Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw - Henk Meutgeert/Riffs n Rhythms

It's great when the TV director knows the music and can focus on what's going on now and put cameras in positions to catch what's coming up next.

Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw

From a concert performed by the orchestra on April 28, 2011 at The Bimhuis in Amsterdam, the composition is entitled Black, Whiter and Brown and features Peter Beets on piano, Joris Roelofs on bass clarinet, and Jan van Duikeren on trumpet with Martijn Vink booting things along in the drum chair.

Jimmy Giuffre and Scintilla Revisited

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“It’s just one way and every man must go his own way.”

- Jimmy Giuffre, Down Beat, November 30, 1955

“Jimmy is an innovator and much has been written about his contributions to clarinet playing style and to Jazz composition, but this is secondary. It is the basic quality of his music, with its uncontrived simplicity and glowing inner feeling that sets Jimmy apart.”

- Gary Kramer, liner notes to The Jimmy Giuffre 3 [Atlantic 1254]

“the spirit of Jazz suffuses all of these performances …and important step in the long Giuffre musical odyssey …  they are simply marvelous, full of life brimming with ideas, and chock-full of rich, rewarding, imaginative writing and playing.”

- Peter Keepnews, liner notes to the PAUSA: Jazz Origins reissue of Giuffre’s 1950 Capitol LPs

“When one listens to Giuffre's music for what it is—and not for what one thinks it should be—the beauties of this rich and strange musical land­scape begin to emerge. Or rather, landscapes. For Giuffre never found a single musical Garden of Eden, a definitive style or format he could stay in for long. Like his more celebrated contemporary Miles Davis, Giuffre remains a musical chameleon, a distinctive stylist who constantly feels compelled to change his sonic setting.”

- Ted Gioia, West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1969 [p.227]

Almost forty years after I first heard it, I tracked down Jimmy Giuffre and wrote him a letter about how much I enjoyed the music on his Capitol LP – Tangents in Jazz [T-634].

Jimmy was living in Massachusetts and I in San Francisco at the time. Because of  health issues, his wife Juanita helped compose his response. Juanita, a professional photographer, also kindly enclosed a portrait of Jimmy which he had autographed,

In my letter to him, I explained that I had been particularly taken with the four relatively short pieces on the Tangents in Jazz LP entitled Scintilla I-IV.

On the album, the four-parts of Scintilla are sequenced: Scintilla II, Scintilla I, Scintilla IV and Scintilla III.

On a lark, I had decided to re-track these four Scintilla parts and record them in consecutive, numeric sequence.

I had included a copy of a tape recording with the re-sequenced Scintilla I-IV along with my letter to Jimmy.

In his reply, Jimmy shared that this was the first time that he had heard this music in its original order since he wrote and recorded it in June, 1955!

He also explained that although Will McFarland’s liner notes to the LP indicate the four Scintilla pieces being played in numerical order, somehow when the album was being prepared for pressing, it was sequenced according to the Master numbers assigned to each track when they were recorded on June 6,7,10, 1955.

Interestingly, when Mosaic Records reissued these recordings as CDs & LPs as part of their The Complete Capitol and Atlantic Recordings of Jimmy Giuffre [Mosaic MD6-176], Mosaic also used the master track sequence instead of grouping the four Scintilla tracks as a consecutive, inter-connected musical “suite.”

The audio track in a video tribute to Jimmy with the four-part Scintilla suite in the original sequence  has been taken down due to copyright issues. But I was able to find a YouTube of the entire album with the original sequence interspersed in the correct sequence between other tracks on the Tangents in Jazz album. 

The video is followed by Jimmy’s “Questions and Answers” about the music on the album which form the original LP’s liner notes, excerpts from Will McFarland’s descriptions of Scintilla I-IV and a postscript on the album by Ted Gioia.

As an aside, I got to know Artie Anton, the drummer on these tracks, quite well as he was for many years a drum shop proprietor and drum teacher in near-by North Hollywood, CA. He always considered his playing on Jimmy’s 1950s Capitol recordings as “one of my most enjoyable times in music.” He would also declare to anyone who would spare him the time to listen to them that his “… playing on these cuts proves that the drums are a musical instrument [big smile – His]!.”

The puckish trumpet work is provided by the inimitable Jack Sheldon; also prominent on all these performance is the robust bass tone of Ralph Pena who sadly left us much-too-quickly at age 42 because of his involvement in a fatal car accident in Mexico.

“A top-level soloist and writer makes his most daring move to date: Jimmy Giuffre sets forth a bold new form for improvised music.

The music is revolutionary; yet its advent was a foreseeable, logical step in jazz maturation. Giuffre's new concept is con­troversial ; its evidence here is a must for serious jazz-followers, yet the range of its appeal is so unpredictable that its cham­pions could include bouncing dilettantes, hard-shell tradition­alists, even jazz-apathists.

Specifically, this music puts on view a quartet that functions without an audible beat — no walking bass, no riding cymbal; yet thanks to Giuffre's indomitable folksiness, this flouting of tradition results in jazz that out-thumps the music of most of his heavy-handed neighbors.

Jimmy answers some leading questions...

Q What is this music?

A Jazz, with a non-pulsating beat. The beat is implicit but not explicit; in other words, acknowledged but unsounded. The two horns are the dominant but not domineering voices. The bass usually functions somewhat like a baritone sax. The drums play an important but non-conflicting role.

Q Why abandon the sounded beat?

A For clarity and freedom. I've come to feel increasingly in­hibited and frustrated by the insistent pounding of the rhythm section. With it, it's impossible for the listener or the soloist to hear the horn's true sound, I've come to believe, or fully concentrate on the solo line. An imbalance of ad­vances has moved the rhythm from a supporting to a com­petitive role.

Q But isn't the sounded beat an integral part of jazz?

A The sounded beat once made playing easier, but now it's become confining. And to the degree that the beat was there to guide dancers, it is, of course, no longer necessary to con­cert jazz. I think the essence of jazz is in the phrasing and notes, and these needn't change when the beat is silent. Since the beat is implicit, this music retains traditional feel­ing; not having it explicit allows freer thinking.

Q Hasn't this been done before, particularly by you?

A Several of today's writers have dropped all sounded beat for contrast, but never for an entire work. I've written works completely lacking sounded beat, but the difference between this music and all previous work is the use of the drums. My previous attempts at this approach, while achiev­ing some of the clarity I sought, were always vaguely un­satisfactory to me until I realized the trouble: the drums, by their nature, cannot carry a simultaneous or overlapping line; when the drum is struck, any other note is obliterated, and attention is torn away from any other line. In this music, the drums' lines are integrated but isolated.

Q How is it possible to ensure this isolation during solos, when tacit is usually unpredictable?

A By writing rests in the ad lib parts, allowing the drums to fill. I strive to write the rests at natural phrase endings, holding restriction to a minimum.

Q But isn't there generally more restriction — don't the solo­ists have a good deal less freedom than before?

A In a sense, they have more freedom. No longer fed a stream of chords, or fighting a pounding beat, they are free to get a more natural sound out of their horns, and try for all sorts of new effects.

Q Didn't you have to select your musicians with extra care?

A Yes, I discussed my plans at length with each of them to make sure they were completely attuned to the project. Artie Anton, the drummer, has had wide band experience; from the beginning he was sympathetic to my new ideas. He is a skilled reader, as is Ralph Pena, a bassist with great sound, jazz feeling and a classical background, who has worked with many big bands and Stan Getz. Pena has re­corded previously with me, as has Jack Sheldon, an ex-Lighthouse trumpeter who has also recorded under his own name. Sheldon is a major soloist, and fits perfectly into my conception of the quartet.

Q This music is such a sharp departure; do you have any mis­givings about making the leap?

A This music is no novelty; it's the result of almost a decade of formal study, the culmination of all my thinking, writing and blowing. To me, it seems like sheer insanity to continue to play against that hammering beat. Classical music, once the rhythm is stated, assumed the freedom to move un­accompanied, and if jazz is going to continue to grow, it needs this same freedom.

Q New styles usually provoke extreme reaction; what sort of general judgment do you hope for?

A Early works in a new style necessarily grope; each new tune helps to expand and define the form; this album is not final. All I really ask for this music is an isolated judgment —for what it is, rather than for what it isn't. It isn't an attempt to compete with, or supplant other forms; I knew when I took the step that I must sacrifice a large segment of the usual jazz audience. It is, I think, jazz, and a swinging music, but those are ambiguous terms. Does it excite in­terest? Is it pleasurable? Does the interest hold up? These are the real questions.

Q You've been considered one of the great blowers with the very sort of rhythm you now flee; are you abandoning it for good?

A As a working musician, I must continue to play other music until the quartet works more steadily, and there are prob­lems — such as the extreme awkwardness of any turnover in personnel. I still enjoy playing with a stomping rhythm section occasionally, but my heart lies here; I believe in this music.

Will McFarland comments on the four Scintilla selections ...

Scintilla One — This bright brief opener, mostly ensemble work, serves both as an introduction to the album and as a basis for three subsequent sparkling variations. There is no improvisa­tion or development as yet, but extensions of the form are heard.

Scintilla Two — The ensemble plays the first eight bars of Scintilla One to introduce a development of that theme — minus extensions. This fast, tough, earnest variation is used as a basis for blowing; it's Giuffre's tenor all the way, very free.

Scintilla Three — Another variation on the root Scintilla, lighter and cute this time, stars the trumpet. Jack Sheldon's depth in running ideas is given plenty of leeway, and the clarinet comments from the middle-ground, half written, half spontaneous.

Scintilla Four — Climaxing the album, Giuffre unveils a stir­ring development and finale: the drums are fingered; there is imitation; all four players take a final four; all previous Scintilla material is recapitulated and used; a couple of canons, and the concert closes.

– Ted Gioia,  West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1969 [pp. 235-36, paragraphing modified]

“Despite Giuffre's rhetoric, the pieces on Tangents in Jazz do swing. In many ways the listener is even more drawn to the rhythmic element of the music, by the way it moves from instrument to instrument, instead of resting solely with the "rhythm" section. On Tangents Giuffre was again joined by Pena, Sheldon, and Anton, and though none of them stretches out at length during the course of the album, each is very much put in the spotlight as Giuffre employs a wide range of compositional de­vices: call-and-response figures, two- and three-part counterpoint, unison and harmony lines, canonic devices. These take the place of solos in Giuffre's new conception.

As a filmmaker conveys a sense of momentum through a sequence of rapidly shifting camera angles, Giuffre's constant movement from one musical device to another achieves a similar effect. Part of the achievement of Tangents in Jazz is that, despite the leader's stated disre­gard for a "propulsive" beat, these pieces are constantly propelled, if not by a metronomic beat, certainly by Giuffre's constant changes in compo­sitional focus. If anything, Giuffre overcompensates on Tangents, avoiding lengthy solos and shifting musical gears with abandon. The result is a highly concentrated music—which may be pleasing to the listener, but also makes severe demands on the attention.”

Balliet on Bean

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles has long wanted to have a piece on the site in honor of the memory of Coleman Hawkins, the man most responsible for bringing Jazz to the tenor saxophone.  And what better way to do this for the man who was affectionately known to his peers as “Bean,” than with more of the writing of Whitney Balliett, this time from his anthology entitled Dinosaurs in the Morning: 41 Pieces on Jazz [Philiadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1962].

At the conclusion of Mr. Balliett’s essay, you will find a video tribute to Coleman Hawkins made with the assistance of the ace graphics team at CerraJazz LTD. The audio track is Frank Foster’s “Juggin’ Around” on which Frank is joined on tenor saxophone by Gene Ammons and Frank Wess, along with Nat Adderley on cornet, Bennie Green on trombone and a rhythm section of Tommy Flanagan, Ed Jones and Albert “Tootie” Heath on piano, bass and drums, respectively. All three tenor saxophonists were heavily influenced by Bean.

© -  Whitney Balliet, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“IMPROVISATION, the seat of jazz, is a remorseless art that demands of the performer no less than this: that, night after night, he spontaneously invent original music by balancing‑with the speed of light ‑emotion and intelligence, form and content, and tone and attack, all of which must both charge and entertain the spirit of the listener. Improvisation comes in various shapes. There is the melodic em­bellishment of Louis Armstrong and Vic Dickenson; the similar but more complex thematic improvisation of Lester Young; the improvisation upon chords, as practiced by Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker, and the rhythmic-thematic convolutions now being put forward by Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins. There are, too, the collective improvisations, such as, the defunct New Orleans ensemble, and its contrapuntal descendants, which are thriving in the bands of John Lewis and Charlie Mingus. Great improvisation occurs once in a blue moon; bad improvisation, which is really not improvisation at all but a rerun or imitation of old ideas, happens all the time. No art is more precarious or domineering. Indeed, there is evidence that the gifted jazz musicians who have either died or dried up early are primarily victims not of drugs and alcohol but of the insatiable furnace of improvisation. Thus, such consummate veteran improvisers as Armstrong, Dickenson, Hawkins, Buck Clayton, and Monk are, in addition to being master craftsmen, remarkable endurance runners. One of the hardiest of these is Hawkins, who, now fifty-four, continues to play with all the vitality and authority that be demonstrated during the Harding administration as a member of Mamie Smith's jazz Hounds.

Hawkins, in fact, is a kind of super jazz musician, for he has been a bold originator, a masterly improviser, a shepherd of new movements, and a steadily developing performer. A trim, contained man, whose rare smiles have the effect of a lamp suddenly going on within, he was the first to prove that jazz could be played on the saxophone, which bad been largely a purveyor of treacle. He did this with such conviction and imagination that by the early thirties he had founded one of the two great schools of saxophone playing. In 1939, Hawkins set down, as an afterthought at a recording session, a version of "Body and Soul" that achieves the impossible - perfect art. A few years later, he repeated this success with "Sweet Lorraine" and "The Man I Love." Unlike many other jazz musicians, who are apt to regard anything new with defensive animosity, Hawkins has always kept an ear to the ground for originality, and as a result he led the first official bebop recording session, which involved Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, and the late Clyde Hart. Soon afterward, he used the largely unknown Thelonious Monk in some important recordings. Then his playing inexplicably began to falter and he went into semi-eclipse, from which he rocketed up, without warning, in the early fifties, landing on his feet with a brand-new style (his third), whose occasional febrility suggests a man several decades younger.

Hawkins's early style was rough and aggressive. His tone tended to be harsh and bamboo-like, and he used a great many staccato, slap-tongued notes. But these mannerisms eventually vanished, and by the mid-thirties he had entered his second and most famous phase. His heavy vibrato suggested the wing beats of a big bird and his tone halls hung with dark velvet and lit by huge fires. His technique had become infallible. He never fluffed a note, his tone never shrank or overflowed-as did Chu Berry's, say-and he gave the impression that he had enough equipment to state in half a dozen different and finished ways what was in his head. This proved to be remarkable, particularly in his handling of slow ballads.

Hawkins would often begin such a number by playing one chorus of the melody, as if he were testing it. He would stuff its fabric with tone to see how much it would take, eliminate certain notes, sustain others, slur still others, and add new ones. Then, satisfied, he would shut his eyes, as if blinded by what he was about to play, and launch into impro­visation with a concentration that pinned one down. (Hawkins's total lack of tentativeness ‑ the exhilarating, blind man tentativeness of Pee Wee Russell or Roy Eldridge ‑ suggested that he had written out and memorized his solos long before playing them.) He would construct‑out of phrases crowded with single notes, glissandos, abrupt stops, and his corrugated vibrato‑long, hilly figures that sometimes lasted until his breath gave out. Refilling his lungs with wind‑tunnel ferocity, he would be off again‑bending notes, dropping in little runs like steep, crooked staircases, adding decorative, almost calligraphic flourishes, emphasizing an occasional phrase by allowing it to escape into puffs of breath. He often closed these solos with roomy codas, into which he would squeeze fresh and frequently fancy ideas that bad simply been crowded out of his ear­lier ruminations. If another soloist followed him, he might terminate his own statement with an abrupt ascending figure that neatly catapulted his successor. When Hawkins had finished, his solo, anchored directly and emphatically to the beat, had been worked into an elaborate version of the origi­nal melody, as though be had fitted a Victorian mansion over a modern ranch house. At fast tem­pos, Hawkins merely forced the same amount of music into a smaller space. There seemed to be no pause between phrases or choruses, and this pro­duced an intensity that thickened the beat and whose vehemence was occasionally indicated by sus­tained growls. Yet for all this enthusiasm, Hawkins' playing during this period often left the listener vaguely dissatisfied. Perhaps it was because his style had an unceasing - and, for that time, unusual - intellectual quality, with the glint of perfection and a viselike unwillingness to let any emotion out, lest it spoil the finish on his work. One kept waiting for the passion beneath the surface to burst through, but it never did-until five years ago.

Hawkins can now be volcanic. His present style is marked primarily by a slight tightening of tone, which sometimes resembles the sound he achieved at the outset of his career; the use of certain harsh notes and phrases that, not surprisingly, suggest Charlie Parker and Sonny Rollins; and an almost dismaying display of emotion. This exuberance has been costly. In his pursuit of pure flame, Hawkins sometimes misses notes or plays them badly, and he falls back, perhaps out of fatigue, on stock phrases of his own, such as a series of abrupt, descending triplets. When everything is in mesh, however, the results are formidable. …”

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Erroll Garner - The Piano As Orchestra

When we prepared our earlier book review of Timme Rosenkrantz's Harlem Jazz Adventures we came across the following information about how Erroll's career in Jazz almost didn't happen. I wonder how many other talented players got discouraged and were never "discovered" in the world of Jazz during it's heyday?


We decided to "re-discover" the wonder that was Erroll Garner by reposting our earlier piece about him on the left columnar sidebar while displaying below these excerpts from Timme's book as well as an earlier video tribute to Erroll.

- “Young Garner's father was a singer who played several instruments, as did his older brother, Linton. Erroll was an entirely self-taught musician who hit the keys when he was three years old and never did learn how to read mu­sic. But he played like no other pianist, and his flamboyant style was a delight to the ears. He would start a ballad with a long, discordant introduction that didn't even hint at the melody to come. At last when he swung into it, his left hand lay down chords like a guitar, keeping up a steady pulse, while his right hand never seemed to catch up, improvising chords or playing octaves that lagged way behind the beat for the rest of the number. Just a pinch of Fats Waller added spice.

I was fascinated by this fellow's joyously swinging piano, and I sought him out while Louis Prima was on [Garner was the intermission pianist at the Tondelayo Club on 52nd St. in NYC where Prima was the featured act]. Erroll was anything but happy. He didn't know many people in New York and was downhearted. No one was inter­ested in listening to him—Louis Prima was the showman attraction. And Erroll was only making forty dollars a week!

He told me he thought he'd go home soon, as it seemed nothing was going to happen for him in New York. Somehow, I had to stop him. I invited him home to 7 West 46th Street, showed him my rented Krakaur grand, and once he got started, it was impossible to pry him off the bench. Little did I know at the outset that he had a bad case of asthma and couldn't sleep lying down!” [p. 176]


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To Lester from Dexter With … “Cheese Cake”

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

I could listen to Dexter Gordon play the tenor saxophone all night.

There was a time in my life when I often did.

Dexter made a batch of LP’s for Alfred Lion’s Blue Note label in the 1960s and his playing on them was a revelation.

His solos on these recordings were exciting and explosive, his time hard-driving and impeccable and his sound was big and wide-open.

Dexter’s ideas and inventions flowed so effusively that I couldn’t keep up with them; I couldn’t absorb them.

Anything that came into his mind came out of his horn; effortlessly.

Cascade after cascade of the hippest phrases simply flowed and flowed and flowed.

Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane received more public notice, awards and accolades, but Dexter was right up there with all of them.

When Jazz went to Europe to live, so did Dexter, performing and hanging out in Paris and Copenhagen for most of the last two decades of his life.

By the time of his triumphant return visits to the Village Vanguard in NYC and Keystone Korner in San Francisco in the late 1970s, he had become a different player; more laid back, lyrical and laconic, but still a force to be reckoned with.

Here are a few thoughts and observation about Dexter from Garry Giddins’ marvelous five-page essay on him in Visions of Jazz: The First Century [pp.330–335]:

“The King of Quoters, Dexter Gordon, was himself eminently quotable. In a day not unlike our own, when purists issue fiats about what is or isn't valid in jazz, Gordon declared flatly, ‘jazz is an octopus’—it will assimilate anything it can use. Drawing closer to home, he spoke of his musical lineage: Coleman Hawkins "was going out farther on the chords, but Lester [Young] leaned to the pretty notes. He had a way of telling a story with everything he played/' Young's story was sure, intrepid, dar­ing, erotic, cryptic. A generation of saxophonists found itself in his music, as an earlier generation had found itself in Hawkins's rococo virtuosity. …

Gordon's appeal was to be found not only in his Promethean sound and nonstop invention, his impregnable authority combined with a steady and knowing wit, but also in a spirit born in the crucible of jam sessions. He was the most formidable of battlers, undefeated in numer­ous contests, and never more engaging than in his kindred flare-ups with the princely Wardell Gray, a perfect Lestorian foil, gently lyrical but no less swinging and sure. …

Gordon was an honest and genuinely original artist of deep and abiding humor and of tremendous personal charm. He imparted his personal characteristics to his music—size, radiance, kindness, a genius for dis­continuous logic. Consider his trademark musical quotations—snippets from other songs woven into the songs he is playing. Some, surely, were calculated. But not all and probably not many, for they are too subtle and too supple. They fold into his solos like spectral glimpses of an alternative universe in which all of Tin Pan Alley is one infinite song. That so many of the quotations seem verbally relevant I attribute to Gordon's reflexive stream-of-consciousness and prodigious memory for lyrics. I cannot imagine him planning apposite quotations.”

Bruce Lundvall and Michael Cuscuna collected all of the albums that Dexter made for Blue Note into a six compact disc, boxed set that includes some omitted tracks along with photographs by Francis Wolff and selected commentary.

It’s great to have all of this music by Dexter in a digital format and it provides a convenient means to sample the music of this Jazz giant if you are not as yet familiar with it.

In line with Gary Giddins’ characterization of Dexter as “The King of the Quoters,” Dexter composed an homage to Lester Young by making a few minor [literally] chord alterations to “Tickle Toe,” an original composition that Lester made famous while performing with Count Basie’s Orchestra.

Dexter entitled his piece “Cheese Cake” and you can listen to his performance of it on the audio track to the following video on which he is joined by Sonny Clark on piano, Butch Warren on bass and Billy Higgins on drums.

To experience the sheer joy and delight of a brilliant Jazz tenor saxophonist “at work,” you can’t do much better than Dexter’s solos on “Cheese Cake.”

Stefano Bollani is "Looking for You"

Another quick visit to our Jazz in Italy series this time featuring the talented pianist, Stefano Bollani, performing In Cerca Di Te [which roughly translates as Looking for You]. Stefano plays the piece with Ares Tavolazzi on bass and drummer Walter Paoli.


As is the case with many of today's Jazz musicians, Stefano has his own website which you can locate by going here.

Chet Baker With A Song In His Heart

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“In 1953, upon the success of his best-selling recording of "My Funny Valentine" with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, Chet Baker became an instant star. He began winning polls here and abroad with rhythmic regularity for five .years. His "Valentine" solo was soft and lyrical. Lyricism seemed to be Baker's stock in trade, although he was capable of playing crackling bop lines of great intricacy and inventiveness.

And he sang. He sang with.. .well, let Rex Reed describe it... "an innocent sweetness that made girls fall right out of their saddle oxfords." Before he had time to digest the fact of his sudden celebrity as a trumpet soloist, Chet found himself win­ning polls as a vocalist. In one, he was tied with Nat Cole. From obscurity to status among the jazz public as a more popular trumpet player than Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, and as a singer the equal of Nat King Cole. All in the space of slightly more than a year.”

- Doug Ramsey

Was there ever a more photogenic Jazz musician than Chet Baker?

Despite the ravages of time accelerated by an unhealthy lifestyle [or maybe because of it?], Chet seemed to maintain a welcoming presence in front of the camera.

In some cases, this may have more the result of the skills of the photographer than Chet photographable qualities.

Musically, one thing is certain, Doug Ramsey is right when he states that … “Lyricism seemed to be Baker's stock in trade.”

You can judge both his lyricism and his camera-friendly qualities for yourself by sampling the following video in which Chet sings and plays “With a Song In My Heart.” [Click on the “X” to close-out the ads when they appear on the video].

"Some Good Fun Blues" with The Jack Montrose Sextet

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles will have more to say about composer, arranger and tenor saxophonist, Jack Montrose in a future feature. Until then, Jack's "Some Good Fun Blues" is on tap as the audio track to the following video on which he is joined by Conte Candoli [trumpet], Bob Gordon [baritone saxophone], Paul Moer [piano], Ralph Pena [bass] and drummer Shelly Manne.

Biréli Lagrène Trio - Jazz in Marciac 2010

When you have a moment to put your hands behind your head, sit back and stop your world for a bit, you might want to take in the sheer artistry on display in these videos. Oh, and did I mention, everyone is having fun, too. Mustn't take it all too seriously.


Biréli Lagrène - guitare


Frank Wolf - saxophone


Jürgen Attig - bass

Nancy Wilson: In The Beginning

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

There was a time when the following story as retold by Ron Grevatt was commonplace.

“One night about four years ago in Columbus, Ohio, a willowy young singer took a busman's holiday from her job as vocalist with Rusty Bryant's band to join friends for an evening at the 502 Club - a local jazz emporium where a rather remarkable, up-and-coming alto saxophone player and his swinging combo were appearing.

The girl was Nancy Wilson, and the young man with the horn was Julian "Cannonball" Adderley. Their chance meeting that night will always be well-remem­bered by both of them.

"Nancy did some tunes with the band that night," Cannonball reflects, "unre­hearsed, off-the-top-of-the-head stuff. Even then, this young kid had so much to offer - tone, style, confidence -1 felt she just had to go a long way."

Adderley's prophecy of stardom for Nancy has certainly been fulfilled since that first casual get-together just a few short years ago. For today Nancy Wilson is in every way a big-leaguer, a fast-rising young singing star who is just beginning to realize her full potential as an in-person performer as well as a top recording artist for Capitol Records.

"Cannonball has helped me so many times," Nancy remembers. "When I first came to New York, the first person I called when I got off the bus was Cannon."

In New York, Nancy pounded an office typewriter by day and sang by night, the latter in a Bronx jazz spot known as the Blue Morocco. It was here (at Cannonball's urging) that John Levy, former bassist with the famed George Shearing Quintet and now the manager of Shearing, Adderley, and many other stars of jazz, first heard Miss Wilson. One listening was the clincher, and from that evening on Levy took the new singer in tow.

This was the start of many exciting developments for the girl from Columbus, not the least of which was the enthused reaction to her singing by Capitol Records' exec­utive producer, Dave Cavanaugh. Frankly, Cavanaugh simply flipped and signed her right away.

Her albums to date have won her a throng of new friends. Critics, their tastes often jaded by an endless parade of new jazz singers, have been unanimous in their praise of Nancy's remarkable phrasing, tone, control and dynamics….”

The decades following the close of World War II were chock-a-bloc with major and minor record labels all looking for talent and the next, big hit record.

It was a fun time with neighborhood cocktail lounges, clubs and even bowling alley, Moose Hall and American Legion bars everywhere featuring “live music” in the form of duos, trios and quartets, many of which fronted a vocalist for a few tunes each set.

The story that Ron relates of Nancy Wilson’s “coming-of-age,” while certainly exceptional in terms of Nancy’s talent and subsequent national recognition, was also fairly routine for many other singers and entertainers who developed local, dedicated followings.

The first time I heard Nancy perform with Cannonball, I was driving north along the Pacific Coast Highway with the late afternoon sun beginning to set in the west.

A friend had recently installed an FM radio in his car [a big deal at the time] and we were heading up the California coast from Santa Monica to Malibu for a gig.

Suddenly, Nancy and Cannonball Adderley’s quintet filled our world with the sound of Never Will I Marry - two minutes and sixteen seconds of pure enchantment.

It was over almost as soon as it started.

We looked at the radio in the car dashboard and then at one another with startled expressions on our faces and my buddy said: “Who was that?” I said: “I dunno, but I sure want to hear that again.”

Never Will I Marry forms the audio track to the video tribute to Nancy. Perhaps, if you’re like me, you’ll want to hear it again, too.  If so, go ahead and treat yourself as it is only 2:16 of …  pure bliss!

Paolo Recchia: Jazz in Italy

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

"I listen to this music with a smile on my face. I've know Paolo for a while now. When he came to me for a lesson or two, I recognized his talent at once... a diamond in the rough. Since then, we've crossed paths several times. Usually at a festival or club where we were able to catch up with each other between sets. But it had been a while since I'd actually heard him play. 

Last summer I had the good fortune to finally hear him a couple of times at the Tuscia in Jazz festival and was astounded by how much he had grown. When teaching, I always talk about how learning jazz is like learning a new language... a lot of memorizing and imitating. I also talk about the difference between being an artist or a craftsman. Most musicians reach a level where they are good imitators and craftsman... this is not an easy task, it requires a lot of patience, discipline and dedication. There are a few however, who take it to the next level by transforming the information they've assimilated into a language and sound of their own. Paolo belongs to the second category. 

When I heard him last summer, I found myself asking myself "what was that?" over and over again; wishing I had a tape recorder so I could go back and transcribe and analyze what he had played. I loved the fact that I heard the tradition... blues, swing, humor... along side of the modern language that any saxophone player since Coltrane, Ornette, Wayne etc... has had to address. I was also flattered because I heard a little of me in him... not a copy but an influence. He had taken what I had taught him and then digested and transformed it. The music on this recording is a beautiful example of Paolo's play­ing and writing. 

I know by experience how difficult it is to go into a recording studio for one solo recording. It is a very unnatural and surreal situation. When listening, I was impressed by how relaxed and natural he sounded. I kept asking myself the question "if this is what he can do now, what will he come up with next?" I look forward to listening to him grow and develop. I invite you to do the same.""     

- RICK MARGITZA, Jazz saxophonist

In addition to being the country whose food everyone loves to eat, whose cars everyone loves to drive and whose clothes everyone loves to wear, Italy is also fast becoming the home of talented alto saxophonists listened to by Jazz fans everywhere.

I’ve talked previously on these pages about Gianluigi Trovesi, Rosario Giuliani, Stefano di Battista and Francesco Cafiso – all excellent performers on the smaller saxophone.

Now the name – Paolo Recchia – can be added to the list of elite also saxophonists from Italia.

Like his compatriots, Giuliani and di Battista, Recchia doubles on soprano saxophone [Trovesi doubles on bass clarinet; Francesco doesn’t double].

And while Paolo’s style is rooted in the Bebop idioms first introduced on the alto by Charlie Parker, he incorporates elements of Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman from what was to later become categorized as “Free Jazz.”

Somewhat amazingly, however, in Recchia’s approach to alto, one can also hear elements of the Early Jazz,  “sweet” sound of Benny Carter, Jimmy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Charlie Barnet and Les Brown – all alto saxophonists who played the instrument with more vibrato rather than the straight, vibrato-less tone preferred by Parker and the “modernists.”

Hip bebop phrasing, coupled with a full, rich vibrato tone that’s occasionally spiced with the explorative concepts of Free Jazz combine to create the original alto sax stylings of Paolo Recchia.

Put another way; you’ve never heard this before.  It’s familiar and different at the same time.

These characteristics of Paolo’s style are particularly noticeable in the following video on which Paolo plays Rodgers & Hart’s Everything I’ve Got accompanied only by Nicola Muresu on bass and Nicola Angelucci on drums.

The track is from Paolo’s latest CD on Matteo Pagano’s Via Veneto Jazz label entitled Ari’s Desire [VVJ 071].

Trumpeter Alex “Sasha” Sipiagin joins Paolo on all the other selections on Ari’s Desire. With Recchia moving to soprano, here’s a sample of Paolo and Sasha together on Coltrane’s Lazy Bird.

Both Ari’s Desire [VVJ 071] and his earlier Introducing Paolo Recchia [featuring Dado Moroni VVJ 061] can be located on the Via Veneto Jazz website as well as on Amazon.com as mp3 downloads.

Perhaps Paolo’s music is something else that you may want to consider “importing” from Italy besides it foods, cars and clothes?