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Jazz Beyond Jazz

Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

jazz in italy

In Italy jazz is an object of serious study and practice, aspiration and envy, emulation and celebration, creativity and commercial draw. So I found last week at the Siena Jazz Summer Workshop and Tuscia in Jazz fest in Soriano nel Cimino. 

At both sites there were top-notch players of several generations from the US teaching young acolytes, offering life lessons a step or two beyond the fundamental mastery of instruments. Specially convened ensembles mixing players of diverse experience from multiple countries caught the attentions of all-ages audiences at free performances held in medieval courtyards and town squares. Posters on the ancient walls of hilltop villages such as Montalcino, producer of some of Italy’s finest wines, heralded jazz concert series I’d missed, featuring local as well as international headliners.
There’s something happenin’ here, no doubt about it. The harvesting of interests planted decades (centuries?) ago in the creation and appreciation of a world-wide vernacular music emphasizing melodic improvisation and rhythmic engagement? The emergence of a sophisticated but not elitist or exclusionary audience? Cultural evolution proceeding in the context of traditions dating back to pre-Renaissance? All of the above, fine cuisine and sweeping belvederes, too? A long report follows.

[Read more…]

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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