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Sunday, April 23, 2006

A pianist who opened minds, and doors - The Boston Globe

A pianist who opened minds, and doors - The Boston GlobeJAZZ
A pianist who opened minds, and doors
Toshiko Akiyoshi, a Berklee pioneer, returns to Boston

By Andrew Gilbert, Globe Correspondent | April 23, 2006

No jazz musician from abroad has ever made as immediate and far-reaching an impact in the United States as Toshiko Akiyoshi.

Before she even came to America, she had already so impressed pianist Oscar Peterson that he touted her to impresario Norman Granz, who recorded the young pianist in Tokyo with Peterson's formidable rhythm section in 1953. When she alighted in Boston 50 years ago to study at the Berklee College of Music, she was an instant sensation as the school's first Japanese student, appearing on television and landing a regular gig at the city's top jazz club, Storyville, while opening doors to the campus for women and Japanese-born players.

Akiyoshi returns to the city on Wednesday for two shows at Scullers with powerhouse tenor saxophonist and flutist Lew Tabackin, bassist Doug Weiss, and drummer Mark Taylor. In many ways, her influence still reverberates at Berklee, which was a struggling enterprise with about 350 students when she arrived in January 1956. Now, about 10 percent of the school's enrollment, or approximately 300 students, are Japanese.

''She was an immediate force on the campus," says saxophonist Larry Monroe, Berklee's associate vice president for international programs, noting that a succession of great Japanese musicians followed Akiyoshi to the school, including saxophonist Sadao Watanabe, trumpeter Tiger Okoshi, and pianist Makoto Ozone.

''The Berk family frankly didn't have a lot of money for scholarships, but somehow they brought her here," Monroe continues. ''At first she was a novelty item, but she wasn't a normal student in any sense. She was already an extraordinary, gifted, and quite complete musician, and she performed with all the great players in Boston."

In recognition of her accomplishments as a musician and contributions to the school, Berklee presented Akiyoshi with an honorary doctor of music degree in 1998. She appreciates the unique role she played at the school and the way in which the limelight benefited both her and Berklee. She also points out that she arrived in the United States at a propitious moment. A virtually peerless, Bud Powell-besotted pianist in Tokyo, Akiyoshi came to America seeking out players better than herself, and she thrived when she found them here.

''The jazz scene wasn't quite so business driven," says Akiyoshi, 75, in a phone interview from her Manhattan apartment. ''Everything was very open. If you knew the tune you could sit in, and I consider that my valuable experience."

Starting with the Max Roach/Clifford Brown Quintet, Akiyoshi had the chance to play with many of jazz's greatest musicians. She took over the piano several times when Miles Davis brought his quintet into the Storyville jazz club, once with John Coltrane, and another time with Sonny Rollins. ''Miles always leaned on the piano," Akiyoshi recalls. ''He's looking at my hands and I'm frozen. He said, 'Are you nervous?' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'Don't be, but I understand, I felt like that with Bird.' "

Before long, Akiyoshi was leading her own quartet at the famed jazz club four nights a week. She played the Boston Globe Jazz Festival in 1956, and George Wein started presenting her annually at the Newport Jazz Festival.

Despite all the attention, Akiyoshi initially planned to return to Japan, but by the time she graduated in 1959 she felt that she hadn't learned enough. She had also married a Berklee professor, the great alto saxophonist Charlie Mariano, so instead of heading back to Tokyo, she moved to New York, where she gained more recognition playing with Charles Mingus, Elvin Jones, and Donald Byrd.

But it was with her second husband, saxophonist and flutist Tabackin, that Akiyoshi did her most profound work. When his gig in Doc Severinsen's Tonight Show Orchestra moved to Los Angeles in 1972, the couple relocated to the West Coast. Before long, they had created a big band stocked with top LA studio players that became a vehicle for her extraordinary compositions and arrangements, blending Japanese influences with orchestral bebop.

She documented the groundbreaking sound on a series of classic records for RCA such as ''Long Yellow Road," ''Tales of a Courtesan," and ''Road Time" (albums that are criminally out of print in the United States). In the early 1980s, they moved back to New York and re-created the orchestra, though instead of recruiting veterans, they turned the band into a proving ground for talented young players.

In recent years, Akiyoshi has concentrated on her trio and solo work. The time-intensive nature of creating big band charts left her too little time to practice, and she decided to disband her celebrated orchestra when she found herself dissatisfied with her keyboard technique. But the challenge isn't merely getting her bebop chops back to the level that amazed Oscar Peterson. She's seeking to capture her music's fusion of jazz and Japanese influences in a small group setting.

''When you have certain horns, it's comparatively easy to convey some elements of my heritage," Akiyoshi says. ''But in a limited piano, bass, and drums situation, to convey that to the listener, that's something I'm working on."

Monday, April 17, 2006

Opinion - Stanley Crouch: Lasting gifts from McLean - sacbee.com

Opinion - Stanley Crouch: Lasting gifts from McLean - sacbee.comStanley Crouch: Lasting gifts from McLean
By Stanley Crouch
Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, April 15, 2006
The recent death of saxophonist Jackie McLean brought to mind an exceptional life that spanned the worlds of performance, education and community uplift.

Born in Harlem, N.Y., in 1931, McLean died in Hartford, Conn., where he had lived since 1970. McLean's story was unusual because the man himself was such an original combination of artistry, commitment and a willingness to battle so many of the limitations of the music world and the hard urban streets of America, where kids are swallowed up by drugs and gang activity, as addicts or dealers, as murderers or the murdered.

John Lenwood McLean, a member of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church during his early years, was one of the most impressive talents to come off Sugar Hill. That was where the Harlem entertainers and classy types who worked hard and wanted their children to make something of themselves often lived. Few wanted their children to become musicians, who could be seen everywhere on the streets, from Duke Ellington on down.

As usual, parents' dreams were different from their children's.

McLean grew up with Sonny Rollins and others who began working on jazz as high-school students and were doing professional jobs by the 1950s. Like many of them, McLean became a heroin addict and struggled with the problem until near the end of the 1960s. He recalled pushers on corner after corner of his neighborhood by his middle teens.

In 1970, he moved to Hartford, where he began teaching jazz in the department that is now the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz. While there, he decided that the young people needed a community center that would teach them the arts as a retort to the troubles of the streets.

In conjunction with his wife, Dollie, McLean began a fundraising campaign and eventually saw a sizable community built, which is called the Artists Collective.

McLean developed a reputation during the 1950s in the bands of Miles Davis, Art Blakey and Charles Mingus. He also led fine bands and made many superb recordings under his own name. But McLean was more than a superior musician; he was extremely intelligent, witty and insightful.

"We thought that shooting dope was a way of being cool and showing you were aware when I was coming up," McLean once said. "For a long time it seemed that our suffering added up to nothing but death and wasted lives. We were wrong: Our suffering became a symbol of what drugs can really cost you. Now young musicians think you are corny or a fool if you get messed up with drugs. We didn't know it, but that was our gift to them."

McLean's final gift to younger musicians was his work as a teacher and as a builder of community alternatives to knuckleheaded behavior.

His sound was special, full of the same sincere warmth one felt from him as a man. He was a marvelous storyteller, on and off his horn, a fine composer, a good mimic, and one whose stories could turn surreal corners and move from the tragic to hilarious in no more than one or two beats.

He is now a symbol of what can be done in an individual life and with individual effort. McLean always read and kept his mind alive because he loved learning and sought to be something more than a dope addict who played saxophone.

That he developed an entire department and went on to work with his wife and supporters until the Artists Collective was built expressed his determination to leave something solid after he died. As long as people like jazz, there will be an audience for Jackie McLean's recordings. As long as community centers are built to offer something of value to those at the bottom, the spirit of Jackie McLean will remain in action. He will always be with us.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

NPR : Lost Lester Young Jam Session Turns Up


NPR : Lost Lester Young Jam Session Turns UpLost Lester Young Jam Session Turns Up

Listen to this story...


Weekend Edition - Saturday, April 15, 2006 · This week, the Library of Congress announced 50 more audio recordings it will preserve... and the discovery of a previously unknown recording by jazzman Lester Young. The piece was recorded in 1940, probably in New York City.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

I Have written an article about Jackie McLean. This was first published in July of 2004


Jackie McLean or “Jackie Mac” as he is known to his fans, was the most original alto saxophone player to emerge from that first generation of jazz players shaped by the all pervasive influence of alto saxophone player Charlie Parker. Bebop, the style of music of which Parker was the principle innovator, became the dominant style in jazz from the nineteen forties onward.

Parker changed the way musicians played music. His influence went far beyond the realm of alto saxophone players. Parker revolutionized the rhythmic concept of jazz by incorporating new and sophisticated rhythmic accents into his music. The role of the jazz drummer was forever change. Jazz players who performed older styles of the music incorporated many of Parker’s rhythmic innovations into their music. Parker completely revolutionized the manner in which jazz musicians approached harmony. His use of advanced chord structures in his music laid a foundation for jazz musicians which has inspired every succeeding generation of musicians. Then there was Parker the brilliant alto saxophone soloist who developed a brand new blues based musical vocabulary for not just his instrument but for all jazz players. Only Louis Armstrong had caused such a change in the way a soloist played their instrument. Given this context it is even more amazing that a young saxophone player, like McLean, who knew Charlie Parker personally, would develop such a unique and original style. Parker encouraged McLean to find his own sound and uniquely among alto saxophone players of his generation McLean successfully followed Parker’s advice.

Now in his seventies, Mr. McLean continues to perform in varying musical contexts, ever refining his unique and singular sound. In fact the thing that makes Jackie McLean’s music so unique is his sound. Once heard, Jackie Mac’s sound is immediately identifiable. His sound has a piercing, penetrating quality that is so intense and filled with passion that sometimes it almost hurts. Jackie’s sound cuts right through to the core of your being where all of your emotions reside. Whether happiness or sadness or any emotion in between, McLean will touch you. Jackie will hit notes, while he is soloing, that will make you cry with pleasure. He makes you hurt so good.

McLean’s sound conveys to me the sound and feeling of New York City, probably as much as any jazz player. His sound and music are so filled with the searing pulse which is that city. I hear the streets of Harlem in McLean’s music, even in a tune named “Appointment in Ghana” I hear New York. The musical tempos of his music are often fleet. Jackie traverses the complex harmonies of his tunes and jazz standards with both ease and finesse. McLean’s music draws you into its magic by being both intensely passionate and harmonically interesting.

Jackie McLean has had a five decade performing and recording career. He has taught music at the Hart School of Music in Hartford Connecticut for over twenty years. Do not pass up an opportunity to see Mr. McLean perform live. His performances are unforgettable.

There are many Jackie McLean recordings available for purchase. He also performed as a regular sideman, during the nineteen sixties, on many Blue Note Records recording sessions led by musicians such as trumpeters Lee Morgan and Donald Byrd. During the nineteen fifties he recorded with trumpeter Miles Davis and bassist Charles Mingus among others. I would recommend for an initial purchase the albums Swing, Swang, Swingin from the nineteen sixties, Old Wine, New Bottles from the nineteen seventies and Hat Trick from the nineteen nineties. These albums are representative of Jackie McLean’s mature style. These recordings convincingly demonstrate the relevance of Bebop as a contemporary musical style fully capable of serving as a vehicle for expressing a twenty first century sensibility. Bebop lives.

© 2004 John H. Armwood

Monday, April 10, 2006

New York Daily News - Ideas & Opinions - Stanley Crouch: Saying goodbye to a jazzman - and a good man

New York Daily News - Ideas & Opinions - Stanley Crouch: Saying goodbye to a jazzman - and a good man

The funeral at Abyssinian Baptist Church for saxophone great, educator and community leader Jackie McLean reminded one of how much has been lost uptown since McLean was born there in 1931. At the same time that Harlem is being renovated and may eventually become one of the places where the middle and upper middle class choose to live, it is also much of an esthetic graveyard. Though there is plenty of soul uptown, as always, one hears or sees little of the vitality for which Harlem was once legendary.

John Lenwood McLean, a member of the Abyssinian Baptist Church during his early years, was one of the most impressive talents to come off of Sugar Hill. That was where the Harlem entertainers and classy types who worked hard and wanted their children to make something of themselves often lived. Few wanted their children to become musicians, who could be seen everywhere on the streets, from Duke Ellington on down.

As usual, parents' dreams were different from their childrens'. McLean grew up with Sonny Rollins and others who began working on jazz as high school students and were doing professional jobs by the 1950s. Like many of them, McLean became a heroin addict and struggled with the problem until near the end of the 1960s.

In 1970, he moved to Hartford, Conn., where he began teaching jazz in the department that is now the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the Hartt School of Music. While there, he decided that the young people needed a community center that would teach them the arts as a retort to the troubles of the streets. With his wife, Dolly, McLean began a fund-raising campaign and eventually saw a sizable community built, which is called the Artists Collective.

McLean developed a reputation in the 1950s in the bands of Miles Davis, Art Blakey and Charles Mingus. He also led fine bands and made many superb recordings under his own name.

But McLean was more than a superior musician; he was extremely intelligent, witty and insightful. He always read and kept his mind alive because he sought to be something more than a dope addict who played saxophone.

"We thought that shooting dope was a way of being cool and showing you were aware when I was coming up," McLean once said. "For a long time it seemed that our suffering added up to nothing but death and wasted lives. We were wrong: Our suffering became a symbol of what drugs can really cost you. Now young musicians think you are corny or a fool if you get messed up with drugs. We didn't know it, but that was our gift to them."

McLean's final gift to younger musicians was his work as a teacher and as a builder of community alternatives to knuckleheaded behavior. His sound was special and full of the same sincere warmth one felt from him as a man.

He is now a symbol of what can be done in an individual life and with individual effort. As long as people like jazz, there will be an audience for Jackie McLean's recordings. As long as community centers are built to offer something of value to those at the bottom, the spirit of Jackie McLean will remain in action. He will always be with us.

Originally published on April 10, 2006

Thursday, April 06, 2006

AOL Black Voices: AOL BlackVoices Entertainment Feature Story - BV Entertainment Newswire April 3: Cassandra Wilson


AOL Black Voices: AOL BlackVoices Entertainment Feature Story - BV Entertainment Newswire April 3: Cassandra Wilson

Entertainment Newswire April 3: Cassandra Wilson
By Karu F. Daniels, AOL Black Voices
A 'New' Cassandra

This week, Cassandra Wilson releases her latest CD, 'Thunderbird,' ushering in what some have described as a "new and different sound" for the Grammy Award winner. "It's good to be known and to be valued as someone who is accomplished at doing something but it's also important, I think, to challenge yourself and at the same time have fun," the Mississippi native told Black Voices.

* Listen to 'Thunderbird'
* Read the Last BV Entertainment Newswire
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Back to Black Voices Entertainment

Days of 'Thunder'

"I think the direction took me," Cassandra Wilson says of her latest album, 'Thunderbird,' which has been proclaimed as a "new and different sound" by the jazz media. Acclaimed producer T-Bone Burnett -- of Roy Orbison and Elvis Costello fame -- helmed the eclectic 10-track CD, in stores April 4, featuring new spins on traditional classics, and Wilson's own compositions. "Something I think most people know about me as a musician, I'm open to possibilities. I never paint myself into a corner because music is intimate and there are so many things you can do that are fun and exciting with it. And when is becomes a chore, you keep doing the same thing over and over again, eventually you lose, and your audience loses it as well. So I love the challenge of working with new musicians and working with a new methodology and 'Thunderbird' is a prime example of that."

The Grammy Award winning jazz singer/songwriter says the album took a little under a year to record, utilizing three Los Angeles studios. "You don't just go into a studio and knock it out all in a month or a couple of months," she explained. "You have to take time to breathe and to let the project breathe. Because if you rush it, you won't give the material an opportunity to show you where it is going."

The release of the new disc comes at a very difficult time for the Wilson, who turned 50 in December. She is currently based out of her native Jackson, Miss., caring for her 80-year old mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. "She was diagnosed the year before last and it took a turn for the worst in November so I had to come down to help manage things and to help set up the household so that she is cared for," Wilson told Black Voices. "So I've been here since November."

Your Voice

"It has been a little bit difficult, it has been trying," she added. "But the other side of it is that it's a great opportunity for me to be with my mother at this time in her life and it's so much information that you get when you spend that time, that quality time with an aging parent. It's really a blessing. And I feel fortunate to be able to. It's heavy, but it's wonderful."

'Thunderbird' isn’t the only latest music contribution Wilson has made. She is featured on 'Confidential,' the debut album from dead prez rapper M-1, whom she refers to as "quite a character." Wilson collaborates with Q-Tip on the track "Love You Can't Borrow." Wilson, the mother of a 17-year old son, is embracing hip-hop culture. "I'm not one of those jazz purists who believes that it's an insignificant form. It's true that a lot of the lyrics are insubstantial, to say the least, but I think the methodology is fascinating. I think the ways the kids are making music now are really interesting."

"It's good to be known and to be valued as someone who is accomplished at doing something but it's also important, I think, to challenge yourself and a the same time have fun," she added.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Jackie McLean Viewing :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily


Jackie McLean Viewing :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily Jackie McLean Viewing
Posted by: editoron Tuesday, April 04, 2006 11:39 AM
Jazz News Thursday, April 6th, 2006
5:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Benta's Funeral Home 630 St. Nicholas Avenue
(at 141st Street ~ across from Harlem School for the Arts)

Condolences/Remembrances:The McLean Family
261 Richfield Street
Hartford, Connecticut? 06112

Funeral Services
for Jackie McLean Friday, April 7th 2006

10:00 in the morning, Abyssinian Baptist Church

132 Odell Place (138th Street)between
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. & Malcolm X Boulevards
(7th& Lenox Avenues)

The Rev. Calvin Butts Officiating

A Bittersweet Melodic Imagination By Stanley Crouch


A Bittersweet Melodic Imagination By Stanley Crouch
Remembering the saxophonist Jackie McLean.
By Stanley Crouch
Posted Tuesday, April 4, 2006, at 5:12 PM ET
Jackie McLean
"The cry of jazz" is one of those clichéd phrases firmly rooted in the fact of a certain kind of sound. It almost always refers to saxophone players, although trumpets and trombones were once known as "singing" or "talking horns" because rubber plungers and mutes were used to better their imitation of the human voice. Saxophone players, however, use nothing but the brass-bodied reed instrument itself, expressing their battle with the limitations of life through two things—timbres that tailor the notes with vocal inflections and rhythms that imply speech or song. In the hands of an artist, those techniques can delineate the minuscule or vast distances between joy and pain. Such musicians are often known for the stubborn delivery of frail dreams and the fierce rhythm with which they play. Now and again they evoke no particular emotion, only an earnest refusal to be run down by life that translates as heroic.

The alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, who died last Friday at 73 in Hartford, Conn., was one of those players. A hero to his listeners, McLean had an unapologetic New York sound that embodied the hard sorrow of urban life, but answered it with the triumphal dance of swing. His jazz audience would fill the clubs, but he was not a well-known commodity. The essence of jazz is symbolized by players like him who are neither epic innovators nor pace-setters (very few are, regardless of the hype). Early on, McLean attained one of the highest achievements of a jazz musician: He found his own sound on the alto. This separated him from his fellow imitators of Charlie Parker. McLean's immediately recognizable tone was displayed in many indelible situations over more than five decades of recording.

Born in 1931, John Lenwood McLean came up in a time when jazz ceased to be a dance music. With the arrival of the World War II bebop generation, musicians collided with the entertainment conventions that were wrapped up in minstrelsy. McLean grew up in Harlem and was one of the Sugar Hill boys, a group of musicians that included Sonny Rollins, Kenny Drew, and Arthur Taylor, all of whom became drug addicts by the time they left high school. "I remember," McLean said, "right after the war everybody was trying to be hip, which meant being rebellious with a super cool style of awareness. Shooting heroin was considered a form of hipness and being aware. Now young musicians, thank God, think it's corny to be a dope fiend."

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With few exceptions, most of the bebop generations had drug problems because so many of the men they admired, like Charlie Parker, were addicts. For McLean, Parker was an early hero, influence, and model. "Bird was always an extremely aware person, and no matter what he did in order to handle his addiction and his appetites, he had great dignity. His discipline was shown in the way he played his horn."

McLean came up fast. He studied chords with Bud Powell, the major influence on bebop piano, played jobs with his buddies, and, when he had the nerve, sat in with Charlie Parker. "When I sat in with Bird, it was not so much to play but to be up there on the bandstand where I could listen to him as closely as possible. Every time he played was a lesson. You could learn how to develop a melody, how to negotiate some harmony, and how to phrase. Bird was an academy of excellence. Just listening, you could hear the artistry of the horn and that artistry could make you aware of something beyond everything you knew. Not just music. Whatever creation means on the deepest level is what Charlie Parker had to offer."

During the early '50s, McLean went to North Carolina, where he lived with relatives for a year and was able to clean up his drug habit. While living the country life, he got a deep, down-home soaking on jobs where the saxophonist literally walked the bar and played the blues all night. That Southern sound of blues is one of the most distinctive aspects of McLean's style and remained in place throughout all his artistic evolutions.

By the middle '50s, McLean was rising to prominence among the men of his generation. He made hard-swinging records with drummer Art Blakey and innovative ones with Charles Mingus. His richest period of recording was in the late '50s and '60s. Most of his best work was captured on Blue Note, where he led exemplary sessions of unapologetic New York swing and was later to successfully experiment in the wake of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman.

"Coltrane taught me something about determination when I watched him kick the habit in public," McLean once recalled. "He made the decision and came to work looking like a mess. He wasn't shaving or combing his hair; his suit was all wrinkled up, the collar of his shirt turning brown. That's how he had to do it. He wouldn't accept even a little bit of dope to help him get through. No. There he was playing his heart out every night. He wasn't hiding, he didn't disappear. We all saw it. By the end of the gig, he started combing his hair and shaving and looked like a new man. He had conquered himself."

McLean made many excellent records before leaving New York in 1970 and dedicating a part of his life to education. Those recordings prove him a timeless original who could put his own flavor on bebop and the modal developments that followed. Much of this was the result of McLean's bittersweet melodic imagination, his blowtorch tone, and the palpable daring that underlay his intense rhythmic drive. Examples include New Soil; Swing, Swang, Swinging; Jackie's Bag; A Fickle Sonance; Let Freedom Ring; Destination Out; and One Step Beyond.

At the University of Hartford, he started what eventually became the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz. And he considered the Artists Collective, a sizable community center that offers an alternative to the pitfalls of the streets through the teaching of the arts, his finest achievement outside of music. He and his wife, Dolly, conceived it, led the fund-raising drive, and saw it built. All the dues had been paid off because McLean remained a superb player throughout his career and made a solid offering to his community through the teaching of aesthetic discipline. McLean will be missed and remembered as an artist, an educator, and a community leader dedicated to leaving monuments rather than hot air. He always believed in deeds achieved with heat, discipline, humility, and compassion. He embodied the best jazz has to offer.

Stanley Crouch is the author of The Artificial White Man and the forthcoming Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz.
Photograph of Jackie McLean by Francis Wolff© Mosaic Images/Corbis.

Celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month in April! :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily

Celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month in April! :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily Celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month in April!
Posted by: editoron Monday, April 03, 2006 - 10:42 PM
Jazz News Contributed by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor
"I can only hope that one day America will recognize that our indigenous music - jazz - is the heart and soul of all popular music, and that we cannot afford to let its legacy slip into obscurity," said Jones. "The creating of Jazz Appreciation Month is a step towards honoring that legacy." – Quincy Jones

The 5th annual celebration of Jazz Appreciation Month is underway! April 2002 marked the first observance of “Jazz Appreciation Month,” a celebration of American’s indigenous music established through the sponsorship of the Smithsonian Institution. Intended to draw public attention to jazz—both as an historical and living art form--Jazz Appreciation Month (or JAM) seeks to encourage musicians, concert halls, schools, colleges, museums, libraries, and public broadcasters to offer special programs on jazz every April. In particular, the founders of JAM hope to focus public attention on the extraordinary heritage and history of jazz and its importance to American culture. In addition, JAM is intended to encourage people of all ages to participate in jazz—by studying the music, attending concerts, listening to jazz on radio and recordings, reading books about jazz, and supporting institutional jazz programs. Through JAM, the jazz community promotes efforts to influence the public image of jazz as serious music, as well as demonstrating that jazz can be enjoyable and fun!

The Smithsonian is a natural organization to oversee JAM. A leader in promoting and providing jazz for thirty years, the Smithsonian operates the world’s most comprehensive set of jazz programs–it collects jazz artifacts, documents, recordings, and oral histories; curates exhibitions and traveling exhibits; operates its own big band, the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra; publishes books and recordings on jazz; offers fellowships for research in its collections; and offers concerts, educational workshops, master classes, lectures, seminars, and symposia. The National Museum of American History includes more than 100 oral histories of musicians, composers and others, and 100,000 pages of Duke Ellington's unpublished music, as well as Ella Fitzgerald's famous red dress, Dizzy Gillespie's angled trumpet, and Benny Goodman's clarinet.

Adding support for JAM, on August 18, 2003, President George W. Bush signed Public Law 108-72, legislation that strongly endorsed jazz and urges “musicians, schools, colleges, libraries, concert halls, museums, radio and television stations, and other organizations should develop programs to explore, perpetuate, and honor jazz as a national and world treasure.”



April was selected for JAM as schools are still in session, and further, a number of jazz legends were born in April--Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith, Johnny Dodds, Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, Lionel Hampton, Gerry Mulligan, Shorty Rogers, Tito Puente, and Herbie Hancock. At a press conference in July 2001, producer-musician Quincy Jones helped announce the first JAM on behalf of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Branford Marsalis helped kick off the first JAM the following spring, along with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, the museum’s acclaimed 18-member big band. The first celebration included lectures, educational programs, and an exhibition. Joining the Smithsonian as sponsoring organizations were The Department of State, along with the U.S. Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Association for Music Education, the International Association of Jazz Educators, and the Grammy Foundation.

"Jazz is a vital part of America, and as a nation's history museum we want to raise public awareness of jazz as one of America's cultural treasures," said Spencer Crew, director of the National Museum of American History. "We hope JAM will continue to nourish the growing appetite for jazz."

In a special ceremony launching the 2006 celebration, the families of Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk donated objects and manuscripts from the legendary careers of these jazz pioneers, and photographer Herman Leonard donated jazz photographs to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Donations from the Davis family include a Versace suit that Davis wore during the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland in 1991; a sheaf of parts for “Summertime,” arranged for Davis by Gil Evans based on George Gershwin’s “Porgy & Bess”; and an electronic wind instrument (EWI) used by Davis. Donations from the Monk family include one of Monk’s iconic skull caps; a handwritten manuscript for “Four in One” (first recorded in 1951); and a jacket, vest and ties worn by Monk. Leonard, who lost many prints in the flooding following Hurricane Katrina, donated 20 black-and-white photographs, including images of Louis Armstrong, Holiday, Gillespie, Lena Horne and Tony Bennett. The new items will be part of a special display at the museum, “ Miles & Monk: New Jazz Acquisitions,” which opened on March 30th.

Any organization can participate in Jazz Appreciation Month. To assist teachers, librarians, and others in celebrating JAM, the Museum has published a series of posters and the brochure “How to Celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month,” available on the JAM website at www.smithsonianjazz.org. Further, any nonprofit organization can use the JAM logo, available at ftp://160.111.16.40/pub/jam/.

JAM Poster and Events

The 2006 Jazz Appreciation Month poster features Duke Ellington, designed by American artist LeRoy Neiman. Best known for his portraits of sports and entertainment figures, Neiman maintains a lively interest in jazz. The Museum has produced 250,000 of the posters, which are being distributed free of charge to schools, educators, librarians, radio stations, performing arts presenters, US embassies and consulates around the world, members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, and others. To request a poster or posters, write jazz@si.edu . The poster is also available for download at < www.smithsonianjazz.org/jam/jam_start.asp.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Jackie McLean, Jazz Saxophonist and Mentor, Dies at 74 - New York Times


Jackie McLean, Jazz Saxophonist and Mentor, Dies at 74 - New York TimesApril 3, 2006

By PETER KEEPNEWS

Jackie McLean, an acclaimed saxophonist who took a midcareer detour to become a prominent jazz educator, died on Friday at his home in Hartford. He was 74.

His death was confirmed by a spokesman for the University of Hartford, where Mr. McLean had taught since 1970. No cause was given.

Mr. McLean was one of many gifted young musicians who burst onto the New York scene after World War II in the wake of the musical revolution known as bebop. He worked with Bud Powell and Miles Davis before he was out of his teens, and later he gained valuable seasoning in the bands of Art Blakey and Charles Mingus before he began leading his own groups.

Also a prolific composer, Mr. McLean was one of the first alto saxophonists to absorb the pervasive influence of Charlie Parker and shape it into a distinctive personal style. While the influence was clear, especially in his approach to harmony, Mr. McLean's astringent tone and impassioned phrasing marked him as more than just another Parker disciple.

His career had a second act as well. In the late 1960's he put performing aside to concentrate on teaching.

On his arrival at the University of Hartford in 1970, he was a music instructor at the Hartt School. Ten years later he was named director of the university's newly formed African-American music program, one of the first degree programs in the field. In 2000, a year before he received a Jazz Masters grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the university renamed the program the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz.

For more than two decades he performed and recorded only occasionally. He devoted most of his energy to teaching, both at the university and at the Artists Collective, a community cultural center in Hartford that offered classes in music, theater, dance and the visual arts to local young people, which he founded and ran with his wife, Dollie. She survives him, along with his son Rene, of New York, a saxophonist who frequently performed with him; another son, Vernone, and a daughter, Melonae, both of Hartford; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

In the early 1990's Mr. McLean shifted some of his focus back to performing. "I've always wanted to be remembered for being more than a saxophone player," he told Peter Watrous of The New York Times in 1990, when he returned to New York to perform at the Village Vanguard. "It's been important to put aside my horn and help people, act on what I believe. But the building for Artists Collective will be going up in the next two years, and the music department is now a full-degree program, so it's time to get back to playing."

John Lenwood McLean was born in Harlem on May 17, 1931. (Many sources give his year of birth as 1932, but The Grove Dictionary of Jazz and other authoritative reference works say he was born a year earlier.) The son of a jazz guitarist, he began studying saxophone at 14, starting on soprano but switching to alto after a few months.

Bud Powell, a neighbor who was the leading pianist of the bebop movement and a neighbor, took Mr. McLean under his wing. He also worked with the tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, another neighbor, and soon caught the attention of Miles Davis, who was just beginning his career as a bandleader. Davis used both Mr. McLean and Mr. Rollins as sidemen on one of his first recordings, in 1951.

Mr. McLean began recording his own albums in 1955. He also had a brief but memorable stage and screen career, appearing in the 1959 Off Broadway production of "The Connection," Jack Gelber's play about drug addiction, and in the 1961 film version, directed by Shirley Clarke.

Mr. McLean was in a sense playing himself. His character was a member of a jazz combo, which provided the music as well as taking part in the action. His character was also a heroin addict — as, he later acknowledged, was Mr. McLean himself. He eventually kicked the habit, and when he became a teacher he often spoke to his students about the dangers of drugs.

In his younger days Mr. McLean was identified with the aggressive, rhythmically charged offshoot of bebop known as hard bop. But in the early and middle 1960's he surprised his listeners (and alienated some critics) by embracing the avant-garde movement then known simply as "the new thing" and later called free jazz, on a series of daring albums for Blue Note with names like "Destination Out" and "One Step Beyond." He even enlisted Ornette Coleman, one of the fathers of the new music, as a sideman on "New and Old Gospel." Although Mr. Coleman's main instrument, like Mr. McLean's, was alto sax, he played trumpet on that album.

But Mr. McLean preferred not to talk about his music in terms of categories. "I've grown out of being just a bebop saxophone player, or being a free saxophone player," he told Jon Pareles of The Times in 1983. "I don't know where I am now. I guess I'm somewhere mixed up between all the saxophonists who ever played."

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Telegraph | News | Jackie McLean

Telegraph | News | Jackie McLeanackie McLean
(Filed: 03/04/2006)

Jackie McLean, who died on Friday aged 74, was a jazz saxophonist with a style that was a distinctive mixture of the bebop of Charlie Parker and the free jazz of Ornette Coleman.

His passionate and impetuous playing first made its impact in the recorded work of Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, but his reputation rests on recordings under his own name, especially those made for the Blue Note label. McLean was also much valued as a teacher and for his work on artistic projects for inner-city youth.

John Lenwood McLean Jnr, always known as Jackie, was born in New York City on May 17 1931. His father, John McLean, was the guitarist with Tiny Bradshaw's orchestra. Many of Jackie's friends during his childhood in Harlem, including Sonny Rollins, Kenny Drew and Art Taylor, also grew up to become well-known jazz musicians and, like them, he began early. He was playing the alto saxophone at the age of 15, and at 17 was practising with the great pianist Bud Powell.

The late 1940s saw the first wave of heroin addiction among young black men and, like most of his friends, McLean succumbed. It was several years before he was able to rid himself finally of his dependence. He made his recording debut with Miles Davis in 1952, contributing his own composition, Dig, to the session, but for the next few years his addiction prevented him from making any real headway. His career began in earnest in 1956. He recorded as a sideman with Charles Mingus and was contracted to record as a leader by the Prestige label.

His playing at this time, like that of most young alto saxophonists, was very much in the Charlie Parker mould; but, with the encouragement of Mingus, McLean soon began to develop a freer, more urgent style. His tone, too, took on a characteristically incisive edge.

Intermittently throughout 1957-58 McLean was a member of the Jazz Messengers, as well as working as a soloist with his own bands. In 1958 he signed with Blue Note records and joined what amounted to a repertory company of New York's hard-bop giants, taking part in each other's sessions as well as leading their own. During this period he recorded with Lee Morgan, Jimmy Smith, Hank Mobley and many more, while his own work blossomed. His 1962 album Let Freedom Ring is particularly fine, catching perfectly the balance between form and freedom for which he had now become celebrated.

Meanwhile, in 1959, McLean had taken an acting and playing role in a play, The Connection, about a group of drug addicts. It ran in New York until 1961, when it transferred to London and a film version was released. The record of the music, composed by Freddie Redd and featuring McLean, proved to be one of Blue Note's best sellers.

After the London run, McLean stayed on in Europe for several months, working mainly in Paris. In 1968, with the end of his Blue Note contract, McLean took up a post at the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford, Connecticut, where he then settled and founded the Hartford Artists' Collective, offering tuition and encouragement to inner-city children. According to his university colleagues, many of McLean's former students kept in touch with him.

He continued to tour, regularly visiting Europe during the long summer vacations and recording for the Danish label Steeplechase. The recordings vary in style from fairly straightforward hard-bop to completely open improvisation.

Jackie McLean was awarded an American Jazz Masters' Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2001.

He is survived by his wife, the actress Dollie McLean, and his son, the saxophonist René McLean.

NPR : Jazz Saxophonist Jackie Mclean.

NPR : Jazz Saxophonist Jackie Mclean.

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Fresh Air from WHYY, March 26, 2001 · The legendary alto sax player began playing saxophone at the age of 15 in native New York City. Schooled in bebop at the start of his career, McLean names Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Charlie Parker as influences. Hes played with jazz greats pianist Bud Powell, Miles Davis and Charles Mingus. He continues to play and record today. He also teaches music at the University of Hartford.

NPR : Jackie McLean: A Saxophone Great

NPR : Jackie McLean: A Saxophone GreatRemembrances
Jackie McLean: A Saxophone Great

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Weekend Edition Sunday, April 2, 2006 · Saxophonist Jackie McLean died on Friday at the age of 75. He played with many of the greats, including Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey and Charles Mingus. We offer an appreciation.

Jackie McLean; Saxophonist Who Advanced Study of Jazz

Jackie McLean; Saxophonist Who Advanced Study of Jazz

By Matt Schudel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 2, 2006; C09

Jackie McLean, 74, one of the foremost alto saxophone players of the past 50 years, who also helped elevate jazz studies to a serious academic discipline, died March 31 at his home in Hartford, Conn. His family said that he died of "a long illness" and that the cause of death would be announced later.

A musical descendant of bebop master Charlie Parker, Mr. McLean developed a strong, uncompromising style in the 1950s and remained a prominent voice on his instrument for decades. He recorded more than 60 albums and was a mentor to younger musicians as a bandleader and as a teacher.

He grew up in Harlem, where his neighbors included such jazz greats as Duke Ellington, Don Redman, Nat "King" Cole and Thelonious Monk. He often recalled those heady days in interviews and was a principal interview subject in Ken Burns's 10-part documentary on jazz in 2000.

For the past 35 years, he lived in Hartford, where he established the jazz studies program at the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford, now called the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz. It was one of the country's first comprehensive jazz programs.

With his wife, Dollie, he also founded the Artists Collective, a cultural arts center in Hartford that has educated thousands of primarily African American students in music, dance, drama and the visual arts. He also maintained a long involvement in civil rights, dating from the 1960s.

His interest in education derived from his experiences with the jazz giants of an earlier era. At 16, he met bebop pianist Bud Powell, who often invited the young saxophonist to his house to study and practice. In his teens, Mr. McLean would wait at subway stops to meet Parker and walk with him to nightclubs, gleaning musical insights from his idol.

The younger musician copied both Parker's playing style on alto saxophone and his addiction to heroin. For much of the 1950s and early 1960s, Mr. McLean struggled with narcotics and often found himself in legal trouble.

After Parker's death in 1955, Mr. McLean worked with bassist and bandleader Charles Mingus, who encouraged him to find his own style, free from Parker's influence. From 1956 to 1958, Mr. McLean was a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, where he honed his powerful searing tone, which was usually slightly sharp.

"He had his own sound," said critic Ira Gitler, who knew Mr. McLean for 55 years. "He had a cry in his playing and a lot of fire."

The late 1950s and early '60s were perhaps Mr. McLean's most fruitful musical period, during which he composed such memorable tunes as "Melody for Melonae," "Appointment in Ghana," "Dr. Jackie" and "Minor March." He also made a series of outstanding recordings, including "4, 5 and 6" and "McLean's Scene" (both 1956), "Jackie's Bag" (1959), "Let Freedom Ring" (1962) and "One Step Beyond" (1963).

After making 21 albums for Blue Note Records between 1959 and 1967, Mr. McLean turned more toward teaching and grew less active as a performer. In the 1980s and 1990s, he returned to the stage and the recording studio with renewed vigor, and he often performed with his son, saxophonist Rene McLean.

"It was my most rewarding, my most exciting and my most challenging musical experience," Rene McLean said yesterday. "I had to rise to the occasion. It made no difference if I was his son or brother.

"We had very magical musical moments together."

John Lenwood McLean was born in New York City on May 17, 1931. His father was a jazz guitarist who died in 1939, and his childhood friends included future jazz stars Sonny Rollins, Walter Bishop Jr., Kenny Drew and Art Taylor.

Mr. McLean made his recording debut in 1951 with Rollins on Miles Davis's "Dig!," often considered the first "hard-bop" album in jazz, blending bebop complexity, blues feeling and rhythmic drive.

He adopted modal and free-jazz techniques later in his career, but he retained the same intensity he had in his youth.

On one of his final efforts, "Nature Boy" (2000), he showed a more sensitive side of his musical persona with an album of ballads. In 2001, he was recognized as an American Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mr. McLean was especially popular in Japan and once came across a tiny club in Yokohama called the "Jackie McLean Coffeehouse" that was a virtual shrine to his career. He gave his final performances during a tour of Europe and the Middle East in 2004.

"Many times, we could finish each other's ideas," said Rene McLean, who was with his father on that final tour. "It was just unique and mystical."

Besides his son, of New York, survivors include his wife, Dollie McLean of Hartford; a daughter, Melonae McLean, and son, Vernone McLean, both of Hartford; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

Jazz alto saxophonist Jackie McLean dies at 73 - Boston.com

Jazz alto saxophonist Jackie McLean dies at 73 - Boston.com
By Stephanie Reitz, Associated Press Writer | March 31, 2006

HARTFORD, Connecticut --Jazz alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, a performer and educator who played with legendary musicians including Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, died Friday. He was 73.
McLean, a contemporary of some of the 20th century's most famed jazz musicians, died at his Hartford home after a long illness, family members told The Hartford Courant.

McLean was founder and artistic director of the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the University of Hartford's Hartt School. He and his wife, actress Dollie McLean, also founded the Artists Collective, a community center and fine arts school in Hartford's inner city primarily serving troubled youth.

University of Hartford President Walter Harrison said Dollie McLean called him Friday with news of her husband's death.

Harrison said that despite his many musical accomplishments, McLean was a modest man whose connections with his students lasted for decades after they left his classroom.

"He fully understood the way that jazz as an art should be passed down to students," Harrison said. "He saw his role as bringing jazz from the 1950s and '60s and handing it down to artists of today."

McLean, a native of Harlem in New York City, grew up in a musical family, his father playing guitar in Tiny Bradshaw's band. McLean took up the soprano saxophone as a teen and quickly switched to the alto saxophone, inspired by his godfather's performances in a church choir, he told WBGO-FM in Newark, New Jersey, in an interview in 2004.

McLean went on to play with his friend Rollins from 1948-49 in a Harlem neighborhood band under the tutelage of pianist Bud Powell. Through Powell, McLean met bebop pioneer Charlie "Bird" Parker, who became a major influence on the young alto saxophonist.

He made his first recording when he was 19 on Miles Davis' "Dig" album, also featuring Rollins, which heralded the beginning of the hard-bop style.

In the 1950s, McLean also played with Charles Mingus and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, experiences that he credited with helping him find his own style.

"I never really sounded like Bird, but that was my mission," McLean said in the WBGO radio interview. "I didn't care if people said that I copied him; I loved Bird's playing so much. But Mingus was the one that really pushed me away from the idea and forced me into thinking about having an individual sound and concept."

McLean made his first recording as a leader in 1955. He drew wide attention with his 1959 debut on Blue Note Records, "Jackie's Bag," one of dozens of albums he recorded in the hard-bop and free jazz styles for the label over the next eight years. His 1962 album "Let Freedom Ring" found him performing with avant-garde musicians.

In 1959-60, he acted in the off-Broadway play "The Connection," about jazz musicians and drug addiction. McLean, a heroin addict during his early career, later went on to lecture on drug addiction research.

In 1968, after Blue Note terminated his recording contract, McLean began teaching at the University of Hartford. He taught jazz, African-American music, and African-American history and culture, setting up the university's African American Music Department, which later was named in his honor.

He took a break from recording for much of the 1980s to focus on his work as a music educator, but made his recording comeback in 1988 with "Dynasty," and later re-signed with Blue Note. His last Blue Note recordings included "Fire and Love" (1998), featuring his youthful Macband with son Rene McLean on tenor saxophone, and the ballads album "Nature Boy" (2000).

He received an American Jazz Masters fellowship, the nation's highest jazz honor, from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2001, and toured the world as an educator and performer.