John Pizzarelli Quartet (Full Concert)

3 legendary improv jazz stars kick off Bay Area tour

COURTEST OF KAHIL EL'ZABAR Influential percussionist Kahil Elâ Zabar has formed a trio of legendary experimental musicians called the New Ethnic Heritage Ensemble. He says of the trio: thereâ ll never be artists with this particular experience making music again." ( key )

By Andrew Gilbert
POSTED:   01/26/2016 03:00:00 PM PS
The economics of the road are harsh and unforgiving, which is why Kahil El'Zabar decided to leave his two Ethnic Heritage Ensemble confederates back in Chicago for a recent gig in New York City, forgoing the cost of plane tickets and hotel rooms.


Rather than traveling with the younger musicians, he recruited baritone saxophonist/clarinetist Hamiet Bluiett and trombonist Craig Harris, two New York-based longtime collaborators with similarly distinguished records as jazz adventurers. The concert prompted El'Zabar, a pioneering jazz percussionist, to reconceive the band. Re-christened as the New Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, the powerhouse trio proudly celebrates its deep ties to Chicago's grass roots improvisational/experimental music outfit, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).

"In that New York performance I had an epiphany," says El'Zabar, 62. "If you think about musicians like Henry Threadgill, Oliver Lake, Roscoe Mitchell, Craig and Bluiett, there's probably less than 20 guys still living who came though the late 1960s playing this music. Now is the time when these great players from this particular community of creative improvisers are in their heyday, and there'll never be artists with this particular experience making music again."


In keeping with the entrepreneurial and self-producing ethos of the AACM, El'Zabar has engineered an impressive run of gigs around the region over the next two weeks billed as the Super Healing Tour, starting Saturday at Oakland's Eastside Cultural Center. The New Ethnic Heritage Ensemble also plays in Vallejo, Santa Cruz and San Francisco on the tour (the trio closes out the Bay Area run with a Berkeley Hills house concert on Feb. 6: harry@fullplatemedia.com).

read more: http://news360.com/digestarticle/jnQ2htcPr0KXJoT-nsDqsA

Panama Jazz Festival

Léan Crowley Feature January 14, 2016
Puerto Rican vocal legend Danny Rivera and pianist Danilo Pérez explore the Latin American romantic balladry tradition during the Panama Jazz Festival’s gala concert at Panama City’s spacious Anayansi Theater on day three of the annual extravaganza. Photo Credit: Mark Holston

The third day of Panama’s annual jazz festival turned out to be a banner day for the event’s founder and artistic director, the noted jazz pianist and composer Danilo Pérez. The University of Panama announced that it had granted the country’s famous native son an honorary doctorate. During the evening’s showcase concert, a gala event at Panama City’s principal performing arts venue, the Anayansi Theater, he shared the stage with his saxophone-playing wife, Patricia Zárate, the festival’s executive director, and his father, the well-known veteran bolero singer Danilo Pérez Urriola.

The pianist also accompanied Puerto Rican vocalist Danny Rivera, a much revered figure throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Rivera had given Pérez the opportunity to accompany him when the fledgling pianist was only 14 years old. “I wouldn’t be here today without Danny,” he commented. Pérez also featured his lavish, rhythmically complex multi-movement composition and arrangement for large ensemble, performed by the Pan-American Detroit Big Band conducted by Chris Collins. All in a day’s work for one of the busiest musicians on the planet.


- See more at: https://www.jazziz.com/panama-jazz-festivals-gala-concert-on-day-three-of-the-festivals-annual-extravaganza/#sthash.ySa6fiFY.dpuf

Thad Jones & Mel Lewis

Thad Jones & Mel Lewis - The Groove Merchant (1968)

First Jazz Records

Vibrant musical styles gradually change over time and in 1917 Ragtime was becoming Jazz. It was in this year that the first records labeled as Jazz began making their way into stores in the United States. The general record buying public was probably unaware that this style of music was not that new in 1917. The music that would become known as Jazz had been played in New Orleans and other other parts of the South for many years by bands lead by musicians such as Buddy Bolden, Frankie Dusen, Jack Laine and others. 

The Creole Band is generally considered to be the first band from New Orleans that was playing this style of music to tour outside of the South. They performed on the vaudeville circuit in the United States from 1914 to 1918. San Francisco bandleader Bert Kelly would later claim to have been playing Jazz as early as 1914 in San Francisco and then in Chicago in 1915. Both Brown's Dixieland Jass Band and Stein's Dixieland Jass Band were performing and billing themselves as "Jass" bands in Chicago in 1916. But none of these bands had recorded until 1917 and some of them never would make records. 

The standard history of Jazz generally considers the first Jazz record to have been the Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band's "Dixie Jass Band One Step" and "Livery Stable Blues." This record was made for the Victor label in New York on February 26, 1917. The record was released in May of 1917. It was an immediate success and this record is considered the spark that ignited the Jazz fad that seized the world in the years during and after World War I. The Original Dixieland Jass Band was a group of White musicians from New Orleans.

All of the band's members had played in Papa Jack Laine's Reliance Brass Band at one time or another before leaving New Orleans in 1916. The band went north to play in Chicago under the name of Stein's Dixieland Jass Band at Schiller's Cafe on 31st Street.


After a heated disagreement with Stein the rest of the band quit and took the job at the Del' Abe Cafe at the Hotel Normandy at Clark and Randolph Street calling themselves the Original Dixieland Jass Band. The band moved on to the Casino Gardens on North Clark and Kinzie Street. The Casino Gardens was a popular hangout for people involved in show business. 

It was here that the famous vaudeville singer Al Jolson first heard the band and recommended them to a theatrical agent. The agent set the band up with an engagement in New York City at Reisenweber's Restaurant on Columbus Circle at Broadway which began on January 15th, 1917. The group was a great success in New York and continued to be quite popular until the band left for England in March of 1919. 

read more: http://www.redhotjazz.com/jazz1917.html

Christof Lauer

Christof Lauer is a German jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist, born in Melsungen, Germany, perhaps most well known in Europe where he has done projects with various musicians, such as Palle Danielsson, Carla Bley, Michel Godard, Volker Kriegel, Michel Portal, Maria Joao, Anthony Cox, Gary Husband, Alphonse Mouzon, and Peter Erskine. In 1994 Lauer joined the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble and replaced Charlie Mariano, and is also a member of the Hamburg NDR Radio Orch...

read more: http://www.ranker.com/review/christof-lauer/6368278
video: Bobo Stenson Trio feat. Christof Lauer - JazzBaltica 1995

The Fabulous Flamingos

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

If there's a vocal group that bridges the doo-wop era of the 1950s with the soul of Motown and the early 1960s, it would be the Flamingos. The group formed in Chicago in 1952 and based their ballad sound on the Ink Spots. They recorded for Chance, Parrot and Checker before being featured in Alan Freed's movie Rock, Rock, Rock in 1956. Then the group recorded for Decca (1957) and moved to New York to record for George Goldner’s End Records (1958-'59), where they released I Only Have Eyes for You,their biggest hit in 1959. They went on to record for Roulette in the early 1960s. Here are my favorite Flamingos singles:

Here are the Flamingos on American Bandstand singing I Only Have Eyes for You in July 1959. While many people thought the lead singer was a woman, it was Nate Nelson...

Here's Would I Be Crying from Alan Freed's movie Rock, Rock, Rock in 1956...

Here's Mio Amore in 1959...

Here's I'm in the Mood for Love in 1959...

Here's That's My Desire in 1953...

Here's Never in This World in 1960...

Here's Time Was in 1961...

Here's Tenderly in 1960...

Here's Every Time I Think of You in 1960...

Here are the Flamingos performing Jump Children in Alan Freed's movie Go Johnny Go! in 1959...

Here's I Was Such a Fool to Fall in Love With You in 1959...

And finally, here's the stereo version of I Only Have Eyes for You in 1959...

For more on the Flamingos, check out Marv Goldberg's R&B Notebook here.

Used with permission by Marc Myers

Eberhard Weber

Eberhard Weber is a German double bassist and composer. As a bass player, he is known for his highly distinctive tone and phrasing. Weber's compositions blend chamber jazz, European classical music, minimalism and ambient music, and are regarded as characteristic examples of the ECM Records sound.

Albums: Silent Feet, Orchestra, Fluid Rustle + 15 more

Career Began: Stuttgart, Germany

Sonny Criss Plays The Blues

Published on Nov 13, 2015
Alto saxophonist Sonny Criss playing "The Blues" with Hampton Hawes, piano, Buddy Woodson, bass and Chuck Thompson, drums.