Cabaret is a forum for the classic American pop song — and the death of singer Mary Cleere Haran, hit by a car coming out of a driveway while she was riding her bike in Deerfield Beach, Fla., robs the world of an activist who interpreted, updated and preserved those brilliant, melodious standards. The genre and […]
Archives for 2011
Jazz-beyond-rock: Tony Williams addressing today’s emergency
Spectrum Road — electric guitarist Vernon Reid, bassist Jack Bruce, keyboardist John Medeski and drummer Cindy Blackman — playing high energy, high volume music at the Blue Note (NYC) this weekend inspired by the jazz-rock amalgam the late, great Tony Williams created 40 years ago, seems utterly cutting edge. Or is it just my old ears, getting […]
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 […]
How does Keith Jarrett come to Carnegie Hall? Alone.
In my latest column in City Arts – New York, I share a few thoughts about the solo piano improvisations of Keith Jarrett. The headline’s not mine, I don’t get it — but the music he performs at Carnegie Hall Jan. 16 may be transcendent, as far beyond jazz as his last album of solo […]
NEA Jazz Masters concert on ustream, NEA gives 1/4 mil for gigs
Last night’s NEA Jazz Masters concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center was ustreamed — for the first time allowing the world to see live, free and forever America’s official ceremony knighting the duly experienced, accomplished and original wise-people who create and perpetuate America’s living vernacular music.  It was great to actually be there, too – amid a […]
Journalist, yes. “Jazz” journalist — why?
Hank Shteamer, writer-on-music at Time Out New York and blogger at Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches, writes “I am not a jazz journalist” in response to “The State of Jazz Journalism Now and Immediate Prospects” town hall meeting at the Jazz Journalists Association’s “New Media for New Jazz” conference yesterday (Jan 8). He doesn’t deny that […]
Do you jazz? Yes, eyeJAZZ!
A quick glimpse of a jazz club, a chat with fans going into or leaving the show, a word with a musician coming offstage or maybe at practice — these bits of real life can be captured today in high quality video and audio equipment that’s readily at hand — mobile phones and HD pocket […]
Big fun news: Santana weds Blackman, Herbie & Wayne play
The rare notable jazz wedding to celebrate: Beyond-jazz, rock & Latin guitarist Carlos Santana to drummer Cindy Blackman, who’s had a great recording year, issuing Another Lifetime, her smashing tribute to the late Tony Williams) and driving Organ Monk, Greg Lewis’s trio album that made my top 10. Santana’s best albums after the first one always have had a outward reach […]
Jazz conventions, conferences, celebrations, memorial Jan 6 – 11
The jazz world convenes in two U.S. cities this weekend, as high school and college bands + directors gather at the JEN Conference in New Orleans, jazz presenters focus themselves at the APAP convention in New York City and jazz journalists get together on topics vital to better and continued music coverage at the JJA’s […]