May 11, 2008

The June issue of Down Beat magazine (subtitled "Jazz, Blues & Beyond") features my cover story about trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, who has enjoyed a blazing and extended artistic youth, but at age 70 is now somewhat chastened, struggling with challenges to his chops while eager to reaffirm the legitimacy of his reputation. 

The issue also contains my review of musician and educator George E. Lewis's epic history of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians -- here represented by his friend Douglas Ewart's quintet). I've posted my writer's edition of that report, as it was trimmed just a little for length, 

Also -- introducing Matt Miller's recommendations for music in New York City -- comin' right up
May 11, 2008 5:05 PM | | Comments (1)
In a renewed effort to keep readers abreast of good listning, J-B-J introduces Matt Miller, who has some recommendations for places to go, comin' right up. Matt is a 23-year-old tenor saxophonist, graduate of the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music program, who writes for AllAboutJazz-New York and Jazz.com, besides contributing here.
May 11, 2008 4:36 PM | | Comments (0)
May 8, 2008

Talk about a legendary career: Chicago saxophonist and clarintest Franz Jackson, who died at age 95 on May 6, spanned American vernacular music from the Roaring '20s to the postmodern present. He began as a 16-year-old professional with stride and boogie woogie pianist Albert Ammons, starred as a featured soloist in the the hottest Depression Era big bands, entertained WWII troops under USO auspices, popularized Midwestern neo-traditional "jass" in the '50s and '60s and kept playin' in essentially uncategorical situations up until a couple of weeks of his demise.

Among Jackson's recent high visibility gigs were his turn at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival of 2007, and also last year's "Tribute to Fletcher Henderson" commissioned by the Jazz Institute of Chicago for the Great Black Music Ensemble, performed at the Frank Gehry bandshell in Millenium Park, where he sat amid creative musicians less than half his age, not revisiting the past but rather carrying it forward.

May 8, 2008 11:23 AM | | Comments (0)
May 5, 2008

This week highlights a happily frequent dilemma for the avid listener in New York: too many good choices of exciting, exploratory, street-smart and unbounded American music -- "the real blues, the new blues," as Albert Ayler called jazz-beyond-jazz back in 1964. All on Friday, May 9:

May 5, 2008 11:55 AM | | Comments (0)
April 28, 2008

Oleg Kireyev, born in Bashkiria (aka Bashkortostan, more on which follows), is a dynamite soprano and tenor saxophonist who smiles broadly when he asks audiences to chime in with Mongolian throat-singing and quick-tonguing techniques. In New York City, a small group of listeners at Symphony Space complied, giving Kireyev's Feng Shui Theatre quartet, making its Stateside debut, a sweet welcome.

April 28, 2008 11:40 AM | | Comments (1)
April 23, 2008

It's jazz-beyond-jazz, alright, when Wynton Marsalis composes a work for gospel choir and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, in honor of the 200th anniversary of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. But I must admit that I am neither drawn to hear such work nor qualified to comment on it. Having experienced Marsalis' previous large-scale religiously oriented works All Rise and In This House, On This Morning, I have developed some unshakable expectations and prejudices about such endeavors -- it's just not my cuppa tea. So I sought someone with fresh ears, more affinity for the material and less bias to report on the grand event. Meet Monica Hope seen here singing Duke Ellington's "Come Sunday" at a memorial service for the bassist Walter Booker, Jr. 
April 23, 2008 5:51 PM | | Comments (2)
April 18, 2008

Another victim of global economics? Or of flawed leadership? The 40-year-old International Association for Jazz Education has announced its bankruptcy, following an ill-attended conference in Toronto and unexpected departures by its executive director and president. "Industry of jazz" players are shocked, shocked! 
April 18, 2008 1:42 PM | | Comments (1)
April 15, 2008

Way out northwest last weekend for the Experience Music Project's 7th Annual Pop Conference, I also visited Earshot Jazz fest and concert producer John Gilbreath doing his weekly late night show "Jazz Theater" on KEXP.org

Listen to Ornette Coleman's "Law Years" and a track from his concerto grosso "Skies of America," as well as Miles Davis's "Freedom Jazz Dance" remixed by Nas and "Black Satin" from On The Corner, interspersed with our conversation, for two weeks, as archived. Gilbreath interviewed author, Black Rock Coalition co-founder and Burnt Sugar guitarist-conspirator Greg Tate (who wrote the preface to my book) right after me. 


April 15, 2008 12:22 AM | | Comments (0)

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Jazz Beyond Jazz

What if there's more to jazz than you suppose? What if jazz demolishes suppositions and breaks all bounds? What if jazz - and the jazz beyond, behind, under and around jazz - could enrich your life?



Miles Ornette Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz

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Howard Mandel HM2.for%20web.jpg I'm a Chicago-born and New York-based writer, editor, author, arts producer for National Public Radio -- for more than 30 years, a freelance arts journalist working on newspapers, magazines and websites, appearing on tv and radio, teaching at New York University and elsewhere. I'm president of the Jazz Journalists Association.

Jazz Beyond Jazz Essentials

a few recordings basic to stretching the definition of jazz.




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Joe Zawinul at 65, The Wire 

Interview with Joe Zawinul, The Wire, 1996

Jazz Festivals 

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The Makers of Jazz Beyond Jazz 
Over the course of three decades, I've been privileged to get behind the scenes and meet heroic creators of jazz as well as up-and-comers, innovators and exemplars of many other genres. Please enjoy these archival interviews and articles.

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