I'll never be an avid fan, much less an aficionado, of gospel music -- but Lift Me Up, Chicago Gospel Keyboard Masters, new from The Sirens, a local independent label, is clearly full of joy and inspiration. It also is notable for documenting a seldom spot-lit but obviously thriving American roots music scene. Art arising from or meant to beget religious transcendence makes me uncomfortable, but many others aren't so biased, and all kudos go to Steven Dolins, The Sirens producer and my co-religionist, who says, "[G]oing back to Thomas Dorsey … [Read more...]
Chicago’s free summer music cornucopia – Deutsch, PoKempner photos
With a 10th annual Latin Jazz festival produced in the neighborhood Humboldt Park by the Jazz Institute of Chicago and dynamite downtown concerts with headliners such as Nigerian juju star King Sunny Adé and Afro-Cuban progressive Eddie Palmieri put on by DCASE, the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Chicago's free summer music programs are well underway. Add the Museum of Contemporary Arts' weekly Tuesdays on the Terrace shows, conceded that Chicago's unparalleled Blues Fest is already over (as is Taste of Chicago, … [Read more...]
Arhoolie Records (a dozen faves) to Smithsonian
Excellent news on the archival recordings front: Arhoolie Records, the 55-year old treasury of American folk and vernacular musics, has been acquired by Smithsonian Folkways, the non-profit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. So a broad, odd, historic, incomparable cultural catalog, founded and run since 1960 by producer Chris Strachwitz (now 84) enters the public trust. Smithsonian Folkways guarantees "in print" status and teaching tools to its 3000-plus titles (also accessible by streaming), Arhoolie's to be included. The best way … [Read more...]
Pulitzer winner Threadgill: “What is harmony?”
My profile of Pulitzer Prize winner Henry Threadgill, commissioned by and published in DownBeat in 2010: Henry Threadgill exuded confidence and impatience when facing four video cameras and a standing-room-only gallery of serious listeners at the Manhattan new music performance space Roulette last October. With his flute, bass flute, alto saxophone and bass clarinet at hand and the members of his ensemble Zooid -- guitarist Liberty Ellman, tuba-and-trombonist Jose Davilla, fretless bass Roulette TV: HENRY THREADGILL // ZOOID from … [Read more...]
Threadgill wins Pulitzer for Zooid and cheers for his career
The Pulitzer Prize for Music has been earned by Henry Threadgill, composer, bandleader and reedist, for his expansive and in-depth explorations of polyphonic improvisation with his quintet Zooid, the suite stretching over two cds In for a Penny, In for a Pound. Big time congratulations! And encouragement listening to all and any of Henry's works, as he is a visionary, exciting American composer. For instance, Threadgill's even newer Ensemble Double Up has recently issued its premier recording, Old Locks and Irregular Verbs, a triumphant … [Read more...]
Kudos Wayne Shorter, sole “jazz” Guggenheim fellow
Though the Guggenheim Foundation has in recent practice conferred several of its prestigious annual fellowships on musicians of jazz or beyond, only Wayne Shorter, the great 83 year old saxophonist-composer -- an NEA Jazz Master, co-founder of Weather Report, veteran of Miles Davis' great 1960's quintet and before that Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers -- represents music creativity from that legacy in this year's slate of 178 honorees and beneficiaries named April 6, drawn from U.S. and Canadian citizens in humanities, sciences and the arts. The … [Read more...]
At the NEA’s Jazz Masters Ball
The Kennedy Center was filled Monday night with VIPs, devotees and artists across disciplines for the 34th annual celebration of Jazz Masters by the National Endowment of the Arts. Here's my coverage for DownBeat magazine on the tribute to the 2016 honorees: Fierce and soulful saxophonists Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders, cool yet lyrically expressive vibist Gary Burton, and Wendy Oxenhorn, the genuinely devoted-to-music-and-people exec director of the Jazz Foundation of America, if not exactly jazz's cross between … [Read more...]
Local DC jazz apart from NEA Jazz Masters events
In Washington DC for events surrounding the investiture of vibist Gary Burton, saxophonists Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp and Jazz Foundation of America's executive director Wendy Oxenhorn as National Endowment of the Arts' Jazz Masters, I visited a new grassroots venue that shows where the deep heart of jazz support lies. The Jazz and Cultural Society is an 11-month old community center in a largely African-American neighborhood now presenting music twice a week (Wednesdays and Sundays, 6-9 pm). It's the love-child of Dr. Alice Jamison, … [Read more...]
Historic days for US and Cuba, accompanied by jazz
Congratulations to the U.S. and Cuba for advancing our long overdue reset. It's about time. Jazz at its best has linked our nations for decades, through the tangled history of corrupt dictatorship and revolution, missile crisis, failed invasion, bad relations and trade embargo -- and in this recent historic moment, Afro-Cuban-American music is exploding with exciting new recordings. A hint of accords and collaborations to come? Disclosure: I attended an amazing jazz festival in Varadero in December 1980, after having interviewed an early … [Read more...]
Ornette Day, bits of wisdom with video clips
Ornette Coleman's birthday is today, and his son Denardo has invited everyone to a walk with him from noon to three in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where his father, the prophet of Harmolodics, is interred near Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Max Roach, Celia Cruz -- a very good neighborhood. In Ornette's honor here are excerpts of his talk from my book Miles Ornette Cecil -- Jazz Beyond Jazz. Also, how I came to love his music, and two videos: a choice "free" solo performance with a rare piano episode (from Berlin, 1972) and a prime … [Read more...]
Mavis Staples’ HBO doc hits relevant Civil Rights notes
"I'm not as frisky as I used to be but I feel like I am," Mavis Staples speaks the truth with a grin and a twinkle in Mavis!, an endearingly upbeat bio doc premiering on HBO tonight (Monday, February 29). Appearing early in the month for a sneak preview at Chicago's Du Sable Museum, the 76-year-old Chicago fireball with a deep gritty voice had the vitality to fool anyone -- it also overflows from her new album Livin' On A High Note. She mixed merrily with the crowd, watched the show from a seat in the theater, then sang two songs backed … [Read more...]
Chicagoans’ albums reviewed, author’s edition
My reviews of recordings by Chicago pianists Larry Novak, Laurence Hobgood and Robert Irving III, percussionist Art "Turk" Burton, and saxophonists Caroline Davis and Roy McGrath appeared in DownBeat's January issue, but the print edition limited their length. DB's rating system ranges from one to five stars (*s), poor to masterpiece. Here's my text as submitted: In Chicago jazz, veteran modernists pave the way for innovators to expand on a fabled legacy. Experimentalists and mainstreamers alike convene supportive communities, yet … [Read more...]
Why’s nobody mourning Paul Kantner? Jefferson Airplane flies forever
Jefferson Airplane founding member Paul Kantner's death at age 74 on Jan. 28 has been met by a mainstream culture shrug compared to the celebratory attention paid rock stars dead in the past month including David Bowie, the Eagles' Glenn Frey and Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots. Why? In one hour since posting this, I've been besieged with Facebook comments that mourning is indeed being done and cultural note taken, like this New York Times obituary. A credible editor tells me there's been more coverage of Kantner "by a pretty far margin" … [Read more...]