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The End of Elaine's
There was a sad changing-times story this week in New York City, where it was big news. Elaine's, the Upper East Side restaurant that for nearly five decades has been a meeting place and hangout for writers, theater and film people and a few musicians, is closing. Elaine Kaufman, who founded the restaurant, died last December. ...
Listening Tip: Kirchner's 100th
Bill Kirchner is a saxophonist, arranger, composer, teacher, editor and historian who finds time to also be a broadcaster. Since 2002, he has been a host on Jazz From The Archives, a highlight in the schedule of WBGO-FM, the Newark, New Jersey, jazz station. He has devoted 99 programs to the work of other leading musicians. ...
Woody Shaw: Ginseng People
Woody Shaw died 22 years ago this month. A trumpeter of power, taste, a subtle harmonic sense and admirable originality, Shaw was long burdened with critiques that described him as a disciple, if not a copy, of Freddie Hubbard, who was six years his senior. This recording they made together—out of print, expensive and worth says ...
Bruce Ricker, Documentarian, RIP
Bruce Ricker, the producer-director of a series of documentaries about American musicians, has died. He succumbed to pneumonia on Friday, May 13, at a hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was 68. Ricker's most recent release was last year's Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way. Among his other films were the stories of Jim Hall, Tony ...
Weekend Extra: Young Ella on Film
In what may have been her motion picture debut, here is Ella Fizgerald at 25 in the 1942 Abbott and Costello comedy Ride 'Em Cowboy. With her in the sequence are the Merry Macs singing and the Lindy Hoppers lindy-hopping. This was at about the time she had stopped fronting the Chick Webb band and moved ...
Other Places: A Jazzfest Post-Mortem
In January, after looking over the lineup for this year's New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which was laden with rock and pop, I wrote: More than five years after Katrina, with the city recovering but much of it still resembling a post-war nightmare, a party called a jazz festival symbolizes New Orleans' determination to recover. ...
Snooky Young, 1919-2011
Reports emerged late last night that Snooky Young died on May 5 at the age of 92. Young was that rare combination, a great lead trumpeter who was also a soloist of exceptional imagination, taste and humor. He began as a professional musician when he was a teenager in Dayton, Ohio. At 20, he joined he ...
A Clifford Jordan Revival
Rifftides reader Debra Kinzler's notice that a quartet of Clifford Jordan's admirers will revive his Glass Bead Games prompts me to post a slightly revised version of a 2007 piece about a landmark recording that became unavailable for too long. Ms. Kinzler informs us that tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake, pianist Eric Reed, drummer Billy Drummond and ...
Geller Plays Strayhorn
At 82, Herb Geller is still living in Germany, still touring in Europe, with occasional—too rare— visits to his US homeland. Here he is last February in Aberdeen, Scotland, at a club called the Blue Lamp. His rhythm section is pianist Paul Kirby, bassist Martin Zenker and drummer Rick Hollander. They play Billy Strayhorn's “Johnny Come ...
