Cadenza
December 2006 By Gary Giddins
The Thrill of Brazil
The journey to Ouro Preto in Brazil is not easy. Even with short waits between the three legs of the trip, it takes most of a day. You fly from New York to one of the coastal airports, Rio or São Paulo (I did the latter), and board another plane inland to...
November 2006 By Gary Giddins
Ornette!!!!
In Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, the upstanding dandy Thomas Buddenbrook dismisses his wife’s elitist devotion to music as a “rather tasteless snobbery.” Gerda remonstrates that the insipid pop ditties Thomas prefers merely requite a need for mindless gratification...
October 2006 By Gary Giddins
Dizzy's Divine Comedy
Dizzy Gillespie: Is there a more resonant name in jazz or music or life? Think about it. He spearheaded a generation of musicians that demanded to be taken seriously as artists. No minstrel cavorting or bowing and scraping for them. They were the young Turks...
September 2006 By Gary Giddins
New York’s Lofty Intentions
New York City has served as the primary locus for jazz’s evolution for 80 years, without quite engendering the mythological resonance of the cities that enjoyed intense associations with specific periods: New Orleans, Chicago, Kansas City and even, during...
July/August 2006 By Gary Giddins
It's Always Monk's Time
In 1976, the Pulitzer Prize’s Special Awards and Citations division recognized Scott Joplin, 59 years after his death. In 1998, it honored George Gershwin, 61 years after his death. In 1999, it bowed to Duke Ellington (whom the board had notoriously snubbed...
June 2006 By Gary Giddins
Jackie McLean, 1931-2006
In July 1975, Jackie McLean returned to action after a seven-year layoff spent teaching. The venue was New York’s briefly reawakened Five Spot, on St. Mark’s Place, packed every night with fans and musicians ignited by his combustible alto saxophone and...
May 2006 By Gary Giddins
Call Him Lucky
A mental bank shot put me in mind of a musician I had not listened to in several years: Charles Luckeyth Roberts. Not that there’s much of him you can listen to. Despite a long and successful career (he died in 1968 at 80), he left no more than 12 dazzling...
April 2006 By Gary Giddins
Travels With Bill
The delayed, coincidental arrival in the middle 1950s of two extremely dissimilar novels--Kerouac's hurried On the Road and Nabokov's fastidious Lolita--helped spur a renewal of the American picaresque. The idea of hitting the road had been an act of desperation...
March 2006 By Gary Giddins
New Dutch Swing
One of the more inventive bookings in New York clubs is the Jazz Standard's "Voices and Songs," a Monday night, bargain-price ($15) series designed to bring attention to new, neglected, and otherwise below-radar singers. The December lineup was characteristic...
January/February 2006 By Gary Giddins
Always Sonny
Some years ago, I took a friend to see a Sonny Rollins performance that proved every bit as thrilling as we anticipated, if not more so. High on Sonny, we floated to the exit, squeezed between many exultant-looking people and bumped into a colleague, who...
