Sometimes I’m happy, but not when malicious adware captures the computer’s operating system and paralyzes it. As ArtsJournal commander in chief Doug McLennan informed you, the attack came a couple of days ago and we were unable to post. The computer is back from digital intensive care, and Rifftides is back in business. Let’s celebrate with one of Lester Young’s finest achievements, his Keynote recording of “Sometimes I’m Happy.†It ends with an eight-bar phrase that stands, after 71 years, as a perfect piece of melodic improvisation.
Lester Young, tenor saxophone; Johnny Guarnieri, piano; Slam Stewart, bass; Sid Catlett, drums. December 28, 1943.
That eight bars of music is one of the most memorized, and imitated in jazz. It has been repeated thousands of times not only by the army of tenor saxophonists who create themselves in the image of Lester Young, but also by players of every instrument and by dozens of arrangers and composers. That day in 1943, Prez didn’t know he was erecting a momument.
Suggestion: memorize Young’s final eight bars. Whistle that phrase when you awaken. Sing it in the shower. You’ll be on your way to a wonderful day. To make it easier, use Jack Brownlow’s lyric. The late pianist played with Young in Los Angeles in the mid-1940s. With permission of the Brownlow estate, here are the words. Play the track again and sing along beginning at 2:48.
I can find a ray on the rainiest day.
If I am with you, the cloudy skies all turn to blue.
In an invaluable 11-CD box, Fresh Sound has reissued the jazz recordings Keynote made during the label’s short, amazingly productive life (1943-1947), which extended into the bebop era. Young’s quartet made the first Keynote sides, among them “Sometimes I’m Happy.â€
In 1986, the Japanese producer and scholar Kiyoshi Koyama researched the archives and discovered alternate takes and other previously unreleased material from Keystone sessions, including an alternate take of “Sometimes I’m Happy.†Dan Morgenstern describes it in his book Living With Jazz.
It is a lovely performance, even more relaxed than the famous original version. At 3:41, it runs too long for a 10-inch 78—thirty-six seconds longer than the issued take. The tempo is a mite slower, creating a dreamy mood, and Guarnieri takes a full chorus. To Lester students, the most interesting discovery will be that the famous tag by Pres, based on a quote from “My Sweetie Went Away,†was a spontaneous invention. It is absent from the “new†take.
Marc Myers, as all explorers of the jazz blogosphere know, is the proprietor of JazzWax, a winner of the Jazz Journalists Association’s Blog Of The Year award. He is the author of the valuable book Why Jazz Happened. He writes frequently for The Wall Street Journal on a range of arts-related topics. His frequent interviews and as-told-to articles in the Journal cover musicians, actors, sports figures and all manner of other interesting folks.
I have asked Marc to divulge his formula for turning out a volume of high-quality material at such a pace, and what do I get? I get, more or less, “Aw shucks, it’s just what I do, and I’m very lucky.” Right. Clayton Kershaw, Julianne Moore and Serena Williams are lucky, too.
Marc recently discovered the 1993 documentary about the pianist Frank Strazzeri, for which I was recruited as interviewer. He embedded it in JazzWax and asked me questions about the film, Strazzeri and the other musicians. If you missed the film here—or wish to see it again and read the interview—go to JazzWax.
In his liner note essay, Brown mentions ten guitarists he admires, some of them famous (Andres Segovia, Joe Pass, Chet Atkins), others heroes in the guitar community who are barely known to general audiences (Kenny Poole, Ted Greene). Having absorbed the work of all the players he credits with inspiration, Brown makes it plain that he has internalized their lessons and shaped an individual approach. Reminiscent of George Van Eps in terms of masterly chording and avoidance of technical display for its own sake, he has a distinctive way of integrating bass lines in his improvisations. He plays fingerstyle on all but one of the 14 pieces. “Stompin’ at the Savoy†is a prime example of his swing, “Nina Never Knew†of his lyricism. Brown is not widely known beyond Chicago and environs. This album may change that.
As an addendum to the Andy Brown recommendation in the previous exhibit, we have evidence that in addition to his achievement as a soloist, Brown plays well with others. The setting is a bookstore recital in Chicago in 2010 and a performance of “Cry Me a River.†His duo partner is Anat Cohen.
From the mid-1960s through the early years of this century, the Art Ensemble of Chicago crafted elements of free jazz into an ensemble personality that brought it extensive exposure. Often, as much attention went to the band’s costumes and makeup as to its wide range of influences from all eras of jazz and music of Africa, Asia, Latin America and other parts of the world. Apart from their primary instruments, the five musicians played an array of brass, reed, percussion and stringed instruments. The choreography of employing that arsenal could give an Art Ensemble concert a sort of neo-vaudeville atmosphere. Although they sometimes allowed the sideshow to obscure it, musicianship was at the heart of their best performances. A piece from the Berlin Jazz Festival in the fall of 1991 is an example.
The musicians are Lester Bowie, trumpet (1941-1999); Joseph Jarman, tenor saxophone; Roscoe Mitchell, alto saxophone; Malachi Favors Maghostut, bass (1927-2004); Famoudou Don Moye, drums. The piece is titled, “New York Is Full of Lonely People.†The video begins with a tune-up and a few second of silence.
Following Malachi Favors’ death in 2004, trumpeter Corey Wilkes and bassist Jaribu Shahid joined the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and the band recorded a new album.
Thanks to the readers—far too many to send individual thank-you’s—who responded to the weekend post about Paul Desmond. Your stories made great additions to the piece. The Rifftides staff is lucky to have you all along for the ride. To see the comments, which keep coming, go here and pan down.
Shipp introduces the album with “Prelude to Duke,†44 seconds of unaccompanied piano in which he may be ruminating on Ellington’s 1953 solo recording “Reflections in D.†Then Shipp, bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Whit Dickey transport the listener to Ellingtonia proper with “In a Sentimental Mood.†Shipp concentrates on melodies—Ellington’s and those the pianist creates—while Bisio plays free counterpoint, Dickey layers cymbal splashes on brushed snare drum patterns and Shipp minds the outline of the song. Abetted by the ESP of Bisio’s and Dickey’s reactions, Shipp’s time displacement rules “Satin Doll.†The trio takes “the ’A’ Train†on a wild ride breathtakingly close to, but not over, the edge of coherence. So it goes through seven Ellington pieces and four compatible Shipp originals. Riveting stuff by three extraordinary musicians finely attuned to Ellington but, most of all, to one another.
Several prominent trumpet players and other well-known jazz artists are expected to perform next Monday in New York City at a memorial service for the late trumpeter Lew Soloff. Here is the announcement from the Manhattan School of Music.
New York – A celebration of the life and music of Lew Soloff (Feb. 20, 1944-Mar 8, 2015) is scheduled for Monday, June 8, 2015 at the John C. Borden Auditorium, located at the Manhattan School of Music. This event is free to the public and begins at 7:00 p.m. Doors open at 6:15pm for early seating.
Lew Soloff, an essential player in the New York jazz scene since the early 1960s, created numerous musical associations during his career and many of those whose life he touched will come together to share their love and talent on this special evening. The musical program for this celebration is under the direction of Soloff’s close friends Paul Shaffer and Noah Evans, son of the late Gil Evans, Soloff’s “musical godfather.†Some of the artists taking part include; Wynton Marsalis, Randy Brecker, Jon Faddis, Jimmy Owens, Cecil Bridgewater, Chris Potter, Ray Anderson, Gil Goldstein, Danny Gottlieb, Mark Egan, Sammy Figueroa, Manhattan Brass, Jeff Berlin, Fred Lipsius, Jeff “Tain†Watts, Pete Levin and Jesse Levy. More information on the final line-up will be announced shortly. Please visit lewsoloff.com for up-to-date details.
For the Rifftides post about Mr. Soloff’s passing, go here.
Having proved himself in the jazz milieu of Kansas City, in 1960 the 24-year-old trumpeter Carmell Jones (1936-1996) quit his job as a railroad porter and moved to Los Angeles in search of full-time work in music. He was quick to impress bassist Red Mitchell, alto saxophonist Bud Shank and tenor saxophonist Harold Land. His recordings with them, with Gerald Wilson’s big band, and later with Art Blakey were to bring him attention and acclaim. Shortly after his arrival in L.A., Jones worked in a quartet with other emerging musicians—pianist Forrest Westbrook, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Bill Schwemmer. Westbrook’s apartment served as a studio where he recorded their rehearsals on a reel-to-reel stereo tape machine. For 55 years, those tapes were unheard by anyone but the musicians and Westbrook’s family and friends.
Following Westbrook’s death last year at 87, his daughter Leslie told Jordi Pujol of Fresh Sound Records about the tapes. The result is an album that finds Jones with the imagination and verve that led jazz expert John William Hardy, photographer William Claxton and critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt to issue enthusiastic reports about him after they heard him in Kansas City. Now, we hear Jones in his early west coast days, eleven months before The Remarkable Carmell Jones, his first released Pacific Jazz album as a leader.
In common with a legion of other young trumpeters in the 1950s and 1960s, Jones’s full sound and dazzling technique owed much to Clifford Brown. If he was inclined to an excess of finger-flicking grace notes, he balanced that manifestation of self-consciousness or nervousness with symmetry of phrasing that could be stunning on ballads. The prime example of his lyricism here is on the alternate take of “Willow Weep for Me, in which he uses a cup mute and overflows the Ann Ronell song with blues feeling. With the horn open, the warmth of his tone is remarkable on the first take of “Willow,†“Baubles, Bangles and Beads†and two takes each of “If I Love Again;†“Ruby,†Heinz Roemheld’s 1953 hit from the film Ruby Gentry; and Harold Arlen’s “For Every Man There’s a Woman.â€
Peacock, at 25 a veteran of work with Shank, Don Ellis, Shorty Rogers, Barney Kessel and Paul Horn, was deep into the characteristics of technique, timekeeping and harmonic mastery that were to take him to the top levels of jazz, including his three decades in the Keith Jarrett Trio. “His development,†Shank told me in 1998, “was phenomenal. He turned into one of the most creative bass players that ever happened.†Drummer Schwemmer, a friend of Peackock, has a lower profile. His time concept melds nicely with Peacock’s here, his cymbal work is noteworthy, and he has effective exchanges of four-bar phrases on several tracks. He evidently left active playing after the 1960s.
Westbrook’s solos and accompaniments shine throughout the album. In that relaxed second take of “Willow Weep for Me,†he negotiates piquant intervals in the solo melody he creates. He simulates bent notes in a manner reminiscent of Jimmy Rowles, a contemporary whose work Westbrook no doubt knew. The rhythm section plays “Airegin†without Jones. Westbrook is astonishing on the Sonny Rollins tune. He brings together bent notes, unconventional intervals and keyboard touch in a range from delicate to dynamic. His headlong solo has stylistic allusions to Bud Powell and Lennie Tristano. Most of all, it communicates the sense of joy and discovery that illuminates a performance when a player is so inspired that it seems the music is showing the way, taking him along for the ride.
There are other tapes in the Westbrook cache of jam session and rehearsal recordings. This CD is a valuable glimpse into Carmell Jones’s early musicial life. For many it will be a surpising introduction to Westbrook. It is encouraging to think that more music of this quality may remain to be discovered.
Since Rifftides began, every year on May 30 I have posted something about Paul Desmond. He died thirty-eight years ago today. For reasons that I cannot clearly identify, this year I struggled with the idea. Until the last moment I put off the remembrance and finally concluded that the best option was to have Paul speak for himself with his playing.
At the 1954 recording session for the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s album Brubeck Time, LIFE magazine photographer Gjon Mili shot the film you will see. Mili had egged Brubeck into an pugnacious frame of mind by saying that he did not consider that what the quartet played was jazz. That got the result he was hoping for, a surge through the harmonies of “Oh, Lady Be Good†that ended up titled “Stompin’ For Mili.†It’s the piece you hear and see last in the film clip. Brubeck later recalled that producer George Avakian then asked for a quiet minor blues. The preamble here is from my 2005 book The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond.
“I would like,†said Gjon, closing his eyes and raising his hand expressively, “I would like to see Audrey Hepburn come walking through the woods—“
Gee,†said Paul wistfully, “So would I.â€
“One,†I said, noticing the glazed expression about Paul’s eyes, “two, three, four. And we played it.â€
Mili may not have known of Desmond’s infatuation with Audrey Hepburn, but he could have said nothing more likely to inspire the playing that followed. Paul never met Audrey Hepburn, though he came close many times that summer of 1954. In the Jean Giraudeaux play Ondine, she was an underwater nymph who fell in love with a knight. She won a Tony award for her work in the title role. Ondine played at the 46th Street Theatre, not far from Basin Street.
“Paul would look at his watch the whole time we were playing at Basin Street,†Brubeck told me. “He knew when she would walk out the stage door and get in her limousine, and he wanted to be standing there. So, when I’d see him watching the time, I knew I’d better take a quick intermission or I was going to have problems with Paul. He’d put his horn down, and out the door he’d go, and he’d run down just to stand and watch her leave.â€
“Paul told me that,†I said to Brubeck, “and I asked him, ‘What did you say to her?’ And he looked surprised and said, ‘Nothing. Are you kidding?’
Here is “Audrey,” note for note as it appeared on the album
This addendum to the “Audrey†story is also from the Desmond biography.
Brubeck Time became a big seller and “Audrey†one of Desmond’s most beloved works. The recording associated his name with Hepburn’s, but he died twenty-three years later never having imagined that she knew who he was or that she had heard the piece. After Hepburn died in 1993, the United Nations honored her for her international work with children. Her husband, Andrea Dotti, asked Brubeck and his Quartet to play “Audrey†at the memorial service at UN headquarters in New York.
“I told him,†Brubeck said, “that I had no idea he’d be aware of ‘Audrey.’ He said, ‘My wife listened to it every night before she went to bed, and if she was walking through the garden, she’d listen to it on earphones.’â€
“Paul never knew,†Iola Brubeck said. “And he was so in love with Audrey.â€
A year or so earlier, Hepburn herself acknowledged what “Audrey” meant to her. The publicist and author Peter Levinson sent the actress a copy of Brubeck Time when the album was first reissued as a compact disc. She responded with a hand-written note.
19 March ’92
Dear Peter,
Thank you for such a lovely gift—I am thrilled to have the Brubeck C.D. with ‘My Song,’ the ultimate compliment. You letter is so lovely, and I am most grateful for all your kindness.
Warmest Wishes,
Audrey Hepburn
At the United Nations ceremony, Brubeck’s new alto saxophonist, Bobby Militello, played Desmond’s solo note for note, inflection for inflection. He had memorized it when he was a boy.
The modern jazz sub-genre called jazz fusion emerged in the 1960s, attracted a wide audience and received extensive radio air play through the second half of the twentieth century. The music combined elements of rhythm and blues, jazz, rock, funk and, often, time signatures that were challenging for both musicians and listeners. Fusion came in for criticism for traditionalists and purists. “Con-fusion, I call it,†the great bassist Gene Ramey once told me. Nonetheless, the category—like jazz itself—was flexible enough to accept everything from the soporific oatmeal music that for a time seemed to dominate top-forty radio to inventive groups like the Joe Zawinul-Wayne Shorter Weather Report and John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra.
Among other forward-looking musicians who succeeded in melding disparate or compatible forms into substantial music were Larry Coryell, Miles Davis, Jean-Luc Ponty, Santana, Chick Corea’s Return To Forever and, at his most coherent, Frank Zappa. In the 1980s the band that vibraharpist Mike Mainieri at first called Steps became Steps Ahead. At its peak, Steps Ahead consisted of Mainieri, saxophonist Michael Brecker (1949-2007), pianist Eliane Elias, bassist Eddie Gómez and drummer Peter Erskine. Here is their concert filmed in 1983 at Copenhagen’s Carlsberg Glyptotek. Members of the band and their friend Don Grolnick wrote the pieces. Each gets screen credit as his composition plays. This is a fine way to spend an hour of your weekend.
Thanks to the YouTube contributor Herkenes for putting the concert on the web.
Blogger and Rifftides reader JazzCookie commented that her Memorial Day song was “I’ll Be Seeing You.†That led to a reply including trumpeter Tony Fruscella’s 1955 recording of the Sammy Fain ballad. Frank Sinatra’s version with Tommy Dorsey had been a bestseller when millions of Americans were away fighting World War II. Fruscella made it the basis of a medium tempo excursion through the harmonies with no direct reference to Fain’s melody. Yet, in a masterpiece of fluid creativity, he left no doubt about what he was playing. Fruscella worked for brief periods with Lester Young, Gerry Mulligan and Brew Moore, and for a few months with Stan Getz. He played little after the late 1950s and in 1969 died of conditions related to drug use. This album is a monument to what he achieved when he was at his best.
In an op-ed column in the weekend Wall Street Journal, Jerry Cianciolo urges readers to visit their local World War II memorials—nearly every town has one—look at the names, touch them and think about the sacrifices they symbolize. Hundreds of communities have monuments to American warriors who died in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Cianciolo writes,
Many young combatants who, as the English poet Laurence Binyon wrote, “fell with their faces to the foe†never set foot on campus. They never straightened a tie and headed to a first real job. They never slipped a ring on a sweetheart’s finger. They never swelled with hope turning the key to a starter home. They never nestled an infant against a bare chest. They never roughhoused in the living room with an exasperated wife looking on. They never tiptoed to lay out Santa’s toys.
Where I live, there is a memorial to men and women who died in Viet Nam. I’ll go there today and remember a friend, as I did in this piece from the Rifftides archive.
MEMORY OF A FRIEND
First posted May 30, 2011
There is someone I think of every Memorial Day, and many other days. Cornelius Ram and I were among a collection of young men who accepted the United States Marine Corps’ bet that we weren’t tough or smart enough to wrestle commissions from it. It quickly became apparent to everyone, including the drill instructors charged with pounding us into the shape of Marines, that Corky Ram would have no problem. He was a standout in the grueling weeks of officer candidate competition and then in the months of physical and mental rigor designed to make us worthy of those little gold bars on the collars of our fatigues. After high school in Jersey City, New Jersey, he had served a hitch as a Navy enlisted man, and then got a college degree before he chose the Corps. He was two or three years older than most of us, and a natural leader. He could tell when the pressure was about to cave a green lieutenant exhausted from a 20-mile forced march with full field pack or demoralized after a classroom test he was sure he had flunked. Corky knew how to use encouragement or cajolery to restore flagging determination. He helped a lot of us make it through. The picture on the right is how I remember him from that period.
Unlike most of us who served our few years and got out, Corky made the Marine Corps his career. He served two tours in Viet Nam. Here is the official 5th Marines’ Command Chronology of what happened to him and another officer on his second tour in January of 1971, as the war was slogging to its demoralizing conclusion:
“On 10 January Major Ram (2/5 XO) and Captain Ford (E Co., CO), while attempting to aid two wounded Marines, were killed by a 60mm surprise firing device.”
There’s a bit more to the story. Major Ram, Executive Officer of 2/5 Marines, and Captain Ford (of Glen Rock, NJ), Commanding Officer of Echo Company, were overhead in a command helicopter when they spotted the wounded Marines in the open and in the path of oncoming enemy troops. The helicopter pilot, convinced that the open area was mined, refused to land in the vicinity of the wounded Marines and instead put down at a distance. Major Ram and Captain Ford exited the helicopter and began to cross the open area toward the wounded men. The pilot was right – the area was mined, and both Major Ram and Captain Ford died as a result. At least one of the two wounded Marines survived; he visited the Ram family several years later and described the circumstances.
Corky Ram was one of 13,085 Marines who died in hostile action in Viet Nam. I knew others, but he was the one I knew best. More than once, I have stood gazing at his name on the wall at the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington, DC. When Memorial Day comes around, he symbolizes for me the American service men and women who have died in the nation’s wars. What we and all of the free world owe them is beyond calculation.
Following yesterday’s post about recently deceased musicians, a Rifftides reader who identifies himself only as Derrick sent a message:
I just heard that Ron Crotty, the original bassist of The Dave Brubeck Quartet, died just a few days ago, too, but I have not seen anything written about it. Which leads me to ask, has Ron passed? Or is it another case of the internet burying someone who is still with us?
The sad report that Derrick heard was accurate. Evidently, nothing has been written in the jazz press or in general news outlets about Crotty’s death. Guitarist Tony Corman, his frequent playing companion in recent years, confirmed it for us by email.
Ron was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on his 87th birthday, Apr 2, and passed three weeks later. He’d been treated for cancer two years ago and came through a rather grueling treatment pretty well, and we resumed playing our steady Sunday gig at the Oakland Museum. He was gardening again and had a new love relationship, really was doing fine, and then started feeling lousy, went to the doc, and, well, there you are. We’re looking to do a remembrance at the Oakland Museum on June 28, 3 – 5 PM. I couldn’t find an obit either, nor were we told of a funeral. Ron has one daughter, who lives I think in D.C. She was (and may still be) out to see him at the end and, I presume, take care of his affairs.
Six years before his death—nearly to the day—Rifftides posted a piece about Crotty. It contained video of Crotty, guitarist Corman and bass trombonist Frank Phipps playing at the Oakland Museum. With the elimination of a bit of introductory rambling, here it is.
The CD, cleverly titled Crotty Corman And Phipps, is on the Auraline label, as new to me as are Phipps and
Corman. All of the tunes are standards, except Corman’s samba “Rosa Rugosa” and Phipps’s “Ron’s Muse.” I was absorbed by Crotty’s straightforward bass line on “I Got Rhythm” changes in “Ron’s Muse.” “Rhythm” changes can be abused and they can be boring, but in the right hands they are never outdated. Other highlights: the languor of Corman’s out-of-tempo introduction to “Rosa Rugosa;” Phipps’s muted sound of a friendly walrus on “How Deep is the Ocean;” the way the three use the changes to create a new melody from the beginning of “Ghost of a Chance,” never disclosing the tune until the bridge of the final chorus; the unperturbed spunk of “My Little Suede Shoes;” the rolling swing of “Tangerine.”
In this clip from YouTube, they play “Witchcraft.” The sound is on the verge of distortion, but the video gives you a look at the group. Corman goes beyond allusion in his quote from John Lewis’s “The Golden Striker,” but he makes it fit so nicely that he can be forgiven.
Rifftides was never meant to be an obituary service, but who might have expected that so many people of high accomplishment and value would die in a so short a period. Ignoring their departures would be impossible. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.†That consoling thought applies to four men whom we have lost in the past several days.
Bob Belden died yesterday of a massive heart attack at his home in New York City. He was 58. Belden was a saxophonist, composer, arranger, bandleader, producer, historian and writer. As a player, he worked with Woody Herman, Mel Lewis, Donald Byrd, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner and others in the top levels of jazz. He brought his understanding of music and the inner workings of the jazz business to major ventures. Massive projects reissuing recordings by Miles Davis and Gil Evans won him Grammy awards for producing and for liner notes. His original worksBlack Dahlia, Turandot, Miles From India and Miles Español and others brought him further widespread recognition. When I wrote notes for the Miles Español set I became aware first-hand of his discipline, humor and openness to ideas. This paragraph from his own notes for the album gives an idea of how he approached his work.
I came to the sessions Tabula Rasa and my mind is still in that place. I knew that these musicians could create an undiscovered world of sound and textures, of light and motion. I just didn’t know exactly what. That is the purpose of jazz. Mystery. Surprise. Adventure. Human Nature. A producer can be an artist only if he/she lets go of the possessive nature of ego. To impose my will on people I respect for their individuality and creativity would be rather imperious. To counter the forces of ‘creative control’, I composed a framework based on pure empirical history and from that template emerged a modus operandi for harnessing the creative energy of the musicians. In some ways, the overall framework for the project is similar to that of filmmaking, where the producer is responsible for the story but not the dialog.
Bob Belden, a musician and impresario of sensitivity and scope. For an obituary, go here.
A day earlier in Inglewood, New Jersey, Bruce Lundvall died at 79 of complications from Parkinson’s disease. As the president of Blue Note Records beginning in 1984, Lundvall brought the label back to the importance it had for decades before its founder, Alfred Lion, sold it in 1971. He attracted to the label Joe Lovano, Kurt Elling, Dianne Reeves and other leading jazz artists including Jason Moran, Pat Martino, Robert Glasper and Cassandra Wilson. On Lundvall’s watch at Blue Note, the singer-pianist Norah Jones became a million-selling folk-pop-jazz performer whose success helped support his dedication to mainstream jazz.
William Zinsser was a hero of writers and of people who cherish the proper and economical use of the English language. His 18 books, including On Writing Well and Writing To Learn, are standard guides for writers and just plain good reading for anyone. He once wrote, “My purpose is not to teach good nonfiction, or good journalism, but to teach good English that can be put to those uses. Don’t assume that bad English can still be good journalism; it can’t.†James J. Kilpatrick, himself a writer of great clarity, once said that On Writing Well is the one essential book on the subject and, “Zinsser’s sound theory is that ‘writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it.’”
Zinsser died on May 12. He was 92. A mutual friend tells me that as recently as a month ago, he was playing the piano in her apartment and seemed well. His books are within reach of my desk. They are worn.
B.B. King’s death on May 15 at the age of 89 received so much attention in print, on the air and in hundreds of digital outlets that reprising his career seems unnecessary. It may be enough to observe that he was one of the best-known performers of his generation, regardless of musical style, and that the way he played blues on the electric guitar has echoes in the work of hundreds of guitarists. Eric Clapton, one of his greatest admirers claimed a few years ago that King was “the most important artist the blues has ever produced.†That could be argued, but it is unquestionable that without King’s example, Clapton and dozens of other guitarists in blues and rock would not play as they do. King suffered from diabetes and had been hospitalized for treatment of dehydration.
Nearly 19-million viewers have seen this YouTube video of King’s greatest hit, performed at Montreux in 1993.
Rolling Stone has a thorough and admiring obituary of King. To read it, go here.
The title observes the number of years since the pianist moved from his native Venezuela to New York City. In that time Perdomo has established a musical personality apart from the influential leaders for whom he has worked—Ray Barretto, Ravi Coltrane, Miguel Zenon, Brian Lynch among them. His early studies in New York with pianists Roland Hanna and Harold Danko, powerful teachers and examples, emphasized the importance of developing an individual voice. As he demonstrated in his 2010 album with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Jack DeJohnette, Perdomo has a gift for harnessing a trio to single-mindedness in pursuit of his vision. In this case, his colleagues are bassist Mimi Jones and drummer Rudy Royston.
Royston does not merely accompany but listens, reacts, and integrates his ideas into the communal effort. Nonetheless, he doesn’t flinch from an opportunity to solo with power and at length on “The Old City†and more briefly but with no less energy on “Brand New Grays.†Jones brings incisiveness of tone and powerful swing that complement Perdomo’s own time feel combining relaxation and power. The pianist’s Chopinesque unaccompanied opening moments of “Love Tone Poem†typify his keyboard approach. His integration of Jones and Royston into the piece demonstrate his concept of the trio’s music as the product of minds intermingling. Employing electric piano on five of the tracks, Perdomo creates an almost horn-like flow of melodic line, particularly on the stirring “Cota Mil.†Still, the clarity of his playing on the acoustic piano, with every note distinct, is welcome after a couple of tracks of the Fender-Rhodes. Perdomo composed all of the album’s 12 pieces, except “How Deep is Your Love†by the Bee Gees. Despite the lightweight source material, he lifts that performance to the level of the rest of this intriguing album.
As noted in the Rifftideswrapup report on last summer’s Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival, the quartet called We Float wafts between jazz and pop. The harmonic partnership of leader Anne Marte Eggen’s electric bass and Fanny Gunnarsson’s piano, buoyed by Flip Bensefelt’s crisp drumming, puts the band in the jazz column often enough to keep the music from slipping into mere ambience. The band’s substance is notable in Ms. Eggen’s “Echolation,†which employs repetition to build tension before its fade ending. With clarity and trueness of pitch, Linda Bergström’s voice is effective as the lead instrument, notably so on “Echolation†and “Silence.†The album’s sound quality is excellent.
More Recent Listening coming soon, maybe even tomorrow.
Following yesterday’s Rifftides post announcing the Jazz Journalists Association poll winners, vibraharpist Charlie Shoemake commented:
Randy Weston has had a long and distinguished career as have many of the other deserving award winners. Just curious, though, if any jazz artists from the west coast have ever been or ever will be recognized. It always seems in these things as though we’re an invisible group. One recent positive note, though. Four of my young students here on the California Central Coast have just been awarded the best community jazz combo in America by Downbeat magazine. We do exist. All is not lost.
A few musicians from west of the Mississippi have come in for major recognition in the polls, although not many since the heyday of so-called west coast jazz in the 1950s and early ’60s. Honors have come from elsewhere. For example, arranger, composer and bandleader Bill Holman and vibraharpist Bobby Hutcherson were named National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Jazz Masters in 2010. Others: Charlie Haden in 2012, Quincy Jones in 2008, Dave Brubeck in 1999, Billy Higgins in 1997, Gerald Wilson in 1990, Ornette Coleman in 1984.
Geography plays a part in how JJA members vote. A majority of them live in or near the northeastern United States. They hear live performances in the clubs and concert halls of Boston, New York and Philadelphia, cities with large numbers of the best-known jazz musicians. However much one might hope that jazz journalists would take pains to be familiar with the spectrum of artists from all parts of the world, provincialism is and always has been a factor in how they vote in polls operated by the JJA, Jazz Times, Downbeat, Playboy, Esquire and others too numerous to list.
We could discuss what qualifies a person to be a jazz journalist, but that leads to the larger question of what qualifies a person to be a journalist of any description. That, in turn, leads to considerations of licensing and government control of the flow of information. Let’s not fool with that. And let’s not place undue importance on the results of polls that have many of the aspects of popularity contests. What counts is the quality of the music.
That looks like a cue. Here are Charlie and Sandi Shoemake in 1991 with the Bill Holman Orchestra. Solos by trombonist Andy Martin and the Shoemakes.
Trumpets: Bob Summers, Carl Saunders, Frank Szabo, Tony Lujan.
Trombones: Bob Enevoldsen, Rick Culver, Andy Martin, Pete Beltran.
Saxophones: Lanny Morgan, Bob Militello, Pete Christlieb, Ray Hermann, Bob Efford.
Piano: Rich Eames.
Bass: Bruce Lett.
Drums: Jeff Hamilton.
Filmed at the recording session for Shoemake’s album Strollin’.
Weston tops a list of 31 winners of the 2015 JJA awards, among them Jason Moran, musician of the year; Cecile McLorin Savant, up and coming artist of the year; Wadada Leo Smith, composer of the year; Maria Schneider, arranger of the year; Kenny Barron and Dave Holland, record of the year, for their The Art of Conversation.
To see the entire list and photographs of the winners, go here. Hearty congratulations to all.
Sometimes I’m happy, but not when malicious adware captures the computer’s operating system and paralyzes it. As ArtsJournal commander in chief Doug McLennan informed you, the attack came a couple of days ago and we were unable to post. The computer is back from digital intensive care, and Rifftides is back in business. Let’s celebrate with one of Lester Young’s finest achievements, his Keynote recording of “Sometimes I’m Happy.†It ends with an eight-bar phrase that stands, after 71 years, as a perfect piece of melodic improvisation.
