• Home
  • About
    • Jazz Beyond Jazz
    • Howard Mandel
    • Contact
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

Jazz Beyond Jazz

Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

JazzOnLockdown: Musicians, venues, .orgs — writers? — turn to live-streaming

It’s the most obvious, available and so far low-cost option for anyone who can cast a performance online for public consumption — jazz musicians specifically included: Live-streaming.

Fred Hersch has been first out of the box, committing to live-streaming daily mini concerts from his living room, 1pm Eastern Daily Time  (10am PST, 7pm in Europe) — https://www.facebook.com/fredherschmusic. 

As New York, California, Illinois and other U.S. locales request and/or require a suspension of public gatherings, the personal broadcast, whether of live-in-living room concerts, pre-produced video or even audio-only podcasts, can serve fans, maintain a presence and (it’s fervently hoped, perhaps, maybe maybe maybe) make some bit of money towards replacing what everyone will lose from in-person gigs. 

This being critical for jazz musicians, Jazz On The Tube — which serves 30,000 jazz-lovin’ subscribers to emails with embedded performance videos daily — has posted the best start-up live-streaming suggestions. It offers good information and valuable inks for players, teachers, producer-presenters, jazz support and service organizations and maybe even writers (how about I publicly Zoom with friendly/contentious colleagues, picking apart new releases)?

And perhaps most significantly, Jazz at Lincoln Center has started a blog where artists can post about their scheduled upcoming jazz live-streams, and listeners can find them.

A central calendar would be a boon to venues such as Baltimore’s An Die Musik, which broadcast what it promoted as it’s “first” live streaming event Friday, 3/20, of the Warren Wolf Quartet — charging viewers $5 to see it, and, if JALC is broadminded and inclusive, Experimental Sound Studio, a Chicago non-profit presenting contemporary composition and improvisation (Ken Vandermark is among their curators), which posted a schedule of “Quarantine Concerts,” but on 3/21 was flagged by YouTube for “inappropriate content,” so found a “friendlier platform,” switching to Twitch. Jazz on the Tube is eager to post links to upcoming jazz-streaming online, as is AllAboutJazz, now promoting live-stream events and offering to host uploads. But Jazz at Lincoln Center‘s “corona jazz livestreams” site could become the go-to platform, as it has announced plans to ramp up all its online content by digging into seven years of video’d concerts, panels and classes. Wynton Marsalis is also intending to sit for participatory online chats. 

Organizations such as New Music USA are telling members they’ll promote life-streamed events on their websites and feeds — a practice which seems like to grow, fast. Indeed, anyone who belongs to any such organization should look into what the organization’s plan is for online activity to be of general benefit. The JazzOnLockdown series of the Jazz Journalists Association, of which I’m president, is one such initiative, born out of the recently launched campaign “Working the Beat,” which all JJA members (and unaffiliated colleagues, too) are welcome to join.

But since most jazz musicians (and jazz journalists) are self-employed freelancers, it’s probably essential to rely on ourselves and do it ourselves.. Adapting or heightening one’s media game may seem tiresome if not daunting, but in reality it’s no longer so time intensive and difficult. It’s a matter of experimenting, improvising, taking your time and trying again until you’ve got enough of a grasp on the array of current cheap and accessible tools that connect us online to be able to jam for and with your correspondents (friends/family/fans/international audience). Trying these new methods can be fun. Still, we all hope they won’t be so singularly necessary — the only space to convene, assuredly safe from a virus — for very long.

Jazz Congress, Winter JazzFest, shape of jazz to come

The first Jazz Congress co-hosted by Jazz at Lincoln Center and JazzTimes magazine Jan 11 and 12, 2018 and the 14th annual Winter JazzFest Marathon produced in downtown Manhattan Jan 12 and 13, offered contrasts and prompted crosstalk. It wasn’t like these were conventions of different parties, but different narratives were going down.

The Congress’s sessions included JALC managing and artistic director Wynton Marsalis speaking on race and jazz, women in jazz announcing “yes, we’re here,” and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar keynoting about his love of the music. It was a schmooze fest for managers, publicists, presenters, musicians, writers, photographers, recording company execs and die-hard fans, who enjoyed themselves in JALC’s comfortable and scenic spaces.

The WJF produced by Bryce Rosenbloom’s Boom Collective presented some 100 concerts in 11 venues, showing rather than telling who’s doing what in the marketplace of rhythmic-driven vernacular songs and improvisation. It was flush with fervor, attended by folks with obviously wide-open ears.

Here’s Marsalis despairing that black people don’t support jazz, that the young are ashamed of the swing beat, that black music is willfully ignored by music  conservatories, that white people can’t dance. Pianist/writer Ethan Iverson mostly nods in agreement, announcing that jazz is black music but we’re all Omni-Americans (the late Albert Murray’s admirable assertion).

Jazz And Race: A Conversation – Jazz Congress 2018 from Wynton Marsalis on Vimeo.

No single clip can encompass the creative/political/sonic thrust of 2018 WJF — which after Marathon weekend continued another five days, with star-heavy tributes to Alice Coltrane and Geri Allen, for instance — but here’s a taste from the WJF appearance of singer Jose James at le Poisson Rouge, revisiting Bill Wither’s 1972 folk-rock-r&B hit “Use Me” (which Esther Phillips covered that same year,

and the Portuguese-Australian-Netherlandquintet Mn’Jam Experiment has more recently, with improvised video). A purist might disavow any of these three versions as jazz. Whatever. I like it.

The best WJF sets I heard were —

  • an artfully conceived and unusually well-realized melding of spoken word with unconventional music in “Art and Anthem: For Gwendolyn Brooks,” by WJF artist-in-residence flutist Nicole Mitchell, with pianist Jason Moran, poet Erica Hunt, singer Shana Tucker, bassist Brad Jones and drummer Shirazette Tinnen in brilliant ensemble (Rashida Brumbray also did some emphatic dancing);
  • hot new vocalist Jazzmeia Horn, advancing the approach of Betty Carter, at the commanding center of her tough, blowing band (and with two Grammy nominations for her debut album A Social Call;
  • scabrously sarcastic and nobly tender songs of resistance by Marc Ribot, playing a beat-up old acoustic guitar and ukelele, with loose accompaniment from powerful tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, acidic altoist Briggan Krauss, supporting singer and flutist Domenica Fossati;
  • a 1:30 am – 2:30 am hit by ultra-charged electric bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma’s Brotherzone with electric guitarist Ronnie Drayton and drummer Darryl Burgee, members of the original ’70s Last Poets and their protégé, poet Wadud Ahmad.

Pace Wynton Marsalis, who truly does travel the spaceways trying to stir up mainstream audiences for “jazz” and has been singing his downbeat tune for a while, here was considerable evidence “jazz” is healthy, provided we allow “jazz” to be defined by people interested in (as well as artists exploring) what its variable parameters suggest it might be. “Jazz,” our most immediately engaged of art forms is, from my experience at WJF, my usual perspective in Chicago and global correspondence, responding with openness, daring, unbowed energy and spirit to  social, economic and technological developments in real time, virtually everywhere.

The acts I cite above and others at the Marathon — flutist Jamie Baum’s Septet introducing new material; the Sun Ra Arkestra interacting with its 40- 

year-old soundtrack on the Ra-on-film spectacle Space Is The Place; a clangorous attempt by out-jazz/black rock trio Harriet Tubman plus ringers to update Ornette Coleman’s iconic suite Free Jazz — as a matter of course featured multi-racial/religious/ethnic/gendered personnel. Exception proving the rule: saxophone terror James Carter’s Electrik Outlet, four guys who didn’t get the memo re: backing off on sexual innuendo.

 I walked the Marathon route from the New School’s Tishman Auditorium to Subculture on Bleeker and Lafayette, in New York University territory, and everywhere were audiences of wide age span and diverse ancestry. Perhaps not as many, not as young or diverse, not as easily drawn in as we of the hardcore would like, but it’s not a scene in downturn, either — except maybe financially. Which is, of course, a catastrophe, since even jazz musicians (and jazz journalists) have to eat.

Of course, this was Manhattan during a special week in musical presentation, facing an international audience. The convention of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters — those who book artists for your elite venues — was going on, and globalFEST, and other showcases like the club Birdland’s multi-night stand of Vijay Iyer’s sextet of heavies from his critically hailed ECM album Far From Over were scheduled with this in mind. True, ching-ching-a-ling swing as established in the 1930s was not the predominant WJF beat. But I did hear drumming — by Tyshawn Sorey, Matt Wilson, J.T. Lewis and Ms. Tinnin, check ’em out — that swung hard, informed by Art Blakey, Max Roach, Dannie Richmond, Tony Williams, and others of the tradition.

Jamaaladeen Tacuma, photo by Mitch Myers

I prefer music that takes its momentum from the bottom up, rather than float moodily and ethereally, so that’s what I pursued. There were probably WJF sets that didn’t grip or groove, but everyone I heard was thinking about form and substance, and hoped to engage listeners rather than assume their attentions.

There was music at the Jazz Congress. The JALC’s rotunda stage, with floor-to-ceiling windows viewing Columbus Circle and Central Park, had student groups mostly serving as backdrops. But then the Congress was meant to be a venue for bringing up if not working out issues affecting the music’s current ecosystem. The emphasis was on hot topics and casual bump-intos.

So I heard NPR and DownBeat contributor Michelle Mercer moderate a panel on “Women in Jazz” (as distinct from the one she moderated for the JJA’s Jan. 13 Jazz Media Summit on women in jazz journalism). On it, trumpeter/teacher/activist Ellen Seeling explained what it’s taken to get Marsalis’s Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to institute blind auditions and published notification for jobs. Trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and writer John Murph commented on their work lives, being mostly positive but reporting fulltime awareness that biases about gender, race, sexual orientation, class, etc. might affect professional relationships. Drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, honored by the Congress with its Bruce Lundvall Visionary Award, spoke of mentoring middle school girls learning to play jazz as well as later — and perhaps even earlier — students.

Abdul-Jabbar, beloved for his basketball prowess and unforced charm, in his keynote address (starting in this video at 42 minutes in), told of loving the music. Nothing new there, but he got a standing ovation. There were also presentations by producers of the NPR/WBGO/Jazz at Lincoln Center radio-and- video show Jazz Night in America and independent programmers forums organized by JazzWeek. It’s good to see people from all across the US — Randall Kline of SFJazz, John Gilbreath of Earshot Jazz in Seattle, Tom Guralnick out of Albuquerque, Terri Pontremoli from Cleveland’s Tri-C Jazz Festival, Mark Christman of Ars Nova Workshop, Philadelphia as well as colleagues from France (journalist/broadcaster Alex Duthil), Zurich (Intakt Records producer Patrick Landolt), Toronto (Jane Bunnett and Larry Cramer), London (John Cummings), Bremen (Peter Schulze of JazzAhead!), and lots of East Coast-based associates.

The Jazz Congress replaced the Jazz Connect conference formerly run by JazzTimes and the Jazz Forward Coalition. Coalition principals such as Don Lucoff (DLMedia, PDX Jazz/Portland OR) and Peter Gordon (Thirsty Ear Records) addressed the Congress, too. A good time was had. And then to hear music in New York City! With jazz of the WJF calibre available to record and tour, listenership could grow, if the sector figured out a business model. For all the talk at the Congress, little of it focused on tapping new income streams. At the JazzFest, the plan was, “We’ll play, you’ll come.” Yeah, if folks find out about it, and the show’s not too far from home.

howardmandel.com

Subscribe by Email or RSS
All JBJ posts

Prince plays the blues – Chocolate Drops, Wynton, Clapton, too

The blues is big-time pop again — processed to a triumphant apotheosis by Prince at Madison Square Garden as I detail in my new City Arts column — (but did it ever go away? Here’s the Artist with James Brown and Michael Jackson in 1983)

 
 

— reinvigorated in acoustic revivalist and hybrid form by the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who kick off a three-month US tour at Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series on Wednesday, Feb 2 — 

 

[Read more…]

Live jazz broadcasts — back to future formats

Hail NPR.org for putting 14 Carefusion Newport Jazz Fest sets on the ‘net, and Wynton Marsalis for live-streaming from France’s Marciac Jazz Festival video of his Modern New Orleans concert. Back-to-the-future, as broadcasts allow music fans geographically anywhere (and now any time) to get in on the action.

[Read more…]

More on Tuli Kupferberg & Harvey Pekar

Tuli Kupferberg, the wispy hipster comic social critic of ol’ boho downtown NYC who died at age 86 on Monday, will be buried with a public service Saturday 7/17 at St. Mark’s Church in the East Village. According to his family, “There will be no religious element . . Fugs Coby Batty, Steve Taylor and Ed Sanders will be the main speakers, after which anyone who cants can talk, sing, recite poetry, or whatever they like.” This seems eminently sensible for a man who preached a kind of wised-up utopian socialism in goofy “parasongs” with his band the Fugs and with stick-figure cartoons, as he detailed at some length in yesterday’s post. My 2004 article which drew on that interview has more on The Fugs Final CD (Part 1), background on the tumultuous ’60s (for those who need it) and lets Ed Sanders have his say.

Also: My error to characterize Harvey Pekar, the comic-book writer and music journalist who died at age 70, also on Monday, as essentially a trad-jazz fan (though there’s nothing wrong with that). Yes, he collected 78 rpm records, but he also listened hard to and wrote seriously about mid ’60s Miles Davis, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, and other improv far from the music’s origins. A sampling of his articles is here and here (Wynton Marsalis alert!). Doug Ramsey’s piece on Harvey at Rifftides is also rewarding.
 

howardmandel.com
Subscribe by Email |
Subscribe by RSS |
Follow on Twitter
All JBJ posts |

She plays like a girl? That’s hot — and cool!

Women are making future jazz history — despite seldom showing up in top high school band competitions. My new column in City Arts – New York’s Review of Culture, has local names and immediate dates; jazz gender parity is a slow movement but my bet is it’s irreversible.

[Read more…]

The blues in NYC

My column  http://tinyurl.com/NYCblues in City Arts – New York’s Review of Culture, focuses on America’s deep, dark musical strain as it is today in a blues-challenged city. It doesn’t mention that Wynton Marsalis is the world’s greatest blues trumpeter, as he proved last night playing “bread and butter” from the Count Basie songbook with the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra, a show repeated tonight (2/12) and Saturday.

[Read more…]

Wynton & Orch play NEA Jazz Masters, on radio tonight!

Just announced: WBGO, NPR and Sirius/XM are broadcasting live and streaming on the web tonight’s NEA Jazz Masters ceremony and concert with W. Marsalis and the LIncoln Center Jazz Orchestra performing works by Muhal Richard Abrams, Bill Holman, Bobby Hutcherson et al. Pianist Cedar Walter will perform with singer Annie Ross, Kenny Barron will play solo piano and the great Yusef Lateef will duet with percussionist Adam Rudolph. Rocco Landesman, NEA chairman, co-hosts the proceedings. Tune in at 7:30 pm EST.


howardmandel.com
Subscribe by Email or RSS
All JBJ posts

Wynton le Chevalier Marsalis

A survey in my latest City Arts column of the music of trumpeter-composer Wynton Marsalis, in the jazz spotlight for 25 years. Founder and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, educator, activist, humanitarian, winner of a Pulitzer and multiple Grammies, Wynton stands tallest in my book when he just plays jazz.

[Read more…]

Winners and their blues

Winners of this blog’s first Blues Lyric Contest are suitably troubled — and all get Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson Play the Music of Ray Charles DVDS to ease their weary minds. All have expressed regrets they can’t get to  Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts of Wynton and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra celebrating for Mary Lou Williams’ centennial or  alto saxist Maceo Parker, so sadly those tix go wanting. But that’s the blues for ya. . . 

[Read more…]

Midnight (EST) deadline, blues contest entries

Prizes of Jazz at Lincoln Center tix for this weekend and dvds of Wynton Marsalis with Willie Nelson for the best blues lyrics or prose poem will be determined at 12:01 tonight (11/11/09). Several stunning (!?!) efforts have been received — via the comments box below — but I’m not publishing any of them until all the tries are in and the winners have been chosen. Is it hard to write a blues lyric? See my examples from yesterday, or search the web for classics, which are plentiful. Three to five choruses fitting a standard 12-bar blues form, or a bluesy prose poem of 100 to 150 words are what I want to see — alto sax soulman Maceo Parker playing in the elegant Allen Room, and Wynton leading the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in music by Mary Lou Williams, with featured soloists Geri Allen and Geoff Keezer are first prizes; second and third are dvds of Wynton and Willie (with guest Norah Jones), autographed by Mr. Jazz at Lincoln Center himself. 

Submit your blues now! Don’t delay and cry like this – 

[Read more…]

Blues lyrics: write to win

For tickets to Jazz at Lincoln Center this weekend or a dvd of Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson performing live, try writing a blues. How hard can it be?

“Minutes seem like hours, hours seem like days,

Seems my baby would stop her lowdown ways” — Muddy Waters, “Country Blues”

 “Woke up this morning, looked ’round for my shoes

You know I had those mean old walkin’ blues” — Robert Johnson, “Walkin’ Blues” 

. 

“Whoa, oh tell me baby

Where did ya stay last night? An’ why don’t ya hear me cryin’?

Whoo hoo, whoo whoo, 

Whoo who. . . ” — Howlin’ Wolf, “Smokestack Lightning”

[Read more…]

Jazz at Lincoln Center ducats, Wynton-Willie dvd giveaways!

Readers of this blog can win 2 tix for JALC’s November 14 shows by Maceo Parker or the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra playing Mary Lou Williams, or autographed Wynton-Willie Nelson Play Ray Charles dvds. But in keeping with the inherent value of these prizes, I’m making the contest creative, not easy.

[Read more…]

Next Page »

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…

@JazzMandel

Tweets by @jazzbeyondjazz

More Me

I'll be speaking:

JBJ Essentials

Archives

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license