Two non-musicians prominent in the US jazz community have died in the past week. One was a
photographer whose images are among the most prominent in jazz history. Chuck Stewart’s intimate work appeared on dozens of album covers and in magazines. He was 89. Among his most familiar photographs were those of John Coltrane. Stewart (pictured right) took the one  below at a recording session for Coltrane’s album A Love Supreme.

In a New York Times interview, Fellow photographer Carol Friedman said of Stewart,

What is immediately apparent is that his subjects have let him into their inner sanctum. They like him and they trust him. Whether he’s documenting them at a recording session or capturing them in the privacy of his own studio, he knew how to defer to the moment in time that unfolded before him.

Asked in an interview about being labeled, Stewart referred to his variety of subjects, which included stars of popular and classical music, and Harlem street scenes:

I’m called a jazz photographer. What’s that got to do with anything? I’ve also photographed Bo Didley and Leopold Stokowski.

(Photo of Stewart by Chester Higgins, Jr.)

 

Ed Berger was an author, an accomplished photographer and associate director of Rutgers University’s Institute of Jazz Studies. Like Chuck Stewart, Berger died a little over a week ago. He was 67. He contributed to Jazz Times and was co-editor of the Journal of Jazz Studies. Known for his helpfulness to jazz scholars and musicians, Berger wrote books that brought him acclaim in jazz circles. They include biographies and oral histories. His Benny Carter: A Life In American Music is a definitive study of the life and work of the saxophonist, trumpeter, bandleader and composer. His most recent book is Softly, With Feeling: Joe Wilder and the Breaking of Barriers in American Music (2014), a biography of the trumpeter and an appreciation of Wilder’s approach to music, which was at once lyrical and powerful.

Dave Brubeck Quartet With Paul Desmond At The Sunset Center 1955 (Solar)

New music by the Dave Brubeck Quartet has surfaced on the European label Solar. Previously unissued, it finds the group brimming with the harmonic daring, contrapuntal interaction and humor that were beginning to make them famous. A 1954 TIME magazine cover story about the pianist, the success of the band’s Jazz Goes To College album and lots of radio airplay had them in the public eye and ear in an era when such prominence was possible for a jazz group. Eight of the tracks were taped at the Sunset Center in Carmel, California, in June of 1955 and one at New York’s Basin Street the following summer.

Comedian Mort Sahl’s introduction of the band is an audio blur, hard to understand. That’s too bad because whatever he said brought clearly audible chuckles from the quartet. Otherwise, sound quality of the location recording is adequate, perhaps adequate+. The instruments are distinct and in reasonable balance, although there are places where pitch correction in the remastering would have helped. The playlist is made up of familiar items in the quartet’s mid-fifties repertoire. Brubeck and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond take approaches that make the content fresh and often surprising. They begin with “Gone With the Wind.” Nearly fifteen minutes long, it incorporates trademark aspects of the principal soloists; Desmond’s lyricism and Brubeck’s power, although there are tradeoffs in both areas. Desmond flows through “I’ll Never Smile Again,” fully engaging his ability to fit quotes into unlikely harmonic nooks and crannies. In his solo, Brubeck scatters quirky chord bouquets.

In the arrangement that Brubeck Octet trumpeter Dick Collins fashioned in pre-quartet days, “Jeepers Creepers” follows the routine familiar to listeners who know the Columbia Brubeck Time album. Soloing, Desmond applies an astringent tone and note substitutions that on manuscript paper would look “wrong.” When he plays them, they are right—and occasionally hilarious. “Yeah, Paul,” Brubeck says more than once. As usual when they played the piece, it gets a spoofy Dixieland tag ending. With some heat, Collins once told me that he didn’t understand why they “tacked that on,” but it became a permanent addition.

The minor harmonies of “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime” inspire Brubeck to meld a circle of fourths into his solo for a deeper statement than on the Brubeck Time version. Desmond’s wistfulness in “Little Girl Blue” takes a funky turn with a ferocious blues lick of his invention and a visit to “St. James Infirmary” before he soars into the horn’s altissimo register. Regrettably, he did less of that stratospheric soaring as the years went by. He also goes altissimo in “Take the ‘A’ Train,” but it is his minor-key Orientalism that grabs attention there before Brubeck launches his own series of quotes. Both soloists are full of vigor on the album’s final track, “Two-Part Contention,” recorded at Basin Street for an NBC Monitor radio broadcast that has a nostalgia-inducing signoff by announcer Bob Collins.

A final note: so much attention went to bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Joe Morello in the Brubeck Quartet’s final decade that the memory of Norman Bates’ and Joe Dodge’s consistency and strength as a rhythm team may tend to fade. Among its other virtues, this album is a reminder of the sympathetic support and responsiveness that Bates and Dodge brought to the quartet during their tenure.

Saxophonist Charles Lloyd has made a cover version of Bob Dylan’s protest song “Masters Of War.” Lloyd and Blue Note Records timed the release of the single—a track from the album I Long To See You—to coincide with today’s inauguration of Donald J. Trump as president of The United States. The world’s troubles in 2017 echo the uneasy Cold War standoff of 1962 and 1963 when Dylan wrote the song. Dylan said then,

I’ve never written anything like that before. I don’t sing songs which hope people will die, but I couldn’t help it with this one. The song is a sort of striking out… a feeling of what can you do?

In a news release accompanying the release, Lloyd is quoted,

Nations have been throwing rocks at each other for 1000s of years. We go through spells of light and darkness. In my lifetime I have witnessed periods of peace, protest, and uprising, only to be repeated by peace, protest and more uprising. The fact that Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” was written in the early 1960s and not during the last decade, makes it timeless and timely. It breaks my heart to think that there are current generations of young people all over the world who are growing up without knowing of Peace in their lives. The words Dylan wrote are a laser beam on humanity.

The recording is by Lloyd’s band, Charles Lloyd & The Marvels: Lloyd, tenor saxophone; Bill Frisell, guitar; Greg Leisz, pedal steel guitar; Reuben Rogers, bass; and Eric Harland, drums. The powerful vocal is by the folk, blues, rock and country singer Lucinda Williams.

Attention aficionados of the baritone saxophone and of women who play the instrument: Rifftides reader Tony Burrell sent an illustrated comment following up two recent posts. He went to the trouble of rounding up performances by seven female players of the imposing instrument and included them in his comment. Few of them are well known. All can play. For the evidence, go here and scroll down.

Following the release of the John Coltrane Quartet’s album Live At Birdland, the band appeared on Ralph J. Gleason’s Jazz Casual program on public television. Here, Coltrane, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones revisit “Alabama,” the high point of the Birdland album and a major musical statement about the brutality of racists who bombed a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1953 and killed four little girls. As the piece begins, we have a brief glimpse of Ralph Gleason.

Last night we lost Nat Hentoff, a defender of civil liberties and—notably, for this readership—a lifelong champion of jazz. He was 91. His son Nick reported that members of the family were nearby and a Billie Holiday record was playing when Hentoff died in his Greenwich Village apartment in New York. Influential as a jazz critic for DownBeat, the Village Voice and other publications, he was even better known for his books and columns explaining and defending First Amendment freedoms.

He once said that his unyielding protection of civil liberties and the First Amendment was, “Of all my obsessions, the strongest.” He often expressed his conviction that the United States’ destiny was inseparably bound to the responsibility of the electorate to be informed. In an interview eight years ago, he told The New York Times, “I think we’re in a perilous state, in that, to paraphrase [President] Madison, the way to keep this republic is to have an informed electorate.” Instead, he said, we have “constitutional illiteracy, which is rampant.”

He expanded on that and on his involvement with jazz in a 2014 interview with the website Fire.org., which is what Hentoff is referring to in his frequent mention of the word “Fire.”

If you can’t get enough of the baritone saxophone, Ralph A. Miriello has gone to lengths to see that your obsession is addressed if not satisfied. On his Notes On Jazz blog, Mr. Miriello (pictured) has assembled videos and audio recordings by twenty-five players of the baritone. He starts with Harry Carney, whom he quite rightly describes as “the master” of the instrument, and includes Serge Chaloff, Gerry Mulligan, Cecil Payne, Lars Gullin, Nick Brignola, Sahib Shihab, Ronnie Cuber, Gary Smulyan and—among the relative newcomers—Mats Gustaffson, Jason Marshall and Brian Landrus. It is quite a parade. To watch and hear it, carve out at least an hour and go here.

And don’t forget to come back to Rifftides.

Jim Wilke reports that on his Jazz Northwest this Sunday, January 8, he will feature the distinguished vocalist Nancy King in a private concert with pianist Steve Christofferson. That will be at 2 p.m. PST on the radio in the Seattle-Tacoma area at KNKX 88.5 FM and on the internet at http://knkx.org. From Jim’s announcement:

Nancy King was named to the Jazz Society of Oregon’s Hall of Fame in 2001, the City of Portland named Feb.22 2008 as Nancy King Day, and she was recognized as the third Portland Jazz Master in 2013. In this intimate Seattle concert she’s joined by pianist and composer Steve Christofferson with whom she’s often worked for over 35 years. They’ve toured internationally and recorded two CDs together, one with The Metropole Orchestra of the Netherlands. Nancy has also recorded with Glenn Moore, Ray Brown, and others. Her latest is a live album with Fred Hersch at The Village Vanguard in New York.

Dedicated King followers need no introduction. Other Rifftides listeners may. Here she is with Christofferson in a 2009 performance of “Zanzibar,” words and music by Dave Frishberg.

As the Rifftides staff continues recovering from the holidays and auditions a few dozen incoming albums, let’s follow a lead sent by frequent commenter Terence Smith. Mr. Smith writes from his sanctuary in Washington State’s San Juan Islands:

Somebody posted a video of the classic Brubeck Quartet having lots of fun with ‘Three to Get Ready’ live in ‘65 (also ‘Swanee River’)—Desmond giving the rest of the band little shock treatments of surprise at the Newport Jazz Festival on tour in Paris.

Andrew Cyrille Quartet, The Declaration Of Musical Independence (ECM)

Andrew Cyrille, a bold drummer, long since established his audacity and the independence underscored in the album title. This collection is notable for subtlety and daring in equal measure. Cyrille’s quartet includes the electronic explorer Richard Teitelbaum on synthesizer and piano, the steadfast bassist Ben Street and composer-guitarist Bill Frisell—quiet and inventive in both his roles. It’s an avant garde venture in which Cyrille carries aspects of the Roy Haynes snap-crackle-pop branch of drumming into the twenty-first century. His introduction to the opening “Coltrane Time” is a spare, almost military, statement of snare drum strokes and cymbal splashes. The quartet delves deeply and quietly into Frisell’s “Kaddish” and “Begin.” The musicians spontaneously invented “Sanctuary,” “Dazzling (Perchordially Yours)” and “Manfred.” Their close listening to one another and their absorption of musical suggestions and signals make the pieces seem composed.

As the hours left in 2016 dwindle, we briefly acknowledge a few of the hundreds of albums that have accumulated this year at Rifftides world headquarters. Many releases stacked up without reviews. This does not indicate that they are unworthy, only that there are limits to how much music the linear process of listening can accommodate. Science has yet to come up with digital downloading directly into the brain, but I’ll bet someone is working on it.

 

Clare Fischer, Out of the Blue (Clavo Records).

This album slipped beneath the incoming waves of CDs more than a year ago. I am delighted that it surfaced. Fischer (1928-2012) was a brilliant pianist, composer and interpreter of music by others. His son Brent put together Out of the Blue as he researched his father’s archives. He recruited drummers Peter Erskine and Mike Shapiro to alternate in accompanying piano tracks that Clare Fischer recorded before his death. Overdubbing, Brent plays bass and percussion. Singers Denise Donatelli and John Proulx provide vocalese lines on the title track. Among the delights of this bonus to the elder Fischer’s legacy:

• His unaccompanied medley of “When You Wish Upon a Star” and “Someday My Prince Will Come.”

• Father and son in a whimsical, rhythmically irresistible version of Johnny Hodges’ “Squatty Roo.”

• The two in Django Reinhardt’s “Nuages,” which manages to be both muscular and—thanks to Erskine’s brush work—delicate.

• New approaches to two modern Brazilian classics, “Amor Em Paz” and “Samba de Orfeu,” important additions to the Clare Fischer discography.

• An early 1960s piano sketch taped by Fischer per that he ultimately transformed into “Novelho.” The free flow of his improvisation on this is a high point.

 

Abbey Lincoln, Love Having You Around, Vol. 2 (High Note)

The late singer (1930-2010) recorded this intimate album during an engagement at San Francisco’s Keystone Corner in the spring of 1980, a decade before the flurry of releases that brought her renewed fame. Lincoln’s combination of toughness and tenderness was fully engaged in the urgencies of the Stevie Wonder title song, “When Malindy Sings,” the slavery lament “Driva Man” and in “Throw It Away.” Warmheartedness and Billie Holiday inflection guide “Little Girl Blue.” She presents her own “Rainbow” and “Throw It Away” as pieces of a poetic optimism that also informs John Coltrane’s “Africa,” which has Lincoln’s lyric (…”this land of milk and honey on the river called the Nile…”). The final track is two minutes of Lincoln singing introductions of pianist Phil Wright, drummer Doug Sides and bassist Art Washington. San Francisco veteran James Leary plays bass on all the other tracks.

 

Burak Bedikyan, Awakening (Steeplechase LookOut)

Pianist and composer Bedikyan, a native of Turkey, has established himself among an elite circle of New York jazz artists. His colleagues on Awakening are alto saxophonist Loren Stillman, bassist Ugonna Okegwo and drummer Donald Edwards. Bedikyan’s playing and some of his compositions reflect his roots in bebop, his classical training and his Middle Eastern origins. If “Memory Of A Fading Dream” was intended to evoke his heritage, it succeeds in creating an exotic atmosphere that Stillman and Bedikyan expand on in their solos, energized by Edwards’ strategically and delicately placed cymbal splashes. In his third Steeplechase album, Bedikyan has grown impressively.

 

Jim Hall & Red Mitchell, Valse Hot, Sweet Basil 1978 (ArtistShare)

Jazz improvisation at its best is a listener’s art. There are few better illustrations of that truth than Hall playing off the power and sensitivity of Mitchell’s bass lines and Mitchell making instant accommodation to Hall’s often unexpected turns of phrase and harmonic shifts. Highlights: Charlie Parker’s blues “Now’s The Time,” a lengthy exploration of Billie Holiday’s “God Bless The Child,” and stunning interpretations of “Stella By Starlight” and Sonny Rollins’s “Valse Hot.” Originally recorded for John Snyder’s ArtistsHouse label, the album captures the guitarist and the bassist at the top of their duo game. Thirty-eight years on, it is as fresh as the day it was issued.

 

Art Pepper & Warne Marsh, Unreleased Art, Volume 9 (Widow’s Taste)

Laurie Pepper continues to release unissued recordings by her late alto saxophonist husband Art. Her latest installment is from Pepper and tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh in their 1974 engagement at the lamented Los Angeles jazz stronghold Donte’s. On three CDs the saxophonists and a stalwart rhythm exercise their formidable energies and imaginations in standard songs and bebop standbys. In their contrasting approaches,

Pepper and Marsh were two of the most daring improvisers of the second half of the twentieth century. Pepper got plenty of acclaim and basked in it. Marsh, a borderline recluse, maintained a low profile and kept quiet except when playing. Both do astounding (term used advisedly) up-tempo work on “Donna Lee.” In “Rhythm-a-ning,” they interlock horns like a pair of bull elk in mating season. Ballad relief comes in ”What’s New?” and “’Round Midnight;” both saxophonists are contemplative in comparison with their fast pieces, although Pepper’s edginess doesn’t quite subside. In a blazing “Cherokee,” pianist Bill Mays sits in for Mark Levine. John Heard is the bassist throughout, with Lew Malin on drums. One must wonder what Laurie Pepper will come up with next in her continuing Art Pepper retrospective.

Ray Brown (pictured left) wrote “Gravy Waltz,” with a lyric by comedian and talk show host Steve Allen. Allen recorded the piece on piano and got extensive airplay with it in the early 1960s. Jazz listeners, however, tend to think of Oscar Peterson’s version as the definitive recording. Peterson recorded it for Verve in 1962 with Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen playing drums—a classic edition of Peterson’s trio.