Gil Scott-Heron, dead at age 62, was a poet, prophet and spokesperson of the black urban American experience. A merciless and unsentimental truth-teller when he emerged on the scene in the ’70s, by telling Afro-identified kids dancing to Motown and grooving on psychedelic rock that “the revolution will not be televised” he meant that the […]
Celebrating jazz excellence — Awards, honors and privileges
The NEA zeroes out its Jazz Masters program, the Grammys cuts categories so pop best-sellers regain prominence vis a vis less obviously commercial stars, but the Jazz Journalists Association’s 15th annual Jazz Awards — to be held June 11, 2011 with an afternoon gala with all star music at City Winery, NYC, satellite parties hosted by […]
South African jazz hero Zim Nqgawana dies, age 52
Neil Tesser has written an informative post about Zim Nqgawana, the South African jazz musician who died at age 52 of a stroke May 10. Ngqawana, whose name is pronounced with a glottal “click” between the “N” and first “a,” performed at the 2007 Columbia/Harlem Festival of Global Jazz,” curated by George E. Lewis of […]
CityArts New York June jazz fests bustin’ out-all-over supplement
CityArts New York let me play jazz supplement editor. Read my lead feature on upcoming in June the NYC Blue Note Jazz Festival, UnDead Festival, gigs everywhere and more respect! Also Kurt Gottschalk on the Vision Festival’s backstory, David Adler on three successful, smart, younger jazzers, snapshots of Brazilian drummer Adriano Santos, Korean singer (of Portuguese Yeahwon […]
Steve Reich @ Carnegie Hall @ 75, with devotees
Composer Steve Reich, age 75, knows secrets of correlating pulsating rhythms and interlocking layers of sycopated melodic patterns which he’s eager to reveal in every work he writes. His musical signature is so unwavering it might veer into self-parody, but for the vigor and commitment of his performers. At Carnegie Hall last night four energized […]
Creative Music Studio, Woodstock at Columbia U and East Village
My CityArts – New York column is about the Creative Music Symposium, organized by Karl Berger, pianist/vibist with his wife Ingrid Sertso, who cofounded with free-thinking Ornette Coleman of the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock NY (1972-1984). The symposium at Columbia University’s Center for Jazz Studies (directed by trombonist and digital music innovator George E. Lewis, once a […]
Central Brooklyn Jazz Fest reiterates jazz/race divide
The Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival, during what the Smithsonian Institution promotes as Jazz Appreciation Month, is a powerful statement of hard core, grass-roots support for the music Congress has ratified as “a rare and valuable American national treasure.” My City Arts column reports on how the fest and other Brooklyn jazz activities, despite best intentions, reprise the […]
Subotnick, Lillevan, Unsound make Lincoln Center an electric circus
Morton Subotnick re-mixes original materials of his prophetic and unprecedented late ’60s  electronic music classic “Silver Apples of the Moon” with kinetic imagery by video artist Lillevan tonight (April 7) at the Rubenstein atrium of Lincoln Center – as detailed in my column in City Arts – New York. It’s free as part of the 11-day Unsound Festival, an extraordinary schedule of new and […]
Jazz, blues & beyond in Amman: Pops, Bird, Diz, Lady Day @ UJordan
I spoke on jazz and blues at the University of Jordan, a modern 45,000-student institution, in an event sponsored by the American Embassy while in Amman on family matters a couple weeks ago. About 50 avid students of music, arts and literature and their informed faculty watched videos of Louis Armstrong at age 32 doing […]
Beyond jazz, in and to Jordan
Jordan’s capitol Amman isn’t an obvious hot spot for jazz, yet I found interest, knowledge and exciting players during my visit there a couple weeks ago — from which I’m barely recovered. A couple of postings and I hope a video of bass guitarist Yacoub Abu Ghosh‘s band from its weekly Tuesday night gig at Canvas […]
UNsafe concert: Threadgill, La Barbara, ACO dare to fail
“Playing It UNsafe” is how the American Composers Orchestra characterizes tonight’s concert of works by Henry Threadgill, Joan La Barbara, Sean Friar and Laura Schwendinger at Zankel Hall, NYC. Afraid of classical musicians improvising? Multi-layered “sound paintings” of multi-tracked voice, electronic ambiance and instrumentalists sitting in the audience? Symphonic and light collaborations? Then walk on the wild side […]
President Obama digs Sonny Rollins
President Barack Obama paid beautiful lip service to great American artists and arts yesterday, conferring the 2010 National Medal of Arts and Humanities on heroes including Sonny Rollins, age 80. “I speak personally here,” said the president at 3 minutes, 30 seconds into his address, alluding to authors, poets, historians, “because there are people here […]
Toxic Gowanus, Brooklyn neighb of new music lofts
Gowanus, a Brooklyn neighborhood so unlovely it’s been named an EPA superfund site, is Ground Zero now for music lofts, as reported in my new City Arts-New York column. In a half dozen or so artist-run spaces — including IBeam, Douglas Street Collective, Littlefield, the Brooklyn Lyceum and Issue Project Room — available for presentation and rehearsal […]