8/8/2005 - Guy Davis Plays Blues At Nightfall Friday - Happenings - Chattanoogan.comGuy Davis Plays Blues At Nightfall Friday
posted August 8, 2005
Guy Davis
The 2005 Nightfall Concert Series continues this Friday, Aug. 12, at Miller Plaza, with blues musician Guy Davis.
Reviw for Guy Davis:
Guy Davis is a musician, composer, actor, director and a writer, but most importantly, he is a Bluesman. Among his many accomplishments are winning Blues Album of the Year for his album You Don’t Know My Mind and arranging, performing and co-writing the music for the Emmy Award-winning film To Be a Man.
His latest album, Legacy, shows how Davis has been steadily improving at his craft since he arrived a few years back. He has a natural understanding of his material and an intellectual vision of it. Besides top-notch performances of well-chosen songs, mostly traditional and a few original, there's a message with this CD.
Opening act Dana Rogers will take the stage at 7 p.m. followed by Guy Davis at 8 p.m.
Nightfall has been bringing an eclectic mix of rock, blues, jazz, reggae, zydeco, funk, bluegrass and folk music to Downtown Chattanooga for the past 18 years.
Local musicians take the stage at 7 p.m. to get the crowd ready for headline performances by national and international talent beginning at 8 p.m.
This free 17-week series is held in Miller Plaza on Friday evenings from Memorial Day weekend through Sept. 30.
Beer, liquor, food and non-alcoholic drink concessions are available on site. No outside food or beverages are allowed. A limited number of handicapped parking spaces will be available on Georgia Avenue in front of the Joel Solomon Federal Building.
Corporate sponsors for this year’s series are Kelly Subaru, Fletcher Bright Company, Bud Light, Southern Honda Powersports, Allied Arts, The Chattanoogan, Fox 61 and NPR/Music 88.
For more information on this free community concert series, call (423) 265-0771 or visit the Nightfall web site at www.downtownchattanooga.org.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Monday, August 08, 2005
Another New Orleans festival trumpets Louis' legacy
Another New Orleans festival trumpets Louis' legacyAnother New Orleans festival trumpets Louis' legacy
Monday, August 08, 2005
By Nate Guidry, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
NEW ORLEANS -- On the grounds of the Louisiana State Museum's Old U.S. Mint, members of the Pinettes, an all-female brass band, are charging up this Saturday morning crowd with traditional parade music.
The rhythm is held together by the bass drummer, who maintains the beat with a mallet and drum stick, which she uses to tap on a cymbal anchored on the side of the drum.
Just beyond, spectators are converted into dancers. Young children and adults are spinning and waving umbrellas and handkerchiefs in the air like Mardi Gras revelers.
But it's not a parade that has brought this crowd together. They have come to celebrate Louis Armstrong, a man the world knew as Satchmo, the trumpet player with the winning grin, the gravely voice and the broad smile who immortalized "Hello Dolly!"
But Armstrong was much more than that image. He was a groundbreaking musician and vocalist, and a fearless, outspoken humanitarian.
For the past five years, the city has played host to the Satchmo Summerfest, a four-day free festival featuring more than 75 concerts on four stages, food, art and lectures that examine the life and legacy of Armstrong.
Something new was added to this year's festival -- local film producer and director Michael Murphy unveiled "Make It Funky." Filmed during a 2004 concert at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans, the documentary traces the evolution of rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll and New Orleans funk music. Central figures include pianist Allen Toussaint, Big Sam's Funky Nation, and the Neville Brothers/Meters, who defined New Orleans funk in the 1960s.
At the festival the crowd was treated to some of the funkiest jazz the city has to offer.
Among this year's headliners were Dr. Michael White's Original Liberty Jazz Band, Rebirth Brass Band, Kermit Ruffin's Barbecue Swingers, Ellis Marsalis Quartet and an evening concert featuring Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. This year's event also featured a jazz Mass at St. Augustine Church.
Sponsored by the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp., the festival began in 2001 during Armstrong's centennial celebration.
"It's the city's best kept secret" said a spectator, New Orleans native Willie Boutte. "This is how the [New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival] used to be. Then the tourists took it over."
Not much of a secret, because it's just past 11 a.m. and already there's standing room only at two of the four stages, and people are filing through the gates by the dozens.
Organizers were estimating more than 60,000 people to attend this year's event, which concluded last night.
"The event has grown over the years," said Larry Lovell of Peter Mayer Public Relations. "In 2001 there were 12,000 people, and last year it grew to 50,000.
Even with the growing crowds, everything remains manageable, and unlike the annual jazz festival that has become a platform for everything musical, the Satchmo Festival features traditional jazz, contemporary jazz, brass bands and a children's stage.
On the traditional stage, Yoshio Toyama & the Dixie Saints, a group from Japan, are energizing the crowd with high-flying improvisations. Over on the brass band stage, the Hot 8 Brass Band is fusing hip-hop beats with traditional brass band music.
Throughout the festival, musicians play Armstrong tributes and people talk about his New Orleans legacy and the impact he had on 20th-century American music.
But who was Louis Armstrong?
"Shakespeare invented Caliban, but who the hell dreamed up Louis?" writer Ralph Ellison once asked.
Armstrong was born in New Orleans on July 4, 1900. At least that's what he believed until his death, and so did everyone else until his baptismal certificate confirmed his actual birth date as Aug. 4, 1901. The baptismal card described Louis as "niger" and "illegitimus," apparently because his father had by that time left his mother and taken up with another woman.
He grew up impoverished, wearing rags and occasionally scavenging from garbage cans. His mother was loving, but she was also a prostitute who frequently left Armstrong and his younger sister to fend for themselves.
Armstrong discovered the trumpet when he was 7 and working for a struggling family of Russian-Jewish immigrants. He would blow a tin horn to draw customers to their junk peddler's wagon.
After learning to play the cornet in a reform school called the Home for Colored Waifs, he started playing in honky tonks around New Orleans.
Eventually, he landed his first big gig with the Kid Ory band, regarded at the time as one of the best jazz bands in New Orleans. He replaced King Oliver, who had left for Chicago.
In 1922, Oliver invited him to Chicago to play in his Creole Jazz band.
After a couple of years and a few recordings, Armstrong left the band to join the famed Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, one of the best black dance bands in New York.
In 1925, at the urging if his second wife, Lil Hardin, a pianist whom he met while both were performing with Oliver, the couple moved back to Chicago, and it was around this time that Armstrong recorded his first record as a leader. Through decades of changing musical fashion, his recordings have remained a benchmark by which jazz music is measured.
Yesterday morning, the crowd gathered at St. Augustine Church for the jazz Mass in honor of Armstrong. The Rev. Jerome LeDoux thanked the Lord for a hot sultry morning, before leading the choir in "He's Got the Whole World," which featured the blast of three trumpeters.
The Rev. LeDoux then spoke of the parallels between Armstrong's music and the spirituals sung by slaves.
"Satchmo got it from the slaves," he said. "Nobody knows the trouble he's seen."
(Post-Gazette jazz writer Nate Guidry can be reached at nguidry@post-gazette.com or at 412-263-3865.)
Monday, August 08, 2005
By Nate Guidry, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
NEW ORLEANS -- On the grounds of the Louisiana State Museum's Old U.S. Mint, members of the Pinettes, an all-female brass band, are charging up this Saturday morning crowd with traditional parade music.
The rhythm is held together by the bass drummer, who maintains the beat with a mallet and drum stick, which she uses to tap on a cymbal anchored on the side of the drum.
Just beyond, spectators are converted into dancers. Young children and adults are spinning and waving umbrellas and handkerchiefs in the air like Mardi Gras revelers.
But it's not a parade that has brought this crowd together. They have come to celebrate Louis Armstrong, a man the world knew as Satchmo, the trumpet player with the winning grin, the gravely voice and the broad smile who immortalized "Hello Dolly!"
But Armstrong was much more than that image. He was a groundbreaking musician and vocalist, and a fearless, outspoken humanitarian.
For the past five years, the city has played host to the Satchmo Summerfest, a four-day free festival featuring more than 75 concerts on four stages, food, art and lectures that examine the life and legacy of Armstrong.
Something new was added to this year's festival -- local film producer and director Michael Murphy unveiled "Make It Funky." Filmed during a 2004 concert at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans, the documentary traces the evolution of rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll and New Orleans funk music. Central figures include pianist Allen Toussaint, Big Sam's Funky Nation, and the Neville Brothers/Meters, who defined New Orleans funk in the 1960s.
At the festival the crowd was treated to some of the funkiest jazz the city has to offer.
Among this year's headliners were Dr. Michael White's Original Liberty Jazz Band, Rebirth Brass Band, Kermit Ruffin's Barbecue Swingers, Ellis Marsalis Quartet and an evening concert featuring Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. This year's event also featured a jazz Mass at St. Augustine Church.
Sponsored by the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp., the festival began in 2001 during Armstrong's centennial celebration.
"It's the city's best kept secret" said a spectator, New Orleans native Willie Boutte. "This is how the [New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival] used to be. Then the tourists took it over."
Not much of a secret, because it's just past 11 a.m. and already there's standing room only at two of the four stages, and people are filing through the gates by the dozens.
Organizers were estimating more than 60,000 people to attend this year's event, which concluded last night.
"The event has grown over the years," said Larry Lovell of Peter Mayer Public Relations. "In 2001 there were 12,000 people, and last year it grew to 50,000.
Even with the growing crowds, everything remains manageable, and unlike the annual jazz festival that has become a platform for everything musical, the Satchmo Festival features traditional jazz, contemporary jazz, brass bands and a children's stage.
On the traditional stage, Yoshio Toyama & the Dixie Saints, a group from Japan, are energizing the crowd with high-flying improvisations. Over on the brass band stage, the Hot 8 Brass Band is fusing hip-hop beats with traditional brass band music.
Throughout the festival, musicians play Armstrong tributes and people talk about his New Orleans legacy and the impact he had on 20th-century American music.
But who was Louis Armstrong?
"Shakespeare invented Caliban, but who the hell dreamed up Louis?" writer Ralph Ellison once asked.
Armstrong was born in New Orleans on July 4, 1900. At least that's what he believed until his death, and so did everyone else until his baptismal certificate confirmed his actual birth date as Aug. 4, 1901. The baptismal card described Louis as "niger" and "illegitimus," apparently because his father had by that time left his mother and taken up with another woman.
He grew up impoverished, wearing rags and occasionally scavenging from garbage cans. His mother was loving, but she was also a prostitute who frequently left Armstrong and his younger sister to fend for themselves.
Armstrong discovered the trumpet when he was 7 and working for a struggling family of Russian-Jewish immigrants. He would blow a tin horn to draw customers to their junk peddler's wagon.
After learning to play the cornet in a reform school called the Home for Colored Waifs, he started playing in honky tonks around New Orleans.
Eventually, he landed his first big gig with the Kid Ory band, regarded at the time as one of the best jazz bands in New Orleans. He replaced King Oliver, who had left for Chicago.
In 1922, Oliver invited him to Chicago to play in his Creole Jazz band.
After a couple of years and a few recordings, Armstrong left the band to join the famed Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, one of the best black dance bands in New York.
In 1925, at the urging if his second wife, Lil Hardin, a pianist whom he met while both were performing with Oliver, the couple moved back to Chicago, and it was around this time that Armstrong recorded his first record as a leader. Through decades of changing musical fashion, his recordings have remained a benchmark by which jazz music is measured.
Yesterday morning, the crowd gathered at St. Augustine Church for the jazz Mass in honor of Armstrong. The Rev. Jerome LeDoux thanked the Lord for a hot sultry morning, before leading the choir in "He's Got the Whole World," which featured the blast of three trumpeters.
The Rev. LeDoux then spoke of the parallels between Armstrong's music and the spirituals sung by slaves.
"Satchmo got it from the slaves," he said. "Nobody knows the trouble he's seen."
(Post-Gazette jazz writer Nate Guidry can be reached at nguidry@post-gazette.com or at 412-263-3865.)
Charlie Haden - Not In Our Name :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily
Charlie Haden - Not In Our Name :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily Charlie Haden - Not In Our Name
Posted by: eJazzNews Readeron Monday, August 08, 2005 - 03:45 PM
Jazz News In the midst of a fragile, post-9/11 atmosphere, legendary bassist-composer-bandleader Charlie Haden was inspired to create his meditative American Dreams as a kind of healing balm for a shattered national psyche. As he wrote in the liner notes of that majestic 2002 symphonic offering: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life -- for our children, and for our future.”
Two years later, in the aftermath of the 2004 presidential election, Haden was inspired to speak out this time using the Liberation Music Orchestra to articulate his concerns. Not In Our Name, the title of this new cd, stands as a musical manifesto for the disaffection many people in America and all over the world feel about the manner in which the present administration is conducting its affairs both at home and in the global arena. The material on Not In Our Name comes strictly from American composers. As Haden explained, “There was a necessity that I felt to play music from American composers in protest to what’s going on, to make a statement that just because you’re not for everything that this administration is doing, doesn’t mean that you’re not patriotic. So I wanted to do ‘America the Beautiful’ to show everybody that there’s a lot of work that needs to be done here in this country. And inside that song, Carla put the African-American anthem ‘Lift Every Voice And Sing.’ and Ornette Coleman’s provocative ”Skies Over America” (the title track of Coleman’s first recorded orchestral symphonic work from 1972). And then there is a Pat Metheny song that I’ve always liked, which he wrote for the movie, The Falcon and the Snowman. At the end of the movie they do this song with David Bowie singing called ‘This Is Not America.’ We do ‘Amazing Grace,’ Dvorak’s ‘Goin’ Home, which is from his New World Symphony. And we also do ‘Throughout,’ which is a Bill Frisell song that my daughter Petra did with Bill on a duet record that they did (2003’s Petra Haden & Bill Frisell on True North). When I heard it I really loved it and wanted to put it on the record. We also do ‘Adagio for Strings’ by Samuel Barber, put to a chamber orchestra, which I always wanted to do.”
This fourth Liberation Music Orchestra recording reunites Haden with his longtime friend and colleague Carla Bley. Recorded in Rome last summer at the end of a triumphant tour of Europe, Not In Our Name, produced by Haden, Bley and Haden’s wife Ruth Cameron, features a Liberation Music Orchestra lineup comprised of seasoned LMO veterans like French horn player Ahnee Sharon Freeman and tuba ace Joe Daley along with newcomers like trumpeter Michael Rodriguez and alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon (both of whom played on Haden’s Grammy Award-winning Land of the Sun last year), tenor saxophonists Chris Cheek and Tony Malaby, trumpeter Seneca Black, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes, guitarist Steve Cardenas and drummer Matt Wilson.
Haden says that the genesis for the title of this latest Liberation Music Orchestra project happened two years ago when he was on tour in Europe with guitarist Pat Metheny, performing music from their 1996 Verve collaboration, Beyond the Missouri Sky. “I noticed when we were walking around in Italy and Spain that there were banners unfurled from different balconies of apartment buildings that said, ‘Not in Our Name,’” recalls Haden. “That’s the first time I had seen that slogan before, and that really impressed me...that the people in the apartments would do that. And then this past summer when we were on tour in Europe with the Liberation Music Orchesta, Miguel Zenon came up to me at some point and said, ‘Man, I just had this dream last night that you should call your song ‘Not In Our Name.’ And I thought that it was a great idea to also call the album that as well.”
Bley’s brilliant arrangements underscore pieces by Antonin Dvorak (“Goin’ Home” from the New World Symphony), Samuel Barber (a gorgeous chamber rendition of “Adagio For Strings”), Bill Frisell (an adaptation of Bill’s lyrical gem “Throughout” from his 1982 debut on ECM, In Line) and Pat Metheny (a reggaefied feel on the pensive “This Is Not America,” with sly quotes from “Dixie,” “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” dropped in for ironic effect). Elsewhere, Bley’s singular arranging skills enhance Haden’s poignant waltz-time title track and her own dark, dirge-like “Blue Anthem,” as well as adding layers of texture and mystique to a stirring interpretation of the traditional gospel number “Amazing Grace” and a potent, 17-minute medley of “America The Beautiful”.
Haden writes in his liner notes to Not In Our Name“, “the beautiful arrangements and performance of Carla Bley are to be marveled at.” Her use of dissonant, minor key voicings in the horns on “America The Beautiful,” for example, adds layers of innuendo and irony to that staid patriotic theme. Throughout Not In Our Name, Bley’s subtle tweaking of harmonies sets an appropriately pointed tone for what is essentially a jazz protest record. “Carla is something else!” says Haden. “She voices her chords so special, I can tell in a minute that it’s her. She’s the person that I really trust to do the arrangements for the orchestra. She’s done the arranging on every record and I’ve never, ever been disappointed.”
Aside from creating beautiful arrangements for all the pieces on Not In Our Name, Bley takes us to the Church with her piano playing on ‘America The Beautiful,’ though Haden admits, “I always have tried to get Carla to play more piano but she’s very shy. She doesn’t want to play that often and I keep encouraging her because when she does play, it’s so great, man. She really opened up on that tour we did last summer, especially when we did ‘We Shall Overcome’ as a blues!”
Bley’s slow-moving, gospel-inflected arrangement of “Amazing Grace” serves as a perfect vehicle for Haden’s signature deep-toned bass solo, while her luminous interpretation of Dvorak’s “Goin’ Home” provides a beautiful showcase for trumpeter Rodriguez’s golden tone and soulful restraint and also for alto saxophonist Zenon’s pungent tone and fluent lines. “Michael has this sound on the trumpet that you don’t hear much today,” says Haden. “He’s got this really Chet Baker-Fats Navarro sound. It’s more gentle, soft...gorgeous. On that Dvorak piece, ‘Goin’ Home,’ he gets this beautiful breathy sound that Chet and Fats used to get, and Miles too. And it’s rare when you combine that with the gift of improvisation. The guy is so spontaneous and gifted at creating these beautiful melodies. Miguel, of course, I had played with on Land of the Sun. I called him to do that record because I had heard him play over in Europe and he really impressed me.”
On “Throughout,” the sparseness of Bley’s own piano playing blends with Cardenas’ arpeggiated figures on nylon string guitar, bringing a rare delicacy to that poignant Frisell piece. Haden contributes another resounding low-end solo here while the piece also provides a perfect example of the two distinctly different solo approaches taken by tenor saxophonists Cheeks and Malaby. “Tony and Chris I had heard before playing with Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band. They have two very different ways of approaching the music, but both of which are brand new. They’re searching for new intervals, new melodies, which is something I strive for and always have and always will. So these guys really impressed me by having very distinctive sounds. That’s another secret of this artform, if you’re dedicated to it, is discovering how to get your sound through the instrument the way your ears are really hearing it. And that’s what they all do. You can really hear the difference between Tony and Chris when they play their separate solos on the Bill Frisell song. It’s just amazing.”
On the closer, Barber’s hymn-like “Adagio,” the LMO strikes an uncommon balance between delicacy and emotional power, just as the LMO had some 17 years earlier on Haden’s own fragile opus, “Silence” (from 1982’s Ballad of the Fallen). “I was a little bit afraid of the ‘Adagio’,” admits Haden, “because Samuel Barber’s composition with string orchestra is so delicate that you really have to play it precisely and in tune. But everybody did great. And the arrangement is so great. It’s in all different time signatures. Carla makes it happen, man. She is a great conductor.”
Grounding this edition of the Liberation Music Orchestra with a deft, eminently musical touch on the kit is drummer Matt Wilson “I had met Matt in Norway at the festival in Molda when I was working there with Pat Metheny,” recalls Haden. “Actually, he had called me right before that festival and said, ‘Charlie, you don’t know me. My name is Matt Wilson. I know you and I love your music and all the stuff that you do with Dewey. I play a lot with Dewey, who gave me your number. Anyway, my wife’s about to have triplets. I just wanted to ask your advice.’ So that cracked me up. And I just told him, ‘Man, be prepared for a trip!’ I had a chance to play with him a couple of times after that (including at the San Francisco Jazz Festival a couple of years ago). I’m really glad he could make this tour with Liberation Music Orchestra because he really propels that band.”
“The key to everything to me is the power behind every note you play,” he continues. “And that power can be quiet power. And it also is a dynamic tone. It’s just the way you touch your instrument, whether it be keyboard or the drums or the bass or the horns. This power gives you an assuredness and you can instantly hear it when someone’s playing music with this quality...that they’re very sure of why they’re playing music. And every phrase that they play is coming from that. And that’s the way that Matt plays the drums. I’ve played different concerts with different drummers and the real musical ones have this ability. And Matt does.”
As a musical statement, Not In Our Name is a profoundly moving and beautiful collection of tunes, full of exhilarating ensemble work and bristling, emotive solos by some outstanding musicians on the New York scene. As a political statement, it stands as Haden’s rallying cry against an administration that would subvert the greater good of the country. As he writes in the album’s liner notes: “So now, although we lost the election, we have not lost the commitment to reclaim our country in the name of humanity and decency. Don't give up -- the struggle continues!”
In a career spanning five decades, Haden continues to create music that is at once revolutionary and uplifting. “I want to expand jazz,” he says. “I don’t want to keep the audience limited. I want to reach people who have never come to a jazz concert before. One way to do that is by making records that have a lot of different kinds of music on them.”
He succeeds royally with Not In Our Name.
* * * * *
Born in Shenandoah, Iowa on August 6, 1937, Charles Edward Haden began his life in music at the tender age of 22 months, singing on his parents’ country & western radio show. He started playing bass in his early teens and eventually left America’s heartland for Los Angeles. “This is the first town that I came to when I left high school in Missouri,” he recalls. “I came to L.A. just to find Hampton Hawes. And when I got here in 1956, there were a lot of jazz clubs and there were a lot of great musicians on the scene. It was a lot like New York in that aspect -- lots of after-hours jam sessions, and playing as much as you could play. Those were definitely exciting times.” Along with Hampton Hawes, Haden also played with such jazz legends as Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon and Paul Bley before teaming up with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins for regular gigs at the Hillcrest Club. In 1959, that pioneering quartet came east to New York, secured an extended residency at the Five Spot and began recording a series of seminal avant garde albums, including The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century, which revolutionized the course of modern jazz. In addition to his hugely influential work with Ornette Coleman through the ‘60s, Haden subsequently collaborated with a number of adventurous jazz giants, including John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Archie Shepp and Roswell Rudd.
In 1969, Haden joined forces with pianist/composer Carla Bley, founding the Liberation Music Orchestra. The group’s self-titled debut is a true milestone of modern music, blending experimental big band jazz with the folk songs of the Spanish Civil War to create a powerfully original work of musical/political activism. From 1967-1976, Haden played in Keith Jarrett’s stellar trio, quartet and quintet which included drummer Paul Motian, percussionist Guilherme Franco and tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman. In 1976, he joined with fellow Ornette Coleman alumni Don Cherry, Dewey Redman and Ed Blackwell to form Old and New Dreams. A few years later he played alongside Dewey Redman, Michael Brecker and Jack DeJohnette in Pat Metheny’s 80/81 band.
In 1982, Haden established the jazz studies program at California Institute of the Arts and in 1986 he formed his straight ahead Quartet West with saxophonist Ernie Watts, pianist Alan Broadbent and drummer Larance Marable. Through the ‘90s, he continued playing with Quartet West and the Liberation Music Orchestra while also producing and recording or performing with Pat Metheny, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, John Scofield, Tom Harrell, Hank Jones, Kenny Barron, Ginger Baker, Bill Frisell, Jack DeJohnette and Michael Brecker. He has garnered countless awards and Grammy nominations as well as three Grammy’s. There have also been a few rare concert reunions with Ornette Coleman. More recently, Haden has collaborated with such jazz greats as Lee Konitz, Brad Mehldau, Joe Lovano, Alice Coltrane and even players outside the jazz genre such as Beck and Ringo Starr. His love of world music has also seen him teaming with a variety of diverse international players for many years, including Brazilian guitarist Egberto Gismonti, Argentinean bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi and Portuguese guitarist Carlos Paredes. Charlie Haden is beyond category.
Posted by: eJazzNews Readeron Monday, August 08, 2005 - 03:45 PM
Jazz News In the midst of a fragile, post-9/11 atmosphere, legendary bassist-composer-bandleader Charlie Haden was inspired to create his meditative American Dreams as a kind of healing balm for a shattered national psyche. As he wrote in the liner notes of that majestic 2002 symphonic offering: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life -- for our children, and for our future.”
Two years later, in the aftermath of the 2004 presidential election, Haden was inspired to speak out this time using the Liberation Music Orchestra to articulate his concerns. Not In Our Name, the title of this new cd, stands as a musical manifesto for the disaffection many people in America and all over the world feel about the manner in which the present administration is conducting its affairs both at home and in the global arena. The material on Not In Our Name comes strictly from American composers. As Haden explained, “There was a necessity that I felt to play music from American composers in protest to what’s going on, to make a statement that just because you’re not for everything that this administration is doing, doesn’t mean that you’re not patriotic. So I wanted to do ‘America the Beautiful’ to show everybody that there’s a lot of work that needs to be done here in this country. And inside that song, Carla put the African-American anthem ‘Lift Every Voice And Sing.’ and Ornette Coleman’s provocative ”Skies Over America” (the title track of Coleman’s first recorded orchestral symphonic work from 1972). And then there is a Pat Metheny song that I’ve always liked, which he wrote for the movie, The Falcon and the Snowman. At the end of the movie they do this song with David Bowie singing called ‘This Is Not America.’ We do ‘Amazing Grace,’ Dvorak’s ‘Goin’ Home, which is from his New World Symphony. And we also do ‘Throughout,’ which is a Bill Frisell song that my daughter Petra did with Bill on a duet record that they did (2003’s Petra Haden & Bill Frisell on True North). When I heard it I really loved it and wanted to put it on the record. We also do ‘Adagio for Strings’ by Samuel Barber, put to a chamber orchestra, which I always wanted to do.”
This fourth Liberation Music Orchestra recording reunites Haden with his longtime friend and colleague Carla Bley. Recorded in Rome last summer at the end of a triumphant tour of Europe, Not In Our Name, produced by Haden, Bley and Haden’s wife Ruth Cameron, features a Liberation Music Orchestra lineup comprised of seasoned LMO veterans like French horn player Ahnee Sharon Freeman and tuba ace Joe Daley along with newcomers like trumpeter Michael Rodriguez and alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon (both of whom played on Haden’s Grammy Award-winning Land of the Sun last year), tenor saxophonists Chris Cheek and Tony Malaby, trumpeter Seneca Black, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes, guitarist Steve Cardenas and drummer Matt Wilson.
Haden says that the genesis for the title of this latest Liberation Music Orchestra project happened two years ago when he was on tour in Europe with guitarist Pat Metheny, performing music from their 1996 Verve collaboration, Beyond the Missouri Sky. “I noticed when we were walking around in Italy and Spain that there were banners unfurled from different balconies of apartment buildings that said, ‘Not in Our Name,’” recalls Haden. “That’s the first time I had seen that slogan before, and that really impressed me...that the people in the apartments would do that. And then this past summer when we were on tour in Europe with the Liberation Music Orchesta, Miguel Zenon came up to me at some point and said, ‘Man, I just had this dream last night that you should call your song ‘Not In Our Name.’ And I thought that it was a great idea to also call the album that as well.”
Bley’s brilliant arrangements underscore pieces by Antonin Dvorak (“Goin’ Home” from the New World Symphony), Samuel Barber (a gorgeous chamber rendition of “Adagio For Strings”), Bill Frisell (an adaptation of Bill’s lyrical gem “Throughout” from his 1982 debut on ECM, In Line) and Pat Metheny (a reggaefied feel on the pensive “This Is Not America,” with sly quotes from “Dixie,” “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” dropped in for ironic effect). Elsewhere, Bley’s singular arranging skills enhance Haden’s poignant waltz-time title track and her own dark, dirge-like “Blue Anthem,” as well as adding layers of texture and mystique to a stirring interpretation of the traditional gospel number “Amazing Grace” and a potent, 17-minute medley of “America The Beautiful”.
Haden writes in his liner notes to Not In Our Name“, “the beautiful arrangements and performance of Carla Bley are to be marveled at.” Her use of dissonant, minor key voicings in the horns on “America The Beautiful,” for example, adds layers of innuendo and irony to that staid patriotic theme. Throughout Not In Our Name, Bley’s subtle tweaking of harmonies sets an appropriately pointed tone for what is essentially a jazz protest record. “Carla is something else!” says Haden. “She voices her chords so special, I can tell in a minute that it’s her. She’s the person that I really trust to do the arrangements for the orchestra. She’s done the arranging on every record and I’ve never, ever been disappointed.”
Aside from creating beautiful arrangements for all the pieces on Not In Our Name, Bley takes us to the Church with her piano playing on ‘America The Beautiful,’ though Haden admits, “I always have tried to get Carla to play more piano but she’s very shy. She doesn’t want to play that often and I keep encouraging her because when she does play, it’s so great, man. She really opened up on that tour we did last summer, especially when we did ‘We Shall Overcome’ as a blues!”
Bley’s slow-moving, gospel-inflected arrangement of “Amazing Grace” serves as a perfect vehicle for Haden’s signature deep-toned bass solo, while her luminous interpretation of Dvorak’s “Goin’ Home” provides a beautiful showcase for trumpeter Rodriguez’s golden tone and soulful restraint and also for alto saxophonist Zenon’s pungent tone and fluent lines. “Michael has this sound on the trumpet that you don’t hear much today,” says Haden. “He’s got this really Chet Baker-Fats Navarro sound. It’s more gentle, soft...gorgeous. On that Dvorak piece, ‘Goin’ Home,’ he gets this beautiful breathy sound that Chet and Fats used to get, and Miles too. And it’s rare when you combine that with the gift of improvisation. The guy is so spontaneous and gifted at creating these beautiful melodies. Miguel, of course, I had played with on Land of the Sun. I called him to do that record because I had heard him play over in Europe and he really impressed me.”
On “Throughout,” the sparseness of Bley’s own piano playing blends with Cardenas’ arpeggiated figures on nylon string guitar, bringing a rare delicacy to that poignant Frisell piece. Haden contributes another resounding low-end solo here while the piece also provides a perfect example of the two distinctly different solo approaches taken by tenor saxophonists Cheeks and Malaby. “Tony and Chris I had heard before playing with Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band. They have two very different ways of approaching the music, but both of which are brand new. They’re searching for new intervals, new melodies, which is something I strive for and always have and always will. So these guys really impressed me by having very distinctive sounds. That’s another secret of this artform, if you’re dedicated to it, is discovering how to get your sound through the instrument the way your ears are really hearing it. And that’s what they all do. You can really hear the difference between Tony and Chris when they play their separate solos on the Bill Frisell song. It’s just amazing.”
On the closer, Barber’s hymn-like “Adagio,” the LMO strikes an uncommon balance between delicacy and emotional power, just as the LMO had some 17 years earlier on Haden’s own fragile opus, “Silence” (from 1982’s Ballad of the Fallen). “I was a little bit afraid of the ‘Adagio’,” admits Haden, “because Samuel Barber’s composition with string orchestra is so delicate that you really have to play it precisely and in tune. But everybody did great. And the arrangement is so great. It’s in all different time signatures. Carla makes it happen, man. She is a great conductor.”
Grounding this edition of the Liberation Music Orchestra with a deft, eminently musical touch on the kit is drummer Matt Wilson “I had met Matt in Norway at the festival in Molda when I was working there with Pat Metheny,” recalls Haden. “Actually, he had called me right before that festival and said, ‘Charlie, you don’t know me. My name is Matt Wilson. I know you and I love your music and all the stuff that you do with Dewey. I play a lot with Dewey, who gave me your number. Anyway, my wife’s about to have triplets. I just wanted to ask your advice.’ So that cracked me up. And I just told him, ‘Man, be prepared for a trip!’ I had a chance to play with him a couple of times after that (including at the San Francisco Jazz Festival a couple of years ago). I’m really glad he could make this tour with Liberation Music Orchestra because he really propels that band.”
“The key to everything to me is the power behind every note you play,” he continues. “And that power can be quiet power. And it also is a dynamic tone. It’s just the way you touch your instrument, whether it be keyboard or the drums or the bass or the horns. This power gives you an assuredness and you can instantly hear it when someone’s playing music with this quality...that they’re very sure of why they’re playing music. And every phrase that they play is coming from that. And that’s the way that Matt plays the drums. I’ve played different concerts with different drummers and the real musical ones have this ability. And Matt does.”
As a musical statement, Not In Our Name is a profoundly moving and beautiful collection of tunes, full of exhilarating ensemble work and bristling, emotive solos by some outstanding musicians on the New York scene. As a political statement, it stands as Haden’s rallying cry against an administration that would subvert the greater good of the country. As he writes in the album’s liner notes: “So now, although we lost the election, we have not lost the commitment to reclaim our country in the name of humanity and decency. Don't give up -- the struggle continues!”
In a career spanning five decades, Haden continues to create music that is at once revolutionary and uplifting. “I want to expand jazz,” he says. “I don’t want to keep the audience limited. I want to reach people who have never come to a jazz concert before. One way to do that is by making records that have a lot of different kinds of music on them.”
He succeeds royally with Not In Our Name.
* * * * *
Born in Shenandoah, Iowa on August 6, 1937, Charles Edward Haden began his life in music at the tender age of 22 months, singing on his parents’ country & western radio show. He started playing bass in his early teens and eventually left America’s heartland for Los Angeles. “This is the first town that I came to when I left high school in Missouri,” he recalls. “I came to L.A. just to find Hampton Hawes. And when I got here in 1956, there were a lot of jazz clubs and there were a lot of great musicians on the scene. It was a lot like New York in that aspect -- lots of after-hours jam sessions, and playing as much as you could play. Those were definitely exciting times.” Along with Hampton Hawes, Haden also played with such jazz legends as Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon and Paul Bley before teaming up with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins for regular gigs at the Hillcrest Club. In 1959, that pioneering quartet came east to New York, secured an extended residency at the Five Spot and began recording a series of seminal avant garde albums, including The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century, which revolutionized the course of modern jazz. In addition to his hugely influential work with Ornette Coleman through the ‘60s, Haden subsequently collaborated with a number of adventurous jazz giants, including John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Archie Shepp and Roswell Rudd.
In 1969, Haden joined forces with pianist/composer Carla Bley, founding the Liberation Music Orchestra. The group’s self-titled debut is a true milestone of modern music, blending experimental big band jazz with the folk songs of the Spanish Civil War to create a powerfully original work of musical/political activism. From 1967-1976, Haden played in Keith Jarrett’s stellar trio, quartet and quintet which included drummer Paul Motian, percussionist Guilherme Franco and tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman. In 1976, he joined with fellow Ornette Coleman alumni Don Cherry, Dewey Redman and Ed Blackwell to form Old and New Dreams. A few years later he played alongside Dewey Redman, Michael Brecker and Jack DeJohnette in Pat Metheny’s 80/81 band.
In 1982, Haden established the jazz studies program at California Institute of the Arts and in 1986 he formed his straight ahead Quartet West with saxophonist Ernie Watts, pianist Alan Broadbent and drummer Larance Marable. Through the ‘90s, he continued playing with Quartet West and the Liberation Music Orchestra while also producing and recording or performing with Pat Metheny, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, John Scofield, Tom Harrell, Hank Jones, Kenny Barron, Ginger Baker, Bill Frisell, Jack DeJohnette and Michael Brecker. He has garnered countless awards and Grammy nominations as well as three Grammy’s. There have also been a few rare concert reunions with Ornette Coleman. More recently, Haden has collaborated with such jazz greats as Lee Konitz, Brad Mehldau, Joe Lovano, Alice Coltrane and even players outside the jazz genre such as Beck and Ringo Starr. His love of world music has also seen him teaming with a variety of diverse international players for many years, including Brazilian guitarist Egberto Gismonti, Argentinean bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi and Portuguese guitarist Carlos Paredes. Charlie Haden is beyond category.
Brazilian Jazz Super Group Trio Da Paz Releases Somewhere :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily
Brazilian Jazz Super Group Trio Da Paz Releases Somewhere :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily Brazilian Jazz Super Group Trio Da Paz Releases Somewhere
Posted by: eJazzNews Readeron Monday, August 08, 2005 - 03:46 PM
Jazz News Brazilian Jazz Super Group Trio Da Paz Releases Somewhere --
A Captivating CD of Bossa and Samba Jazz Masterworks
After a three-year absence from the recording studio that must seem like an eternity for their followers, Trio Da Paz returns with Somewhere, to be released September 20 on the Blue Toucan label. It’s a celebration of the famed trio’s singular artistry, loaded with the kind of exquisite, virtuosic and illuminating performances that have made them one of the world’s most popular exponents of Brazilian jazz of the past two decades. The 13-track program ranges from bossa nova classics of their homeland to modern jazz standards, well-known motion picture themes and even the Brazilian National Anthem. Although the works represent different cultures and time periods, all are linked through the trio’s highly intuitive readings via the common language of jazz samba and bossa.
It was in New York City in 1985 when guitarist Romero Lubambo and drummer Duduka Da Fonseca, both natives of Rio De Janeiro, and Sao Paulo-born bassist Nilson Matta, all who had relocated to the U.S. to advance their careers, began to rehearse together. Initially, it was just for their common joy and relaxation. But it didn’t take long before the three musicians realized that their collaborative effort held a greater promise that just the camaraderie that was nurtured by their informal sessions. The inner peace they discovered making music together led to the name they picked for the group, and Trio Da Paz, the “Trio of Peace” was born.
Four critically lauded albums for three different labels between 1992 and 2002, including a date with pianist Kenny Barron, kept them in the vanguard of the Brazilian jazz movement in the U.S. and expanded their fan base. At the same time, all three members pursued their own careers, recording albums under their own names and participating in dozens of high profile jazz, popular, classical and Brazilian music recordings.
Since the mid-1980s, the three trio members have been among the most in-demand musicians for recordings and live performance in the U.S. The breadth of their individual professional experiences is nothing less than astounding. When, for instance, the son of the late composer Antonio Carlos Jobim wanted the best drummer in the world to record the bossa nova icon’s masterworks with the Sao Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, it was Da Fonseca who was tapped for the project, Symphonic Jobim, which earned a Latin Grammy Award. Likewise, Matta and Lubambo were both handpicked by Yo-Yo Ma to join an all-star roster for the cellist’s Obrigado Brazil album.
Those credits, however impressive, only hint at the degree to which the talents of Lubambo, Matta and Da Fonseca have been embraced by the elite of the music world in the U.S. Lubambo’s resume includes countless recordings and performances with the likes of Astrud Gilberto, Jobim, Herbie Mann, Dave Douglas, Kathleen Battle, Luciana Souza, Paquito D’Rivera, Dianne Reeves, Jane Monheit and countless others. Matta’s talents have been lavished on recordings that range from avant-garde pianist Don Pullen and bebop saxophonist Joe Henderson to such jazz stars as Gato Barbieri, Oscar Castro Neves, and Claudio Roditi, while his associations with Brazilian musicians have included such notables as Joao Gilberto, Hermeto Pascoal, Chico Buarque and Nana Caymmi. Da Fonseca, whose arrival in the U.S. in 1975 predated that of his cohorts by a decade, has worked with an eclectic group of jazz and Brazilian artists, including Antonio Carlos Jobim, John Scofield, Gerry Mulligan, Tom Harrell, and Dom Salvador, among many others. All three have been extensively involved in music education, from authoring method books to teaching at prestigious conservatories.
On Somewhere, the trio challenges itself by tackling a repertoire that includes songs never before treated to Brazilian-style interpretations. Included in the left-field entries are such gems as “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead,” from The Wizard of Oz, the title tune, from West Side Story, and their country’s national anthem. From the ranks of jazz standards come two treasures that demand the most skilled of interpreters, “Seven Steps To Heaven,” written by pianist Victor Feldman and Miles Davis; and Paul Desmond’s “Take Five,” of Dave Brubeck Quartet fame. Lubambo, Matta and Da Fonseca even test themselves when delving into the music of their own culture. Other than Jobim’s well-known “Corcovado,” they’ve chosen intriguing works that are largely unknown to North American audiences, including two classics by guitarist Baden Powell, Jobim’s “Look To The Sky” and the group Azymuth’s torrid “Partido Alto.”
Four decades ago, during the reign of bossa nova in Brazil, jazz-influenced instrumental trios were the all the rage, but virtually all such groups sported a piano, not a guitar, as its lead voice. Trio Da Paz embraces this venerated format and retains its driving, highly interactive character while spotlighting the golden tone of Lubambo’s guitar and his stunningly effective improvisational skills. Matta’s occasional solo forays add another delectable texture to the trio’s sound, while Da Fonseca’s constantly shifting rhythmic patterns, always delivered with utmost sensitivity, insure that the proper Brazilian flavor permeates every note.
Those familiar with the group‚s other recordings will quickly discover that Trio Da Paz has attained a new plateau of creativity on Somewhere. And for good reason, it’s been 20 years in the making.
Release Date: September 20, 2005 - Blue Toucan Music
For more information, visit the website: http://www.bluetoucanmusic.com
Posted by: eJazzNews Readeron Monday, August 08, 2005 - 03:46 PM
Jazz News Brazilian Jazz Super Group Trio Da Paz Releases Somewhere --
A Captivating CD of Bossa and Samba Jazz Masterworks
After a three-year absence from the recording studio that must seem like an eternity for their followers, Trio Da Paz returns with Somewhere, to be released September 20 on the Blue Toucan label. It’s a celebration of the famed trio’s singular artistry, loaded with the kind of exquisite, virtuosic and illuminating performances that have made them one of the world’s most popular exponents of Brazilian jazz of the past two decades. The 13-track program ranges from bossa nova classics of their homeland to modern jazz standards, well-known motion picture themes and even the Brazilian National Anthem. Although the works represent different cultures and time periods, all are linked through the trio’s highly intuitive readings via the common language of jazz samba and bossa.
It was in New York City in 1985 when guitarist Romero Lubambo and drummer Duduka Da Fonseca, both natives of Rio De Janeiro, and Sao Paulo-born bassist Nilson Matta, all who had relocated to the U.S. to advance their careers, began to rehearse together. Initially, it was just for their common joy and relaxation. But it didn’t take long before the three musicians realized that their collaborative effort held a greater promise that just the camaraderie that was nurtured by their informal sessions. The inner peace they discovered making music together led to the name they picked for the group, and Trio Da Paz, the “Trio of Peace” was born.
Four critically lauded albums for three different labels between 1992 and 2002, including a date with pianist Kenny Barron, kept them in the vanguard of the Brazilian jazz movement in the U.S. and expanded their fan base. At the same time, all three members pursued their own careers, recording albums under their own names and participating in dozens of high profile jazz, popular, classical and Brazilian music recordings.
Since the mid-1980s, the three trio members have been among the most in-demand musicians for recordings and live performance in the U.S. The breadth of their individual professional experiences is nothing less than astounding. When, for instance, the son of the late composer Antonio Carlos Jobim wanted the best drummer in the world to record the bossa nova icon’s masterworks with the Sao Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, it was Da Fonseca who was tapped for the project, Symphonic Jobim, which earned a Latin Grammy Award. Likewise, Matta and Lubambo were both handpicked by Yo-Yo Ma to join an all-star roster for the cellist’s Obrigado Brazil album.
Those credits, however impressive, only hint at the degree to which the talents of Lubambo, Matta and Da Fonseca have been embraced by the elite of the music world in the U.S. Lubambo’s resume includes countless recordings and performances with the likes of Astrud Gilberto, Jobim, Herbie Mann, Dave Douglas, Kathleen Battle, Luciana Souza, Paquito D’Rivera, Dianne Reeves, Jane Monheit and countless others. Matta’s talents have been lavished on recordings that range from avant-garde pianist Don Pullen and bebop saxophonist Joe Henderson to such jazz stars as Gato Barbieri, Oscar Castro Neves, and Claudio Roditi, while his associations with Brazilian musicians have included such notables as Joao Gilberto, Hermeto Pascoal, Chico Buarque and Nana Caymmi. Da Fonseca, whose arrival in the U.S. in 1975 predated that of his cohorts by a decade, has worked with an eclectic group of jazz and Brazilian artists, including Antonio Carlos Jobim, John Scofield, Gerry Mulligan, Tom Harrell, and Dom Salvador, among many others. All three have been extensively involved in music education, from authoring method books to teaching at prestigious conservatories.
On Somewhere, the trio challenges itself by tackling a repertoire that includes songs never before treated to Brazilian-style interpretations. Included in the left-field entries are such gems as “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead,” from The Wizard of Oz, the title tune, from West Side Story, and their country’s national anthem. From the ranks of jazz standards come two treasures that demand the most skilled of interpreters, “Seven Steps To Heaven,” written by pianist Victor Feldman and Miles Davis; and Paul Desmond’s “Take Five,” of Dave Brubeck Quartet fame. Lubambo, Matta and Da Fonseca even test themselves when delving into the music of their own culture. Other than Jobim’s well-known “Corcovado,” they’ve chosen intriguing works that are largely unknown to North American audiences, including two classics by guitarist Baden Powell, Jobim’s “Look To The Sky” and the group Azymuth’s torrid “Partido Alto.”
Four decades ago, during the reign of bossa nova in Brazil, jazz-influenced instrumental trios were the all the rage, but virtually all such groups sported a piano, not a guitar, as its lead voice. Trio Da Paz embraces this venerated format and retains its driving, highly interactive character while spotlighting the golden tone of Lubambo’s guitar and his stunningly effective improvisational skills. Matta’s occasional solo forays add another delectable texture to the trio’s sound, while Da Fonseca’s constantly shifting rhythmic patterns, always delivered with utmost sensitivity, insure that the proper Brazilian flavor permeates every note.
Those familiar with the group‚s other recordings will quickly discover that Trio Da Paz has attained a new plateau of creativity on Somewhere. And for good reason, it’s been 20 years in the making.
Release Date: September 20, 2005 - Blue Toucan Music
For more information, visit the website: http://www.bluetoucanmusic.com
Octogenarian Pianist Bebo Valdés Releases BEBO DE CUBA :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily
Octogenarian Pianist Bebo Valdés Releases BEBO DE CUBA :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News DailyOctogenarian Pianist Bebo Valdés Releases BEBO DE CUBA
Posted by: eJazzNews Readeron Monday, August 08, 2005 - 03:46 PM
Jazz News Octogenarian Pianist Bebo Valdés Celebrates
Cuban Big Band and Jazz Traditions on 2-CD/DVD
Calle 54 Records Release, BEBO DE CUBA
To say that storied pianist, composer and arranger Bebo Valdés was there when the modern Cuban music tradition was born isn’t a stretch; as a child in the 1920s, he attended concerts by such pioneering groups as Septeto Habanero, Trio Matamoros and pianist Antonio Maria Romeu’s charanga orchestra. Within two decades, his music skills fully developed, Valdes was welcomed into the elite company of his country’s most in-demand music artists. Impressively, as documented on BEBO DE CUBA, a 2-CD/DVD release from Calle 54 Records, the 87-year old maestro’s compositional and arranging instincts are still fertile, his fingers as nimble as ever, and his ability to craft music of extraordinary depth, passion and beauty undiminished by the passing years.
BEBO DE CUBA was co-produced by Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba, whose stylish 2000 Miramax documentary and live music film CALLE 54 brought a wide range of jazz-influenced Latin music styles to the big screen for the first time, and Nat Chediak,, Cuban music historian and founder of the Miami Film Festival. The production features Valdés fronting a full big band on one CD, Suite Cubana and a smaller ensemble on the other, El Solar de Bebo. Both sessions feature a veritable who’s who of the Latin jazz world, including musicians who’ve risen to prominence in the service of such fabled leaders as Arturo “Chico” O’Farrill, Mario Bauza, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria and other Cuban and Puerto Rican music icons. Among the first call instrumentalists who respond when Valdés gives the downbeat are saxophonists Paquito D’Rivera and Mario Rivera, bassist Andy Gonzalez, drummers Steve Berrios and Dafnis Prieto, trumpeters Diego Urcola and Michael Philip Mossman, percussionist Milton Cardona, and the late trombonist Juan Pablo Torres. The companion 23-minute DVD, New York Notebook, complements the music through interviews with Valdés conducted in the studio of Miami’s WDNA Public Radio Station, video vignettes of the still spry pianist reminiscing while he walks the streets of Manhattan, interacting with the musicians, conducting the groups, and playing piano.
The eight track Suite Cubana, explains woodwind artist D’Rivera in the release’s informative 52-page booklet, “is a long-cherished project that Bebo dedicates to those who have left their mark on his long and productive life -- a great celebration and a nostalgic tribute to our distant homeland.” The set opens with a showy fanfare that sets the stage for a program of flashy big band orchestrations built on the rhythmic foundation of such revered Afro-Cuban styles as mambo, bembe, son, guaracha, guajira and the leader’s own creation, the batanga.
Written between 1992 and 1997, the suite is Valdés’ way of exploring Afro-Cuban rhythms while paying tribute to his wife Rose Marie, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, close friend Israel Lopez “Cachao,” his famous pianist son Jesus “Chucho” Valdés, and other intimates. On “Cachao, Creador del Mambo,” for instance, Valdés honors the bassist, who made history by inventing the mambo rhythm. “Copla No. 4,” which hints at the melody of the well-known folk tune “Guantanamera” in its opening bars, evolves into a brassy masterpiece that breaks into a double-time gait. Then, it settles into a sultry guajira groove that reveals the pianist’s wit as he quotes “Theme from a Summer Place,” an instrumental hit for bandleader Percy Faith that was popular in 1959 when Valdés was courting his soon-to-be wife.
El Solar de Bebo (Bebo’s Place) presents the pianist and an octet handpicked from the ranks of the big band recording to engage in the kind of free-flowing jam session -- termed a descarga in Cuba -- that became the rage in Havana in much the same way bebop took hold among New York’s best jazz musicians in the years immediately following the close of the big band era in the post World War II years. The sessions, writes musicologist Chediak in the booklet, “are direct descendants of the ones Bebo recorded for Norman Granz more than half a century ago, penning an essential chapter in the history of Cuban jazz.”
Born Dionisio Ramon Emilio Valdés Amaro in 1918 in the small town of Quivican in the province of Havana, Valdés initiation into the world of music came as he learned to sing and play the claves. After the family moved to Havana, he studied at the Municipal Conservatory. A love of jazz came early in his career, which took off in 1943 when he was hired as an arranger for music ensembles employed by Radio Mil Diez (Radio 1010), a broadcast entity owned by the country’s small Communist Party.
In 1948, he began a decade-long stint as an arranger and pianist at the city’s famed Tropicana nightclub. During the 1950s, he recorded prolifically for several Cuban labels. In 1960, shortly after Fidel Castro assumed power in the country, Valdés left all behind for exile, eventually settling in 1963 in Sweden, where he lived in relative obscurity until D’Rivera urged him to come back into the international spotlight and record in 1994 Bebo Rides Again for Germany’s Messidor label. An appearance in the film CALLE 54 brought more attention, reinforced by the issuance in 2001 of El Arte del Sabor. Lagrimas Negras, a Calle 54 Records release that pared the veteran Cuban pianist with the Spanish gypsy singer Cigala, emerged in 2004 as one of the most talked about jazz albums of the year.
BEBO DE CUBA is indeed a celebration -- not only of the enduring popularity of a music tradition that has held a global audience in a trance for over half a century but of the endurance and the undiminished creative spirit of one of the idiom’s more important practitioners. With the passing in recent years of such contemporaries as “Chico” O’Farrill and Mario Bauza, Valdés stands as one of the last of a generation of multi-talented Cuban musicians who played central roles in defining the state of Cuban music today. BEBO DE CUBA, a truly singular release in every regard, is the consummate tribute to a master musician whose influence on the music of our time will remain a topic of discussion for decades to come, Bebo Valdés.
Release Date: September 13, 2005
For additional information please contact
Diana Nazareth/DL MEDIA at
416-815-8883/dlmedia.canada@sympatico.ca
Posted by: eJazzNews Readeron Monday, August 08, 2005 - 03:46 PM
Jazz News Octogenarian Pianist Bebo Valdés Celebrates
Cuban Big Band and Jazz Traditions on 2-CD/DVD
Calle 54 Records Release, BEBO DE CUBA
To say that storied pianist, composer and arranger Bebo Valdés was there when the modern Cuban music tradition was born isn’t a stretch; as a child in the 1920s, he attended concerts by such pioneering groups as Septeto Habanero, Trio Matamoros and pianist Antonio Maria Romeu’s charanga orchestra. Within two decades, his music skills fully developed, Valdes was welcomed into the elite company of his country’s most in-demand music artists. Impressively, as documented on BEBO DE CUBA, a 2-CD/DVD release from Calle 54 Records, the 87-year old maestro’s compositional and arranging instincts are still fertile, his fingers as nimble as ever, and his ability to craft music of extraordinary depth, passion and beauty undiminished by the passing years.
BEBO DE CUBA was co-produced by Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba, whose stylish 2000 Miramax documentary and live music film CALLE 54 brought a wide range of jazz-influenced Latin music styles to the big screen for the first time, and Nat Chediak,, Cuban music historian and founder of the Miami Film Festival. The production features Valdés fronting a full big band on one CD, Suite Cubana and a smaller ensemble on the other, El Solar de Bebo. Both sessions feature a veritable who’s who of the Latin jazz world, including musicians who’ve risen to prominence in the service of such fabled leaders as Arturo “Chico” O’Farrill, Mario Bauza, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria and other Cuban and Puerto Rican music icons. Among the first call instrumentalists who respond when Valdés gives the downbeat are saxophonists Paquito D’Rivera and Mario Rivera, bassist Andy Gonzalez, drummers Steve Berrios and Dafnis Prieto, trumpeters Diego Urcola and Michael Philip Mossman, percussionist Milton Cardona, and the late trombonist Juan Pablo Torres. The companion 23-minute DVD, New York Notebook, complements the music through interviews with Valdés conducted in the studio of Miami’s WDNA Public Radio Station, video vignettes of the still spry pianist reminiscing while he walks the streets of Manhattan, interacting with the musicians, conducting the groups, and playing piano.
The eight track Suite Cubana, explains woodwind artist D’Rivera in the release’s informative 52-page booklet, “is a long-cherished project that Bebo dedicates to those who have left their mark on his long and productive life -- a great celebration and a nostalgic tribute to our distant homeland.” The set opens with a showy fanfare that sets the stage for a program of flashy big band orchestrations built on the rhythmic foundation of such revered Afro-Cuban styles as mambo, bembe, son, guaracha, guajira and the leader’s own creation, the batanga.
Written between 1992 and 1997, the suite is Valdés’ way of exploring Afro-Cuban rhythms while paying tribute to his wife Rose Marie, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, close friend Israel Lopez “Cachao,” his famous pianist son Jesus “Chucho” Valdés, and other intimates. On “Cachao, Creador del Mambo,” for instance, Valdés honors the bassist, who made history by inventing the mambo rhythm. “Copla No. 4,” which hints at the melody of the well-known folk tune “Guantanamera” in its opening bars, evolves into a brassy masterpiece that breaks into a double-time gait. Then, it settles into a sultry guajira groove that reveals the pianist’s wit as he quotes “Theme from a Summer Place,” an instrumental hit for bandleader Percy Faith that was popular in 1959 when Valdés was courting his soon-to-be wife.
El Solar de Bebo (Bebo’s Place) presents the pianist and an octet handpicked from the ranks of the big band recording to engage in the kind of free-flowing jam session -- termed a descarga in Cuba -- that became the rage in Havana in much the same way bebop took hold among New York’s best jazz musicians in the years immediately following the close of the big band era in the post World War II years. The sessions, writes musicologist Chediak in the booklet, “are direct descendants of the ones Bebo recorded for Norman Granz more than half a century ago, penning an essential chapter in the history of Cuban jazz.”
Born Dionisio Ramon Emilio Valdés Amaro in 1918 in the small town of Quivican in the province of Havana, Valdés initiation into the world of music came as he learned to sing and play the claves. After the family moved to Havana, he studied at the Municipal Conservatory. A love of jazz came early in his career, which took off in 1943 when he was hired as an arranger for music ensembles employed by Radio Mil Diez (Radio 1010), a broadcast entity owned by the country’s small Communist Party.
In 1948, he began a decade-long stint as an arranger and pianist at the city’s famed Tropicana nightclub. During the 1950s, he recorded prolifically for several Cuban labels. In 1960, shortly after Fidel Castro assumed power in the country, Valdés left all behind for exile, eventually settling in 1963 in Sweden, where he lived in relative obscurity until D’Rivera urged him to come back into the international spotlight and record in 1994 Bebo Rides Again for Germany’s Messidor label. An appearance in the film CALLE 54 brought more attention, reinforced by the issuance in 2001 of El Arte del Sabor. Lagrimas Negras, a Calle 54 Records release that pared the veteran Cuban pianist with the Spanish gypsy singer Cigala, emerged in 2004 as one of the most talked about jazz albums of the year.
BEBO DE CUBA is indeed a celebration -- not only of the enduring popularity of a music tradition that has held a global audience in a trance for over half a century but of the endurance and the undiminished creative spirit of one of the idiom’s more important practitioners. With the passing in recent years of such contemporaries as “Chico” O’Farrill and Mario Bauza, Valdés stands as one of the last of a generation of multi-talented Cuban musicians who played central roles in defining the state of Cuban music today. BEBO DE CUBA, a truly singular release in every regard, is the consummate tribute to a master musician whose influence on the music of our time will remain a topic of discussion for decades to come, Bebo Valdés.
Release Date: September 13, 2005
For additional information please contact
Diana Nazareth/DL MEDIA at
416-815-8883/dlmedia.canada@sympatico.ca
Ibrahim Ferrer, rose to fame with Buena Vista Social Club
Ibrahim Ferrer, rose to fame with Buena Vista Social ClubIbrahim Ferrer, rose to fame with Buena Vista Social Club
August 7, 2005
BY LAURA EMERICK Staff Reporter
Ibrahim Ferrer, the Cuban vocalist who emerged from obscurity to become a breakout star with the Buena Vista Social Club, died Saturday in Havana. He was 78.
Mr. Ferrer, who had suffered from emphysema, had fallen ill earlier this week, according to his production company.
Along with guitarist Compay Segundo and pianist Ruben Gonzalez, Mr. Ferrer found fame in the mid-'90s as part of the Buena Vista Social Club, a loosely knit collective dedicated to the revival of traditional Cuban styles, especially son, guajira and bolero, which fell out of favor after the Cuban revolution.
Organized by American producer-instrumentalist Ry Cooder and Cuban music director Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, the Buena Vista Social Club became an international phenomenon, spawning sold-out tours, award-winning albums and an Oscar-nominated documentary.
Had given up music
Mr. Ferrer's role in the group was especially poignant because he had given up music after singing in several acclaimed bands such as Orquesta de Chepin and ensembles led by the legendary Beny More and Pacho Alonso during Cuba's golden age of the '40s and '50s. But in all these groups, Mr. Ferrer found himself pushed to the background. Though his voice could be heard, he was often not credited on the records.
"There was the name of the bandleader, the group, the songwriter, but never the singer," he recalled in a 2003 interview with the Sun-Times.
Living on a small pension and shining shoes, Mr. Ferrer reluctantly came out of retirement for the Buena Vista project. "I didn't want to go," he said in the 2003 interview. "But he [Juan de Marcos] kept on, until I finally agreed. I told him that I had to go home first, to wash up, and he said, 'No, the session is going on right now.'"
After the huge popularity of the "The Buena Vista Social Club" (1997), which won a Grammy, and the related disc "Toda Cuba Le Gusta" (1997) by the Afro-Cuban All-Stars, Mr. Ferrer went on to record his first solo disc at age 70. That album, "Buena Vista Social Club Presents Ibrahim Ferrer" (1999), brought him a Latin Grammy for best new artist in 2000. His most recent solo disc, "Buenos Hermanos" (2003), also produced by Cooder and featuring many of his Buena Vista mates, received a Grammy for best traditional tropical Latin album.
Known for his trademark Kangol cap and brightly colored jackets, Mr. Ferrer became a pop culture favorite worldwide. For instance, Damon Albarn, leader of the British pop band Blur, asked him to sing on the track "Latin Simone (Que Pasa Contigo)," recorded in 2001 for his side project, the virtual hip-hop band Gorillaz. And Orchestra Baobab, the acclaimed world music group from Senegal, saluted the great sonero with "Hommage a Tonton Ferrer" on its album "Specialist in All Styles" (2002).
His voice, reedy yet imploringly beautiful, conveyed the romantic essence of the bolero, the style he insisted was closest to his heart. His intensely emotional renditions of Cuban standards such as "Como Fue," "Dos Gardenias" and "Silencio," from the Buena Vista discs, bear that assessment out. Cooder once called Mr. Ferrer the lost link to Cuba's golden age. "It's the last chance in the world to work with such a voice," he said.
Despite his affinity for the bolero, Mr. Ferrer said that bandleaders used to tell him "it's not for you," he recalled. "Back then, boleros were sung by people with bigger voices. But I always loved boleros. As a child, I used to listen to a lot of tangos and then turn them into boleros."
Performed in Chicago in 2003
Born in 1927 in Santiago, Mr. Ferrer had an early introduction to music when his mother went into labor at a dance club.
Mr. Ferrer most recently performed in Chicago in 2003 at the Chicago Theatre and was scheduled to appear last summer at the Ravinia Festival. But the date was canceled after the Bush administration tightened visa restrictions on Cuban artists.
Early in his career, Mr. Ferrer used to sing a song called "Cuando Me Toca a Mi," which asked, "When will it be my turn? If not next year, then maybe in the year 2000."
That song proved to prophetic. Of his rediscovery in his twilight years, "Everywhere I go, I find the same thing, such a warm reception to my singing," he said in the 2003 interview. "That's the best memory I have. For me, that's what matters."
Contributing: AP
August 7, 2005
BY LAURA EMERICK Staff Reporter
Ibrahim Ferrer, the Cuban vocalist who emerged from obscurity to become a breakout star with the Buena Vista Social Club, died Saturday in Havana. He was 78.
Mr. Ferrer, who had suffered from emphysema, had fallen ill earlier this week, according to his production company.
Along with guitarist Compay Segundo and pianist Ruben Gonzalez, Mr. Ferrer found fame in the mid-'90s as part of the Buena Vista Social Club, a loosely knit collective dedicated to the revival of traditional Cuban styles, especially son, guajira and bolero, which fell out of favor after the Cuban revolution.
Organized by American producer-instrumentalist Ry Cooder and Cuban music director Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, the Buena Vista Social Club became an international phenomenon, spawning sold-out tours, award-winning albums and an Oscar-nominated documentary.
Had given up music
Mr. Ferrer's role in the group was especially poignant because he had given up music after singing in several acclaimed bands such as Orquesta de Chepin and ensembles led by the legendary Beny More and Pacho Alonso during Cuba's golden age of the '40s and '50s. But in all these groups, Mr. Ferrer found himself pushed to the background. Though his voice could be heard, he was often not credited on the records.
"There was the name of the bandleader, the group, the songwriter, but never the singer," he recalled in a 2003 interview with the Sun-Times.
Living on a small pension and shining shoes, Mr. Ferrer reluctantly came out of retirement for the Buena Vista project. "I didn't want to go," he said in the 2003 interview. "But he [Juan de Marcos] kept on, until I finally agreed. I told him that I had to go home first, to wash up, and he said, 'No, the session is going on right now.'"
After the huge popularity of the "The Buena Vista Social Club" (1997), which won a Grammy, and the related disc "Toda Cuba Le Gusta" (1997) by the Afro-Cuban All-Stars, Mr. Ferrer went on to record his first solo disc at age 70. That album, "Buena Vista Social Club Presents Ibrahim Ferrer" (1999), brought him a Latin Grammy for best new artist in 2000. His most recent solo disc, "Buenos Hermanos" (2003), also produced by Cooder and featuring many of his Buena Vista mates, received a Grammy for best traditional tropical Latin album.
Known for his trademark Kangol cap and brightly colored jackets, Mr. Ferrer became a pop culture favorite worldwide. For instance, Damon Albarn, leader of the British pop band Blur, asked him to sing on the track "Latin Simone (Que Pasa Contigo)," recorded in 2001 for his side project, the virtual hip-hop band Gorillaz. And Orchestra Baobab, the acclaimed world music group from Senegal, saluted the great sonero with "Hommage a Tonton Ferrer" on its album "Specialist in All Styles" (2002).
His voice, reedy yet imploringly beautiful, conveyed the romantic essence of the bolero, the style he insisted was closest to his heart. His intensely emotional renditions of Cuban standards such as "Como Fue," "Dos Gardenias" and "Silencio," from the Buena Vista discs, bear that assessment out. Cooder once called Mr. Ferrer the lost link to Cuba's golden age. "It's the last chance in the world to work with such a voice," he said.
Despite his affinity for the bolero, Mr. Ferrer said that bandleaders used to tell him "it's not for you," he recalled. "Back then, boleros were sung by people with bigger voices. But I always loved boleros. As a child, I used to listen to a lot of tangos and then turn them into boleros."
Performed in Chicago in 2003
Born in 1927 in Santiago, Mr. Ferrer had an early introduction to music when his mother went into labor at a dance club.
Mr. Ferrer most recently performed in Chicago in 2003 at the Chicago Theatre and was scheduled to appear last summer at the Ravinia Festival. But the date was canceled after the Bush administration tightened visa restrictions on Cuban artists.
Early in his career, Mr. Ferrer used to sing a song called "Cuando Me Toca a Mi," which asked, "When will it be my turn? If not next year, then maybe in the year 2000."
That song proved to prophetic. Of his rediscovery in his twilight years, "Everywhere I go, I find the same thing, such a warm reception to my singing," he said in the 2003 interview. "That's the best memory I have. For me, that's what matters."
Contributing: AP
JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES 2005 CLASS :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily
JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES 2005 CLASS :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily Book Reviews: JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES 2005 CLASS
Posted by: editoron Monday, August 08, 2005 - 05:55 PM
Jazz News International Voting Panel Selects 12 Jazz Legends to be Honored on September 8
August 8, 2005 (NEW YORK) – Today, Jazz at Lincoln Center released the names of the jazz masters being inducted into the Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame in 2005: Count Basie, Roy Eldridge, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Earl Hines, Johnny Hodges, Jo Jones, Charles Mingus, King Oliver, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins and Fats Waller. Inductees, family members of inductees, friends and fellow artists will be on hand to receive honors at the second annual private induction ceremony on September 8th at Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Performers and participants will be announced prior to the event.
A 58-person international voting panel, which includes musicians, scholars and educators from 17 countries, was charged with nominating and selecting these definitive jazz artists. Each year, criteria for nomination into the hall include excellence and the significance of the artists' contributions to the development and perpetuation of jazz. The Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame was named by Jazz at Lincoln Center Board member Ahmet Ertegun and his wife, Mica, in honor of his late brother and Atlantic Records partner, Nesuhi Ertegun.
Currently, the hall's installation features its 2004 inaugural class of inductees: Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Bix Beiderbecke, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington, John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk,ÊJelly Roll Morton, Art Tatum, and Lester Young.Ê The multi-media exhibit including the 2005 inductees, will be unveiled at the September 8th ceremony and open to the public beginning September 9th. The hall is free and open to the public between the hours of 10am-4pm, Tuesday through Sunday. The space is also open to ticket-holders in the evening.
"These great jazz musicians set new standards for instrumental and vocal performance in the 20th century. Their work stands as a testament to the creative power of jazz and their impact on musicians and audiences across time is etched into the prominent history of jazz," said Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director, Wynton Marsalis.
"Jazz at Lincoln Center enters its second season at Fredrick P. Rose Hall and proudly celebrates the newest inductees into the Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame," said Ahmet Ertegun. "It is an honor to recognize another group of outstanding jazz artists who have contributed their lives to making jazz as timeless as it is today. This center has provided a space where people of all ages can come to learn about the art of jazz and these legendary artists who thrived in it."
"Our 2005-6 season, 'Jazz from Coast to Coast,' is one of celebration of all things jazz - from the pioneer jazz musicians who created the music, to the times and places that shaped it, and to those who continue to perform and enrich it today," said Derek E. Gordon, President and CEO of Jazz at Lincoln Center. "We usher in the season with this very important Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame induction ceremony, recognizing the artists that embody all that is rich in the tradition of jazz."
The Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame was designed by the Rockwell Group and opened to the public in 2004 during the grand opening of Jazz at Lincoln Center's new home, Frederick P. Rose Hall. The space is a multi-media installation featuring an 18-foot video wall, interactive kiosks, touch-activated plaques and the great sound and spirit of jazz. The Hall of Fame's physical design celebrates jazz by emphasizing flexibility and improvisation, and utilizes materials, such as cork, wood and brass, found in jazz instruments.
The 2005 Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame induction ceremony is generously sponsored by Bloomberg and Movado.
Nesuhi Ertegun (1917 -1989)
Nesuhi Ertegun's passionate advocacy of jazz music and nurturing of jazz musicians made an indelible contribution to the awareness and appreciation of jazz throughout the world. The son of the former Turkish Ambassador to the United States, Nesuhi Ertegun was born in Istanbul and subsequently raised in Switzerland, Paris, London, and Washington, D.C. A passionate jazz and blues record collector, in 1944 Ertegun moved to Los Angeles, where he ran the Jazzman Record Shop and the Jazzman and Crescent labels. Among his first signings was legendary New Orleans trombonist Kid Ory. Ertegun became the editor of Record Changer magazine, made records for the Contemporary label, and taught jazz studies at UCLA – the first accredited course of its kind in the country. Today, the U.S. Library of Congress is home to the Nesuhi Ertegun Collection of Jelly Roll Morton Recordings.
In 1954, Nesuhi joined his brother Ahmet at Atlantic Records. Moving to New York, he developed an album department and was responsible for building the label's exceptional jazz roster – producing John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Ray Charles, Charles Mingus, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Herbie Mann, and many others. In 1971, Nesuhi's international expertise led to his establishment of WEA International (now known as Warner Music International). A committed and effective foe of record piracy worldwide, he also served as President of International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers (I.F.P.I.). Among his many other interests, Nesuhi, along with his brother, founded the New York Cosmos soccer team. He was also a world-renowned collector of surrealist art.
2005 Inductees
William "Count" Basie (1904-1984)
At the piano, Count Basie could conjure a groove from a single note. As an orchestra-leader, he could make fourteen men breathe - and play - as one. In his hands, nothing seemed to be too fast or too slow to swing with style, and when his band came roaring out of Kansas City, Missouri in the midst of the Great Depression it showed the whole country how to stomp away the blues.
Roy Eldridge (1911-1989)
Roy Eldridge was the quintessential brass player – powerful, fearless, and tirelessly competitive. A gladiator with a horn, he combined the emotional intensity of Louis Armstrong with a peerless command of the upper register to humble trumpeters of every age in every city. "All my life, I've loved to battle," Eldridge said. "And, if they wouldn't invite me up onto the bandstand, I'd get my trumpet out from the side of the stand and blow at them from there."
Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996)
Sweet, clear and unmistakable, Ella Fitzgerald's voice was her instrument. She was a master interpreter of the great American songbook. Ira Gershwin said he'd never known how good his songs were till he heard her sing them. But she could also take off on daring flights of scatting fancy that challenged the most inventive horn-players to keep up with her. Her rhythmic sense was so sure that Lester Young named her "Lady Time." The rest of the world knew her as the "First Lady of Song."
(Benjamin David) Benny Goodman (1909-1986)
A rare combination of popular star and musical virtuoso, Benny Goodman was seen as the King of Swing by millions of people around the world. His playing and popularity helped make the clarinet a major solo instrument in jazz. He was the first well-known jazz musician to win success performing the classical repertory. And his insistence on finding and playing with the finest musicians of his time led him to integrate his bandstand long before Jackie Robinson broke the color line in baseball.
Earl Kenneth "Fatha" Hines (1903-1983)
Earl "Fatha" Hines was celebrated as the father of modern jazz piano. By the age of twenty-four, he had already shown that by loosening up the rhythm played by his left hand and boldly spinning out complex, hornlike melodies with his right, his instrument could be freed forever from its role as a mere time-keeper in the band. For nearly six decades, he never fell from fashion among musicians. "Earl can go on for ninety years," Count Basie said, "and never be out of date."
Johnny Hodges (born Cornelius Hodge, 1906-1970)
Silken, soulful, seductive, the alto saxophone of Johnny Hodges provided the signature sound of the Duke Ellington orchestra for nearly forty years. A master of both ballads and the blues, he was calm and unassuming onstage, but when he began to play, Ellington recalled, he reached "into his own soul" touched "everybody else's soul" —and garnered from his listeners more oohs and ahs and "Yes, Daddys" than anyone else in the band.
Jo(nathan) "Papa Jo" Jones (1911-1985)
Jo Jones helped transform the art of jazz drumming. A one-time tap-dancer, he brought a great dancer's wit and subtlety, elegance and understatement to his playing. He moved the basic pulse from the bass drum to the hi-hat cymbal. The result was light, relaxed, fluid and shimmering – the perfect underpinning for the Count Basie orchestra. Generations of admiring drummers revered him as "Papa Jo." He called them all his "kiddies."
Charles Mingus (1922-1979)
Master bassist Charles Mingus was a composer and bandleader whose kaleidoscopic work displayed every emotion from humor to horror, fury to tenderness. It also embraced the full vocabulary of jazz —from the raw sounds of early New Orleans and the rich Gospel tradition to the supreme sophistication of Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. But always it was expressive of his own multi-faceted personality. "I'm going to keep ... finding out the kind of man I am through my music," he said. "That's the one place I can be free."
Joe "King" Oliver (1885-1938)
Cornetist Joe "King" Oliver is best remembered now as the man who brought Louis Armstrong north to Chicago in 1922. But he was a jazz pioneer in his own right. His Creole Jazz Band represented the pinnacle of the traditional New Orleans style. His recorded solos were memorized by a generation of brass players. And he was an early master of mutes, capable of evoking almost every kind of vocal sound through his horn. Louis Armstrong remembered him as "the top cornet in New Orleans, the first big musician in my life and still... the best I ever met."
Max(well) Roach (born 1924)
Percussionist and composer Max Roach helped redefine the rhythms of jazz. He brought new polyrhythmic textures and a richer palette of tonal colors to the world of bebop, co-led a classic quintet with the short-lived trumpeter Clifford Brown, helped propel the soundtrack of the Civil Rights movement, and throughout his career continued to search for new artistic worlds to conquer. "My music tries to say how I really feel," he said, "and I hope it mirrors in some way how black people feel in the United States."
(Theodore Walter) Sonny Rollins (born 1930)
"I'll know when I find the ultimate sound," Saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins said, "because I'll be completely fulfilled by it." An adventurer and musical athlete in the tenor tradition of Coleman Hawkins, he has sought that sound relentlessly for more than fifty years, transforming even the simplest tunes into masterpieces of wit and warmth and unassailable logic.
Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (1904-1943)
Fats Waller's talent outstripped even his girth. He was the most celebrated of all stride pianists, the first jazz musician to record on the organ, the composer of hundreds of songs and a master singer and showman who could find high comedy in the most mundane pop tunes. "Some little people have music in them, "Waller's piano mentor James P. Johnson once explained, "but Fats was all music, and you know how big he was."
-----
Jazz at Lincoln Center is a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to jazz. With the world-renowned Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra and a comprehensive array of guest artists, Jazz at Lincoln Center advances a unique vision for the continued development of the art of jazz by producing a year-round schedule of performance, education, and broadcast events for audiences of all ages. These productions include concerts, national and international tours, residencies, weekly national radio and television programs, recordings, publications, an annual high school jazz band competition and festival, a band director academy, a jazz appreciation curriculum for children, advanced training through the Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies, music publishing, children's concerts, lectures, adult education courses and student and educator workshops. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis, Chairman of the Board Lisa Schiff, President & CEO Derek E. Gordon, Executive Director Katherine E. Brown and Jazz at Lincoln Center board and staff, Jazz at Lincoln Center will produce hundreds of events during its 2005-06 season. In October 2004, Jazz at Lincoln Center opened Frederick P. Rose Hall -the first-ever performance, education, and broadcast facility devoted to jazz.
For more information, please visit www.jalc.org.
Posted by: editoron Monday, August 08, 2005 - 05:55 PM
Jazz News International Voting Panel Selects 12 Jazz Legends to be Honored on September 8
August 8, 2005 (NEW YORK) – Today, Jazz at Lincoln Center released the names of the jazz masters being inducted into the Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame in 2005: Count Basie, Roy Eldridge, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Earl Hines, Johnny Hodges, Jo Jones, Charles Mingus, King Oliver, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins and Fats Waller. Inductees, family members of inductees, friends and fellow artists will be on hand to receive honors at the second annual private induction ceremony on September 8th at Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Performers and participants will be announced prior to the event.
A 58-person international voting panel, which includes musicians, scholars and educators from 17 countries, was charged with nominating and selecting these definitive jazz artists. Each year, criteria for nomination into the hall include excellence and the significance of the artists' contributions to the development and perpetuation of jazz. The Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame was named by Jazz at Lincoln Center Board member Ahmet Ertegun and his wife, Mica, in honor of his late brother and Atlantic Records partner, Nesuhi Ertegun.
Currently, the hall's installation features its 2004 inaugural class of inductees: Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Bix Beiderbecke, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington, John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk,ÊJelly Roll Morton, Art Tatum, and Lester Young.Ê The multi-media exhibit including the 2005 inductees, will be unveiled at the September 8th ceremony and open to the public beginning September 9th. The hall is free and open to the public between the hours of 10am-4pm, Tuesday through Sunday. The space is also open to ticket-holders in the evening.
"These great jazz musicians set new standards for instrumental and vocal performance in the 20th century. Their work stands as a testament to the creative power of jazz and their impact on musicians and audiences across time is etched into the prominent history of jazz," said Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director, Wynton Marsalis.
"Jazz at Lincoln Center enters its second season at Fredrick P. Rose Hall and proudly celebrates the newest inductees into the Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame," said Ahmet Ertegun. "It is an honor to recognize another group of outstanding jazz artists who have contributed their lives to making jazz as timeless as it is today. This center has provided a space where people of all ages can come to learn about the art of jazz and these legendary artists who thrived in it."
"Our 2005-6 season, 'Jazz from Coast to Coast,' is one of celebration of all things jazz - from the pioneer jazz musicians who created the music, to the times and places that shaped it, and to those who continue to perform and enrich it today," said Derek E. Gordon, President and CEO of Jazz at Lincoln Center. "We usher in the season with this very important Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame induction ceremony, recognizing the artists that embody all that is rich in the tradition of jazz."
The Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame was designed by the Rockwell Group and opened to the public in 2004 during the grand opening of Jazz at Lincoln Center's new home, Frederick P. Rose Hall. The space is a multi-media installation featuring an 18-foot video wall, interactive kiosks, touch-activated plaques and the great sound and spirit of jazz. The Hall of Fame's physical design celebrates jazz by emphasizing flexibility and improvisation, and utilizes materials, such as cork, wood and brass, found in jazz instruments.
The 2005 Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame induction ceremony is generously sponsored by Bloomberg and Movado.
Nesuhi Ertegun (1917 -1989)
Nesuhi Ertegun's passionate advocacy of jazz music and nurturing of jazz musicians made an indelible contribution to the awareness and appreciation of jazz throughout the world. The son of the former Turkish Ambassador to the United States, Nesuhi Ertegun was born in Istanbul and subsequently raised in Switzerland, Paris, London, and Washington, D.C. A passionate jazz and blues record collector, in 1944 Ertegun moved to Los Angeles, where he ran the Jazzman Record Shop and the Jazzman and Crescent labels. Among his first signings was legendary New Orleans trombonist Kid Ory. Ertegun became the editor of Record Changer magazine, made records for the Contemporary label, and taught jazz studies at UCLA – the first accredited course of its kind in the country. Today, the U.S. Library of Congress is home to the Nesuhi Ertegun Collection of Jelly Roll Morton Recordings.
In 1954, Nesuhi joined his brother Ahmet at Atlantic Records. Moving to New York, he developed an album department and was responsible for building the label's exceptional jazz roster – producing John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Ray Charles, Charles Mingus, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Herbie Mann, and many others. In 1971, Nesuhi's international expertise led to his establishment of WEA International (now known as Warner Music International). A committed and effective foe of record piracy worldwide, he also served as President of International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers (I.F.P.I.). Among his many other interests, Nesuhi, along with his brother, founded the New York Cosmos soccer team. He was also a world-renowned collector of surrealist art.
2005 Inductees
William "Count" Basie (1904-1984)
At the piano, Count Basie could conjure a groove from a single note. As an orchestra-leader, he could make fourteen men breathe - and play - as one. In his hands, nothing seemed to be too fast or too slow to swing with style, and when his band came roaring out of Kansas City, Missouri in the midst of the Great Depression it showed the whole country how to stomp away the blues.
Roy Eldridge (1911-1989)
Roy Eldridge was the quintessential brass player – powerful, fearless, and tirelessly competitive. A gladiator with a horn, he combined the emotional intensity of Louis Armstrong with a peerless command of the upper register to humble trumpeters of every age in every city. "All my life, I've loved to battle," Eldridge said. "And, if they wouldn't invite me up onto the bandstand, I'd get my trumpet out from the side of the stand and blow at them from there."
Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996)
Sweet, clear and unmistakable, Ella Fitzgerald's voice was her instrument. She was a master interpreter of the great American songbook. Ira Gershwin said he'd never known how good his songs were till he heard her sing them. But she could also take off on daring flights of scatting fancy that challenged the most inventive horn-players to keep up with her. Her rhythmic sense was so sure that Lester Young named her "Lady Time." The rest of the world knew her as the "First Lady of Song."
(Benjamin David) Benny Goodman (1909-1986)
A rare combination of popular star and musical virtuoso, Benny Goodman was seen as the King of Swing by millions of people around the world. His playing and popularity helped make the clarinet a major solo instrument in jazz. He was the first well-known jazz musician to win success performing the classical repertory. And his insistence on finding and playing with the finest musicians of his time led him to integrate his bandstand long before Jackie Robinson broke the color line in baseball.
Earl Kenneth "Fatha" Hines (1903-1983)
Earl "Fatha" Hines was celebrated as the father of modern jazz piano. By the age of twenty-four, he had already shown that by loosening up the rhythm played by his left hand and boldly spinning out complex, hornlike melodies with his right, his instrument could be freed forever from its role as a mere time-keeper in the band. For nearly six decades, he never fell from fashion among musicians. "Earl can go on for ninety years," Count Basie said, "and never be out of date."
Johnny Hodges (born Cornelius Hodge, 1906-1970)
Silken, soulful, seductive, the alto saxophone of Johnny Hodges provided the signature sound of the Duke Ellington orchestra for nearly forty years. A master of both ballads and the blues, he was calm and unassuming onstage, but when he began to play, Ellington recalled, he reached "into his own soul" touched "everybody else's soul" —and garnered from his listeners more oohs and ahs and "Yes, Daddys" than anyone else in the band.
Jo(nathan) "Papa Jo" Jones (1911-1985)
Jo Jones helped transform the art of jazz drumming. A one-time tap-dancer, he brought a great dancer's wit and subtlety, elegance and understatement to his playing. He moved the basic pulse from the bass drum to the hi-hat cymbal. The result was light, relaxed, fluid and shimmering – the perfect underpinning for the Count Basie orchestra. Generations of admiring drummers revered him as "Papa Jo." He called them all his "kiddies."
Charles Mingus (1922-1979)
Master bassist Charles Mingus was a composer and bandleader whose kaleidoscopic work displayed every emotion from humor to horror, fury to tenderness. It also embraced the full vocabulary of jazz —from the raw sounds of early New Orleans and the rich Gospel tradition to the supreme sophistication of Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. But always it was expressive of his own multi-faceted personality. "I'm going to keep ... finding out the kind of man I am through my music," he said. "That's the one place I can be free."
Joe "King" Oliver (1885-1938)
Cornetist Joe "King" Oliver is best remembered now as the man who brought Louis Armstrong north to Chicago in 1922. But he was a jazz pioneer in his own right. His Creole Jazz Band represented the pinnacle of the traditional New Orleans style. His recorded solos were memorized by a generation of brass players. And he was an early master of mutes, capable of evoking almost every kind of vocal sound through his horn. Louis Armstrong remembered him as "the top cornet in New Orleans, the first big musician in my life and still... the best I ever met."
Max(well) Roach (born 1924)
Percussionist and composer Max Roach helped redefine the rhythms of jazz. He brought new polyrhythmic textures and a richer palette of tonal colors to the world of bebop, co-led a classic quintet with the short-lived trumpeter Clifford Brown, helped propel the soundtrack of the Civil Rights movement, and throughout his career continued to search for new artistic worlds to conquer. "My music tries to say how I really feel," he said, "and I hope it mirrors in some way how black people feel in the United States."
(Theodore Walter) Sonny Rollins (born 1930)
"I'll know when I find the ultimate sound," Saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins said, "because I'll be completely fulfilled by it." An adventurer and musical athlete in the tenor tradition of Coleman Hawkins, he has sought that sound relentlessly for more than fifty years, transforming even the simplest tunes into masterpieces of wit and warmth and unassailable logic.
Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (1904-1943)
Fats Waller's talent outstripped even his girth. He was the most celebrated of all stride pianists, the first jazz musician to record on the organ, the composer of hundreds of songs and a master singer and showman who could find high comedy in the most mundane pop tunes. "Some little people have music in them, "Waller's piano mentor James P. Johnson once explained, "but Fats was all music, and you know how big he was."
-----
Jazz at Lincoln Center is a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to jazz. With the world-renowned Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra and a comprehensive array of guest artists, Jazz at Lincoln Center advances a unique vision for the continued development of the art of jazz by producing a year-round schedule of performance, education, and broadcast events for audiences of all ages. These productions include concerts, national and international tours, residencies, weekly national radio and television programs, recordings, publications, an annual high school jazz band competition and festival, a band director academy, a jazz appreciation curriculum for children, advanced training through the Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies, music publishing, children's concerts, lectures, adult education courses and student and educator workshops. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis, Chairman of the Board Lisa Schiff, President & CEO Derek E. Gordon, Executive Director Katherine E. Brown and Jazz at Lincoln Center board and staff, Jazz at Lincoln Center will produce hundreds of events during its 2005-06 season. In October 2004, Jazz at Lincoln Center opened Frederick P. Rose Hall -the first-ever performance, education, and broadcast facility devoted to jazz.
For more information, please visit www.jalc.org.
CONCORD JAZZ to release new NNENNA FREEL CD on August 23 :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily
CONCORD JAZZ to release new NNENNA FREEL CD on August 23 :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily CONCORD JAZZ to release new NNENNA FREEL CD on August 23
Posted by: eJazzNews Readeron Monday, August 08, 2005 - 07:32 PM
Jazz News GRAMMY®-Nominated Jazz Vocalist Nnenna Freelon
Pays Tribute to "Lady Day" on her 6th Concord release
Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday in stores August 23
"No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way with music, or it’s not music."
— Billie Holiday
Traditional tribute albums normally feature one artist paying tribute to another in an attempt to evoke their legendary forebear. But when Nnenna Freelon set her vocal sights on songs associated with Billie Holiday, she determined that she wanted to emulate the spirit, rather than the sound, of the great "Lady Day." Freelon’s sixth Concord Jazz release (August 23), Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday, coincides with the 90th anniversary of Holiday’s birth, yet the five-time GRAMMY® nominee presents a moving and uniquely contemporary homage - a distinctively refreshing take on the legendary jazz singer’s firmly established contributions to music.
Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday is lovingly comprised of 15 tracks, featuring boldly fresh interpretations of tunes strongly associated with Billie Holiday. Listen to "God Bless The Child," "Don’t Explain," "Them There Eyes," "Strange Fruit" (sung in a medley with a Latin-inflected "Willow Weep For Me"), or the reggae-infused version of "All of Me," and you reach the inescapable conclusion that deep admiration, not imitation, is Freelon’s inspired intention.
On Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday, Nnenna captures Holiday’s feisty spirit and independence with her selection and interpretation of signature tunes. "Billie Holiday really sang what she had to say in her own way," says Freelon. "That’s one of the things that was so impressive about her; she was a survivor, and had an absolutely brilliant, innovative concept of her own."
Nnenna Freelon embarked on her musical career after following a successful career as a health care administrator. As the mother of three and a vocal proponent of child advocacy, however, she still continues to involve herself with various educational outreach programs that support the well-being of children in areas of self-esteem, self-expression, and constructive growth. Freelon was the spokesperson for "Partners in Education," the national organization devoted to providing opportunities for leadership, growth and success for all students. She even wrote the foundation’s theme song, "One Child At A Time," which appears on her Soulcall album.
From her activism in healthcare, Freelon started "Babysong," a program in which she encourages mothers and fathers to sing or hum to their unborn or newborn children to help stimulate development and to create deeper bonds through sound communication. The vocalist has long been an advocate for AIDS prevention and will, for the third time, perform at the National Minority AIDS Conference in Houston on October 1, 2005.
Freelon and her band will tour extensively to support Concord Records’ release of Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday, including dates in New Jersey, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, and Philadelphia.
Posted by: eJazzNews Readeron Monday, August 08, 2005 - 07:32 PM
Jazz News GRAMMY®-Nominated Jazz Vocalist Nnenna Freelon
Pays Tribute to "Lady Day" on her 6th Concord release
Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday in stores August 23
"No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way with music, or it’s not music."
— Billie Holiday
Traditional tribute albums normally feature one artist paying tribute to another in an attempt to evoke their legendary forebear. But when Nnenna Freelon set her vocal sights on songs associated with Billie Holiday, she determined that she wanted to emulate the spirit, rather than the sound, of the great "Lady Day." Freelon’s sixth Concord Jazz release (August 23), Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday, coincides with the 90th anniversary of Holiday’s birth, yet the five-time GRAMMY® nominee presents a moving and uniquely contemporary homage - a distinctively refreshing take on the legendary jazz singer’s firmly established contributions to music.
Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday is lovingly comprised of 15 tracks, featuring boldly fresh interpretations of tunes strongly associated with Billie Holiday. Listen to "God Bless The Child," "Don’t Explain," "Them There Eyes," "Strange Fruit" (sung in a medley with a Latin-inflected "Willow Weep For Me"), or the reggae-infused version of "All of Me," and you reach the inescapable conclusion that deep admiration, not imitation, is Freelon’s inspired intention.
On Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday, Nnenna captures Holiday’s feisty spirit and independence with her selection and interpretation of signature tunes. "Billie Holiday really sang what she had to say in her own way," says Freelon. "That’s one of the things that was so impressive about her; she was a survivor, and had an absolutely brilliant, innovative concept of her own."
Nnenna Freelon embarked on her musical career after following a successful career as a health care administrator. As the mother of three and a vocal proponent of child advocacy, however, she still continues to involve herself with various educational outreach programs that support the well-being of children in areas of self-esteem, self-expression, and constructive growth. Freelon was the spokesperson for "Partners in Education," the national organization devoted to providing opportunities for leadership, growth and success for all students. She even wrote the foundation’s theme song, "One Child At A Time," which appears on her Soulcall album.
From her activism in healthcare, Freelon started "Babysong," a program in which she encourages mothers and fathers to sing or hum to their unborn or newborn children to help stimulate development and to create deeper bonds through sound communication. The vocalist has long been an advocate for AIDS prevention and will, for the third time, perform at the National Minority AIDS Conference in Houston on October 1, 2005.
Freelon and her band will tour extensively to support Concord Records’ release of Blueprint of a Lady – Sketches of Billie Holiday, including dates in New Jersey, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, and Philadelphia.
Taking Jazz Piano Beyond the Charted Boundaries - New York Times
Taking Jazz Piano Beyond the Charted Boundaries - New York TimesAugust 8, 2005
Taking Jazz Piano Beyond the Charted Boundaries
By BEN RATLIFF
New York is crawling with knockout jazz pianists, so why all the emphasis on Jason Moran and Brad Mehldau? It could be because they each start with jazz as home base, but play every note with one eye fixed on an outside turf not already mapped, surveyed and cataloged by jazz aesthetics. These aren't necessarily spaces with signs on them - "hip-hop" or "classical" or "Latin" or whatever. They are personal, and they grow out of improvisational gestures. Many who like jazz, but are not of it - a growing number - have responded almost intuitively.
Each musician has gone down extremely well in the network of college and institutional-arts-center gigs, where "eclectic" is the password. Central Park SummerStage has been a pioneer and leader in that concert-booking philosophy, and on Friday night, for a bill called "Pianos in the Park," it stacked up Mr. Moran, Mr. Mehldau and a third pianist, Eric Lewis, who has also been cultivating his own garden parallel to jazz.
Mr. Moran, with his trio Bandwagon, played a set half pulled from his new record, "Same Mother" (Blue Note). That album is about ("about" is the word, much more than "of") the blues, and after nearly a year of playing the music on the road, it sounds fully correct, with sharper technique and just as much stubborn personality as ever. Mr. Moran's group improvised together, rarely settling into anything resembling standard swing rhythm, but bunching up into knotty passages and then, at the cue of a piano chord, cohering into a vamp or a theme. A couple of these pieces used sustained blues form (like Mr. Moran's fast shuffle "Jump Up," and "I'll Play the Blues for You," borrowed from an old Albert King record), but Mr. Moran has also figured out ways of passing in and out of the blues, of letting it smolder in the background while his original group sound takes precedence. He played some stride piano as well in the set, and closed it with a version of Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock," which had nothing to do with hip-hop per se; the song was mulched by Mr. Moran's transformative style. That piece - and the rest of the set - proved again the neutrality of written material in the best jazz groups.
Mr. Mehldau is on to something. As you can hear on last year's album, "Live in Tokyo" (Nonesuch), when he plays solo piano he packs a song with harmonic complexity through churning rhythm. In the tradition of jazz musicians who get outside the clichés associated with their instruments, he can suggest an advanced version of guitar fingerpicking. He also has an orderly mind for moving through the strains of a song. He tends not to violate the overall structure, though he smuggles endless small improvised elements into the dense, hammering rhythmic weave.
His solo set on Friday was mostly material he had been chewing on for nearly a decade - some Monk, some Radiohead, John Coltrane's "Countdown." But through his improvisational devices, he is punching his way to new places with it.
Mr. Lewis knows his way around all sorts of jazz style and repertory, having played with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and in jam sessions in New York for a decade. Now he wants to make an impression. In the evening's opening set he played some high-technique percussive solo piano, a trio version of Wayne Shorter's "Pinocchio," and an original vamp tune with the trio plus the guitarist Ron Affif that stretched out to nearly a half-hour. It was simple, amiable groove music, and when it got into higher gear, bubbles shot out from the rear of the stage. At the end of his set, Mr. Lewis thanked his manager, his trainer, a sponsor, his friends, enemies and God, and slowly, meaningfully, ambled offstage.
Taking Jazz Piano Beyond the Charted Boundaries
By BEN RATLIFF
New York is crawling with knockout jazz pianists, so why all the emphasis on Jason Moran and Brad Mehldau? It could be because they each start with jazz as home base, but play every note with one eye fixed on an outside turf not already mapped, surveyed and cataloged by jazz aesthetics. These aren't necessarily spaces with signs on them - "hip-hop" or "classical" or "Latin" or whatever. They are personal, and they grow out of improvisational gestures. Many who like jazz, but are not of it - a growing number - have responded almost intuitively.
Each musician has gone down extremely well in the network of college and institutional-arts-center gigs, where "eclectic" is the password. Central Park SummerStage has been a pioneer and leader in that concert-booking philosophy, and on Friday night, for a bill called "Pianos in the Park," it stacked up Mr. Moran, Mr. Mehldau and a third pianist, Eric Lewis, who has also been cultivating his own garden parallel to jazz.
Mr. Moran, with his trio Bandwagon, played a set half pulled from his new record, "Same Mother" (Blue Note). That album is about ("about" is the word, much more than "of") the blues, and after nearly a year of playing the music on the road, it sounds fully correct, with sharper technique and just as much stubborn personality as ever. Mr. Moran's group improvised together, rarely settling into anything resembling standard swing rhythm, but bunching up into knotty passages and then, at the cue of a piano chord, cohering into a vamp or a theme. A couple of these pieces used sustained blues form (like Mr. Moran's fast shuffle "Jump Up," and "I'll Play the Blues for You," borrowed from an old Albert King record), but Mr. Moran has also figured out ways of passing in and out of the blues, of letting it smolder in the background while his original group sound takes precedence. He played some stride piano as well in the set, and closed it with a version of Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock," which had nothing to do with hip-hop per se; the song was mulched by Mr. Moran's transformative style. That piece - and the rest of the set - proved again the neutrality of written material in the best jazz groups.
Mr. Mehldau is on to something. As you can hear on last year's album, "Live in Tokyo" (Nonesuch), when he plays solo piano he packs a song with harmonic complexity through churning rhythm. In the tradition of jazz musicians who get outside the clichés associated with their instruments, he can suggest an advanced version of guitar fingerpicking. He also has an orderly mind for moving through the strains of a song. He tends not to violate the overall structure, though he smuggles endless small improvised elements into the dense, hammering rhythmic weave.
His solo set on Friday was mostly material he had been chewing on for nearly a decade - some Monk, some Radiohead, John Coltrane's "Countdown." But through his improvisational devices, he is punching his way to new places with it.
Mr. Lewis knows his way around all sorts of jazz style and repertory, having played with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and in jam sessions in New York for a decade. Now he wants to make an impression. In the evening's opening set he played some high-technique percussive solo piano, a trio version of Wayne Shorter's "Pinocchio," and an original vamp tune with the trio plus the guitarist Ron Affif that stretched out to nearly a half-hour. It was simple, amiable groove music, and when it got into higher gear, bubbles shot out from the rear of the stage. At the end of his set, Mr. Lewis thanked his manager, his trainer, a sponsor, his friends, enemies and God, and slowly, meaningfully, ambled offstage.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
projo.com | Subterranean Homepage News
projo.com | Subterranean Homepage NewsBuena Vista Social Club's Ibrahim Ferrar dies at 78
ferrer.jpgThe Cuban musician Ibrahim Ferrar, whom American guitarist Ry Cooder thrust to fame late in life for the Wim Wenders film Buena Vista Social Club, died yesterday in a hospital in Havana. His manager said he returned ill from a European tour Wednesday, checked into a hospital and died of multiple organ failure. He had a history of emphysema.
The July 10 AP photo above shows a diminished Ferrar on stage at the 39th Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland. He might better be remembered by these photos at Google.
When notables die on a weekend, most sites acknowledge it with a wire-service obit, with staff-written appreciations to come early in the week. Chicago Sun-Times wrote its own obit.
ferrer.jpgThe Cuban musician Ibrahim Ferrar, whom American guitarist Ry Cooder thrust to fame late in life for the Wim Wenders film Buena Vista Social Club, died yesterday in a hospital in Havana. His manager said he returned ill from a European tour Wednesday, checked into a hospital and died of multiple organ failure. He had a history of emphysema.
The July 10 AP photo above shows a diminished Ferrar on stage at the 39th Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland. He might better be remembered by these photos at Google.
When notables die on a weekend, most sites acknowledge it with a wire-service obit, with staff-written appreciations to come early in the week. Chicago Sun-Times wrote its own obit.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Winston-Salem Journal | Tortured Soul: Monk details journey of lonely jazz musician
Winston-Salem Journal | Tortured Soul: Monk details journey of lonely jazz musician
Tortured Soul: Monk details journey of lonely jazz musician
By Michael Hewlett
JOURNAL REPORTER
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Thelonious Monk found both joy and sorrow in the jazz he played, forever chasing the fame he saw other musicians attain, but also struggling to never compromise his artistic vision.
He flitted from genius to madness to genius again, all the while creating music that people still find mesmerizing.
Equally mesmerizing is the one-man performance, Monk, that opened last night at the Ring Theatre on Wake Forest University's campus as part of the National Black Theatre Festival.
In the title role is Rome Neal. He also directed the play with Laurence Holder, who wrote the piece. Bill Lee, who has for years scored the movies of his son, Spike Lee, provides the recorded music.
Neal gives a poignant portrayal of a man blessed with incredible talent, but cursed with a stubborn streak of individualism, a combination that sometimes alienated him from other jazz musicians and even himself.
Monk was a man burdened by an almost crushing self-doubt and an immense need for others to recognize his contributions to jazz.
Shifting easily from raucous humor to bone-chilling pathos, Neal takes the audience on both the personal and professional journey of Monk - the conflicts with fellow jazz musicians such as Miles Davis; his love for wife, Nellie; his devotion to his mother, who always told him to stand straight; and his never-ending battle to find his place in the world of jazz.
Neal shows the life of an artist, an often lonely one, filled with periods of pain and bliss. It is a performance whose music is as beautiful as Monk's.
• Monk will be presented at 3 and 8 p.m. today and Thursday at the Ring Theatre in the Scales Fine Arts Center at Wake Forest University. The production contains adult situations and profanity. Admission is $35. For tickets or more information, see www.nbtf.org or call 723-7907.
• Michael Hewlett can be reached at 727-7326 or at mhewlett@wsjournal.com
Tortured Soul: Monk details journey of lonely jazz musician
By Michael Hewlett
JOURNAL REPORTER
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Thelonious Monk found both joy and sorrow in the jazz he played, forever chasing the fame he saw other musicians attain, but also struggling to never compromise his artistic vision.
He flitted from genius to madness to genius again, all the while creating music that people still find mesmerizing.
Equally mesmerizing is the one-man performance, Monk, that opened last night at the Ring Theatre on Wake Forest University's campus as part of the National Black Theatre Festival.
In the title role is Rome Neal. He also directed the play with Laurence Holder, who wrote the piece. Bill Lee, who has for years scored the movies of his son, Spike Lee, provides the recorded music.
Neal gives a poignant portrayal of a man blessed with incredible talent, but cursed with a stubborn streak of individualism, a combination that sometimes alienated him from other jazz musicians and even himself.
Monk was a man burdened by an almost crushing self-doubt and an immense need for others to recognize his contributions to jazz.
Shifting easily from raucous humor to bone-chilling pathos, Neal takes the audience on both the personal and professional journey of Monk - the conflicts with fellow jazz musicians such as Miles Davis; his love for wife, Nellie; his devotion to his mother, who always told him to stand straight; and his never-ending battle to find his place in the world of jazz.
Neal shows the life of an artist, an often lonely one, filled with periods of pain and bliss. It is a performance whose music is as beautiful as Monk's.
• Monk will be presented at 3 and 8 p.m. today and Thursday at the Ring Theatre in the Scales Fine Arts Center at Wake Forest University. The production contains adult situations and profanity. Admission is $35. For tickets or more information, see www.nbtf.org or call 723-7907.
• Michael Hewlett can be reached at 727-7326 or at mhewlett@wsjournal.com
Lucky Thompson, Jazz Saxophonist, Is Dead at 81 :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily
Lucky Thompson, Jazz Saxophonist, Is Dead at 81 :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily Obituaries: Lucky Thompson, Jazz Saxophonist, Is Dead at 81
Posted by: editoron Friday, August 05, 2005 - 09:02 PM
Jazz News Lucky Thompson, a legendary tenor and soprano saxophonist who took his place among the elite improvisers of jazz from the 1940's to the 1960's and then quit music, roamed the country and ended up homeless or hospitalized for more than a decade, died on Saturday in Seattle. He was 81.
His death was confirmed by his son, Daryl Thompson; the cause was not announced. Mr. Thompson was living in an assisted-care facility at the Washington Center for Comprehensive Rehabilitation in Seattle.
Mr. Thompson connected the swing era to the more cerebral and complex bebop style. His sophisticated, harmonically abstract approach to the tenor saxophone built off that of Don Byas and Coleman Hawkins; he played with beboppers, but resisted Charlie Parker's pervasive influence. He also played the soprano saxophone authoritatively.
“Lucky had that same thing that Paul Gonsalves had, that melodic smoothness,” one of his contemporaries, the saxophonist Johnny Griffin, said in an interview. “He wasn't rough like Ben Webster, and he didn't play in the Lester Young style. He was a beautiful balladeer. But he played with all the modernists.”
Mr. Thompson was born Eli Thompson in Columbia, S.C., on June 16, 1924, and moved to Detroit with his family as a child. After graduating from high school in 1942, he played with Erskine Hawkins's band, then called the 'Bama State Collegians; the next year he moved to New York as a member of Lionel Hampton's big band.
After six months with Hampton, while still very young, he swiftly ascended the ranks of hip. He played in Billy Eckstine's short-lived big band, one of the first to play bebop, which also included Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. He joined the Count Basie Orchestra in 1944.
In 1945 he left Basie in Los Angeles, and in 1945 and 1946 he played on, and probably created arrangements for, record dates for the Exclusive label, including those by the black cowboy star and former Ellington singer Herb Jeffries. When the Charlie Parker-Dizzy Gillespie sextet came through Los Angeles, Mr. Thompson was hired by Gillespie as a temporary replacement for Parker. Mr. Thompson was also on one of Parker's most celebrated recording sessions, for Dial Records on March 28, 1946.
Fiercely intelligent, Mr. Thompson was outspoken in his feelings about what he considered the unfair control of the jazz business by record companies, music publishers and booking agents. Partly for these reasons, he left the United States to live in Paris from 1957 to 1962, making a number of recordings with groups including the pianist Martial Solal. After returning to New York for a few years, he lived in Lausanne, Switzerland, from late 1968 to 1970. He came back to New York again, taught at Dartmouth in 1973 and 1974, then disappeared from the Northeast, and soon from music entirely.
Friends say he lived for a time on Manitoulin Island in Ontario and in Georgia before eventually moving west. By the early 90's he was in Seattle, mostly living in the woods or in shelter offered by friends. He did not own a saxophone. He walked long distances, and was reported to have been in excellent, muscular shape.
He was hospitalized a number of times in 1994, and finally entered the Washington Center for Comprehensive Rehabilitation.
His skepticism about the jazz business may have kept him from a career recording as a bandleader - “Tricotism,” from 1956, and “Lucky Strikes,” from 1964, are among the few albums he made under his own name - but he left behind a pile of imposing performances as a sideman. Among them are recordings with Dinah Washington in 1945, Thelonious Monk in 1952, Miles Davis in 1954 (the “Walkin' “ session, a watershed in Davis's career), and Oscar Pettiford and Stan Kenton in 1956. His final recordings were made in 1973.
In addition to his son, Daryl, of Stone Mountain, Ga., Mr. Thompson is survived by a daughter, Jade Thompson-Fredericks of New Jersey; and two grandchildren.
Part of Mr. Thompson's legend came from the fact that he was rarely seen in public; at times it was hard for his old friends to find him. But the drummer Kenny Washington remembered Mr. Thompson's showing up when Mr. Washington was performing with Johnny Griffin's group at Jazz Alley in Seattle in 1993. Mr. Thompson listened, conversed with the musicians, and then departed on foot for the place where he was staying - in a wooded spot in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, more than three miles away.
Posted by: editoron Friday, August 05, 2005 - 09:02 PM
Jazz News Lucky Thompson, a legendary tenor and soprano saxophonist who took his place among the elite improvisers of jazz from the 1940's to the 1960's and then quit music, roamed the country and ended up homeless or hospitalized for more than a decade, died on Saturday in Seattle. He was 81.
His death was confirmed by his son, Daryl Thompson; the cause was not announced. Mr. Thompson was living in an assisted-care facility at the Washington Center for Comprehensive Rehabilitation in Seattle.
Mr. Thompson connected the swing era to the more cerebral and complex bebop style. His sophisticated, harmonically abstract approach to the tenor saxophone built off that of Don Byas and Coleman Hawkins; he played with beboppers, but resisted Charlie Parker's pervasive influence. He also played the soprano saxophone authoritatively.
“Lucky had that same thing that Paul Gonsalves had, that melodic smoothness,” one of his contemporaries, the saxophonist Johnny Griffin, said in an interview. “He wasn't rough like Ben Webster, and he didn't play in the Lester Young style. He was a beautiful balladeer. But he played with all the modernists.”
Mr. Thompson was born Eli Thompson in Columbia, S.C., on June 16, 1924, and moved to Detroit with his family as a child. After graduating from high school in 1942, he played with Erskine Hawkins's band, then called the 'Bama State Collegians; the next year he moved to New York as a member of Lionel Hampton's big band.
After six months with Hampton, while still very young, he swiftly ascended the ranks of hip. He played in Billy Eckstine's short-lived big band, one of the first to play bebop, which also included Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. He joined the Count Basie Orchestra in 1944.
In 1945 he left Basie in Los Angeles, and in 1945 and 1946 he played on, and probably created arrangements for, record dates for the Exclusive label, including those by the black cowboy star and former Ellington singer Herb Jeffries. When the Charlie Parker-Dizzy Gillespie sextet came through Los Angeles, Mr. Thompson was hired by Gillespie as a temporary replacement for Parker. Mr. Thompson was also on one of Parker's most celebrated recording sessions, for Dial Records on March 28, 1946.
Fiercely intelligent, Mr. Thompson was outspoken in his feelings about what he considered the unfair control of the jazz business by record companies, music publishers and booking agents. Partly for these reasons, he left the United States to live in Paris from 1957 to 1962, making a number of recordings with groups including the pianist Martial Solal. After returning to New York for a few years, he lived in Lausanne, Switzerland, from late 1968 to 1970. He came back to New York again, taught at Dartmouth in 1973 and 1974, then disappeared from the Northeast, and soon from music entirely.
Friends say he lived for a time on Manitoulin Island in Ontario and in Georgia before eventually moving west. By the early 90's he was in Seattle, mostly living in the woods or in shelter offered by friends. He did not own a saxophone. He walked long distances, and was reported to have been in excellent, muscular shape.
He was hospitalized a number of times in 1994, and finally entered the Washington Center for Comprehensive Rehabilitation.
His skepticism about the jazz business may have kept him from a career recording as a bandleader - “Tricotism,” from 1956, and “Lucky Strikes,” from 1964, are among the few albums he made under his own name - but he left behind a pile of imposing performances as a sideman. Among them are recordings with Dinah Washington in 1945, Thelonious Monk in 1952, Miles Davis in 1954 (the “Walkin' “ session, a watershed in Davis's career), and Oscar Pettiford and Stan Kenton in 1956. His final recordings were made in 1973.
In addition to his son, Daryl, of Stone Mountain, Ga., Mr. Thompson is survived by a daughter, Jade Thompson-Fredericks of New Jersey; and two grandchildren.
Part of Mr. Thompson's legend came from the fact that he was rarely seen in public; at times it was hard for his old friends to find him. But the drummer Kenny Washington remembered Mr. Thompson's showing up when Mr. Washington was performing with Johnny Griffin's group at Jazz Alley in Seattle in 1993. Mr. Thompson listened, conversed with the musicians, and then departed on foot for the place where he was staying - in a wooded spot in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, more than three miles away.
Friday, August 05, 2005
Dismissal of musician's lawsuit upheld
Dismissal of musician's lawsuit upheldDismissal of musician's lawsuit upheld
By MATT WICKENHEISER, Portland Press Herald Writer
A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a Yarmouth jazz musician's lawsuit against a Japanese girls' clothing company that he claimed stole his name.
Grammy-winning artist Cecil McBee's attorney said the musician was considering his options, including an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a Tuesday filing, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit agreed with the finding made last fall by U.S. District Court Judge Gene Carter that the U.S. courts had no jurisdiction over the case under federal law.
"The Court of Appeals adopted an easily applied standard for future abusers (including Delica, our opponent in this case) to enable U.S. Courts to step in where a foreign company's actions have an impact in the United States. We think that is a victory for U.S. consumers and intellectual property owners, and believe the standard supports liability against Delica for their past actions," said PretiFlaherty attorney Alfred C. Frawley III in a written statement.
"Unfortunately, the Court of Appeals disagreed that the past actions of Delica had met that standard. Mr. McBee is contemplating his future options, including seeking a review by the U.S. Supreme Court of his case."
Todd Holbrook, a local attorney who represents the Japanese company Delica Inc., which owns the Cecil McBee chain of stores, said he thought the case had a "slightly higher chance than the run-of-the-mill case" to attract the Supreme Court's attention, but that the end determination regarding jurisdiction would still be the same.
"I think it's the right decision," said Holbrook, of the Portland law firm Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer and Nelson. "Just flip this around. How would people think about it if a Japanese citizen in Japan were to try to take action against, say, Central Maine Power Co. for doing something entirely in Maine? I think most people would find that's something unreasonable . . . "
McBee is a jazz musician who has performed for four decades, playing with musicians including Benny Goodman, Miles Davis, Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner. He's toured the globe many times over, to venues including the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, the Berlin Jazz Festival and the Antwerp Jazz Festival. He received a Grammy award in 1989 for his contribution to "Blues for John Coltrane."
Cecil McBee, the store chain, first appeared in 1984, according to court documents. The chain today is one of the hottest in Japan, comparable to The Gap in the United States.
The stores sell a variety of goods, from Cecil McBee wines to doggie sweaters, but the primary line is sassy-styled clothes for teen and preteen girls.
Delica Inc. suggests in court documents that it didn't steal the name from the musician, but rather chose the name for its pleasant sound, and the situation is nothing but a coincidence.
The musician had fought the company for about nine years in the Japanese court system, and in 2002, he filed the initial complaint in the American court system with PretiFlaherty. The law firm first had to prove the U.S. District Court in Maine had jurisdiction. That was difficult because Cecil McBee didn't have any stores or members of its board of directors here. Researchers working on the case, however, were able to use the company's Internet Web sites to track down contact information and order more than $3,000 in goods from 16 Cecil McBee stores.
A magistrate judge decided that the court had jurisdiction over the case, and the case proceeded in summer 2003. That decision was reversed last fall by Carter, and that judge's ruling was upheld Tuesday by the Court of Appeals.
Staff Writer Matt Wickenheiser can be contacted at 791-6316 or at:
By MATT WICKENHEISER, Portland Press Herald Writer
A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a Yarmouth jazz musician's lawsuit against a Japanese girls' clothing company that he claimed stole his name.
Grammy-winning artist Cecil McBee's attorney said the musician was considering his options, including an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a Tuesday filing, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit agreed with the finding made last fall by U.S. District Court Judge Gene Carter that the U.S. courts had no jurisdiction over the case under federal law.
"The Court of Appeals adopted an easily applied standard for future abusers (including Delica, our opponent in this case) to enable U.S. Courts to step in where a foreign company's actions have an impact in the United States. We think that is a victory for U.S. consumers and intellectual property owners, and believe the standard supports liability against Delica for their past actions," said PretiFlaherty attorney Alfred C. Frawley III in a written statement.
"Unfortunately, the Court of Appeals disagreed that the past actions of Delica had met that standard. Mr. McBee is contemplating his future options, including seeking a review by the U.S. Supreme Court of his case."
Todd Holbrook, a local attorney who represents the Japanese company Delica Inc., which owns the Cecil McBee chain of stores, said he thought the case had a "slightly higher chance than the run-of-the-mill case" to attract the Supreme Court's attention, but that the end determination regarding jurisdiction would still be the same.
"I think it's the right decision," said Holbrook, of the Portland law firm Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer and Nelson. "Just flip this around. How would people think about it if a Japanese citizen in Japan were to try to take action against, say, Central Maine Power Co. for doing something entirely in Maine? I think most people would find that's something unreasonable . . . "
McBee is a jazz musician who has performed for four decades, playing with musicians including Benny Goodman, Miles Davis, Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner. He's toured the globe many times over, to venues including the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, the Berlin Jazz Festival and the Antwerp Jazz Festival. He received a Grammy award in 1989 for his contribution to "Blues for John Coltrane."
Cecil McBee, the store chain, first appeared in 1984, according to court documents. The chain today is one of the hottest in Japan, comparable to The Gap in the United States.
The stores sell a variety of goods, from Cecil McBee wines to doggie sweaters, but the primary line is sassy-styled clothes for teen and preteen girls.
Delica Inc. suggests in court documents that it didn't steal the name from the musician, but rather chose the name for its pleasant sound, and the situation is nothing but a coincidence.
The musician had fought the company for about nine years in the Japanese court system, and in 2002, he filed the initial complaint in the American court system with PretiFlaherty. The law firm first had to prove the U.S. District Court in Maine had jurisdiction. That was difficult because Cecil McBee didn't have any stores or members of its board of directors here. Researchers working on the case, however, were able to use the company's Internet Web sites to track down contact information and order more than $3,000 in goods from 16 Cecil McBee stores.
A magistrate judge decided that the court had jurisdiction over the case, and the case proceeded in summer 2003. That decision was reversed last fall by Carter, and that judge's ruling was upheld Tuesday by the Court of Appeals.
Staff Writer Matt Wickenheiser can be contacted at 791-6316 or at:
Phil Woods DVD gets 2005 Videographer Award of Excellence :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily
Phil Woods DVD gets 2005 Videographer Award of Excellence :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily Phil Woods DVD gets 2005 Videographer Award of Excellence
Posted by: editoron Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 08:38 PM
Jazz News The Phil Woods DVD documentary “A Life In E Flat”, produced by Jazzed Media, has received the prestigious 2005 Videographer Award of Excellence in the Video Production/Documentary category. The Videographer Award of Excellence honors independent film and video projects that judges deemed were written, produced, and shot and edited in an exceptional manner. The Videographer Awards is an international awards organization that helps set the standards for the video production industry.
Jazzed Media is based in the Denver metropolitian area, and produces jazz music CD's and jazz documentaries. Artists on the Jazzed Media label include Phil Woods, Bill Holman, Don Menza, Bill Charlap, Brian Lynch, Carl Saunders, Phil Urso, Bobby Shew, Christian Jacob, Denise Donatelli, Clay Jenkins, and Tom Garvin. The Phil Woods DVD documentary “A Life In E Flat” is available for sale at www.JazzedMedia.com
Posted by: editoron Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 08:38 PM
Jazz News The Phil Woods DVD documentary “A Life In E Flat”, produced by Jazzed Media, has received the prestigious 2005 Videographer Award of Excellence in the Video Production/Documentary category. The Videographer Award of Excellence honors independent film and video projects that judges deemed were written, produced, and shot and edited in an exceptional manner. The Videographer Awards is an international awards organization that helps set the standards for the video production industry.
Jazzed Media is based in the Denver metropolitian area, and produces jazz music CD's and jazz documentaries. Artists on the Jazzed Media label include Phil Woods, Bill Holman, Don Menza, Bill Charlap, Brian Lynch, Carl Saunders, Phil Urso, Bobby Shew, Christian Jacob, Denise Donatelli, Clay Jenkins, and Tom Garvin. The Phil Woods DVD documentary “A Life In E Flat” is available for sale at www.JazzedMedia.com
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