Audiovisual jazz expression

By Lori Gilbert. Record Staff Writer - February 17, 2013 12:00 AM

The definition of jazz may have changed over time - from something with swing and improvisation to a style that reflects musicians inspired by everything from classical concertos to The Who - but as San Joaquin Delta College instructor and jazz musician Brian Kendrick notes, "at the heart of it is self expression and improvisation and the desire to interact and collaborate."

The emphasis is on the latter for this year's Delta Jazz Series, which opens Wednesday with a blending of visual, performing and culinary arts.

A gala reception for "The Art of Jazz," the new exhibit in the Horton Gallery, from 5 to 7 p.m. precedes the opening show, a 7:30 p.m. performance by the Patricia Barber Quartet in Tillie Lewis Theatre. Food by culinary students of chef Mark Berkner and LoCA wines will be served at the gallery show that features pieces by 10 artists working in such media as paint, ceramics and aluminum prints.

"It's really about the whole character of jazz music, the improvisational influence of jazz, the impressionist influence on both jazz and art," said gallery director Jan Marlese. "We have a really big variety."

Vibrant colors in paintings are muted by the earth-tone ceramics and pieces in bronze and aluminum.

Among the unique pieces is a historical recording done on a medical X-ray.

"During World War II there was an underground market for jazz from the United States and England to Germany and Russia," Marlese said. "Music was recorded on discarded X-rays. You can see the circular form of the album."

Read more: http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130217/A_LIFE/302160303

Jazz music takes row to fever pitch

February 14 2013 at 12:15pm, By Nontando Mposo

Cape Town - A 25-year-old woman from Gardens has laid a charge against her neighbour after he allegedly physically and verbally assaulted her over jazz music.

City Varsity student Ashanti Zwedala told the Cape Argus on Wednesday that chef Saalin Guan, owner of Tokyo Restaurant and Sushi Bar, barged into her apartment on Sunday morning and started shouting at her to switch off the music.

Zwedala said that she had been singing along to Afro-jazz singer Zonke while cleaning her two-bedroom apartment at around 11am, with her front door open.

“I was startled to find him yelling and shouting profanities at me in my living room. To my shock and fear, I told him to get out of my flat.

Ashanti Zwedala says she was assaulted by Saalin Guan. Picture: Cindy Waxa

“He continued swearing and yelling at me to turn off my music or close the door,” she said.

But Guan, 40, has denied the assault, saying Zwedala had attacked him and he would be opening a case of assault against her.

Zwedala said she had felt “vulnerable” because she was wearing only a T-shirt.

“I told him to leave my flat but he didn’t budge, even though I stood by the door waiting for him to leave.

“He aggressively pushed and knocked me with the door several times. He was so angry; if my younger sister wasn’t there I don’t know what he would have done to me.”

Read more: http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/jazz-music-takes-row-to-fever-pitch-1.1470235#.USFlqKXhEhQ

Jazz bassist Jaromír Honzák plays music of Suzanne Vega

17-02-2013 02:01 | Jan Richter

In this edition of Sunday Music Show, we play Blood Sings, the latest album by the renowned Czech bass player Jaromír Honzák. The record contains covers of songs by the American singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega, and features Norwegian singer Sissel Vera Pettersen.

From: http://www.radio.cz/en/section/sunday-music-show/jazz-bassist-jaromir-honzak-plays-music-of-suzanne-vega

Dmitri Matheny blows into Oakland

Jesse Hamlin is a Bay Area writer. E-mail: datebookletters@sfchronicle.com

Dmitri Matheny, the lyrical flugelhorn player who moved to Phoenix a few years ago but still keeps a room in San Francisco, learned a lot about music and life from the late Art Farmer, the peerless jazz flugelhorn player who mentored and promoted him.

Matheny, who played Duke Ellington's lovely "Warm Valley" at Farmer's 1999 memorial on the master's copper-bell horn, which he now owns, remembers Farmer stopping him mid-solo during lessons to ask if he knew the lyrics of the song - right at that measure - that he was improvising on.

"For Art, if you didn't know all the lyrics and chord changes, you didn't know the song," Matheny says.

Photo: Courtesy Dmitri Matheny

He's a sound-and-melody player in the tradition of Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Stan Getz and Farmer, whose spare solos dispensed with filler licks and patterns.

"That's what I aspire to, and that's why I loved him so much," says Matheny, 46, who swings into Oakland's 57th Street Gallery for a Jazz in the Gallery show Saturday night with a Bay Area quartet after a Valentine's Day gig at the Seattle Art Museum with musicians there.

Accompanied by guitarist Brad Buethe, bassist Ron Belcher and drummer Deszon X.

Claiborne, Matheny will play a mix of standards like "Blues in the Night," his arrangements of film noir themes and original tunes such as the new "Buckshot Rubaiyat," a Persian blues with a rumba beat. It's dedicated to Bruno Mooshei, the late proprietor of the Persian Aub Zam Zam Club on Haight Street, where the composer enjoyed many of Mooshei's fabled martinis.

Matheny, who moved to San Francisco from Boston in 1989 after graduating from the jazz-focused Berklee College of Music, worked as director of development at SFJazz from 1992 to 1996 while playing and recording. His first CD as a leader, "Red Reflections," came out in '95 to wide acclaim and led to his leaving his day job. He came back to serve as SFJazz's education director from 2002 to 2005.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/music/article/Dmitri-Matheny-blows-into-Oakland-4275664.php#ixzz2LA9O2Oxq

Jazz Saxophonist Mindi Abair and Duo Tuck and Patti Grace PH International Jazzfest

February 14, 2013 by ABS-CBN

Move to the soulful music of smooth jazz saxophonist Mindi Abair, and jazz duo Tuck and Patti at the annual Philippine International Jazz and Arts Festival (PI Jazzfest), in partnership with ABS-CBN’s Cable and Print Media Group, this February 22 (Friday) at the Rockwell Tent in Makati.

With over a decade of performance and recordings/tours with some of the biggest stars in the music industry such as Backstreet Boys, Mandy Moore, Josh Groban, Adam Sandler, and currently Aerosmith, Mindi has indeed come a long way from playing on the streets of Santa Monica.

She has since produced 10 #1 radio singles and 5 major label solo releases that have topped the Contemporary Jazz Charts, “It Just Happens That Way” (2003), “Come As You Are” (2004), “Life Less Ordinary” (2006), “Stars” (2008), and “In Hi Fi Stereo” (2010). She has hosted the internationally syndicated radio show “Chill With Mindi Abair” for 6 years and has been the featured saxophonist on the 2011 and 2012 seasons of “American Idol”.

Meanwhile, fall in love with the music of American jazz duo Tuck Andress and Patti Cathcart, who have enchanted music lovers for three decades. The husband-and-wife duo has been performing since 1981, with Tuck on guitars and Patti on vocals and has since produced a string of albums including “Tears of Joy” (1988), “Learning to Fly” (1995), and “A Gift of Love” (2004).

Read more at http://www.starmometer.com/2013/02/14/jazz-saxophonist-mindi-abair-and-duo-tuck-and-patti-grace-ph-international-jazzfest/#kv2JjBbcxX93AV7Q.99 

Famous & Recognizable Jazz Artists

Charlie Parker - Saxophone
Coleman Hawkins - Tenor saxophone

Hank Jones - Piano
Ray Brown - Double bass
Buddy Rich - Drums

Bill Harris - Trombone
Lester Young - Tenor saxophone

Harry Edison - Trumpet
Flip Phillips - Tenor saxophone

Ella Fitzgerald - Vocals, Scatting

The Lineup:

0:18 - Coleman Hawkins, 
Hank Jones, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich.

2:53 - Charlie Parker, 
Hank Jones, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich.

5:15 - Hank Jones, 
Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich.

7:12 - Bill Harris, Lester Young, 
Hank Jones, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich.

10:43 - Flip Philips, Harry Edison, 
Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Harris, Lester Young, 
Hank Jones, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich.

Alberto Pibiri, is an italian jazz pianist.

His first studies of piano date back to childhood, period of time in which he uses to be a pupil of the great Luca Mannutza. This, in addition to teaching classical piano, transmits to Alberto determination and passion of music. His talent and his great passion, in fact, allow him to apply directly at the conservatory Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina for the last five years of the ten usually scheduled for classical piano. During these years, his passion of jazz increases, thanks to friendship and musical collaboration with Vittorio Sicbaldi, Alessandro Atzori, Gianrico Manca, Carlo Ditta e Sandro Mura. Also during his studies, he wins a selection as piano solo with the orchestra at the conservatory.

He finishes his studies successfully and cooperates with several musicians in various makeups. Together with bass Beppe Pilotto and drummer Riccardo Baggio, he makes a stable trio in the name of their common passion of the jazz of Oscar Peterson, in cooperation with the singer Francesca Bertazzo too. He decides to move to Paris, where he attends one year at the American School of Modern Music and wins a scholarship to Berklee in Boston.

He attends many classical workshops, including those by the side of Jacques Rouviers; about jazz music, he attends several stages of Veneto Jazz (2005), with which he nowadays works accompanying courses of singers. He makes another trio jazz which includes Pibiri at piano, Hervè Morisset at drum and Fabrizio Cecca at double-bass. With them, he stably plays as soirée decouverte in several Paris clubs as Sunset Sunside. In 2006 he takes part at the Sunside Trophy. He refines his technique and his art on the piano with Serge Forte, whereby knows the famous American singer Sheila Jordan, of whom Paris masterclasses is accompanied by Alberto.

Splitting his life between Italy and France, he works with Italian artists like Vittorio Sicbaldi, Alessandro Atzori, Gianrico Manca, Carlo Ditta, Beppe Pilotto, Riccardo Baggio, Francesca Bertazzo, Yves Rossigno, Fabrizio Cecca, without forgetting jazz musicians the likes of Nicola Stilo, great flautist. He works with French artists like Genevieve Chalard, Jean Louis Carlotti, Michel Rosciglione, Philippe Pilon, Dano Haider, Francoit Laudet, Cedric Caillaud at the event Jazz in Segur.

He collaborates with the singer Manda Djiin and with her he exibits in the most prestogious place in French: Duc des Lombards. He plays both jazz and gospel at Eglise Saint-Germain-des-Près. In 2009, he performs in solitaire at Time in Jazz festival in Sassari, organized by the famous jazz musician Paolo Fresu. Recently he worked for MSC Cruises composing The Sailing Trio, with Luigi Scaccianoce at bass and Emmanuele Zappia at drum. This collaboration continues in the earth with exibitions at jazz clubs in Rome like Gregory's and Alexander Platz. He worked also with Celebrety Cruises the same drummer who plaied together with the Harry James orchestra Les DeMerle! In July 2011 he's going to exibit at Calagonone Jazz Festival with Vittorio Sicbaldi (drum) and Alessandro Atzori (double-bass).

Recently he participated at Orsara festival playing the final concert with Joseph Farnsworth, John Webber, Jerry Bergonzy e Rachel Gould. He won the exibition for four days at Italian Jazz Days in New York playing in trio with Marco Panascia and Brian Floody. His stay in the United States of America has borne fruit in numerous artistic collaborations with important american musicians as Dave Striker (guitar), Ed Howard (bass), Evan Sherman, Pat O'Leary, Paul Gill.

He record the first disc at his name with Dave Striker, Marco Panascia and Brian Floody. The disc will be distributed in all States and Canada, on the web and radio. He has got artistic VISA which will allow him to work for three years in the United States under the tutelage of Sheila Jordan.

Fresh and Timeless: Putumayo’s Vintage France Offers a New Spin on the Best of French chanson

Though echoing the past, Vintage France(Putumayo World Music; February 26, 2013) proves how alive and hip classic French chanson remains. Several generations of musicians continue to find inspiration in tunes that were first popularized in the early to mid-1900s.

On Vintage France, sultry songstresses such as the iconic Juliette Gréco (singing the Belle Époque beauty “La Valse Brune”) and Madeleine Peyroux (with a cheeky renewal of Serge Gainsbourg’s “La Javanaise”) join newcomers Francesca Blanchard(“Sous le Ciel de Paris”) and Dutch jazz harmonica whiz Martijn Luttmer(“Les Parapluies de Cherbourg”). Old master Norbert Slama’s swinging “Nany,” is full of Gypsy jazz energy and retro warmth, and demonstrates the connection between Paris of the 1940s when Slama first performed, and the vibrant French music scene of today.

“French artists have created this beautiful, melodic music that has stood the test of time,” reflects Putumayo’s founder and CEO Dan Storper, who has visited France many times in search of universally appealing French and world music. “Perhaps the greatest surprise,” notes Storper, “was discovering Norbert Slama, a blind octogenarian accordion player who performed with Josephine Baker and Edith Piaf, in my backyard in New Orleans. His performances in a small, vintage café in the Marigny transported me to a bygone era.”

This harmonious collection has deep roots. From the outdoor guingettedances where the waltzing musette instrumentals of early French popular music began, to the cabarets where Edith Piaf, Maurice Chevalier and other legends entertained a country struggling with the recovery from World War II. Over the last 100 years, the French chanson tradition has undergone a process of evolution, yet retained an inimitable charm.

The musicians featured on this collection, such as Slama, have kept the tradition of rich harmonization and rhythmic nuance alive. “Norbert isn’t stuck,” explains Raphael Bas, Slama’s close musical collaborator, and a masterful guitarist whose rendition of the jazz standard “Confessin’” is also featured on Vintage France. “He has a very open mind as to how the music can evolve. He leaves room for evolution in the interpretation.”

Read more: http://www.rockpaperscissors.biz/index.cfm/fuseaction/current.press_release/project_id/681.cfm

Composer, pianist and improviser from Zakynthos (Zante), Greece.

Artwork by Thalia Xenaki

English Gardens - Piano solo improvisations.
Live recordings, 2004-2008.
All music by Dionysis Boukouvalas.
Mastering by Themis Pandelopoulos.
Graphic design by Christina Chronopoulou.
c+p Thalia Music, 2011.