Corea trio powerful, playful

Image via WikipediaCorea trio powerful, playful

hen a jazz concert doesn't get off the ground, some times too much rehearsing is to blame. The music becomes more about executing than searching, more about musicians reciting than listening to each other and throwing off creative sparks together.

But when Chick Corea and his trio played in Dominion-Chalmers United Church on Sunday, the first thing the 69-year-old pianist told the crowd was, "We're going to rehearse on you a little bit." A set of powerful, playful music resulted, from three of jazz's most recognizable players.

Corea was punchy and romantic, florid and fantastic, unleashing hand-over-hand feats at the keyboard. Bassist Christian McBride impressed with his big-as-a-house beat and the virtuosity of his solos. Drummer Brian Blade personified in-the-moment creativity and commitment, and when he swatted his cymbals it felt like the musical equivalent of "Amen!"

They were all like mighty orators, and their concert's best moments happened when they spoke with one spontaneous voice.

Serenity, a Joe Henderson piece, seemed like a subdued start to things. But the music grew more vivid with every tune, perhaps with the musicians becoming increasingly comfortable with the acoustics and with the audience.

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Jazz musician Courtney Pine CBE, plays Bridport (From Bournemouth Echo)

Jazz musician Courtney Pine CBE, plays Bridport (From Bournemouth Echo)

WHEN jazz genius Courtney Pine comes to Bridport next week the intimate Electric Palace gig will be as important to him as any of his performances in the world’s largest and grandest venues.

“Every concert is a challenge,” said the affable father-of-four, taking a break from recording his latest album, Europa, a mammoth, musical history charting the birth of Europe.

“I walk into the venue, open my eyes and think, ‘What can I do with this – and what can this space do for me? How can I present my music?’ “It’s an attitude that keeps me on my toes and means that I don’t get bored.

“I like to do something different every night. It is an addiction for me, and I hope it entertains the audience.”

He says: “Sometimes I get to venues and they are setting out the tables and chairs and thinking that an evening of jazz means that people will be sitting round politely, drinking wine.

“But I get on stage and say, ‘I am Courtney Pine CBE, please feel free to dance – you are allowed to dance.’ That is a shock to some.”

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Events > Jazz Musical: "It's a Hardbop Life" > New Brunswick, NJ > My Central Jersey

Events > Jazz Musical: "It's a Hardbop Life" > New Brunswick, NJ > My Central Jersey

6:30-8:30 p.m. Sept. 8. Touring nationwide, the jazz musical “It’s a Hardbop Life” will make a stop in New Brunswick for a one-night live performance. Written and performed by Broadway trombonist Gregory Charles Royal, “It’s a Hardbop Life” is the story of a rapper who, in a dream, is brought back to 1964 and the life of his father, a jazz musician. Free; co-produced by the American Youth Symphony and the American Federation of Musicians' Music Performance

Maria Schneider, her band soar at Detroit International Jazz Festival | freep.com | Detroit Free Press

Maria Schneider, her band soar at Detroit International Jazz Festival | freep.com | Detroit Free Press

“Let’s lift the bandstand,” Thelonious Monk used to tell his musicians. With the possible exception of Wayne Shorter, I’m not sure there’s another musician in contemporary jazz who embodies the spirit of off-the-ground music more than composer Maria Schneider. Her extraordinary 18-piece orchestra made its Detroit debut this afternoon at the Detroit International Jazz Festival under sunny skies and blessedly warmer temperatures than Saturday.

Schneider, who conducted with balletic but precise gestures, takes a great deal of inspiration from the atmosphere, wind and all things avian. “Hang Gliding,” one of the most impressive pieces today, hovered in an 11-beat meter, the irregular accents lifting the ensemble as if the players were caught in a cycle of rising thermals. Even on pieces based on earthier rhythms like a tango or a funky boogaloo, her ensemble phrasing inhabited a contrasting sphere of expression and left the impression of a band walking on air.

Schneider likes vamps, modal suspensions, rubato, pastel colors, malleable forms, Spanish and Latin rhythms and gleaming, impressionistic harmonies. Her inventive orchestrations favor surprising blends of muted brass, flugel horns, flutes, clarinets, bass clarinet, guitar and accordion. A piece like “Concert in the Garden” took a small amount of thematic material and developed it with symphonic complexity; textures morphed organically, foreground and background danced in constant motion and the improvising soloists were deployed in concerto-fashion to further the implications of the written material.

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A treat for jazz lovers - Others - Parties - Life & Style - The Times of India

A treat for jazz lovers - Others - Parties - Life & Style - The Times of India

The rains may be playing spoilsport, but that did not stop Puneites from attending a jazz concert with the eminent Diane Witherspoon in performance .

The well-known singer, who is on a tour of the country, mesmerised the crowd with her powerful voice, singing renditions of popular songs including It don't mean a thing, You'll believe in love, Wild in the wind and LA after dark to name. Accompanying her were musicians Passakorn Suksuntiphab on the saxophone, Napat Piriykitsarun on the drums, Budhianant Deeswasmogkol on the Piano and Teerawat Tunboot on the Bass, who added beautiful nuances to every song. Jazz music lovers alike were held spellbound, and gave a roaring applause after the performance. The singer was touched by the response and promised to be back here again.

FT.com / Books / Non-Fiction - Saxophone Colossus

Cover of Saxophone ColossusFT.com / Books / Non-Fiction - Saxophone Colossus

Saxophone Colossus: A Portrait of Sonny Rollins, by Bob Blumenthal and John Abbott, Abrams RRP£22.50, 160 pages

These days the great American saxophonist Sonny Rollins will take only those jobs “that put myself, and jazz, in high esteem”. It’s a statement that reflects the distance the New York-born musician has travelled from the circumstances in which he found himself when he recorded the now legendary album Saxophone Colossus in 1956.

Bob Blumenthal and John Abbott’s text-and-photograph collaboration takes that triumphant early album in order to track Rollins’s tumultuous journey from youthful miscreant to venerated statesman – via punishing routines, titanic gigs, heroin addiction and self-imposed exile from performance.

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Music Industry Celebrates 40 Years Of Miles Davis' "Brew" - NY1.com

Image via WikipediaMusic Industry Celebrates 40 Years Of Miles Davis' "Brew" - NY1.com

A new collectors edition of the groundbreaking jazz fusion album recorded by Miles Davis will be released Tuesday, marking 40 years since its legendary debut. NY1's Stephanie Simon filed the following report.

Forty years later, many are marking the anniversary of Miles Davis' legendary recording "Bitches Brew."

At a recent Celebrate Brooklyn concert in Prospect Park, "Bitches Brew Revisited" saluted the musical pioneer. The band includes some who played with Miles and others who were inspired by him including DJ Logic.

"It feels good to see the old and the young just coming out and supporting and just seeing something unique as well as paying tribute to Miles Davis and the legacy and the music," says DJ Logic.

Drummer Vince Wilburn Junior played for several years with his uncle.

"To me it was like I was a student and he was like the master, the jedi," recalls Wilburn Jr.

Miles Davis wasn't just a musical genius, he was also a brilliant marketer and promoter. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, at a time when rock and roll acts were attracting the big crowds, Davis traded his more traditional look and sound for electric instruments and a rockin' style. The music was called fusion. The album was called "Bitches Brew" and it sold hundreds of thousands of copies. And while some called him a sell out, he was selling out large venues and records, just as he had hoped.

"Miles was a forward thinker so being around him and playing with him, you never knew what to expect. He just had visions in his head and he wanted us to carry it out. He didn't care about what people thought," says Wilburn Jr.

To mark the anniversary, a box set cd and live DVD are being released -- remixed by DJ Logic. A biopic of the restless and experimental musician is also in the works with Herbie Hancock doing the score and actor Don Cheadle tapped to play Miles.

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Jazz, Very Much Alive, in Paris - NYTimes.com

Jazz, Very Much Alive, in Paris - NYTimes.com

No one embraces jazz like the French. They first fell under its spell in the 1920s, when American artists like Josephine Baker and Sidney Bechet found refuge in their country, disillusioned by the racial situation in the United States. Still among jazz’s biggest supporters, the French hold terrific festivals, like Jazz à la Villette, which runs from Aug. 31 to Sept. 12 in beautiful Parc de la Villette and other venues around Paris.

The festival, which actually ranges beyond jazz to include hip-hop, soul and Afro-beat, pairs seemingly dissimilar artists to give audiences rare and unusual musical experiences. “We try to show the links between jazz and the other kinds of music,” said Vincent Anglade, the festival director. “We want to abolish the frontiers and avoid the labels. We look for a good balance between European and U.S. artists, between young talent and great legends and between straight-ahead jazz and crossover.”

Opening night, for instance, brings together the avant-garde guitarist Marc Ribot and the rapper and bassist Meshell Ndegecello; the Afro-beat drummer Tony Allen, the Finnish saxophonist Jimi Tenor and the African trio Kabu Kabu collaborate on Sept. 1. Calling themselves the Now He Sings Now He Sobs Trio, the jazz superstars Chick Corea and Roy Haynes join Miroslav Vitous, a bassist formerly of the band Weather Report, in a performance on Sept. 2. And, in one of the most anticipated concerts, on Sept. 7, the renowned Cuban pianist Chucho Valdes joins the saxophonist Archie Shepp in the Afro-Cuban Project.

“It’s great to be asked who you want to play with,” Mr. Shepp said. “I don’t know another festival that does that. And then, to get the musician of your choice — in my case, wonderful Chucho, that’s incredible. I started out with a Puerto Rican ensemble and I’ve always had a fondness for Latin music, it’s so close to the feeling of dance. I’m very excited about getting back into it with him. Especially in La Villette. The audience is so responsive.”

For more information, call 33-1-44-84-44-84; for tickets, visit www.ticketnet.fr; prices range from 10 to 35 euros, about $12.50 to $43.50

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• Don Byron: Jazz musician puts his faith in gospel - thestar.com (armwoodjazz.blogspot.com)

Don Byron: Jazz musician puts his faith in gospel - thestar.com

Don Byron: Jazz musician puts his faith in gospel - thestar.com

American clarinetist Don Byron didn’t hesitate when the Markham Jazz Festival’s new artistic director asked him to be the event’s first-ever artist-in-residence.

“He is one of my dearest friends; any excuse that I have to be around him, I’ll take it,” said Byron of the overture from Toronto composer/guitarist Michael Occhipinti, curator of the 13th annual program of free and ticketed concerts that runs Friday to Sunday.

Each day of the festival will find Byron performing in a different configuration: at Friday’s gala with bassist Cameron Brown’s Hear & Now quartet; helming his own New Gospel Quintet on Saturday; and Sunday with Occhipinti’s new band Triodes.

Longtime fans will be keen on the Canadian premiere of Byron’s year-old gospel project, which primarily plays the music of Chicago composer Thomas A. Dorsey who was known as “the father of gospel music.”

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SentinelSource.com |COOL JAZZ

SentinelSource.com |COOL JAZZ

Composer, musician Sonny Rollins honored

By Casey Farrar

Sentinel Staff

Published: Monday, August 16, 2010

PETERBOROUGH — An aura of cool hung in the air Sunday as The MacDowell Colony honored jazz composer and tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins during its annual Medal Day celebration.

Rollins, 79, was the 51st artist to be awarded the medal and the first jazz composer to be recognized by the colony for “an outstanding contribution to the arts,” according to the colony’s website.

Rollins told an audience of about 1,600 people he was humbled by the honor.

“Every time people tell me I help make their lives a little better, why then I realize that I’ve come full circle,” he said. “I love (music) for myself, but if I can give something to somebody else then that’s perfect.”

The MacDowell Colony was founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, Marian. Each year, artists are selected from all over the country and world to stay for free at one of the colony’s 32 studios as an artist-in-residence.

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Jazz Great Sonny Rollins to Receive MacDowell Medal | New Hampshire Public Radio

Image via WikipediaJazz Great Sonny Rollins to Receive MacDowell Medal | New Hampshire Public Radio

Jazz musician and composer Sonny Rollins will be in New Hampshire this weekend. The tenor saxophonist is receiving the MacDowell Medal, awarded annually at the MacDowell Artist’s Colony in Peterborough. Rollins is a jazz pioneer with a career that reaches all the way back to the 1940s. Word of Mouth producer Avishay Artsy spoke with Rollins and others about his musical legacy.

Sonny Rollins received his first saxophone when he was thirteen years old. Now nearly eighty, he shows no signs of slowing down.

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