Trumpeter Terell Stafford was the recent guest soloist with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra. Jazz Northwest’s Jim Wilke recorded them and will air one of the concerts on Sunday. From his announcement, here are details.
…Stafford played a three-concert series in February as special guest with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra. The final performance was recorded for Jazz Northwest to air Sunday, March 6 at 2 PM Pacific on 88.5 KPLU and streaming at kplu.org. Compositions by Duke Ellington, Michael Brecker and Chick Corea are among the highlights included on the broadcast.
The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, with special guest, trumpeter Terell Stafford, performs at the Edmonds Center for the Arts.
Terell Stafford has appeared with Jazz at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, Kenny Barron, Bobby Watson, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Heath, Matt Wilson, The Clayton Brothers and Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, among others. He has been on more than 130 albums, his most recent album as a leader is BrotherLee Love, a tribute to Lee Morgan.
Go here for a Rifftides Monday Recommendation review of Stafford’s Morgan album. Here’s Morgan’s “Hocus Pocus” by Stafford with Tim Warfield, tenor saxophone; Bruce Barth, piano; Peter Washington, bass; and Dana Hall, drums.
Jones-Lewis & Company In The USSR
Svetlana Ilicheva, our occasional Moscow correspondent, sent photographs made 
during the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra’s 1972 Russian tour. She reports that the Moscow photohistorian Raf Avakov has retained a number of Vladimir Sadkovkin’s pictures of that visit. With their permission, here are two of them.
Lewis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Jones at a Mocow concert
A glorious mob scene at a USA-USSR jam session. Trumpeter Valery Ponomarev on the left, Pepper Adams on the right. Next to Adams, the late Andrei Tovmasyan, a renowned Russian trumpeter.
 This provides an excuse, if we need one, to bring you the Jones-Lewis band in 1968, a few years before their Russian expedition. In the video, Mr. Jones announces the name of the piece, which he composed and arranged. The soloists are Danny Moore, trumpet; Pepper Adams, baritone saxophone; Roland Hanna, piano; and Mel Lewis, drums.
Composer/Arranger/Conductor/Flugelhorn: Thad Jones.
Saxes/Woodwinds: Jerome Richardson (lead), Jerry Dodgion, Joe Henderson, Eddie Daniels, Pepper Adams.
Trumpets: Al Porcino (Lead), Richard Williams, Snooky Young, Danny Moore
Trombones: Eddie Bert (lead), Jimmy Knepper, Garnett Brown, Cliff Heather (bass tro.).
Rhythm: Roland Hanna (piano), Richard Davis (bass), Mel Lewis (drums, co-leader).
1968, Village Vanguard, New York City. (Oops. Not so. See the first comment below.)
Talking About (& Plugging) Take Five, The Book
The other day at the Portland Jazz Festival someone asked me how my biography of Paul Desmond came about. I gave him the short version, but it occurs to me that folks interested in Desmond might want to hear a fuller account. I gave one a few years ago when I was the guest on Jason Crane’s wonderful interview program The Jazz Session. To hear the podcast, click here.
Hard-cover copies of the Desmond book are getting harder and harder to find, but the Kindle version (click here) , at roughly a third of the hard-cover price, is readily available. (That’s the plug.) The Kindle has all of the photographs, end notes and indexes of the 371-page 10 X 11-inch original…and it’s portable.
While you are on Jason’s site, look down the left-hand column at the interactive list of the dozens—maybe hundreds—of musicians he has interviewed.
Svend Asmussen, 100
Today is the 100th birthday of the great Danish violinist Svend Asmussen. Without going into the details of Asmussen’s long, varied and influential career, let us simply recognize him as one of the handful (or fewer) of violinists who in the 1930s proved their instrument capable of swing and emotional expression at the highest jazz level. He may well be the only man alive who played with Fats Waller, Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli, Stuff Smith and Duke Ellington.
Our first clip is of Asmussen, Alice Babs and guitarist Ulrik Neumann, who were known as the Swe-danes, performing a piece that was a hit in Scandinavia for years. They thrived in the late 1950s.
In the next video, we find Asmussen in 1986 at the Club Montmartre in Copenhagen. His accompanists are Kenny Drew, piano; Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, bass; and Ed Thigpen, drums. The piece is by Duke Ellington.
Thanks to Sven Bjerstedt of Lund University in Malmö, Sweden, for the reminder about Asmussen’s birthday.
Dianne Reeves And Company In Portand
As I reported last summer, Dianne Reeves sang at the Ystad Jazz Festival in Sweden with the Norbotten big band in a balanced concert with many noteworthy moments. However, there is nothing like hearing the formidable Ms. Reeves in her preferred context—her own quartet. Before I left the Portland Jazz Festival, I caught her at the Newmark Theatre with pianist Peter Martin, bassist Reginald Veal, drummer Terreon Gully and the remarkable Brazilian guitarist
Romero Lubambo. Effusive and dramatic in a garment of geometric design, she appeared after the quartet warmed up with “Summertime,†a nice touch in wet and wintry Portland.
In a concert characterized by her easy interaction with the band and the audience, she opened with a version Fleetwood Mac’s “You Will Know†incorporating a background vocal by Gully. She followed with Harold Arlen’s “Stormy Weather†and her composition “Nine,†during which she rapped about the joys of childhood and of aging (“I’m about to turn 59,†she told the audience). Then came “All Blues,†“I’m In Love Again,†“Waiting in Vain,†“Beautiful†and an encore in which she and Martin performed a duet on Sammy Cahn’s “You Taught My Heart to Sing,†scatting her way out over Martin’s rich layering of chords. But the acme of her Portland performance came in a duet with Lubambo on Gershwin’s “Our Love is Here to Stay.†To my knowledge, there is no video of the Portland version, but it was recorded last year at Spain’s Festival de Jazz de San Javier. Toward its end, Martin, Veal and Gully join Lubambo and Ms.Reeves.
For the Rifftides review of Ms. Reeves at Ystad, go here.
Javon Jackson On Coltrane At PDX
With the 2016 Portland Jazz Festival built around the legacy of John Coltrane (1926-1967), Javon Jackson’s appearances were reminders of his tenor saxophone hero’s lasting impact on the music. In a Winningstad Theatre concert, Jackson headed a quartet called We Four. The band included a Coltrane colleague, the veteran drummer Jimmy Cobb; pianist George Cables; and the young bassist Corcoran Holt. Jackson kicked off “So What†at a turbo-charged tempo. In his solo he disclosed his ‘Trane credentials and chops in variations on a phrase adapted from Coltrane’s celebrated solo on the piece in the 1959 Miles Davis Kind of Blue
The 87-year-old Cobb uncharacteristically missed a few strokes as he began his solo on the piece but once warmed up, he played the rest of the set with his customary drive, crisp attack and rhythmic ingenuity. Following Jackson’s unadorned reading of the melody of “My One and Only Love,†Cables integrated melodic asides
into his solo; right-hand fillips commenting on his own improvisation. It was a surprising and beautiful manifestation of the mind’s ability to create simultaneously on two levels. With impressive arco tone, Holt bowed a solo on the song’s bridge section. Jackson ended the tune with an unaccompanied tag that featured harmonics—the playing of two notes at once. Coltrane mastered the technique, and so has Jackson.
We Four paid tribute through several pieces associated with Coltrane. Highlights:
-  Jackson’s huge sound in his lightning foray through the harmonic changes of “If I Were a Bell.â€
- Cables, unaccompanied in a gorgeous “Body and Soul,†reining himself in when he realized he was quoting “Prisoner of Love†for the second time.
- Â Cobb, back in form, exchanging four- and eight-bar phrases with Jackson.
- Jackson at his most Coltraneish on “Someday My Prince Will Come.†Cables’ solo on the piece recalling why Art Pepper nicknamed him “Mr. Beautiful.â€
- Jackson on fire in the encore, “My Shining Hour.â€
The next night, Jackson was the guest artist with a quartet of musicians who help make Portland one 
of most interesting jazz towns in the country. Guitarist Dan Balmer (pictured) was the leader, with Tony Pacini piano; Ed Bennett, bass; and Mel Brown, drums. Playing to a packed house at Jimmy Mak’s club, their repertoire was heavy on pieces by pianist Tommy Flanagan, one of Coltrane’s favorite colleagues in the 1950s. The tunes included “Minor Mishap,†the blues “Freight Trane,†and “Eclypso.†Without the leadership duties of the previous evening, Jackson seemed relaxed in the comfortable surroundings of the club. He again played a superb solo on “My Shining Hour.†Pacini was impressive in a vigorously two-handed solo that had a stirring passage of parallel octaves. Everything Balmer played was alive with the energy that has helped make him an Oregon institution.
Gary Bartz At The PDX Festival
Alto saxophonist Gary Bartz opened his Portland Jazz Festival concert singing a slow blues. He wasn’t lamenting his or anyone else’s troubles. The main message of his lyric was, “Sadness gotta leave this room.†It was his only vocal of the evening. If there was sadness, he banished it quickly in a series of four-bar exchanges with guitarist Paul Bollenback. The quartet picked up the tempo and Bartz soloed with phrasing and humor reminiscent of Sonny Rollins, one of his early inspirations. Indeed, Bartz’s sound has more in common with Rollins’s commodious tenor saxophone tone than with that of most other alto players. In the course of his set he constructed a saxophone triptych of sorts, briefly quoting “Like Sonny,†John Coltrane’s piece in tribute to Rollins.
In his slim-cut suit, Balbo beard and long white hair flowing from under a broad-brimmed hat, Bartz looked the part of a sanctified country preacher. But his music gave him away; he is a thoroughgoing bebop alto player with a personal vision of the music. In the blues and in standard songs including “Wonderful, Wonderful†and Cole Porter’s “I Concentrate on You,†Bartz alternated keening long tones with complex passages. Particularly in the Porter piece, his improvisation often seemed free of the chords, but not to the extent that the sense of the song was lost—a neat trick. Bartz is a
listener. When he wasn’t soloing, he locked in with concentration and evident enjoyment on every solo by Bollenback, bassist James King and drummer Greg Bandy. Bollenback is strangely disregarded in discussions of jazz guitarists despite his history of stimulating work with Bartz, Joey DeFrancesco and Steve Gadd, among others. He soloed well and accompanied Bartz’ solos with blues-inflected chords. Bollenback and Bartz indulged in a couple of free-range games of tag that merged into funky endings. Like Lloyd and bassist Gary Peacock the night before, Bartz did not announce tunes, sliding from one into the next. As he neared the end of the set, he substituted his curved soprano sax for the alto, quoted “I’ll Never Be The Same†and leaned into the blues, riding on Bandy’s drum backbeat and managing to smile as he played.
Sadness had left the room.
Pat Martino And Kenny Barron At The Portland Festival
Pat Martino and Kenny Barron, two of the many Philadelphians appearing at the 2016 Portland Jazz Festival, led their groups in a concert at the Winningstad Theatre. First up, guitarist Martino’s trio with organist Pat Bianchi and drummer Carmen Intorre played a set infused with
the soul feeling that Martino absorbed and refined with the saxophonists Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt and with organists Richard Groove Holmes, Jack McDuff, Jimmy Smith and Don Patterson. Martino is admired equally for his technical agility and a mathematical approach to improvisation that he is able to combine with his blues sensibility. In Portland, that resulted in an exhilarating series of solos. Bianchi at least matched his leader’s verve and inventiveness and in a couple of cases outstripped Martino in swing and interesting ideas. Intorre’s drumming propels without intruding. His ability to place a rhythm accent at precisely the right millisecond was a major factor in the band’s swing.
“Footprints†showed up on so many festival set lists that it could qualify as the unofficial PDX festival theme song. Martino and Bianchi reached what might have been the set’s apogee with their soloing on the piece. But the trio followed it with an opulent “’Round Midnight,†then topped that with a double encore of Sonny Rollins’s “Oleo†and Bobby Hebb’s “Sunny.â€* Martino’s recovery from the effects of a brain aneurism more than thirty years ago is one of the great bad news/good news stories in the jazz world. The good news is that he fought back through serious memory loss to learn the guitar all over again and reestablish himself as one of the instrument’s finest players. This concert made that clear.
Another established firm took over when pianist Kenny Barron (pictured at rehearsal) brought bassist Kyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Jonathan Blake to the stage. As if he had inherited a portion of Bud Powell’s manic energy, Barron tore into “Bud Like,†his composition named with Powell in mind. He unquestionably makes use of Powell’s way with harmony, although Barron’s softer keyboard touch is a major part of the individuality he brings to whatever he plays. “Lullaby,†another original, was a waltz in which Blake’s brushes provided a backdrop for Barron’s application of that touch and for the pianist’s ingenuity in deepening a tune’s harmonic interest. “Nightfall†was Barron’s tribute to the ballad’s composer, the late bassist Charlie Haden, with whom he recorded a memorable live duet album. Barron featured Kitagawa as a soloist in “New York Attitude,†an original Barron composition. It seems to reflect the city’s nervous energy and the lilt that New Yorkers often feel in the atmosphere and pace that energy creates. Kitagawa’s solo was attuned to the energy. The tempo was fast.
Kitagawa and Blake went to the wings for Barron’s unaccompanied medley of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn pieces. He played one chorus each of the melodies of “Lotus Blossom,†“A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing,†“Melancholia†and “Star Crossed Lovers,†flowing from one to the next and investing them with rich harmonic underpinnings. With Kitagawa and Blake back, Barron played “Cook’s Bay,†a piece he wrote for the album Spirit Song, released in 2000. Kitagawa had another powerful solo. Called back for an encore, Barron kicked off a tempo and the trio went to work on a lightning-fast series of choruses on the changes of Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm.†It was a breathtaking closer.
If you’d like to hear my Saturday conversation with Barron, go to Oregon Music News. The publication is archiving all of the festival’s Art Bar conversations.
*The initial post of this review mistakenly attributed the authorship of “Sunny” to Stevie Wonder. Thanks to knowledgeable readers Art Manchester and Bob Blumenthal for catching the error.
Charles Lloyd & Gary Peacock In Portland
Charles Lloyd Quartet
Rather than the electrified two-guitar quintet he calls the Marvels, the saxophonist CharlesLloyd brought his traditional quartet to the Portland Jazz Festival.
They played a memorable concert. Supported by players decades younger, the 77-year-old Lloyd opened with a section of his “Ruminations†suite. His tone, which is both light and powerful, gave wing to inventions suggesting that he might have been ruminating about John Coltrane, Igor Stravinsky and Claude Debussy. As usual, Lloyd did not announce the names of the pieces he played and, as is his custom, said not one word to the audience. Words were unnecessary except, perhaps, to satisfy curiosity about the repertoire. Post-concert inquiries disclosed that the next piece was “Flying Over The Odra Valley†and the one after that was “Gardner,†which had a minor key, almost eastern European cast about it. Then came “Nu Blues,†in which Lloyd’s Memphis musical upbringing and roots were movingly on display.
Lloyd’s interest in the work of his sidemen led him to move into the curve of the piano when Gerald Clayton was soloing and listen intently, as if he was memorizing the notes. Sometimes 
bobbing or swaying in place, Lloyd gave bassist Joe Sanders and drummer Eric Harland (pictured left) the same close attention. The quartet’s unity was remarkable through the traditional Mexican song “La Llorona†and three parts of The Wild Man Suite, which they recently recorded. All three of the sidemen soloed extensively, inspiring extended applause. For the encore, Lloyd made a medley of Preston and Fisher’s “You Are So Beautiful†and Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday,†and gave them a spiritual connection. He and his young colleagues got a standing ovation that was even longer than the Portland audience’s customary standing ovations.
With decades in the jazz mainstream and the avant-garde behind him, the 80-year-old bassist Gary Peacock is at the helm of a trio that blends elements of both genres. He may be best known as a member of Keith Jarrett’s trio, but Peacock’s resume includes work with artists as diverse as Bud Shank, Bill Evans, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Ralph Towner and Paul Bley.
                              Peacock     Baron     Copland
Peacock, pianist Marc Copland and drummer Joey Baron began their Portland concert with “Estate†(Italian for “Summer) which, with recordings by Shirley Horn, Peggy Lee and Joao Gilberto, has become a standard. Peacock tightly integrated his opening solo with the contrasting pop and snap of Baron’s drumming and the smoothness of Copland’s accompaniment. Endlessly energetic and inventive, Baron spread a blanket of cymbal, mallet and brush strokes for a riff-like Peacock
bass pattern that set up “Footprints,†the Wayne Shorter piece played by several bands at this festival. Peacock maintained his bass pattern for Copland’s solo. Baron continued to sculpt patterns of his own that continued during the virtuoso Peacock solo that followed Copland’s. Baron switched from brushes to sticks for a melodic solo that included a deftly placed “Salt Peanuts†quote that brought smiles from his colleagues and chuckles in the audience.
In Copland’s original composition “Time Was,†Baron’s liquid brushwork was a highlight. The trio’s interaction and the rapt attention they paid to one another during Copland’s “Moor†inspired a one-word declaration from a woman seated near me. “Dialogue,†she said. It was an apt summation of their approach. Later in the set, the communication in a piece that was either “Solar†or was based on it reached a level of communication that amounted to a sensitively attuned musical conversation.
Sonny Fortune
At the Portland Jazz Festival, scheduling is tight and overlapping. Sullivan Fortner at Classic Pianos (see the previous post) opened the festival simultaneously with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra at the Newmark Theatre and alto saxophonist Sonny Fortune at Jimmy Mak’s club.
Fortune, 75, has lost none of the force that he took from Philadelphia to New York when he joined drummer Elvin Jones in 1967. Opening his late set at Mak’s he launched into Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints†with volume and intensity that surprised a man at a ringside table into yelling, “Whoa.†Whoaing was the last thing on Fortune’s mind. For the rest of the evening, he poured energy into every note, abetted by a rhythm section locked onto his wavelength. Following 
Fortune’s “Footprints†explosion, pianist Theo Saunders eased off before invigorating his solo in a series of keyboard flurries and parallel chords.
In Fortune’s “Waynish,†dedicated to Shorter, he played a series of repetitions that amounted to a rhythmic composition within a composition. Tenor saxophonist Azar Lawrence, who had introduced the band, sat in on the tune for a busy solo. Following John Coltrane’s death, Lawrence worked with Coltrane’s pianist McCoy Tyner. He was to be featured later in the festival in a concert dedicated to Coltrane.
Fortune filled the room with his cavernous flute sound in his “Awakening,†opening it unaccompanied and exploring harmonic relationships. After the rhythm section joined him, he played a long solo that worked into another affair with rhythmic displacement. Saunders’ solo developed a pattern that seemed to draw on “A Love Supreme.†Bassist Henry Franklin made attractive use of sliding notes in his solo. The ballad highlight of the set was “A Tribute to Billie Holiday,†a Fortune composition with intriguing harmonies of which Saunders and Franklin took advantage.
Throughout the set, Franklin, a contemporary of Fortune, frequently smiled at Saunders in reaction to a felicitous phrase or chord change. The rhythm section listened keenly to one another. Drummer Marvin “Smitty†Smith—at 55 the youngster in the quartet—has been valuable over the years to Art Farmer, Dave Holland, Steve Coleman and Archie Shepp, among dozens of others. A sympathetic accompanist and an imaginative improviser, he was fast and resourceful in a solo on “Caravan†that to great effect incorporated brushes, then mallets. In Fortune’s solo on the Juan Tizol piece, he vamped at length with the rhythm section before arriving at a paraphrase of parts of the melody, vamped again and busied himself with riffing whose resemblance to “Flight of the Bumblebee†may have been a coincidence. Amused, Franklin bestowed beatific smiles on the saxophonist, who didn’t notice. Fortune’s solo went on for chorus after chorus. When he finally wrapped it up and ended the tune, the audience applauded, cheered and rose to its feet for an ovation. Fortune bowed and smiled vaguely, as if he knew something they didn’t.
To come: Reports on Charles Lloyd, Gary Peacock and Gary Bartz, among others. I’m about to hop on the Max light rail system—a splendid Portland feature—and head to more music.
Sullivan Fortner In Portland
In his solo piano concert opening the Portland Jazz Festival last night, Sullivan Fortner surveyed a wide territory of styles and wrapped them into his own. At the Bösendorfer grand in the recital hall of Classic Pianos, Fortner’s program ranged from a spiky treatment of Bronislaw Kaper’s “Invitation†through an encore saluting Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.
Fresh from winning the American Pianists Association’s Cole Porter Fellowship in Jazz, Fortner incorporated influences both subtle and obvious. He used the blues to work his way into “Making Whoopee and invested the performance with a rollicking quote from “Surrey With The Fringe on Top†and a sly borrowing from Willie The Lion Smith’s “Echoes of Spring.†Fortner seems anything but calculated in his improvisations. In “Someone to Watch Over Me,†he led himself briefly into what might have been a blind harmonic alley and with a daring octave leap found a way out. He made a transition from Bill Evans’s “Very Early†to his own composition “Ballade,†which included a lovely cycle-of-5ths section. Although he can be dazzling in his use of technique, nothing Fortner plays seems intended purely for effect. He made clever paraphrases of the melody in “Just One of Those Things,†worked in a few seconds of waltz time, hinted at James P. Johnson’s swing feeling, then went into the full stride piano style of which Johnson was the master. Introducing his melding of Ellington’s “Single Petal of a Rose†and Strayhorn’s “Star Crossed Lovers,†he described their storied partnership as a “love story†inspired by the Divinity, then reflected on his own love of the piano and of music.
Fortner dedicated “My Favorite Things†to John Coltrane. He created an introduction that may have had its inspiration in Coltrane’s free period, slid into a liberal interpretation of the famous melody, made a tag ending that flirted with ¾ time, then used a series of key changes to bring the piece home. The festival—dedicated to Coltrane—was off to a good start.
(Photo by Mark Sheldon)
Portland Bound
Shortly, I am going to head south, turn right, drive west through the Columbia River Gorge—shown above—and spend the next few days in one of my favorite former hometowns at the Portland Jazz Festival .
This year’s PDX Festival is built around the legacy of John Coltrane (1926-1967). Its brochure says,
John Coltrane at 90 is a musical retrospective that will cover many aspects of John’s career, including showcasing musicians who have played with him in the past, tributes to well-known collaborators and special performances that will highlight the Festival’s concerts.
Among the performers in the festival’s run of nearly two weeks will be Ravi Coltrane (pictured 
right), Charles Lloyd, Sonny Fortune, Pharaoh Sanders, Gary Bartz, Javon Jackson, Jimmy Greene, James Carter, Joe Lovano and other saxophonists who have come to prominence under Coltrane’s influence. Among the festival’s other main-stage artists will be Chuck Israels (pictured left), Pat Martinto, Kenny Barron, the Brian Blade Fellowship, Dianne Reeves, John Scofield and Orrin Evans. To see
the complete rundown, go here. In addition to the main events, many of Portland’s clubs, restaurants and lounges will present artists from the Pacific Northwest’s extensive jazz talent pool. It would be impossible to hear more than a fraction of the possibilities. Inevitably, two or three worthy performances are happening at the same time.
Kenny Barron (on the right) may appear skeptical, but I’m looking forward to my public conversation with him in the Art Bar of the Portland Centers For The Arts this Saturday afternoon.
I will post Rifftides reports on as many performances as possible.
This Year’s Grammys
In case you have been in solitary confinement and haven’t heard the news, below are the winners of 2016 Grammys in the jazz category. The links (in blue) are to Rifftides posts that contain reviews of three of the winning albums.
Improvised Jazz Solo
“Cherokee”, Christian McBride
Jazz Vocal Album
For One to Love, Cécile McLorin Salvant
Jazz Instrumental Album
Past Present, John Scofield
Large Jazz Ensemble Album
The Thompson Fields, Maria Schneider Orchestra
Latin Jazz Album
Made in Brazil, Eliane Elias
Evans And Bennett: The CBC Program
It’s not his birthday or the anniversary of his death, but Bill Evans seems to be in the air. Perhaps he’s always in the air. Response to the previous Rifftides post seems to say so.
Pianist Jack Reilly, whose two books on the subject are indispensible to appreciation of Evans’s harmony, sent an alert to a television program that could be thought of as an adjunct to his studies of Evans. The 1976 show aired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation gives us the opportunity to intimately observe Evans’s harmonic, and melodic, genius in solo and as an accompanist. The half-hour show aired in 1976 on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It reunited Evans with Tony Bennett. They reprised songs from the two albums they made together. Here is the progam in its entirety. The video quality supports full screen viewing.
Thanks to YouTube contributor Jim Kauffman for posting the Evans-Bennett video.
Bill Evans And Camera Three
Last month’s Rifftides post titled “Evans After LaFaro†included video of the Bill Evans Trio in a 1962 performance that I credited to Italian television because of its imprint RAIDUE, the name of an Italian broadcast company. Reader Peter Levin’s detective work turned up the true source of the clip. He wrote,
Here is my two cents worth on the origin of the video. I think it’s from Robert Herridge’s half-hour Sunday morning CBS-TV show Camera Three, filmed in 1962 (probably at Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center). It is noted in David Meeker’s filmography Jazz on Screen.
Many thanks to Mr. Levin. Evidently, the Italians added their logo to a dub of the Camera Three program. Meeker identifies Paul Motian as the drummer with Evans and bassist Chuck Israels. The Meeker catalog listing shows that the trio played “Nardis,†“Time Remembered,†“Waltz For Debby,†“Re: Person I Knew†and “Blue In Green†in addition to the version of “In Your Own Sweet Way†posted here in January. I have been able to find no indication that CBS-TV archived the entire program. The only video evidence is in the clip we showed you a month ago, a fragment of “Nardis,†and a clip of “Blue In Green†so badly rendered that it would be unuseable except that the audio is acceptable and the playing is superb. The black and white camera-card notice before the music starts is annoying, but nothing can be done about it. What the heck, here are the two complete Camera Three performances. We’re lucky to have them.
If anyone runs down video of the complete program, please let me know.
Presidents Day 2016: George, Abe And Lester
In the United States, this is Presidents Day. It falls between the birthdays of two of our greatest leaders, Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and George Washington (February 22). Many years ago, there was a movement in the Congress to consolidate the two observances into one holiday that would honor all US presidents. The effort never resulted in an official national holiday, but department stores and automobile dealerships liked the idea so much that they declared it a holiday and celebrate it by having huge sales to increase their profits and by advertising that results in Sunday newspapers weighing five pounds. To read the confused history of Presidents Day, go here.
Among jazz blogs and websites, taking advantage of Presidents Day as a reason to mention Lester Young has become a cliché. Clichés get to be clichés because they strike a chord and are repeated so often that they become a part of the collective consciousness. When Billie Holiday declared that Lester Young was the president of the tenor saxophonists, she planted the seed of a cliché that I am happy to perpetuate.
Ladies and gentlemen—on Presidents Day we present Lester Young in one of his greatest recordings. This was 1943. Prez with Johnny Guarnieri, Slam Stewart and Sid Catlett.
Oscar Peterson liked Young’s final eight bars so much that he incorporated it whenever he played “Sometimes I’m Happy,†as in this long version.
Jack Brownlow, who played piano with Lester in the 1940s, wrote a lyric for Prez’s ending.
I can find a ray
On the rainiest day.
If I am with you,
The cloudy skies all turn to blue.
My disposition really changes when you’re near.
Every day’s a happy day with you, my dear.
Happy Presidents Day.
The Old Catchup Game (Part II): Geller, Magris, Washington, Diehl, Wheeler
Not to make too big a deal of it; I know I’ve mentioned it once or twice before. But it’s impossible to keep up with the torrential flow of jazz releases. All we can do is try. Here’s the latest attempt—four entries.
An Evening With Herb Geller & The Roberto Magris Trio (JMood)
In the years before his death in late 2013, the American alto saxophonist Herb Geller often traveled from his home in Hamburg for appearances with Italian pianist Roberto Magris and his trio. This last live Geller album is from the 2009 Novi Sad Jazz Festival in Serbia, with bonus tracks recorded shortly after at Vienna’s Porgy & Bess club. It finds Geller still thriving at 81, playing heartily and treating the audience to stories about several of the tunes in his repertoire. He emphasizes his debt to Benny Carter, then performs a moving version of Carter’s “Lonely Woman.†The album has Geller in good form in pieces by Johnny Mandel, Zoot Sims, Cole Porter and Billy Strayhorn, among others. The energy and joy he pours into Frank Loesser’s “If I Were A Bell†inspire Magris and the young bassist Nikola Matosic to solo with equal vigor. Enzo Carpentieri is the resourceful drummer.
The recent Magris album Morgan Rewind, also on JMood, has the pianist at the head of a septet paying spirited tribute to trumpeter Lee Morgan.
Kamasi Washington, The Epic (Brainfeeder)
Much of the publicity surrounding Kamasi Washington, a young tenor saxophonist from Los Angeles,
concentrates on his connections to the hip-hop phenomenon (Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus, et al). That may cause apprehension among those yet to be enamored of hip-hop. They needn’t be too concerned.
In fact, this is a jazz album. It comes close to living up to its title—in the C.B. DeMille sense. Washington’s epic involves a 32-piece orchestra, a 20-voice chorus, two drummers, two bassists, at least one synthesizer, organ, piano and four horns. I heard Washington as part of someone else’s band at last year’s Portland Jazz Festival, admired the size of his sound and thought it would be interesting to see what might become of him. Six months or so later, this album showed up. I finally carved out the time to listen to its 3 compact discs. Washington incorporates much of the post-Coltrane tradition and spirit. He bows significantly toward late-career Miles Davis. His playing suggests familiarity not only with later Coltrane but also with Albert Ayler, Pharaoh Sanders and free jazz in general. And yet, this massive undertaking makes sense thematically. It is disciplined, carefully thought out and has attractive blends of instruments. Some of Washington’s solos follow Coltrane’s lead in going on too long, but in general it’s an adventurous, disciplined album with variety that makes for stimulating listening.
Aaron Diehl, Space Time Continuum (Mack Avenue)
Pianist Diehl attracted attention and favorable reviews with his first album, The Bespoke Man’s Narrative. Touring and recording with singer Cécile McLorin Savant brought him further acclaim for his thoroughgoing musicianship and grasp of all aspects of the jazz tradition. With bassist David Wong and drummer Quincy Davis rounding out a solid rhythm section, Diehl brings in four collaborators. The young tenor saxophonist Stephen Riley appears on two tracks, pleasing with his light tone and impressive for fluency and harmonic acuity reminiscent of Lucky Thompson and Benny Golson. Perhaps not coincidentally, Golson plays on two tracks. There is a rollicking guest shot on another by the venerable baritone saxophonist Joe Temperley.
With Diehl, you expect allusions to things past. Here, in a performance of his “Santa Maria†you get a bow toward Chick Corea’s “Matrix.†The rising singer Charnee Wade performs the album’s title tune. Her substantial voice brings additional power to Ms. McLorin Savant’s spiritual lyric. Diehl, Wong, Davi, Golson and Harris end the piece with individual statements, then a stretch of simultaneous soloing by everyone, including Ms. Wade. That wraps up the album with an appealing bumptiousness as it fades out.
Kenny Wheeler, Songs For Quintet (ECM)
The somber black and white photo on the cover of the great trumpeter’s last album—indeed, his
final performance—might lead a listener to expect stark, autumnal music. Nine months before Kenny Wheeler died in 2014, his celebrated extreme high register was gone, but his lyricism and sense of beauty were intact. He had confined his playing to the trumpet’s gentler cousin the flugelhorn. If anything, his expression was more profound. Little abrasions in some of his notes, burryness in his tone, don’t matter because the content he invents in piece after piece is perfection. The emotion he expresses and the clarity of the spontaneous composing in his solos are flawlessly in synch. Guitarist John Parricelli, bassist Chris Laurence, and especially tenor saxophonist Stan Sulzmann and drummer Martin France, made Wheeler’s last quintet a nonpareil vessel and a mirror for his brilliance. There is much in Wheeler’s long career to remember him by. Songs For Quintet provides a heartfelt Amen.
For a Rifftides review of a 2008 Wheeler album, and another by one of his admirers, go here.
Recent Recordings: Shipp, Allen, Lundgren & Kilgore
For the next couple of Rifftides sessions, let’s try to catch up with the ceaseless incoming flow of jazz recordings. Catching up can’t be done, of course, but why not enjoy attempting the impossible? The first installment considers a few relatively recent releases.
Matthew Shipp Trio, The Conduct Of Jazz (Thirsty Ear)
Pianist Matthew Shipp’s solo, duo, trio and quartet CDs appear so frequently that the only way to keep up with them would be to leave little time for other listening. Following last year’s tribute to Ellington, To Duke, the pianist applies his imagination, risk-taking and formidable technique to seven of his own compositions. The mainstream jazz current that has flowed through his music even at its most daring is strong here, notably so in “Blue Abyss†and “Primary Form.†Michael Bisio is again the pianist’s bassist, joined at the hip with Shipp. The veteran Newman Taylor Baker is in for Shipp’s longtime drummer Whit Dickey. The setup riff for the title tune might serve as an introduction to Bernstein’s “Something’s Coming.†Shipp incorporates a dancing feeling that would be compatible with an avant garde Broadway musical, if there were such a thing. Baker has thoughtful drum breaks in the piece that speak of his bebop and post-bop leanings. Shipp’s unaccompanied solo piece, “Stream of Light,†seems to be sheer invention, with no apparent compositional reference points. Yet, it hangs together as a high point of the album.
For Rifftides reviews of previous Matthew Shipp albums, enter his name in the search box at the top right of the page.
Harry Allen, Jan Lundgren, Quietly There (Stunt Records)
American tenor saxophonist Allen and Swedish pianist Lundgren play nine of Johnny Mandel’s
best-known compositions. Bassist Hans Backenroth (Swedish) and drummer Kristian Leth (Danish) add to the spirit of international cooperation. For the most part, Allen avoids the blandness that has sometimes encouraged naps during his solos. More than that, he all but explodes with energy in “Cinnamon and Clove,†which has an equally stirring Lundgren solo. Allen ends the piece with a saxophone sigh of satisfaction. In “Suicide is Painless,†the theme from M*A*S*H, both dig into stirring double-time passages. Backenroth’s bass line and Leth’s brushes on his snare drum work hand-in-hand to give “Quietly There†propulsion that makes the piece at once relaxed and compelling. The quartet performs loving versions of two classic Mandel ballads, “A Time For Love†and “Just A Child.†This 2014 album got lost in the shuffle and worked its way back to the top of the logjam. I’m glad that it did.
Rebecca Kilgore, Moonshadow Dance (Cherry Pie Music)
The press release that came with Rebecca Kilgore’s new album quotes Johnny Mandel:
When Rebecca sings, the sun comes out.
She is not only sunny here, as usual, but sings with diction, lyric interpretation and time feeling that since her early career have kept her in the front rank of jazz singers. She performs songs mostly written by fellow Portlanders Ellen Vanderslice and Mike Horsfall. Some have her own words and music. Ms. Kilgore imparts meaning even to spoofy lyrics like those of her “Happy Birthday, Generic.†Her colleagues from the Pacific Northwest’s pool of world-class musicians include vibraharpist Horsfall, pianist Randy Porter, bassist Tom Wakeling, drummer Todd Strait, guitarist Dan Balmer and trumpeter Dick Titterington. The promotional video features Rachel Lidskog-Lim and Jack Lim of Dance With Joy Studios, dancing to the title song.
The original material is a departure from Ms. Kilgore’s customary repertoire from the Great American Songbook. Her musicianship and that of the accompanying musicians make it a success. The album is available here as a CD or an MP3 download.
For Fun: Nicole Johänntgen
The German saxophonist Nicole Johänntgen is one of Europe’s busiest musicians, traveling frequently from her home in Switzerland to play with a cross-section of the continent’s jazz artists. In a review, the critic Mane Stelzer called her “a bundle of energy with great creative power.†Ms. Johänntgen has organized a movement called Sofia that is dedicated to bringing together accomplished women jazz artists. A recent promotional video brings her together with herself—in quadruplicate.
For a Rifftides review of Ms Johänntgen and Sofia at last summer’s Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival, go here.