My NPR profile of Anthony Braxton, composer-performer-philosopher-educator, aired on Weekend Saturday Edition this morning — and he says some wonderful things. Braxton offers a free sampler of his music with very different examples from across the decades of his career. I have a lot of interesting material on Braxton from an interview during a visit […]
Archives for 2011
Funky freqs and other blues derivations in NYC
There’s not enough hard-core blues ‘n’ funk in New York City — that’s the premise of my new City-Arts column, prompted by the Free Form Funky Freqs (Vernon Reid, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, G. Calvin Weston) performing at the Stone two Fridays ago. If this kind of power trio (or quartet — whatever) is happening somewhere I […]
Occupy Wall Street Blues
Videographer Michal Shapiro sings a blues Occupy Wall Street protesters and so many other Americans will relate to — with guitarist Arnett Brewster (aka Bruce Arnold) and Woodrow T. Greenwich (aka Dr. David Schroeder, director of NYU’s Jazz Studies program) accompanying. See and hear “Up the Spout” — Complete disclosure: I wrote liner notes to […]
Anthony Braxton’s new music at Wesleyan & Roulette
Mentoring women musicians as well as men distinguishes Anthony Braxton among avant-garde composer-performers. That’s not the only unusual aspect of the career of Braxton, a 66-year-old composer, improviser, philosopher, educator and multi-instrumentalist who just celebrated a four-night festival overview of his work at Roulette music and dance space, new to Brooklyn. But it’s a significant […]
Roulette: “old” new music/dance space moves to central Brooklyn
My new column at CityArts-New York is about Roulette, the new music/new dance performance space, started in downtown Manhattan but moved to a coolly refurbished theater near a major Brooklyn transportation hub. Roulette’s in first season in this new home is thick with Chicago-born, -raised  and -emigrated “creative musicians” — Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, George E. […]
Congrats to Dafnis Prieto, MacArthur fellow
Cuban-born, New York-resident drummer-composer Dafnis Prieto has been named a 2011 MacArthur fellow, an honor attended by $500,000 to do with as he pleases, doled out $100K a year for five years. Congratulations to Dafnis — who’s only been in the U.S. since 1999, when at age 25 he emigrated and joined reedist-composer Henry Threadgill’s ensemble. […]
NYC new music post-9/11 to fall 2011
“The decade that followed 9/11/2001 has been marked by jazz and new music makers’ determination not to be deterred from what the Taliban and Tea Party alike may consider marginal activities, if not outright affronts to God’s dominion,” I write in my latest CityArts column. “Whether the city suffers attacks from abroad, natural disasters or economic collapses […]
The Azeri-Euro-Ameri-jazz 9/11 suite
Pianist Amina Figarova, from Azerbijan via Rotterdam to Astoria, Queens, composed September Suite in response to 9/11/01 — one of many works by musicians of all leanings and backgrounds created in response to the violent events of a decade ago. She and her sextet with Belgian flutist Bart Platteau, her husband, give the New York premiere […]
Congrats to Sonny Rollins
Saxophonist supreme Sonny Rollins turns 81 today, and was announced as recipient of 2011 Kennedy Center honors. He really deserves it: he’s been a beacon of robust, smart, honest American music for more than 60 years. Surfing for clips, I found this of “Alfie’s Theme” from 1982, but there are many good ones from earlier and […]
Foundation to run the Chicago Jazz Fest?
The Labor Day weekend free Chicago Jazz Festival had multiple musical high points, like Mike Reed’s   Myth/Science Assembly, yet Chicago Tribune critic Howard Reich believes the fest is old and creaky, in dire need of reinvention, under a new, fest-dedicated Foundation. With new mayor Rahm Emmanuel facing an immense budget shortfall, Reich may be right that […]
Chicago jazz fest: taking audiences into neighborhoods
The Chicago Jazz Festival began Wednesday night with a club tour — busses the Chicago Trolley Company’s open-air vehicles carting hundreds of ticket-holders on interlocking routes stopping at music-rooms throughout town. Of five venues on the South Side, City Life Cocktail Lounge was my favorite. Singer June Yvon has held a weekly gig there for 19 […]
Call for Tweets! hashtag #jazzlives from Labor Day jazz fests
The #jazzlives Twitter hashtag campaign broadcasts on WHO was heard live-in-person and WHERE throughout the fast-growing social mediaverse. Over Labor Day weekend, with some two dozen jazz fests and parties throughout the States and neighbors, the audience for live jazz can use hashtag as a free and easy way to get the word out that […]
Online video Charlie Parker Jazz Fest, day 2
Hurricane Irene wiped out both days of NYC’s annual Charlie Parker Jazz Fest — but not the show of Archie Shepp, Anat Cohen, Gerald Clayton and Madeleine Peyroux available via YouTube. Here’s a dry, speculative approximation of what we missed (see yesterday’s post for the virtual fest with Toots Thielemans, James Carter, Tia Fuller and […]