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Teachout on Lees
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Tributes to Gene Lees continue, for good reason. A line from Longfellow applies: “Dead he is not, but departed - for the artist never dies."
Terry Teachout remembers Gene in today's Wall Street Journal:
Had Gene been born sooner, he would surely have been as famous and successful as the top songwriters of the '30s and '40s. But he came along after the cultural tide of jazz had started to ebb, and by the time his songs were making their ...Continue Reading
Jeff Sultanof on Gene Lees
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Since the Rifftides entry about Gene Lees' death on April 22, we have received a flood of comments. They are posted in the comments section at the end of that piece. A couple of days later, Gene's friend Jeff Sultanof sent me a message that he intended as a private communique. I was moved by it and persuaded Jeff to revise it as a guest column. My intention was to post it four days ago, but the malware Darth Vader ...
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Kenny Davern, Remembered
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Jazz Lives by Michael Steinman
First, some comedy. The last time I saw Kenny Davern in action was at Sunnie Sutton's 2006 Rocky Mountain Jazz Party--only a few months before his death. At the dinner for musicians and friends the night before the party started, Kenny took a napkin off one of the tables, draped it over his arm, and transformed himself into an elderly, mournful New York Jewish waiter, asking each table, “Is anything all right?"
Then, in the middle of a set, he ...
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The Legacy of Freddie Hubbard
Source:
The Independent Ear by Willard Jenkins
The attitude pendulum towards creative artists most often swings most heavily-- as it should--to the enormity of their gifts with the passage of time for those whose careers were marked by questionable behavior. Our collective memory tends to soften towards those guilty of even the most egregious behavioral lapses after they've passed on to ancestry, and as time allows us the opportunity to ponder what they left here for us to learn; their respective human frailties are dealt with a ...
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Happy Birthday, Richard "Groove" Holmes!
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Riffs on Jazz by John Anderson
Organist Richard “Groove" Holmes (born May 2, 1931) must have been extremely fond of his nickname. Or the marketing people at the record labels he recorded for were just cashing in on his brand. For whatever reason, variations on the word groove appear in numerous album titles:Groovin' with Jug (1961)Blue Groove (1967)The Groover! (1968)Workin' on a Groovy Thing (1969)New Groove (1974)Groove's Groove (1991) Songs recorded with the same theme included “Groove's Groove," “Groovin for Mr. G," and “Let's ...
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Multi-Instrumentalist/Composer Fred Frith Interviewed at AAJ...And More!
Source:
All About Jazz
Since emerging in the 1970s with the fearless British group Henry Cow, multi-instrumentalist Fred Frith has built a career that's as comfortable in the realm of contemporary classical music as it is the equally innovative arena of free improvisation. From collaborations with John Zorn to his latest “rock" group, Cosa Brava, Frith refuses to sit still; instead, constantly mining the farthest reaches of musical style for a personal amalgam that's as far-reaching globally as it is intimate in its reflection ...
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Guitarist Andre Matos Interviewed at AAJ
Source:
All About Jazz
There is no doubt that Andre Matos has chops to burn. Placed firmly in the tradition of John Abercrombie and Pat Martino, with a bit of Sonny Sharrock at moments, a lot of Berklee (College of Music) influence is readily apparent, but with a bit of headiness that also reflects the guitarist's time at the New England Conservatory. Quare (2010), released on saxophonist Greg Osby's record Inner Circle Music label, serves as a nice introduction to Matos' compositional skills as ...
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Old-Time Jazz Swing, but Modern Metabolism
Source:
Michael Ricci
The New York jazz landscape has always been defined partly by its underground, with the tacit understanding that such a region is usually zoned for experimentation. That's as true as it ever was, but it's an incomplete truth because of all that it overlooks. One case in point would be the Ear Regulars, the traditional jazz cohort led by the trumpeter Jon-Erik Kellso and the guitarist Matt Munisteri every Sunday night at the Ear Inn, on the westernmost edge of ...
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