April 30 -- yesterday -- was celebrated as the sixth annual International Jazz Day with a global webcast from Havana, hosted by Will Smith, headlined by pianist Herbie Hancock and including a couple of dozen top notch musicians from the U.S., Russia, Cameroon, France and Korea as well as Cuba. Did you know? Advance publicity and followup coverage has been but a dot on the attention focused on IJD last year, when President Barack Obama hosted a splendiferous Jazz Day in the White House. Considering the leader of the regime replacing Obama's … [Read more...]
How Charles Lloyd stays marvelous
During the 50 years since his breakthrough album Forest Flower (released in February 1967, recorded live at the Monterey Jazz Festival the summer before) -- comparable in some ways to The Epic success of Kamasi Washington -- saxophonist-flutist Charles Lloyd has been unusually popular for an adventurous jazzman. He showed how he's done that, accomplished a long career while expressing himself freely, with his on-tour Marvels at Chicago's Symphony Center Friday night (4/21), and it's worth unpacking. Lloyd, 79, and his empathic, considerably … [Read more...]
Butch Morris’s workbook for spontaneous composition published
The deathbed wish of composer-cornetist Lawrence Douglas "Butch" Morris (1947-2013) was that his detailed documentation of Conduction®, the method he devised to enable spontaneous composition for ensembles of literally any type employing codified hand-signals, be published in hardcover. This has come to pass. On April 24 and May 1, events in New York City will launch The Art of Conduction, an elegant workbook from art-world publisher Karma with photos of Morris and his text, making his innovative work available for use by anyone/everyone, … [Read more...]
Aretha Franklin’s got it at 75
I saw Aretha Franklin last night from the Chicago Theater's nosebleed seats, unable to make out her features but sure from the moment she first raised her voice that she's a national if not global treasure, as compelling at 75 -- her birthday was March 25 -- as half a century ago, in her breakthrough year 1967. Skinnier than she looked singing "The Star Spangled Banner" at the Lions-Viking game last year, wearing an above-the-knees, sleeveless, collarless dress of gauzy white, in a wig that fell like Michelle Obama's real hair, on gold heels … [Read more...]
Flyover country? Nonsense in jazz, politics, crime fiction
There's no such thing as "flyover country" -- except in the minds of careless or ignorant people who ought to know better. For instance: Jazz lives throughout the US and the world, not only in New York City; Illinois presidential race voters chose Hilary Clinton by a wide margin (due largely to Democratic bastion and jazz hub Chicago) although the man who beat her nationally does not seem to have much on-the-ground experience with anywhere except his own properties, and yes, the capital of the Midwest has crime fiction writers to boast … [Read more...]
Spring break with Budapest jazz, photos
I went to Budapest for spring break -- to introduce a photo exhibit by my Transylvanian-born friend Sánta István Csaba and help jury the 10th annual Müpa Budapest Jazz Showcase/Talent Exchange, held in the modernist musem and multi-theater complex on the east bank of the icy Danube Feb 3 - 5. As I wrote in my DownBeat article, the sound of the 12 sets I heard was jazz as we think of it now -- virtuosic horns, piano/keyboards and/or guitar, upright or electric basses and drums; vocalists singing standards, spicing up r&b grooves, toying … [Read more...]
Trump’s biggest first threat to the arts: Ending net neutrality
Terrible as it will be for the Trump administration to kill the National Endowments of the Arts and Humanities, gutting net neutrality seems to me an even more damaging attack on the arts, independent and upstart media and America's commons. By nominating as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission ex-Verizon lawyer and avowed net neutrality foe Ajit Pai, Trump will further commodify the internet we now all use for free, allowing biggies like Netflix and Comcast to pay for fastest service (meaning others get slower service) and … [Read more...]
Doris Duke Performing Artists of jazz beyond jazz
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="r8uISoNNPBxADAE7NM7W2Fm15kiSnp57"] Announced yesterday: the third annual Doris Duke Performing Artist and first ever Impact Awards, providing substantial financial honorarium to 13 "jazz" musicians whose works take seriously the mission of exploration and experimentation, as well as dancers and "theatre" artists. Saxophonist/composers Oliver Lake, Steve Lehman and Roscoe Mitchell as well as pianists Craig Taborn and Randy Weston and transformative harpist Zeena Parkins are recipients of the Artist awards, which … [Read more...]
Jazz in the ‘hood: house concerts make Brooklyn mighty
Jazz is local and homey, as well as grand and global -- that's what a house concert last weekend in Brooklyn shouted out. Transylvanian photographer Sánta István Csaba joined me at a "rare NYC performance" of 10³²K, the trio of trombonist Ku-umba Frank Lacy, bassist Kevin Ray and drummer Andrew Drury, at Drury's apartment in Leffert Gardens. As his images show, the musicians were no less serious about their creative interaction for being in a living room decorated with childrens' drawings, and the audience was as attentive as any at a … [Read more...]
Gordon Marshall, Boston music poet
Boston-based poet Gordon Marshall has published 12 collections of his works, and is currently blogging on The Flash: jazz, noise, psych from the house scene in Boston. There he writes prose. All his poetry is musical, whether directly about music or not. See also my report about Boston doubling down on jazz. Different Colors The silence of the streets In the outdoor night Remembered to Miles Davis' Pangaea, the bopping beat Electric, going nowhere And everywhere, Sonny Fortune Sax loping a loop around The city street I remember, Under the eye … [Read more...]
What does it take to write a jazz biography?
"Writing Jazz Biographies" is the third free, interactive webinar, scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 19 at 8 pm. edt, presented by the Jazz Journalists Association. Paul de Barros (Shall We Play That One Together? The Life and Art of Piano Legend Marian McPartland), Robin D.G. Kelley (Thelonious Monk: The LIfe and Times of an American Original), and Peter Pullman (Wail: The Life of Bud Powell) will speak of research, subject-dedication and dealing with living people as sources of information in a 90-minute panel moderated by me. The webinar … [Read more...]
Are there new songs? Play what’s recorded on gigs?
The venerability, relevance and novelty of the "jazz standard" is being questioned in the jazzosphere, but I wonder about the dearth of new songs that are sticking in my latest column in CityArts-New York. In my just- previous column I reviewed recent albums by a few musicians gigging in NYC, and warned there's no reason to expect them to do live what they committed to record. Abiding by space limits on both these columns, I didn't expand as I would have, to say that while there aren't necessarily new songs that are sticking with us or being … [Read more...]
Rhymin’ Simon swings $3.6 mil Wynton’s way
Jazz at Lincoln Center has released a "Post Gala Report" on the April 18 concert debut of Paul Simon performing his career songbook with both his band and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, plus special guest vocalist Aaron Neville. $3.6 million was raised at the black tie event, which provided dinner and dancing for some 900 attendee-donors who also honored Lisa Schiff, retiring Chairman of the Board of JALC. According to Jon Pareles in the New York Times, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra's member-arrangers and … [Read more...]