Custom
Printed Clothing
Hats, shirts, and other items imprinted with
custom logos, lettering and more!
The
Latest Jazz News, Articles, Interviews...
This page changes almost daily, so check
back soon for the latest jazz music news and headlines
as well as jazz articles and interviews of terrific jazz
artists..
Gordon Polatnick's business plan, he concedes, was heavy on the things that fueled his daydreams and too light on almost everything else.
The idea itself was simple. On the blocks in Harlem where Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker performed, Mr. Polatnick would open a nightclub. But it would do business during the day, charge no cover and sell soft drinks instead of liquor to encourage a family atmosphere...
At 86 the visionary musical sage Jon Hendricks, who along with Ella Fitzgerald and Eddie Jefferson originated the jazz style called vocalese -- the setting of swing and jazz instrumentals with playful scat lyrics -- is as voluble as ever. Since the late 1950s, when he was a co-founder of the vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, this verbal conjurer and scat-singing virtuoso has remained a dedicated popularizer of a form that the Manhattan Transfer refined to a high buff in which polish undercuts raw spontaneity...
Night Lights made its debut on WFIU four years ago almost to the day--or night, as it were--with a program called Let Freedom Ring that aired on the eve of the July 4th holiday. I had been working at WFIU for exactly two years, subbing for weekday afternoon jazz host Joe Bourne and producing WFIU...
Jazz vocalist Rene Marie turned a relatively pedestrian event--this past Tuesday's "State of the City" address from Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper--into a media tempest over patriotism when she sang the melody of "The Star-Spangled Banner" but imported lyrics from James Weldon Johnson's Lift Ever...
The Rifftides staff is going to take a couple of days off and trek across the mountains to watch the Mariners play the Tigers. The links are for the benefit of those in, say, Casablanca or Tarnow who may not be familiar with the quaint US sporting culture.
In the meantime, enjoy this video of Miguel Zenon and two of his homeboys at work in their native San Juan, Puerto Rico, last December. The bassist is Ricky Rodriguez, the drummer Henry Cole. ...
Maria Neckam - voice and compositions Thomas Morgan - bass Yotam Silberstein - guitar
Bar Next Door (La Lanterna) - 129 MacDougal Street (subway to W4 Street, around the corner from Blue Note)
Monday, July 7th, 8-11:30pm $10...
Larry Harmon, 83; entrepreneur made Bozo the Clown a star
Larry Harmon, the entrepreneur who brought Bozo the Clown to television as a children's show host in the late 1950s and spent the next 50 years promoting the flame-haired circus character, died Thursday. He was 83. Harmon, who suffered from heart disease, died at his home in Los Angeles, said his wife, Susan...
The AAJ Upcoming Jazz Release Center has just been updated with 120 new releases, reissues, imports and DVDs.
The Upcoming Release Center is updated weekly and can be searched by artist, month of release, record label and type (reissue or new release). It is the most comprehensive new release listing for jazz music on the internet...
Jazz pianist George Kahn double header in Sand Diego. Temecula Festival performance by day, Frankies' by night, July 12th
Los Angeles. With his latest CD release "Cover Up" climbing the Jazz charts, Jazz Pianist George Kahn, will be appearing at two venues in San Diego on the same day, Saturday, July 12th...
Jay T. Vonada, of Aaronsburg Pennsylvania, will have his debut CD, Jammin', released on Tuesday July 22, 2008.
Vonada, who is a musician in the central region of Pennsylvania, plays in several bands. They are all diverse in their musical styles. Although music is not his full time profession, he spends hours practicing and performing in a variety of settings, from pit orchestras, to jazz combos, to big bands. The CD will feature 8 original compositions, from Swing to Latin to Funk...
Two songs from the movie musical help Pixar's robot express his romantic feelings.
I'm still blown away by the fact that two songs of mine that are close to 50 years old have been used as the underpinning, -Jerry Herman
In high school, "Wall-E" director Andrew Stanton played the shy Yonkers store clerk Barnaby in the Jerry Herman musical "Hello, Dolly!" Decades later, two of the show's lesser-known songs would play a pivotal part in the critically acclaimed Disney/Pixar animated hit...
Denver singer opts for black national anthem lyrics over 'Star-Spangled Banner'
"I pulled a switcheroonie on them."
Singer Rene Marie sang lyrics of List Ev'ry Voice and Sing to the tune of the national anthem prior to the annual state of the city address by the Denver mayor. Rene Marie's unexpected choice at a mayor's event where she was asked to sing the more traditional song has prompted a chorus of criticism. The jazz singer, invited to perform the national anthem before the Denver mayor's annual state of the city address, stood at the microphone and let loose her voice. What came out were the lyrics of the song known as the black national anthem, set to the tune of "The Star-Spangled Banner...
The Independence Day weekend may be synonymous with American music, but in Chicago that doesn't necessarily mean marches by John Philip Sousa (glorious though they are).
Free jazz, hard-core bebop, American popular song--that's how Chicago marks the 4th of July holiday weekend.
Among the highlights...
Chase, the comic actor and original cast member of Saturday Night Live will host the Newport Jazz Festival for the second year in a row.
The JVC Jazz Festival-Newport runs Aug. 8-10 at the International Tennis Hall of Fame and Fort Adams State Park.
Chase, a jazz fan and pianist, will introduce the musicians performing on the festival's main stage, including Aretha Franklin, Sonny Rollins and Herbie Hancock...
Starting Tuesday, Fort Collins is offering six days dedicated to experiencing the music in a variety of ways, with outdoor shows, indoor gigs, films and more.
On Thursday, the New Belgium Brewing Co.'s Bike-In Movie Night is showing Jazz on a Summer's Day, the captivating film of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, at 8 p.m. (500 Linden St., 970-221-0524)...
Somebody once asked me to find two words that describe the music I make, and the words I picked were 'spontaneous' and 'cinematic,'" says Aaron Parks. Having clarified the essence of his art, the pianist kept those two words closely in mind while conceiving and recording Invisible Cinema, his extraordinary debut for the Blue Note label. In its virtuosity and harmonic complexity, Invisible Cinema speaks to Parks's immersion in jazz on the highest level, even as it references a wider world of contemporary music-making...
The Litchfield Jazz Festival is proud to present a series of 15 free concerts throughout the month of July - "Litchfield Jazz Around Town." Performers will include talented Litchfield Jazz Camp students and teachers from Litchfield Jazz Camp including Jeremy Pelt, Mario Pavone, Mark Whitfield, Winard Harper, Jimmy Greene, Karrin Allyson and more. The series leads seamlessly into the Litchfield Jazz Festival on August 1-3 with Bebe Neuwirth, Paquito D'Rivera, Dave Brubeck and John Pizzarelli...
For Tabligh, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has reassembled a Golden Quartet to blow, very Miles Davis-like, on a follow-up recording to Year of the Elephant (Pi Recordings, 2002). But the lineup, excepting the leader, has changed.
The sound is, in part, an exploration of Miles' electric period, from 1969-75, albeit in a sparer mode--a rhythm section and the trumpet rather than the guitar-driven, multi-layered assaults of some of Davis's more adventurous days. The music is dark, turbulent, murky, intense--often with an In a Silent Way sparkle, via Vijay Iyer's Fender Rhodes work...
In Hugh Hopper's case, age seems to be bringing with it a certain restlessness of spirit. This duo with Yumi Hara Cawkwell mines a seam of disturbed minimalism the surface of which is ruffled and undermined by Hopper's deft way with lower end sonics and Cawkwell's declamatory yet understated vocals...
Feel good. It's okay to feel good in these days of war, floods, pestilence, and (insert the current price of) gasoline. Certainly the tradition of jazz, especially New Orleans jazz, tells us to celebrate the moment, even if that moment is minutes after you've buried a love one. For that you must have a brass band and the troop known as the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble is certainly a worthy one...
It's all about Memphis with Gerald Albright's Sax for Stax. The veteran saxophonist revisits the sounds of the 1960s and '70s that helped define a label and, to a certain degree, a generation of soul musicians.
A native of Los Angeles, Albright has effortless straddled the line between jazz and R&B, making music that is easily accepted by fans of one genre or the other. His inspirations include such tenor sax legends as John Coltrane and Eddie Harris, as well as alto sax specialist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley and the versatile Maceo Parker. For this project, Albright was approached by Peak Records executive Mark Wexler about doing an album that tied in with parent label Concord's re-launching of Stax. Albright plays alto, tenor, and baritone sax on all tracks, but also contributes flutes, percussion programming, and bass guitar on some selections...
The name of Sumi Tonooka conjures two images. First, the name of a fine jazz pianist whose album, Taking Time (Candid, 1990), was retrieved from a cutout bin circa the year of its release. Secondly, around the same time, seeing the pianist perform, chairing a rhythm section that supported the formidable duo of trombonists Steve Turre and Fred Wesley. Talk about cooking sets--this was a ringside table just under the feet of this powerful group, where it was possible to marvel at the agility and lyricism of the pianist...
The enchanting Kuro is the third release from trumpeter Natsuki Tamura's group, Gato Libre, following Strange Village (Muzak, 2005) and Nomad (No Man's Land, 2007).
Tamura shares the same fearless creative attitude that his wife and musical partner pianist Satoko Fujii (here playing accordion) has. His eclectic interests can be heard most recently on Cloudy Then Sunny (Libra, 2008), the second release from Fujii's Junk Box group, where his acoustic trumpet becomes a virtual sound machine...
In today's world of all-star studio sessions and endless collaborative side-projects, longstanding working bands are growing increasingly uncommon. Cosmologic is a splendid example of such a rarefied entity. Honing their tightly knit sound for almost a decade, the San Diego based acoustic quartet was formed in 1999 by tenor saxophonist Jason Robinson, trombonist Michael Dessen, bassist Scott Walton and drummer Nathan Hubbard, the same line-up featured today. Preceded by three self-released albums, their debut for Cuneiform Records, Eyes in The Back of My Head is their first record to enjoy wide distribution...
Easily one of the most technically brilliant jazz trombonists in the history of the music, Conrad Herwig continues to establish a superb catalog of releases that document him in a variety of settings and musical genres. From quartet dates to his Latin projects, the key ingredients to any of Herwig's endeavors are a desire to keep the music moving forward and his skills as a brilliant arranger and gifted composer. Such marks his latest Criss Cross Jazz side, A Jones for Bones Tones, his second two-trombone set shared with Steve Davis and a unique forum for original pieces that pay tribute to some of Herwig's key bone influences...
Everyone who hears him seems to agree: Taylor Eigsti is the most exciting progressive-mainstream pianist to come along in a very long time. Pianist Dave Brubeck says, "He's the most amazing talent I've ever come across." Not the most amazing talent Brubeck has come across "in recent years" or "in America," or any such qualification, but the most amazing talent ever, period...
Pianist Ellis Marsalis' An Open Letter to Thelonious is more than just another homage to the mystique and magic of Thelonious Monk's music.
Marsalis is no stranger to the Monk's music, but it is hardly an area of specialty for the patriarch pianist. As a native of New Orleans, he went against stereotype by not specializing in either trad jazz or R&B. Beginning in the late '50s, he played with mainstream players like Ed Blackwell, Cannonball and Nat Adderley and even Al Hirt, with whom he appeared for a three-year period in the late '60s. During the '70s, Marsalis freelanced and taught...
This album is the third part of an astonishing trilogy, following A Doughnut In Both Hands (1975-1982) (Emanem, 1998) and A Doughnut In One Hand (FMP, 1998). With its title, Minton seems to have heeded the advice he gave as a track title on In Both Hands--"Too Many Doughnuts Make You Ill."
Minton himself notes that, "I would prefer to sing with other people and most of the time that's what I do, but it seems every ten years or so I need to sing a few songs on my own." The nature of these songs is as eccentric as the album titles. While there are obvious strands of continuity from those earlier albums, seemingly gone forever are the full-blooded vocal performances of 1975-1982, replaced by a far more exploratory, experimental approach to voice. The vocal improvisations here--ranging in length from twenty-four seconds to just under three minutes-- are songs only in the sense that they employ the human voice. The sole exception is "Vo Be Dayish," an improvisation on a transcription by Veryan Weston of an improvisation by Phil Minton, which verges on scat singing, albeit employing non-standard vocal technique...
Jazz and improvised music have long held a certain appeal for fans of underground and outside art. Those who cut their teeth on the Fugs and protest music of the '60s found similar yelps offered among the jewels of the ESP-Disk catalog, and post-riot French students found solidarity (if briefly) with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The do-it-yourself aesthetic of creative music is an easy thing to latch onto for followers of punk music and aesthetics, from privately pressed LPs and CDRs to concerts held in lofts and basements. Though punk is not always "protest" music in lyric form, the idea of the music as a self-reliance project is itself a statement filled with raw emotion and power, despite the fact that corporate-art society would have little to do with such grit...
Irish guitar wiz Mark O'Leary's relentless pursuit of melding his improvisational expertise with some of the top guns in the jazz-based business continues here during this trio setting recorded in Seattle, Washington. On this 2008 studio set, the musicians quietly surge into abstract-minimalism via the free-improv route. With O'Leary's harmonically appeasing volume control techniques and fluid single note flurries, the overall musical portraiture is often fabricated upon subtle exchanges amid delicately articulated peaks and valleys...
Satoko Fujii is a prolific composer. Her writing has manifested itself in several projects used to launch her music, Junk Box being one of them. This is the group's second recording and it sees an expansion of the concept she calls composed improvisation, or "Com-Impro," that appeared on its first recording, Fragment (Libra, 2006). It is her form of musical notation that includes writing and some graphics, leaving the musicians to use any notes to express the compositions and free to improvise as they like...
Yesterday and Today comprises two sessions recorded half a century apart, each of which offers a rare chance to sing the praises of baritone saxophonist Jack Nimitz, a longtime standout on the West Coast scene. Somehow he has managed to produce only three albums with his name above the marquee, the first of which--Confirmation--was released in 1995, the same year he turned old enough to start cashing Social Security checks. While it's not true that Nimitz' picture appears next to the word "underrated" in Webster's dictionary, one wouldn't be too surprised if it were...
As this trio is decades into its existence, readers and potential listeners might be forgiven for thinking that the trio's collective music is losing some of its power. This, however, is far from the case. There's kinetic energy about some of the performances here but that sense is tempered by the group's distinctly non-formulaic understanding of each other as musicians. The resulting mutual understanding amounts to something far in excess of the number of participants in terms of profundity...
Belmondo are the French jazz musicians Lionel and Stephane Belmondo--the first a saxophonist and flautist, the second a trumpeter and flugelhornist--who have developed an interesting sideline in tribute albums featuring the artists being celebrated.
With pianist Horace Silver, the brothers recorded Love and Peace: A Tribute To Horace Silver (Verve, 1995), featuring Silver and singer Dee Dee Bridgewater on a selection of Silver hits. With multi-reed player Yusef Lateef, they made Influence (B-Flat Recordings, 2005), showcasing Lateef on the "exotic" instruments he has introduced to the jazz palette...
Junk Box is the name of another group configuration lead by pianist Satoko Fujii, this time in the form of a trio with her husband and musical compatriot, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, and percussionist extraordinaire John Hollenbeck. Audacious and challenging, Cloudy Then Sunny is their second release following the well-received Fragment (Libra, 2006)...
Every Woman is a Tree is dedicated to the women of Iraq, whose children cling to their branches for protection during this time of war. It asks the brutal question of what happens to the children when the branches are cut and the tree is killed, as well as questions of leadership and societal upbringing. The six musicians of Angles make this a personal matter through their music, as each track is unified by the sense that the men are all deeply affected by current worldly affairs. From the opening piece, an overwhelming frustration and even disgust with the world's current state is apparent. The music depicts a 21st-century depression: a poverty of life and mercy augmented by a wealth of war, violence and terror...
Fans and readers of the popular books by neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks know that the brain reacts to sounds in numerous ways. From his book Musicophilia (Knopf, 2007), we learn of a woman who has seizures from the folk music of her country, and of comatose patients that are reanimated by song. Sacks tells us that it can be melody that invigorates the brain; but it can also be simple pitch, tone, and texture...
The
Latest Jazz News, Articles, Interviews...