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Wed, Oct. 1st offers a way to hear swinging music and help boost Obama's chances. (see below)
But first, a brief history of the presidency since 1980, via music:
Reagan pretend cowboy country music
Bush 1 oilman country music
Clinton pretend saxophonist jazz
Bush 2 pretend cowboy/ sound of bombs dropping
failed oilman
McCain? pretend maverick sounds of bombs dropping/drills drilling?
Obama? real maverick jazz?
(the following from my forthcoming Blu Notes column in Jazziz):
When I called up pianist Aaron Goldberg, he'd just returned from touring in Brazil. In between studio sessions with his trio, he was busy planning "A Concert of America's Future" -- a benefit for Barack Obama's campaign with an impressive lineup of musicians.
Goldberg remembers feeling similarly inspired in 2004. "I
saw my progressive-leaning friends, especially the musicians, getting
apathetic," he said. "They didn't realize that, despite everything that had
gone on, despite the Iraq war, it was quite possible that George Bush might be
re-elected." He felt like his community of musicians had to do something. He
decided to organize a fundraiser for John Kerry's campaign, and began making
calls.
Monday, 9/22, 7pm:
The Public Theater asked me to moderate a panel discussion on post-Katrina New Orleans, to follow a FREE reading from the "The Breach," a new play by Catherine Fillloux, Tarell Alvin McCraney, and Joe Sutton, that interweaves three flood-related tales. I've yet to read the play but have heard only good things about it. And I'm happy that it will serve as a springboard for a larger discussion. My panelists include: New York Daily News journalist Nicole Bode, who covered Katrina and its aftermath; Robert Carey, Vice President of the International Rescue Committee's Resettlement Department; and academic Lee Clarke, author of Worst Cases: Terror and Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination.
For more on the play and the panel, look here.
RESERVATIONS:
thebreach@publictheater.org; or call 212-539-8597; first-come, first-serve
basis
Monday, 10/6, 7pm:
I'll be among the readers at a release party for the new book, Best Music Writing 2008. I'm honored to have my story, "Band on the Run in New Orleans" in there, tucked between the writing of some brilliant colleagues. (Especially to have a piece on New Orleans selected.) I'll read an excerpt. Fellow readers include: Nelson George (the book's guest editor); Gary Giddins; Jody Rosen; and Sam Kashner.
The Half King Pub
505 W 23RD ST
NEW
YORK, NY 10011
TEL:
212.462.4300
http://www.thehalfking.com/
http://www.funboring.com/bestmusicwriting
Sunday night, when Allen Toussaint played "Yes We Can Can" for Democratic convention delegates in Denver, the song sounded tailor-made for the Obama campaign. But he wrote it in New Orleans, in 1970, inspired by a different era of change.
No wonder. New Orleans musicians have for more than a century anticipated and articulated just what this country needs. Now, three years past the floods that followed Katrina, Mr. Toussaint and other bearers of the city's unique (and uniquely American) culture -- jazz musicians, brass-band members, Social Aid & Pleasure Club second-liners, and Mardi Gras Indians --call on the country to respond to their needs, for the good of us all. We must recognize this culture as essential to New Orleans recovery, not to mention the restoration of our damaged national identity.
BIG "We Shall Not Be Moved" VIDEO SHOOT
Woldenberg Riverfront Park
Saturday, 9 August (with a rain date of Sunday, 10 August)
10:00am - 1:00pm
Come out and be a part of the "We Are the World" of New Orleans!
**** OVERVIEW ****
We Shall Not Be Moved is, essentially, the "We Are the World" of New
Orleans http://www.weshallnotbemoved.org.
The musicians of New Orleans are producing a recording and video of
the song, We Shall Not Be Moved, featuring some of New Orleans' best
players, singers and choirs, along with national celebrities.
The project is designed to heal, uplift and unify the people of New
Orleans---and the world---helping us all turn the page once and for
all, release the images of devastation to flow downstream, and stride
into the future with spirits soaring.
It's almost time for the Deer Isle Jazz Festival in Stonington, Maine. For eight years, I've helped bring great jazz to this tiny Down East Maine island. In that time, both the fest and I have grown. This year's event is a New Orleans blowout (more on that in my next post). Here's a recent piece I wrote for Jazziz, about my experiences as volunteer producer.
MAINE ATTRACTION
by Larry Blumenfeld
"Condoms. Tampons. Excess hair. SMALL AN-I-MALS!"
So sang the dozen folks forming a circle within a tiny cabin last July, holding that last syllable until Arturo O'Farrill dropped his right hand with a conductor's authority. I'd just made the nine-hour drive from Brooklyn, New York, to Deer Isle, Maine, but my bleary eyes found strength to widen. I laughed.
I'd walked in on a rehearsal for Haystack, The Opera: An Afro-Cuban Jazz Odyssey -- and it was no joke. O'Farrill's wife, Alison, sat at a keyboard, his eldest son, Zack, before a set of conga drums. His youngest, Adam, held a trumpet, awaiting his cue. Soon various rhythm instruments -- hand drums, cowbells, guiros, clavés -- were handed out.
Before long, O'Farrill had these painters and potters and sculptors, all of whom had come to the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts for a summer session, creating four layers of rhythm and sounding pretty damn in-sync.
O'Farrill had come to Maine to headline at the annual Deer Isle Jazz Festival, for which I've been volunteer producer since its inception, in 2001. Each summer, one festival musician serves as artist-in-residence at the Haystack School. O'Farrill, a celebrated pianist and bandleader, the son of a legendary Cuban composer, met this challenge by bringing his whole family and creating an opera, with lyrics drawn from Haystack Director Stuart Kestenbaum's work -- not his celebrated poetry, but his school manual, the part about "what not to flush down the toilet."
NEW ORLEANS: Culture, Crisis, and Community
How can music help heal New Orleans? What role should the arts play in rebuilding communities? Why does this city's storied culture find itself embattled? Why are so many residents still displaced or homeless?
A panel discussion
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Moderator: Larry Blumenfeld, journalist
Panelists:
Kalamu ya Salaam, poet/activist; Kent Jordan, musician/educator; Josh Neufeld,
cartoonist/Red Cross volunteer; Emmanuel Pratt, urban planning researcher/digital
media artist; Rob Cambre, producer; others
Wednesday, June 11th 5pm (until about 6:30)
Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center
107
Suffolk Street
New
York NY 10002
Presented by the 13th annual VISION FESTIVAL as a prelude to Wednesday night's Lifetime Achievement Celebration of Edward "Kidd" Jordan
Politics were in the
air during jazzfest -- literally. While the Neville Brothers closed the event on
the Acura stage, a plane circled above the Fair Grounds towing a banner that
read: "Shell, Hear the Music. Fix the Coast You Broke." Not all the commentary
was so overt, and none as visible, but it was there if you kept your eyes and
ears open. Mind you, it's too easy in New Orleans these days to read meaning
and purpose into every lyric or song choice -- was Sheryl Crow making a
statement by covering "Gimme Shelter," or was she just doing a Stones tune? --
yet some of the messages were timely, pointed, and worth remembering.
Here's my reflection on all that in a piece for the website Truthdig.
Blogroll
CultureGulf
be.jazz
rifftides
Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise
Dave Douglas: Greenleaf Music
birdlives
Lerterland
point of departure
Jazziz magazine
Jazz Journalists Association
Steve Smith: nightafternight
Willard Jenkins: Open Sky Jazz
music/food/justice in NOLA
Howard Mandel's JazzBeyondJazz
Stereophile:Fred Kaplan
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AJ Blogs
AJBlogCentral | rssculture
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
rock culture approximately
Rebuilding Gulf Culture after Katrina
Richard Kessler on arts education
Douglas McLennan's blog
Art from the American Outback
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
No genre is the new genre
John Rockwell on the arts
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude
dance
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...
jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
media
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Martha Bayles on Film...
classical music
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
publishing
Jerome Weeks on Books
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera
theatre
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
Elizabeth Zimmer on time-based art forms
visual
Public Art, Public Space
John Perreault's art diary
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
