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Great Live Moments - Hilton Ruiz
April 30, 2008. Posted by Joshua Jackson.
Add new comment | Filed under: benefit, benny golson, bourbon street, clifford, dizzy gillespie, hilton ruiz, hometown, hurricane katrina victims, Jazz Alive, jazz ballads, Listening Post, Live Music, lyrics, new orleans, performance studio, wbgo
So how can we say something so real has really gone away?
I hear him now, I always will
Believe me I remember Hilton still.Those are actually the lyrics to "I Remember Clifford," one of the enduring jazz ballads by Benny Golson. With one modification. The name.
It should not go unnoticed that nearly two years ago, Hilton Ruiz lay unconscious on Bourbon Street in my hometown. What particularly stings me is that he was in New Orleans working on a benefit CD for and video about Hurricane Katrina victims.It reminds me of a quote attributed to Dizzy Gillespie:
“Men have died for this music. You can’t get more serious than that.”In 1986, Hilton Ruiz played the Steinway B in our performance studio.
Listen to "I Remember Clifford" from the WBGO Archives.-Josh
© 2008 WBGO
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Great Live Moments - Fred Hersch
April 17, 2008. Posted by Becca Pulliam.
Add new comment | Filed under: alma, bassist, blue note, dizzy gillespie, drummer, fred hersch trio, great composer, Jazz Alive, joey baron, Listening Post, Live Music, marc johnson, pianist, prestigious guggenheim fellowship, wbgo
Fred Hersch has been a friend of WBGO for at least twenty years. He was in Jane Ira Bloom's group when we recorded her at Citicorp Center for a series called Jazz at the Market (host was the Rev. John Garcia Gensel of St. Peter's Church). I remember that Fred and Jane had brought a piano tuner, but the Center didn't want their tuner to touch the piano. I was disappointed, and learning on the job. Fred was .. well, if not incensed, he was at least insulted.
Fred was part of a concert at Town Hall with MC Steve Allen (the TV personality, dating all the way back to the first Tonight Show). As Steve Allen was telling stories and getting into it, he turned to Fred and asked for "a little something underneath this;" on demand, Fred played the perfect "patter" music.
But Fred wasn't born for that role. From his earliest time in New York, he belonged in top groups. He was a sideman for leaders a generation or more his senior, such as Joe Henderson - from Ohio, like Fred.
At the Iowa City Jazz Festival in the 1990s, I remember Fred getting onstage and talking about funding cuts coming to the National Endowment for the Arts. He wanted me to do that with him, and I didn't. His political passion took me by surprise.
Fred studied with Sophia Rosoff (as did Barry Harris, a revered teacher in New York, who shows pianists how to produce sound through the keys by relaxing. Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus was one of Fred's many many students.
The 1986 group must have been one of his first. Dick Oatts was on sax, Randy Brecker on trumpet, although they stepped aside for the ballad "Con Alma."
-Becca PulliamListen to the Fred Hersch Trio play "Con Alma," from the WBGO Archives.
© 2008 WBGO
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Great Live Moments - Heath Brothers
April 10, 2008. Posted by Joshua Jackson.
Add new comment | Filed under: art blakey, bud powell, clifford brown, dizzy gillespie, english toffee bar, heath brothers, horace silver, Jazz Alive, jazz family, jazz saxophonist, jimmy heath, Listening Post, Live Music, Masters, modern jazz quartet, new jersey performing arts, new jersey performing arts center, percy heath, prudential hall, sonny rollins, sweet basil, thelonious monk, tootie heath, Video, wbgo
The Heath brothers I have known are not confectioners who created an English toffee bar. They played jazz. Much sweeter than candy...Saxophonist Jimmy Heath, drummer Albert "Tootie" Heath, and the late bassist/cellist Percy Heath were jazz family long before the Marsalis clan. Separately, the sum of their music making covers the totality of modern jazz - Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, the Modern Jazz Quartet. I could go on and on, but enough already! Together, the Heath Brothers were a cohesive jazz combo that brought their collective experience to the stage to form their own brand of brotherly jazz.
WBGO has recorded a number of Heath Brothers performances. They include a beautiful recording from New Jersey Performing Arts Center's Prudential Hall, as well as a club date at Iridium. And that's just during my seven year tenure at the station! In 1984, WBGO recorded The Heath Brothers on New Year's Eve. December 31, 1984 at Sweet Basil in New York. The pianist was Stanley Cowell.
Check out the Heath Brothers playing "Sleeves" from the WBGO Archives.
-Josh
PS While you're still here, watch this clip from Danny Sherr's award-winning video about the siblings, Brotherly Jazz.
© 2008 WBGO
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