Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i JazzTimes

I tend to say or think this every month, but you’ve just received a knockout of an issue: Rolling Stone senior writer David Fricke interviewing the charismatic young New Orleans star Trombone Shorty; Ashley Kahn in a revelatory archival conversation with Alice Coltrane; David Kastin detailing the narrative behind a long-lost Monk studio session—get ready to drop some cash on concert tickets and iTunes after you’re through with this one. And, speaking of tickets, don’t forget to dig into our comprehensive festival section. Jazz festivals are my favorite way to absorb the music, on both personal and professional levels. For someone whose job description requires a sweeping knowledge of the current scene, I can get a lot of work done during three days at Newport, hearing new players and bands…

Tommy LiPuma, a Grammy-winning record producer who worked with numerous jazz and crossover artists including George Benson, Natalie Cole, Miles Davis, João Donato, Bill Evans, Al Jarreau, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Diana Krall, Ben Sidran, Gabor Szabo and Yellowjackets, died March 13 in New York City. He was 80, and a cause of death was not disclosed. LiPuma’s pop, R&B and jazz productions resulted in 35 certified gold or platinum albums and 33 Grammy nominations and five awards, including those for Diana Krall’s Live in Paris, Natalie Cole’s Unforgettable and Sir Paul McCartney’s Kisses on the Bottom. LiPuma also served in leadership roles at A&M, Warner Bros. and the Verve Music Group. Dave Valentin, a versatile flutist who collaborated with Chick Corea, Paquito D’Rivera, Eliane Elias, Dave Grusin, Mongo Santamaria, Tito…

TWENTY-SEVENTEEN MARKS A NUMBER OF ANNIVERSARIES OF SOLEMN SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE COLTRANE FAMILY. It’s been 50 years since John died and 10 since Alice Coltrane left her body, as members of her spiritual flock in Agoura Hills, Calif., refer to her passing. Were she alive, she’d be celebrating her 80th birthday this year, and this May, the Luaka Bop label will release World Spirituality Classics 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, an anthology of the devotional music she created in the 1980s and ’90s with, and largely for, the members of the Vedantic ashram she founded. (Full disclosure: I wrote the collection’s liner notes.) Turiyasangitananda Alice Coltrane was a musical and spiritual force of depth and remarkable dedication, a woman who, at the young age of 30 in…

For Poncho Sanchez, 65, growing up in the Los Angeles suburb of Norwalk felt like living in a “pretty white world.” Whether he was searching for Tito Puente or Cal Tjader albums at the local record store or looking for something beyond the standard guitars, saxes and trumpets at the music shop, his inquiries were met with the same blank stares. So, like many percussionists, his first experience with rhythm was on a trap kit. When the teenaged Sanchez finally got his hands on a conga drum, “it was love at first slap.” Making the transition from drum set to hand drums may have come naturally to Sanchez, but it can be a bit more challenging to those who aren’t destined to become one of Latin jazz’s most legendary congueros.…

UNITED STATES NORTHEAST BOSCOV’S BERKS JAZZ FEST March 31 – April 9, 2017 Various venues, Reading/Berks County, PA www.berksjazzfest.com EXIT O INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL (SPRING) April 21-23, 2017 Various venues, Cape May, NJ www.exit0jazzfest.com CENTER CITY JAZZ FESTIVAL April 29, 2017 Various venues Philadelphia, PA www.ccjazzfest.com INTERNATIONAL JAZZ DAY April 30, 2017 Havana, Cuba (& all around the world) www.jazzday.com ALLENTOWN JAZZFEST May 3-7, 2017 Various venues, Allentown, PA www.allentownjazzfest.org MARY LOU WILLIAMS JAZZ FESTIVAL May 4-5, 2017 Kennedy Center Washington, DC www.kennedy-center.org BERLIN JAZZ & BLUES BASH May 6, 2017 Historic Downtown Berlin, MD www.berlinchamber.org ESSENTIALLY ELLINGTON HIGH SCHOOL JAZZ BAND COMPETITION AND FESTIVAL May 11-13, 2017 Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York, NY www.jazz.org VISION FESTIVAL 22 May 28 – June 3, 2017 Judson Church, New York, NY…

In less than a decade, Thundercat has progressed from being an in-demand bassist for the likes of Erykah Badu, Snoop Dogg, Flying Lotus and the crossover thrash-metal band Suicidal Tendencies to a headlining superstar. In early March, he brought his instrumental virtuosity, charming stage persona and nearly unclassifiable songs to Washington, D.C.’s U Street Music Hall, performing for a vivacious crowd in support of his newly released third full-length, Drunk (Brainfeeder). The 32-year-old player, singer and producer, born Stephen Bruner, reconfigured his songs into hyperkinetic yet focused exploratory vehicles that blended influences from late-’70s jazz-fusion, funk, punk, electronica and confessional soul. Still, the fiery musicianship didn’t get in the way of the songs, as Thundercat’s vaporous falsetto delivered favorites like the angst-ridden “Heartbreaks + Setbacks,” the equally emotive “Them Changes”…

The 39th annual Playboy Jazz Festival will take place June 10-11 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Performers slated for Saturday, June 10, include Marcus Miller, Corinne Bailey Rae, TajMo’: the Taj Mahal & Keb’ Mo’ Band, Hudson (Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield, John Medeski and Larry Grenadier), Jacob Collier and the Arturo Sandoval Big Band, plus a special tribute to Bobby Hutcherson featuring Stefon Harris, Roy Ayers and Warren Wolf. The lineup for Sunday, June 11, includes Gregory Porter, Common, the Kenny Garrett Quintet, Lalah Hathaway, the DIVA Jazz Orchestra and Cory Henry & the Funk Apostles. Shorty Fest, a showcase for up-and-coming jazz, blues, funk, rock and soul acts, is scheduled for Thursday, May 4, at the House of Blues New Orleans. Eight acts will perform on two…

Trombone Shorty hits the stage at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in February with his namesake horn in one hand, a trumpet in the other and a clear sense of mission in his stride. The New Orleans native and his longtime band, Orleans Avenue—named after the street that runs through his Tremé neighborhood—are on a tour opening shows for the alternative-rock stars Red Hot Chili Peppers. But when Shorty lifts his ’bone for a solo in the first number, the metallic-funk instrumental “Slippery Lips,” he hits the air like the main event, firing a conqueror’s volley of long, high peals, soulful melodic flourishes and deep, cocky growls. It is the same jubilant prowess, steeped in New Orleans’ brass-band tradition, that marked him as a child sensation in Tremé street…

The Impulse! release of Translinear Light in 2004 was heralded as a re-emergence from self-imposed spiritual exile for Alice Coltrane, but that narrative only held true for those of us on the outside listening in. Though more than two decades had passed without a widely released album, Coltrane never stopped making music, even as she devoted herself to the Southern California ashram she founded in the mid-1970s. This new compilation released by David Byrne’s Luaka Bop imprint is a revelatory collection of devotional music from four cassette-only private-press releases that Swamini Turiyasangitananda, as she was known to her followers, recorded between 1982 and 1995. Spirituality and music were always intimately intertwined for Coltrane. Growing up in Detroit, Alice McLeod found her earliest musical experiences in the church; she met John…

Aguilar AG 700 Bass Amp Head As impressively loud as it is lightweight (just under 5 lbs.), this new amp head from Aguilar offers 700 solid-state watts across the dynamic spectrum—added low end and headroom, plus Deep and Bright EQ switches. Dial in precise tones via Treble, Hi Mid, Lo Mid and Bass controls, run stompboxes through a series effects loop and track directly into the soundboard using the XLR balanced output. $849 online. aguilaramp.com Vic Firth’s Modern Jazz Collection Drumsticks Talk about a dream design team: Vic Firth’s new jazz-focused series of sticks was crafted using input from Jeff Ballard, Gregory Hutchinson, Joe McCarthy and Lewis Nash. Included in the series is the MJC1, with a slightly extended 55A shaft, medium taper and oval tip; the MJC2, thinner than…

Spirits of Rhythm “MY OLD MAN” (Brunswick, 1933) My father had all the 78s by this great group that featured guitarist Teddy Bunn, and as a kid I loved the unusual [string-band] combination and this track in particular. I even played it in my first band. Django Reinhardt & the Quintette du Hot Club de France “IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT” (HMV, 1936) It was a sad day when I learned that Django had died, and this track still moves me. Benny Goodman Sextet “SHIVERS” (Columbia, 1939) The genius of Charlie Christian shines through on this track. A pioneer of electric jazz guitar, his style influenced many. Harry James & the Boogie Woogie Trio “BOO-WOO” (Columbia, 1939) Pianist Albert Ammons was my first boogie-woogie hero, and it was an…

In the opening moments of Bill Evans, Time Remembered, a new documentary by Bruce Spiegel, bassist Chuck Israels admits that, despite his long tenure in the pianist’s trio, even he has trouble answering questions about the man behind the artist. “People are interested in who he was, what was he like? Damned if I know, really. But all the information that’s really important is in the music.” Spiegel’s film is a conventional cradle-to-grave biography, but the filmmaker takes Israels’ admonition to heart: While Evans’ struggles with heroin and the devastating loss of some of those closest to him—bassist Scott LaFaro, brother Harry, partner Ellaine Schultz—are covered, the film’s most valuable moments are those in which his peers discuss and dissect his work. The eight-year process of making the film also…

Marco Benevento is not, at this time, a jazz musician. But he was. On his way to becoming the singing rock pianist he is today, the 39-year-old studied with Brad Mehldau and Joanne Brackeen and broke through playing organ and synths in the Benevento/ Russo Duo, a jazz-rock project with drummer Joe Russo that crafted expandable music at once atmospheric and emotionally direct. Benevento has also collaborated with members of Phish; done time in an ensemble that performed the music of Miles’ Bitches Brew; and staged tributes to the late New Orleans pianist James Booker with two of Booker’s sidemen, bassist James Singleton and drummer Johnny Vidacovich. Postbop beginnings, a pop present and plenty of opportunities for improvisation in between—a rich journey. On a warm March morning in Brooklyn, before…