Jazz Beyond Jazz

Steve Colson, pianist/composer and band leader, with vocalist Iqua Colson --  a couple  members of American experimental music's cutting edge AACM for some 35 years --  give a rare performance quartet Saturday night (Feb 6) at NYC's Thalia theater in Symphony Space. Everyone who attends gets the Colsons' new CD, The Untarnished Dream, for free. One-time promotion? Start of a trend? Acceptance of reality?

Are all Jazz Masters in/of NYC? Most, yes -- but can that last? My new City Arts column. See photos that demonstrate the thesis.

Last weekend the World Saxophone Quartet and percussion ensemble M'Boom blasted 21st century conventions at Birdland -- this weekend Pierre Boulez conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through Bartok's two piano & percussion concerto and Stravinsky's "The Firebird" at Carnegie Hall. Listening opportunities in New York City cover a vast range. Duh, right?

Mark Guest, guitarist, has organized a grassroots "Jazz and Blues for Haiti" benefit for Doctors Without Borders on Monday Jan 26 Jan 25 at Curras Nuevo Cuisine in Asheville, NC, a town he says "doesn't to my knowledge have an immediate Haitian connection." But Guest wanted to do something for people in crisis worth more than $10 bucks and knows how to leverage his skills; besides, he's felt nature's wrath himself, having been driven from Gulf Coast, where he and his wife lived "a beer-and-a-half from New Orleans' French Quarter" by Hurricane Katrina.

Just in --  Muhal Richard Abrams conducting the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and Yusef Lateef on tenor sax with percussionist Adam Rudolph, fine performance photography by Frank Stewart from the National Endowment for the Arts' Jazz Masters concert. My post on the concert is here, and the images are below -- 

Jazz, defined by creativity, pushes boundaries -- a fact alluded to and demonstrated by two of the new NEA Jazz Masters at the gratifying if lengthy ceremony and concert held at Rose Theater of Jazz at Lincoln Center on Tuesday, Jan 12. Muhal Richard Abrams and Yusef Lateef were inducted into the canon that now recognizes 114 musicians and advocates of what House Congressional Resolution 57 (passed with Senate concurrence in 1987) calls "a rare and valuable national American treasure." Both men performed in ways that draw from but aren't constrained by the heritage/legacy/tradition of swing, blues and ballads often cited by the conservative end of the music's continuum as sine qua non for the four-letter, two-Z designation.

The Jazz Journalists Association's five days of programming in coordination with the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference and Nat'l Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters events was a raging success on several fronts. Activities included the educational, informational, musical, productive and social. Overall, the JJA conference counted approximately 100 participants.

Just announced: WBGO, NPR and Sirius/XM are broadcasting live and streaming on the web tonight's NEA Jazz Masters ceremony and concert with W. Marsalis and the LIncoln Center Jazz Orchestra performing works by Muhal Richard Abrams, Bill Holman, Bobby Hutcherson et al. Pianist Cedar Walter will perform with singer Annie Ross, Kenny Barron will play solo piano and the great Yusef Lateef will duet with percussionist Adam Rudolph. Rocco Landesman, NEA chairman, co-hosts the proceedings. Tune in at 7:30 pm EST. howardmandel.com
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Jazz journalists conferenced in New York City last weekend as arts presenters, National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters and musical showcases galore (including an audience-happy Winter Jazzfest and the debut of drummer Jack DeJohnette's hot new band) justified the very existence of the profession.