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Billie Holiday’s recording of “Strange Fruit,” shocked listeners in 1939. Seventy-five years later, the song’s portrayal of racist lynching retains its disturbing power as commentary on a shameful part of the American past. Trumpeter, bandleader, blogger and broadcaster Steve Provizer’s radio drama about the singer and the history of the record is debuting this fall. It will air on stations across the country. The story involves not only Holiday, but also the song’s composer, and the club and record label owners who had the courage to act on their belief in “Strange Fruit.”

Mr. Provizer (pictured right) says, “I would like to emphasize that I hope the program can be used in educational and non-profit settings to stimulate conversations on racism and culture.” He has granted Rifftides permission to give readers a link to a page at PRX (Public Radio Exchange) where you can listen to the quarter-hour drama. Click here.

Steve Provizer will discuss the background of the program and play excerpts on the Morgan White, Jr. show on WBZ, the CBS station in Boston. The show is scheduled for Saturday, November 8 at 11 p.m. EDT. It will be streamed live on the internet at this site.

Queries still arrive about where to buy Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. As hardened Rifftides readers know, but newcomers may not, new clothbound copies are history, unless you are lucky enough to spot one on the shelf of your corner bookstore. And if your town still has a corner bookstore, congratulations. Desmond—pictured left with Dave Brubeck and Gene Wright—loved technological advances; he would no doubt be at least this happy if he knew that his biography has gone digital. Please see this announcement from a year ago for details.

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‘Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world. — William Shakespeare

 

One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.   — Emily Dickinson

 

There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics and the Great Pumpkin. — Linus Van Pelt

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-legged beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us! – Scottish saying

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Conventional wisdom in jazz is that the harmonies in the bridge section of Rogers and Hart’s “Have You Met Miss Jones?” inspired John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.” Recently Mark Gilbert, the editor of the British magazine Jazz Journal suggested that a more likely source was composer Harry Warren’s “Chica Chica Boom Chic,” from the 1941 film That Night In Rio. Pianist Jan Lundgren followed up with a letter to the magazine calling Gilbert’s proposition a “sensational discovery.” Lundgren said his analysis showed that the way Warren (pictured right) used moving key centers in major thirds in the final strain of the novelty movie song is “more or less exactly the way Coltrane used the sequence in the first important three bars of “Giant Steps.”

Let’s listen to and watch Carmen Miranda and Don Ameche perform the song. The section in question comes near the end of the movie clip, at 2:37. You needn’t bother digging into your record collection for the comparison. Coltrane’s 1959 recording of “Giant Steps” follows.

It is unlikely that we will ever know whether Coltrane was familiar with “Chica Chica Boom Chic,” but Gilbert’s and Lundgren’s speculation is intriguing.

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The clock says it’s still the weekend (barely) way out west.

John Marshall, the American expatriate who is the longtime principal trumpet of the WDR Big Band in Germany, sent links to performances from his recent quintet tour in Germany, Switzerland and Holland. His front line partner was Grant Stewart, the Canadian tenor saxophonist based in New York. Their rhythm section had Leo Lindberg, piano, Kenji Rabson, bass; and Phil Stewart, drums. Here they are at the Jazz Schmiede in Düsseldorf on September 19 with Duke Ellington’s “Warm Valley” (1940), a ballad seldom played by contemporary musicians, who may not realize what they are missing.

To the right of the YouTube screen showing “Warm Valley” are links to other videos by Marshall’s quintet with Stewart. Marshall visits the US a couple of times a year, but that may not be often enough to remind his countrymen of the talent he exported to Germany. His website fills in a number of blanks.

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Kristin Korb, Finding Home (Double K)

Korb, whose singing matches the high quality of her bass playing, releases Finding Home after previewing some of its pieces this summer at the Ystad Jazz Festival in Sweden. The nine songs she wrote for the album recount the changes in her life after she moved in 2011 from Los Angeles to Denmark, her new husband’s native land. Most of them project celebration, optimism and the elation of new love. A samba, “It’s Spring,” has a lyric that includes, “Something in my heart I cannot contain/Light and joy depleting all the dark and pain.”

Yet, the pain lingers. Over the insistence of a New Orleans street beat in “Happy For Me,” she gives her voice an edge and addresses her family back home; “Why can’t you be happy for me. Come on and be happy for me/You know you wanna be happy for me. Why can’t you ever be happy for me?” The amusing “Up Again” traces Korb’s determination to master pronunciation of the notoriously tricky Danish language. The bluesy title tune concludes, “With no drama, no fuss/Ain’t nobody here but the band and us/And how am I finding it?/I’m finding home.”

Among the chapters of Korb’s autobiographical story-telling, the album opens up generously for improvisation by the bassist, a protégé of Ray Brown, and eight sidemen who appear in various combinations. Her rhythm section companions on all tracks are pianist Magnus Hjorth and drummer Snorre Kirk, the young Danes who accompanied her to great effect in Ystad. Other Københavners who solo impressively are tenor saxophonist Karl-Martin Almqvist, guitarists Jacob Fischer and Paul Halberg, trumpeter Gerard Presencer, and a wonderfully blowsy trombonist named Steen Nikolaj Hansen. They reinforce the impression that Scandinavian musicians today are among the most interesting jazz players anywhere. Finding home, Korb finds herself in good company.

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Joshua Redman, Trios Live (Nonesuch)

Redman opens with an unaccompanied tenor saxophone introduction to “Mack the Knife.” The fluidity, power and quixotic imagination of his playing prepare his listeners for the album’s hour of adventure. At New York’s Jazz Standard and Washington DC’s Blues Alley, he is in the intimate company of just bass and drums—and of audiences who listen closely and respond with enthusiasm. When Redman is in the midst of rhythmic displacements and chord substitutions on the Kurt Weill piece, the zest and daring of the young Sonny Rollins come to mind. Rollins’ spiritual presence is evident here and there throughout, but Redman’s individuality is striking. He packs his extended coda to “Never Let Me Go,” with melodic inventions like no one else’s.

Gregory Hutchinson’s drumming on both club dates inspires, nudges and occasionally goads the saxophonist. High in the audio mix, in several instances Hutchinson is an equal partner in inventiveness as he and Redman reflect and reinforce one another’s ideas. Matt Penman is the bassist on the four tracks from the Jazz Standard. Reuben Rogers is on the three from Blues Alley. They are equal partners with Redman and Hutchinson in the generation and exchange of energy that permeates these performances. In two tracks on soprano sax, Redman creates excitement, but his originality on soprano doesn’t quite equal that of his tenor work. He is tenor sax machismo personified in Thelonious Monk’s “Trinkle Tinkle” and in the album’s most unlikely entry, Led Zeppelin’s “The Ocean.”

For a Rifftides review of Redman, Rogers, Hutchinson and pianist Aaron Goldberg at the 2014 Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival, go here.

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Of the dozens of young tenor saxophonists inspired by Lester Young (see the previous post), Zoot Sims (1925-1985) may have reached prominence at the youngest age. His 19th birthday was five months ahead of him when he recorded with pianist Joe Bushkin for the Commodore label in early 1944. That was three years before he joined Herbie Steward, Stan Getz and Serge Chaloff in Woody Herman’s celebrated Four Brothers saxophone section. By the middle of 1950, Sims had recorded with an aspiring jazz singer named Harry Belafonte, toured and recorded in Sweden and visited France in Roy Eldridge’s quintet.

In the early fifties he went back to his native southern California and became an essential figure in the burgeoning Los Angeles jazz scene, then returned to New York as a member of Gerry Mulligan’s sextet. The little known film below was made in France at the Cannes Jazz Festival in 1958. Toward the end of his life, a bit of the brashness and tenderness of his early hero Ben Webster reappeared in Sims’ work, but at Cannes, his approach was still redolent of Lester. For the occasion, Zoot borrowed trumpeter Donald Byrd’s rhythm section—Walter Davis, Jr., piano; Doug Watkins, bass; and Arthur Taylor, drums. He played “I’ll Remember April,” a piece that he favored throughout his career

Thanks to Rifftides reader and blogging colleague John Bolger for calling that Sims performance to my attention. John is the proprietor of the informative Dave Brubeck Jazz website.

The Al Cohn Memorial Collection at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania sends a reminder that the 2014 Zoot Fest will take place there on November 9. Bill Mays, Larry McKenna, Warren Vache, Lew Tabackin, Joe Cohn, Bill Crow, Bill Goodwin, Steve Gilmore and other friends of Zoot will be playing. Go here for full information about players and programming at this major educational fund raising event in memory of Zoot.

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Michael Cuscuna alerted us to a video on the Mosaic Records site in which Wayne Shorter tells about his only meeting with Lester Young. It was in the late 1950s, most likely 1958. Shorter had played briefly with Horace Silver before he began his two years of service in the US Army, but at 25 he was still largely unknown. Ahead of him was his early career as a tenor saxophonist, composer, and sideman with Maynard Ferguson, Art Blakey and Miles Davis. To see and hear him tell his Lester story, click on the arrow in the frame below. Following the clip is one of Lester Young in 1958, around the same time as his encounter with PFC Shorter. He died at 49 the following year.

The Daily Jazz Gazette page on the Mosaic website features a rotating selection of videos and other jazz-related items. Warning: You may find it addictive.

Fats Waller, piano and vocal; Gene Sedric, tenor saxophone; Heman Autrey, trumpet; Al Casey, guitar; Charles Turner, bass; Yank Porter, drums. April 8, 1936. RCA Records.

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Greg Curtis, author, former editor of Texas Monthly, former TIME magazine special correspondent, knowledgeable jazz listener and occasional Rifftides reader, writes about meeting Dexter Gordon. He encountered Gordon at a used record store in San Francisco in the late 1970s.

I was aware that there was some discussion going on in small groups here and there around the store when I saw a very tall, elegant black man in an immaculate trench coat and a blue beret riffling through the records in a corner of the store. I recognized that it was Dexter Gordon. No one else was approaching him.

I went up, and being sure to give him plenty of room to duck away from me, introduced myself and said I had heard him a few days ago in Austin. He had played at the Armadillo World Headquarters there about a month before. We saw many jazz acts there—Count Basie, Sam Rivers, Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton, Stephane Grappelli, Sonny Rollins, and probably more. Extraordinary, looking back, that so many of the greats performed there. He was very gracious and quite willing to talk. Did the concert go all right? Yes. The crowd was so young. Did they like it? Yes. Then he asked me if I knew about the Texas tenor Budd Johnson. Thank God, I did. And then, I’ll never forget, because Dexter had a beautiful, deep voice, he said, “Very great. Very great.” Just those words in his voice were very moving. I then said good-bye and left him. An indelible memory.

It’s a lovely story. Veteran Rifftides readers will suspect that publishing it is a reason (no excuse is needed) to present Gordon’s music. That is only partly correct. It is also an occasion to present Budd Johnson’s music. First, here’s Gordon in the period when Greg met him. Dexter lived in Copenhagen for a time, and his musical headquarters was the Club Montmartre. More often than not, his colleagues were Kenny Drew, piano; Niels-Henning Ørsted-Pedersen, bass; and Alex Riel, drums. The more or less bilingual Dexter introduces the tune.

Budd Johnson (1910-1984 is one of the great under-recognized figures in jazz. From his earliest days in Dallas as a teenaged professional, he became influential as a composer, arranger, leader and tenor saxophonist. In the soprano saxophone’s renaissance in the 1960s he was one of its most striking individualists. Open to new ideas, Johnson welcomed the innovations of bebop and wrote for Boyd Raeburn, Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie and Woody Herman when they leading their big bands out of the swing era.

In this 1979 performance, you may detect qualities that inspired Dexter Gordon’s admiration. Hank Jones is the pianist, Gene Ramey the bassist, Gus Johnson the drummer.

The tenor saxophonist providing obbligato toward the end was Arnett Cobb. For a superb exposition of Johnson’s playing and writing, hear his Budd Johnson and the Four Brass Giants, with Nat Adderley, Harry Edison, Ray Nance and Clark Terry.

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If you were not one of the four- or five-hundred people who attended pianist Benny Green’s concert at the Oregon Coast Jazz Party last weekend—or perhaps especially if you were—here’s a Rifftides listening tip. Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest broadcast on Sunday will present Green’s trio with bassist David Wong and drummer Rodney Green. Mr. Wilke recorded their concert this summer on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. This is from his announcement of the program:

…Green leads his trio in an exciting concert airing on Jazz Northwest on Sunday October 12 at 2 PM Pacific on 88.5 KPLU and streaming on kplu.org. The concert was recorded last July at Centrum’s Jazz Port Townsend for this broadcast.

Benny Green is a powerful pianist with a deep sense of swing. Not surprising, because he came up as a sideman in two great universities of the road, as a member of Betty Carter’s group and with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Another pivotal experience was being chosen by Oscar Peterson for the Glenn Gould International Protégé Prize which included extensive mentoring by Oscar Peterson.

For the Rifftides account of the exhilarating Green-Wong-Green appearances in Oregon, go here.

This morning’s cycling expedition took me through a part of the countryside I don’t often explore. Now that I’ve found attractions like this, I’ll head out there more often.

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Eight years ago, when Rifftides was young, I posted this item from New York following one of the last conventions of the lamented International Association of Jazz Educators.

January 19, 2006

It is impossible to predict the course of an artist’s career, but here’s a name to file away: Logan Strosahl. He is a sixteen-year-old alto saxophonist with the Roosevelt High School Jazz Band from Seattle, Washington. Strosahl has the energy of five sixteen-year-olds, rhythm that wells up from somewhere inside him, technique, harmonic daring with knowledge to support it and—that most precious jazz commodity—individuality. If he learns to control the whirlwind and allow space into his improvising, my guess is that you’ll be hearing from Logan Strosahl.

After that, Strosahl was graduated from Roosevelt High, entered the New England Conservatory in Boston and earned his degree. Attracted to the jazz capital of the world, as jazz artists have been for nearly a century, he moved to Brooklyn in New York City. There, he teams with a fellow NEC graduate, pianist Nick Sanders. Like Strosahl, Sanders is gaining increasing attention. These days, most young musicians at the outsets of their careers make their own publicity. Strosahl and Sanders advertise themselves through a free-subscription series of videos posted on YouTube. Each installment is preceded by a spiel.

 

In this Dizzy Gillespie composition, Strosahl finds altissimo notes that may not have occurred to Charlie Parker. He and Sanders take improvisational counterpoint a step or two beyond Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond.

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The Oregon Coast Jazz Party titled one segment “Saturday Morning Chamber Jazz.” In the event, most of the weekend celebration had the character and intimacy of a chamber music festival. The proceedings began with flutist Holly Hofmann—the OCJP’s music director—walking on stage alone, playing “Strike Up The Band.” Chorus by chorus, musicians who were to perform over the two and a half days joined her to improvise on that piece and a good old blues in F.

Pictured left to right: a Rifftides staff member introducing  pianist Randy Porter, bassist Nicki Parrott, guitarist Mimi Fox, drummer Chuck Redd, clarinetist Ken Peplowski, trumpeter Byron Striping, tenor saxophonist Harry Allen and Ms. Hofmann. In the course of the opening jam, pianist Mike Wofford, bassist Tom Wakeling, drummer Todd Strait and singer Dee Daniels also contributed.

For the most part, rehearsals consisted solely of Green Room discussions about tunes and keys. In a series of mix- and-match encounters, musicians from both coasts of the US and places in between relied on the common language shared by first-rate players—harmonic knowledge, swing, and the ability to stimulate and surprise one another. Through the weekend, all of that worked to a remarkable degree, thanks to the talent of the players and singers, Ms. Hofmann’s organizational ability and the skill of the volunteer stage crew and audio staff, whose work is at a professional level. Here, following on the two-tenor saxophone tradition of Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray, Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, Sonny Stitt and Gene Ammons, we see Harry Allen and Ken Peplowski with bassist Wakeling and drummer Redd. Mike Wofford was at the piano, a fount of harmonic ingenuity, as he was in several settings during the festival.

In his set, Stripling alternated between meaty swing-to-bop trumpet inventions and the entertainer persona he has built on the example of Louis Armstrong. Flowery and exhibitionist in a long virtuoso introduction to “I Found a New Baby,” he then shifted to quiet exposition of melody for “In a Mellotone,” with references to the minimalist style of Harry “Sweets” Edison. When Dee Daniels joined him, they traded vocal choruses and scatted energetically on “Every Day I Have The Blues.” Nicki Parrott was the bassist. In her own opening night set, Ms. Daniels sang a moving version of “All The Way” from her recent album, introduced her funky and amusing 16-bar song “Midlife Crisis,” and brought on Peplowski to play a clarinet obbligato behind her restrained “Lover Man.” Her vocalese variations at the end of the song brought an ovation.

Not all was unrehearsed. There were two regularly constituted small bands. Pianist Benny Green’s trio with bassist David Wong and drummer Rodney Green played two concerts.

Green paid homage to some of the pianists whose examples helped shape his style, beginning with his version of Cedar Walton’s “Something in Common.” He moved on through Horace Silver’s “St. Vitus Dance” and a massive approach to McCoy Tyner’s “Fly With the Wind.” He caressed Fred Lacey’s “Theme for Ernie” and took Thelonious Monk’s “52nd Street Theme” at a supersonic tempo. In the Monk piece, the substance and continuity of his improvised piano line at burnout speed astonished the audience as well as his fellow musicians crowding the wings backstage. Rodney Green, using wire brushes in his solo on the piece, was remarkable in his inventiveness. Wong’s big, centered, tone, firm time and melodic solos were a revelation throughout both of the quartet’s sets.

From Portland, pianist Darrell Grant’s quartet MJ New saluted the Modern Jazz Quartet in a program of pieces from the MJQ repertoire and two of Grant’s compositions. In John Lewis pieces including “Versaille” and “Django,” his classic arrangement of “Autumn in New York,” and Milt Jackson’s “Bags’ Groove,” the group’s combination of tonal delicacy and insistent swing captured the aura of the MJQ. Still, Grant’s originals “An Elise Affair” and “Bach to Brazil,” were highlights. In the collegial spirit of the weekend, clarinetist Peplowski sat in on “All The Things You Are.” He and Stripling joined Grant, vibraphonist Mike Horsfall, bassist Marcus Shelby and drummer Carlton Jackson on the set’s finale, “Bags’ Groove.” Horsfall, like Grant a yeoman figure in the impressive Portland jazz community, is an original vibist, far from being a Jackson clone.

Mimi Fox began her set unaccompanied with a full-bodied workout on Chick Corea’s “500 MilesHigh,” shifted down into “Darn That Dream,” then brought on Mike Wofford for a  piano-guitar duet performance of Paul McCartney’s “She’s Leaving Home” that was rich in complex harmonies.  Wofford stood by while she explored “Have You Met Miss Jones” alone, then rejoined her. Now, having promised surprises, Ms. Fox called out Ms. Hofmann, Tom Wakeling and Chuck Redd for Jobim’s “Triste.” The ingenious modulations in her solo raised eyebrows on stage.  Introducing “Willow Weep For Me” and instructing Redd to set up a funk beat, she announced, “I’m not sure this is going to work.” It worked.

Based in Portland and known internationally, Rebecca Kilgore, teamed with Harry Allen. She and the tenor saxophonist performed several pieces from their album I Like Men, including the Peggy Lee title tune and—inevitably—”I’m Just Wild About Harry,” with an exuberant solo by its namesake. Randy Porter, Tom Wakeling and drummer Todd Strait were the empathetic rhythm section. Not a scat singer Ms. Kilgore demonstrated throughout the set that her phrasing and note substitutions tap more deeply into the essence of jazz than some singers’ multiple choruses of scatting. Nicki Parrott joined her to sing “Two Little Girls From Little Rock” from the motion picture Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Afterward (right), they relaxed in the Green Room as Holly Hofmann strolled by.

The exception to the general chamber music aspect of the festival was Chuck Redd’s appearance on vibes with the Swing Shift Jazz Orchestra. The big band from Eugene, Oregon,  is populated by avocational players, including music teachers, but has the polish of a professional group.

With Doug Doerfert conducting, Redd featured music from the book of the Terry Gibbs band that thrived in Los Angeles in the late 1950s and 1960s. A thoughtful vibraphonist, Redd plays approximately half the number of notes the excitable Gibbs might employ, but he generates excitement nonetheless. The arrangements that Al Cohn, Bill Holman, Bob Brookmeyer, Manny Albam and Marty Paich wrote for Gibbs are undated for their age—indeed, for any age. Redd’s soloing and interaction with the band were evidence not only of rigorous rehearsal but also of empathy on the stand. Peplowski, an inveterate sitter-in and a raconteur with a standup comic’s timing, joined them for a guest shot. For many, however, the apogee of the set came when Redd and Horsfall shared the vibraphone in a riotous duel. They ended up dancing around one another to trade shorter and shorter phrases on alternate ends of the instrument. It was a fine bit of spontaneous show biz, effective not only as visual shtick, but as joyful music.

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For those in or planning to be in New York City next week, here’s a live listening tip from soprano saxophonist, arranger, composer, bandleader and jazz educator Bill Kirchner. He writes,

On Tuesday, October 7, at 8 p.m., I’ll be doing one of the most unusual concerts of my career, sharing the stage with three wonderful artists. Here are the details:

Bill Kirchner, soprano saxophone
Holli Ross, voice
Jim Ferguson, voice, double bass
Carlton Holmes, piano

About 2/3 of the songs will be my original music, with lyrics by Loonis McGlohon, William Butler Yeats, and myself. Also, songs by Bacharach/David, Jobim/Lees, Buddy Johnson, and others.

The concert will be in the jazz performance space at The New School, where for years Kirchner has taught platoons—maybe regiments—of students preparing for careers as professional jazz musicians. The idea of his appearing with the richly gifted Tennessee bassist and singer Jim Ferguson makes me wish that New York and the west coast were a few thousand miles closer together. For full information, go here.