Wynton Marsalis, Eric Clapton to perform together in New York | NOLA.com

Image via WikipediaWynton Marsalis, Eric Clapton to perform together in New York | NOLA.com

Wynton Marsalis is teaming up with Eric Clapton to "Play the Blues" at two concerts in New York this spring.

New Orleans-born, New York-based trumpeter Wynton Marsalis will play the blues with Eric Clapton in April.

The New Orleans-born jazz trumpeter and the British guitar god are scheduled to perform together April 8-9 at Rose Theater, a 1,200-capacity venue within the Jazz at Lincoln Center complex. Taj Mahal is also on the bill.

Marsalis and Clapton will perform music from the catalogs of early New Orleans jazz cornetist King Oliver, blues shouter Howlin’ Wolf, jazz pianist and entertainer Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong and 1920s blues singer Ma Rainey (incorrectly identified in some articles posted today as “Moe Rainey).

Marsalis is the artistic director at Jazz at Lincoln Center. A presale began today for MasterCard holders and continues through Feb. 11. A public onsale for any remaining tickets has not been announced.

Go to the Jazz at Lincoln Center Web site for more info.

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Jazz to be honored with postage stamp in 2011 | wwltv.com | Local News

Jazz to be honored with postage stamp in 2011 | wwltv.com | Local News

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Postal Service has honored New Orleanians Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Mahalia Jackson with postage stamps in the past. Now, it will honor the music born in their hometown – jazz – with a postage stamp of its own in 2011.

The jazz stamp was among 25 new stamps unveiled Tuesday, to be offered for sale in 2011. No date was given for the jazz stamp’s release, however.

“With this stamp, the U.S. Postal Service is proud to pay tribute to jazz, America’s musical gift to the world, and to the musicians who play it in studios, clubs, or concert halls, and on festival stages,” postal authorities said in a news release, which properly mentions New Orleans as the birthplace of the music.

The stamp features the work of a California artist, Paul Rogers, and was designed by art director Howard Paine, postal officials said.

Author Mark Twain, whose time as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River and in New Orleans helped shape his writings, will also be honored with a 2011 postage stamp, which goes on sale in June.

Other commemorative stamps unveiled Tuesday include one honoring former President Ronald Reagan, actors Gregory Peck and Helen Hayes, legends of Latin music and the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500.

In addition, former U.S. Congresswoman from Texas Barbara Jordan is the 2011 Black Heritage stamp honoree. Stamps will also be issued to observe the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the 50th anniversary of America’s first manned spaceflight and a celebration of Disney Pixar movie characters.

Randy Weston Links 'African Rhythms' To American Jazz : NPR

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I have had the wonderful experiencing of knowing Mr. Weston since 1981.  He is one of my teachers.  He is truly a great man.Randy Weston Links 'African Rhythms' To American Jazz : NPR

Pianist Randy Weston grew up surrounded by some of the greatest musicians in jazz. But it was his deep connection to Africa that inspired his personal style of music.

Weston recently sat down with NPR's Neal Conan to discuss the link between West African music and American jazz in his autobiography, African Rhythms. Traditional histories trace the history of American jazz to New Orleans, but not Weston.

"African people were taken from Africa, and taken to the States, and they came in contact with European culture and instruments," he says. Then, they "created a different kind of music" — jazz and blues.

Weston says he gives credit to his father for connecting him with music and the continent of Africa.

"He told me you have to study African civilization — when Africa was great," Weston says.

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Mike Ragogna: From D.C.'s Kennedy Center to East Of Angel Town: Conversations with Branford Marsalis and Peter Cincotti

Mike Ragogna: From D.C.'s Kennedy Center to East Of Angel Town: Conversations with Branford Marsalis and Peter Cincotti

Legendary jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis has been accumulating a series of honors with the upcoming NEA's Jazz Masters Award being one of the most prestigious yet. He and his brood of familial, musical superstars recently played D.C.'s Kennedy Center, and that recording has been released as the album Music Redeems that unites The Marsalis Family with guests such as honorary offspring, Harry Connick, Jr.

The project's profits will fund The Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, a New Orleans-based organization dedicated to keeping the arts lively for young people. Speaking for the family is genre-versatile saxophonist Branford Marsalis who brings us up to date on the center, his father, the performance, and other topics including Miles Davis.

Also included in this post is an interview with Peter Cincotti who experienced one of the most surprising and best career 180s of the last few years. Originally produced and presented as a light "easy listening" artist and contemporary of singers such as Michael Bublé, Peter empowered himself through his very strong East Of Angel Town, one of the best pop singer-songwriter albums of 2009 in the States (it was released in 2007 overseas). Peter Cincotti is on the same playing field as Billy Joel, his keyboard chops giving The Piano Man a hard run for his money. The album's most solidly written and best performed tracks include "Lay Your Body Down (Goodbye Philadelphia)," "Cinderella Beautiful," "December Boys," "Another Falling Star," "Broken Children," and the title track whose dead-on description of the L.A. club scene is like "Zanzibar" on steroids. Peter discusses that project while taking us on a tour of his career and things East of Angel Town and beyond

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Wynton Marsalis in Cuba to "Bring People Together" - ABC News

Image via WikipediaWynton Marsalis in Cuba to "Bring People Together" - ABC News

Reuters

HAVANA

U.S. jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra will play concerts in Cuba this week with what he said on Monday was a simple goal -- to bring people together through music.

His is the latest in a growing series of cultural exchanges between the United States and Cuba as the two countries grope for common ground after five decades of hostility.

The New York-based jazz orchestra, making its first trip to the communist-led island, is set to play concerts Tuesday through Saturday and give classes to young Cuban musicians.

Marsalis, 48, said he was honored to be in Cuba, with its own rich musical history rivaling that of his native New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz.

He told of how, when he was 12, his father, pianist Ellis Marsalis, brought him an album featuring Cuban jazz great Chucho Valdez and said, "Man, this is what cats are playing in Cuba."

"Then he put the record on and every time something would happen, he would go 'wooooooooooo.' He was always 'woooooooooo,'" Marsalis said.

He eschewed any overtly political overtones to the Cuba visit, saying the message of jazz was universal.

"Our tagline is 'uplift through swing.' We raise people's spirit all over the world through the art of swing," he said.

"In our music, swing means come together and stay together, even when we don't want to."

Marsalis said he had played and recorded music over the weekend with Cuban musicians including the pianist Valdez and Buena Vista Social Club singer Omara Portuondo, both of whom accompanied him at Monday's press conference.

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Saxophonist Branford Marsalis on Classical Music, the NEA Awards and Durham - WNYC Culture

Image via WikipediaSaxophonist Branford Marsalis on Classical Music, the NEA Awards and Durham - WNYC Culture

Renowned saxophonist Branford Marsalis will reunite with trumpeter Terence Blanchard for a special performance at the Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater on Friday, Oct. 1 and Saturday, Oct. 2 at 8 p.m.

“It’s going to be modern jazz at a very high level,” says jazz critic Nate Chinen, who writes for The New York Times. “Both these bands are very assertive rhythmically and advanced harmonically. Plus, there's a lot of driving force and energy.”

Marsalis and Blanchard don’t perform often in New York, adds Chinen, and when they do it’s usually in a club. Seeing them in a concert like this is a treat.

The pair grew up together in New Orleans and got their start in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the early 1980s. Marsalis started his own ensemble soon after that and has since won three Grammy awards. In recent years, he has moved into the classical music arena, playing as a soloist with the Philharmonia Brasileira and the New York Philharmonic this past summer.

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MARSALIS SWING SYMPHONY RECEIVES U.S. DEBUT WITH NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC

MARSALIS SWING SYMPHONY RECEIVES U.S. DEBUT WITH NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC

By Culturekiosque Staff

NEW YORK, 23 SEPTEMBER 2010 — Wynton Marsalis’ Symphony No. 3, titled Swing Symphony, recieved its U.S. debut last night as part of the gala opening of the 2010 - 2011 season of the New York Philharmonic and its 36-year-old music director, Alan Gilbert. Commissioned jointly by the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and London’s Barbican Center this composition is Mr. Marsalis’s third symphonic work. With this piece, the American jazz artist and composer's intention was no less than to trace the long and rich history of jazz.

Given its world premiere last June by the Berlin Philharmonic together with Mr. Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle, the Swing Symphony is a stylish work full of American vigour, hair-raising virtuosity and a conservative, New Orleans aesthetic charm. Blues, New Orleans parade marches, Hollywood film music, the Hot Club de France and Latin Jazz are among the styles evoked in the six-movement work. And while some may not agree with Mr. Marsalis' vision of the history of jazz, he nonetheless pays tribute to the many great American jazz artists and composers, most notably Duke Ellington, who came before him.

Particularly sexy was the acoustical effect of Mr. Marsalis and his superb 15-piece multi-ethnic jazz orchestra tucked neatly in the gut of the 85-member New York Philharmonic, who acquitted themselves honestly and with enthusiasm, although there were moments when one could hear that Mr. Marsalis' ambitious score obliged them to defend their classical pedigree in unexpected ways.

Similarly, Mr. Marsalis' score makes it patently clear that to be a member of the Jazz Orchestra of Lincoln Center requires not only the same level of virtuosity and artistic talent as their classical colleagues, but in addition, demands a consumate mastery of improvisational jazz performance practice from its early days in New Orleans to the latest global avant-garde. Never an easy task for either musical genre given the history of racial segregation in both classical music and jazz in America. Astutely, Mr. Marsalis has written a work that requires the collaboration of the finest of both worlds in order to be realized. This bodes well for Mr. Marsalis' ensemble, as well as for future musicians and composers with a love of both art forms.

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First Listen: The Marsalis Family, 'Music Redeems' : NPR

First Listen: The Marsalis Family, 'Music Redeems' : NPR

Today's first family of jazz, the Marsalises don't often get together, at least on stage. But when the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival in Washington, D.C. (now the DC Jazz Festival), gave its 2009 lifetime achievement award to family father Ellis Marsalis — a great pianist and legendary educator — all four of his music-playing sons (Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo and Jason) joined him on stage. Ellis Marsalis III also recited an original poem for his father, frequent collaborators Herlin Riley and Eric Revis stepped in, Dr. Billy Taylor joined in the fun, and family friend Harry Connick Jr. took a few guest spots, too.

Marsalis Music, the record label founded by Branford, recorded the show. Now, it's releasing part of the concert as Music Redeems. But this isn't a money grab: All proceeds from sales are going to the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, the practice, teaching, recording and performing space currently under construction as the heart of the New Orleans Habitat Musicians' Village. (Following Hurricane Katrina, Connick and Branford Marsalis initiated the construction of a community for New Orleans musicians, many of whom lived in substandard housing even before Katrina.)

The music captured here feels casual in the best way. There's the deft reading of "Donna Lee," with a muted Wynton bebop-soloing away and Jason whistling the rapid-fire melody. Or the joyous back-and-forth New Orleans feel of "At the House in Da Pocket" and "The 2nd Line," the blues tunes which close out the album. Or Ellis Marsalis' solo piece "After," or his duet with Harry Connick Jr. on "Sweet Georgia Brown," or the charming story Connick tells about taking piano lessons in the Marsalis household as a child. It's as if the family and friends were gathering for a jam session on stage, and amazing each other at every turn.

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