazz Northwest  Sunday, March 8, at 2 PM Pacific time on 88.5 KNKX-FM. It will stream at knkx.org.  Playing for an enthusiastic full house at the venerable Jazz Alley, the group includes Seales, piano and keyboards; Jesse Seales, guitar; Thomas Marriott, trumpet; Chuck Deardorf, bass; and Moyes Lucas, drums.

Marc Seales

Seales has backed many touring artists in addition to fronting his own groups. He first attracted attention playing and recording with the late saxophonist Don Lanphere, and in the Ellington Sacred Music concerts of the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra.  Today a Professor of Music at The University of Washington, he has led several well-received CDs and appeared as a sideman on many others. The quintet playing this concert at Jazz Alley continues a long history of their working together.

Rebecca Kilgore, unfailingly musical in any setting, sings with contrasting accompaniments in a pair of recent releases. In one, concentrating on songs with winter themes, she is accompanied by a distinguished European quartet. A second album finds her alone with the harmonically resourceful and swinging Chicago guitarist Andy Brown.

Arrangements by pianist Bernd Lhotzky and saxophonist Chris Hopkins make Winter Days At Schloss Elmau at once relaxed and adventurous. Kilgore and the quartet address a repertoire incorporating lyrics from a variety of writers that includes Dave Frishberg, Emily Brontë and William Shakespeare. Recorded at the Bavarian Alps resort of Schloss Elmau, the performances before a live audience are intimate and stimulating. The band opens with Hoagy Carmichael’s “Winter Moon,” far from Carmichael’s best-known song but one of his loveliest, made more interesting by this performance employing a determined 5/4 time signature. There are impressive solos by Lhotzky, trumpeter Colin T.Dawson and alto saxophonist Chris Hopkins. Drummer Oliver Mewes is constantly stimulating in his rhythmic patterns. The earlier reference to Shakespeare was not a misprint. Lhotzky collaborated with Shakespeare across the centuries to make a song of the master’s “Sonnet 97,” with Ms. Kilgore employing her purest, softest high notes.

As I wrote in what seems to be the only pre-release endorsement I’ve ever agreed to, “It’s a treat to hear Rebecca Kilgore and Andy Brown intertwine her singing and his guitar. The album is remarkable for their musicianship, empathy and insights as they illuminate a dozen classic songs. It includes what is likely to be long considered the definitive version of Dave Frishberg’s and Johnny Mandel’s ‘You Are There.'”

In that new album on the Heavywood label, Together Live, Ms. Kilgore and Mr. Brown (pictured below) apply that deeply felt empathy to a dozen songs that, to paraphrase the title of one of them, might induce a nap if the rhythmic component of their work weren’t so compelling. That song is Benny Carter’s “Rock Me To Sleep,” composed by Carter in 1950 with a lyric by Paul Vandervoort II. There are other pieces by Frank Loesser, Victor Young, Ray Noble, Luis Bonfá and, from 1940, Artie Shaw’s “Any Old Time,” a hit for Shaw and Billie Holiday.

This is a captivating collection.

Rebecca Kilgore, unfailingly musical in any setting, sings with contrasting accompaniments in a pair of recent releases. In one, concentrating on songs with winter themes, she is accompanied by a distinguished European quartet. A second album finds her alone with the harmonically resourceful and swinging Chicago guitarist Andy Brown.

Arrangements by pianist Bernd Lhotzky and saxophonist Chris Hopkins make Winter Days At Schloss Elmau at once relaxed and adventurous. Kilgore and the quartet address a repertoire incorporating lyrics from a variety of writers that includes Dave Frishberg, Emily Brontë and William Shakespeare. Recorded at the Bavarian Alps resort of Schloss Elmau, the performances before a live audience are intimate and stimulating. The band opens with Hoagy Carmichael’s “Winter Moon,” far from Carmichael’s best-known song but one of his loveliest, made more interesting by this performance employing a determined 5/4 time signature. There are impressive solos by Lhotzky, trumpeter Colin T.Dawson and alto saxophonist Chris Hopkins. Drummer Oliver Mewes is constantly stimulating in his rhythmic patterns. The earlier reference to Shakespeare was not a misprint. Lhotzky collaborated with Shakespeare across the centuries to make a song of the master’s “Sonnet 97,” with Ms. Kilgore employing her purest, softest high notes.

As I wrote in what seems to be the only pre-release endorsement I’ve ever provided, “It’s a treat to hear Rebecca Kilgore and Andy Brown intertwine her singing and his guitar. The album is
remarkable for their musicianship, empathy and insights as they illuminate a dozen classic songs. It includes what is likely to be long considered the definitive version of Dave Frishberg’s and Johnny Mandel’s ‘You Are There.'”

In their new album on the Heavywood label, Together Live, Ms. Kilgore and Mr. Brown (pictured) apply that deeply felt empathy to a dozen songs. The title of one of them that might induce a nap if the rhythmic component of their work weren’t so compelling. That song is Benny Carter’s “Rock Me To Sleep,” composed by Carter in 1950 with a lyric by Paul Vandervoort II. There are other pieces by Frank Loesser, Victor Young, Ray Noble, Luis Bonfá and, from 1940, Artie Shaw’s “Any Old Time,” a hit for Shaw and Billie Holiday.

This is a captivating collection.

The Complete Woody Herman Decca, Mars and MGM Sessions (1943-1954) (Mosaic)

Woody Herman and his band were most closely associated with the Columbia and Capitol labels, but in the 1940s and ’50s the clarinetist, saxophonist and influential leader also recorded for the companies you see named in the headline above. The Mosaic label has issued a seven-album set of Herman’s recordings for those labels.  The collection seems certain to get the attention not only of Herman fans but also of listeners who want to explore rarely reissued gems of the big band era. Following the success of his “Band That Plays The Blues” in the thirties and early forties, Herman and his arrangers began digging deeply into the innovations of bebop. His organization became one of the most influential of the bands that absorbed bop into their repertoires.

Particularly after the arrangers Neil Hefti and Ralph Burns began stocking the band with adventurous new music, Herman’s organization had a powerful influence on the course of post -World War Two jazz and popular music. His singing had long been an important adjunct to his instrumental work and his choices of female vocalists further strengthened the band’s popularity. It’s a pleasure to have reminders not only of what a musicianly singer Herman was, but of the superb vocals of Frances Wayne and–nearly in the same league–Dolly Houston. Guest appearances by saxophone mainstays of the Duke Ellington band, Ben Webster and Johnny Hodges, add further interest. Of the Herman band’s regular principal soloists, saxophonist Flip Phillips, guitarist Billy Bauer bassist Chubby Jackson and trombonists Bill Harris and Carl Fontana stand out in this retrospective. But it must be said that levels of solo quality are high throughout all of the volumes in this valuable collection.

In addition to the work of Hefti, Burns and other important writers, the Mosaic set includes an arrangement by Igor Stravinsky, who had enormous influence on all of Twentieth Century music. The set has only the third movement of Stravinsky’s “Ebony Concerto” from Herman’s 1946 Carnegie Hall concert, but it is a reminder of the universal admiration that the composer inspired.

The 28-page booklet, copiously illustrated, is an important aid to appreciation of the music and understanding of the Herman band’s importance. It has comprehensive liner notes by the distinguished jazz scholar and analyst Jeffrey Sultanof.

Johnny Griffin and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis were tenor saxophone masters whose collaborations made them among the instrument’s most celebrated players. Although each had individual accomplishments that helped put him at the top of the tenor saxophone honor roll, their frequent performances and recordings in tandem helped make them inseparable in the minds of jazz listeners and reflected in the popularity-poll votes of critics. Their “new” album was reissued recently on the Reel To Real label. It is titled OW! after one of its tracks, a celebrated Dizzy Gillespie composition from the early years of bebop.  The music was recorded in 1962 at Seattle’s belated Penthouse club. The premium rhythm section supporting Davis and Griffin was pianist Horace Parlan, Seattle’s homegrown international bass star Buddy Catlett, and the superb drummer Arthur Taylor.

Los Angeles singer Lyn Stanley frequently appears in L.A. with a big band of Swing Era veterans. However, in the recording we are sampling today, her accompanists are six of Southern California’s busiest veteran  players of modern jazz. Called for this album, the Jazz Mavericks, they are guitarist John Chiodoni, pianists Otmaro Ruiz and Mike Lang, bassist Chuck Berghofer and drummer Aaron Serfaty, with Luis Conte on additional percussion. The album follows Stanley’s earlier tribute to singer Julie London on the same label. That one was also called London With A Twist. Stanley has a tendency to slide up or down on the way to true pitch, but at her most accurate she is capable of a rhythmically successful performance like this one of Bobby Troup’s “Route 66.” As a  bonus, you’ll see some of the supporting cast.

Our goal of keeping up with all new and worthy music may be doomed. The Stanley recording has been out for a year or more.  Sometimes, it takes a while to get around to all the music that we think  Rifftides readers may want to know about.

The last thing any of us at Rifftides wants is for our endeavor to become an obituary service. Life goes on, however, as does its opposite. So we continue to note the passing of musicians who have enriched listeners around the world. Recently, we lost American saxophonist, bandleader and composer Jimmy Heath (pictured left) and Brazil’s Claudio Roditi, (pictured right, below), perhaps the most influential trumpet and flugelhorn soloist to emerge from his country in the second half of the last century. Heath was 93, Roditi 73. In addition to his soloing on tenor and in later years, soprano, saxophone, Heath made a lasting mark as the composer who gave us the jazz standards “CTA” and “Gingerbread Boy,” in addition to such major works as “Afro-American Suite of Evolution” and “Sweet Jazzmobile.” After gaining fame for his compositions and playing with Dizzy Gillespie, Howard McGhee and Gil Evans, among others, Heath and his brothers Percy (bass) and Albert (AKA “Tootie”) combined as the Heath Brothers) in one of the most successful combos of the 1970s and ’80s.

Born in Rio de Janeiro to a father who played violin and guitar, Roditi studied in his native land and Austria before entering the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to New York City in the early 1980s and soon found work with a variety of musicians including Gillespie’s big band, Bob Mover, Charlie Rouse, Herbie Mann and Paquito D’Rivera. He was noted for his ability to meld Brazilian tradtions and quickly became sought after for his adaptability and his understanding of the compatibility of the idioms in which he specialized. Here, he plays rotary valve flugelhorn on his “Bossa pra Donato.”

Jimmy Heath and Claudio Roditi, RIP

Yelena Eckemoff, Nocturnal Animals (L&H Productions)

Russian-born pianist and composer Eckemoff, long a New York resident, collaborates with a superb rhythm section of Scandinavian musicians. They are inspired by creatures that populate the world’s forests of the night.  Eckemoff’s animals range from those we humans seldom see…cicadas, scorpions, fireflies, walkingsticks…to those familiar from daily life and folklore…wolves, bats, owls, grizzly bears, snakes. She and her collaborators are anchored by the stentorian Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen and include percussionists Jon Christensen and Thomas Strønen. Her compositions tend toward the lyrical, as in this one inspired by the fox she painted for the album cover.

Come see us again tomorrow as we continue to play catchup. Interesting music has shown up at Rifftides headquarters.

Dear Readers,

The past four days at Rifftides world headquarters have been a blogger’s nightmare, but thanks to the brilliance of Apple’s superb technical staff and the aid of computer maven Geoff Blechschmidt, it appears that we have defeated the gremlins and the attack is over. We are back in the ballgame. If you have attempted to sign in recently, thank you for your patience. Please bear with us as we return to a normal posting routine.

Doug Ramsey

Here’s an item purloined (with his permission) from bassist Bill Crow’s column “The Band Room” in Allegro, the publication of New York Local 802 of the American Federation Of Musicians.

Zoot Sims was one of the many tenor saxophonists who took Lester Young’s style as a starting point for their own development. But Zoot also idolized Coleman Hawkins (pictured left). He once told me, “Hawk never played a wrong note in his life.” Zoot had a classic Volvo that he was very fond of. He had it completely overhauled, had it painted red, and polished up the chrome. He was showing it to Hawkins (pictured left) one day, and when Hawk turned the handle on the passenger door, the handle came off. He handed it to Zoot, who went around to the driver’s side and opened the door for Hawk, and then put the handle in the glove compartment. Because the door handle had come off in the hand of his idol, Zoot never had it repaired. The handle remained in Zoot’s glove compartment for the rest of his life.

If Bill’s story put you in a mood to listen to Zoot, you’re in luck. Here he is at the Cannes Jazz Festival in 1958 with Walter Davis, Jr., piano; Arthur Taylor, drums; and Doug Watkins, bass. They play, “I’ll Remember April.”

Franco Ambrosetti Quintet, Long Waves (Unit)

The Swiss trumpeter and flugelhornist assembles a group of contemporaries to play his compositions and a couple of cherished standard songs. Ambrosetti’s fluid improvisations, sometimes with a Miles Davis bent, are consistently impressive. So, too, is the work of the star-filled rhythm section of pianist Uri Caine, guitarist John Scofield, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Among the highlights are Ambrosetti’s “Silli’s Waltz,” named for his wife. Although one may usually think of Scofield as an earthy player, his solo on the piece discloses that he can be downright lilting and lyrical in 3/4 time. Caine gives Willard Robison’s classic “Old Folks” a delicate introduction that inspires Ambrosetti to a solo with touches that may trigger remembrances of Charlie Parker’s unforgettable recording of the piece half a century ago.

Son of the pioneering Swiss saxophonist Flavio Ambrosetti and father of one in a new generation, Gianluca, Franco Ambrosetti continues as one of his country’s finest musicians. In the company of a remarkable rhythm section, he reminds us that at its international best, jazz is the world’s music.

Chet Baker devotees may be intrigued to learn that some of the best music of his last few years has been released as a superb set of LPs. The box is titled Chet Baker: The Legendary Riverside Albums. It contains five LPs that Baker recorded in New York in the late 1950s. Among the giants of the era who accompany him are Philly Joe Jones, Bill Evans, Pepper Adams, Kenny Burrell, Sam Jones, Johnny Griffin, Zoot Sims and Kenny Drew. I was honored that producer Nick Phillips asked me to write the liner essay for the album. That piece includes a reference to a television interview I did with Baker as he was about to open at the Half Note club in Manhattan in 1974, following a long layoff. Here is an excerpt:

Recorded a decade before Baker’s murder or accidental death in Amsterdam in 1988 (the case has never been solved), this collection has some of the best playing and singing of his New York period. The box also contains one LP of outtakes and alernates.

It is sad to report that the great trumpeter Jack Sheldon has died at the age of 88. Sheldon sang with spirit, style, phrasing and good humor that paralleled his trumpet playing. This video is from his 1984 appearance at Lulu White’s Mahogany Hall in the New Orleans French Quarter. The other members of his band were Dave Frishberg, piano; John Pisano, guitar; and Dave Stone, bass. Reader Peter Levin’s comment is correct; the drummer is Frankie Capp. The tune is Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.”

For more about Sheldon’s multi-faceted career, see this Don Heckman article in The Los Angeles Times.

Jack Sheldon, RIP

Many thanks to the Rifftides readers who have expressed concern about the lag between postings. It has, indeed, been several days since a new entry. The interregnum has been for a good cause…continuation of the blog. Sometimes that depends on meeting other obligations, as in this case. I took on a pair of freelance assignments that required lots of research, interviews and, of course, writing. In both cases they were notes for new albums. One CD is for a welcome Summit Records release by trumpeter Carl Saunders. He is accompanied by two west coast veterans, bassist Chuck Berghofer and drummer Joe LaBarbera. Josh Nelson, a young pianist in great demand in Los Angeles jazz circles, completes the Saunders rhythm section.

The second project is notes for a new series of duets by French pianist Martial Solal and American saxophonist Dave Liebman. Masters In Paris follows their earlier Masters In Bordeaux, also a duet encounter, that was greeted with enthusiastic reviews. Both albums are for Sunnyside Records. The Saunders and Liebman-Solal projects each required extensive listening, and that was a major part of the reward of writing about them.

Normal Rifftides activity, whatever that turns out to be, will resume soon.