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Pete Fountain
As I prepared to leave Ystad, I learned that clarinetist Pete Fountain died on Saturday in New Orleans. By way of his recordings and television exposure, he became an unofficial and effective cultural spokesman for his beloved hometown and was happy to return there following his years in the 1950s with Lawrence Welk’s TV show. Despite ...
Compatible Quotes: Life In Music, Music In Life
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music!" —Sergei Rachmaninoff “They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art." —Charlie Parker “Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life." —Ludwig Van Beethoven “My goal is to live the truly ...
Claude Williamson 1926-2016
Claude Williamson, a piano mainstay of jazz in California for seven decades, died on July 16 in Los Angeles. He had been in decline since he fell in his home in 2015 and broke a hip. After Williamson moved from Boston to L.A. in 1947, he played with Charlie Barnet’s band for two years and was ...
Passings: Friedman, Jones, Thompson
The generations move on. It’s a sad part of an observer’s task to acknowledge the deaths of musicians who made important contributions. Pianist Don Friedman died of pancreatic cancer at home in New York City on June 30. He was 81. Friedman was treasured by fellow musicians for the subtlety and strength of his support as ...
Clare Fischer’s “America The Beautiful”
Whatever your Fourth Of July weekend plans, the understated perfection in the late Clare Fischer’s arrangement of “America Beautiful” will help you to a calm beginning of what can be a raucous, joyous holiday. It’s from Fischer’s classic 1967 album Songs For Rainy Day Lovers. To Columbia Records’ discredit, the label has never reissued Songs For ...
Monday Recommendation: Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker, Unheard Bird: The Unissued Takes (Verve) Charlie Parker has never disappeared from the consciousness of serious jazz listeners. This two-CD collection, due out on Friday, could go a long way toward helping new generations discover the stunning purity and power of Parker’s creativity. Subtitled “The Unissued Takes,” the album brings together 69 unissued tracks ...
Weekend Extra: Roland Kirk
I once wrote about the Roland Kirk of the days—”long before he added ‘Rahsaan’ to his name, before he became famous, when he was a tornado roaring out of the Midwest, totally blind and full of insight, playing three saxophones at once, whistles, flute and siren at the ready on a chain around his neck. Kirk ...
Monday Recommendation (A Day Late): Matt Wilson
Matt Wilson's Big Happy Family, Beginning Of A Memory (Palmetto) The title belies the pain of the loss that inspired Matt Wilson’s essentially jovial—even jocular—album. The drummer assembled a dozen of his musical colleagues to celebrate his wife Felicia, who died of leukemia two years ago. “Flowers For Felicia” and “July Hymn,” are instances of quiet ...
Jeremy Steig, 1942-2016
Flutist Jeremy Steig died on April 13 at his home in Japan. He was 73. His death wasconfirmed days after the fact. “He didn’t like to read about musicians’ deaths in newspaper obituaries,” his wife Asako told The New York Times. “He wanted me to delay the announcement of his death, so that it wouldn’t really ...
Why The Cornet? (Revisited And Revised With Video)
Because of circumstances too complicated and mundane to relate, there will be no Monday Recommendation today. Stuff happens. Maybe there will be a Tuesday Recommendation tomorrow. In the meantime, here is a Rifftides post that appeared nearly ten years ago. Possibly you had forgotten about it. The staff has removed outdated links and added video that ...
