Intermission Riff: Musings on Jazz and Life

I had a lot of fun writing the liner notes for bassist/composer David Tranchina's new album with his Large-ish Ensemble, "The Ogre". It's a unique, forward-thinking, deeply enjoyable project featuring many young, up-and-coming improvisers out of CalArts and elsewhere. Coming out soon in vinyl and digital formats, produced by the brilliant Chris Schlarb. Read more and pre-order here: https://davidtranchina.bandcamp.com/album/the-ogre

"Good Bait". "Our Delight". "Hot House". "If You Could See Me Now". "Soultrane". "Lady Bird". "On a Misty Night". "Tadd's Delight". All jazz standards, or close to it, and all from the pen of a brilliant soul who is starting to fade from collective memory. But not if Paul Combs can help it. Above: Tadd Dameron (photographer and date unknown) Above: Saxophonist and Dameron biographer Paul Combs The composer was Tadd Dameron (1917-1965), a solid pianist and brilliant crafter of song whose career was cut short by drugs and cancer. Beloved by the bebop community, Dameron wrote tunes and played for some of the finest, from Lunceford and Basie to Dizzy and Trane. His profile was once strong enough that Philly Joe Jones led a popular tribute band, Dameronia, for a couple of decades. Yet today, because he died at only 48 and spent much time out of the public eye, Dameron is mostly known for writi

I'm currently reading Bill Shoemaker's Jazz in the 1970s: Diverging Streams (2018, Rowman & Littlefield) and learning a great deal about a handful of subjects. Despite its reputation as a low point in jazz' development, much happened in the music during the decade: the rise of fusion and smooth jazz, Miles' electric phase and long absence, the return of Dexter Gordon, on and on. Since much of that has been covered in other books, Shoemaker keeps a narrower scope, mostly tou ching upon Europeans and the avant-garde. Whether it's too narrow a scope is a matter of personal taste, but I like his approach well enough. Each chapter represents one year of the decade and focuses upon one musician or event of significance during that year. Again, this excludes a great deal of what came about in the 70s, but it offers Shoemaker the chance to dig more deeply into these few subjects. The breakdown is as follows: 1970: Chris McGregor and the confluence of B

My fifteen-year-old son is playing trumpet in his high school jazz ensemble for the first time. (He also plays mellophone in marching band and French horn in symphonic band, which means we spend a small fortune on various oils...) His instructor has all of the jazz students keep a weekly listening log, where they pick a tune and analyze it on various levels. For those who might be interested, I have posted scans of the log form down below. (The form, by the way, is the creation of Chet Chwalik at  http://www.thetuningnote.com .) I think this is a great resource for closely, attentively studying how a piece is put together and performed. Last week my son picked one of Dizzy Gillespie's umpteen versions of "Salt Peanuts", which I thought was a pretty cool choice with some unusual aspects to it. I didn't really assist him with the analysis, but we talked about it quite a bit afterwards and he went back and added some points to the form. This week I got to select the

Jazz has been an international music for almost as long as it’s been in existence, thanks in part to American GIs who took their 78 rpm records overseas and shared them with the locals. One particularly strong jazz scene that isn’t well enough known to American fans developed in Poland. From the 1940s to the present day, a large number of Polish musicians have embraced jazz as their art of choice. And few have shone as brightly as tenor saxophonist Jan “Ptaszyn” Wroblewski. Early in his career, the gifted Wroblewski was dubbed “Ptak” (Bird) and later “Ptaszyn” (Little Bird) as a spiritual link to Charlie Parker. However, the Polish marvel soon developed a signature style on saxophone, becoming one of the most identifiable and prolific musicians in European jazz. While he does lean in the direction of Sonny Rollins at times, tonewise and in his flow of ideas, Ptaszyn is his own bird. His journey in the public eye began with an appearance at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival as part

If you know bebop, you know the name Minton's. The long-gone club was ground zero for the development of bebop as a viable jazz form in the 1940s. Steve Cerra has an excellent, in-depth post about Minton's at his excellent blog, Jazz Profiles. Check it out! http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2018/07/mintons-then-and-now.html