CareFusion, a global corp. specializing in hospital equipment, has ended its two-year sponsorship of George Wein's New York Jazz Festival and Newport Jazz Festival, and the Chicago Jazz Festival, a day after reporting the retirement of its Chairman and CEO David L. Schlotterbeck, and the first quarter financials of its 2010 fiscal year. The company announced steep revenue losses and plans to cut 5% of its workforce last August; in October, CareFusion recalled 17,000 Alaris PC infusion units, cited by the FDA as a product the use … [Read more...]
Randy Weston, Giant Standing
October 28, 2010 by
Pianist, composer, ensemble leader, now autobiographer -- at age 84, Randy Weston is a huge and undiminished presence. Read my column in City Arts New York about how he's just published African Rhythms, his life story, is signing it at Tribecca Performing Arts Center (NYC) Oct. 30, and leads his 22-piece orchestra at that same venue in a 50th anniversary concert of his 4-part suite Uhuru Afrika, (lyrics by Langston Hughes) on November 13. howardmandel.com Subscribe by Email or RSS All JBJ posts … [Read more...]
Surprises and stalwarts in an NYC jazz weekend
October 18, 2010 by
Five acts, all jazz headliners, in 3 hours at the Jazz Foundation of America's Loft Jazz Party, plus Chicago drummer-composer Mike Reed's thrilling People, Places & Things quartet and alto saxist Darius Jones' trio at Drom in the East Village -- bountiful blues, soul, swing, groove, creativity, tradition, big names and newcomers in NYC on Saturday and Sunday. It's like this all the time in the jazz capital of the universe, but good not to take it for granted. … [Read more...]
Jason Moran: Genius and/or very hard worker
October 15, 2010 by
The MacArthur Fellowship to pianist/composer/bandleader Jason Moran follows from that Foundation's ongoing trend to give $500,000 no-strings-attached to musicians who've demonstrated accomplishment and seem to promise more. Here's my City Arts-New York column re what Moran's done and how things have changed since Monk, Bird, Dizzy et al brought modernism to jazz, without any dream of non-profit or governmental financial support.howardmandel.com Subscribe by Email or RSS All JBJ posts … [Read more...]
Manhattan music “loft” Roulette takes big chance on Brooklyn
October 2, 2010 by
Roulette, since 1978 a formerly humble Manhattan-based presenter of avant-garde "intermedia," has signed a 20-year lease on a former YWCA art deco 600-seat theater in Brooklyn. This Next weekend (Oct. 7, 8, 9) is the space's three-night benefit "Easy Not Easy," assigning emerging (read: little known) artists presumably simple scores by such its longtime stalwarts as Pauline Oliveros and John Zorn. Read more all about it in my column in City Arts - New York . . . howardmandel.com Subscribe by Email or RSS All JBJ posts … [Read more...]
Jazz elders cast giant shadows
September 17, 2010 by
Why isn't the amazing current generation of creative (jazz) musicians better known? Maybe because major artists of the not-so-distant past are practicing the art form at splendid peaks, overturning clichés about dwindling powers of octogenarians. Read my column in City Arts New York for a report that touches on Sonny Rollins, Roy Haynes and Muhal Richard Abrams, who tower over the start of the fall 2010 season. howardmandel.com Subscribe by Email or RSS All JBJ posts … [Read more...]
If videos of Sonny are removed, will the legend grow?
September 15, 2010 by
Gone from Youtube are two brief but vivid excerpts from Sonny Rollins' 80th birthday concert at the Beacon Theater on Sept. 10 -- one showing the great tenor saxophonist in duet with percussionist Sammy Figueroa, the second documenting the surprise, climactic contributions of Ornette Coleman to the set, and Rollins' inspired improvised responses. What a shame! -- from at least one perspective. Or should those visuals never have been made public without the artists' permissions? … [Read more...]
Video for fans of Sonny Rollins & harmolodics
September 14, 2010 by
Too good to not post: Ornette Coleman was surprise guest with Sonny Rollins at his fast-become-famous Beacon Theater 80th birthday party on September 10 (backstage there was birthday cake shaped like a saxophone, made of marzipan). Note SR's quote at about 10 minutes in of "I'll Take Manhattan," which he certainly did. [[As of 9/15/2010 this video has been removed from Youtube by it's "user." Research will follow. … [Read more...]
Sonny @ Beacon bootlegged video clip
September 11, 2010 by
A bootlegged video excerpt of Sonny Rollins at the Beacon Theater, 9/10/2010 is available on youtube -- the sound doesn't do him justice, and I don't intend to encourage unauthorized video, but it is out there to give the world a brief idea of last night's concert. On the other hand, Bret Primack, the Jazz Video Guy, has been working long and hard on, for and with Sonny, and I embed below a clip from the end of a performance of "Tenor Madness" from Antibes, 2005, which is auhorized to be on the … [Read more...]
Sonny the sax king
September 11, 2010 by
At age 80, Sonny Rollins is indisputably the greatest living jazz tenor saxophonist, proved last night throughout a 2-hour set at New York's sold-out Beacon Theater in which harmolodic sage Ornette Coleman sat in, backed by drummer Roy Haynes and bassist Christian McBride, on "Tenor Madness." "Sonnymoon For Two". Rollins was hunched and hobbled when he came onstage, but once he started blowing he stood upright and blasted his big bold sound with energy that brooked no diminishment of strength or inspiration, bending only to fire … [Read more...]
