Norah Jones, Tina Turner, Corrine Bailey Rae, Luciana Souza and Leonard Cohen are not voices necessarily dear to fans of serious jazz, but Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter don’t alone make River: The Joni Letters a must-hear.
Herbie enriches Joni
A decade ago, pianist Herbie Hancock established his “New Standards” initiative, aiming to wed sophisticated improvisation to a contemporary American pop songbook (post-Berlin, Gershwin, Porter, et al). At last, after several disastrous attempts, he’s justified such a project with River: The Joni Letters — infusing well-known high art pop songs by inimitable Joni Mitchell with […]
Monk at 90, Monk Forever
Thelonious Sphere Monk (Oct. 10, 1917 – Feb. 17, 1982) should be celebrated today on the occasion of his 90th birthday, and always for the indestructible resonance of his compositions, pianism and performance style. He is an authentic icon of the American alternative, the possibility of us each becoming, and making sense of, who we […]
NEA Jazz Masters — Who’s Tom McIntosh?
At the National Endowment for the Arts party last week announcing the 2008 of Jazz Masters at least one celebrant was hoping the award would kick-start a professional cycle. “You know,” said the 80-year-old trombonist/composer, paraphrasing the sequence of recognition he said Fernando Lamas had once applied to his career arc: “Who is Tom McIntosh? […]
Internat’l jazz journalists convene, talk, listen (eat, drink, argue, make merry)
More than three dozen pundits and several hundred devotees of “jazz” old and new, free-form and familiarly-structured, abstract and/or pure blue — writers, broadcasters, editors, photographers, new media specialists and teachers (most of whom fulfill several of those roles simultaneously) — from some 20 countries — pondered the big picture – “Jazz in the Global […]
Intern’l jazz journalists convene in U.S. — a first
“Jazz in the Global Imagination: Music, Journalism and Culture,” the day-long, public and free symposium at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism auditorium on Saturday, Sept. 29, is evidently the first international conference of jazz journalists to take place in the U.S. Why did we wait so long? Even if there’s been one before, […]
Joe Zawinul at 65, The Wire
Interview with Joe Zawinul, The Wire, 1996
Joe Zawinul, in a soundful way
Zawinul (1932-2007) is a world-renowned keyboardist-composer who considered himself in the lineage of classic musicians emerging from his birthplace, Vienna, Austria. Once backstage after a performance circa 1980 he stormed at Down Beat editors who’d come at his command to “discuss” a bad review of Weather Report’s just-released album 8:30 — “You do not give […]
Improv on the Speed River
Guelph, Canada – a pleasant university town nestled in the forrested low meander of the mis-aptly named “Speed River” is invigorated by its weeklong jazz festival, scholars’ colloquium, and $4 million research grant from Canadian governmental forces, devoted to study of music improvisation’s relation to social change and community-sustenance.
Jazz on the run
Since such last gasps of New York’s summer jazz convocations as the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival — my trip to the Chicago Jazz Festival — this week’s colloquium at University of Guelph titled “People Get Ready: The Future of Jazz is Now!” coinciding with the 14th annual Guelph Jazz Festival — and the first international […]
Jazz Festivals
….good for cities, musicians, audiences. Hear it on NPR
Giving Max Roach, the drummer, some
Drummer Max Roach, (Jan 1, 1924 – Aug. 16, 2007), personified the jazz-beyond-jazz ethos: mastering the complex, nuanced art that preceded him, plunging in to create new work based on his own ideas, never abandoning that path. He was a man of social engagement as well as aesthetic convictions.
Mingus Among Us
“So Long Eric”, a 5:29 jazz video break, giving one pause: Wither small group ideas now? Charles Mingus with saxophonists Eric Dolphy & Clifford Jordan, pianist Jaki Byard, drummer Dannie Richmond, Belgium 1964 — heroes, living. (Music comes up first– raucous “Fables of Faubus” — click “Watch Videos” at bottom of page)