Shirley Horn :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily Shirley Horn
Posted by: Adminon Monday, August 15, 2005 - 05:18 PM
Jazz News Shirley Horn is such a mega-force in the 21'st century. She is my inspiration as to how a song (particularly a ballad) is sung within the jazz/pop idiom. I'm saddened to hear she is gravely Ill. I have fond memories of her coming into ''Twins'' (Wash. DC where Shirley hails from) when I was doing a road gig with my jazz trio. Shirley & her entourage came in the club & stayed during my performance. I was able to tell her that she was a mentor to me artistically. It meant a lot to me too, when she said how much she was enjoying what I was doing both vocally & pianistically that evening. Shirley treated me with such warmth, & I'll never forget it. On an artistic scale, I think she's the most pivotal jazz singer of this age. Her collaborations with the great jazz arranger, Johnny Mandel are a true study in jazz orchestration and vocalise. Shirley......Get well soon.....Please!
George W. Carroll/The Musicians' Ombudsdman
Monday, August 15, 2005
Financial Express
Financial Express Wayne, still well and truly waxing
Mike Hobart
8/16/2005
Genius, especially in jazz, is often presented as an affliction leading inexorably to drug abuse, dysfunctionality and early death. Add to the stereotype a large dose of eccentricity and you have all the makings of a jazz legend.
FOOTPRINTS:
The Life and Music
of Wayne Shorter
by Michelle Mercer
Tarcher $24.95, 320 pages
Saxophonist Wayne Shorter confounds the mythology -- partly. For a start, not only is he still alive, he has worked as an innovative jazz musician for 50 years, a living link from Charlie Parker to digital electronics. In the course of those decades, he has been called a genius for his radical reworkings of jazz harmony and composition.
Miles Davis clearly saw him as a torchbearer when, shortly before he died, he pulled Shorter to one side and whispered, "You know, you need to be more exposed." Shorter, known as "Weird Wayne" as a teenager and as an inhabitant of "planet Wayne" for much of his working life, does score highly in the weirdness stakes, although this is due to his verbal eccentricities rather than his behaviour.
Shorter was born in 1933 in the racially mixed working-class New York suburb of Newark, New Jersey. His father was a welder; his mother worked for a furrier and supplemented the family income with tailoring jobs. Michelle Mercer sketches a picture of a secure, respectable working-class family that valued discussion; remarkable, perhaps, only for the single-minded way in which Shorter's mother insisted her two sons should give full rein to their creativity: "Playtime wasn't just amusement, it was a time for creative industry."
Shorter was not initially drawn to music, and, for a jazz musician, started at the relatively late age of 15 when his mother bought him his first instrument. His original creative outlet was painting; his obsession comics and movies. At 12 he entered Newark's Arts High School, where he decided to become an artist. Influenced by the 1948 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger film The Red Shoes, he set about working out what being an artist meant in terms of creativity, personal relationships and language. At the last count he had seen that film 90 times.
Movies were always to influence his music. As a child, he developed the habit of remembering entire film scores and relating them to characters and scenes in the movie. Later, his orchestral approach to improvisation, his ability to fit a single line into a dense textural background, to "hear" music visually, became central.
Shorter's introduction to jazz came through the radio. One night the announcer on his father's favourite programme, Make-Believe Ballroom, cautiously announced: "We're going to play a new kind of music. We hope you like it. They call this music ... bebop." The young Shorter was "mesmerised", and, once aware of this now music, found it everywhere: "the ne'er-do-wells ... would be standing on street corners talking hip stuff, acting like an information kiosk, asking 'Have you heard Charles Christopher Parker?"'.
Once hooked, Shorter started to cut classes to visit lunch time gigs in New York. He listened avidly to the radio and practised furiously by copying from records the advanced arrangements of Charlie Parker and pianist Lennie Tristano. School bands, private lessons, sensitive teachers and supportive parents all encouraged him
He became a self-confessed "bop fiend". In 1952 he started a double major in art and music, supporting his studies with commercial gigs. His real musical education was the thriving jazz nightclub scene. Musicians played long hours for little money, their skills sharpened during highly competitive jamming. He became known as "The Newark Flash", meeting key figures such as saxophonist John Coltrane, who recommended him to Miles Davis, and keyboardist Joe Zawinul.
As Mercer's intelligent and revealing book makes clear, the nightclubs confirmed Shorter's view that jazz, as an art form, has a higher purpose. She explores Shorter's belief that jazz's collectivity and spontaneity should lift people's awareness of the social world around them. In 1972 he was introduced to Buddhism by Herbie Hancock, who was drawn to the religion's melding of spiritual awareness and social conscience.
Shorter's musical career between 1958 and 1970 was dominated by his contract with Blue Note Records and the bandleaders Art Blakey and Davis. His compositions started to capture specific events and to act as springboards for collective improvisation. Mercer is particularly good at uncovering the relationship between the two. She shows how technicalities are subordinated to provoke a response in the listener, with the result that Shorter's compositions appear to make perfect sense - yet musically they break all the rules.
A seemingly trite work often carries grander themes. For example, his composition "The Three Marias" is a playful yet resilient melody and was named after three women who were arrested in Portugal for writing "obscene literature". The only thing they had in common was that they were all called Maria.
Shorter's musical instructions are rarely purely technical, and can also include references to scenes from Superman movies and childhood comics. One bemused pianist was instructed to "put more water in the chords".
Mercer also explains how sensitive Shorter was to a group's collective psyche. Spontaneity and improvisation were key and when he left Miles Davis in 1970 he tried the same approach with Zawinul when they cofounded the jazz-rock group Weather Report.
Only when the group disbanded in 1984 did Shorter become a bandleader in his own right. Jazz was then in a depressed state and his music became more composed and less improvised. The dense harmonies and layers of electronic sound of these recordings paint a dark picture.
At one point Shorter asked Mercer: "Are you still looking for a conflict in my story? 'Cause if you are, I think it's art versus commerce." It is his commitment to his art that makes this biography so fascinating. It clarifies Shorter's creative process and shows how quite ordinary cultural material can be the source of extraordinary art. And though Shorter's life includes tragedy -- his infant daughter left severely disabled by a vaccination, his father killed in a car accident and his wife in a plane crash - these events are presented neither as cause nor backdrop.
Shorter's story so far ends on an up beat. His current acoustic quartet has all the technical flair, spontaneity and collective purpose of the great bands of the 1960s. Its first live recording was universally well received, and its latest release, Beyond the Sound Barrier, is every bit its equal.
Mike Hobart
8/16/2005
Genius, especially in jazz, is often presented as an affliction leading inexorably to drug abuse, dysfunctionality and early death. Add to the stereotype a large dose of eccentricity and you have all the makings of a jazz legend.
FOOTPRINTS:
The Life and Music
of Wayne Shorter
by Michelle Mercer
Tarcher $24.95, 320 pages
Saxophonist Wayne Shorter confounds the mythology -- partly. For a start, not only is he still alive, he has worked as an innovative jazz musician for 50 years, a living link from Charlie Parker to digital electronics. In the course of those decades, he has been called a genius for his radical reworkings of jazz harmony and composition.
Miles Davis clearly saw him as a torchbearer when, shortly before he died, he pulled Shorter to one side and whispered, "You know, you need to be more exposed." Shorter, known as "Weird Wayne" as a teenager and as an inhabitant of "planet Wayne" for much of his working life, does score highly in the weirdness stakes, although this is due to his verbal eccentricities rather than his behaviour.
Shorter was born in 1933 in the racially mixed working-class New York suburb of Newark, New Jersey. His father was a welder; his mother worked for a furrier and supplemented the family income with tailoring jobs. Michelle Mercer sketches a picture of a secure, respectable working-class family that valued discussion; remarkable, perhaps, only for the single-minded way in which Shorter's mother insisted her two sons should give full rein to their creativity: "Playtime wasn't just amusement, it was a time for creative industry."
Shorter was not initially drawn to music, and, for a jazz musician, started at the relatively late age of 15 when his mother bought him his first instrument. His original creative outlet was painting; his obsession comics and movies. At 12 he entered Newark's Arts High School, where he decided to become an artist. Influenced by the 1948 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger film The Red Shoes, he set about working out what being an artist meant in terms of creativity, personal relationships and language. At the last count he had seen that film 90 times.
Movies were always to influence his music. As a child, he developed the habit of remembering entire film scores and relating them to characters and scenes in the movie. Later, his orchestral approach to improvisation, his ability to fit a single line into a dense textural background, to "hear" music visually, became central.
Shorter's introduction to jazz came through the radio. One night the announcer on his father's favourite programme, Make-Believe Ballroom, cautiously announced: "We're going to play a new kind of music. We hope you like it. They call this music ... bebop." The young Shorter was "mesmerised", and, once aware of this now music, found it everywhere: "the ne'er-do-wells ... would be standing on street corners talking hip stuff, acting like an information kiosk, asking 'Have you heard Charles Christopher Parker?"'.
Once hooked, Shorter started to cut classes to visit lunch time gigs in New York. He listened avidly to the radio and practised furiously by copying from records the advanced arrangements of Charlie Parker and pianist Lennie Tristano. School bands, private lessons, sensitive teachers and supportive parents all encouraged him
He became a self-confessed "bop fiend". In 1952 he started a double major in art and music, supporting his studies with commercial gigs. His real musical education was the thriving jazz nightclub scene. Musicians played long hours for little money, their skills sharpened during highly competitive jamming. He became known as "The Newark Flash", meeting key figures such as saxophonist John Coltrane, who recommended him to Miles Davis, and keyboardist Joe Zawinul.
As Mercer's intelligent and revealing book makes clear, the nightclubs confirmed Shorter's view that jazz, as an art form, has a higher purpose. She explores Shorter's belief that jazz's collectivity and spontaneity should lift people's awareness of the social world around them. In 1972 he was introduced to Buddhism by Herbie Hancock, who was drawn to the religion's melding of spiritual awareness and social conscience.
Shorter's musical career between 1958 and 1970 was dominated by his contract with Blue Note Records and the bandleaders Art Blakey and Davis. His compositions started to capture specific events and to act as springboards for collective improvisation. Mercer is particularly good at uncovering the relationship between the two. She shows how technicalities are subordinated to provoke a response in the listener, with the result that Shorter's compositions appear to make perfect sense - yet musically they break all the rules.
A seemingly trite work often carries grander themes. For example, his composition "The Three Marias" is a playful yet resilient melody and was named after three women who were arrested in Portugal for writing "obscene literature". The only thing they had in common was that they were all called Maria.
Shorter's musical instructions are rarely purely technical, and can also include references to scenes from Superman movies and childhood comics. One bemused pianist was instructed to "put more water in the chords".
Mercer also explains how sensitive Shorter was to a group's collective psyche. Spontaneity and improvisation were key and when he left Miles Davis in 1970 he tried the same approach with Zawinul when they cofounded the jazz-rock group Weather Report.
Only when the group disbanded in 1984 did Shorter become a bandleader in his own right. Jazz was then in a depressed state and his music became more composed and less improvised. The dense harmonies and layers of electronic sound of these recordings paint a dark picture.
At one point Shorter asked Mercer: "Are you still looking for a conflict in my story? 'Cause if you are, I think it's art versus commerce." It is his commitment to his art that makes this biography so fascinating. It clarifies Shorter's creative process and shows how quite ordinary cultural material can be the source of extraordinary art. And though Shorter's life includes tragedy -- his infant daughter left severely disabled by a vaccination, his father killed in a car accident and his wife in a plane crash - these events are presented neither as cause nor backdrop.
Shorter's story so far ends on an up beat. His current acoustic quartet has all the technical flair, spontaneity and collective purpose of the great bands of the 1960s. Its first live recording was universally well received, and its latest release, Beyond the Sound Barrier, is every bit its equal.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Home News Tribune | Rutgers graduate's jazz quintet to play at Highland Park festival
Home News Tribune | Rutgers graduate's jazz quintet to play at Highland Park festivalRutgers graduate's jazz quintet to play at Highland Park festival
Home News Tribune Online 08/14/05
- advertisements -
STAFF REPORT
HIGHLAND PARK — The John Farnsworth Quintet will perform Sept. 25 as part of Art in the Park — the 2005 Highland Park Arts Festival.
The festival will be held 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. along Raritan Avenue, rain or shine.
John Farnsworth is a freelance musician in New York City performing on both the tenor saxophone and trombone.
He performs every Monday evening at Smoke, a jazz club in New York, with his quintet featuring a different horn soloist every week. The regulars in the rhythm section are his brother Joe Farnsworth on drums, Mike LeDonne or Harold Mabern on piano, and John Webber or Gerald Cannon on bass.
Farnsworth received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University and his graduate degree from the University of Massachusetts. He previously worked in the big bands of Glenn Miller, Illinois Jacquet, Frank Foster, Artie Shaw, Archie Shepp and Charles Mingus.
Art in the Park features a juried fine-arts and crafts show with artists in various media. The free event will also feature an art expo with promotional booths of local arts-related businesses and organizations. There will also be children's activities such as face painting, working in clay, sand art and other interactive fun.
The event is sponsored by Main Street Highland Park, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion and revitalization of Highland Park's downtown business district.
Home News Tribune Online 08/14/05
- advertisements -
STAFF REPORT
HIGHLAND PARK — The John Farnsworth Quintet will perform Sept. 25 as part of Art in the Park — the 2005 Highland Park Arts Festival.
The festival will be held 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. along Raritan Avenue, rain or shine.
John Farnsworth is a freelance musician in New York City performing on both the tenor saxophone and trombone.
He performs every Monday evening at Smoke, a jazz club in New York, with his quintet featuring a different horn soloist every week. The regulars in the rhythm section are his brother Joe Farnsworth on drums, Mike LeDonne or Harold Mabern on piano, and John Webber or Gerald Cannon on bass.
Farnsworth received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University and his graduate degree from the University of Massachusetts. He previously worked in the big bands of Glenn Miller, Illinois Jacquet, Frank Foster, Artie Shaw, Archie Shepp and Charles Mingus.
Art in the Park features a juried fine-arts and crafts show with artists in various media. The free event will also feature an art expo with promotional booths of local arts-related businesses and organizations. There will also be children's activities such as face painting, working in clay, sand art and other interactive fun.
The event is sponsored by Main Street Highland Park, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion and revitalization of Highland Park's downtown business district.
MPR: Reflections on race from a World War II veteran
MPR: Reflections on race from a World War II veteranReflections on race from a World War II veteran
by Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio
August 12, 2005
Larger view
Minnesota musician Charles Beasley, a veteran of World War II, reflects on race relations -- 60 years after the end of the war. (MPR Photo/Dan Olson)
The Minnesota Historical Society is observing the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II this weekend. One event on Sunday features music by World War II veteran Charles Beasley and his big band. Beasley was an Army musician during the war, in an all-black unit. Integration of the military at the end of the war helped break down color barriers in this country. The anniversary gives Beasley, 80, an opportunity to reflect on the change in race relations in this country.
St. Paul, Minn. — Minneapolis native Charles Beasley, bandleader and saxophone player, has seen a world of change in race relations from the days in the late l930s when he was a freshman at Minneapolis North High School.
At that time, Beasley and other school band members traveled to Washington, D.C. As in many cities, Jim Crow was still the unofficial law of the land.
"I couldn't stay at the same hotel as the rest of the band," Beasley recalls.
Discrimination was nothing new to Beasley. Local all-black jazz bands could not get work in downtown Minneapolis. On the other hand, there was work for individual black players.
Larger view
Image Beasley's band
That's how Beasley got his first professional job in l939, when he was 16. He was hired for $5. The venue? The Persian Palms.
"It was a great strip joint," says Beasley, "and it was crowded all the time."
By the end of the evening, the $5 had turned into $25 with tips, and Beasley was sold on making a living as jazz man.
He says the older players kept him out of trouble -- allaying his mother's concerns about the hours and the environment.
When World War II broke out, Beasley says, he wanted to be a pilot, but that role was off limits for all but a few African-Americans.
Instead, Beasley was assigned to an all-black military band, playing mostly for black soldiers. Even with segregation in the military and his low rank, Beasley says life for the group he played in was like nothing he had ever experienced.
"I was treated like an officer, so I couldn't help but like it. I had my own valet. I'd get up in the morning, we had reveille at 10 o'clock," Beasley recalls.
(The improvement in race relations is) just wonderful. And if this could have happened years and years ago, we would be so much further along than we are now.
The band even had its own plane to take them to various performances.
Near the end of the war, the military -- including the band Beasley played in -- was integrated. The move foreshadowed changes that would take hold throughout society decades later.
However, at the time, Beasley says, he had little hope the end of the war would end segregation in civilian life.
He was a college graduate with a music major. He found work at first in all-black schools in the South. He moved back to Minnesota and found work as janitor. He started his shift at 7 in the morning.
"We'd be through at 3 o'clock. I'd go home and take a little nap, because at 9 o'clock I'd start a gig and at 1 o'clock I'd get off."
That was his life for years, balancing a day job with work at night as a jazz musician.
Beasley retired from his day job in l990. He was playing with 10 bands at the time, but cut back to three. That year he started his own group, the Charles Beasley Big Band.
Beasley marks this country's improved race relations in several ways. Two years ago, he visited the formerly all-black school in Tennessee where he'd taught after the war.
In those days, he knew of young black men who'd been put in jail on charges of what he calls reckless eyeballing. When he arrived for his visit, he was surprised to have a young white woman ask him if he needed directions.
"Back in the days when I was down here I wouldn't have even dared to say hello to her, or even look in that direction," says Beasley.
Beasley says the improvement in race relations in this country, while far from perfect, is dramatic.
"It's just wonderful. And if this could have happened years and years ago, we would be so much further along than we are now."
Beasley and his big band plays at the Minnesota Historical Society Sunday, as part of the society's tribute to the state's World War II veterans.
New York Daily News - City News - Jazzman, 59, disappears after leaving B'klyn home
New York Daily News - City News - Jazzman, 59, disappears after leaving B'klyn homeJazzman disappears after leaving B'klyn home
By DON SINGLETON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Jazz trombonist Charles Stephens vanished mysteriously last Saturday after leaving his Brooklyn home with his horn and hasn't been seen since, his family said yesterday.
Stephens, 59, who has played backup trombone with a galaxy of top jazz bands over the course of his 40-year career, was seen leaving his Clinton Hill home with his instrument in its case.
Family spokesman and longtime friend Marty Sonnenfeld of Community Communications said Stephens' wife, Tami, found no notation on her husband's normally well-organized calendar to indicate he had a performing or recording engagement on that date.
Furthermore, Sonnenfeld said, Stephens, a "staunchly reliable veteran musician," failed to show up for scheduled engagements on Monday and Wednesday evenings, leading the family to file a missing persons report with the Police Department.
Sonnenfeld said Stephens, a large man, had high blood pressure, but no indications of Alzheimer's disease or any other form of dementia.
"Stephens is considered a master musician," Sonnenfeld said.
"He performs frequently with such leading big bands as the Duke Ellington Orchestra and the George Gee Big Band. His 40-year resume includes touring the world and recording with such major artists as the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie's United Nations Orchestra [and] vocalists Nancy Wilson and Eartha Kitt."
"Charles is well-loved and 100% dependable," said bandleader George Gee. "It is extremely unusual for him to be out of contact with his family and friends for this long.
"The Stephens family is desperately seeking any information - including where he may have been slated to perform last Saturday, or if anyone may have seen or heard from him since then."
Anyone with knowledge of Stephens' whereabouts is urged to contact Tami Stephens at (718) 638-7903.
Originally published on August 13, 2005
By DON SINGLETON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Jazz trombonist Charles Stephens vanished mysteriously last Saturday after leaving his Brooklyn home with his horn and hasn't been seen since, his family said yesterday.
Stephens, 59, who has played backup trombone with a galaxy of top jazz bands over the course of his 40-year career, was seen leaving his Clinton Hill home with his instrument in its case.
Family spokesman and longtime friend Marty Sonnenfeld of Community Communications said Stephens' wife, Tami, found no notation on her husband's normally well-organized calendar to indicate he had a performing or recording engagement on that date.
Furthermore, Sonnenfeld said, Stephens, a "staunchly reliable veteran musician," failed to show up for scheduled engagements on Monday and Wednesday evenings, leading the family to file a missing persons report with the Police Department.
Sonnenfeld said Stephens, a large man, had high blood pressure, but no indications of Alzheimer's disease or any other form of dementia.
"Stephens is considered a master musician," Sonnenfeld said.
"He performs frequently with such leading big bands as the Duke Ellington Orchestra and the George Gee Big Band. His 40-year resume includes touring the world and recording with such major artists as the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie's United Nations Orchestra [and] vocalists Nancy Wilson and Eartha Kitt."
"Charles is well-loved and 100% dependable," said bandleader George Gee. "It is extremely unusual for him to be out of contact with his family and friends for this long.
"The Stephens family is desperately seeking any information - including where he may have been slated to perform last Saturday, or if anyone may have seen or heard from him since then."
Anyone with knowledge of Stephens' whereabouts is urged to contact Tami Stephens at (718) 638-7903.
Originally published on August 13, 2005
Jazz musician Francy Boland dies at 75
Jazz musician Francy Boland dies at 75Jazz musician Francy Boland dies at 75
Saturday August 13 2005 16:33 IST
DPA
BRUSSELS: Belgian jazz pianist and arranger Francy Boland died at his home in Switzerland. He was 75. The high point of Boland's career was a big band that he led in the 1960s and '70s with American drummer Kenny Clarke, Belgian news agency Belga reported Friday.
He also worked as a songwriter and arranger for more famous jazz artistes including Count Basie and pop singer Gitte Haenning.
The time of Boland's death was not immediately reported.
Saturday August 13 2005 16:33 IST
DPA
BRUSSELS: Belgian jazz pianist and arranger Francy Boland died at his home in Switzerland. He was 75. The high point of Boland's career was a big band that he led in the 1960s and '70s with American drummer Kenny Clarke, Belgian news agency Belga reported Friday.
He also worked as a songwriter and arranger for more famous jazz artistes including Count Basie and pop singer Gitte Haenning.
The time of Boland's death was not immediately reported.
SoYouWanna learn about jazz?
SoYouWanna learn about jazz?There's one word you can use against all those American culture bashers, all those noses-held-high-ers, a word that even invites reverence from the French: jazz. Part of the silver lining of a very stormy cloud in the U.S.'s history, jazz was the first (and some say the only) American-born art form. (Click the link in the title for an in depth discussion of jazz and its origins)
Friday, August 12, 2005
MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL FEATURES CARLA BLEY, CELEBRATES WOMEN IN JAZZ SEPT. 16-18 :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Ja
MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL FEATURES CARLA BLEY, CELEBRATES WOMEN IN JAZZ SEPT. 16-18 :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL FEATURES CARLA BLEY, CELEBRATES WOMEN IN JAZZ SEPT. 16-18
Posted by: eJazzNews Readeron Thursday, August 11, 2005 - 07:30 PM
Jazz Festivals August 11, 2005; Monterey, CA; Billie Holiday, Mary Lou Williams, Marian McPartland, Alice Coltrane – jazz history is filled with the contributions of exceptional women musicians and composers. The Monterey Jazz Festival is proud to continue its role celebrating women in jazz through this year’s MJF Commission Artist program, the annual Monterey Jazz Festival, and year-round jazz education programs.
The Monterey Jazz Festival has selected noted pianist Carla Bley as this year’s MJF Commission Artist. Her MJF commissioned piece, “The Black Orchid,” will have its world premiere on the Main Arena Lyons Stage at the 48th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival presented by MCI September 16-18.
According to jazz critic Chris Kelsey, “Post-bop jazz has produced only a few first-rate composers of larger forms; Carla Bley ranks high amongst them.” Born in Oakland, California, Bley learned music from her church musician father before moving to New York around 1955 at age 19. She supported herself as a cigarette girl at jazz clubs such as Birdland and Basin Street and soon thereafter married pianist Paul Bley. She began composing while working as an usherette and check coat girl until George Russell, Jimmy Guiffre, and Art Farmer began recording her pieces.
Since forming the Jazz Composers’ Orchestra in 1964 and the Jazz Composers Orchestra Association in 1966, Bley has become ubiquitous for compositions recorded by Gary Burton and Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, plus her own recordings on the Watt/ECM label ranging from piano-bass duos to the “Very Big Carla Bley Band.”
As the MJF Commission Artist, Carla Bley returns to Monterey to showcase her music to new audiences. Her commission piece, “The Black Orchid,” commemorates her time spent living in Pacific Grove, California in the early 1950’s, when she drove an Model-A automobile to play solo piano at the now-defunct Black Orchid Club in Monterey. The commission piece illustrates the progress that Bley has made as an artist over the past five decades, as well as greater recognition women have received for their contributions to instrumental jazz.
Carla Bley is just one of the many female artists performing at this year’s 48th annual Monterey Jazz Festival presented by MCI. Fellow Pianist Patrice Rushen – a former member of the MJF High School All-Star Band – will perform with Lee Ritenour and the Christian McBride Band throughout the festival weekend. Mavis Staples, Madeleine Peyroux, Claudia Acuña, Sharon Jones, Ledisi, Sheila Jordan, Clairdee, Natasha Miller, Jacqui Naylor, Claudia Villela, Destani Wolf and Valerie Joi Fiddmont are all scheduled to appear on Monterey’s stages performing a wide range of jazz styles from straight-ahead standards and scat vocalese to Latin, South American, funk, gospel, soul, and blues.
The Monterey Jazz Festival also promotes women in jazz by promoting girls in jazz. Through the Monterey Jazz Festival’s commitment to women and jazz education, there will be not only be greater opportunities available for established musicians like Carla Bley to shine, but also many more ambitious young women in jazz on the way. Every year, the Monterey Jazz Festival teaches hundreds of female students through its jazz education programs. In addition to the MJF Traveling Clinicians Program – which sends professional music educators to local schools - the Monterey Jazz Festival provided roughly $22,500 in scholarships to 45 Monterey County female music students to attend the MJF Summer Jazz Camp, June 21-30 at Monterey Peninsula College. These talented young women represented roughly 1/3 of the camp students population, and many enjoyed studying with renowned saxophonist, educator and recording artist Virginia Mayhew amongst other instructors including MJF Artist-in-Residence Branford Marsalis.
Partners play an important role in helping the Festival fund its Jazz Education Programs, efforts led by Presenting Partner, MCI, marking their 21st year with the Monterey Jazz Festival. Over the years, MCI has contributed over $2,000,000 to the Festival's educational efforts. Starbucks Coffee is hosting the Coffee House Gallery for the second year in a row. In addition to making a generous contribution to the Festival, Starbucks will once again be donating proceeds from its Festival coffee sales during the weekend to the MJF's Jazz Education Programs. Also returning for 2005 are Microsoft, continuing to offer selected Lyons Stage performances, available for download on msn.music.com, in addition to soon-to-be-released archival music from the Festival's recorded history. Yamaha, friend of the Festival and its Jazz Education Programs since the earliest days, also returns as a valued partner for Monterey, providing instruments to the Festival and to its year-round education endeavors. Joining as a new Festival partner this year is JetBlue Airways, flying MJF artists across country for their performances, as well as the San Jose Mercury News as a media partner.
The Monterey Jazz Festival's jazz presentation and jazz education programs are also made possible in part through the generous support of several exceptional grantors. The Monterey Jazz Festival is proud to thank the National Endowment for the Arts for its support of the 48th annual Monterey Jazz Festival, the Monterey Jazz Festival Commissioned Artist Program, and the Monterey Jazz Festival Artist-in-Residence Program. The Monterey Jazz Festival is proud to thank the NEA/Jazz Masters on Tour Program, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts sponsored by Verizon in partnership with Arts Midwest, with additional support provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation through a grant to Chamber Music America. The Monterey Jazz Festival is also proud to thank the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for its long-time support of the annual Monterey Jazz Festival and its year-round jazz education programs. The Festival thanks many other generous grantors and individuals who support MJF year-round youth jazz education programs.
Posted by: eJazzNews Readeron Thursday, August 11, 2005 - 07:30 PM
Jazz Festivals August 11, 2005; Monterey, CA; Billie Holiday, Mary Lou Williams, Marian McPartland, Alice Coltrane – jazz history is filled with the contributions of exceptional women musicians and composers. The Monterey Jazz Festival is proud to continue its role celebrating women in jazz through this year’s MJF Commission Artist program, the annual Monterey Jazz Festival, and year-round jazz education programs.
The Monterey Jazz Festival has selected noted pianist Carla Bley as this year’s MJF Commission Artist. Her MJF commissioned piece, “The Black Orchid,” will have its world premiere on the Main Arena Lyons Stage at the 48th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival presented by MCI September 16-18.
According to jazz critic Chris Kelsey, “Post-bop jazz has produced only a few first-rate composers of larger forms; Carla Bley ranks high amongst them.” Born in Oakland, California, Bley learned music from her church musician father before moving to New York around 1955 at age 19. She supported herself as a cigarette girl at jazz clubs such as Birdland and Basin Street and soon thereafter married pianist Paul Bley. She began composing while working as an usherette and check coat girl until George Russell, Jimmy Guiffre, and Art Farmer began recording her pieces.
Since forming the Jazz Composers’ Orchestra in 1964 and the Jazz Composers Orchestra Association in 1966, Bley has become ubiquitous for compositions recorded by Gary Burton and Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, plus her own recordings on the Watt/ECM label ranging from piano-bass duos to the “Very Big Carla Bley Band.”
As the MJF Commission Artist, Carla Bley returns to Monterey to showcase her music to new audiences. Her commission piece, “The Black Orchid,” commemorates her time spent living in Pacific Grove, California in the early 1950’s, when she drove an Model-A automobile to play solo piano at the now-defunct Black Orchid Club in Monterey. The commission piece illustrates the progress that Bley has made as an artist over the past five decades, as well as greater recognition women have received for their contributions to instrumental jazz.
Carla Bley is just one of the many female artists performing at this year’s 48th annual Monterey Jazz Festival presented by MCI. Fellow Pianist Patrice Rushen – a former member of the MJF High School All-Star Band – will perform with Lee Ritenour and the Christian McBride Band throughout the festival weekend. Mavis Staples, Madeleine Peyroux, Claudia Acuña, Sharon Jones, Ledisi, Sheila Jordan, Clairdee, Natasha Miller, Jacqui Naylor, Claudia Villela, Destani Wolf and Valerie Joi Fiddmont are all scheduled to appear on Monterey’s stages performing a wide range of jazz styles from straight-ahead standards and scat vocalese to Latin, South American, funk, gospel, soul, and blues.
The Monterey Jazz Festival also promotes women in jazz by promoting girls in jazz. Through the Monterey Jazz Festival’s commitment to women and jazz education, there will be not only be greater opportunities available for established musicians like Carla Bley to shine, but also many more ambitious young women in jazz on the way. Every year, the Monterey Jazz Festival teaches hundreds of female students through its jazz education programs. In addition to the MJF Traveling Clinicians Program – which sends professional music educators to local schools - the Monterey Jazz Festival provided roughly $22,500 in scholarships to 45 Monterey County female music students to attend the MJF Summer Jazz Camp, June 21-30 at Monterey Peninsula College. These talented young women represented roughly 1/3 of the camp students population, and many enjoyed studying with renowned saxophonist, educator and recording artist Virginia Mayhew amongst other instructors including MJF Artist-in-Residence Branford Marsalis.
Partners play an important role in helping the Festival fund its Jazz Education Programs, efforts led by Presenting Partner, MCI, marking their 21st year with the Monterey Jazz Festival. Over the years, MCI has contributed over $2,000,000 to the Festival's educational efforts. Starbucks Coffee is hosting the Coffee House Gallery for the second year in a row. In addition to making a generous contribution to the Festival, Starbucks will once again be donating proceeds from its Festival coffee sales during the weekend to the MJF's Jazz Education Programs. Also returning for 2005 are Microsoft, continuing to offer selected Lyons Stage performances, available for download on msn.music.com, in addition to soon-to-be-released archival music from the Festival's recorded history. Yamaha, friend of the Festival and its Jazz Education Programs since the earliest days, also returns as a valued partner for Monterey, providing instruments to the Festival and to its year-round education endeavors. Joining as a new Festival partner this year is JetBlue Airways, flying MJF artists across country for their performances, as well as the San Jose Mercury News as a media partner.
The Monterey Jazz Festival's jazz presentation and jazz education programs are also made possible in part through the generous support of several exceptional grantors. The Monterey Jazz Festival is proud to thank the National Endowment for the Arts for its support of the 48th annual Monterey Jazz Festival, the Monterey Jazz Festival Commissioned Artist Program, and the Monterey Jazz Festival Artist-in-Residence Program. The Monterey Jazz Festival is proud to thank the NEA/Jazz Masters on Tour Program, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts sponsored by Verizon in partnership with Arts Midwest, with additional support provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation through a grant to Chamber Music America. The Monterey Jazz Festival is also proud to thank the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for its long-time support of the annual Monterey Jazz Festival and its year-round jazz education programs. The Festival thanks many other generous grantors and individuals who support MJF year-round youth jazz education programs.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
JVC JAZZ FESTIVAL-NEWPORT and Michael Brecker :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily
JVC JAZZ FESTIVAL-NEWPORT and Michael Brecker :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily JVC JAZZ FESTIVAL-NEWPORT and Michael Brecker
Posted by: editoron Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 04:05 PM
Jazz News WHO IS ILL POTENTIAL MARROW STEM CELL DONORS SOUGHT AT FESTIVAL
Newport, RI--The JVC Jazz Festival-Newport coming up this weekend, August 12, 13 and 14 has just announced that saxophonist Michael Brecker is very ill and will not be able to appear at this year's festival. He was scheduled to perform with Saxophone Summit and also with Steps Ahead 2005, but cannot perform due to his recently diagnosed, very serious illness. Saxophone Summit will feature Dave Liebman and Joe Lovano with Phil Markowitz, Cecil McBee and Billy Hart on Saturday. Saxophonist Bill Evans who appeared with Miles Davis' comeback band in the early '80s will perform in Brecker's stead with Steps Ahead 2005 on Sunday. This impressive band also features vibraphonist Mike Mainieri, guitarist Mike Stern, drummer Steve Smith, and bassist Richard Bona.
Michael Brecker, has been diagnosed with MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome), and it is critical that he undergo a marrow stem cell transplant. The initial search for a donor (including Michael's siblings and children) has not yet resulted in a suitable match and Michael's doctors have told his family that they need to explore ALL possible options. This includes a search for an unrelated donor in the worldwide registries through the National Marrow Donor Program. To help find a donor for Michael, and for other patients with the same need, Festival Productions has offered to set up a special tent at the jazz festival, where potential donors can join the National Marrow Donor Program, organized by the Rhode Island Blood Center. The tent will be located next to the Museum of Yachting at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, during the festival on Saturday, August 13 and Sunday, August 14.
Anyone joining the National Marrow Donor Program must be between 18 and 60 years old, in good health, and willing to consider giving marrow stem cells to anyone they may match. Most registrants never match anyone but it can mean the difference between life and death when a match is found for someone like Michael.
“I hope to encourage as many people as possible to get tested not just to assist me, but to help thousands of others who are either facing or who will be facing the same challenge with which I’m now confronted,” states Michael Brecker.
Here are some important points to understand concerning the potential donor process:
1. Registration in the National Marrow Donor Program is free at the Newport Jazz Festival as the cost of testing is being paid for with a combination of health insurance and a local foundation called Michael's Fund. The name of this foundation coincidentally, but appropriately, shares Michael Brecker's first name. Michael Wrobel of Massachusetts was an eleven year old boy of Eastern European descent who died before a matched donor could be found. His family and friends have continued the important work of supporting donor recruitment for almost ten years.
2. A simple blood test (one tube) is all that is needed to determine a potential donor's bone marrow type. A health history questionnaire is also completed.
3. If a person is found to be a match for a patient, the process of donation is completely confidential. Donor and recipient cannot meet one another for at least one year after donation. And because this is a national program, a donor can choose to donate close to his or her home, not only in Rhode Island.
4. Once a match is found, there are two ways to donate and the choice is always ultimately the donor's. As a result of new technologies, the term “bone marrow transplant” is in part a misnomer. In earlier years, marrow had be extracted from a donor’s marrow. Today at leading cancer centers like Memorial Sloan Kettering, the collecting process rarely occurs this way. A donor is simply connected to a machine through an IV that separates and harvests the blood stem cells from the donor’s blood before the blood returns to the donor through a second IV. Instead of being tethered to a machine for a few hours, some folks still prefer direct marrow collection---where medical technology has also improved. Following anesthesia, marrow—-which continually replenishes every 4-6 weeks---is withdrawn using fine hollow needles in the hip. A sore bottom may result for a few days. In short, whatever the brief discomfort of whichever method that’s used—it’s nothing compared to the virtue and humanity of potentially saving a life.
5. Most patients find their donor match in someone who is a similar ethnic background. That means that a match for Michael would more likely be someone of Eastern European Jewish descent. So if potential donors are in this category, please make a special effort to immediately get tested. Ultimately, one would be doing something not just for Michael, but for so many more patients in a similar situation.
___________
Tenor saxophonist and composer Michael Brecker is an eleven-time Grammy-winner, the most of any saxophonist, ever. As a result of his stylistic and harmonic innovations, Michael is among the most studied instrumentalists in music schools throughout the world today.
Born into a musical household in 1949, Michael’s father played jazz on the record player for his sons and took Michael and his older brother Randy to see, among others, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington. While Randy took up trumpet, Michael launched his studies on clarinet and alto sax; moved by the genius of Coltrane, Brecker switched to tenor sax in high school. After studying, as did his brother, at the University of Indiana, Michael moved to New York City, landing work with several bands before co-founding the pioneering jazz-rock group Dreams in 1970. In 1973, Michael joined his brother in the frontline of pianist/composer Horace Silver’s quintet. The following year, the siblings branched off to form the Brecker Brothers, one of the most innovative and successful jazz-funk fusion bands of the decade. Michael and Randy also operated the popular downtown Manhattan jazz club, Seventh Avenue South. Jam sessions with keyboardist/vibes player Mike Maineiri, bassist Eddie Gomez, and drummer Steve Gadd led to the 1979 formation of Steps Ahead. With Peter Erskine later replacing Gadd, the all-star quartet recorded seven albums while ascending to worldwide acclaim.
Michael has recorded and performed with a virtual Who’s Who of jazz and pop giants including McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, James Taylor, Chick Corea, Chet Baker, George Benson, Quincy Jones, John Lennon, Charles Mingus, Joni Mitchell, Aerosmith, Paul Simon, Wynton Marsalis, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Steely Dan, Pat Metheny, Billy Joel and Elton John.
Posted by: editoron Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 04:05 PM
Jazz News WHO IS ILL POTENTIAL MARROW STEM CELL DONORS SOUGHT AT FESTIVAL
Newport, RI--The JVC Jazz Festival-Newport coming up this weekend, August 12, 13 and 14 has just announced that saxophonist Michael Brecker is very ill and will not be able to appear at this year's festival. He was scheduled to perform with Saxophone Summit and also with Steps Ahead 2005, but cannot perform due to his recently diagnosed, very serious illness. Saxophone Summit will feature Dave Liebman and Joe Lovano with Phil Markowitz, Cecil McBee and Billy Hart on Saturday. Saxophonist Bill Evans who appeared with Miles Davis' comeback band in the early '80s will perform in Brecker's stead with Steps Ahead 2005 on Sunday. This impressive band also features vibraphonist Mike Mainieri, guitarist Mike Stern, drummer Steve Smith, and bassist Richard Bona.
Michael Brecker, has been diagnosed with MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome), and it is critical that he undergo a marrow stem cell transplant. The initial search for a donor (including Michael's siblings and children) has not yet resulted in a suitable match and Michael's doctors have told his family that they need to explore ALL possible options. This includes a search for an unrelated donor in the worldwide registries through the National Marrow Donor Program. To help find a donor for Michael, and for other patients with the same need, Festival Productions has offered to set up a special tent at the jazz festival, where potential donors can join the National Marrow Donor Program, organized by the Rhode Island Blood Center. The tent will be located next to the Museum of Yachting at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, during the festival on Saturday, August 13 and Sunday, August 14.
Anyone joining the National Marrow Donor Program must be between 18 and 60 years old, in good health, and willing to consider giving marrow stem cells to anyone they may match. Most registrants never match anyone but it can mean the difference between life and death when a match is found for someone like Michael.
“I hope to encourage as many people as possible to get tested not just to assist me, but to help thousands of others who are either facing or who will be facing the same challenge with which I’m now confronted,” states Michael Brecker.
Here are some important points to understand concerning the potential donor process:
1. Registration in the National Marrow Donor Program is free at the Newport Jazz Festival as the cost of testing is being paid for with a combination of health insurance and a local foundation called Michael's Fund. The name of this foundation coincidentally, but appropriately, shares Michael Brecker's first name. Michael Wrobel of Massachusetts was an eleven year old boy of Eastern European descent who died before a matched donor could be found. His family and friends have continued the important work of supporting donor recruitment for almost ten years.
2. A simple blood test (one tube) is all that is needed to determine a potential donor's bone marrow type. A health history questionnaire is also completed.
3. If a person is found to be a match for a patient, the process of donation is completely confidential. Donor and recipient cannot meet one another for at least one year after donation. And because this is a national program, a donor can choose to donate close to his or her home, not only in Rhode Island.
4. Once a match is found, there are two ways to donate and the choice is always ultimately the donor's. As a result of new technologies, the term “bone marrow transplant” is in part a misnomer. In earlier years, marrow had be extracted from a donor’s marrow. Today at leading cancer centers like Memorial Sloan Kettering, the collecting process rarely occurs this way. A donor is simply connected to a machine through an IV that separates and harvests the blood stem cells from the donor’s blood before the blood returns to the donor through a second IV. Instead of being tethered to a machine for a few hours, some folks still prefer direct marrow collection---where medical technology has also improved. Following anesthesia, marrow—-which continually replenishes every 4-6 weeks---is withdrawn using fine hollow needles in the hip. A sore bottom may result for a few days. In short, whatever the brief discomfort of whichever method that’s used—it’s nothing compared to the virtue and humanity of potentially saving a life.
5. Most patients find their donor match in someone who is a similar ethnic background. That means that a match for Michael would more likely be someone of Eastern European Jewish descent. So if potential donors are in this category, please make a special effort to immediately get tested. Ultimately, one would be doing something not just for Michael, but for so many more patients in a similar situation.
___________
Tenor saxophonist and composer Michael Brecker is an eleven-time Grammy-winner, the most of any saxophonist, ever. As a result of his stylistic and harmonic innovations, Michael is among the most studied instrumentalists in music schools throughout the world today.
Born into a musical household in 1949, Michael’s father played jazz on the record player for his sons and took Michael and his older brother Randy to see, among others, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington. While Randy took up trumpet, Michael launched his studies on clarinet and alto sax; moved by the genius of Coltrane, Brecker switched to tenor sax in high school. After studying, as did his brother, at the University of Indiana, Michael moved to New York City, landing work with several bands before co-founding the pioneering jazz-rock group Dreams in 1970. In 1973, Michael joined his brother in the frontline of pianist/composer Horace Silver’s quintet. The following year, the siblings branched off to form the Brecker Brothers, one of the most innovative and successful jazz-funk fusion bands of the decade. Michael and Randy also operated the popular downtown Manhattan jazz club, Seventh Avenue South. Jam sessions with keyboardist/vibes player Mike Maineiri, bassist Eddie Gomez, and drummer Steve Gadd led to the 1979 formation of Steps Ahead. With Peter Erskine later replacing Gadd, the all-star quartet recorded seven albums while ascending to worldwide acclaim.
Michael has recorded and performed with a virtual Who’s Who of jazz and pop giants including McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, James Taylor, Chick Corea, Chet Baker, George Benson, Quincy Jones, John Lennon, Charles Mingus, Joni Mitchell, Aerosmith, Paul Simon, Wynton Marsalis, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Steely Dan, Pat Metheny, Billy Joel and Elton John.
Basie, Ella, Benny Goodman Make Jazz Hall :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News Daily
Basie, Ella, Benny Goodman Make Jazz Hall :: eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net :: Jazz News DailyNEW YORK - Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Goodman head this year's class of 12 inductees to the Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, which opened last fall at Jazz at Lincoln Center's new home in the Time Warner Center.
The other 2005 inductees, announced Monday, include trumpeter Roy Eldridge, pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Basie band drummer Jo "Papa Jo" Jones, bassist-bandleader-composer Charles Mingus, cornetist Joe "King" Oliver, who brought Louis Armstrong north to Chicago from New Orleans in 1922, and Thomas "Fats" Waller, the stride pianist and singer who wrote hit tunes such as "Ain't Misbehavin" and "Honeysuckle Rose."
Pioneering bebop drummer Max Roach and tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins became the first living inductees. The Jazz Hall of Fame is named after the Turkish-born Ertegun, who played a key role in developing the catalog of jazz, R&B and rock albums at Atlantic Records, the label founded by his brother Ahmet.
The inductees were chosen by a 58-member panel of jazz musicians, educators and scholars from 17 countries.
An induction ceremony will be held Sept. 8 at Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
"These great jazz musicians set new standards for instrumental and vocal performance in the 20th century," said trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, JALC's artistic director, in a statement. "Their work stands as a testament to the creative power of jazz."
Last year's inaugural group of 14 inductees included Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.
The other 2005 inductees, announced Monday, include trumpeter Roy Eldridge, pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Basie band drummer Jo "Papa Jo" Jones, bassist-bandleader-composer Charles Mingus, cornetist Joe "King" Oliver, who brought Louis Armstrong north to Chicago from New Orleans in 1922, and Thomas "Fats" Waller, the stride pianist and singer who wrote hit tunes such as "Ain't Misbehavin" and "Honeysuckle Rose."
Pioneering bebop drummer Max Roach and tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins became the first living inductees. The Jazz Hall of Fame is named after the Turkish-born Ertegun, who played a key role in developing the catalog of jazz, R&B and rock albums at Atlantic Records, the label founded by his brother Ahmet.
The inductees were chosen by a 58-member panel of jazz musicians, educators and scholars from 17 countries.
An induction ceremony will be held Sept. 8 at Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
"These great jazz musicians set new standards for instrumental and vocal performance in the 20th century," said trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, JALC's artistic director, in a statement. "Their work stands as a testament to the creative power of jazz."
Last year's inaugural group of 14 inductees included Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.
8/8/2005 - Guy Davis Plays Blues At Nightfall Friday - Happenings - Chattanoogan.com
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.
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.
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
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