Flutists drawn to the instrument’s floating high pitch also want to get down, according to Robert Dick, world master of the contrabass flute and extended flute techniques. He demonstrated this truism Monday at Dixon Place (NYC) with an improv titled “Fumarole,” after the undersea vents for volcanic gasses that support unique ecosystems and lifeforms. It sounded like little else I’ve ever heard.
AACM pianist & singer give away CD at NYC show
Steve Colson, pianist/composer and band leader, with vocalist Iqua Colson — a couple members of American experimental music‘s cutting edge AACM for some 35 years — give a rare performance quartet Saturday night (Feb 6) at NYC’s Thalia theater in Symphony Space. Everyone who attends gets the Colsons’ new CD, The Untarnished Dream, for free. One-time promotion? Start of a trend? Acceptance of reality?
NEA Jazz Masters as New Yorkers
Are all Jazz Masters in/of NYC? Most, yes — but can that last? My new City Arts column. See photos that demonstrate the thesis.
Saxes & percussion, Boulez & Symphony
Last weekend the World Saxophone Quartet and percussion ensemble M’Boom blasted 21st century conventions at Birdland — this weekend Pierre Boulez conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through Bartok’s two piano & percussion concerto and Stravinsky’s “The Firebird” at Carnegie Hall. Listening opportunities in New York City cover a vast range. Duh, right?
Asheville’s grassroots musicians’ benefit for Haiti
Mark Guest, guitarist, has organized a grassroots “Jazz and Blues for Haiti” benefit for Doctors Without Borders on Monday Jan 26 Jan 25 at Curras Nuevo Cuisine in Asheville, NC, a town he says “doesn’t to my knowledge have an immediate Haitian connection.” But Guest wanted to do something for people in crisis worth more than $10 bucks and knows how to leverage his skills; besides, he’s felt nature’s wrath himself, having been driven from Gulf Coast, where he and his wife lived “a beer-and-a-half from New Orleans’ French Quarter” by Hurricane Katrina.
Predictions, dreams, fears & fancies for music 2010
What might happen in jazz and new music this year? I’ve no idea but speculate anyway in my CityArts column . . .
Jazz benefits and fight song for Haiti
The jazz world’s response the Haitian earthquake isn’t overwhelming, but every bit helps. The Groove Collective benefit is tomorrow, Tues, Jan 19, at (le) poisson rouge in Manhattan; a Seattle community jazz fest is at multiple venues Wed., Jan 20, and St. Louis jazz musicians for Haiti gather at Sheldon Concert Hall on Tuesday, Feb 9. Last Sunday (Jan 17) St. James Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain, Boston, added a “meditative jazz improvisation component” by pianist Ben Schwendener to its regular Night Song presentation of late Renaissance motets and chants, donating proceeds to “the people of Haiti” — and in Asheville, North Carolina guitarist Mark Guest is planning a benefit concert (details TBA). Then there’s Charles Mingus.
Visionaries photo’d at NEA Jazz Masters concert
Just in — Â Muhal Richard Abrams conducting the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and Yusef Lateef on tenor sax with percussionist Adam Rudolph, fine performance photography by Frank Stewart from the National Endowment for the Arts’ Jazz Masters concert. My post on the concert is here, and the images are below —
Beyond “jazz” conventions from NEA Jazz Masters
Jazz, defined by creativity, pushes boundaries — a fact alluded to and demonstrated by two of the new NEA Jazz Masters at the gratifying if lengthy ceremony and concert held at Rose Theater of Jazz at Lincoln Center on Tuesday, Jan 12. Muhal Richard Abrams and Yusef Lateef were inducted into the canon that now recognizes 114 musicians and advocates of what House Congressional Resolution 57 (passed with Senate concurrence in 1987) calls “a rare and valuable national American treasure.” Both men performed in ways that draw from but aren’t constrained by the heritage/legacy/tradition of swing, blues and ballads often cited by the conservative end of the music’s continuum as sine qua non for the four-letter, two-Z designation.
Jazz journalists confer with APAP, NEA
The Jazz Journalists Association‘s five days of programming in coordination with the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference and Nat’l Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters events was a raging success on several fronts. Activities included the educational, informational, musical, productive and social. Overall, the JJA conference counted approximately 100 participants.
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.
Jazz journalism & beyond weekend
Jazz journalists conferenced in New York City last weekend as arts presenters, National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters and musical showcases galore (including an audience-happy Winter Jazzfest and the debut of drummer Jack DeJohnette‘s hot new band) justified the very existence of the profession.
Arts Presenters meet Jazz Journalists
The Jazz Journalists Association has scheduled a multi-faceted professional conference for Jan 8 – 12 in NYC, concurrent with the Association of Performing Arts Presenters annual conference (which is producing a Special Focus on Jazz), the two-night multi-venue Winter Jazzfest, one-night but multi-stage globalFEST, and the Nat’l Endowment of the Arts’s presentation of 2010’s Jazz Masters. It’s the first time the JJA (of which I’m president) has worked in conjunction with APAP and the NEA to bring the people who disseminate music news together with those who seek to make it.