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Jazz Beyond Jazz

Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

That’s not jazz, Spaniard tells saxophonist

Larry Ochs’ Sax & Drumming Core may not be al gusto for everyone, but should Spain’s Civil Guard decide whether it plays “jazz”? At the Sigüenza Jazz Festival a disgruntled purist demanded his ticket money back claiming he was subjected to “contemporary music” rather than jazz fitting his definition; pistol-packing cops backed him up (which makes me wonder what they thought of last week’s concert by Digital Primitives). Read the Guardian account here.


Ochs is, for those who don’t know, a founding member of the estimable East Bay-based ROVA Saxophone Quartet. Stone Shift, his Sax & Drumming Core’s recent release from the French label RogueArt features his alternately garrulous and tender extended-technique tenor and sopranino improvisations on four somewhat open form compositions with post-Coltrane harmonic extrapolations, engaged collaboration from Satoko Fujii on piano and synth, Natsuki Tamura on trumpet and drummers Scott Amendola and Donald Robinson. Most of the recording is live from a 2007 concert at Teatro Fondamenta Nuove, Venice. No reports have surfaced about gondoliers or anyone else protesting either the newness or jazziness of that performance. Word: jazz and “new music” are one and the same. Purists beware!

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Howard Mandel

I'm a Chicago-born (and after 32 years in NYC, recently repatriated) writer, editor, author, arts reporter for National Public Radio, consultant and nascent videographer -- a veteran freelance journalist working on newspapers, magazines and websites, appearing on tv and radio, teaching at New York University and elsewhere, consulting on media, publishing and jazz-related issues. I'm president of the Jazz Journalists Association, a non-profit membership organization devoted to using all media to disseminate news and views about all kinds of jazz.
My books are Future Jazz (Oxford U Press, 1999) and Miles Ornette Cecil - Jazz Beyond Jazz (Routledge, 2008). I was general editor of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues (Flame Tree 2005/Billboard Books 2006). Of course I'm working on something new. . . Read More…

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