Pigalle44 in radiotalkshow OBA Live, Amsterdam, 12/12/08 (HUMAN/www.obalive.nl)
with George Washingmachine and Simon Planting
promoting the new cd Dream Dancing
Reinier Voet: sologuitar
George Washingmaschine: violin/vocals
Jan Brouwer: rhythm guitar
Simon Planting: double bass
Monday, December 22, 2008
George Washingmachine and Simon Planting
The Jazz Scene Today....
Published 1/13/1954
Down Beat Magazine
I have long been disturbed about what I've seen of the state of mind of the average young jazz musician around the country, especially in New York. The general mass of jazz musicians, for one thing, have become so ingrown with regard to the music they're playing and are associated with, that a very unhealthy atmosphere is being bred.
There are so many groups that are unhappy with what they're doing, that are unhappy with everything. They've gotten into an attitude where nothing means much any more. They have no outside interests. They're just musicians and know of nothing else. With some, it becomes so bad they know of nothing else except themselves.
I hear a young talent in a city I play, and almost invariably, I'll come back a few months later, and the talent's been washed away by a number of bad activities. So many things are going the wrong way; and so few the right way.
Parents' Attitude Cited
I can remember when a lot of parents would go along with their children's interests in jazz, but since the recent newspaper stories and mishaps among musicians, jazz today isn't encouraged by the parents. The reason is that the parents feel that jazz is not a healthy enough a profession today. And many of the men in it have made it that way.
That applies to the whole jazz scene. If, God forbid, I should lose a man, it would be very hard to replace him. I'd have to find out whether a possible replacement was personally straight. I'd actually have to screen him. It wasn't like that years ago. There were always plenty of good musicians you could use, and you didn't have to go around and ask, "Is he straight?"
I don't enjoy discussing this, and I've always avoided talking about it in radio or magazine interviews, but I've come to realize that you can't just look the other way and hope it'll go away. These people have created a monster they'll never destroy.
Encouraged by Imbeciles
And I should add that a lot of guys who have gone that way have been encouraged by the imbecilic cultists. I mean the ones who say that if one of their favorites blows well, he's always the greatest all the time. That's the biggest falsehood ever told.
That mistaken attitude leads to the fact that regardless of what a man has done to himself to destroy his talent, the cultist keeps saying that man is still the greatest. And so they keep on encouraging him in his self-destruction.
Speaking of the musicians themselves with regard to what caused this present-day scene, I would say that among the contributing factors have been too many false pedestals, biased opinions and staid minds. This false worship of one's self has been combined with the feeling that what is duly and rightfully owed one in terms of appreciation and recognition has been denied. It's hard to converse with them -- they're always complaining.
Appreciates Feeling
I can appreciate the feeling of not being recognized, of one's work not being appreciated. But the answer is to work harder and fight to get recognition through your work. It's a matter of a half a loaf being better than none, especially when the none is self-destruction.
The healthy spirit of competition is gone. It has been replaced by animosity, envy, and slothfulness. There are so few jazz musicians left like Billy Taylor who are honestly eager to do something, who get a kick out of what they're doing, who are not biased in their attitudes.
A man's personality shows up in his music. If frustration has formed a cold attitude in a man, he plays that way. And he plays disjointedly -- one way one night and another the next night. The way you play music is a tonal biography of yourself -- your thoughts and feelings.
The other night Gerry Mulligan was telling me that our trio is the happiest group he's heard or seen for some time. Well, I don't see how you can project happiness in music unless you're happy yourself and happy with what you're doing, as we are.
Happiness Gone
http://www.downbeat.com/default.asp?sect=stories&subsect=story_detail&sid=503
Rebeca Parris....
Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, December 19, 2008 - Singer Rebecca Parris hails from Newton, Mass. Both of her parents were music teachers and several of her extended family members were also involved in music. She began singing at an early age and was actively involved in musical theater throughout her youth.
Parris studied with her uncle, vocal coach Blair MacClosky, before attending the Boston Conservatory where she studied opera and theater. After college, Parris made a name for herself as a pop singer, fronting a number of Tp 40 cover bands in the Northeast. In the 1980s, after much encouragement from friends and colleagues, Parris shifted her focus to jazz.
Since then, Parris has performed around the world and in festivals from Oslo to Monterey. She's appeared with such musicians as Dizzy Gillespie, Gary Burton, Buddy Rich, David "Fathead" Newman and Red Mitchell. She can count the late great singers Carmen McRae and Sarah Vaughan as friends and mentors. Known by many as Boston's First Lady of Jazz, Parris remains based outside of Boston in Duxbury, Mass.
Like her parents before her, Parris is also active as a music educator. She has her own private studio of vocal students and she's also given workshops and clinics on vocal technique, scat, and even music business.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98461029&ft=1&f=10002
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Nica De Koenigswarter: A Woman with a Passion....
By Alan Behr
NEW YORK, 16 NOVEMBER 2008 — Baroness Pannonica "Nica" de Koenigswarter was a woman with a passion for jazz musicians and cats. She let jazz musicians play their music and crash with her at each of the New York hotels where she lived until the noise (not to mention the death of Charlie Parker, on the sofa in her suite at the Stanhope), got her thrown out. She finally settled into an apartment, which Thelonius Monk nicknamed the Cathouse for the 100+ cats she kept there ["cats" was jazz slang for "guys" or musicians]. At the time, racial discrimination and economic exploitation made the life of a musician very difficult when it came to making a living and finding accommodation.
In the late 1960s, she snapped Polaroids of the musicians and a few of the cats, collected into a book first published in France as Les musicians de jazz et leurs trois voeux. A selection is now on display at the gallery at the Hermès store in New York City — along with, to be sure, a couple of the baroness's Hermès notebooks, which have become historical documents.
Pannonica de Koenigswarter, born Kathleen Annie Pannonica de Rothschild, was born in London in 1913. In the early 1930s she studied Art History in Venice, Vienna and Munich. According to Nadine de Koenigswarter, Pannonica was an avid traveller who photographed the indigenous peoples of China, Sulawesi and Papua, New Guinea in 1935-36, and those of the Congo and Ghana in 1940-42 when she and her husband were members of the Free French Forces. She moved to New York in the early 1950s, embracing her passion for jazz and becoming a friend, patron and muse of all the top names, who dedicated some twenty compositions to her.
The feelings communicated by music do not easily lend themselves to recreation in the visual arts, but these snapshots were never intended as fine-art photographs; they are private documents of people at rest and at work —which, for a true jazz musician, is the same as play. You might not feel the music, but you feel the respect and the love the photographer had for her subjects. "Nica" de Koenigswarter died in New York in 1988.
http://www.culturekiosque.com/jazz/seen/hermes_pannonica_de_koenigswarter268.html
Who's Randy Brecker?
Randy Brecker has been shaping the sound of Jazz, R and B and Rock for more than three decades. His trumpet and flugelhorn performances have graced hundreds of albums by a wide range of artists from James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, Chaka Khan, George Benson and Parliament-Funkadelics to Frank Sinatra, Steely Dan, David Sanborn, Horace Silver, Jaco Pastorius and Frank Zappa.
Randy Brecker's history is as varied as it is distinguished. Born (1945) in Philadelphia to a piano-playing father, Randy spent summers in stage-band camps where he got his earliest experience in ensemble playing. He began playing RandB and funk in local bar bands while in his teens, but at the same time he had an ear for hard bop. "I'd listen to Sonny Rollins, Lee Morgan, Miles' Quintets, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, the Clifford Brown/Max Roach group."
After finishing high school. Randy attended Indiana University where after winning the 1965 Notre Dame Jazz festival, the IU Jazz Band was awarded a 3 month State Dept. tour of the Middle East and Asia. In 1966, he moved to New York City. Some of his first gigs upon arriving there were with Clark Terry's Big Band, the Thad Jones/ Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and the Duke Pearson Big Band with whom he recorded 2 albums. Randy also began his foray into jazz-rock by joining Blood, Sweat and Tears. He worked with BSandT for a year and played on their innovative 1968 debut, Child is Father to the Man.
Randy left BSandT to join the Horace Silver Quintet. "BSandT was a very structured situation...I needed to stretch out and play." In 1968, Randy recorded his first album as a leader, Score (re-issued in 1993 on Blue Note), which also featured 19 year-old Michael Brecker on tenor saxophone.
After Horace Silver, Randy joined forces with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers before teaming up with brother Michael, Barry Rogers, Billy Cobham, and John Abercrombie to form the seminal fusion group Dreams. The group recorded two adventurous and wildly acclaimed albums: Dreams and Imagine My Surprise - now collector's items - for Columbia Records before they disbanded in 1971.
In 1972, Randy was back with Horace Silver, teaming up with brother Michael as the front line in Horace's quintet. By now, the two horn players had become two of the most in-demand studio musicians of the day. After recording the now classic In Pursuit of the 27th Man (Blue Note) with Horace, Randy left to join another new influential jazz-rock group led by old friend Larry Coryell which resulted in the album Larry Coryell and The 11th House. In '74, the brothers joined Billy Cobham's group, Spectrum, with whom they recorded several albums, and by 1975 they were ready to front their own band.
The Brecker Brothers were to become a band of immeasurable influence and impact. Hailed by pop and jazz critics alike, their first album,The Brecker Brothers (Arista) which Randy produced, wrote, and arranged, was nominated for four Grammys. The Brecker Brothers went on to record a total of six albums, including the still popular Heavy Metal Be-Bop and garner seven Grammy nominations between 1975 and 1981. In 1978 Randy and Michael played a week in NYC with Frank Zappa which resulted in the much requested album Zappa in NY.
In the late 70s. Randy recorded on Charles Mingus' last album. Me Myself and Eye. Randy has performed with various incarnations of Mingus Dynasties, Big Bands, and Epitaphs up to the present day. Also from 1977-1987 the Brecker Brothers owned and operated Seventh Avenue South a jazz club in downtown Manhattan. The club became a major musical hangout with many great bands of all styles, performing nightly.
After the Brecker Brothers parted in 1982. Randy recorded and toured extensively with Jaco Pastorius, recording the famous Word of Mouth album, a live concert in Japan. In 1986, Randy produced,composed and arranged his first acoustic jazz album, In the Idiom, for Denon Records, with Joe Henderson, Dave Kikoski, Ron Carter, and Al Foster.
In 1988, Randy recorded Live At Sweet Basil, for Sonet Records at the famed jazz club in New York, with Bob Berg, Joey Baron,Dave Kikoski, and Dieter Ilg. Through the end of the 80s, Randy toured North America and Europe several times as a leader, as well as touring with Stanley Clarke's Jazz Explosion. In 1989 under the aupices of the US State Department, he toured Eastern Europe with his Quintet six months before the fall of Communism. Also in 1989, he performed a sold out week at the Albert Hall In London with Eric Clapton.
The 1990s began with Randy on tour with the Mingus Dynasty/Epitaph. He also recorded and co-produced his third album as a leader. Toe To Toe, for MCA in 1990. And in 1992, exactly ten years after they disbanded, Randy and Michael joined forces again in a much heralded reunion featuring a world tour and the triple-Grammy nominated GRP recording, The Return of the Brecker Brothers.
In the fall of 1994, the Brecker Brothers released the double-Grammy winning Out of the Loop, with tours that followed into 1995 throughout the U.S. and Europe. A tour highlight, they were the first international contemporary jazz group to perform in the People's Republic of China, playing to sell-out crowds in Beijing and Shanghai. Branching out again in 1995, Randy toured Japan as a special guest with Stanley Turrentine and was one of the first western jazz artists to tour in Poland.
Most significantly, he began recording his first solo album in six years with a band of musicians assembled from different parts of the globe, including long-time friend and musical cohort David Sanborn. guitarist Adam Rogers from Lost Tribe, Brazilian vocalist Maucha Adnet (singer with the late Jobim's band), and bassist Bakithi Kumalo of Graceland fame, among others.
Completed in 1996, drawn to and inspired by the music of Brazil since his first visit there in 1979, Randy offered up his impression of Brazilian music mixed with pinches of Latin, World Music, Funk and Jazz on Into the Sun. Released first in Japan on Pony Canyon, it became available on Concord Records throughout the rest of the world, and won Randy his first Grammy as a soloist in 1998 for "Best Contemporary Jazz Performance." A live concert of the music from the album was filmed by Japanese television station NHK and broadcast in 1997. The summer of that year, Randy toured Europe with Joe Henderson, and closed the year on tour with the Mingus Big Band across the U.S. and South America, and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band in Europe.
1998 began with Randy's appearance on tour as a special guest with Billy Cobham in the U.K. In fact, it was while on stage at Ronnie Scott's in London, that Randy first heard the news of his Grammy win. Summer appearances included several reunion concerts with Larry Coryell and the 11th House, as well as a special guest appearance with the Vanguard Orchestra in a Tribute to Thad Jones In Marciac, France. Later that year he began appearing with the Art of Blakey Band featuring Benny Golson and Curtis Fuller in addition to performing in Israel twice as a guest soloist.
The Millennium had Randy signed to ESC Records and his first release on that label: the controversial Hangin' in the City appeared, featuring the antics of 'Randroid' his rappin' cab-drivin' alter-ego. Hangin' sold especially well in Europe and Japan (it went to #4 on the German charts) and allowed Randy to perform more regularly around the globe as the leader of his own band. Also in the spring of that year he toured the US extensively as a part of Festival Productions' Newport Jazz Millennium Celebration tour. The summer saw the release of the Jazz Times Superband CD on Concord featuring Randy, Bob Berg. Joey DeFrancesco and Dennis Chambers and another US festival tour.
He has been a part of the touring Concord/Fujitsu Jazz Festival in Japan three times in recent years... with Art of Blakey Band and as Special Guest with the Ray Brown Trio and the Micheal Brecker Quartet. In addition he has been a frequent guest in Russia touring with the Igor Butman Quartet.
His most recent CD for ESC, 34th N Lex released in April of 2003 to great reviews ("RandyBrecker clearly outdoes himself on this one"-Paula Edelstein AMG Review)) features 11 new Randy Brecker compositions and arrangements and the 'dream horn section' of David Sanborn, Micheal Brecker, Fred Wesley and, Ronnie Cuber, along with Randy's regular working band and his wife, the Italian tenor saxophonist Ada Rovatti. In May of 2003 he toured Europe with his Quintet in support of the CD, and in the summer went back to Europe yet again with the Randy Brecker/ Bill Evans Soulbop Band.
The summer of 2003 culminated in the special headline appearance in Japan at the Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival of the reunited Brecker Brothers.
Randy Brecker continues to influence and inspire young musicians, and thoughout the years, has been in constant demand as a Yamaha Clinician, performing at Colleges and Universities the world over.
25 MacARTHUR Fellows Win Genius Grants of $500,000 Each
By Culturekiosque Staff
CHICAGO, 24 SEPTEMBER 2008— Yesterday, The MacArthur Foundation named 25 new MacArthur Fellows for 2008. This past week, the recipients learned in a single phone call from the Foundation that they will each receive $500,000 in "no strings attached" support over the next five years. The new Fellows work across a broad spectrum of endeavors and include a neurobiologist, a saxophonist, a critical care physician, an urban farmer, an optical physicist, a sculptor, a geriatrician, a historian of medicine, and an inventor of musical instruments. All were selected for their creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future.
"The MacArthur Fellows Program celebrates extraordinarily creative individuals who inspire new heights in human achievement," said MacArthur President Jonathan Fanton. "With their boldness, courage, and uncommon energy, this new group of Fellows, men and women of all ages in diverse fields, exemplifies the boundless nature of the human mind and spirit."
MacArthur Fellowships offer the opportunity for Fellows to accelerate their current activities or take their work in new directions. The unusual level of independence afforded to Fellows underscores the spirit of freedom intrinsic to creative endeavors. The extraordinary creativity of MacArthur Fellows knows neither boundaries nor the constraints of age, place, and endeavor.
Recipients this year include:
an astronomer designing experiments and devices to advance understanding of the geometry of the universe and the story of both its beginning and its end (Adam Reiss);
a neuroscientist tracing the natural interactions of differentiating neurons, bringing us closer to developing effective methods for treating central nervous system damage (Sally Temple);
a novelist exploring the circumstances that lead to ethnic conflict in works inspired by events in her native Nigeria (Chimamanda Adichie);
an inventor of musical instruments that transform and transcend the musical experience and navigate the boundaries between live and recorded sound (Walter Kitundu);
an urban farmer applying low-cost technologies to the cultivation, production, and delivery of healthy foods to underserved urban populations here and abroad (Will Allen);
a geriatrician transforming treatment for the seriously ill into more humane and effective care (Diane Meier);
an optical physicist demonstrating that power can be transmitted wirelessly, opening the door to the possibility of a range of devices operating free of traditional power sources (Marin Soljaèiæ);
a saxophonist drawing from a variety of jazz idioms and the music of his native Puerto Rico to create complex, accessible sounds that overflow with emotion (Miguel Zenón);
a critical care physician devising life-saving, clinical practices to improve patient safety in hospitals and spare countless lives from the deadly consequences of human error (Peter Pronovost);
a structural engineer restoring cathedrals and other structures of the distant past and identifying ancient technologies for use in contemporary constructions (John Ochsendorf);
a stage lighting designer pushing the visible boundaries of her art form with painterly lighting that evokes mood and sculpts movement in dance, drama, and opera (Jennifer Tipton);
a music critic for introducing readers to "new ways of thinking about music past and present.'' (Alex Ross)
an anthropologist illuminating the intellectual and emotional life of ancient Mesoamerican peoples through insightful interpretations of hieroglyphic inscriptions and figural art (Stephen Houston)
"Our goal, each year, is to surprise ourselves and others by the creativity, distinctiveness, and reach of those we identify and support. We have surprised ourselves again this year. As a group, this new class of Fellows takes one’s breath away. Each is an original, and each confirms that the creative individual is alive and well, at the cutting edge, and at work to make our world a better place," said Daniel J. Socolow, Director of the MacArthur Fellows Program.
The MacArthur Fellows Program was the first major grantmaking initiative of the Foundation. The inaugural class of MacArthur Fellows was named in 1981. Including this year’s Fellows, 781 people, ranging in age from 18 to 82 at the time of their selection, have been named MacArthur Fellows since the program began. Past recipients have been writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, entrepreneurs, farmers, and fishermen, among many others
The selection process begins with formal nominations. Hundreds of anonymous nominators assist the Foundation in identifying people to be considered for a MacArthur Fellowship. Nominations are accepted only from invited nominators, a list that is constantly renewed throughout the year. They are chosen from many areas and challenged to identify people who demonstrate exceptional creativity and promise. A 12‑member Selection Committee, whose members also serve anonymously, meets regularly to review files, narrow the list, and make final recommendations to the Foundation’s Board of Directors. The number of Fellows selected each year is not fixed; typically, it varies between 20 and 25 for the five-year, $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship.
Please click here to search for all past recpients and disciplines of the MacArthur Fellows Program since 1981.
TItle Photo: Miguel Zenón
Related Culturekiosque Archives
http://www.culturekiosque.com/jazz/news/2008_macarthur_fellows_genius_grants244.html#hp
Allan Ganley (drums) and ....
A rare glimpse of British jazz sax great Tubby Hayes in 1965 leading his big band through a Jimmy Deuchar chart. Featuring spots for Terry Shannon (piano), Tubby Hayes (tenor sax), Jimmy Deuchar (trumpet), Keith Christie (trombone) and Allan Ganley (drums).
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