Indholdsfortegnelse for January - February 2016 i JazzTimes

In November 1976, Lou Reed flew to Los Angeles to headline the Roxy and the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. At LAX, tenor saxophonist Marty Fogel happened to spot pocket trumpeter Don Cherry, the Los Angeles native known for his work with Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler. Cherry had just recorded his first album with Old and New Dreams, a quartet of Coleman collaborators consisting of Cherry, saxophonist Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ed Blackwell. Cherry was one of Reed’s idols. They possessed certain commonalities, including an explosive improvisatory energy and a brush with hepatitis. And fortunately for Reed, Fogel already knew Cherry. Fogel rented a basement practice space on Sixth Street in the Village, next door to Cherry’s wife Moki’s textile studio, though the Cherrys’ principal residence was…

On Nov. 5, alto saxophonist Caroline Davis brought what might be called the Chicago sound to the Jazz Gallery in New York, in a celebration of her sophomore album as a leader, Doors: Chicago Storylines (Ears&Eyes). With a quartet of pianist Julian Shore, drummer Jay Sawyer and bassist Tamir Shmerling, Davis explored the full range of the saxophone with lithe maneuverings and a soft but round tone reminiscent of Chicago-born elder statesman Lee Konitz. But instead of soaring over the rhythm section, Davis’ instantaneous call-and-response opposite Shore’s rhythmic flourishes reflected the influence of collective improvisation established by the AACM and Chicago-rooted saxophonists Von Freeman and Steve Coleman. Still, rather than containing a geographically identifiable jazz aesthetic, the album asks whether Chicago, or any city, has a codified sound. “I do…

By the time Terry Adams had reached his late teens, even before he formed NRBQ—the beloved, if not particularly world-famous, hybrid-rock band he still fronts today—the keyboardist had already harbored an obsession with Thelonious Monk for several years. So often did he turn up at Monk’s gigs, absorbing and studying his hero’s every move, that eventually Monk’s greatest champion, “the Baroness ” Pannonica de Koenigswarter, chatted him up. “She said, ‘From now on you’re on my guest list. Just tell me when ’” says Adams, who met Monk himself on numerous occasions. “He’d be in such a great mood sometimes. I remember him sort of teasing me. He came over and said, ‘You know what’s wrong with the world today?’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Teenagers are crazy!’” It’s taken…

1. MILES DAVIS AT NEWPORT 1955-1975: THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 4 (COLUMBIA/LEGACY) From Duke Ellington’s debonair introduction at Davis’ Newport Jazz Festival debut in 1955 to James Mtume’s jangling prologue to a 1975 recording of “Mtume” this four-disc box is defined by radical change. Like the iconoclastic trumpeter himself, each disc charts another phase in an evolutionary chain. The Great Quintets, Bitches Brew and later electric Miles are all well represented. A.L . 2. ERROLL GARNER THE COMPLETE CONCERT BY THE SEA (OCTAVE/LEGACY) There’s no argument that The Complete Concert by the Sea is anything but perfect. Garner is ebullient, and Eddie Calhoun and Denzil Best bring their “A” game. … The 11 new selections show that whittling the concert down by half must have been a herculean…

JON BATISTE HAD ONE REQUEST, EARLY IN the courtship dance that led to his installment as bandleader for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on CBS. Batiste—the irrepressible young pianist and singer, and the engine behind the trademark phrases “Love Riot” and “Social Music”—wanted his new boss to meet his folks. So they went down to Kenner, La., just outside New Orleans, for some red beans and rice at the Batiste family home. During the trip, Colbert filmed the online video snippet that would serve as an announcement of Batiste’s hire. (Naturally, it involved a beignet gag.) He also imparted a kernel of insight to his new collaborator about the nature of their upcoming gig. Don’t think of the show as the brand-name commercial property of a massive corporate conglomerate,…

There’s an inherent playfulness to utilizing extended techniques on the acoustic piano. Getting your hands inside the instrument, sticking items on or in between its wires, or drumming the sides of the piano are approaches that avant-garde composers and performers share with mischievous children. It’s not surprising, then, that many pianists don’t wait until their first encounter with John Cage or Henry Cowell to attempt such experimental approaches. Benoît Delbecq, now well known for integrating contemporary classical techniques and prepared piano into his jazz vocabulary, first started messing around under the hood of his great-grandmother’s piano at the age of 8. “My parents soundproofed a little room in the basement and put the piano down there ” Delbecq recalls. “I found a curved brush they used for radiators and realized…

2 pm – 3 pm • WORKSHOP: THE JAZZ AUDIENCE INITIATIVE: FINDINGS AND NEXT STEPS (Presented by Jazz Education Network) Veteran industry professionals provide some basic tips for artists to get gigs outside their home base Moderator: Gail Boyd (Gail Boyd Artist Management) Panelists: Laura Hartmann (LVanHart Artist Productions); Karen Kennedy (24 Seven Artist Development); others TBA (The York Theatre) 3:15 pm - 4:15 pm • WORKSHOP THE JAZZ AUDIENCE INITIATIVE: FINDINGS AND NEXT STEPS (Presented by Jazz Education Network) During this workshop, the Jazz Education Network (JEN) will present the findings from the Jazz Audience Initiative (JAI), a three-year study by the Columbus Jazz Arts Group sponsored by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. JAI was the first research project of its kind to explore and collect attitudinal psychographic data…

Duke Ellington “THE MOOCHE” Ellington Uptown (Columbia, 1952) When I heard this track in my late teens, it was the first instance of me becoming aware of a pianist’s sound. After the statement of the main theme, there is a second theme that features an amazing clarinet duet between Jimmy Hamilton and Russell Procope, and what really got to me was Ellington’s comping in this section. He plays a series of ascending, stabbed two-note figures that seem to be carved out of thin air, completely masterful and adding a wonderful compositional element. As I began to listen more to Ellington’s work through four decades, I realized that he always had a certain sound—on various pianos, stereo or mono, live or in the studio—and so I began to see that one’s…

Each year, my main hope for our annual Critics’ and Readers’ Polls is always the same: that the results reflect the year in jazz I’ve just experienced with some precision and sense of posterity. It’d be dishonest to say I’ve never been surprised by these results, but generally I feel vindicated—especially this year, and even with regard to our Readers’ Poll. Conducted in the wilderness of the Internet, that poll can miss its ideal of committed JT readers thoughtfully reflecting on their favorite recent jazz records and concerts; instead, it often reflects warring fan bases and ancient, steadfast allegiances to particular artists and aesthetics. But the cream rose to the top for the 2015 tally, rightfully honoring jazz’s populist sensations. Pianist Joey Alexander’s precociously elegant musicianship—not to mention the almighty…

Songwriter, producer, arranger and musician Allen Toussaint, one of the most influential artists in New Orleans music for more than 50 years, died Nov. 9, in Madrid, Spain. Toussaint suffered a heart attack following a performance at that city’s Teatro Lara; although he was briefly revived, he died en route to Jimenez Diaz Foundation Hospital. He was 77. Toussaint’s compositions were covered by hundreds of artists. He was also an in-demand producer, arranger and session pianist, and recorded under his own name beginning in the late 1950s. Gene Norman, a jazz club owner and disc jockey who launched and operated the popular GNP Crescendo independent record label, died at his home in Hollywood, Calif., on Nov. 2. He was 93. Pianist, composer and bandleader Lee Shaw, who studied with Oscar…

The notion that George Cables has received insufficient acclaim during his half-century as a professional jazz musician gave bassist Stanley Clarke pause. “It depends what view you’re looking at ” Clarke suggested at Manhattan’s Blue Note in November, a day after reuniting with Cables and drummer Lenny White—once the rhythm section for Joe Henderson—for the first time in 44 years. “Younger people, normal people who don’t listen to jazz or the evolution of jazz, may not know who George is. I’ve played with a lot of piano players—Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea—and George is right there. His touch and vocabulary always tell me it’s him. He always sounded like himself ” On the bandstand an hour later, the trio received raucous applause from a packed house consisting primarily of…

2 pm – 3 pm • JAZZWEEK WORKSHOP: THE ABCS OF JAZZ RADIO PROMOTION Jazz radio promotion experts lay out the basics and answer your questions on how to take a CD from recording, artwork, and manufacturing to launching a coordinated and effective radio campaign. Panelists: Josh Ellman (Groov Marketing); Marc Free (Posi-Tone Records) (The York Theatre) 2 pm – 3 pm • JAZZ VOCALISTS ROUNDTABLE: SINGERS & SONGWRITERS: WHAT MAKES A SONG A STANDARD? Moderator: Roseanna Vitro Panelists: Cyrille Aimee; Bob Dorough; others TBA (The Music Room) 3:15 pm -4:15 pm • JAZZWEEK WORKSHOP: GROWING THE JAZZ RADIO AUDIENCE Radio programmers discuss their successes and share ideas on how to expand the jazz radio audience beyond its aging core listenership: including dayparting, social media, online video, programs on demand,…

One of the best shows I saw this past year was by an artist no one would file under “jazz.” That in itself isn’t unusual, or in any way unexpected: Like many a jazz critic, and I daresay most jazz musicians, my interests sprawlwell beyond the purview of this magazine. But something struck me about this show, a mid-March tour date by the reemergent R&B star D’Angelo, at the Best Buy Theater in Times Square. For lack of a better way of putting it, it had some killer Jazz Adjacency—that elusive combination of formal elasticity, in-the-moment spontaneity and cohesive intuition that we think of as jazz attributes, unless they coalesce in another area. D’Angelo’s music firmly belongs to the lineage of funk and soul, even though his ace band, the…

Stretch Music (Introducing Elena Pinderhughes), the sparkling new Ropeadope album from trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, is plenty forward-looking in itself. It “stretches” jazz with its two-drummer lineup (including Joe Dyson’s novel pan-African kit) and its willingness to incorporate other genres, but is nonetheless Scott’s most tightly focused album to date. But the Stretch Music app it gave birth to may prove downright revolutionary. The app not only permits aspiring musicians to practice interactively with bona fide albums by established stars, it also provides a new possibility for musicians to derive income from said albums. “Our app allows you to customize your practicing experience” explains Scott, 32. “For instance, if you play trumpet, you can take the trumpet out and take the solo to the record, and play the melodies,…

The Monterey Jazz Festival has announced that drummer, composer and producer Terri Lyne Carrington will be the festival’s 2016 artist-in-residence. She will work year-round with young musicians and established artists in performances and clinics at the Next Generation Jazz Festival, Summer Jazz Camp and Monterey Jazz Festival. The ASCAP Foundation and the Newport Jazz Festival have announced a new collaborative effort to benefit rising jazz talent. The festival has agreed to feature a performance this year by one of the recipients of the ASCAP Foundation Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Awards. The Jazz Connect Conference has named Brice Rosenbloom as the second recipient of the Bruce Lundvall Visionary Award, created in 2014 in honor of the esteemed jazz record executive who was a champion and advocate for so many jazz…

We calculated our top 40 new releases and top 10 historical/reissue recordings of 2015 based on year-end lists from our writers. They were asked to choose the 10 best new releases and five best historical titles—i.e., albums and box sets consisting primarily of music recorded 10 or more years ago. To see each voter’s ballot, log on to JazzTimes.com . CDs and box sets released between Nov. 5, 2014 and Nov. 3, 2015 were eligible. Some albums may have slipped through the cracks, however, as official release dates shifted or weren’t available. Editorial excerpts and original blurbs by Philip Booth, Shaun Brady, Nate Chinen, Thomas Conrad, Steve Greenlee, Evan Haga, Aidan Levy, Matt R. Lohr, Christopher Loudon, John Murph, Britt Robson and Mike Shanley. 1. KAMASI WASHINGTON…

To say that Stanley Jordan turned jazz guitar upside down when he came to prominence in the mid-1980s is almost a literal truth. Emulating the piano, his first instrument, Jordan developed a “touch style” of guitar by fretting with both hands on the neck, opening another contrapuntal avenue for the instrument and setting a new standard of excellence for solo performance. Today Jordan often plays guitar and piano simultaneously, in his own projects and with bassist Charnett Moffett’s NeTTwork, among other groups. His next album for Mack Avenue, which will follow Duets with Kevin Eubanks, is slated for release in 2016. Lately Jordan has found an enthusiastic welcome on the jam-band circuit, sitting in with the Dave Matthews Band, Umphrey’s McGee and Phil Lesh and Friends. He remains active in…

THURSDAY, JANUARY 14 8 am – 4 pm Registration (Narthex Gallery) 9 am – 3:30 pm Table-top displays in foyer (Narthex Gallery) 9:30 am – 10:30 am PANELS • NEW CHALLENGES TO IMPACT SOCIAL MEDIA Industry professionals cover the latest developments in the ever-changing world of social media. Moderator: Ariel Hyatt (CyberPR) Panelists: Lois Gilbert (Jazz Corner); Matt Jurasek (DL Media); Matt Merewitz (Fully Altered Media) (Sanctuary on LL1) • JAZZ IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA (Presented by the Jazz Journalists Association) Editors and programmers with mainstream media outlets discuss their decision-making processes about coverage and representation of jazz. Moderator: Howard Mandel (Jazz Journalists Association) Panelists: Will Friedwald (The Wall Street Journal); Anya Grundmann (NPR Music); John Murph (AARP); Natalie Weiner (Billboard/Vice) (Living Room on LL1) • SUBSCRIPTION AND AD-SUPPORTED STREAMING…

JOHN COLTRANE A LOVE SUPREME: THE COMPLETE MASTERS (Impulse!/Verve) Veteran jazz fans probably do not often listen to A Love Supreme, saxophonist John Coltrane’s unfathomably important 1965 album of passionate, spiritual jazz. They internalized the LP, performed by Trane’s “Classic Quartet”—pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, drummer Elvin Jones and the leader on tenor—long ago. But now there’s a reason to revisit. In honor of its 50th birthday, the album has been reissued as part of an essential new set titled A Love Supreme: The Complete Masters. A two-CD version includes the album, a pair of mono reference masters and all the leftover takes and overdubs from the sessions; a three-discer tosses in a live reading of Supreme—the sole one we have, also from ’65—by the same personnel as on…