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Billy Bang, 1947-2011
The violinist Billy Bang, who created himself as a jazz musician out of the trauma of the Vietnam war, died yesterday at 63. Inhabited by his combat experiences, his emotions wounded, Bang found relief and rehabilitation by returning to the violin he had studied as a child. He pursued an intensity of expression that helped that ...
Toots and Grace
The first section following the introduction of my 1989 book Jazz Matters is titled “A Common Language." It ends with this: Like every art form, jazz has a fund of devices unique to it and universally employed by those who practice it. Among the resources of the jazz tradition available to the player creating an improvised ...
Meet Olaf Polziehn
Researching key signatures in performances of “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams," I made a discovery. Everyone else out there may have known about Olaf Polziehn, but he was new to me. After I heard him play the piece (in E-flat), further research turned up these facts: Polziehn is 40 years old. He was born in Ludwigsburg, ...
Jazz Relief for Japan--on Two Coasts
he Vanguard Jazz Orchestra played to a packed Village Vanguard in New York in its Japan earthquake and tsunami benefit performance on Monday Night. The event streamed live on the internet and had hundreds of viewers, many of them in Japan. Guest artists included Barry Harris, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Lew Tabackin, Lou Soloff and, in a memorable ...
Mulligan's Birthday
Today is the 84th anniversary of Gerry Mulligan's birth. He died in 1996 at the age of 68. There are many contexts in which to remember Mulligan—as a precocious teenaged arranger for Tommy Tucker, Elliott Lawrence and Gene Krupa; one of the key figures in the Birth of the Cool recordings; the leader of groups from ...
The Vanguard's Japan Relief Plan
In the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated northern Japan, artists and arts organizations around the world are helping with relief for the Japanese jazz community. One of the biggest efforts is taking place in New York City. If you live in or near Manhattan or will find yourself there this Monday evening, April ...
Recent Listening: Smith, Vu, Lynch, Akinmusire
Hundreds of CDs have piled up around Rifftides world headquarters. At a meeting, the staff voted whether to write, long, exhaustive analytical reviews of three of them or highlight many more in an effort to keep up with a jazz scene that—take our word for it—is not dying, at least not in terms of sheer recording ...
A Striking "Golden Striker"
Rifftides readers who responded enthusiastically to the video we posted on February 22 in connection with a piece about the Modern Jazz Quartet may be absolutely delirious when they see—and hear—this one. Again, the music is John Lewis's “The Golden Striker." The video is from the same 1982 MJQ tour that produced the version recorded in ...
Recent Listening: A Bill Dixon Rarity
Bill Dixon, Intents and Purposes (International Phonograph). Dixon, who died last year at 84, is typically described as a force in the free jazz that emerged in the1960s. He was that, but Intents and Purposes defied labeling when Dixon recorded it more than four decades ago. This long overdue reissue confirms that the album withstands categorization. ...
Recent Listening: Jeffrey Snedeker's French Horn
Jeffrey Snedeker, Minor Returns (JS). Snedeker is a rarity, a first-chair symphony French horn artist who understands jazz time, phrasing and feeling. In settings from quartet through big band to 41-piece string orchestra, he pays homage to the horn's role in jazz. Snedeker solos on pieces associated with the music's handful of French horn heroes, including ...
