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Dave Brubeck, 88 Keys, 88 Years, Another Honor
On Tuesday, Dave Brubeck was inducted into the California Hall of Fame along with eleven others including actors Jane Fonda and Jack Nicholson, fitness maven Jack LaLanne, musician and producer Quincy Jones, chef Alice Waters and -- posthumously -- Theodore Geiss (Dr. Seuss), scientist Linus Pauling, architect Julia Morgan, and Dorothea Lange, the photographer best known ...
"What? You Know About Leo?"
Shortly after I posted the Doug's Picks selection of Wadada Leo Smith's new CD, Tabligh (see the center column), I was in a meeting with Daron Hagen. I casually mentioned Smith. “What?" he said, full of excitement. “You know about Leo?" It turns out that Hagen, a distinguished composer of operas, chamber music and orchestral works, ...
Frances Lynne
From San Francisco comes news of the death of Frances Lynne, the singer who worked with Paul Desmond and Dave Brubeck before there was a Brubeck Quartet. Ms. Lynne went on to sing with Charlie Barnet and Gene Krupa as the big band era wound down. Her first recording, however, was not until 1991 with her ...
Other Places: Europe
Among Rifftides readers in Europe are the proprietors of three web logs helpful to those who wish to keep up with developments on the continent. Tony Emmerson's Prague Jazz concentrates on music in the Czech Republic. George Mraz, Emil Viklicky, Frantisek Uhlir, Gustav Brom, Miroslav Vitous and a few other Czech musicians are widely known. Emmerson ...
Other Places: Cerra on Feldman
In his Jazz Profiles blog, Steven M. Cerra's stock-in-trade is thorough examinations of the careers of important jazz musicians. His current project is Victor Feldman, the late, astonishingly talented drummer, pianist and vibraharpist. Steve just posted the third of three parts about Feldman. In the first installment, he tells of going to The Lighthouse in Hermosa ...
DVD: Bobby Shew
The Bobby Shew Story (Skyhigh Films). The great trumpeter talks about his career -- stumbling into a jam session at age fifteen and discovering that he had the gift of improvisation -- deciding to give up studio work: “I realized I was on a chain like a pet monkey" -- the joy of losing his fear ...
CD: Alexander String Quartet
Alexander String Quartet, Retrospections (Foghorn Classics). The ASQ plumbs the seriousness, assertiveness and sense of glee in quartets 1, 2 and 3 of the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Wayne Peterson. Peterson draws on inspiration from sources as varied as samba, bluegrass, the bebop of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and predecessors including Bartok and Ives. He integrates ...
CD: Wadada Leo Smith
Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet, Tabligh, (Cuneiform). A stalwart of the avant garde for nearly four decades, Smith continues at the head of the pack in free jazz. In this set of four moody, barely-structured pieces, the trumpeter frequently evokes late-period Miles Davis. He sometimes takes the horn below its natural range to explore pedal-tone territory ...
CD: Ernestine Anderson
Ernestine Anderson, Hot Cargo (Fresh Sound). In these 1956 sessions, Anderson's early singing has lost none of its naturalness, musicality or appeal. Her accompaniments by Harry Arnold's big band and Duke Jordan's trio sound equally fresh. I wrote earlier that this was one of the best vocal albums of the 1950s. I am revising that assessment. ...
Thanks for the Memory
The research into Ralph Rainger that has kept me more or less hors de combat from Rifftides lately included the not entirely disagreeable task of watching The Big Broadcast of 1938. Film musicals still recycled vaudeville in those days, so what we get is a series of blackouts draped over a flimsy structure called a plot. ...
