Jazz Beyond Jazz http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/ Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation en Copyright 2011 Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:10:51 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification House Appropriations Committee to NEA: Keep Jazz Masters National Endowment for the Arts has been directed by the US House Appropriations Committee in its report to Interior to continue the American Jazz Masters Fellowships and dump its proposed American Artists of the Year honors. The report also supports continuation of the NEA's National Heritage Fellowships program (but not its Opera Honors) and recommends a 2012 NEA budget $19.6 million less than it got in 2011, $11.2 million below what the NEA asked for.]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/07/house_appropriations_committee.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/07/house_appropriations_committee.html main Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:10:51 -0500 Urban Realism and Treme "Life is glorious and vibrant and joyous at points, but it is essentially tragic. That's not a unique David Simon perspective." So sayeth David Simon, (pictured left; right is a Mardi Gras Indian portrayed by Clarke Peters), executive producer with Eric Overmyer of Treme, in a long interview on Salon conducted by Matt Zolar Seitz.  The HBO series about New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which ended its second season last Sunday night, is unique as a musical drama for its grounding of psychologically acute and entertaining characterizations in a verifiably real social context -- an accomplishment attributable to Simon's hard-boiled yet compassionate philosophy and journalistically-influenced creative practices. It's all laid out in the interview, which also makes a strong case for the centrality of cities to the future of America.]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/07/urban_realism_and_treme.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/07/urban_realism_and_treme.html main Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:29:15 -0500 Hurray for Treme season finale of Treme, had everything I watch the series for: 

  • Compelling characters embodied by terrific actors; 
  • plausible and suspenseful quick-cutting across and interweaving of plot strands;
  • confident command of realities afflicting post-Katrina/pre-Gulf oil spill New Orleans, and
  • the extraordinary depiction of living, breathing, hugely enjoyable music as a central factor in peoples' lives, whether or not they're professionally involved.
]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/07/hurray_for_treme.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/07/hurray_for_treme.html main Mon, 04 Jul 2011 14:11:55 -0500 Symphonic "jazz" compositions, big bands and holiday blasts here are now available to hear, thanks to Lara Pelligrinelli at NPR's A Blog Supreme. The 23rd annual BMI/New York Jazz Orchestra concert, featuring "New Works for Big Band" and the naming (not yet publicized) of the winner of the 11th Annual Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize. I'm looking for a third item regarding really large scale opportunities for jazz composers (and listeners), but the student competitions, festival appearances, and other emanations of a tradition which by the logic of the marketplace ought to be pretty much over are too plentiful to start to mention (ok, here's one: Savannah's 6th Annual Patriotic Big Band Salute on July 4 starring Jeremy Davis and the Fabulous Equinox Orchestra).]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/07/symphonic_jazz_compositions_bi.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/07/symphonic_jazz_compositions_bi.html main Sun, 03 Jul 2011 10:37:20 -0500 Jazz in Jordan: Yacoub Abu Ghosh explains and plays As Blue As The Rivers of Amman is due to drop July 2. 

  T
]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/06/jazz_in_jordan_yacoub_abu_ghos.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/06/jazz_in_jordan_yacoub_abu_ghos.html main Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:46:29 -0500 American Composer Orchestra: Jazz composers welcome CityArts column.

HarrisEisenstadt_courtesyACO.jpg
Harris Eisenstadt, drummer and composer, and his score for "Palimpset" - photo courtesy of ACO. Columbia University's Center for Jazz Studies partnered on this project. 

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]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/06/american_composer_orchestra_ja.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/06/american_composer_orchestra_ja.html main Mon, 27 Jun 2011 22:07:27 -0500 New NEA Jazz Masters: A classy last class Jazz Masters are all worthy: drummer Jack DeJohnette, saxophonist Von Freeman, bassist Charlie Haden, singer Sheila Jordan and trumpeter-educator-organizer-gadfly Jimmy Owens have had long and profoundly influential if not broadly celebrated or financially rewarded creative careers. So much the worse that this 30 year program highlighting genuine American artistic heroes has been zeroed out in the 2012 budget, to be replaced by proposed "American Artist of the Years Awards" that will toss jazz musicians into a mix including every kind of artist working in the performing arts (defined as dance, music, opera, musical theater and theater), with a de-emphasis on long-demonstrated artistry (I've blogged about this in detail previously). 

The Jazz Masters announcement was made in conjunction with announcements of new NEA National Heritage Fellowships and NEA Opera Honors recipients; both those programs have also been eliminated in the NEA's 2012 budget.
]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/06/new_nea_jazz_masters_a_classy.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/06/new_nea_jazz_masters_a_classy.html main Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:16:20 -0500 More on Scott-Heron -- artist in the American tradition Gil Scott-Heron after writing that he should have and did known better than to abuse drugs as he did, leading to his decline and demise. They make me ever more impressed with his scope and intensity, in both long ago and recent work. His 2010 recording "Me and the Devil" fully justifies the black and white zombie pulp of the video by Coodie and Chike that accompanies it. It's a horror song of a burned out, psychotic soul, a new link in an American tradition running from Edgar Allan Poe through Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf to Jim Thompson, George Romero and Martin Scorsese.

 
]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/05/more_on_scott-heron_--_artist.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/05/more_on_scott-heron_--_artist.html main Sun, 29 May 2011 15:18:49 -0500 Gil Scott-Heron, hard-eyed realist, dead of self-inflicted escapism Gil Scott-Heron, dead at age 62, was a poet, prophet and spokesperson of the black urban American experience. A merciless and unsentimental truth-teller when he emerged on the scene in the '70s, by telling Afro-identified kids dancing to Motown and grooving on psychedelic rock that "the revolution will not be televised" he meant that the real revolution in Civil Rights and human conduct was not a show, that those who wanted to make it happen or enjoy its results had to liberate themselves from sitting on the couch zoning out, that there was dirty work ahead.

I heard him in 1970 at Colgate University on a bill with the Last Poets -- one reason why the rise of poetry slams and rap didn't seem like anything new to me when they came along a decade later. I didn't listen to him much, but I heard and mostly respected what he had to say -- and anyway, Scott-Heron's message wasn't aimed at me. I admire that he reached his target audience, without compromising his vision.
]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/05/gil_scott-heron_hard-eyed_real.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/05/gil_scott-heron_hard-eyed_real.html main Sun, 29 May 2011 08:41:47 -0500 Celebrating jazz excellence -- Awards, honors and privileges zeroes out its Jazz Masters program, the Grammys cuts categories so pop best-sellers regain prominence vis a vis less obviously commercial stars, but the Jazz Journalists Association's 15th annual Jazz Awards -- to be held June 11, 2011 with an afternoon gala with all star music at City Winery, NYC, satellite parties hosted by prominent fans and grass roots organizations around the U.S. and streaming live video on the web at www.JJAJazzAwards.org -- hails loud and clear the achievements of the jazz music and media makers. (See that website for a list of all the nominees).   

maria schneider &.jpeg
Pianist Randy Weston, trumpeter Wallace Roney's Sextet, soprano sax/flutist Jane Bunnett with pianist Hilario Duran, and the Hammer Klavier Trio from Hamburg will play up a storm at the gala to further demonstrate the power and beauty of what we're talking about. This photo of orchestra leader Maria Schneider the year she won four Jazz Awards shows what such honors can mean to a musician.
]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/05/celebrating_jazz_excellence_--.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/05/celebrating_jazz_excellence_--.html main Mon, 23 May 2011 13:00:52 -0500 South African jazz hero Zim Nqgawana dies, age 52 Neil Tesser has written an informative post about Zim Ngqawana, the South African jazz musician who died at age 52 of a stroke May 10. Ngqawana, whose name is pronounced with a glottal "click" between the "N" and first "a," performed at the 2007 Columbia/Harlem Festival of Global Jazz," curated by George E. Lewis of Columbia University's Center for Jazz Studies, Nqgawana, with his quartet, in that concert struck me as a powerful and original saxophonist and flutist, improvising with a heightened lyricism no doubt inspired by John Coltrane's late period sound, but standing on its own. (photo by Dragan Tasic).

zim by dragan tasic.jpeg
His music that night (and on Zimology, his one album I've heard) had little overt reference to the South Africa of, say, Paul Simon's Graceland; rather, it was stately (at times as deep as that of sombre pianist Abdullah Ibrahim) and dynamic like the best of trumpeter Hugh Masekela -- with whom Nqgawana had worked -- but with no pop or commercial aspirations. The Mail and Guardian Online headlines Nqgawana as a "genius," which is a tricky term, but I have admired and can recommend his music, and be sorry that he'll play no more. (PS and full disclosure: The Columbia/Harlem Fest also hosted the first and so far only convention of international jazz journalists in the U.S." "Jazz in the Global Imagination," co-produced by the Jazz Journalists Association, of which I'm pres. . .)

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]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/05/south_african_jazz_hero_zim_nq.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/05/south_african_jazz_hero_zim_nq.html main Wed, 11 May 2011 11:49:31 -0500 CityArts New York June jazz fests bustin' out-all-over supplement CityArts New York let me play jazz supplement editor. Read my lead feature on upcoming in June the NYC Blue Note Jazz Festival, UnDead Festival, gigs everywhere and more respect! 

Also Kurt Gottschalk on the Vision Festival's backstory, David Adler on three successful, smart, younger jazzers, snapshots of Brazilian drummer Adriano Santos, Korean singer (of Portuguese  Yeahwon Shin and soul-tinged singer songwriter Laura Cheadle by Ernest Barteldes, and the big band w/classical Asian instruments Project Hansori led by Jeff Fairbanks, by Emilie Pons. 

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]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/05/june_jazz_fests_bustin_out_all.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/05/june_jazz_fests_bustin_out_all.html main Thu, 05 May 2011 15:44:48 -0500 Steve Reich @ Carnegie Hall @ 75, with devotees  balance. 

Reich's music is distinctive, certainly, unlike that of any of the other composers around his age he's been linked to for their common use of repetition, or seeming repetition,and consonant harmonies (as opposed to that old atonal or 12-tone stuff). Mallet Quartet (2008) played by So Percussion, WTC 9/11 (a commissioned debut) by Kronos Quartet, 2x5 performed by Bang on a Can Allstars and Friends and Double Sextet with eighth blackbird joining the Allstars may not be  Reich's deepest or most ambitious pieces, but they provide pleasures, live in the moment and make the moment live -- not easy things however smoothly the music goes down, and what we hope for from all music, though in contemporary composition we (the editorial "we") are often disappointed.
]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/04/steve_reich_carnegie_hall_75_w.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/04/steve_reich_carnegie_hall_75_w.html main Sat, 30 Apr 2011 23:13:45 -0500 Creative Music Studio, Woodstock at Columbia U and East Village CityArts - New York column is about the Creative Music Symposium, organized by Karl Berger, pianist/vibist with his wife Ingrid Sertso, who cofounded with free-thinking Ornette Coleman of the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock NY (1972-1984). The symposium at Columbia University's Center for Jazz Studies (directed by trombonist and digital music innovator George E. Lewis, once a CMS student/participant) last weekend dipped into the history and practices of the CMS, a paradise where cross-genre visionary improvisers (Don Cherry, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, et al), composer/interpreters (Pauline Oliveros, Frederic Rzewski) and "world music" fusionists (Olatunji, Nana Vasconcelos) taught through oral transmission in an immersion setting. 

Back in the day I wished I was musician enough to attend the Woodstock sessions, and as a budding writer was frustrated there was nowhere comparable to go -- so moderating a symposium panel felt like I got to CMS at last.
]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/04/creative_music_studio_woodstoc.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/04/creative_music_studio_woodstoc.html main Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:03:25 -0500 Vionlinist Billy Bang on being a "tunnel rat" in Viet Nam Prayer for Peace, Vietnam: Reflections and Vietnam: The Aftermath deal directly, bravely and beautifully with Bang's thoughts and feelings about having been a tunnel rat -- a small soldier dropped into darkness to sniff out what, or who, was a danger underground. Go to my NPR interview with Billy and click "listen." billy bang aftermath.jpeg 


]]> http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/04/vionlinist_billy_bang_on_being.html http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2011/04/vionlinist_billy_bang_on_being.html Tue, 12 Apr 2011 11:14:14 -0500