Saturday, November 30, 2013

NPR Music ....


Kronos Quartet: Tiny Desk Concert

The intrepid champions of new music from around the world bring a lullaby, some rare blues and a recent work by The National's Bryce Dessner to the offices of NPR Music.
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FIRST LISTEN

First Listen: 'I Heard The Angels Singing'

This 4-CD set captures the glory days of Nashboro, the powerhouse gospel label that put out a huge amount of music, held together by a signature echo. It's a gorgeously articulated sound space.
FAVORITE SESSIONS

Folk Alley Presents: Mandolin Orange

There is no shortage of folk and country songs about booze. But what makes the Mandolin Orange tune "Waltz About Whiskey" so enchanting is its effortlessness. Watch the rising folk duo perform the song live for FolkAlley.com.
Watch the video

Downbeat Magazine

Great Reading! DownBeat's 75th Anniversary Anthology
A 340-page collection of some of the greatest interviews and photography in the history of DownBeat. More than 120 articles about the greatest names in Jazz Blues & Beyond. We've got Duke, Count, Miles, Ella, Billie, Zappa, Brubeck, Goodman, Ra, Monk, Dizzy, Bird, Tito, Sinatra, Hendrix, Zawinul, Herbie, B.B., Bennett, Quincy and many more!
Get The Great Jazz Interviews!
Get it with your gift subscription!

DownBeat's
Miles Davis Anthology
A 354-page collection of Miles Davis in DownBeat magazine. The book is divided into three sections: Miles in the news, The Miles Davis DownBeat Interviews and the Miles Davis Reviews! It's the perfect addition to any Miles fan's collection! 
Get The Miles Davis Reader!
Get it with your gift subscription!

Flamenco Singer, Jafelin, Sings Latin Jazz Boleros

Vancouver, BC (PRWEB) November 28, 2013
Dove Innovation is pleased to announce a music video release on YouTube of Vancouver's local favorite singer, Jafelin singing "Amor De Mis Amores" from her debut album. "Algo De Mi" which means "Something Of Me". Its a musical treat where Jafelin adds her emotion-evoking voice to beautiful Latin Jazz arrangements of popular Latin Boleros. Boleros are rhythmical love songs that have been enjoyed by millions before the 1950's through to today.

Jafelin is one of Canada's preeminent flamenco singers and has added Boleros and Latin Jazz to her repertoire. The Venezuelan born singer has made her home in the Vancouver, Canada since 1996.
Since applying her talents to the art of flamenco music, she has become a regular favorite performing three or four times a week. "I've been surrounded with Spanish influences all my life," says Jafelin.

When asked why she chose to sing Boleros, she says, "I was always intrigued with Spanish coplas (songs). I grew up with them. My mother and father were very romantic and had this music playing all the time." This album is dedicated to them. "Why do I sing? The beauty of connecting with real people, the world, and what I can do to make people feel alive with all their senses is why."

With the release of her new album "Algo De Mi", music lovers can hear Jafelin like never before. In this Boleros Latin Jazz influenced musical treat, "Jafelin's beautiful emotion filled tones will move you from the inside out. If you like Spanish Boleros or Latin Jazz, then you'll love this," says Mitch Helten of Dove Innovation And Management Group.
Read more: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/11/prweb11133324.htm

Barcelona Jazz Fest: Andrea Motis

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com
Viajes-barcelona
The American Songbook is alive and well in Barcelona. I arrived late in the city yesterday due to an American Airlines delay out of New York. Once at my hotel, I caught up with Joan Anton Cararach and his wife. Joan is the George Wein of European jazz festivals—his Barcelona International Jazz Festival runs from October through December, and concerts of all sizes are sold out. I'm here only a day but I can tell you that Barcelona residents of all ages are mad about jazz (along with food and wine).
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Fortunately, I was able to catch the tail-end of a performance by the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, led by Joan Chamorro [above]. It's made up of male and female Barcelona students. It's not a high school orchestra but a band comprised of very young musicians who love the music. Joan is a saxophonist and bassist who motivates the kids and inspires them to work hard, building their passion for American swing and Songbook.
Screen shot 2013-11-24 at 6.30.13 PM
Toward the end of the gig, Andrea Motis went on. Motis is a young singer-trumpeter with enormous charisma and a sultry voice. More on Andrea Motis here. More on Joan Chamorro here. More on the Sant Andreu Jazz Band here. [Cell-phone photo above of Andrea Motis at the Hotel Gran Havana by Marc Myers]
JazzWax tracks: For albums by Joan Chamorro with Andrea Motis, go here.
JazzWax clip: Here's a clip of Andrea Motis and the big band at last year's Barcelona International Jazz Festival...
- See more at: http://www.jazzwax.com/2013/11/barcelona-jazz-fest-andrea-motis.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Jazzwax+%28JazzWax%29#sthash.wzHF0GOi.dpuf
Used with permission by Marc Myers

Friday, November 29, 2013

Topsy Chapman, Clark Terry Celebrate Thanksgiving On Riverwalk Jazz

Published: 2013-11-28
This week on Riverwalk Jazz, we “break bread together” with songs in the spirit of Thanksgiving. New Orleans’ Topsy Chapman joins The Jim Cullum Jazz Band, lending her soulful vocals to classic Spirituals and Gospel hymns. Three legends of American music—trumpeters Clark TerryHarry "Sweets" Edisonand bass-baritone William Warfield—perform with the band and share heartfelt and humorous family stories of what this music has meant in their lives.

The program is distributed in the US by Public Radio International, on Sirius/XM satellite radio and can be streamed on-demand from the Riverwalk Jazz website. You can also drop in on a continuous stream of shows at the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound.

Cornetist Jim Cullum says:
“My special interest is in the spirit that’s in the music and the spirit that’s in the Eucharist. There are many parallels here. The breaking of the bread that, for me, contains a powerful symbol of the miracle of life combines with a spirit of Thanksgiving. I think this has much in common with the melancholy, but at the same time, joyous spirit of the early jazz music I love. These Hymns and Spirituals say all this. They express pain and anguish akin to the blues—and still they are joyous.”

Spirituals were the folk music of generations of slaves. Born out of misery and sorrow, these songs must have been a source of inspiration and motivation to keep striving for freedom. Almost four hundred years ago, the first cargo of African slaves arrived in Jamestown, Virginia. Slave ships kept arriving on these shores for some 250 years until President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865.

By the late 1800s, Spirituals were widely popular with black and white congregations throughout the country, and could be found in hymnals of almost every denomination. By the 1950s it was common for grade school children across the nation to sing Spirituals like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” in their classrooms.

How do Spirituals and hymns fit into a life filled with jazz? For generations of jazzmen, Spirituals were their first introduction to a love of music. From childhood days in church—to grandparents singing favorites on long-ago Sunday mornings, Spirituals and hymns inspired their work in jazz.
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Read more: http://news.allaboutjazz.com/news.php?id=107235#.UpiUrJGQf8k

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Daniel Kramer Never Gets Tired

27 November 2013 | Issue 5264
By Darya Bielecka
Photo: Vladimir Stepanov / For MT
In his early 50s, Russian jazz pianist and producer Daniel Kramer is still touring around Russia and abroad in what he describes as a nonstop regime.

In his last tour, which lasted 26 days and covered 20 cities, he traveled with young and ambitious jazz vocalist Polina Zizak, performing in small provincial towns like Snezhinsk and Alapayevsk, as well as larger cities like Yekaterinburg.

Kramer had to use all the connections that he has acquired over his long career as a jazz musician in order to organize such a difficult tour, as he confessed in a recent interview with The Moscow Times.

Kramer says that for him, it makes no difference whether he performs in front of a Parisian crowd or the provincial public. "People are people all around," Kramer says. "Besides music technique, an artist should be able to disclose his soul to himself and to people, he must touch himself and the audience really very deeply with the movement of soul."

Daniel Kramer is well-known for addressing young listeners, and for his extensive work with young and up-and-coming musicians. Kramer says that he looks back on his best teachers and, realizing how much help he received from them in his youth, feels that he must return the debts of expertise and experience to the next generations of jazz artists.

After all, having one's songs covered and reproduced by other artists is one of the strongest points of the jazz industry in Russia. Russian jazz musicians do care about those who come after them, and Kramer is honored to be copied.

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/daniel-kramer-never-gets-tired/490289.html#ixzz2lxvyn6nR
The Moscow Times

West Coast jazz great Chico Hamilton dies at 92

Photo: (Susan Walsh / Associated Press / June 22, 2004)
By Chris Barton
November 26, 2013, 9:10 a.m.

Bandleader, drummer and NEA jazz master Chico Hamilton has died. He was 92 years old.
Born Foreststorn Hamilton in Los Angeles in 1921, Hamilton's music career began with some notable high school classmates including future legends in their own right, Dexter Gordon and Charles Mingus. He eventually went on to perform and tour with Lester Young, Lena Horne and Gerry Mulligan before putting together his first quintet in 1955.

A landmark group that forged the sound of West Coast jazz while featuring the reeds of Buddy Collette, guitarist Jim Hall, Carson Smith on bass and cellist Fred Katz, the group evolved through a wealth of jazz talent, including Eric Dolphy, Gabor Szabo and Charles Lloyd, who joined the band in 1960.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-jazz-great-chico-hamilton-dies-at-92-20131126,0,333720.story#ixzz2lwW5rook

Leni Stern - Trans-Oceanic Afro-Jazz

Jelell! This Wolof expression means something along the lines of “Take it!” or “Grab it!” or “Seize the moment,” but, like so many of the world’s great untranslatable words, carries a richer, deeper, contextual meaning. It’s that contextual core, that powerful frame of reference, that drives this album, Leni Stern’s 20th full-length release and her deepest foray into African music yet.
On Jelell (release date: Nov. 26th), German-born Berklee-educated guitarist and n’goni player Leni Stern’s African Trio is completed by world-renowned electric bassist Mamadou Ba, a pillar of the NY African music scene and long-time musical director for Harry Belafonte, and Alioune Faye, who lives in the Bronx but comes from a large Senegalese family of musicians. Also featured on the album, which was recorded in its entirety in Dakar, Senegal, is a sabar ensemble made up of Faye’s five percussionist brothers. 

The complex but seemingly effortless rhythm patterns played out by this band of brothers provides the spine of the music, a polyrhythmic foundation stone from which Stern’s elegant, jazz-infused melodic improvisations can spring. This combination makes for a beat-heavy get-up-and-move album that is simultaneously profound and utterly danceable.
The songs on Jelell are topically diverse but all carry a fundamental theme of interconnectivity and the idea that life is, at its core, similar all around the world. Families, love, hunger, thirst, and even sport are touched upon and brought to life by the driving, rollicking rhythms of the band and Stern’s authentic, heartfelt songwriting, powerful vocals, and virtuosic playing.

“Baonaan” is a traditional rain invocation from Northern Senegal, given a contemporary, guitar-driven edge in this elegant reworking. Several years ago, during a period of painful and intense drought, Stern was invited by Baaba Maal to play a concert in the region to help raise awareness to the dire situation. “People were starving because all the livestock died. The rivers dried out and there were no fish.” She learned this song, which asks the Gods to send water, and made it her own, bringing in some English lyrics and her signature intricate guitar riffs. As of recently, the rains have, in fact, returned, but the region always remains at risk for further drought.
Read more: https://www.storyamp.com/dispatch/1098dde56a57f835226e994bc46a0fc4

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Henri Renaud: Paris, 1951

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com
Screen shot 2013-10-22 at 8.01.26 PM
Clamart is a French town about five miles southwest of Paris. Each year since 1949, a jazz festival has been held there. In June 1951, soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet was injured in a car accident on his way to the festival and was replaced by Don Byas. Also at the festival was French pianist Henri Renaud with his sextet. [Pictured above: Henri Renaud]
Screen shot 2013-10-22 at 8.04.28 PM
Fortunately for us, the festival's producer had invited the owner of Saturne Records. He dragged the group off to a studio and recorded them after their performance. Renaud's band featured Bobby Jaspar (ts), Sandy Mosse (ts), Jimmy Gourley (g), Pierre Michelot (b) and Pierre Lemarchand (d). Saturne recorded them together and broke them up into small groups for the date.
Screen shot 2013-10-22 at 8.01.43 PM
Of course, Mosse and Gourley were Americans. Gourley came to Paris earlier that year and was gigging at the Boite a Sardines (The Sardine Can), a club near the Arc de Triomphe. Mosse arrived in Paris a few months after Gourley. France didn't have much in the way of American jazz on record yet so Gourley brought over a batch of Roost and Triumph 78-rpms of Jimmy Raney, Al Cohn and others. Mosse toted "Charlie Parker with Strings." [Pictured above, left to right: Henri Renaud, Jimmy Gourley, Clara Mosse, Ny Renaud and Sandy Mosse]
Screen shot 2013-10-22 at 8.02.14 PM
The result of the session was a series of 78s featuring discs with pictures on each side. Also fascinating are the varying jazz styles captured. The 10 songs recorded showcased bebop, cool and the inklings of what would become West Coast jazz.
Screen shot 2013-10-22 at 8.03.56 PM
This stylistic traffic jam makes perfect sense given how many different U.S. musicians had been in Paris after the war and remained there for extended periods. Styles and approaches rubbed off on the French artists and on Jaspar, who was Belgian. But the different approaches also reflected the uncertainty about which style was going to dominate going forward. To play it safe, the French musicians learned them all. [Pictured above: At the Kentucky Club in Paris, 1951. Left to right: Bob Aubert (g), Jean Berdin (d), Bobby Jaspar (ts), Henri Renaud (p) and Bib Monville (b).]
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The tracks on the album are Milestone #2 (Miles Davis), Godchild (George Wallington), Tenderly, So What Could Be New? (Tiny Kahn), Blue Moon, If I Had You, Any Old Time, A New Date (Jimmy Gourley), Lady Be Bad (Tiny Kahn) and Too Marvelous for Words. Renaud's piano is solid, with modern chord voicings behind the ensemble. Mosse and Jaspar combined a clear affinity for Lester Young's warm and insistent airiness and Warne Marsh's metallic flintiness. [Pictured above: Sandy Mosse]
Gordon-parks-paris-1951
Why did American musicians hang out so long in Paris? There wasn't much work in the States, Paris was comparatively inexpensive and its inhabitants' love of art and life was intoxicating and stimulating. But perhaps most important, French and Belgian jazz musicians could swing.
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What's beautiful about this session are the musicians' compelling harmonies and lyrical solos. Their agility and dexterity also are admirable. One can only conclude that French jazz artists in the 1950s—like those in Britain—really haven't been given their proper due for their prowess and contribution. The soulful, poetic approach to jazz by musicians in Paris had a certain hipness and grace that rubbed off on Americans who lingered there.
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The French jazz experience is clearly worthy of further study. For now, Henri Renaud's Saturne sessions offer us a snapshot of musicians uncertain of jazz's future but eager to hedge their bets.
JazzWax tracks: This album doesn't seem to be in print Screen shot 2013-10-22 at 8.04.28 PMon CD or available as a download in the U.S. But it is available from ParisJazzCorner.com here (scroll down). Hopefully a label like Fresh Sound will re-issue this material so it's available in the States. It's tremendously important.
JazzWax clips: Here are tracks by various splinter groups featuring Henri Renaud that were recorded for Saturne in June 1951. The last one features Sandy Mosse on tenor sax:



- See more at: http://www.jazzwax.com/2013/10/henri-renaud-paris-1951.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Jazzwax+%28JazzWax%29#sthash.fV8jEzuu.dpuf
Used with permission by Marc Myers

From Cyber PR Music ....

Elisa Korenne 

Korenne‘Oy Vey’ is Jewish for ‘Uff-da’ is a live story-and-song concert by Elisa Korenne that tells the stories of the Jewish immigrants to the rural Upper Midwest. It features original songs about real people and events, stories, and explanations of history and culture.  Fans of of Americana and Jewish cultural experiences shouldn't wait another 70,000 years to get into the Thanksgivukkah spirit.
 
Check out Elisa Korenne's press kit here.

Steven James Wylie

Wylie
"These are the things that you can’t take away/The simple joys of living, that God gave me today/ You can take the house and take the car, I’ll be ok/These are the things that you can’t take away." 

"Everything I Love" is a ballad/anthem for those who are thankful everyday for all they are fortunate for. A former real estate developer, Steven James Wylie and his family saw their lives crumble in front of them in the housing crisis of 2008.  Despite their terrible disposition, Wylie was never blinded from that which he is thankful for.

Listen to Steven James Wylie's "Everything I Love" here.

The consultant

Scott Krokoff
Coffee, coupons, and fighting for parking.  What traditions and preparatory measures do you take on Black Friday?

The ConSoulTant may not be Jewish, but the chaos of the Black Friday sales affect us all.  Her new upbeat EDM/R&B track pays tribute to this unofficial holiday, gets the fierce shopper's adrenaline pumping, and is the perfect companion as one get's their shopping game-face on.

You can listen to the track and view The ConSoulTant's press kit here.

Read more: https://ob118.infusionsoft.com/app/hostedEmail/623046/51ef87ecb9bb140e?inf_contact_key=c2f5f0fb65848f7875a0ddfd9a290500f6e46cf39181a6e11008a1a080ec443a

Remembering Thomas Chapin (1957-1998)

Through the documentary NIGHT BIRD SONG: THE THOMAS CHAPIN STORY, you will discover a never-been-told story straight out of the jazz history books about the short but remarkable life of Thomas Chapin, a creative musical force who emerged in the 1980's in New York jazz scene, whose highly original style helped move the music forward in the 1990's.

Admired for his exuberance as a multi-instrumentalist; once a musical director for the legendary Lionel Hampton; and one of the few artists of his generation to exist in both the worlds of the New York City's downtown, experimentalist scene and the uptown scene of mainstream jazz, the saxophonist-flautist was just making his mark when his life was cut short. Chapin tragically died from leukemia in 1998 at age 40.

You will meet a passionate soul who lived like there was no tomorrow in tireless pursuit of doing what he loved. In the face of a childhood condition that left him aware every day that life was fragile, Thomas Chapin soared and gained altitude, living out his dream of making edgy, engaging, exhilarating music that pushed jazz forward.

Read more: http://www.citywinery.com/newyork/tickets/thomas-chapin-film-fundraiser-1-20.html

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Jazz, Blues Artists Warren Byrd, XY Eli Play Japanalia Series

By OWEN McNALLYS, Special To The Courant
The Hartford Courant
November 28, 2013
Photo: (Steven Sussman / November25, 2013)
If you're looking for post-Thanksgiving music festivities, Hartford concert producer Dan Blow is serving back-to-back treats this weekend with his "Music@Japanalia Series" featuring saucy blues presented by XY Eli on Friday, Nov. 29, and deliciously hard-swinging modern jazz cooked up by Warren Byrd and his talented friends on Saturday, Nov. 30.

The XY Eli Blues Band performs Friday, Nov. 29, at 7 p.m. in a show billed as "Loving the Holidays with The Blues" at The Dirt Salon, 50 Bartholomew Ave., Hartford. The blues bandmaster's special guests are dancer/choreographer Jolet Creary and team 860Dancers, a youth dance group. General admission: $15, cash only; cash bar. Information: www.thedirtsalon.com.

Byrd, a globe-trotting, Hartford-born pianist/singer, leads his Byrdspeak Ensemble in a post-Thanksgiving jazz bash at 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30, at Blow's prime venue for his "Music@Japanalia series at Japanalia Eiko, 11 Whitney St., Hartford.


Byrd's band features the noted trumpeter Saskia Laroo and baritone saxophonist Norman Gage, a longtime, invaluable contributor to the jazz scene in Hartford.
Read more: http://www.courant.com/entertainment/music/hc-riffs-1128-20131128,0,6712234.story?track=rss

Edmar Castaneda: A World Of Music

By IAN PATTERSON, Published: November 26, 2013
The harp may be the least common instrument in jazz/improvised music—even the humble kazoo gets more of a run out. Dating back over 5,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia, the harp in its various guises is common to nearly all cultures across the continents. Throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America the harp is an important element of folk music. The harp is common in Celtic music too, though in Europe it's perhaps more usually associated with the sedate airs of mediaeval court music or through-composed baroque classical music. This unique instrument has certainly done the rounds but nobody, it's safe to say, has ever played the harp quite like Colombian harpist Edmar Castaneda. 

"Hearing Edmar for the first time blew my mind!" exclaims vibraphonist Joe Locke, who has played and recorded with Castaneda. "He's a very unique artist." Drummer Ari Hoenig, who has also collaborated live and in the studio with Castaneda, concurs: "What struck me about Edmar is that he can cover all the roles of a harmonic and melodic instrument as well as playing the bass lines," says Hoenig. "He has a really unique sound. When I first heard him he really blew me away. He improvises, which is rare on his instrument. The overall sound that he gets out of his instrument is just beautiful." 

Mind-blowing and unique Castaneda undoubtedly is, but not entirely without precedent. A small handful of harpists have preceded Castaneda in jazz's colorful, mongrel history In the 1930s Casper Reardon took what is probably the first recorded jazz harp solo on trombonist Jack Teagarden's "Junk Man." His swing paved the way for Adele Girard, whose improvisations on swing and Dixieland took the harp to new heights, though the instrument was still widely regarded as something of a novelty. 

In the 1950s Betty Glamann and Dorothy Ashby expanded the boundaries of jazz harp. Glamann performed on Duke Ellington's 1956 album, A Drum is a Woman, and took the harp into the realm of the so-called Third Stream when she recorded with the Modern Jazz Quartet in 1960. Ashby collaborated with post-boppers like flutist Frank Wess, drummers Roy Haynes and Jimmy Cobb, bassist Richard Davis, and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard—firmly establishing the harp as a solo jazz instrument in its own right. 

Towards the end of the 1960s Alice Coltrane placed the harp at the center of her Eastern-influenced, modal jazz explorations—though with greater emphasis on emotional weight than on any shows of virtuosity. In the intervening years the harp as a lead instrument has largely disappeared from jazz. To be sure, there have been harpists—Brandee Younger, Park Stiknee and Rossitza Milevska are notable modern practitioners—but most have had one foot firmly planted in the classical world whilst others have merely flirted with jazz alongside other genres of music.
Read more: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=45917#.UpSQopGQf8k

Barcelona Jazz Fest: Andrea Motis

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com
Viajes-barcelona
The American Songbook is alive and well in Barcelona. I arrived late in the city yesterday due to an American Airlines delay out of New York. Once at my hotel, I caught up with Joan Anton Cararach and his wife. Joan is the George Wein of European jazz festivals—his Barcelona International Jazz Festival runs from October through December, and concerts of all sizes are sold out. I'm here only a day but I can tell you that Barcelona residents of all ages are mad about jazz (along with food and wine).
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Fortunately, I was able to catch the tail-end of a performance by the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, led by Joan Chamorro [above]. It's made up of male and female Barcelona students. It's not a high school orchestra but a band comprised of very young musicians who love the music. Joan is a saxophonist and bassist who motivates the kids and inspires them to work hard, building their passion for American swing and Songbook.
Screen shot 2013-11-24 at 6.30.13 PM
Toward the end of the gig, Andrea Motis went on. Motis is a young singer-trumpeter with enormous charisma and a sultry voice. More on Andrea Motis here. More on Joan Chamorro here. More on the Sant Andreu Jazz Band here. [Cell-phone photo above of Andrea Motis at the Hotel Gran Havana by Marc Myers]
JazzWax tracks: For albums by Joan Chamorro with Andrea Motis, go here.
JazzWax clip: Here's a clip of Andrea Motis and the big band at last year's Barcelona International Jazz Festival...
- See more at: http://www.jazzwax.com/2013/11/barcelona-jazz-fest-andrea-motis.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Jazzwax+%28JazzWax%29#sthash.INVbUUlG.dpuf
Used with permission by Marc Myers

NPR Music - You Must Hear This

First Listen: Thelonious Monk, 'Paris 1969'

The pianist's first visit to France and the 3,000-seat Salle Pleyel concert hall ended in disaster. Fifteen years later, after he became an international star, Monk returned to the same stage with his own band, planning a surprise.
Read this story
MUSIC INTERVIEWS

Esperanza Spalding: Guantanamo Doesn't Represent 'Our America'

The Grammy-winning musician's new recording, "We Are America," protests the controversial detention center. But she tells NPR she doesn't like to call it a protest song. It's more of a "let's get together and do something pro-active, creative and productive" song.
MUSIC INTERVIEWS

'Something That Is Very Real For Me': Ted Nash Completes His 'Chakra'

The jazz multi-instrumentalist and composer embarked on a spiritual journey that spanned years before he was able to complete his new record. In a discussion with NPR's Arun Rath, Nash talks about starting from square one in educating himself about Hindu philosophy.
CODE SWITCH

Arturo Sandoval: Free To Blow His Trumpet The Way He Wants

NPR's Shereen Marisol Meraji spent time with Cuban trumpet virtuoso Arturo Sandoval, just days before he accepted his adopted country's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
MARIAN MCPARTLAND'S PIANO JAZZ

Kenny Werner On Piano Jazz

The pianist is a musician for whom creativity is a credo and improvisation a way of life. Transforming brilliant technique into unbridled creativity is not only Werner's musical mission; it's also the subject of his popular book, Effortless Mastery. Hear an interview and performance.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Paul Augustin: Putting Penang On The Jazz Map

By IAN PATTERSON, Published: November 23, 2013
We hope our audience will grow to learn that the term jazz is actually bigger than just swing music, fusion or funk. The music has evolved so much —Paul Augustin
Most jazz festival directors would agree that survival is the name of the game in the first years. Unless a festival has the financial backing of a major sponsor it can be a knife edge existence attempting to rustle up private sponsorship and the kind of good will that is required in abundance to meet the obstacles that undoubtedly arise. For small and medium-sized jazz festivals it's an uphill slog, but for such a festival to get off the ground in Malaysia—where jazz is mostly of the background, lounge music variety—and to survive for ten years is no small feat. The Penang Island Jazz Festival has done just that, and then some. 

The PIJF may not be the first jazz festival in Malaysia but it holds the distinction of being the longest-running one. Where others have fallen by the wayside the PIJF has dug deep roots and flourished. This year PIJF celebrates its 10th anniversary and festival Director Paul Augustin is in expansive mood as he takes stock of the challenges and achievements of the past decade. It certainly hasn't all been plain sailing and the number 10 has something of a magic ring to Augustin: "Am I surprised? Yeah, of course. I'm surprised we even got to number five," he says laughing. "We lost nearly everything with the first one." 

The idea for a jazz festival in Penang dates back to the mid-1990s, when Augustin and his long-standing business partner, Chin Choo Yeun were working in Kula Lumpur running a stadium: "It was a privatized stadium; Chin was the Executive Director and I started off as the Events Manager and eventually became the Group Events Manager," says Augustin. "We were often asked to look at bands for the stadium. That was when we started researching the jazz festival. " 

In 1996 Agustin and Choo Yeun left the stadium and set up their own events management and consultancy company, Capricorn Connection. "We went to a lot of people and told them we wanted to do a jazz festival but nobody thought it was going to work," Augustin recalls of their initial attempts to get the ball rolling. They did, however, gain valuable hands-on experience when in 2003 the Kuching Jazz Festival—which had experienced a difficult first two years—asked Capricorn Connection to help turn the festival's fortunes around. 

"We did that," says Augustin, "and then in 2003 we were asked to look at and manage two other festivals and we did that too. But when you manage festivals on behalf of people they then decide that they can then do it themselves or else ask somebody else to do it and that's what happened. We were replaced." 

The festival managing had provided what Augustin describes as "a bit of know-how" and plenty of useful contacts in the industry. The stage was set in 2004 for the very first PIJF. 

The first edition of the PIJF was a humble 2-day, 1 stage affair with a few workshops and a small jazz gallery exhibition. The bands were mostly local/Malaysian, like the Aseana Percussion Unit or ex-pat bands such as drummer/percussionist Steve Thornton, who had played with trumpeter Miles Davis, pianists Herbie Hancock and McCoy Tyner. There were a couple of regional bands from South Korea and award-winning Australian a cappella group The Idea of North. "The festival was a calculated risk" Augustin admits, "and after the first edition we lost so much money we nearly closed the company down." 
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=45808#.UpCeaJGQf8k

Jazz Legend Sandoval: Music 'Keeps You Alive'

November 22, 201312:01 PM
CELESTE HEADLEE, HOST: Now we take a moment to highlight and salute another artist. Jazz-great Arturo Sandoval received the Presidential Medal of Freedom this week from President Obama. Sandoval was born and raised in Cuba, where he was once jailed just for listening to jazz music. So he packed up his trumpet and moved to the United States. A country he says gave him the freedom to fill the air with his music. Here's what the president said about him at the ceremony.

(SOUNDBITE OF CEREMONY)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Today, Arturo is an American citizen and one of the most celebrated trumpet players in the world. There isn't any place on Earth where the people don't know about jazz, he says. And that's true in part because musicians like him have sacrificed so much to play it.

HEADLEE: And play it he did. Here he is playing with jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie on his 1982 tune "Wheatleigh Hall."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHEATLEIGH HALL")

HEADLEE: I had the pleasure of speaking with Arturo Sandoval back in August, and it's clear his love for the art form is as strong as ever.

ARTURO SANDOVAL: Jazz is the most important art form created in this country. We have to carry that legacy and let everybody - younger generation - that this is a beautiful music created in this country. And, you know, the people love and admire and respect jazz immensely.
Read more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=246733374&ft=1&f=1008

Roswell Rudd Setting new Standards ....

Roswell Rudd Setting new Standards with his new CD TROMBONE FOR LOVERS - a loving glance back to the melodies that forever lived on inside him - down melody land with stellar performances by John Medeski, Bob Dorough, Michael Doucet, Steven Bernstein, Gary Lucas, Fay Victor, Aaron Commes, Richard Hammond, Heather Masse, the NYC Labor Chorus with Reggie Bennett. Produced by Ivan Rubenstein-Gillis with Roswell. To be released in October 2013 on Sunnyside.
Read more: http://www.roswellrudd.com/docs/main/frame.htm

An Arty Home for Jazzy Sets

Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
By BEN RATLIFF
Published: November 22, 2013
Music, as subject or spirit, doesn’t leap out of Christopher Wool’s wordy, designy, process-oriented paintings and silk-screen works. But sometimes it lives as a reference in the text and titles. One black-and-white stencil painting in his retrospective exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum says “You Make Me,” which is the incomplete outburst written in felt-tip pen on Richard Hell’s chest on the cover of the album “Blank Generation.”

Another is called “Nation Time.” And that’s the title of a jazz record by the saxophonist and trumpeter Joe McPhee from 1971, with aggressive free improvisation, funk and shuffle rhythm and black-liberation subtext. (An Amiri Baraka book from 1970 was called “It’s Nation Time”; so was an incredible album Mr. Baraka made shortly thereafter, reading over free jazz.)

Mr. Wool knows the record. He likes music. How, otherwise, would we know this? The exhibition’s text affirms that the No Wave scene in New York in the late ’70s and early ’80s meant a lot to him. Another piece in the show is called “Minor Mishap,” the name of a jazz tune written by Tommy Flanagan. Mr. Wool collaborated with Mr. Hell on a book, though long after Mr. Hell gave up music for poetry.

There’s more to say on that score, but “Nation Time,” an event presented on Wednesday night in conjunction with the Wool show and staged in the Peter B. Lewis Theater under the Guggenheim, was more about Mr. Wool’s enthusiasms than his art. It started with Mr. Hell reading in front of projections of Mr. Wool’s work. Then it pushed on to music, with a wise and nearly heroic solo performance by the singer and guitarist Arto Lindsay, once of the No Wave band DNA, and a heavy-gauge set by Mr. McPhee, now 74, collaborating with the Scandinavian free-jazz trio the Thing.

All members of the Thing are in their late 30s and 40s; they’re generationally wired with postpunk immediacy and attack. The baritone saxophonist Mats Gustafsson typically proceeds from zero to all-out very quickly, reddening in the face, rocking from the waist, bending on one knee; his sound was rude and emphatic, yet integrated with the bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten and the drummer Paal Nilssen-Love.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/arts/music/the-thing-arto-lindsay-and-joe-mcphee-at-the-guggenheim.html?_r=0