City Arts did post my column of record reviews so please read what I wrote about Henry Cole and the Afrobeat Collective, Steve Lehman Trio, Less Magnetic (on Facebook, or view their show below), Esperanza Spalding, Michael Bates (plays Shostakovich), and Wayne Escoffrey. Then, I urge you, check out samples of those artists online, and […]
Limor Tomer: Principles for curating performance at the Met Museum
My new City Arts column is reviews of newly released recordings by Henry Cole and the Afro-Beat Collective, Steve Lehman Trio, Less Magnetic, Esperanza Spalding, Michael Bates and Wayne Escoffrey. You may have to pick up a hard-copy of the paper for that. But the issue also features my interview with Limor Tomer, the Metropolitan Museum’s recently appointed […]
Jazz close to home: Community blogathon entries start on Jazz Day
My Brooklyn neighborhood, called Kensington, is full of musicians, because residences are large and still semi-affordable. So I hear the guitarist across the street get excited while practicing, run into NEA Jazz Master pianist Kenny Barron when walking to the bakery and go to Sycamore, a flower shop-bar with basement recital room where  on Sunday […]
Dr. John w/ Black Keys’ Auerbach in Brooklyn Acad Music
Locked Down is The Black Keys guitarist-songwriter Dan Auerbach’s collaboration with Mac “Dr. John” Rebennack — the two premiere it April 5 – 7 at Brooklyn Academy of Music, second program of three the good Dr. presents there over three consecutive weekends. I bet it’ll be a better-produced show than his “Tribute to Louis Armstrong,” the […]
Shadow puppet and Javanese gamelan video now viewable
A followup: the Asia Society posted the  entire video of the  3.5 hour wayang kulit (shadow puppet and Javanese gamelan orchestra performance) that I wrote about Sunday — the one in which President Obama stopped by — in five parts. And colleague Richard Gehr wrote up the event for the Village Voice blog. howardmandel.com Subscribe by […]
Obama at Javanese shadow puppet show, Asia Society
President Obama made a surprise cameo appearance at the Asia Society’s production of a Javanese shadow puppet show  — a Wayang Kulit — by dhalang Ki Purbo Asmoro with Gamelan Kusuma Laras on Manhattan’s upper east side on Friday night (March 16). As a translucent strip of water buffalo hide, upright if not as nimble on his tusk-bone rods […]
Herbie Hancock, keytar master
The Herbie Hancock who concertized at Jazz at Lincoln Center last Saturday night was the casually joking yet research-minded fusion meister. A review of his Friday night concert by Jon Pareles in the New York Times takes a generous view of Hancock darting among his multitude of possibilities, but I was less taken by his […]
Which Herbie Hancock comes to Jazz at Lincoln Center
Pianist Herbie Hancock is a chameleon — as I say in my newest column in CityArts-New York. For his first appearance at Jazz at Lincoln Center on Friday night (3/9 ) he leads a trio, and on Saturday (3/10) adds Benin-born guitarist Lionel Loueke,  in formats a far cry from The Imagine Project, Hancock’s latest album. […]
Composer Heiner (Brains on Fire) Stadler @ It’s Psychedelic Baby
Heiner Stadler is a lesser-known but fascinating New York City-based composer who’s stretched he structures and dimensions of jazz with all-star productions including A Tribute to Monk and Bird and Brains on Fire (which I annotated for recent reissue). It’s Psycheledic Baby, the online magazine by Klemen Breznikar taglined “discover the unknown” has published an interview with Stadler — a Polish-born (’42) WWII refugee who heard a […]
The President sings his hometown blues
President Obama is not to be forgiven for signing the heinous Nat’l Defense Authorization Act and several other bad moves, but as a blues fan I give it up to the guy for singing “Sweet Home Chicago” with B.B. King while hosting the first ever  White House blues party. Obama’s version of Al Green’s “Let’s […]
Swiss jazzers occupy the Stone, East Village
European jazz stars of the Zurich-based record label Intakt come to the Stone, John Zorn’s serious recital room, for a two-week fest March 1 – 15 in which they’ll collaborate with veterans of NYC’s downtown improv scene. I detail some of the shows — and why people think jazz is better loved abroad than at […]
It ain’t easy playing Mahavishnu, but Weston does it
Guitarist John McLaughlin‘s Mahavishnu Orchestra was the highest-flying of any ensemble emerging from Miles Davis’ jazz-rock initiative in the early 1970s, establishing a previously unapproached standard of virtuosity, improvisational excitement and commercial success for all-instrumental electric bands to follow. Drummer G. Calvin Weston‘s Treasures of the Spirit quintet playing music of McLaughlin’s MO at the 92nd […]
Goin’ on about “free jazz” and “the avant-garde”, w/playlists
Jose Reyes of the online listening station Jazz Con Class has posted  a Q&A with me about “free jazz” and “the avant-garde” — which he proposes as two distinct subgenres of jazz, tied to the 1960s. New things — innovations — thinking outside the box — breaks from conventions and the continuum of progress (evolution) — these […]