Home » Search Center » Results: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Results for "Rifftides by Doug Ramsey"
Bruce Janu: Sinatra and Sudan
It sometimes takes Rifftides posts a while to catch up with their subjects. On August 22, 2006, I reported the results of research into the matter of a high school teacher who received a lot of attention in 1993 for using Frank Sinatra to punish miscreant students. Sinatra did not come to class to administer the ...
Tributes to Bob Florence
Friends and admirers of Bob Florence, including his Limited Edition band, gathered at the Catalina Bar and Grill in Hollywood on June 15 to pay tribute to the arranger, composer, leader and pianist.. Florence died exactly a month earlier at the age of seventy-five. In Florence's honor, the piano remained silent. A jazz fan and videographer, ...
Ernestine Anderson's Predicament
Around 1955 (I must have been in kindergarten), I went to a concert at the 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle and for the first time heard Ernestine Anderson. She sang with a big band. I was impressed with the quality of her voice, her phrasing, her time, the lack of gimmickry in her delivery and how ...
Comparisons Are Not Necessarily Odorous
From time to time, Rifftides readers have suggested that in evaluations of music I should pay more attention to sound quality. Like many musicians and critics, although certainly not all, I concentrate more on the notes than the reproduction. Once when Paul Desmond and I were listening to an ancient LP, I apologized for the scratches. ...
Is It Tatum Or...?
In the 1970s, Red Garland told me about the pianists who influenced him when he was learning. He mentioned Nat Cole, James P. Johnson, Luckey Roberts, Teddy Wilson and Bud Powell. Then he said, Tatum, of course was the master. He was Mr. Piano. The first time I heard a Tatum record--I think it ...
Listening Tip: Abene with Kirchner
Saxophonist, composer, arranger, band leader and educator Bill Kirchner is also a broadcaster. For several years, his Jazz From The Archives series has been airing on Sunday nights on WBGO-FM in Newark, New Jersey, just across the river from New York City. It is also heard on the worldwide web. His next program will feature another ...
How I Conquered Space
Anyone with a large compact disc collection will understand the difficult choice I faced: get rid of several hundred CDs (at least), build a wing on the house to accommodate the collection or find a way to make the existing shelves hold more. The point of desperation was approaching, fast. Then a friend casually mentioned that ...
Sue, Sue, What Were You Thinking?
When I was researching last month's entry about Paul Desmond and the Scopitone, I encountered a film that seemed so unlikely, I set it aside to share with you later and only now remembered it. The divine Sue Raney, it turns out, was a Scopitone artist. I doubt that this song survives in her repertoire, but ...
Compatible Quotes: Joe Zawinul
One day I heard a pianist play “Honeysuckle Rose," ...and I was hooked. I said, “What is that?" He said, “jazz," which was a word I had never heard, and I asked him to spell it for me. My life was changed after that. --Joe Zawinul I am an improviser... I improvise music. Whatever you want ...
