Free jazz fests across the U.S. mark summer’s glorious end. Manhattan’s Charlie Parker festival (held Saturday Aug. 23 and Sunday 24 in Marcus Garvey park uptown and Tompkins Square Park downtown), the Chicago Jazz Festival (which formally starts Thursday Aug 28 with Sonny Rollins at downtown Grant Park’s Petrillo bandshell) and the Detroit International Jazz […]
Pandora radio on deathbed?
The wonderful web radio giant Pandora.com — and lesser web radio sites, too — are reportedly about to be done in by per-song performance royalty rates doubled last year by a federal panel. Pandora’s founder says he’ll have to shut it down soon if the terms can’t be changed. Read the whole story in the […]
New beyond-jazz in NYC clubs
Alto saxophonist Greg Osby debuted a sextet with vocalist, electric guitar and vibes at the Village Vanguard, and pianist Lafayette Gilchrist brought an unusually horn-heavy band from Baltimore into (Le) Poisson Rouge, opening for guitarist Vernon Reid‘s rockin’, scratchin’ Yohimbe Brothers. Is this the shape of jazz to come?
Sony owns America’s music
What’s it mean that the back catalogs of record companies documenting 100 years of American music are now wholly owned by the Japanese Sony Corporation, which has bought out Bertelsmann, its German partner in the four-year-old behemoth music corporation Sony BMG? Â
Giants on earth
Johnny Griffin, tenor saxophonist, b. Chicago 4-24-28, d. at his home in the French countryside, Â 7–27-08 — such bare facts don’t say much about the music this man could wring from his instrument, back when jazz giants entertained the earth. From his pro emergence at age 15 in 1945 well past the mid ’60s, when […]
Odd noise music alert, Brooklyn
A concert sponsored by The Onion — so expect to be amused, Wednesday July 30, starting at 6:30 pm, free in a tent by the Brooklyn waterfront:Â John Zorn’s “Cobra” — an intricate musical game performed best by quick-witted improvisers with a handle of tactics governing the Avalon Hill board wargames of the ’60s — […]
Hear here! BBC jazz awards show online ’til July 30
P.S. to yesterday’s musings re the BBC Jazz Awards: the Guardian’s blog posting on the Awards show (which featured performances by Return to Forever, Tommy Smith, singer Ian Shaw and Jeff Beck with Jamie Cullum and Kyle Eastwoood jamming on “Let The Good Times Roll”, plus presentations by Sir George Martin, among others) mentions that […]
BBC honors Return to Forever and UK homies
An international wrinkle on jazz awards: The British Broadcasting Company on Monday night announced 11 winners of the BBC Jazz Awards, Reunited fusion quartet Return to Forever won for “lifetime achievement,” bassist Charlie Haden received the “international award,” Sir John Dankworth and Dame Cleo Laine were given the “gold award.” But who are these other […]
iPhone + Pandora = open sesame
According to Slate (formerly, Salon’s) tech writer Farhad Manjoo, reviewing the iPhone makeover and cool third-party programs that optomize its potential, the expense and hassle of securing the new device is worthwhile if only for mobile access to Pandora.com. The personally-programmed radio site has captivated me, too — Pandora’s Music Genome Project reliably streams known and unknown music I like — jazz-beyond-jazz — on […]
Newport by bus
As an enclave of the newly gilded during the Gilded Age, the town of Newport, Rhode Island was  somewhat privileged by its relative isolation. The easiest ways to get to this promontory during the 1890s may have been by making a fortune in railroads, or by yacht — the old town (dating from 1639) […]
What every infant should hear
So Boston Globe staffer Jeremy Eichler has enlisted his infant son Jonah as a test subject for early musical perception and education. Why limit the kid’s choices to Mozart and Schoenberg? How ’bout some good ol’ American prime Louis Armstrong, introducing the concepts of improvisation and swing?Â
David Byrne’s building about music, and chimes
Do-it-yourself public sound installations are serendipitous surprises: Former Talking Head David Byrne wired the Battery Maritime Building to emphasize its haunted house groans and creaks, and it’s further improved by human agency. A few hundred yards away, chimes are planted amidst the shrubbery. Leap on them.
Return to Ever?
Loud, fast and chopsy — that was the definition of “jazz-rock fusion” assumed by panelists (including me) in a Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Matters public panel discussion of “Fusion at 40” held in conjunction with the headline appearance of Return To Forever at the Ottawa Jazz Festival. RTF — introduced by pianist Chick Corea in 1974 to comprise guitarist Al […]