{"id":889,"date":"2012-05-02T13:18:42","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T17:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/?p=889"},"modified":"2019-09-12T19:10:21","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T23:10:21","slug":"international-jazz-day-concert-review-few-elsewhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2012\/05\/international-jazz-day-concert-review-few-elsewhere.html","title":{"rendered":"International Jazz Day concert review (few elsewhere)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Read my short-hand review, please, in\u00c2\u00a0CityArts-New York<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0of the sunset concert of International
\n<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Jazz Day in the General Assembly of the UN in New York City. The music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Howlin’ Wolf , Leonard Bernstein and many more was manifest by all-stars of all ages (Esperanza Spalding, 28, to Candido Camero, 91), many ethnic backgrounds and aesthetic leanings (Chaka Khan, say, to Zakir Hussain).<\/p>\n

This first International Jazz Day — April 30 2012 — was a phenomenal world-wide event, initiated by composer-pianist Herbie Hancock and reaching at the very least the 195 nations that had musicians playing Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” in tandem with his own performance of it at a sunrise concert in Congo Square, New Orleans. The sunset concert in the hallowed and vast
\n<\/a>main hall of the UN was an impressively strong demonstration of jazz’s vitality and diversity, too. Videos of both\u00c2\u00a0entire shows as live-streamed (but poorly indexed) are now archived at the website of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz<\/a>, which co-sponsored the initiative with UNESCO.<\/p>\n

It was amazing and for jazz devotees enormously heartening to watch the Secretary General of<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and kind of blue UN flag<\/p><\/div>\n

the\u00c2\u00a0UN Ban Ki-moon on giant tv screens hung on the front wall of the General Assembly mention that “the UN flag is, after all, kind of blue,” and that he was “in the mood” to “sing sing sing,” thanking those of “take the A-train” to attend an event celebrating music that takes us from “April in Paris to autumn in New York, from a night in tunisia to Ipanema, and Birdland.”<\/p>\n

It was inspiring to hear U.S. permanent representative to the UN Susan Rice say, “The origins and early developments of jazz are quintessentially American . . .Like democracy itself, jazz has structure, but within it you can say almost anything. . . . Now jazz is everyone’s music.” And she quoted Charlie Parker — “If you haven’t lived it, it can’t come out of your horn.” (Can you imagine George W. Bush’s UN ambassador John Bolton saying such things? Can you imagine these words being spoken on the floor of the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives? WHY NOT?<\/em>)<\/p>\n

It was incredible but so beautiful it brought tears to my hard old eyes to hear UNESCO General Director Irina Bokova say that although there is much disagreement and mystery about the origins of the term for our music , “to UNESCO, ‘jazz’ is another word for ‘life’.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Irina Bokova, UNESCO General-Director<\/p><\/div>\n

News of the first International Jazz Day events — held in Paris, New Orleans, New York City at the United Nations, some 200 nations in all — ought to be reverberating throughout jazz and other musics’ sites on the internet, but only the AP article<\/a>, evidently crafted from contributions by music writer Nekesa Mumbi Moody, is besides mine an eyewitness account posted anywhere, so far.<\/p>\n

JazzTimes has an advance article\u00c2\u00a0<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0DownBeat doesn’t mention International Jazz Day on its website at all. AllAboutJazz has re-posted\u00c2\u00a0R.J. DeLuke<\/a>‘s blog article, buried in the “news” section under stories about bluesman Sonny Landreth performing and teaching at a festival next August, the Maryland Summer Jazz Festival next July, and an interview with organist Richard “Groove” Holmes (1931-1991, here named “Jazz Musician of the Day”). A Blog Supreme<\/a>, usually dependable for relevant reports, also has only an advance article (but a nice picture of the UN General Assembly from Getty Images, which I can’t use here).<\/p>\n

According to a jazz wife who gets her information first-hand, Herbie Hancock, appointed last year as a UNESCO cultural ambassador, had been walking around the rehearsals saying the U.S. has blown its chance to promote jazz as our own major, enduring contribution to humanity’s
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

UN General Assembly: Jazz was here<\/p><\/div>\n

artistic heritage, but fortunately UNESCO has stepped up to embrace jazz for everyone the world-over. Whatever the reason the U.S. is so reluctant to support its artists and acknowledge other-than-commerical or classical arts, our nation has indeed created something in jazz to be proud of.<\/p>\n

As UNESCO’s Ms. Bokova, who is Bulgarian, said in her remarks, “Jazz is the music that makes the most of the humanity’s diversity, that crosses all borders and brings people together. Jazz is not something that you only hear, it is something you feel deep inside that bursts forth in joyous expression. There is hardly a better school of sharing and cultural dialog.”<\/p>\n

What a joy for those of us who have harbored that idea privately, perhaps thinking we must be delusional or sorely mistaken, to have the unique communicative powers of jazz certified from the podium of the one organization which, for all its flaws, attempts to oversee what’s happening on earth. Jazz is,<\/em> evidently, a significant enough aspect of all peoples’ activities to rate one day a year out of 365 in its honor. Celebrating by playing it and listening to it globally, jazz people are trying to give back, and keep it going.<\/p>\n

howardmandel.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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Read my short-hand review, please, in\u00c2\u00a0CityArts-New York\u00c2\u00a0of the sunset concert of International Jazz Day in the General Assembly of the UN in New York City. The music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Howlin’ Wolf , Leonard Bernstein and many more was manifest by all-stars of all ages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899,"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-889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/herbie1.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1i3CL-el","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":886,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2012\/04\/intl-jazz-day-as-it-happens-unesco-concerts-live-streamed.html","url_meta":{"origin":889,"position":0},"title":"Int’l Jazz Day as it happens: UNESCO concerts live-streamed","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"April 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A sunrise concert \u00c2\u00a0in New Orleans' Congo Square, from which jazz arose,\u00c2\u00a0in celebration of UNESCO's International Jazz Day (spearheaded by Herbie Hancock), is being streamed as I write (Dr. Michael White took the last solo, over the Dirty Dozen Brass Band) at Jazzday.com\u00c2\u00a0and at the Thelonious Monk Institute website. Those\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/INTLjazzdayBlogathon240x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":65,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2008\/01\/jazz_edbeyondjazz_in_toronto.html","url_meta":{"origin":889,"position":1},"title":"Jazz Ed-Beyond-Jazz? in Toronto","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"January 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Education is one aspect of the jazz world in evident ascent; Down Beat last spring listed some 180 North American schools offering degrees in the music born a century ago in taverns and brothels. The 35th annual International Association for Jazz Education conference, in Toronto this weekend, suggests how far\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2231,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2017\/05\/whatever-happened-to-international-jazz-day.html","url_meta":{"origin":889,"position":2},"title":"Whatever happened to International Jazz Day?","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"May 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"April 30 -- yesterday -- was celebrated as the sixth annual International Jazz Day with a global webcast from Havana, hosted by Will Smith, headlined\u00c2\u00a0by 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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Esperanza Spalding\"","block_context":{"text":"Esperanza Spalding","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/tag\/esperanza-spalding"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-Jazz-Day-Map-03.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-Jazz-Day-Map-03.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-Jazz-Day-Map-03.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-Jazz-Day-Map-03.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":116,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2008\/08\/jazz_fests_of_august.html","url_meta":{"origin":889,"position":3},"title":"Jazz fests of August","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"August 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Free jazz fests across the U.S. mark summer's glorious end. Manhattan's Charlie Parker festival (held Saturday Aug. 23 and Sunday 24 in Marcus Garvey park uptown and Tompkins Square Park downtown), the Chicago Jazz Festival (which formally starts Thursday Aug 28 with Sonny Rollins at downtown Grant Park's Petrillo bandshell)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":217,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/07\/jazz_health_bright_spots.html","url_meta":{"origin":889,"position":4},"title":"Jazz health, bright moments","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"July 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"All is not dismal in Jazzville: Producer George Wein has found a title sponsor -- CareFusion -- for his jazz festivals in Newport next month and New York City summer 2010. SFJazz has announced a stellar lineup including Ornette Coleman for its fall fest, Oct. 10 - Nov. 21.\u00c2\u00a0As Mitch\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2421,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2018\/02\/jazz-projects-with-2018-nea-funding-support.html","url_meta":{"origin":889,"position":5},"title":"Jazz and beyond projects with 2018 NEA funding support","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"February 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Given all the noise, the\u00c2\u00a0National Endowment for the Arts' $25 mil for arts, literature and education\u00c2\u00a0announced Feb. 7 may have been overlooked. 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