Roy Hargrove Quintet: Live At The Village Vanguard : NPR

Cover of Roy HargroveRoy Hargrove Quintet: Live At The Village Vanguard : NPR

May 25, 2011

There's no one standard model of jazz, but there are standards. There's a standard repertoire, for sure; also, standard conventions of instrumentation, group interaction, overall "sound." Trumpeter Roy Hargrove, when he commits to playing straight-ahead jazz, leads a quintet that is very comfortable with those standards. If you're new to jazz, it would seem distantly familiar, like how you might imagine jazz to be. If you aren't new to jazz, you might just find it proves how satisfying those standards remain, and how much room for self-expression is in them.

SET LIST

"The Lamp Is Low" (de Rose/Shefter)

"Hindsight" (Cedar Walton)

"After The Morning" (John Hicks)

"Book's Bossa" (Walter Booker)

"Mr. AT" (Walter Bolden)

"Rouge" (Hargrove)

"Never Let Me Go" (Livingston/Evans)

"Like That" (Hargrove)

"Strasbourg/St. Denis" (Hargrove)

"Bring It On Home To Me" (Sam Cooke)

It's what's made Roy Hargrove a star in the jazz world, and what allows the Roy Hargrove quintet to play two straight weeks at the world-famous Village Vanguard in New York City. WBGO and NPR Music will present a live on-air broadcast and live video webcast of the band's early performance on Wednesday, May 25.

Hargrove's current band is an argument for timelessness; for the idea that the elegance and sophistication of classic post-bebop jazz remains appealing today. On his latest quintet album, 2008's Earfood, it's argued well because Hargrove — aside from being a commanding trumpet player, fast or slow — has focused on writing and picking catchy songs. Not just frameworks for improvisations, but songs: tuneful, simple, grooving songs.

At the Vanguard, he started the set off with a number of tunes by mentors — Cedar Walton, Walter Booker, John Hicks — and standards. (He even took a vocal turn on "Never Let Me Go.") The second half brought more original compositions, including the signature "Strasbourg/St. Denis." Hargrove stood aside one peer, alto saxophonist Justin Robinson, and in front of a younger rhythm section — his working band.

Roy Hargrove is 41 now, decades after his talent was "discovered" at a Dallas, Texas, arts magnet high school by Wynton Marsalis. He became something of a teenage prodigy, touring Europe and Japan before age 17 and playing with jazz legends before he could legally drink. Hargrove's early studio efforts focused on his jazz playing — since then, he's also explored Afro-Cuban music with an ensemble called Crisol and started a funk and soul fusion band called the RH Factor. (He's also been tapped to play behind Erykah Badu, Common and D'Angelo as a sideman.)

But straight-ahead jazz is a core value for Hargrove, the swinging-and-having-fun kind. That sense of tradition, honored gracefully, was on display when his quintet performed at the Village Vanguard — a place he has regularly appeared since the early '90s.

Music review: Wynton Marsalis with Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic at Disney Hall | Culture Monster | Los Angeles Times

Image via WikipediaMusic review: Wynton Marsalis with Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic at Disney Hall | Culture Monster | Los Angeles Times

Wynton Marsalis thinks big — and he has the talent, drive and clout to carry out his ambitions. Hence “Swing Symphony” (Symphony No. 3), his latest omnivorous attempt to merge the history of acoustic jazz with a symphony orchestra.

First heard in Berlin, then in the New York Philharmonic’s season-opener in September, “Swing Symphony” reached Los Angeles on Saturday night as Walt Disney Concert Hall’s stage groaned under the combined weight of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Los Angeles received a bonus: The piece’s fifth movement, which was deleted from the New York performance due to TV time limits, was played here, making this the U.S. premiere of the complete work.

From a jazz point of view, Marsalis’ new work can be heard as a homage to his idol Duke Ellington’s “Black, Brown and Beige” — sometimes rather explicitly in sound. Yet Marsalis is also applying Mahler’s vision of what a symphony should be: an embracing of the world.

Like Marsalis’ “All Rise,” which the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Jazz at Lincoln Center big band performed and recorded in 2001, “Swing Symphony” is more of a suite than a symphony, in which a plethora of idioms jump-cuts wildly from one to the next. Marsalis arranges his six-movement, 51-minute cross-section of jazz history more or less chronologically, from ragtime to the Charleston, the big band era, bebop, Afro-Cubop and John Coltrane’s modal period (the fifth movement) before doubling back to a ballad for Ellingtonian saxophones. Clearly any developments beyond 1961 — the year of Wynton’s birth — remains out-of-bounds on the Marsalis jazz timeline.

Luckily, the piece has an irresistible vitality over its long span, and Marsalis does get the symphony orchestra thoroughly involved. Encouraged by jazz-attuned conductor Leonard Slatkin, the Phil could swing harder than its New York colleagues at times, and there were plenty of scorching solos from the Jazz at Lincoln Center band — including Marsalis himself, seated as always in his trumpet section. But there are many portions — the second movement in particular — in which there is just too much busywork, enough to keep this huge apparatus from fusing, lifting off and finding its groove.

In programming Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” — and what a delight it was to hear it indoors, for a change, instead of through outdoor amplification — Slatkin not only suavely illustrated the lineage of classical-jazz fusion, he let Gershwin make points of the virtues of self-editing, segueing, not overloading the texture, and, of course, one great tune after another. Shostakovich’s spiffy little Jazz Suite No. 1, with its Weill-like marches and impish humor, showed that the Jazz Age spread as far as Russia.

The audience responded wildly; only Gustavo Dudamel gets as big a hand at L.A. Philharmonic concerts as Marsalis got. As an encore, Marsalis launched an eloquently subtle blues jam, in which every member of his big band took a chorus.

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Why We're Obsessed With Wayne Shorter : A Blog Supreme : NPR

Why We're Obsessed With Wayne Shorter : A Blog Supreme : NPR

he saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter is one of the few jazz musicians who can without a doubt be called a living legend. Many of his compositions are jazz standards; many of his records are studied endlessly. He's one of the artists who both musicians and fans obsess over — and even at age 77, he continues to reinvent his musical personality with every performance.

So what about Wayne Shorter gives him this towering, near-mythic profile? Why did people revere this man, and why do they continue to do so?

On Tuesday, Shorter starts a brief North American tour, stopping in Boston, New York, Durham, N.C. and Toronto. On the eve of this stint, I asked Michelle Mercer, author of the biography Footprints: The Life and Music of Wayne Shorter, to help explain and appraise the phenomenon that is Wayne Shorter, both then and now. (Mercer is also an occasional NPR contributor.) I sent her a few questions over e-mail:

Patrick Jarenwattananon: So if you've never heard of him, why is this Wayne Shorter dude worth paying attention to? I know you have a whole book on this, but ... give me the roughly 150 word version?

Michelle Mercer: Here's the encyclopedia entry: Wayne is as strong and distinctive a composer as he is a saxophonist. His storied career encompasses 50 years of jazz innovation. Wayne was weaned on bebop in the 40s and went on to break new ground in the genres of hard bop, post-bop, fusion and orchestral jazz.

But here's why he's really worth a listen: At 77, an age when many musicians have settled into nostalgia, Wayne is writing and playing music that can stir people up.

PJ: It seems like Wayne could have had a place for himself in the jazz canon based only on his work in the late '50s and the '60s. What was special about those years?

MM: In 1959, Wayne joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, a group that toured widely for its time, representing jazz and America around the world. Wayne became Blakey's musical director and with his compositions helped move the group from straightforward hard-bop to sophisticated post-bop. In 1964, Miles Davis recruited him for his quintet with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams, which was sort of "the right stuff" of jazz groups. Miles loved Wayne's composing as much as Blakey had. On the '60s quintet albums Wayne has as many composition credits as Miles, if not more.

And there were Wayne's Blue Note recordings. In the '50s and '60s Blue Note was the Bell Labs of jazz, blessed with a lucky conjunction of plentiful funding, smart management and strong talent. Bell Labs produced dozens of breakthrough inventions; Blue Note produced dozens of classic recordings. A few spring to mind: Horace Silver's Song For My Father, Lee Morgan's The Sidewinder, Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage, Dexter Gordon's Our Man In Paris, Freddie Hubbard's Ready For Freddie. Even in such a remarkable catalog, Wayne's Blue Note recordings stand out for their harmonic complexity and memorable melodies. Wayne recorded six albums for Blue Note in one 18-month period, and these albums — The All Seeing Eye, Speak No Evil, etc. — included tunes that have become jazz standards.

PJ: I haven't read as much celebrating his music between the '60s and '00s. Did people write him off for many years in that span?

MM: My goodness, A Blog Supreme, what a leading question. I'm tempted to just say yes.

First, I'll look at Wayne's accomplishments during these years, since you asked about his achievements during previous decades. In the early '70s he and Joe Zawinul co-founded Weather Report, a group that did a lot to define the sound and structure of jazz fusion. Weather Report played to packed stadiums, and featured long, muscular solos by Wayne. For the fans who missed Wayne's acoustic playing, and they were many, there was VSOP in the late 70s, a reformation of Miles's '60s quintet, without Miles. (First Freddie Hubbard played trumpet in the group, then Wynton Marsalis.) On Native Dancer (1974) Wayne and Milton Nascimento invented the first new sound in Brazilian jazz since Getz/Gilberto's jazz bossa. In the '70s, '80s and '90s, Wayne contributed classic solos on recordings by Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell, and on soundtracks like Glengarry Glen Ross and The Fugitive.

But Wayne did suffer a compositional drought in the late '70s and '80s, especially compared to his fertile writing of the '50s and '60s. In the early '70s, with his conversion to Nicheren Buddhism, Wayne decided to "put life ahead of music," as he often says. Though he remained Weather Report's co-leader for all 14 years of the group's tenure, Wayne was much less active in the group than Zawinul.

After Weather Report disbanded in 1984, Wayne made three solo records for Columbia. These '80s albums, Atlantis, Phantom Navigator, and Joy Ryder, as well as his 1995 Verve debut, High Life, were synthesizer-heavy, with some programmed backbeats. Wayne and his producers went with the sound of the times. For many of Wayne's fans these production values were a big obstacle to their musical appreciation. As Joni Mitchell put it in one of her typically vivid metaphors, the backbeats on these albums "put fence posts through the music."

Happily, for everyone concerned, over the past decade or so Wayne has been commissioned to rework some of those '80s compositions for orchestra or chamber ensemble. When these pieces are rearranged for broader instrumentation and performed in an acoustic setting, their strengths are easier to hear. Many of these pieces have several intertwined melodies, for example — and if you pull out any one melody, it's striking enough to serve as the primary one. Basically, the way I see it, in the '80s and '90s, Wayne was becoming a serious classical composer, but the style and sound of his records obscured it for most fans.

PJ: It seems like people "in the know" are still obsessed with him, even if they didn't like his electric recordings. Why are his performances still so anticipated? He's surely more than just a "legacy act," as they say.

MM: In the jazz world, the people most "in the know" are the musicians themselves. Early on, Wayne's unconventional character and original musicianship gave him a special cachet among musicians. Whether or not they've played with him, most musicians have a good Wayne story — or five. With the growth of jazz degree programs, more young musicians began formal study of Wayne's solos and compositions. Appreciation spread and spilled over to the cognoscenti.

That doesn't really explain the obsession, though. Here are some thoughts:

As Wayne remembers it, his mother encouraged his creativity and protected his playtime from the rude incursions of the real world: e.g. his father asking him to take out the trash. Because of this maternal influence, or just because, Wayne lodged comfortably in his imagination, finding richness of experience there. Part of him has never stopped looking at the world through his mind's eye. Wayne's composition and improvisation are windows into this imagination.

And Wayne has a deep musical memory. As he lived music over the decades, he absorbed it all: the Beethoven he studied at NYU, the rhythmic fusillades of Art Blakey, the runic phrases of Miles, the soundtracks to the movies he's watched constantly since he was a kid. Add all this to his own vast catalog of compositions, and he's got a lot of music at his fingertips.

Finally, Wayne's now had a serious Buddhist practice for 40 years, which has made him very awake. Though it sounds simple, I don't know a better way to say it. He's awake. Watching a movie or eating dinner or sitting in an airport terminal, Wayne can be extraordinarily alert to the unfolding of the phenomenal world. On stage, this translates to a keen awareness of what his band mates are playing in every moment.

So Wayne's live shows offer up his unfettered imagination, sharp recall of 20th century music and committed wakefulness, which makes for an unusual combination. Fans never quite know what they're going to get when he picks up a saxophone.

PJ: Tell me about how this current band formed. As jazz fans surely know, Brian Blade, John Patitucci and Danilo Perez — drums, bass and piano, respectively — are some of the most incredibly talented musicians in jazz right now. How did they all meet for this group?

MM: John Patitucci had played and recorded off and on with Wayne since 1987. In the late '90s, when Wayne's symphonic performances began, he'd play with a jazz quartet alongside the orchestra. (He still does.) Wayne tried a few different musicians for this quartet, including John on bass, then added Danilo and Brian at the 2000 Monterey Jazz Festival. It just worked. These musicians had what Wayne wanted and needed: exceptional musical intelligence and a spirit of adventure.

PJ: So what might one see at one of these quartet shows? How else might you describe where Wayne seems to be going musically these days?

MM: You've heard the phrase "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Describing this band's music is even more implausible: It's like swimming about brain surgery.

It's easier to start with what audiences won't hear. Even though this is an acoustic group, audiences won't hear tunes played in the style of Wayne's classic Blue Note recordings. They won't hear set compositions at all. The band will likely play a sort of stream-of-consciousness suite, seguing without break between musical ideas, which may even coalesce briefly into recognizable melodies.

Usually the leader of a jazz group is a protagonist, the central character in the music's story. Wayne rejects that role. This quartet is truly an ensemble cast, and makes good on Joe Zawinul's famous boast about Weather Report: "We always solo and we never solo." They are four equal players making it up as they go along.

There are some risks to this approach. While the band is casting about for an authentic idea, one worthy of development, a musical passage can lose tension or momentum. It may feel as if the band is stuck in quicksand. That's because the band is stuck in quicksand. But it doesn't last long.

Wayne's sound will probably be partly cloudy on tenor sax and mostly sunny on soprano. He may play slurred downward spirals of notes, or what the quartet's manager/engineer Rob Griffin calls "the Draino stuff." He'll lean into some ostinatos. If a distinct melody emerges, he'll probably improvise a counter melody. He'll leap around in wide intervals, lots of fifths and octaves, leaving plenty of space for the other guys to roam. He may whistle.

None of this explains the altered sense of time and space some fans, especially fellow musicians, experience during these shows.

The band's onstage demeanor is more elated than you might expect from a jazz quartet. Danilo and John will often shout out at a surprising musical gesture, especially if it's Wayne's gesture. Brian erupts into grooves with a force that would intimidate most rock bands. The guys are rarely out of eye contact. They laugh more often than jazz musicians usually do in performance, except maybe in New Orleans.

Something audiences won't see is how the band's pre-show conversation carries over into the night's music. Or how after the show, their banter picks up right where the music left off.

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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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Charles Fambrough - R.I.P.

After a long bout battling liver disease and many years of suffering, the great jazz bassist Charles Fambrough passed away on Saturday, January 1, 2011. Fambrough had apparently been awaiting a transplant match. Several musical tributes were held in Philadelphia over the last several years to help Fambrough and his family pay the bassist's outrageous medical expenses.

Philadelphia resident Charles Fambrough was born on August 25, 1950. Fambrough studied classical piano throughout his elementary and high-school years. He gravitated to bass at the age of 13, attempting to imitate Paul Chambers, the first jazz bassist he ever heard. He began studying classical bass in the seventh grade but gave it up in 1968 to begin working in the pit bands for such theatrical productions as You Can't Take it With You and By e-Bye Birdie and, by day, playing on The Mike Douglas Show.

In 1969, Charles began working with a cover band called Andy Aaron's Mean Machine that also featured a young saxophonist by the name of Grover Washington, Jr. A year later, Charles joined Grover Washington's road band, staying with the saxophonist during his popular CTI years. In 1975, Fambrough joined Airto Moreira's band, where he stayed for two years until joining legendary pianist McCoy Tyner's group, playing on Tyner's Focal Point (1977), The Greeting (1978) and Horizon (1979), as well as Rahsaan Roland Kirk's Boogie Woogie String Along For Real (1977)—his earliest known recordings.

Upon leaving Tyner's group, Fambrough hooked up with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers at about the same time Wynton Marsalis was part of the group, recording with the great jazz drummer from 1980 until 1982 and featuring on the pivotal Album of the Year (1981). Fambrough once said “McCoy showed me how to play with endurance. Art gave me refinement.”

He continued, “With McCoy, the gig is about speed and strength. He plays so much stuff that you're lucky if you're heard, so you struggle to keep up with him. But with Art it was a lot different. He heard every note you played and if there was anything raggedy, he immediately let you know about it. He really taught you how to play behind a horn player, how to develop in a rhythm section.”

Surprisingly, Charles Fambrough made his own solo recording debut on Creed Taylor's famed CTI Records in 1991 with The Proper Angle, an excellent, star-studded affair featuring Wynton Marsalis (who featured Fambrough in his first band in 1982) and Roy Hargrove on trumpet, Branford Marsalis and Joe Ford (who first met Fambrough on a McCoy Tyner gig 13 years earlier) on sax, the late, lamented Kenny Kirkland on piano, Jeff “Tain” Watts on drums (both Kirkland and Watts featured with Fambrough in a trio at the time dubbed “Jazz From Keystone”) and Steve Barrios, Mino Cinelu and Jerry Gonzalez on percussion. The record is the first bassist-led date on CTI Records since the legendary Ron Carter in 1976 and it's clear that Fambrough, like Carter, was a bassist who could lead an interesting jazz record of his own. It also ranks among the very best the label issued during its 1989-98 resurgence.

The Proper Angle was not only one of CTI's only straight-ahead albums of the time, it also showcased some of jazz's best young lions at the top of their game. It surely proved that Fambrough was a tremendously capable leader adept at helming a band of great improvisers who worked beautifully well together and it introduced the bassist's amazing facility for interesting composition (”The Dreamer,” “Sand Jewels,” “Broski,” the bassist's nickname from his Jazz Messenger days, “Dolores Carla Maria,” named for Fambrough's wife and widow, a singer of great renown in her own right, “Earthlings,” “The Proper Angle,” “One for Honor,” originally written for McCoy Tyner's Horizon, and the beautifully titled “Our Father Who Art Blakey,” named for the drummer who had passed away the year before).

Fambrough issued two more records on CTI, The Charmer (1992), featuring Roy Hargrove on trumpet, Kenny Garrett on alto sax, pianists Bill O'Connell, Kenny Kirkland and Abdullah Ibrahim (!), drummers Jeff “Tain” Watts, Billy Drummond and Yoron Israel (!) on drums and a reunion on three tracks with Grover Washington, Jr., and the splendiferously excellent live album Blues at Bradley's (1993) featuring Donald Harrison, Steve Turre, Joe Ford, Bill O'Connell, Bobby Broom, Ricky Sebastian and Steve Berrios. These records remain the undisputed highpoint of CTI in the nineties.

Several other discs under Charles Fambrough's name also appeared, including Keep of the Spirit (AudioQuest, 1995), City Tribes (Evidence, 1995), Upright Citizen (NuGroove, 1997) and Charles Fambrough Live @ Zanzibar Blue (Random Chance, 2002). The bassist also continued to appear on a wide array of discs by others, including Pharoah Sanders (Crescent with Love), Bill O'Connell (including the pianist's great CTI album Lost Voices), Ernie Watts (Reaching Up), Kevin Mahogany (My Romance) and the jazz-rock cover bands Beatlejazz and Stonejazz.

In recent years, health problems prevented Charles Fambrough from participating as much as he once had on the recording scene. But he continued playing around his hometown as much as possible and was one of the bassists featured on drummer/composer Lenny White's 2010 album Anomoly (Abstract Logix).

A fellow musician and Fambrough friend, pianist, composer and educator George Colligan, said on his jazztruth blog today that “Charles had health issues for many of his last years, but it never seemed to deter him from his passion for music. He talked about his condition like it was a minor nuisance. He seemed determined to press on despite his health.”

There was something undeniably special about the sound Charles Fambrough made. While you never got the sense that his bass was leading the music's charge, you often stopped to wonder exactly what drove the music he was port of to be as magnificently magnetic as it was. Simple consideration reveals just how emphatic and empathic his role in the music was.

Fellow bassist Ron Carter has stated that he doesn't like his playing to be considered an anchor, something that holds a vessel from moving. Bassists hear that kind of thing all the time, and it's no wonder Carter resents it.

When listening to Charles Fambrough, it's clear that a good bassist propels the music where it needs to go. It's a shame that the music will no longer be propelled by Charles Fambrough, an inventive and imaginative bassist and one of the finest of “the young lions” who emerged in jazz's new traditionalism of the early 1980s.

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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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Music Review - Wynton Marsalis and Kenny Garrett at Rose Theater - NYTimes.com

Music Review - Wynton Marsalis and Kenny Garrett at Rose Theater - NYTimes.com

One of the most accurate ways to understand jazz these days is through Roy Haynes’s cymbal beat. On Saturday night at the Rose Theater, for about three-quarters of his stage time, he tilted his head toward his ride cymbal and drove a changing stream of swing through it, using every other sound — from the snare drum, kick drum and the rest of his kit — as circulating accents around that primary force. It was mesmerizing, affirmative, flexible and incredibly artful. It made internal sense.

“An Evening With Roy Haynes” opened Jazz at Lincoln Center’s new season, and marked a birthday: Mr. Haynes turned 85 in March, which doesn’t make much sense at all. He played in the first half with his working quartet, the Roy Haynes Fountain of Youth Band, and in the second half with a heavy ad-hoc group: Wynton Marsalis on trumpet, Kenny Garrett on alto saxophone, Danilo Pérez on piano and Dave Holland on bass. Mr. Haynes makes ordinary gigs feel special — it can seem as if he never learned how to be glib — but here, in the second half especially, he was especially fine. He got all the way in.

He filled the dimensions of the theater, making you hear his bass drum accents in the back rows. But he never numbed you by doing everything loudly all the time. The first important bebop drummers, of which he was one, used silences and moderation and self-imposed restrictions to make their sneaked upbeats pop more vividly.

Instead of making his sound a static thing, Mr. Haynes was flickering: working for the benefit of the music as well as the benefit of the show, even when laying back or making no sound at all. Several times he got up from his stool, prowled around the kit, shaking his shoulders and legs, and clicked his sticks together, or whacked a floor tom, or hit the edge of the cymbal at the start of a new chorus. Once he made the band sink into a period of silence and reanimated it with something like a kick-drum heartbeat. Once he got up in Mr. Garrett’s face and twirled a stick. Once, absorbing the feeling of a tune at his own speed after the rest of the band had started it, Mr. Haynes waggled the stick in his right hand, playing the air for a minute, like a draftsman preparing to sketch. And then he leaned into his ride cymbal and started again.

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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)

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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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Wynton Marsalis, Band Share Stages With New York Philharmonic, Roy Haynes - Bloomberg

Image via WikipediaWynton Marsalis, Band Share Stages With New York Philharmonic, Roy Haynes - Bloomberg

When the Berlin, Los Angeles and New York philharmonic orchestras wanted to commission a symphony with a jazzy mood and feel, it wasn’t hard to find the artist with the right credentials.

Wynton Marsalis, the first musician to win both jazz and classical Grammy Awards in a single year, will present the U.S. premiere of his “Swing Symphony” at Manhattan’s Avery Fisher Hall tomorrow night. The backing band for Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will be the New York Philharmonic led by Alan Gilbert.

“I wanted to do something joyous and dramatic,” said Marsalis, the jazz center’s artistic director, in a telephone interview. “I wanted something we could play together and both ensembles could be challenged.” The composition, the New Orleans-born trumpeter’s third numbered symphony, had its world debut in Germany in June.

After Marsalis leaves the stage, Gilbert and company will perform Richard Strauss’s tone poem for orchestra, “Don Juan,” and Paul Hindemith’s “Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber.” The opening night gala is sponsored by Breguet, the Swiss watchmaker.

For his second gala of the week, on Saturday Marsalis will engage in some spirited improvisation with Roy Haynes, the 85- year-old jazz drumming legend and fashionista, at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s season opener.

Best-Dressed List

Haynes, one of the most recorded jazz drummers in history and once on Esquire magazine’s list of the best-dressed men in the U.S., will perform with his Fountain of Youth Band. He’ll also headline a band of notables such as Panama-born pianist and Wayne Shorter cohort Danilo Perez, saxophonist Kenny Garrett and bass legend Dave Holland in addition to the guest appearance by Marsalis.

“I saw Roy play one time with (jazz pianist) Chick Corea, and I was standing backstage with four other drummers, and their jaws dropped to the floor,” Marsalis said. “Roy has brought a clarity and intelligence to drumming. The fact that he can still play with that kind of fire is beyond astounding.”

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Bobby Watson: On Jazz And BBQ : A Blog Supreme : NPR

Image via WikipediaBobby Watson: On Jazz And BBQ : A Blog Supreme : NPR

When alto saxophonist Bobby Watson returned to Kansas City, it was a big deal. Despite its jazz legacy, Kansas City felt overlooked compared to other jazz towns, and often lost its best musicians to bigger cities. So for one of its own to return — especially a world-class player like Watson — brought a lot of buzz to the tight-knit scene.

Watson is a Kansas City-area native, but he left in order to make a name for himself in the jazz world. He attended the University of Miami alongside fellow students Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorius. After he graduated in 1975, Watson moved to New York City and played with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers from 1977-1981. He's played with nearly everyone, from Max Roach, George Coleman and Branford and Wynton Marsalis to Dianne Reeves, Betty Carter and even Carlos Santana.

After more than 25 years touring the world and living in New York, Watson returned to his hometown in 2000 to serve as the William and Mary Grant-Endowed Professor of Jazz and Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Now, the veteran saxophonist and professor has released the album of his long-awaited, seven-part work for large ensemble: The Gates BBQ Suite. (The piece premiered in December 2008 in a live performance with UMKC’s Conservatory Concert Jazz Orchestra.) Watson says the suite — more than five years in the making and completely self-financed — is a "dream piece," a labor of love. But it's also a supremely fun collection of songs in a classic big band tradition.

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Lincoln Center, Cuba Get Jazzy - WSJ.com

Lincoln Center, Cuba Get Jazzy - WSJ.com

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will take its first trip to Cuba next month as part of a cultural exchange with the Cuban Institute of Music, the company will announce Thursday.

The visit comes at the invitation of the Havana-based institute and was facilitated by the Cuban pianist and bandleader Chucho Valdés.

"We have been thinking about this for years," said Jazz at Lincoln Center executive director Adrian Ellis. "It became an event when we got the invitation, and Chucho was instrumental in that."

The artistic exchange is structured to emphasize the connections between American and Cuban musical traditions, and thus will include performances in both New York and Havana. From Oct. 5 to 9, the orchestra, led by artistic director Wynton Marsalis, will perform a series of concerts and workshops at Havana's Teatro Julio A. Mella. The performances will range in size from big bands to smaller groups, and many will incorporate Cuban guest artists. Improvisation workshops will be taught at the National School of Music, where Mr. Valdés is a faculty member.

The JaLC orchestra will also give one of its Jazz for Young People concerts, which introduce the foundational concepts of the music. "It is a formula that is very successful everywhere we go," said Mr. Ellis.

The orchestra will then return to New York for its Afro-Cuban Celebration, which will consist of two shows running concurrently. At the Frederick P. Rose Hall from Oct. 21 to 23, the "Jazz Meets Clave" program will focus on the interplay between American jazz musicians and the percussive rhythms of the Afro-Cuban tradition. On Oct. 22 and 23, Mr. Valdés and the Afro-Cuban Messengers will perform at the Allen Room (the stop is part of a larger October tour in support of Mr. Valdés's new album, "Chucho's Steps").

Mr. Marsalis noted that the involvement of Mr. Valdés, a three-time Grammy winner and a legend of Latin piano, is especially important to the effort. "He's such a major figure. Musicians all over the world respect him."

The news of JaLC's exchange comes just weeks after American Ballet Theater announced its own plans to visit Cuba from Nov. 3 to 6, when the New York-based company will participate in the International Ballet Festival of Havana. The close timing of the visits increases the American arts presence in Havana in short order, noted Jennifer Freeman, a board member of the American Friends of the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba. "It's faster than we've had in the recent past," she said. "Instead of two years in the making, this is a matter of weeks."

The Ludwig Foundation's American arm (which is not involved with the efforts of ABT or JaLC) works to facilitate cultural exchanges in the arts. "It's one of the only means of communication and lifelines between the two countries," Ms. Freeman said.

The field of music, in particular, owes much to cultural cross-pollination. "Until the doors closed, there was so much musical alchemy going on," said Elizabeth Sobol, managing director of IMG Artists, which represents artists including the Cuban pop-classical crossover group Tiempo Libre. "Musicians in New York were picking up the percussive elements and throwing them into jazz or classical music."

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Marsalis, lending sound to a silent | Philadelphia Inquirer | 08/29/2010

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeMarsalis, lending sound to a silent | Philadelphia Inquirer | 08/29/2010

On Tuesday, the Keswick Theatre in Glenside hosts an event that, at first glance, might seem like a mismatch, even bizarre.

Jazz trumpet master Wynton Marsalis and a 10-piece ensemble will be accompanying - a silent film.

Yet that silent film is new, not old, and so are events like this, at which musical masters play live to accompany silent movies.

The film in question is Louis, directed by Dan Pritzker and shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters of the Third Kind). It's less of a biopic than a riff on the life of Louis Armstrong.

Marsalis' group, featuring Victor Goines, Ted Nash, and other stalwarts of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, will play original pieces along with classic works by Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington. Philadelphia is the last stop on a tour that includes Chicago, Detroit, Washington, and New York's Apollo Theater.

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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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At Newport, jazz ranging to the ends of its scale - The Boston Globe

Chick Corea via last.fm

At Newport, jazz ranging to the ends of its scale - The Boston Globe

Newport fest covers traditional, eclectic

By Steve Greenlee, Globe Staff | August 9, 2010

NEWPORT, R.I. — The eclectic mix of styles that is the hallmark of the Newport Jazz Festival could not have been displayed better than it was midafternoon yesterday. As trumpeter Wynton Marsalis took his quintet through an hour of buttoned-down, straight-ahead jazz on the main stage, saxophonist Ken Vandermark’s thrash-jazz outfit Powerhouse Sound unfurled its fury on one of the two side stages.

Talk about stark differences: Legendary class act Dave Brubeck even sat in with Marsalis for a few tunes, his swiftly ascending chords defying his 89-year-old hands on a romp through “Take the ‘A’ Train.’’ When the song ended, festival founder George Wein led the audience (backed by Marsalis’s band) in singing “Happy Birthday’’ to Brubeck (who won’t turn 90 until December).

Meanwhile, Vandermark’s quartet — with electric guitar, electric bass, and drums — shredded a set of angry, noisy anti-songs that contained elements of heavy metal, punk rock, funk, and free improv. “That guy is sick,’’ one woman said as she walked out. Vandermark would probably take that as a compliment.

Under picture-postcard-perfect skies all weekend, 30 sets of wildly varied jazz unfolded on three stages in Fort Adams State Park, headlined by crowd-pleasing jazz-pop heartthrobs Jamie Cullum (Saturday) and Chris Botti (Sunday). Even if you were there for the full 16 hours, you couldn’t have taken in a fraction of what was offered. Yet you would have left satisfied.

Highlights? We’ve got your highlights right here:

Ahmad Jamal’s “Poinciana.’’ The pianist just turned 80, but he brought new life to his signature song. Jamal’s style hasn’t changed in the least over the years — sparse playing and empty spaces remain his calling cards. On “Poinciana,’’ he went silent for four and six bars at a time, then played single-note right-hand runs for six or hand bars, then threw in some block chords, and — hey, why not — tossed in a quote from “Take the ‘A’ Train.’’

Fly on Cole Porter. Fly is the leaderless trio of saxophonist Mark Turner, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Jeff Ballard. Two songs into their set, Turner and Grenadier repeated a four-note phrase four times, after which Ballard joined in. Once everyone was grounded, Turner let go of the handle and played a series of sustained notes. Suddenly the melody of Porter’s “It’s All Right With Me’’ emerged, but the song was entirely rearranged.

Chick Corea goes free. Almost. The pianist’s new quartet of all-stars, the Freedom Band, includes alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Roy Haynes. While they didn’t go completely free-improvisation on us, they did perform with great elasticity. “OK, we’re just gonna play,’’ Corea said at the top, and they did — a speedy hard bop number, hard-driving postbop tune, and a more-off-kilter-than-usual Thelonious Monk composition.

Anat Cohen has a blast. Cohen, who is fast becoming the most interesting clarinetist of her generation, played with great physicality — lurching, thrusting, blowing at length with eyes closed and head down — but at the heart of her performance was a commitment to enjoy herself. During her quartet’s take of “After You’ve Gone’’ — one that began as a lightly bouncing ballad but turned into a riot — Cohen was having so much fun that she missed her own entrance because she was laughing. Did it harm the piece? Hardly. She had the audience in her palm.

Matt Wilson’s attention-deficit jazz. Drummer Wilson brought a quartet that included cornet, saxophone, and bass, as well as a string quartet, and they constantly found new (and humorous) ways to interact. Wilson shifted gears restlessly, often employing counter-rhythms while the horns cackled and howled. “Some Assembly Required’’ concluded with the jazz musicians shaking little colored bells while the string players plucked pizzicato-style. The playfulness evolved into a piece of maniacally upbeat raga in which the strings figured prominently. Then — of course — the band covered Beyoncé’s “If I Were a Boy.’’

Gretchen Parlato gives goosebumps. Working in a style that drew from bop, bossa nova, and strains of world jazz, Parlato delivered her vocals in a breathy manner, nearly whispering her lyrics. On songs like Herbie Hancock’s “Butterfly,’’ her gorgeous voice behaved more like an instrument — a soprano sax here, a cello there — than something belonging to a singer. The evidence is piling up that young Ms. Parlato is the most original jazz singer in a generation.

Dave Douglas’s brass fantasy. The trumpeter’s new quintet, Brass Ecstasy, features trombone, French horn, tuba, and drums in homage to Lester Bowie. The group sounded like a bebop combo, a funk-blues outfit, and a marching band on mushrooms — sometimes in the same piece. The set’s craziest moment arrived when Marcus Rojas sang distortedly through the mouthpiece of his tuba during a cover of Hank Williams’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.’’

Moran deconstructs Monk. Pianist Jason Moran, whose trio Bandwagon has become a regular at Newport, patiently explored every nook and cranny of Monk’s “Crepuscule With Nellie,’’ unearthing new harmonic and rhythmic delights in the beautiful ballad. With his exceptional sidemen, bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits, Moran accomplished an impossible feat: making a Monk tune sound like his own.

Shipp’s uncharted waters. Pianist Matthew Shipp, alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, and bassist Joe Morris performed a set of atonal free jazz with few preconceived notions of where it should go. Shipp rummaged around in the lower register, Morris plucked quickly and nimbly, and Allen engaged in cyclonic squawking through a half-hour opening number. Each part might have sounded like so much rumbling, but, if anything, the individualism of each player wound up complementing the others. Together it all coalesced and made perfect sense. You might say it was a microcosm of the Newport Jazz Festival ethos.

Steve Greenlee can be reached at greenlee@ globe.com.

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Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola Sets New Jazz Festival - WSJ.com

Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola Sets New Jazz Festival - WSJ.com

On any given night at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, programming director Todd Barkan introduces the band, thanks the audience (profusely) and issues his catch-phrase: "Take care of the music, and the music will take care of you."

On Monday, Jazz at Lincoln Center will announce a new way in which it is taking care of the future of the music: the Coca-Cola Generations in Jazz Festival, a five-week event, running from Sept. 6 to Oct. 10, that will aim to bring jazz musicians of all ages onstage together.

The Man Who Keeps the Jazz

2:24

Todd Barkan, the Program Director for Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center, has been runnign jazz clubs since the seventies, when he owned the Keystone Korner in San Fraincisco. In addition to programming a mix of jazz musicians, he also finds time to produce original recordings. Pia Catton reports.

"We are reaching a critical stage in jazz music because we've lost a lot of people in the last few years," Mr. Barkan said. "Older artists teach a lot by example and the practice of jazz."

Mr. Barkan pointed specifically to the Kenny Barron Quintet, which will perform Oct. 6 to Oct. 11. "Kenny Barron was one of the kids working with Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy helped mould Kenny Barron—now Barron is moulding some younger players," Mr. Barkan said.

Mr. Barron, a piano legend at 67, will be joined by 27-year-old trumpeter Brandon Lee and 34-year-old drummer Jonathan Blake.

Among the vocalists, Shelia Jordan, 81, and Karrin Allyson, 47, will sing together from Sept, 20 to Sept. 22. And the "Triumph of the Trumpets" program (Sept. 23 to 26) will include trumpeters spanning three generations: Jon Faddis, 57; Terell Stafford, 44; and Sean Jones, 28.

The most seasoned musician in the line up is Marian McPartland, 92, who will be joined on a program that introduces newer pianists (Oct. 4). The youngest musician is trumpeter Adam O'Farrill, 15, who, with his father, pianist Arturo O'Farrill, 50, and brother/drummer Zack, 18, will open the festival on Sept. 6.

Presenting the O'Farrill Family Band is especially important to Mr. Barkan: He worked for several years with Arturo's father, Chico O'Farrill, the renowned Cuban composer and big-band leader who died in 2001. "I produced his comeback album. For me, this represents working with three generations," he said.

If it all seems rather personal, well, it is. Mr. Barkan is more than a host or booker or just the guy who talks before the show. He's a jazz-world celebrity—one whose fame is largely based on making other people famous.

From 1972 to 1983, he ran a jazz club in San Francisco called the Keystone Korner that showcased the likes of Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon and Bill Evans. Wynton Marsalis, now artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, played there with Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, and recorded two live albums in the club. Mary Lou Williams called it "the Birdland of the Seventies." Along the way, Mr. Barkan produced more than 800 recordings, earning dozens of Grammy nominations and many other awards. He also developed personal relationships that spanned decades: Grover Washington Jr. was the best man at is wedding; Rahsaan Roland Kirk was a musical mentor.

The depth and duration of those relationships shapes the programming at Dizzy's all year round, but especially so in this new festival. Among Mr. Barkan's ideas was the pairing of pianist Eldar, a "wunderkind" at 22 years old, and guitarist Pat Martino, a "grand master of jazz guitar" at 66. The two have played the Iridium together, and they will perform in the festival on Sept. 13. "They have a musical affinity. They are harmonically akin to each other," said their matchmaker.

There are also direct links to the past. "Bobby Watson & Horizon are the closest thing in our whole jazz culture to Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers. Bobby Watson embodies that tradition," said Mr. Barkan.

Mr. Watson, the 57-year-old alto saxophonist, served as musical director for Art Blakey. His performances (Sept. 29 to Oct. 3) will be followed by the Paris Wright Band playing an After Hours program title, in true Barkanian wit, "Our Father Who Art Blakey."

After Hours programs ($10) will follow all of the headliners—just as they do every week. On Thursdays, the deal is even sweeter: $5 cover charge, $5 drinks and a $5 menu. The pricing will continue after the festival, something that will also help to ensure the future of jazz: The artists scheduled for the After Hours slot—11 p.m. (Tuesday-Thursday) and 12:45 a.m. (Friday and Saturday)—are the up-and-comers.

"One of the most important things we do is After Hours," Mr. Barkan said. "I can hire a lot of younger artists. I am trying to integrate them into the whole fabric of the booking at Dizzy's. He added, however, that age has to be paired with talent. "The only thing that is going to keep people interested in the music is consistent quality."

The Jazz at Lincoln Center website (www.jalc.org) contains the full listing of the festival, times and prices.

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