Ray Bryant, Jazz Pianist, Dies at 79 - NYTimes.com

Cover of Alone at MontreuxRay Bryant, Jazz Pianist, Dies at 79 - NYTimes.com

By NATE CHINEN

Ray Bryant, a jazz pianist whose sensitivity and easy authority made him a busy accompanist and a successful solo artist, beginning in the mid-1950s, died on Thursday. He was 79.

His wife of 20 years, Claude Bryant, said he died at New York Hospital Queens after a long illness. He lived in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Mr. Bryant had a firm touch and an unshakable sense of time, notably in his left hand, which he often used to build a bedrock vamp. Even in a bebop setting, he favored the ringing tonalities of the gospel church. And he was sumptuously at home with the blues, as a style and a sensibility but never as an affectation.

All of this contributed to his accomplishment as a solo pianist. His first solo piano album was “Alone With the Blues,” in 1958, and he went on to make a handful of others, including “Alone at Montreux,” “Solo Flight” and “Montreux ’77.” His most recent release, “In the Back Room,” was yet another solo album, recorded live at Rutgers University and released on the Evening Star label in 2008.

Raphael Homer Bryant was born on Dec. 24, 1931, in Philadelphia, and made his name in that city during its considerable postwar jazz boom. Along with his brother, Tommy, a bassist, he played in the house band at the Blue Note Club in Philadelphia, which had a steady flow of major talent dropping in from New York. (Charlie Parker and Miles Davis were among the musicians they played with there.) In short order Mr. Bryant had plenty of prominent sideman work, both with and without his brother.

One early measure of his ascent was the album “Meet Betty Carter and Ray Bryant,” released on Columbia in 1955. It was a splashy introduction for him as well as for Ms. Carter, the imposingly gifted jazz singer. It was soon followed by “The Ray Bryant Trio” (Prestige), an accomplished album that introduced Mr. Bryant’s composition “Blues Changes,” with its distinctive chord progression.

That song would become a staple of the jazz literature, if less of a proven standard than “Cubano Chant,” the sprightly Afro-Cuban fanfare that Mr. Bryant recorded under his own name and in bands led by the drummers Art Blakey, Art Taylor and Jo Jones.

Mr. Bryant had several hit songs early in his solo career, beginning with “Little Susie,” an original blues that he recorded both for the Signature label and for Columbia. In 1960 he reached No. 30 on the Billboard chart with a novelty song called “The Madison Time,” rushed into production to capitalize on a dance craze. (The song has had a durable afterlife, appearing on the soundtrack to the 1988 movie “Hairspray,” and in the recent Broadway musical production.) He later broke into the Top 100 with a cover of Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe,” released just a few months after the original, in 1967.

But Mr. Bryant’s legacy never rested on his chart success or his nimble response to popular trends. It can be discerned throughout his own discography and in some of his work as a sideman, notably with the singers Carmen McRae and Jimmy Rushing, and on albums like Dizzy Gillespie’s “Sonny Side Up,” on Verve. “After Hours,” a track on that album, begins with Mr. Bryant and his brother playing a textbook slow-drag blues.

Along with his wife, Mr. Bryant is survived by a son, Raphael Bryant Jr.; a daughter, Gina; three grandchildren; and two brothers, Leonard and Lynwood. Mr. Bryant’s sister, Vera Eubanks, is the mother of several prominent jazz musicians: Robin Eubanks, a trombonist; Kevin Eubanks, the guitarist and former bandleader on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno”; and Duane Eubanks, a trumpeter.

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Back during the mid and late seventies Ray Bryant used to play piano regularly at a restaurant around the corner from my apartment on 2nd Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan called Hanratty's.  That restaurant has been gone for many years.  Bryant was a funky two fisted pianist who had a winning combination of prodigious technique coupled with a soulful feeling.  He will live on through his numerous recordings.

John H. Armwood

Kennedy Center's jazz season could use more variety and experimentation

Cover of Charlie ParkerKennedy Center's jazz season could use more variety and experimentation

By Matt Schudel

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, March 13, 2011

For years, it was reassuring to see Billy Taylor, perhaps the most eminent evangelist jazz has ever known, sitting in the audience or accepting an award on stage at the Kennedy Center. His vision helped get jazz accepted as a central part of our nation's cultural heritage, with an ambitious mix of large-scale festivals and concerts that make the Kennedy Center one of the greatest venues for jazz in the country.

Although Taylor had long since ceded responsibilities for booking and programming to the Kennedy Center's staff, his death in December left a huge inspirational void. During the first full season without Taylor behind the scenes, the center will pay homage to its longtime artistic director for jazz with a celebratory concert and festival Nov. 11 to 26.

The festival, called "Swing, Swing, Swing," will kick off Nov. 11 with Taylor's bassist and drummer, Chip Jackson and Winard Harper, accompanying an all-star lineup of pianists - Geri Allen, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Ramsey Lewis and Danilo Perez - and other musicians.

There will be plenty of vocals during the festival, with Jon Hendricks and Manhattan Transfer appearing together and with George Benson saluting Nat "King" Cole. For participatory fun, the Kennedy Center will open up the grand foyer for swing dancers - complete with dance instructors - and a variety of jazz and swing-oriented groups.

Other jazz highlights of the 2011-12 season include saxophonist Steve Wilson recreating the music of Charlie Parker's remarkable recording with strings (Oct. 7-8); the amazing father-son duo of Dorado and Samson Schmitt performing the gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt (with Anat Cohen on clarinet) (Oct. 29); singers Tierney Sutton (Dec. 2) and Jane Monheit (Dec. 17); and trumpeter Nicholas Payton (Feb. 10, 2012).

Every year since 1996, the Kennedy Center has presented the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival - an idea Taylor developed. Some wondered at the beginning whether the festival would last beyond one year. Its success has been a testament to Taylor's vision and to the strengthening position of women in jazz. This year's Grammy Award for best new artist didn't go to Justin Bieber, after all - it went to jazz bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding, who will be at the Kennedy Center in May.

It would be nice, however, if the Women in Jazz Festival could look beyond the usual suspects of Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dianne Reeves and Geri Allen, who have appeared multiple times. There are dozens of lesser-known artists across the country who are just as deserving of a national showcase, including such singers as Nancy Marano, Lois Smith, Carol Sloane and Wesla Whitfield, pianists Lynne Arriale and Dena DeRose and trumpeter Ingrid Jensen.

With the international flavor of jazz becoming more pronounced each year, it's time for a Latin jazz festival - one that looks back to Mario Bauza, Machito and Chano Pozo and shows how the music of the Caribbean basin enriched North American jazz.

One of the great successes of Kennedy Center's jazz program has been its KC Jazz Club, a room that features leading musicians in an intimate cabaret setting. But it is open only four months of the year. When other venues are cutting back on jazz, the KC Jazz Club should be a year-round destination, with regular Friday and Saturday performances, plus Sunday matinees for people who don't like to stay out late.

Finally, several of the events next year seem to have inadvertently pointed the way toward a new programming idea that shows real promise. Drummer Roy Haynes, still relentlessly driving the beat at 85, will appear with his Fountain of Youth Band - young musicians in their 20s - on Oct. 14. Alto saxophonist Phil Woods, who turns 80 this year, will perform with his teenage protegee, saxophonist Grace Kelly, on Jan. 27, 2012.

Taylor often mentored younger musicians, including 21-year-old pianist Christian Sands, who will perform at the Nov. 11 concert in Taylor's honor. What better way to celebrate the memory of the man who launched jazz at the Kennedy Center than by inaugurating a series that brings the grand masters of jazz together with their young acolytes who will keep the music alive?

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Post Mortem - Jazz great Billy Taylor, pianist, educator & media personality, dies at 89

Cover of Billy TaylorPost Mortem - Jazz great Billy Taylor, pianist, educator & media personality, dies at 89

Billy Taylor, one of the musical treasures of Washington and the world, died last night, Dec. 28, at a hospital in New York City. He was 89 and died of a heart attack.

Dr. Taylor, as he was known to one and all, was a first-rate jazz pianist who grew up in Washington and was a graduate of Dunbar High School. He moved to New York in the early 1940s and was present at the birth of bebop, the new vernacular of music that transformed jazz. He played alongside Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis and became a protege of the greatest jazz pianist ever, Art Tatum.

In the 1950s, Dr. Taylor began to branch out into broadcasting with a television series, "The Subject Is Jazz," and with radio programs. He appeared on CBS over the years, particuarly on "CBS Sunday Morning," interviewing and performing many of the great artists in jazz.

Dr. Taylor -- who earned a doctorate in education, by the way -- had been the artistic adviser for jazz programming at the Kennedy Center and was a constant presence at concerts at the center. He often performed with his own trio and other groups and helped make the Kennedy Center one of the most important venues for jazz in America. He launched the annual Women in Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center and was instrumental in developing other concert series.

For several years, he was the host of an NPR series, "Billy Taylor's Jazz at the Kennedy Center," and many people considered him the foremost jazz educator of his -- or any -- time.

Dr. Taylor received every award there is in jazz and the arts, including the National Medal of Arts in 1992, and was designated a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1988.

I knew Dr. Taylor somewhat, and I treasure the memory of visiting him once at the Watergate hotel, interrupting him as he was practicing on an electric piano in his room. We sat and talked for more than an hour for background for a story you can find here

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Jazz festival kicks off with hot, cool opening night in downtown Detroit | freep.com | Detroit Free Press

Jazz festival kicks off with hot, cool opening night in downtown Detroit | freep.com | Detroit Free Press

Sometimes it starts out hot; sometimes it starts out cool. And sometimes both modes of expression come into play on opening night. After all, this is a jazz festival.

The 31st annual Detroit International Jazz Festival began Friday evening downtown at Cadillac Square with a wide-ranging double bill that found pianist Mulgrew Miller's sleek and sophisticated mainstream trio teaming up with the a cappella male vocal ensemble Take 6, followed by Tower of Power, an Oakland soul band that's been belting out some of the hippest party grooves in the known universe since 1968. Some of the music simmered Friday night, some of it fizzled and the best of it left a trail of scorched earth in its wake.

Miller, the festival's artist-in-residence, leapt quickly into a briskly swinging version of "If I Should Lose You." Paced by bassist Ivan Taylor's sturdy foundation and drummer Rodney Green's charging cymbal beat, Miller's right hand darted smoothly and confidently through the tune's attractive harmony without really getting under the skin of the song. But the trio shifted into a higher gear of inspiration on a walking, bluesy composition by Miller called "When I Get There" and then reached a peak on Charlie Parker's swift blues "Relaxin' at Camarillo." Miller improvised fluid melodies that kept turning summersaults across the bar lines and sneaking in and out of odd harmonic corners.

Take 6, a sextet of silken male voices, has an impressive track record in a neo-gospel and contemporary doo-wop idiom, but straight-ahead jazz is not its forte. The Miles Davis compositions the group tackled with the support of Miller's trio -- "Seven Steps to Heaven" (co-written by Victor Feldman), "Freddie Freeloader," "Flamenco Sketches" and "All Blues" -- were undermined by lumpy, rhythmically awkward phrasing, especially during the uniformly regrettable scat solos by the singers. The instrument impersonations were sometimes welcome (Alvin Chea's dynamic bass lines) and sometimes not (Joey Kibble's nasally muted trumpet effects). Still, when Miller's trio exited the stage, and Take 6 returned to its home turf, including a souped-up version of the spiritual "Mary Don't You Weep," its nifty harmonies and preaching expression reached a fever pitch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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