Billy Bang, Jazz Violinist And Vietnam Veteran, Dies At 63 : A Blog Supreme : NPR

Billy Bang, Jazz Violinist And Vietnam Veteran, Dies At 63 : A Blog Supreme : NPR

Billy Bang, a violinist known for intense performances and a wide-ranging sensibility, died Monday night, his agent Jean-Pierre Leduc confirmed. Bang, who had been suffering from lung cancer, was 63.

Born William Walker in 1947, Bang was an important figure on the experimental jazz scene that blossomed in New York in the 1970s. But he gained wider recognition in the last decade for a series of recordings which drew on his military service during the Vietnam War.

His experiences in combat scarred him mentally, and he generally avoided speaking about them until Leduc encouraged him to create what would become 2001's Vietnam: The Aftermath. The album — and its successor, Vietnam: Reflections — received critical acclaim and proved cathartic for Bang.

"There used to be a time where I used to have dreams about it a lot and it's not as often now," he told Howard Mandel for NPR in 2004. "But for a very long time, I suffered a lot in my sleep. But to be honest, I think after I faced the ordeals of what I've gone through — after completing that music, and after rehearsing it, particularly after recording it — I've felt a lot lighter."

Bang grew up in New York City's South Bronx, and actually studied the violin as a teenager. He didn't like it.

"I didn't know what was going on," he told Tom Vitale for NPR in 1993. "I couldn't carry it back on my block. I lived on 117th Street. Can you imagine a little guy carrying a violin, and you talk about guys picking on you, man. I mean, they really did. I had to put the violin down, throw a couple of punches, get thrown at me, go upstairs. I hated to practice it. It sounded terrible."

Despite being offered a scholarship to a boarding preparatory school in New England, Bang never finished high school. He was drafted into the service and, as he told Mandel, he was thrown into combat two days after landing in Vietnam.

As a squad leader, he had to maintain intense focus in combat. There was no music in his life then.

"Only the music of machine guns," Bang told Mandel. "The rhythm of that is what I heard. The only instrument I had was an M-79, M-14 and a .45."

At least initially, the period after his service was hardly any better. In 2005, Bang told Roy Hurst of NPR's News and Notes that returning was a shock.

"When I came home from Vietnam — when I got off the airplane — the next thing I was on was the New York City subway, and that was extremely traumatic for me — I mean, just really destructive to my whole system," Bang said. "I couldn't take the sounds. I couldn't take the people all around. So I finally got home; I didn't want to come outside for a long time, which I didn't do. So my mother was coaxing me to come out and sort of — she was trying to help me to get back to some kind of normality. But I still criticize the United States government for not having a real bona fide re-entry program for veterans."

Bang's trauma led him to heavy drinking and drug use. He joined a Black Liberation group that drew on his wartime experience to help it buy guns. On one trip to a pawn shop, he saw a violin and that led him back to music. After discovering the way that free jazz artists like Leroy Jenkins and Ornette Coleman were using the instrument, he began taking his own study seriously. He moved from the South Bronx to the Lower East Side and immersed himself in the counterculture of likeminded artists.

Bang proved to be an active, passionate performer. Though he was associated with free improvisation, his concepts also came from more traditional jazz and Latin music, and he often incorporated that language into his playing. Tom Vitale's 1993 profile of Bang centered on his project paying tribute to pioneering jazz violinist Stuff Smith.

Dustin Ross/Courtesy of the artist

Billy Bang across the street from his house on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

By the new millennium, Billy Bang had already become a well-respected musician within the jazz world. He spent 10 years with an important group called the String Trio of New York, an improvising ensemble with his violin, guitarist James Emery and bassist John Lindberg.

The Vietnam albums proved to be more high-water marks for his career. Bang called up fellow musicians who had also served in Vietnam for the recording sessions, including conductor Butch Morris.

"It was quite heavy," Morris told Howard Mandel. "I've never seen so many grown men cry. It's not only how he brought this thematic stuff back — it's how he brought the experience back, the experience of being there, the experience of smelling, the experience of seeing, the experience of feeling, the experience of fear, the experience of joy, the experience — he brought back all these experiences. That's what was so frightening in the studio. He brought back the same experience that each of us had."

Billy Bang was scheduled to perform at the Rochester International Jazz Festival in June of this year. Last year, he released a well-received album called Prayer for Peace.

Related articles

• Album review: Billy Bang's 'Prayer for Peace' (avantmusicnews.com)

Randy Weston's African Rhythms Quartet featuring Lewis Nash

Cover of Randy WestonImmersed in African rhythms


By Geoffrey Himes Friday, April 8, 2011
Most people agree that much of American music — blues, jazz, R&B, hip- hop and gospel — has its roots in Africa, but for many that formula is a vague, sentimental notion, rarely explored and little understood. For pianist Randy Weston, however, that linkage has been the central theme of his music for more than 50 years.
The 85-year-old pianist, who performs at the Kennedy Center on Saturday, has composed jazz suites about Africa, studied African history, collaborated with African musicians, performed across the continent and even lived in Morocco for five years.
“Everybody loves jazz and blues, all these rhythms, and it all comes from Africa,” Weston says. “Africa has always been a mystery, because there’s so little information about what it was like before the people from the north invaded, but you have to know something about Africa to know the human race, because that’s where it started. When I go to Africa, I don’t go as a teacher; I go as a student. I want to find out why I play the way I play.”
Weston is coming to town with a new album, “The Storyteller,” and a new book, “African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston,” co-written by Rockville jazz writer Willard Jenkins. In the book, Weston describes how his fascination with Africa began with an unusual childhood. As a boy in the 1930s, when most Americans’ images of Africa came from Tarzan movies, he was reading books about ancient African kingdoms. His father was a fervent follower of Marcus Garvey, who advocated pride, unity and self-determination for the entire African diaspora.
“The way I was raised made me a much older person,” Weston says on the phone from his home in Brooklyn. “It made me realize that our civilization went back for centuries, that our history didn’t just begin with slavery. I wanted to know how my ancestors could come here in chains to pick cotton and still produce such incredible music. They suffered so much to make it possible for Randy Weston to play the piano, so I have to respect them. To deny them would be to disrespect their efforts.”
By 1960, Weston had recorded 10 albums and established himself as a worthy heir to the jazz-piano tradition of Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk. But he hadn’t musically addressed his fascination with Africa. By that decade, however, the civil rights movement in the United States was gathering steam at the same time as the freedom movement in colonial Africa (17 nations would declare their independence that year).
So Weston composed a five-part suite, “Uhuru Afrika” (Swahili for “Freedom Africa”), with help from lyricist Langston Hughes and arranger Melba Liston. They recorded the piece with a 27-member big band that featured Freddie Hubbard, Yusef Lateef, Clark Terry, Kenny Burrell, Max Roach and actor-singer Brock Peters. It was a landmark recording that only whetted Weston’s appetite for further explorations of his African heritage.
Event Information
DETAILS: 7:30pmSaturday, April 9
INFORMATION: 202-467- 4600, 800-
444-1324
PRICE: $30
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts 2700 F St. NW Washington, DC
Location
Like
Terms of Use
He joined a State Department-sponsored tour of Africa in 1961 and another in 1964, and in 1967 moved to Morocco.
“Everywhere I went, I always asked for the most traditional music and the oldest musicians,” Weston recalls. “Jazz is a very young music and America is a very young country, so to gain some perspective you have to go all the way back to where it came from. Like my father and mother, these old musicians have secrets we’ll never fully understand because they lived in a time before us. But we can always learn something from their experiences, so I try to be around the elders as much as possible.”
Willard Jenkins, a frequent contributor to Jazz Times and Downbeat magazines, recognized that Weston had an important story to tell.
“What drew me in Randy’s direction is that I’ve always felt that he’s been underappreciated, perhaps because he was out of the country during a crucial period of his development,” Jenkins says. “He was the only major jazz artist that I know of who actually lived in Africa. It was as if he were on a journey of self-discovery.”
The book is told in Weston’s voice, but it was Jenkins who guided the many interviews over nine years and molded the results into a narrative arc.
“I worked with Willard like I did with Melba [Liston],” Weston says. “He’d turn on the tape recorder, I’d go, ‘Blah, blah, blah,’ and he’d take it away and arrange it. It was the same with Melba; I’d play a piano piece and I’d say, ‘This might be a saxophone solo; this might be for trumpet,’ and she would take it away and arrange it. She had a way of hearing what I did, adding colors and making it sound like me.”
Weston’s album “The Storyteller” was recorded live in 2009 and released late last year. Because it was intended to complement the autobiography, it touches on several scenes from the book. It opens with a solo piano piece titled “Chano Pozo,” the Cuban drummer whose injection of African rhythms into Dizzy Gillespie’s band stimulated Weston’s interest in the roots of jazz. The album revisits such major Weston pieces as “African Sunrise,” “African Cookbook” and Weston’s most recorded composition, “Hi-Fly.” And its title reflects a lesson Weston learned from his time in Africa.
“In Western music,” he says, “to be a master all you have to do is play good — be a great pianist or a great saxophonist — but in Africa, to be a master you also have to be a healer, a naturalist and a storyteller.”
Now that he’s 85, Weston himself is one of those storytelling elders, though he laughingly scoffs at the notion, insisting, “I’m still a baby trying to understand the origin of music, the meaning of music.”

Related articles

• Randy Weston and his African Rhythms Sextet: The Storyteller (Review) (popmatters.com)

Ahem: Stray Thoughts On Coughing During A Keith Jarrett Concert : A Blog Supreme : NPR

Image by Olivier Bruchez via FlickrAhem: Stray Thoughts On Coughing During A Keith Jarrett Concert : A Blog Supreme : NPR

The pianist Keith Jarrett recently played a solo show at Carnegie Hall. People coughed and took photographs; Jarrett stopped the show in objection and walked off. Jon Pareles wrote about it, but he's certainly not the only one to document this phenomenon in recent years.

In cases like these, I find myself thinking: Gah, stop doing that! Don't have a crippling pet peeve for expectorating and mechanical clicks if you're going to be a public performer. Don't chastise your paying audience for generally accepted conditions of being a performing artist in any genre. Human life is, often involuntarily, loud. Is your music really dependent on an absolutely silent house of several thousand, in contrast to virtually every other musician in human history?

It is weird, of course, to be telling an artist what to do. I don't particularly think it's in my place to seriously do so. It's also obvious that Jarrett couldn't care less about what I think. And he also has a point: If you're concentrating on listening nearly as hard as he's concentrating on playing, you'd be conscious of your emissions and his requests that you control them.

So I predict that the immoveable objects that are Keith Jarrett concerts will continue to meet the unstoppable forces that are audiences coughing during winter. What, then, is to be done? Three further thoughts:

A huge part of the magic of live music is unpredictability. That is irreplaceable, especially in jazz, where the spontaneous creation of something new is paramount. It also opens the door to fits of pique; one phenomenon allows for another. But as far as I can tell, enough people want the magical part that they're willing to sit through a tantrum or an awkward vibe.

It's also wholly reasonable that you wouldn't enjoy Jarrett's music enough to deal with the other stuff, not to mention the considerable price tag. So if you're going to be too put off by Jarrett's antics to enjoy his art, especially considering the money you've put down, don't go. Cost-benefit analysis.

Enough people seem to be consistently voting for #1 rather than #2 such that concert halls like Carnegie are still willing to put on Keith Jarrett concerts. By this point, the hissy fits seem like a well-documented phenomenon; if they were an insurmountable hassle, audiences (and by extension, venues) would be voting by withholding their dollars. Demand for Keith Jarrett concerts still seems high for how much attention "cough-gate" has received.

So what if you're on the fence? Say, what if you're debating plunking down $75 (or however much it costs) to see Keith Jarrett, who you love, but aren't comfortable with the possibility of him stomping off in a huff? My advice is to go for it, mostly because most of us don't see enough live music, and "you only live once," and even if you don't feel like you got your money's worth, it'll at least be a thought-provoking adventure.

However, I might also recommend you look at the opportunity cost and the substitutes. If you live in a big enough city or are attending a big enough festival with the financial resources to host Keith Jarrett, there's probably a lot of other unique improvised music going on, not to mention other entertainment options. With that money and those two hours, you could be getting about as much or more satisfaction seeing something else for significantly less expense.

You wouldn't get the specific brand of satisfaction Keith Jarrett can give you, though. And regardless of how much or how little monetary value the market demands for it, that factor is why any of us care about all this.

UPDATE: Some additional thoughts, after the thorough discussion in the comments:

I generally like Keith Jarrett's music. This discussion isn't really about his music, though.

No, I wasn't at the concert on Sunday.

Anecdotal evidence from those who were suggests that the coughing was in fact quite loud for a massive room and an unamplified piano.

It strikes me that neither Jarrett nor the audience have any clearly-defined "rights" here. Jarrett has a contractual obligation to perform; he has every "right" to execute that performance as he will. The audience, for its money, has every "right" to behave as it desires within the venue's policy.

The reason some folks react to Jarrett's stage mannerisms ("antics," as I previously described them, was a poor word choice) negatively is thus a matter of palatability, not legal or moral right. Nobody is obligating Jarrett to be a nice guy. Nobody is obligating audiences to pay attention.

Performances generally go off without a significant hitch because audiences and performers respect each other enough to honor requests and commonly-accepted standards of behavior. Performers generally behave with surplus gratefulness for their audiences, and learn to tolerate less-than-ideal conditions; audiences usually pay close attention and honor artists' requests to be reasonably quiet.

It seems like when these debacles happen, neither side is trying hard enough to meet each other. Jarrett's generosity of spirit and tolerance for crowd noise seem unusually low, to an outside observer; so do his audiences' abilities to stifle a cough or not take photos or what-have-you.

Sean Gough points out this was five minutes within a three-hour concert. That's important to keep in mind. But five minutes can sour a mood for three hours too.

Finally, the issue of artists like Jarrett grunting should have no bearing on this issue whatsoever.

Big Maybelle - Heaven Will Welcome You Dr King

From The Root

The Best Martin Luther King Jr. Anthem Ever

Today she's largely forgotten. But no one sang a better, more searing tribute to the slain civil rights leader than R&B-and-jazz singer Big Maybelle.

By: Paul Devlin

Posted: January 17, 2011 at 12:08 AM
Today she's largely forgotten. But no one sang a better, more searing tribute to the slain civil rights leader than R&B-and-jazz singer Big Maybelle.

Shortly after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, songwriter Dick Holler penned a beautiful tribute, "Abraham, Martin and John," a meditative, poetic eulogy that also had a verse dedicated to Robert Kennedy. First recorded by Dion, it was famously covered by Marvin Gaye and has been covered many times by others. "Abraham, Martin and John" is mellow, sad, polished, catchy and built for AM-gold glory. But the rhetoric of the song ("Has anybody here seen my old friend Martin?" and so on) is a little too smooth.

A better candidate for the best-ever MLK tribute title: Big Maybelle's visceral, angst-ridden dirge, "Heaven Will Welcome You, Dr. King," a searing shriek from the depths of the soul. Unlike "Abraham, Martin and John," "Heaven Will Welcome You, Dr. King" was not designed for AM radio. The lyrics (by Jack Taylor) are very simple. They don't rely on poetic devices. They appear to have been straightforwardly written and recorded while the pain of the moment was still overwhelming.

The song seems to have lain dormant for years. It was released on iTunes and Amazon.com in 2009 on a two-song "album," along with her cover of "Eleanor Rigby" (which certainly deserves to be known by Beatles fans far and wide). "Heaven Will Welcome You, Dr. King" doesn't even sound as if it was fully produced, and that feels appropriate; the rawness of the sound mirrors the rawness of the emotion. It is less pristine, clear-sounding, marketable, music-business commodity than intensely and authentically felt horror and anguish. The anger and sadness in her voice is matched by the playing of the musicians. It adds up to a mighty lament, an expression of darkest funerary gloom, unimpeded by any sweetness or light, evoking the emotions of what that April 1968 morning must have been like.

And such renditions were not Big Maybelle's style, further highlighting its power. Largely forgotten today, she was a rocking and rolling superstar who could belt out a tune like few others. Born Mabel Louise Smith in Jackson, Tenn., in 1924, she died in 1972 at only 47 because of complications from diabetes, after a remarkable career that undoubtedly was held back by bigoted forces of the day, from weight discrimination to racial discrimination.

Music writer David Ritz has called her "the most underrated singer of this entire epoch." Without a doubt, she had one of the most distinctively energetic styles and exciting voices in rhythm and blues. Listen to how she says the word "I" in the lyric "I feel blue" throughout her stunning "Black Is Black." Oh, my! (Sorry, I know, I'm not able to listen to anything else now, either.)

Many people may know her from the documentary Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959), which featured her extraordinary performance of "I Ain't Mad At You" at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, where she performed alongside Count Basie Orchestra alums -- the jazz legends Buck Clayton, Papa Jo Jones and Buddy Tate, among others.

Her overall place in the history of jazz has probably been underreported. John Coltrane played with her band for years, from the late 1940s through 1954, before he joined Miles Davis. Prior to Coltrane's fame as a soloist, Big Maybelle is said to have called him her "favorite musician." Her 1956 hit, "Candy," reached new audiences after being featured in a 1986 episode of The Cosby Show. She could also do gospel with an R&B slant (or vice versa), as "Do Lord" shows.

Big Maybelle's obituary in Jet is quite ironic, since it is bifurcated by a story about Coretta Scott King giving an award to and throwing a party for Motown executive Junius Griffin. While that is all well and good, Big Maybelle was one of the few artists at the time who paid tribute to King on vinyl, and certainly the only one who did so with such depth of feeling. Big Maybelle, as you said of Dr. King, "those of us who are lucky gonna see you again one day."

Paul Devlin is a graduate student at SUNY Stony Brook.

Related articles

• The Best Martin Luther King Jr. Anthem Ever (theroot.com)
• David Wild: "Dignity": An Uplifting Playlist for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (huffingtonpost.com)
• AfricanAncestry.com Reveals Roots of MLK and Marcus Garvey (theroot.com)
• Dr. King and New York City (cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com)

CBC News - Music - Marsalis family named Jazz Masters

CBC News - Music - Marsalis family named Jazz Masters

Jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis Jr. and four of his accomplished musician sons — Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo and Jason — have received the highest jazz honour in the U.S.

The National Endowment for the Arts honoured the family of New Orleans musicians as Jazz Masters at a ceremony Tuesday night in New York, at the Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater.

The group honour was the first such award presented by the NEA since it launched the award program in 1982.

Also receiving the musical distinction were flutist Hubert Laws, saxophonist David Liebman, composer-arranger Johnny Mandel, and producer and writer Orrin Keepnews.

In the early 1980s, patriarch Marsalis served on the panel that helped choose the first recipients of the award.

"I did get to vote for some of those who became Jazz Masters never really thinking that I would be voted at any time to be one of them," said the 76-year-old champion of modern jazz.

Each Jazz Master will receive a one-time $25,000 fellowship. NEA chair Rocco Landesman also announced a $250,000 US grant to more than a dozen arts organizations in order to stage concerts featured this year's honourees.

The ceremony, which was broadcast live by satellite radio, U.S. public broadcaster NPR and via webcast, included performances by several of the 2011 artists.

Related articles

• National Endowment for the Arts Live Webcast (harlemworldblog.wordpress.com)

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.

MPU 039: Workflows with Paul Kent and Macworld 2011 « Mac Power Users

MPU 039: Workflows with Paul Kent and Macworld 2011 « Mac Power Users

Over the past week, news of Aretha Franklin's purported pancreatic cancer diagnosis has given her fans little hope that the Grammy Award-winning R&B singer will return to her reign as Queen of Soul.

But family members are letting the world know that the Grammy Award winning icon's return to the spotlight looks really promising.

"Aretha is doing better than expected. She has a long life in front of her and will be back in concert and on stage late spring or early summer," Franklin's cousin, Brenda Corbett, who has visited her frequently since her hospitalization, told the Detroit Free Press."This girl is doing great, and they need to stop it," she added, referring to the National Enquirer report that noted pancreatic cancer survival rates are a mere 5-10%.

Pancreatic cancer has claimed the lives of several famous people, including Patrick Swayze, Joan Crawford, Michael Landon, as well as Franklin's friend and famed tenor Luciano Pavarotti, whom she paid tribute to at a 1998 Grammy MusiCares benefit.

On Friday (Dec. 10), recent Grammy nominee and 2007 Kennedy Center Living Jazz Legend recipient James Moody died after just ten months of suffering from the deadly disease. According to his spokesperson, the jazz saxophonist and flutist, best known for his hit 'Moody's Mood for Love' was diagnosed in the Spring with the disease and died on Dec.9 at age 85.

Dr. H. Leon Pachter, Chairman of surgery at New York University Langone Medical Center, told CBS News, "It's a grim diagnosis. Overall, the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer patients is 35 percent." Of last year's 43,000 new cases of pancreatic cancer in the United States, 37,000 people died from the disease, the National Cancer Institute reports.

Pachter did reveal that he's treated patients for the disease who have survived for more than a decade. According to reports, two survival success stories include Apple CEO Steve Jobs and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

Franklin was expected to be released from the hospital over the weekend just in time to spend her favorite holiday, Christmas, with loved ones.

Despite the medical statistics of pancreatic cancer, her family is putting on a united front and staying very positive about her condition.

"Aretha is doing absolutely wonderful," her sister-in-law, Earline Franklin said. "All the prayers and well wishes have supported her, and she's doing well."

The 68 year-old vocal powerhouse is requesting a desire for privacy, which was breached in a phone conversation the former R&B star Keith Washington made public. The 'Kissing You' crooner is currently employed as an on-air personality at Detroit's WDMK/105.9 Kiss FM, which is owned by black-owned media company Radio One.

Corbett confirmed that Franklin will make a statement when she decides to and not at the urging of media or anyone else, for that matter.

"It's her private business, and she's just not ready to talk about it. Give her time to heal. When people ask for their privacy, respect them for that," Corbett added.

As previously reported, Franklin underwent a surgery on Dec.2, which had not been publicly announced but made national headlines after city council members held a public vigil the night before the operation.

A medical surgery known as the whipple procedure, where the head of the pancreas, gall bladder and parts of the stomach and small intestine are removed, is the only way to cure the disease.

Through her current spokesperson, Tracey J. Jordan, Franklin issued a statement saying, "The surgery was highly successful. God is still in control. I had superb doctors and nurses whom were blessed by all the prayers of the city and the country. God bless you all for your prayers!"

Related articles

• Aretha Franklin 'battling cancer' (guardian.co.uk)
• Aretha Franklin Has Pancreatic Cancer, Reports Say: What Are Her Odds? (cbsnews.com)

James Moody, Jazz Saxophonist, Dies at 85 - NYTimes.com

James Moody, Jazz Saxophonist, Dies at 85 - NYTimes.com

By PETER KEEPNEWS

James Moody, a jazz saxophonist and flutist celebrated for his virtuosity, his versatility and his onstage ebullience, died on Thursday in San Diego. He was 85 and lived in San Diego.

His death, at a hospice in San Diego, was confirmed by his wife, Linda.

In November 2010, Mr. Moody revealed that he had pancreatic cancer and had decided against receiving chemotherapy or radiation treatment. He underwent surgery in February to have his gall bladder and blockage in his digestive system removed.

Mr. Moody, who began his career with the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie shortly after World War II and maintained it well into the 21st century, developed distinctive and equally fluent styles on both tenor and alto saxophone, a relatively rare accomplishment in jazz. He also played soprano saxophone, and in the mid-1950s he became one of the first significant jazz flutists, impressing the critics if not himself.

“I’m not a flute player,” he told one interviewer. “I’m a flute holder.”

The self-effacing humor of that comment was characteristic of Mr. Moody, who took his music more seriously than he took himself. His fellow musicians admired him for his dexterity, his unbridled imagination and his devotion to his craft, as did critics; reviewing a performance in 1980, Gary Giddins of The Village Voice praised Mr. Moody’s “unqualified directness of expression” and said his improvisations at their best were “mini-epics in which impassioned oracles, comic relief, suspense and song vie for chorus time.” But audiences were equally taken by his ability to entertain.

Defying the stereotype of the modern jazz musician as austere and humorless (and following the example of Gillespie, whom he considered his musical mentor and with whom he worked on and off for almost half a century), Mr. Moody told silly jokes; peppered his repertory with unlikely numbers like “Beer Barrel Polka” and the theme from “The Flintstones”; and often sang. His singing voice was unpolished but enthusiastic, and his noticeable lisp, a result of having been born partly deaf, added to the comic effect.

The song he sang most often had a memorable name and an unusual history. Based on the harmonic structure of “I’m in the Mood for Love,” it began life as an instrumental when Mr. Moody recorded it in Stockholm in 1949, improvising an entirely new melody on a borrowed alto saxophone. Released as “I’m in the Mood for Love” (and credited to that song’s writers) even though his rendition bore only the faintest resemblance to the original tune, it was a modest hit for Mr. Moody in 1951. It became a much bigger hit shortly afterward when the singer Eddie Jefferson wrote lyrics to Mr. Moody’s improvisation and another singer, King Pleasure, recorded it as “Moody’s Mood for Love.”

“Moody’s Mood for Love” (which begins with the memorable lyric “There I go, there I go, there I go, there I go ...”) became a jazz and pop standard, recorded by Aretha Franklin, George Benson and others, and a staple of Mr. Moody’s concert and nightclub performances as sung by Mr. Jefferson, who was a member of his band for many years. Mr. Jefferson was shot to death in 1979; when Mr. Moody, who was in the middle of a long hiatus from jazz at the time, resumed his career a few years later, he began singing the song himself. He never stopped.

James Moody — he was always Moody, never James, Jim or Jimmy, to his friends and colleagues — was born in Savannah, Ga., on March 26, 1925, and raised in Newark. Despite being hard of hearing, he gravitated toward music and began playing alto saxophone at 16, later switching to tenor. He played with an all-black Army Air Forces band during World War II. After being discharged in 1946, he auditioned for Gillespie, who led one of the first big bands to play the complex and challenging new form of jazz known as bebop. He failed that audition but passed a second one a few months later, and soon captured the attention of the jazz world with a brief but fiery solo on the band’s recording of the Gillespie composition “Emanon.”

Mr. Moody’s career was twice interrupted by alcoholism. The first time, in 1948, he moved to Paris to live with an uncle while he recovered. He returned to the United States in 1951 to capitalize on the success of “I’m in the Mood for Love,” forming a seven-piece band that mixed elements of modern jazz and rhythm and blues. After a fire at a Philadelphia nightclub destroyed the band’s equipment, uniforms and sheet music in 1958, he began drinking again and checked himself into Overbrook, a psychiatric hospital in Cedar Grove, N.J., for several months. He celebrated his recovery by writing and recording the up-tempo blues “Last Train From Overbrook,” which became one of his best-known compositions.

In 1963 he reunited with Gillespie, joining his popular quintet. He was extensively featured as both a soloist and the straight man for Gillespie’s between-songs banter, sharpening his musical and comedic skills at the same time. He left Gillespie in 1969 to again try his luck as a bandleader, but met with limited success; four years later he left jazz entirely to work in Las Vegas hotel orchestras, first at the Flamingo and later at the Hilton.

“The reason I went to Las Vegas,” he told Saxophone Journal in 1998, “was because I was married and had a daughter and I wanted to grow up with my kid. I was married before and I didn’t grow up with the kids. So I said, ‘I’m going to really be a father.’ I did much better with this one because at least I stayed until my daughter was 12 years old. And that’s why I worked Vegas, because I could stay in one spot.”

After seven years of pit-band anonymity, providing accompaniment for everyone from Milton Berle to Ike and Tina Turner to Liberace, Mr. Moody divorced his wife and returned to the East Coast to resume his jazz career. The final three decades of his life were active and productive, with frequent touring and recording (as the leader of his own small group and, on occasion, as a sideman with Gillespie, who died in 1993) and even a brief foray into acting, with a bit part in the 1997 Clint Eastwood film “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” set in Mr. Moody’s birthplace, Savannah.

The National Endowment for the Arts named him a Jazz Master in 1998. “Moody’s Mood for Love” was named to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001. His last album, “Moody 4B,” was recorded in 2008 and released in 2010 on the IPO label.

Mr. Moody, who was divorced twice, is survived by his wife of 21 years, Linda, and three sons, Patrick, Regan and Danny, all of California.

For all his accomplishments, Mr. Moody always saw his musical education as a work in progress. “I’ve always wanted to be around people who know more than me,” he told The Hartford Courant in 2006, “because that way I keep learning.”

Related articles

• James Moody, Versatile Jazz Saxophonist, Dies at 85 (nytimes.com)
• Protector of Jazz's Soulful Melody (online.wsj.com)

Bill Cosby Discusses The Late Trumpeter Lester Bowie

I had the great fortune of managing Lester Bowie for a short period of time during the early 1980s. He was an extremely bright and funny man. He gave me advice which i still use today. May he rest in peace.
John H. Armwood

Bobby Watson & The UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance Concert Jazz Orchestra - The Gates BBQ Suite - Lafiya Music - Audiophile Audition

Cover of Bobby WatsonBobby Watson & The UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance Concert Jazz Orchestra - The Gates BBQ Suite - Lafiya Music - Audiophile Audition

Bobby Watson has both good taste in food and in the jazz he has brought to the public for many years, ranging from his time as musical director during his period with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers all the way up to his recent reformation of Horizon with Terell Stafford, Edward Simon, Essiet Essiet, and Victor Lewis. I had the privilege to see Horizon over Labor Day weekend in Detroit, and it was a treat.

Speaking of a treat, you can’t do much better than chomping on barbeque ribs while listening to your favorite hard bop or soul jazz tracks. When Bobby returned to his hometown, Kansas City, in 2000, to direct the Jazz Studies program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, he was also returning to the food of his youth. His grandparents ran a barbeque restaurant in Merriam, Kansas. Further to Watson, Kansas City is “the Napa Valley of barbeque, and Gates Barbeque stands alone as king of the valley.”

It wasn’t much of a stretch for Bobby to get the inspiration for his seven- part extended big band work that celebrates his love both for this lip- smacking food and his upbringing in the area. After being away from Kansas City for 25 years in New York City, writing this suite must have been a labor of love.

More...

Related articles

• Review: Bobby Watson- The Gates BBQ Suite (therestandstheglass.blogspot.com)
• Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola Sets New Jazz Festival - WSJ.com (armwoodjazz.blogspot.com)

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.

More...

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.

Listen Here:

Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to Perform in Havana

Image via WikipediaWynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to Perform in Havana

HAVANA, Cuba, Sept 24.- At the invitation of the Cuban Institute of Music, American trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln CenterOrchestra will perform in Cuba on October 5-9.

The concerts are scheduled for October 5,6,7 and 9 and they will all be held at the Teatro Mella theater. Some performances will feature Cuban special guests including seven-time Grammy winner Chucho Valdes.

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra residency includes improvisation workshops at the National School of Music and Amadeo Roldan Conservatory on Octubre 8.

“This is our first residency in Cuba and we can’t wait,” said Wynton Marsalis, Artistic Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center, as posted at the musician’s website.

Wynton Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is an American jazz and Western classical virtuoso trumpeter and composer. He is Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center which he cofounded in 1987. He has promoted the appreciation of Classical and Jazz music, often focusing on young audiences.

As a Jazz performer and composer he has made display of his extensive knowledge about jazz and jazz history and for being a classical virtuoso.

As of 2006, he has made sixteen classical and more than thirty jazz recordings, has been awarded nine Grammys in both genres, and was awarded the first Pulitzer Prize for Music for a jazz. (ACN)

More...

Related articles by Zemanta

• Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Heading to Cuba (artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com)

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.

More...

Related articles by Zemanta

• You: Music Review: At the Philharmonic, an Uneven Blend of Jazz (nytimes.com)
• The New York Philharmonic and Credit Suisse Kick Off the 2010-11 Season with a Free Dress Rehearsal (thedailybeast.com)

Brilliant Line-Up at the SummerStage Charlie Parker Jazz Festival | Arts Entertainment | Epoch Times

Brilliant Line-Up at the SummerStage Charlie Parker Jazz Festival | Arts Entertainment | Epoch Times (New York City)

On a late summer afternoon in the city, temperatures outside were probably enough to melt asphalt, but that did not stop local jazz lovers from leaving the comfort of their air-conditioned homes and congregating at Tompkins Square Park in East Village for the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, an annual two-day musical festivity in celebration of the bebop legend Charlie “Yardbird” Parker.

The festival takes place in two neighborhoods in the city where Parker lived and worked throughout his career, Harlem and the East Village downtown.

A large crowd gathered in Tompkins Square Park in East Village on Aug. 29 to listen to great jazz musicians pay tribute to the legendary Charlie Parker. (Annie Wu/The Epoch Times)

At the show on Sunday, Aug. 29, the line-up was as strong as ever, and offered audiences a diverse taste of jazz, from hard bop ensemble The Cookers, to the innovative and groovy Vijay Iyer Trio, the brainchild of self-taught jazz pianist and composer Vijay Iyer. The rich, powerful vocals of Jimmy Scott and contemporary singer Catherine Russell rounded out the evening.

Hard bop ensemble The Cookers wows audiences with their incredible musical prowess. (Annie Wu/The Epoch Times)

The show began with Russell, who sang bluesy tunes like “Troubled Waters” and “Spoonful” from her latest album, Inside This Heart of Mine, in her distinctively smooth and soulful voice, prompting the crowd to sway along as she seemed to churn out her notes effortlessly.

Catherine Russell sings tunes from her latest album, 'Inside This Heart of Mine,' with her distinctively versatile and soulful voice. (Annie Wu/The Epoch Times)

Next, The Cookers performed, with each artist showing incredible prowess in their playing. Billy Harper was on tenor saxophone, Eddie Henderson and David Weiss on trumpet, Craig Handy on alto saxophone, George Cables on piano, Cecil McBee on bass, and Billy Hart on drums.

Vijay Iyer’s trio then came on, with Iyer on the piano, Marcus Gilmore on drums and Stephan Crump on bass. Iyer’s spirited piano playing, coupled with the groovy rhythms and fiercely intense pizzicato of his two colleagues, made Iyer’s complex compositions come to life seamlessly, impelling the audience to tap their feet with them too.

The festival closed with Jimmy Scott, a jazz vocalist of the '50s and '60s, remembered for his distinctively high-pitched voice and emotional renditions. He recorded with many jazz greats, including Ray Charles and the festival’s namesake (in Parker’s album, Embraceable You.) At the age of 85, Scott continues to perform and wow audiences with his powerful voice.

The festival is part of the SummerStage series hosted by the City Parks Foundation to provide free access to arts and cultural programs in the city’s green spaces.

For more information on upcoming SummerStage events, please visit www.summerstage.org.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Live photos: Charlie Parker Jazz Festival at Tompkins Square Park (timeoutny.com)
• McCoy Tyner at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem (harlemworldblog.wordpress.com)

Music Review - McCoy Tyner Honors Charlie Parker at Marcus Garvey Park - NYTimes.com

Image via WikipediaMusic Review - McCoy Tyner Honors Charlie Parker at Marcus Garvey Park - NYTimes.com

By BEN RATLIFF
The permanent amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem is a void right now. It’s being rebuilt, band shell and seating. So the Harlem part of the two-day Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, on Saturday afternoon, was moved to a rented stage on a lawn at the northeast corner of the park, next to the farmer’s market, which was still open when the first band started. Later on, a boisterous African drum circle took shape not 100 feet from the stage while McCoy Tyner, though unhappy with the piano’s tuning, boistered back through a solo set.

The free festival has corporate sponsorship but soul prestige; for a Parks Department gig, it books competitively. In the Harlem lineup was Revive Da Live, the changeable collective of young musicians combining jazz and hip-hop; the tenor saxophonist J. D. Allen’s trio; the pianist Jason Moran with his trio, Bandwagon; and Mr. Tyner, one of jazz’s bishops since his time with John Coltrane’s quartet in the early 1960s. (Part 2 of the festival took place Sunday at Tompkins Square Park in the East Village.)

It was a really, really good scene, despite the direct sun pouring down on the audience and the stage. This is where some of the best dreams and desires for jazz in America, neither commercial nor bohemian, come out in a burst: jazz is a cause to defend, a collective memory, a spiritual thing, a Harlem thing. Politicians knew enough to be there: Representative Charles B. Rangel, State Senator Bill Perkins. So did lots of musicians, checking out their friends. Older men and women with hats and picnic baskets, returnees every year, all looking as if they owned their patch of park, asking who brought the corkscrew and what’s the name of that song. A festival operative standing in front of the stage, hollering praise during the music like a running commentary.

Mr. Tyner, now 71, wasn’t doing that much with the idea of a solo-piano concert; if there had been a band behind him, it might have sounded much the same. Still making his left-hand chords boom like kettle drums, he played some of his own songs, Coltrane’s “Mr. P.C.,” and a rubato “I Should Care,” weighed down with ornament. He kept his foot on the sustain pedal for almost the entire 40 minutes; nearly the only exceptions came when he stole away from the song to splash the keyboard abstractly. It was a strange set, monolithic but distracted. He ended by apologizing for the weather’s impact on the piano, as yet another politician escorted him offstage: his younger brother, Jarvis Tyner, executive vice chairman of the Communist Party USA.

Revive Da Live, an octet with a rapper and D.J., Raydar Ellis, brought arrangements of Parker tunes and solos. The modern frames were cool sometimes, but it was individual performances, especially from Marc Cary on electric piano and Marcus Strickland on tenor saxophone, that put it over. And Jason Moran’s Bandwagon played a loose and typically meta-historical set that went heavy on sound samples and recontextualized quotations. The band played hard over recordings of Eddie Jefferson’s vocalese version of “Body and Soul” and Billie Holiday’s “Big Stuff.”

But J. D. Allen made the most of the day. His trio doesn’t try to be comprehensive or world-spanning or express the new jazz pedagogy; it performs strong, short melodies and rhythms that develop a little and then end. Its music is bracing and easy to follow, looking toward the language of free jazz but staying close to the themes’ guideposts, and never letting the rhythm get baggy.

Something really good has happened to this trio over the last five years. First it secured its sound on the bandstand. (One of the quirks of that sound is that the bassist, Gregg August, roams furthest from the groove, while the leader and the drummer stay in lockstep; here he was boosted good and loud in the mix.) Then it set to work on its performance ritual, its relationship with audiences.

On Saturday the band got its pacing exactly right and didn’t let the crowd rest. It kept coming with new melodies; sometimes it joined pieces together, and sometimes it came to a complete stop, but only for about a second and a half. It changed tempo and mood, not much but just enough. And it got the most concentrated response from the audience, even from the older folks.