Neneh Cherry & The Thing - "A Tribute to Don Cherry"

Published on Mar 9, 2013

Neneh Cherry & The Thing ''A Tribute to Don Cherry'' - Heineken Jazzaldia 2012

Musicians:
NENEH CHERRY - voice
MATS GUSTAFSSON - tenor & baritone sax, live electronics
INGEBRIGT HÅKER FLATEN - double bass, electric bass
PAAL NILSSEN-LOVE - drums

Track List:
1. Dream Baby Dream (A. Vega & M. Rev)
2. Golden Heart (D. Cherry)
3. Sudden Moment (M. Gustafsson)
4. Cashback (N. Cherry)
5. Dirt (J. Osterberg, R. Asheton, S. Asheton, D. Alexander)
6. Accordion (D. Dumile & O. Jackson)
7. Call the Police (S. McDee)
8. Wrap your Troubles in Dreams (H. Barris)

47th Heineken Jazzaldia - Festival de Jazz de San Sebastián, 23 Julio 2012, Plaza de la Trinidad, Donosti, Spain

Hercules Gomes

Born in Vitória (ES), Hercules began his studies at age 13 as an autodidact and shortly thereafter he was playing in bands capixaba (Brazilian Region) music scene. He studied at the Music School of the Espírito Santo (Brazilian State)  and later joined the course of Popular Music at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), where he graduated and studied with the teachers Paulo Braga, Hilton Valente (Gogô) and Silvio Baroni.

He appeared in some of the most important music festivals in Brazil and abroad as the XV CCPA Jazz Festival in Asuncion (Paraguay), the 25th International Festival Jazz Plaza in Havana (Cuba), Brazil Instrumental Festival in Tatuí (São Paulo) and the Cascavel Jazz Festival in Cascavel (Parana).

Was awarded in Fampop festivals (Avaré), Americana Festival (American) and the piano competition Guiomar Novaes. In April 2012 he won the 11th Award Nabor Pires de Camargo - Instrumentalist promoted by Indaiatuba Pro-Memory Foundation, in honor of important natural composer of the city.

He has participated in work with renowned musicians like Letieres Leite, Arismar Espírito Santo, Vinicius Dorin, Sizão Machado, Alessandro Penezzi, Wilson das Neves, Bruna Caram, among others.

 In 2013, Hercules releases his first solo album in which demonstrates their strong influences of Brazilian rhythms, jazz and classical music combined with a refined technique translating to your piano sound universe. With six original compositions and arrangements for six composers of songs like Edu Lobo, Hermeto Pascoal and Ernesto Nazareth, the CD pianism brings panoramic photos of the Brazilian piano with a lot of rhythm and lyricism.

published at the suggestion of Jorge Carvalheira

Jazz

Arabic: مُوسِيقِى الـجَّازُ

Brazilian Portuguese: jazz

Chinese: 爵士乐

Croatian: džez

Czech: jazz

Danish: jazz

Dutch: jazz

European Spanish: jazz

Finnish: jazz

French: jazz

German: Jazz

Greek: τζαζ

Italian: jazz

Japanese: ジャズ

Korean: 재즈

Norwegian: jazz

Polish: jazz

Portuguese: jazz

Romanian: jaz jazuri

Russian: джаз

Spanish: jazz

Swedish: jazz

Thai: ดนตรีแจ๊ส

Turkish: caz

Ukrainian: джаз

Vietnamese: nhạc jazz

Iiro Rantala

ACT In the Spirit of Jazz
26.01.16
For his album "Lost Heroes" Finnish pianist Iiro Rantala has received the German Jazz GOLD Award (Jazz GOLD record).    Rantala's heartfelt musical homages to his great late heroes can already now be called modern classics of jazz piano: The "Lost Heroes" album received the German record critic's award

Bobby Enriquez On Piano Jazz

January 22, 2016
Hear the "wild man of jazz" play "Just One Of Those Things" and "Bumble Rumble Blues."

Sergio Salvatore

January 29, 2016
Sergio Salvatore was only 14 when he appeared as Marian McPartland's guest on Piano Jazz 20 years ago, but he was already making the jazz world sit up and take notice. The young composer and pianist is a natural. He's since gone on to partner with virtuoso vibraphonist Christos Rafalides, with whom he released the album Dark Sand.In this 1996 edition of Piano Jazz, Salvatore solos in his own tune "Revolving Door" and teams with McPartland for "Autumn Leaves."Originally broadcast in the spring of 1996.

Bix Beiderbecke with Frankie Trumbauer's Orchestra

by George Avakian
From the liner notes of the 1947 78 RPM record collection "Bix And Tram: Bix Beiderbecke with Frankie Trumbauer's Orchestra" on Columbia records. 

The partnership of cornetist Bix Beiderbecke and saxophonist Frank Trumbauer was one of the Damon and Pythias relationships which occasionally stud the history of jazz. From their first record dates together with mid-western pickup groups in the early twenties until Bix's untimely death in 1931, they were almost inseparable, working together in Trumbauer's Orchestra in St. Louis, then with Jean Goldkette. and finally with Paul Whiteman's enormous aggregation.

They made a high living in the commercial dance bands of their day, and their individuality was not entirely lost in those big orchestras, for always there were sympathetic arrangers who gave them solo spots or opportunities to lead ensembles written in their personal styles. For purely personal kicks, they had recourse to jam sessions wherever they went-notably in Chicago and New York-and to a lesser degree they were able to express themselves more freely on their own recording dates. 

With their friends from the Goldketteand Whiteman bands, Bix and  Tram (as Trumbauer was known) made numerous records with smaller combinations under their own names. This album of recordings, made originally for the Okeh label under Trumbauer's name, is a musical expression of the Bix/Tram relationship. Both played in essentially the same melodic style.

Bix's cornet work was mellow in tone, supple and dexterous in execution, and always inventive in content. Trumbauer, playing a C-melody saxophone (an instrument virtually unknown to the present generation, but the rage of many a campus in the bath tub gin era), was such a close counterpart of Bix that there have been recorded passages in which it is possible to confuse one for the other for a few bars (as in the beginning of Bix's solo on Paul Whiteman's Sweet Sue.

read more: http://www.redhotjazz.com/bixtramarticle.html

Monterey Jazz Festival

The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College proudly presents

MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL ON TOUR

Saturday, February 13, 8pm

Raul Midón, guitar and vocals
Ravi Coltrane, tenor and soprano saxophones
Nicholas Payton, trumpet
Gerald Clayton, piano
Joe Sanders, bass
Gregory Hutchinson, drums

No need to make the pilgrimage to the fairgrounds in Monterey, California — in 2016 it’s the Monterey Jazz Festival itself that is taking it on the road, bringing with it the Festival’s hallmark “traditionalist-untraditionalist” attitude and jazz-with-a-purpose exuberance, exemplified from the beginning by what founder Jimmy Lyons called “the best jazz people in the whole world.”

The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College
735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY 10577 - www.artscenter.org

E-Mail is being sent by: Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services
272 Ste Route 94 S #1  Warwick, NY 10990
E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com

Web Site: www.jazzpromoservices.com/

Bill Evans - Intellect, Emotion, Communication

Bill Evans - Intellect, Emotion, Communication - By Don Nelsen

Steven A. Cerra
Monday, January 25, 2016

December 8, 1960
Downbeat, By DON NELSEN
 “It may distress believers in the jazzman legend, but the truth is that Bill Evans has become one of the most creative modern jazz musicians without benefit of a miserable childhood. With candor, he said:

 "I was very happy and secure until I went into the army. Then I started to feel there was something I should know that I didn't know."

 If the 31-year-old pianist upsets a few cherished illusions about the origins of jazz musicians, he demolishes another held by many jazzman themselves and fondly nurtured by the hippy fringe: that a jazzman must be interested only in jazz.

Evans is no such intellectual provincial. For one thing, he does not believe that jazz—or even music as a whole— necessarily holds the key to the "something" he began searching for in the army. His basic attitude is that music is not the end most jazzmen make it. It is only a means.

 A glance into Evans' library provides an indication of what his mind is up to. The diversity of titles shows how many avenues he has explored to reach his "something"— Freud, Whitehead, Voltaire, Margaret Meade, Santayana, and Mohammed are here, and, of course, Zen. With Zen, is Evans guilty of intellectual fadism, since everyone knows that Kerouac, Ginsberg & Co. holds the American franchise on Oriental philosophy? Evans waved a hand in resignation and said:

 "I was interested in Zen long before the big boom. I found out about it just after I got out of the army in 1954. A friend of mine had met Aldous Huxley while crossing from England, and Huxley told him that Zen was worth investigating. I'd been looking into philosophy generally so I decided to see what Zen had to say. But literature on it was almost impossible to find. Finally, I was able to locate some material at the Philosophical library in Manhattan. Now you can get the stuff in any drugstore.

"Actually, I'm not interested in Zen that much, as a philosophy, nor in joining any movements. I don't pretend to understand it. I just find it comforting. And very similar to jazz. Like jazz, you can't explain it to anyone without losing the experience. It's got to be experienced, because it's feeling, not words. Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate feeling because they're not part of it. That's why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling."
 
 Such a manifesto may pain the academicians of jazz, but Evans is no pedant with a B-plus critical faculty. He is an intellectual in the true spirit of the word: an intelligent inquirer. His flights into philosophy and letters spring not from the joy of scholarly exercise but from the fierce need to comprehend himself. It is this need, whipped by surging inner tensions, that has driven him to Plato, Freud, Thomas Merton, and Sartre. It is responsible for his artistry on the one hand and his erudition on the other. The former has enabled him to catheterize his emotions; the latter has given him the opportunity to understand them. Hence his great emphasis on feeling as the basis of art.

 Undoubtedly, the four years he lived in New Orleans and attending Southeastern Louisiana college had much to do with shaping this emphasis. It certainly exerted a powerful influence on his personality and playing. He himself admits it was the happiest period of his life.

 "It was the happiest," he said, "because I had just turned 17, and it was the first time I was on my own. It's an age when everything makes a big impression, and Louisiana impressed me big. Maybe it's the way people live. The tempo and pace is slow, 1 always felt very relaxed and peaceful. Nobody ever pushed you to do this or say that.


 "Perhaps it's due to a little looser feeling about life down there. Things just lope along, and there's a certain inexplicable indifference about the way people face their existence. I remember one time I was working in a little town right near the Mississippi border. Actually, it wasn't a town. It was a roadhouse with a few tourist cabins out back and another roadhouse about a half-mile up the highway. There didn't seem to be much law there. Gambling was open and thriving. I worked at the first place for months, and I never saw any police. Well, the night after I had left to take a job in the saloon up the road, a man walked in and pointed a .45 at another fellow. As I heard it from a friend, all he said was, 'Buddy, I hear you're foolin' aroun' with my wife,' and Bang! That was all. The second guy fell dead. As far as I know, nobody ever gave it another thought, and nothing was ever done.

read more: http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com.br/2016/01/bill-evans-intellect-emotion.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+JazzProfiles+(Jazz+Profiles)

Interview: Mavis Staples

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

I've always loved the Staple Singers' Respect Yourself. Released in 1971, the message song has a gentle urgency, with an undulating groove and lyrics that urge all Americans to behave in a more civilized and dignified manner. Best of all, the Staples pulled this off without sounding preachy. Of particular note is how Mavis Staples sings her part, with an articulation that's half church, half street. The overall arrangement is perfect, particularly the rhythm track by the Swampers, the legendary house quartet at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.

In my "Anatomy of a Song" column in this week's Wall Street Journal, I interview Mavis (above) and Stax executive and the song's producer Al Bell (below) about how Respect Yourself was conceived, arranged and recorded, providing the story behind the song's earthy evolution (go here).

JazzWax clips:
Here's the single...

Here's Pops, Mavis and Cleotha at Wattstax in August 1972...

Here are the Staples on Soul Train...

How great was Mavis early on? Pretty great. Here's easily one of my favorite versions of A House Is Not a Home off of Mavis's 1970 album, Only for the Lonely...

Used with permission by Marc Myers

Ira Sullivan

Sunday January 31, 2016 ~ 3pm

Ira Sullivan Quintet

The Tampa Jazz Club and the HCC Visual and Performing Arts Series will present the remarkable multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan and his band on Sunday, January 31, 2016, at 3:00 PM, in the Mainstage Theatre of the HCC Performing Arts Building in Ybor City.

This concert, Ira’s first Tampa appearance in three years, will be a tribute to Jackie Manthos, his dear friend for decades. Jackie was a founding board member of the Tampa Jazz Club and a devoted supporter of the Bay Area jazz scene, who passed away last October.

A master of the entire range of brass and reed instruments, 5-time Grammy nominee Ira Sullivan was a noted musician in Chicago as a youngster, sharing the stage with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and other greats in his teens. He has lived in South Florida since the 60’s and has been an inspiration and guiding light for generations of leading musicians who have taken part in his famed jam sessions through the years.

On January 31, he’ll be joined by his Miami colleague Marc Berner on tenor saxophone and exotic flutes; Bay Area favorites Michael Royal, piano and John Jenkins, drums; and bassist Don Mopsick, a veteran of many years with the Jim Cullum Band on public radio’s ‘Riverwalk.’

Ronnie Cuber

Shorty Rogers As Interviewed By Steve Voce

Steven A. Cerra / Steve Voce / Jazz Journal
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
““I was really very lucky, because I left school at 17 knowing that I had a job waiting for me. I had been working with a kids' band at a high school dance. We did them often, made about three dollars a night. This night we were told that we were having a special guest and sure enough Will Bradley arrived. He asked if some of the guys could play with him, and we had a jam session. I was chosen on trumpet, and Will must have liked what he heard, because later he told me that he was reorganising the band and asked for my phone number. 

At that time I listened a lot to Bobby Hackett and Roy Eldridge. Dizzy Gillespie was just beginning to emerge with some revolutionary things. Anyway, the Will Bradley-Ray McKinley partnership had just broken up when I joined the band, and Shelly Manne came in to replace Ray. That was the first time I met him. Shelly used to sing some of Ray's vocal numbers, too. I didn't start writing until after I joined the army in 1943. I'd been to the High School Of Music And Arts in New York, and it was compulsory to take a music theory class, but I didn't like it, I thought it was a waste of time. I didn't get along with the teachers and I wouldn't do any homework.

Later, in the army band, we had a lot of time on our hands and I got the urge to write a few things to see what they sounded like. That's when it began, but of course before the army when the Bradley band broke up, I went with Red Norvo's small group, which included Aaron Sachs on reeds and Eddie Bert on trombone. I always admired and got on well with Red, and later on he married my sister.

“That band was unique and I think Red developed a special soft, intimate band sound. He played unamplified xylophone and because of this the horns played muted a lot of the time.' [The band can be heard on 'New York Town Hall Concert Vol I & 2 Commodore ‎– 6.26168 AG] [For more information on the concert please visit http://www.jazzhistoryonline.com/Town_Hall_1945.html]

Red recommended me to Woody later on when I came out of the army, and he had a lot to do with me getting on to what was then considered to be the band, so it was like when I left high school, I had a job waiting for me. 

“Red had joined Woody when the band had reorganised in New York and Chubby Jackson, Flip Phillips and Bill Harris had come in. There was a fantastic spirit, just a joy of playing, and everyone was influenced by Bird and Dizzy and was trying to bring their way of playing on the band. It was just so much fun to be playing with those guys and such a precious gift and honour that I'm lost for words. Neil Hefti and Ralph Burns and the other arrangers were just marvellous, and for me it was like going to school, a graduate course, a real luxury. 

“It was funny because I came onto the band out of the army and replaced Conte Candoli, who'd just been drafted and sent to the same camp I'd just left! It kind of scared me to join that band, to be honest with you, but Pete Candoli who was sitting next to me just took me in like another brother and really watched over me. It's an association that's still going on to this day. We're still very close and we go to the same church and share things together.

“I was 21 when I joined the band. The first writing I did was the things for the Woodchoppers [the small group within the Woody Herman big band]. We were in Chicago and we were told about an album to be done by the Woodchoppers. Red suggested I submit a few things, and some of them were rearrangements of things I'd done for Red's band. That's when I wrote Igor. It was for Stravinsky, of course. I loved him and one of the greatest things that happened to me was that later I got to meet him and he came to some concerts I played. When the Herd recorded Ebony Concerto he rehearsed us in New York City and I remembered when we came to California he was here and rehearsed the band again to get us ready for the recording. It was a great experience.'


read more: http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com.br/2016/01/shorty-rogers-as-interviewed-by-steve.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+JazzProfiles+(Jazz+Profiles)

The Austin High Gang

The Austin High Gang by Charles Edward Smith From "Jazzmen," by Frederic Ramsey, Jr. & Charles Edward Smith Harcourt, Brace & Company - New York, 1939 

In 1922 five kids from Austin High School out at Chicago's west end, got up a little band. The buff brick high school they attended was so much like others it was hard to describe, and the boys themselves were the sort who might have gone on to college but for their interest in music. All played violin except Bud Freeman, the greenhorn of the bunch. Their interest in music, brought to a head when they first played together, was so keen that they played and practiced in school, in their homes, and even in the vacant apartment of a house owned by the father of one of them. "The poor people downstairs," Jim Lannigan commented, "they finally had to move out." 

Jim Lannigan played piano in the little band. Jimmy McPartland played cornet and his older brother Dick played banjo and guitar. Bud Freeman played C-melody sax, at that time a popular instrument for home study, and changed to tenor sax a few years later after the band had got under way professionally. Frank Teschemacher was also a member of the original group. At this time he was learning alto sax, but still played violin. The ages of the group ranged from Jimmy McPartland, the baby, who was a mere fourteen, to Jim Lannigan, seventeen. Dick was seventeen before the first season was over, Teschemacher sixteen, and Bud Freeman slightly younger. 

Drawn together by a common ambition, they went as a group to theaters, parties, and restaurants. Coming from comfortable middle-class homes they could, in the beginning, pursue their musical ambitions as a hobby, a circumstance that gave them much more freedom of choice than would have been the case with a different background. At that time the Al Johnson Orchestra, heard in a local theater, was their inspiration, though it was not to last long.

It did, however, give them the incentive they needed and they improved rapidly. Soon they were good enough to play at the afternoon high school dances that were then becoming popular in Chicago. These dances, held usually from three until about five thirty, had the endorsement of the Parent-Teacher Association, no doubt on the theory that they were a healthy social outlet for youthful energies. Over at Hull House was a band made up of neighborhood kids, most of them from the tenements. There, membership in the band was a double inducement. Some, like Benny Goodman, joined it to get a chance to play on a real instrument; others were chiefly interested in the fact that the band got a free trip to summer camp. 

read more: http://www.redhotjazz.com/austinhighgang.html

Frank Vignola and Ken Peplowski - Tiger Rag

Music Chat With Ross Porter

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

In October 2014, Ross Porter and I met at New York's High Line Hotel in Chelsea, where he was staying while in town. I've known Ross since I started JazzWax in 2007. Ross is the president and CEO of Toronto's JAZZ.FM91, Canada's leading jazz radio station, and a dear friend. Ross has been an ardent supporter of JazzWax from the start, so whenever he's is in town, we get together. This time, Ross asked if he could interview me on a handful of my favorite jazz tracks for a lovely segment he hosts called Stranded.

Even though Ross is the boss, he keeps his hand in when it comes to radio and music journalism. Ross has a wonderful radio voice and has worked in radio and television for decades. He's passionate about music—all kinds. You may recall that I posted on Ross's terrific May 1979 interview with Bill Evans (go here). Ross also has conducted many TV interviews with jazz and rock legends, so it was an honor to chat with Ross. [Photo above of the High Line Hotel]

Picking desert-island tracks was tough. I wanted to select off-beat stuff that JAZZ.FM91 listeners might not be aware of or wouldn't expect. When I arrived at the hotel, we started talking and I realized I probably should have been better prepared with details about songs (particularly Caroline, No), since I now hear I got a few things wrong. But I did speak from the heart about the music, hoping that my feelings and love for the art would make up for any rambling or errors.

Here are the songs I chose at the time, largely because they touch my spirit (link below to our interview)...

• You Better Go Now—Red Garland
• Two Different Worlds—Sonny Rollins with Earl Colman
• OK Fred—John Holt
• Fox Hunt—Maynard Ferguson
• Estamos Solos—Rey Ruiz
• Caroline, No—Beach Boys
• Ecaroh—Horace Silver
• Who Can I Turn To—Bill Evans
• Any Other Time—Paul Desmond and Jim Hall
• Even More Beautiful—Eumir Deodato 

Last week, JAZZ.FM91 aired our conversation and embedded it at the JAZZ.FM91 site. Unfortunately, the first three songs on my list didn't make it into the final cut, but that was my fault since I had chosen too much stuff. I hope you enjoy, and apologies in advance for the errors (go here).

Used with permission by Marc Myers

Eddie Monteiro

Eddie Monteiro has over 30 years of musical performance in classical, jazz, dance, theater, cabaret and choral ensembles. Eddie is also the youngest honoree elected to American Accordionists’ Association Hall of Fame, November 1994. Member of Bobb Rosengarden, Skitch Henderson, Peter Duchin, Ray Bloch, Michael Lanin and Marty Ames, orchestras from 1971 to present, performing in the New York Metropolitan area and worldwide.

Featured member of pit orchestra on stage in Broadway revival performance of Carnival and recording of radio and television jingles for Sesame Street, General Foods, Colgate Palmolive, Anheuser-Busch, AT&T, Bennigan’s Restaurants, Pontiac and more. Lead artist of innumerable society bands performing throughout the world at social events, political gatherings and corporation conventions. Eddie serves currently as the Music Teacher, Choral Director, Vocal and Instrumental Music Director for the Ann Street Elementary School. Eddie joined the Roland team in the spring of 2008 as a V-Accordion Product Specialist. His skill and musical talents make him an important member of their team.

• http://youtu.be/hLz1ShtXji4

from: http://jazzaccordionmasters.blogspot.com.br

Günter "Baby" Sommer

Günter "Baby" Sommer is a German jazz drummer. He studied music in Dresden. He rose to fame in the GDR. He is part of the European free jazz avantgarde. He was part of the trio with Conny Bauer and Peter Kowald. He is now professor for drums and percussion in Dresden. The drummer and composer Christian Lillinger was one of his former students.

Albums: Cappuccini Klang, Riobec, Between Heaven and Earth + 4 more

Career Began: Dresden, Germany

from: http://www.ranker.com/review/günter-sommer/3592503

Billie Holiday Small Band Recordings 1935-1939

by Len Weinstock
There were three phases in Billie Holiday’s career that were so distinct as to give the impression that we were listening to different singers. The first was the carefree swinging Billie who recorded some 120 sides on equal terms with some of the best soloists and improvisers of the 1930, using a natural and relaxed sense of swing. The “second Billie” emerged after she recorded the protest song Strange Fruit, a deeply depressing song of lynching and death sung with much feeling and emotion.

This event immediately altered the course of her career by 180 degrees. She now became a dramatic, serious singer and cut her most famous recordings of heavy, non-swinging material like Gloomy Sunday, God Bless the Child, Am I Blue, I Cover the Waterfront and I got a Right to Sing the Blues. These songs were sung with profound artistry and are considered by many to be her best work, but their value as Jazz is diminished since they were performed with musicians who served only as background accompanists. Finally, in the last sad years of her life in the 1950’s Lady Day’s voice lacked the glow and intonation of former. She sang in a rough, dark style but all the while maintaining her artistry. 

Begging forgiveness from Billie, who would have felt I was renaming her “Lady Yesterday”, the “first” Lady Day of the 1930’s, when Swing and Billie were both young, is by far the most important in terms of Jazz history. In 1935 the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. During the previous five years the Jazz recording industry was reduced to only five percent of its 1927 peak. New Orleans/Chicago style was no longer in favor and all the public wanted was to waltz to sweet music. A few Jazz leaders like Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Fletcher Henderson and Benny Goodman were trying to make a go of Big Band Swing but things were not going well. 

read more: http://www.redhotjazz.com/billieholidayessay.html