Neil Tesser blogs about best of the year roundups on Chicago Music Examiner.com — and is added to the blogroll. A gifted writer and broadcaster, an incisive cultural critic, Neil has been a close colleague of mine starting in Chicago in the ’70s (remember them? Most readers, maybe not). We’ve worked simultaneously for the Chicago Reader and […]
Jazz best lists of 2009
Chicago Trib cultural critic Julia Keller decries year-end “best of” lists for their “chilly, retrospective nature,”for their by-definition 12-month perspectives trumping spontaneous enthusiasm, and for their reinforcement of consensus. Nonsense. Here are three opportunities to see what jazz critics are recommending as 2009’s hot recordings, and there’s some consistency, but most of the choices are […]
City Beyond Jazz Lights
Here’s to urban music, transformative perspectives and the new year — image: JA Kawell howardmandel.com Subscribe by Email or RSS All JBJ posts
Experimental singer, frankly in need. Who isn’t?
Mossa Bildner, an indefatigable vocalist and performance artist, is the subject of today’s “The Neediest Cases” column in the New York Times, because having suffered as a freelancer from the economic downturn, she’s been facing eviction. “This could happen to anybody,” she told the newspaper, and though asking for help “was a strange position to […]
House kudos to Miles’ Kind of Blue. So what?
At age 50, Miles Davis’ album Kind of Blue has been officially and unanimously hailed by the US House of Representatives. Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) sponsored H.Res 894, which on Tuesday passed 409 to 0, recognizing the “unique contribution” of the 37-minutes of modal improvisation trumpeter Davis and his stellar sextet recorded on March 2 […]
That’s not jazz, Spaniard tells saxophonist
Larry Ochs’ Sax & Drumming Core may not be al gusto for everyone, but should Spain’s Civil Guard decide whether it plays “jazz”? At the Sigüenza Jazz Festival a disgruntled purist demanded his ticket money back claiming he was subjected to “contemporary music” rather than jazz fitting his definition; pistol-packing cops backed him up (which makes me […]
Treasures of YouTube: Dolphy, flute; Mingus “Meditations”
Eric Dolphy solos beautifully then uses his bass clarinet for the ensemble line of bassist/composer/bandleader Charles Mingus “Meditations on Integration” in this 1964 clip, which warms my dank, chill afternoon in Brooklyn. Jaki Byard on piano, and dapper Danny Richmond, drums. howardmandel.com Subscribe by Email | Subscribe by RSS | Follow on Twitter All JBJ […]
Best beyond “jazz” CDs of 2009
My 10 top CDs of 2009 blow past conventions to enrich jazz, blues, new and unusual music. They’re chosen from almost 1000 I received for review — an abundance of fine releases since November 2008, the full year following Barack Obama’s election to president. Maybe it’s coincidence that fresh thinking, spirited energy and practical creativity […]
Far downtown weekend adventures
Far out improv, high concept contemporary composition, new jazz scholarship and “cut loose” music from Guadeloupe flood Lowest Manhattan (all the way to Staten Island) this weekend. The folks who bring us the Vision Festival stage 28 hours of multidisciplinary improvisation starting tonight (Friday) at 6 p.m. at Clemente Soso Velez Cultural Center; Mode Records throws itself a benefit marathon […]
Trouble — or transition — at Jazz.com?
Stepping down from presiding over Jazz.com two years after its launch, editor, author and pianist Ted Gioia isn’t saying much about what’s up with the site that has become a major web resource and destination. Naturally, this leads to wondering what has become of the promise and potential of jazz on the web.
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.
Performance night of beyond-jazz critics
Monday 11/16, NYC: writer-guitarist-conductor Greg Tate‘s Burnt Sugar plays the Blue Note, and the late journalist-reedsplayer Robert Palmer is celebrated by biographer-world musician John Kruth, historian-memoirist-social commentator-radio producer-singer-songwriter Ned Sublette, and the Master Musicians of Jajouka with at Le Poisson Rouge. Are the inmates running the asylum?   Â
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 […]