Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2019 i JazzTimes

For nearly two decades, Carlos Henriquez, 39, has been the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s bass specialist. In that role, he’s accompanied the band on some of its most memorable forays, including a historic 2010 trip to Cuba, for which he also served as music director. In recent years, the Bronx native of Puerto Rican descent has pursued a solo career as well. His first album as a leader, The Bronx Pyramid, was released in 2015. Last year, he released Dizzy Con Clave, a vibrant exploration of the Afro-Latin jazz tradition and an energetic tribute to Dizzy Gillespie. “He was a main ambassador for us jazz-wise, in terms of bridging cultures and just trying to let people know that we’re all one,” Henriquez says. “That’s what I do with the…

On Feb. 18, 1969, at CBS’ 30th Street Studio in New York, Miles Davis definitively went in the direction that he’d already been leaning toward for a year or so: full electricity. The album that emerged from that fateful recording session, In a Silent Way, established a new jazz-rock path that would be further cemented by the double-disc Bitches Brew, cut later that same year and released in 1970. Miles’ days of working within a traditional acoustic format were over, and jazz would never be the same. All of the above facts are indisputable. Yet even now, opinions diverge on what Miles was trying to achieve by going electric, and on what lasting significance his radical stylistic shift has had on jazz, and on music in general. And so it…

JAZZ BAND/ROCK BAND/DANCE BAND (HOT CUP) Is there anything Moppa Elliott won’t try? The restless bassist, high school teacher, arranger, composer, and leader of the iconoclastic, genre-hopping, lineup-shifting, avant-jazz band Mostly Other People Do the Killing has done everything from Dixieland destructions to a note-for-note remake of Kind of Blue. On his new two-CD set, the so-very-accurately titled Jazz Band/Rock Band/Dance Band, Elliott presents three “albums” by three groups. Each is excellent on its own. Together they constitute an incomparable offering. The jazz band—which calls itself Advancing on a Wild Pitch—features trombonist Sam Kulik, baritone saxophonist Charles Evans, pianist Danny Fox, and drummer Christian Coleman. Every one of its songs sounds like an outtake from Mingus Ah Um: the swinging horn interplay on “Herminie,” the Pink Panther slinkiness of “Can’t…

Born to a Kansas City musical family, upright bassist Joe Martin often sees his music career through a familial lens. His third and latest album, Étoilée, was named for his young daughter. “Étoilée was also my [Parisian-born] wife’s grandmother’s name,” Martin explains. “The word literally means starry or luminous. I have more of a personal, abstract take on it. I felt the connection of my immediate family—my children, but also my family roots, my parents and my grandparents—it all connects in a way.” Martin also acknowledges the family represented on his latest Sunnyside release: Mark Turner, tenor saxophone; Kevin Hays, piano; and Nasheet Waits, drums. “I have musical and personal relationships with these guys dating back many years,” he says. “Sometimes it’s about combinations of elements. Mark is very good…

The 65th Newport Jazz Festival has announced an initial lineup of performers, including Herbie Hancock, Corinne Bailey Rae, the Bad Plus, Buika, Terence Blanchard, Sons of Kemet, Makaya McCraven, and Cécile McLorin Salvant. The festival, which takes place Aug. 2-4 at two locations in Newport, R.I.—Fort Adams State Park and the International Tennis Hall of Fame at the Newport Casino—will also feature Ravi Coltrane, David Virelles, ELEW, Marcus Strickland, Christian Sands, the Dafnis Prieto Big Band, and Tia Fuller. This year’s Saint Lucia Jazz Festival will be produced in collaboration with Jazz at Lincoln Center, in a first-of-its-kind partnership. The week-long festival, now in its 27th year, will run May 5-12. The festival represents Jazz at Lincoln Center’s first full-scale live production outside the United States. Performers will include Gregory…

To work on an installment of Bright Moments featuring the bassist and composer William Parker can feel like an exercise in futility. But not because he’s uncooperative or vague. In his cozy East Village apartment in January, Parker, 67, proved an exceedingly kind and gentle presence and a strikingly thoughtful interview. Storytelling is yet another of his gifts, and his recall borders on the encyclopedic; circumstances and chronology come easy, as do the Manhattan cross streets for apartments and venues that haven’t existed in decades. “It was my father’s dream to have me play in the Duke Ellington Orchestra. I could practice all day long and he never said, ‘Go get a job.’” Rather, the Bright Moments concept bows under the weight of Parker’s tremendous oeuvre. This is an artist…

United States ALASKA Juneau Jazz & Classics Festival May 3-18 Juneau (907) 463-3378 jazzandclassics.org Description: Juneau Jazz & Classics brings world-class artists to inspire, teach and enrich the lives of Alaskans in a beautiful yet remote location. JJ&C education includes school clinics, informances and public workshops. Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival July 15-29 University of Alaska, Fairbanks (907) 474-8869 fsaf.org AK Jazz Workshop Summer 2018 Jazz Camp August 5-10 University of Alaska Anchorage Fine Arts Building, Anchorage (907) 332-3234 akjazzworkshop.org Description: The AJW Jazz Camp at UAA features internationally acclaimed and Alaska Jazz Master Artists guiding beginner to advanced music students on a fun exploration of the creative art of jazz improvisation. The camp schedule is 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m. M-F with student and faculty concerts on Fri. and Sat. The 2019…

There are a few absolute certainties in life besides death and taxes. One is that the volume level at the annual winter NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) show in Anaheim, Calif., will be at least as loud as 500 jam-packed music stores. At this year’s confab, there were so many new products on display—and so many people playing them all simultaneously—that you’d hardly think the music business was in trouble. Although synths, software, and DJ gear seemed most popular with showgoers based on booth attendance, there were plenty of offerings that would interest jazz players; here are just a handful. Fender Rumble 800 Bass Head This head combines two features that electric bassists love: high power (800 watts) and light weight (5.8 lbs.). The front panel couldn’t be much…

CORRELATIONS (SMOKE SESSIONS) Trombonist and educator Steve Davis was a member of the last graduating class at the University of Art Blakey, and as he said in a Blakey-related panel at this year’s Jazz Congress, he’s made it part of his mission to continue the legacy of the Jazz Messengers. He has succeeded in Hartford, Conn., where Davis studied under Jackie McLean at the Hartt School and now teaches himself. Davis’ band is made up almost entirely of former Hartt students: bassist Dezron Douglas, trumpeter and flugelhorn player Joshua Bruneau, tenor saxophonist Wayne Escoffery, and drummer Jonathan Barber. Xavier Davis (no relation) he knows from David Weiss’ New Jazz Composers Octet. Hartford was home to the 880 Club, an erstwhile Davis mainstay that hosted a weekly jam session, and Correlations…

There was a period in which I was a sponge, absorbing a lot of music and formulating in my own head whether I really wanted to be a bass player. I was encountering all kinds of stuff: Afro-Cuban and straight-ahead jazz, of course, and then the funk music that was coming out at the time, which I was listening to with my homies. Most of these tracks were instrumental in my development back then, and some of them have continued to influence me in my latter-day career. I think of them as “the bass of my life.” Bernard Edwards “WHY” Carly Simon, Soup for One: Original Soundtrack (Mirage, 1982) Bernard Edwards was both the bassist on this record and a co-producer, along with Nile Rodgers. It took them to a…

Four-time Grammy winner Larry Klein was only in his mid-teens when he had his first epiphany as an aspiring jazz bassist, thanks to the 1968 album Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival. No doubt, other budding young musicians at the time were similarly inspired by the near-telepathic musical conversations between Evans, rising bass ace Eddie Gómez, and fresh-faced drum dynamo Jack DeJohnette. But Southern California native Klein is surely the only one who, while still underage, was introduced by his bass teacher to Gómez—and subsequently hung out with the Evans trio several times a year at the 21-and-up Playboy Club in Los Angeles. “Somehow my teacher worked it out with Eddie and I went to pretty much every show the trio played there,” remembers Klein, now one of the…

For the past 21 years, self-described “explorer of rhythm” Melvin Gibbs has—among many other things—held down the massive low end in the collaborative power trio Harriet Tubman. The effects-laden grooves he concocts for that band, paired with the string-bending guitarscapes of Brandon Ross and the polyrhythmic assault of drummer J.T. Lewis, yielded a sprawling masterwork last year. The Terror End of Beauty, a glitch-infused collision of rock, jazz, funk, and blues, rightly found itself on just about every best-of-2018 list. But that was last year. On this frigid winter day in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, the dreadlocked bassist is perched in front of a computer alongside drummer, producer, and rap upstart Kassa Overall. They’re in the midst of what they’re calling an “idea day” for one of Gibbs’ panoply…

ECHO (SHANACHIE) If name-dropping were a crime, keyboardist Keiko Matsui would have a helluva time promoting Echo. The album features a string of well-known artists, including guitarist Robben Ford, saxophonist Kirk Whalum, vocalist Gretchen Parlato, bassists Marcus Miller and Kyle Eastwood, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, and percussionist Luis Conte. Suffice to say, Matsui never wants for good company here, and not just the household-name variety. Trumpeter/flugelhornist Wayne Bergeron, for example, scores high marks on a series of horn charts that enhance the album’s brassy vitality and soulful allure. Which brings us to keyboardist Randy Waldman. The chief architect behind eight of the album’s 10 arrangements, Waldman makes the most of the assembled talent by avoiding tacked-on solos and routine cameos. Matsui shows a similar flair for arranging on the Brazilian-tinged “Spirit…