The Kennedy Center was filled Monday night with VIPs, devotees and artists across disciplines for the 34th annual celebration of Jazz Masters by the National Endowment of the Arts. Here's my coverage for DownBeat magazine on the tribute to the 2016 honorees: Fierce and soulful saxophonists Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders, cool yet lyrically expressive vibist Gary Burton, and Wendy Oxenhorn, the genuinely devoted-to-music-and-people exec director of the Jazz Foundation of America, if not exactly jazz's cross between … [Read more...]
Local DC jazz apart from NEA Jazz Masters events
In Washington DC for events surrounding the investiture of vibist Gary Burton, saxophonists Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp and Jazz Foundation of America's executive director Wendy Oxenhorn as National Endowment of the Arts' Jazz Masters, I visited a new grassroots venue that shows where the deep heart of jazz support lies. The Jazz and Cultural Society is an 11-month old community center in a largely African-American neighborhood now presenting music twice a week (Wednesdays and Sundays, 6-9 pm). It's the love-child of Dr. Alice Jamison, … [Read more...]
Historic days for US and Cuba, accompanied by jazz
Congratulations to the U.S. and Cuba for advancing our long overdue reset. It's about time. Jazz at its best has linked our nations for decades, through the tangled history of corrupt dictatorship and revolution, missile crisis, failed invasion, bad relations and trade embargo -- and in this recent historic moment, Afro-Cuban-American music is exploding with exciting new recordings. A hint of accords and collaborations to come? Disclosure: I attended an amazing jazz festival in Varadero in December 1980, after having interviewed an early … [Read more...]
Ornette Day, bits of wisdom with video clips
Ornette Coleman's birthday is today, and his son Denardo has invited everyone to a walk with him from noon to three in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where his father, the prophet of Harmolodics, is interred near Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Max Roach, Celia Cruz -- a very good neighborhood. In Ornette's honor here are excerpts of his talk from my book Miles Ornette Cecil -- Jazz Beyond Jazz. Also, how I came to love his music, and two videos: a choice "free" solo performance with a rare piano episode (from Berlin, 1972) and a prime … [Read more...]
Mavis Staples’ HBO doc hits relevant Civil Rights notes
"I'm not as frisky as I used to be but I feel like I am," Mavis Staples speaks the truth with a grin and a twinkle in Mavis!, an endearingly upbeat bio doc premiering on HBO tonight (Monday, February 29). Appearing early in the month for a sneak preview at Chicago's Du Sable Museum, the 76-year-old Chicago fireball with a deep gritty voice had the vitality to fool anyone -- it also overflows from her new album Livin' On A High Note. She mixed merrily with the crowd, watched the show from a seat in the theater, then sang two songs backed … [Read more...]
Chicagoans’ albums reviewed, author’s edition
My reviews of recordings by Chicago pianists Larry Novak, Laurence Hobgood and Robert Irving III, percussionist Art "Turk" Burton, and saxophonists Caroline Davis and Roy McGrath appeared in DownBeat's January issue, but the print edition limited their length. DB's rating system ranges from one to five stars (*s), poor to masterpiece. Here's my text as submitted: In Chicago jazz, veteran modernists pave the way for innovators to expand on a fabled legacy. Experimentalists and mainstreamers alike convene supportive communities, yet … [Read more...]
Why’s nobody mourning Paul Kantner? Jefferson Airplane flies forever
Jefferson Airplane founding member Paul Kantner's death at age 74 on Jan. 28 has been met by a mainstream culture shrug compared to the celebratory attention paid rock stars dead in the past month including David Bowie, the Eagles' Glenn Frey and Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots. Why? In one hour since posting this, I've been besieged with Facebook comments that mourning is indeed being done and cultural note taken, like this New York Times obituary. A credible editor tells me there's been more coverage of Kantner "by a pretty far margin" … [Read more...]
Immodest me, in Steve Cerra’s Jazz Profiles
Thanks to Steve Cerra of Jazz Profiles for asking me a few questions by email, and letting me go on and on. Of course my answers are far from comprehensive, opinions are only my own, and I cited only a few of dozens of my favorites of record albums (no non-jazz music noted, for instance) and musicians from everywhere I've been inspired by one way or another. It seems immodest not to post this, especially since it's been published today, my … [Read more...]
Solstice beyond jazz, unruly mashup to meditative rhythm
Saxophonist Mars Williams and band ecstatically wed holiday songs and Albert Ayler anthems at the Hungry Brain in Chicago past 12 pm December 20 -- the deepest, darkest, longest night of the year -- then at 6 am December 21 percussionists Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang performed a flowing, meditative duet to get the sun up, for a crowd that felt like a congregation at Constellation. (Better than Chicago's 606 hiking/biking trail did, cancelling its first time "Solstice Viewing" from an astronomically aligned endpoint due to "inclement … [Read more...]
Branford Marsalis and Kurt Elling in New Orleans, ready for recording
Saxophonist Branford Marsalis's quartet and singer Kurt Elling prepared for their upcoming recording in a rare four-night stand at Snug Harbor in New Orleans last week, and photo-journalist extraordinaire Marc PoKempner went each night, enthralled. "It was sort of an open rehearsal for the recording, so the set list was the same every night," PoKempner reported by phone, "but it changed a lot, too. The first night Kurt asked the crowd, 'Does anyone here speak Portuguese? If so, you're going to want to leave now,' because he sang a lyric in … [Read more...]
NEA doubles down on beyond-jazz with 2016 Jazz Masters
The National Endowment of the Arts has doubled down on celebrating jazz beyond "jazz" -- music that has exploded historic parameters or preconceptions of "jazz" conventions -- by naming as 2016 Jazz Masters the saxophonists Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp -- both protégés of the late, great John Coltrane -- and Gary Burton, an innovator of technique and content who's embraced pop, country, folk and rock influences, studio experiments and classical finesse in creation of his own original sound, taken up with pleasure by musicians and listeners … [Read more...]
Bouchercon 2015 Raleigh (writing not jazz)
A crime writing conference attracting 1400-some authors and readers, flush for four days with panels and book talk -- that was the 45th annual Bouchercon "world mystery convention," held in Raleigh NC Oct. 8 through 11 at downtown Sheraton and Marriott hotels. Taking a break from music immersion, I attended as a fan with a draft of a novel of my own, hoping to get an overview of the scene, pick up tips and inspiration, discover promising new books. All plans accomplished. One of the rare areas in publishing that seems to continue thriving … [Read more...]
The Stone Residency: Harris Eisenstadt’s rhythm/melody feast
Harris Eisenstadt, the subtle and substantive drummer/percussionist/composer, celebrates two decades of investigations and his recent projects at The Stone in NYC Sept. 1 through 6 with a circle of collaborators whose excellence seems to preclude their commerciality. That ain't right, as Eisenstadt and the distinctly creative musicians in his ensembles (including Canada Day and Golden State, both on the Stone residency schedule) make music that's intriguing and melodious. Why originality, a broad and deep musical vocabulary plus ease with form … [Read more...]