{"id":1448,"date":"2013-11-22T16:05:34","date_gmt":"2013-11-22T21:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/?p=1448"},"modified":"2019-09-12T16:11:27","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T20:11:27","slug":"let-us-now-praise-help-and-hear-semi-famous-jazz-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2013\/11\/let-us-now-praise-help-and-hear-semi-famous-jazz-men.html","title":{"rendered":"Let us now praise, help and hear should-be-famous jazz men"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two celebratory benefit jazz concerts in New York City this weekend: tonight<\/strong> (11\/22) a tribute to alto saxophonist\u00c2\u00a0Arthur Blythe<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0featuring his fellow altoist Oliver Lake, poet\/cultural critic Amiri<\/p>\n

Baraka,\u00c2\u00a0tubaist Bob Stewart and guitarists Kelvyn Bell and Vernon Reid, among others at\u00c2\u00a0Shapeshifter Lab<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0in Brooklyn;\u00c2\u00a0Sunday (11\/24)<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0starting at 4 pm\u00c2\u00a0a 78th birthday show for trombonist\u00c2\u00a0Roswell Rudd\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>at\u00c2\u00a0(le) Poisson Rouge<\/a>, where keyboardist John Medeski,\u00c2\u00a0slide-trumpeter Steven Bernstein, singers Bob Dorough and Fay Victor, guitarists Gary Lucas and Rolf Sturm, and Cajun fiddler Michael Doucet (of Beausoleil) plus many more will attest to the honoree’s musical breadth. Rudd is expected to play. I don’t know that about Blythe.<\/p>\n

Black Arthur, as he used to be known, whose plummy tone and bouncy phraseology brightened many recordings from the “neo-gutbucket” school of the 1980s — including those he led himself — is battling Parkinson Disease; proceeds from the $15 ticket charge will help defray his medical expenses, and\u00c2\u00a0funds are also being collected online<\/a>. His most fully realized work may be\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>the vibrant and richly melodic\u00c2\u00a0Lenox Avenue Breakdown<\/a><\/em>\u00c2\u00a0with flutist James Newton, guitarist James “Blood” Ulmer, drummer Jack \"lenox\"<\/a>DeJohnette and, yes, tubaist Bob Stewart among his collaborators. He’s always sounded only like himself, from his debut with pianist Horace Tapscott (The Giant is Awakened<\/a>, out-of-print and priced by Amazon at $349.99) through his times with Chico Hamilton, Lester Bowie<\/a>, Gil Evans, and the World Saxophone Quartet. Blythe’s most recent album as a leader,<\/p>\n

Rudd, recently \u00c2\u00a0diagnosed with a serious medical problem, might also be described as a neo-gutbucketeer or avant-garde tailgater. Emerging in the 1950s from Eli’s Chosen Six,Yale University’s Dixieland band and the coterie of experimentalists (including Steve Lacy) who gathered around pianist-composer Herbie Nichols,\u00c2\u00a0he’s gone on to be a principle of the New York Art Quartet<\/a>, to play with and arrange for Archie Shepp,<\/a> to solo on “We Shall Overcome”<\/a> in Charlie Haden’s Music Liberation Orchestra album, and in the \u00c2\u00a0past \u00c2\u00a0decade has created an enormous ouevre, collaborating with musicians \"numatik\"<\/a>from Mali<\/a>, Mongolia<\/a>, Benin<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and Puerto Rico<\/a> (the cuatro master Yomo Toro). My favorite of his albums is the Jazz Composers Orchestra Plays Numatik Swing Band<\/a>, but that’s never been issued on cd and is a collectible on vinyl. Rudd’s 2013 album, Trombone for Lovers<\/a>, includes Medeski, Bernstein and Dorough in its cast.<\/p>\n

Rudd and Blythe are American artists with scads — scores? hundreds? thousands? — of fans and well-established international reputations. I don’t know what health insurance they’ve \u00c2\u00a0bought over their long, productive careers (Rudd has held teaching positions at Bard College and the University of Maine, and for 30 years assisted musicologist Alan Lomax in his Cantometrics<\/a> and Global Jukebox projects, so maybe, just maybe, he’s received \u00c2\u00a0employee benefits) but their budgets are stretched by their current illnesses. Help them out with donations, and give these musicians a listen. They’ve both given invaluable gifts of music to the world, be it attuned.<\/p>\n

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Two celebratory benefit jazz concerts in New York City this weekend: tonight (11\/22) a tribute to alto saxophonist\u00c2\u00a0Arthur Blythe\u00c2\u00a0featuring his fellow altoist Oliver Lake, poet\/cultural critic Amiri Baraka,\u00c2\u00a0tubaist Bob Stewart and guitarists Kelvyn Bell and Vernon Reid, among others at\u00c2\u00a0Shapeshifter Lab\u00c2\u00a0in Brooklyn;\u00c2\u00a0Sunday (11\/24)\u00c2\u00a0starting at 4 pm\u00c2\u00a0a 78th birthday show for trombonist\u00c2\u00a0Roswell Rudd\u00c2\u00a0at\u00c2\u00a0(le) Poisson Rouge, where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1448","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1i3CL-nm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":728,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2011\/12\/inside-outside-and-beyond-jazz-heroes-sam-rivers-don-pullen-together.html","url_meta":{"origin":1448,"position":0},"title":"Inside, outside and beyond jazz heroes Sam Rivers & Don Pullen together","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"December 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Sam Rivers and Don Pullen performed together -- I had completely forgotten. \"Capricorn Rising\" is an 11-minute almost entirely duet track from a 1975 album of the same name. 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Posted at JJANews.org. 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