JazzTimes June 2019

Exclusive Content In our biweekly JazzTimes 10, Michael J. West ranks the 10 best works by drummer/composers and observes ECM Records’ 50th anniversary with a list of its 10 most essential releases. Plus live reviews, album reviews, photo galleries, polls, and much more. JT Blog The 2019 class of NEA Jazz Masters—Abdullah Ibrahim, Maria Schneider, Stanley Crouch, and the late Bob Dorough—received their honors in Washington, D.C. Read Jackson Sinnenberg’s report for JT and watch the tribute concert webcast. Audio & Video An exclusive premiere of Melissa Aldana’s “Elsewhere,” a downloadable track from the Ron Brendle Quartet, and more…

You may have noticed that the latest issue of JazzTimes looks a little different. For months, our art director Carolyn Marsden and our graphic designer Eoin Laramee have been on a mission to reset the magazine visually, fiddling with fonts, sampling swatches, and laboring over layouts. You can now see the results of all their hard work in our first redesigned issue. To our eyes, the new design retains a classic underlying structure while ensuring that even our more text-heavy pages get a vivifying splash of color. We hope you enjoy it. This redesign of the print magazine coincides with a similar retooling of JazzTimes.com. If you’ve ever found our website frustrating, I’ve got a confession to make: So have we. It’s looked the same for a decade, it was…

It was in the 1980s that trumpeter Herb Alpert—creator of a ’60s pop phenomenon, the Tijuana Brass, and cofounder of A&M Records—began to ponder what to do with “some extra money” he’d accumulated. “I didn’t want to buy a Monet or a Van Gogh and hang it on my wall,” he says. “I thought I could better use it by trying to help others.” The Herb Alpert Foundation was incorporated in 1988. To date, it has given $175 million to the arts. Last year it bestowed 99 grants, all in the name of Alpert and his wife of over 40 years, singer Lani Hall. The gifts include funding for jazz education, jazz radio, and jazz musicians in need. Nobody applies; all beneficiaries are sought out by Alpert and his staff…

Healdsburg Jazz Festival 5/31-6/9 | Healdsburg, CA The 21st edition of this Sonoma County fest will orient itself around 13 separate concerts, three of which celebrate ECM Records’ 50th anniversary: Ralph Towner and Paul McCandless (5/31), DeJohnette-Coltrane-Garrison (6/1), and a Carla Bley Trio/Ethan Iverson-Mark Turner Duo double bill (6/2). ➜ www.healdsburgjazzfestival.org DC Jazz Festival 6/7-16 | Washington, DC Held in a variety of indoor and outdoor venues across the nation’s capital, this 10-day extravaganza will feature performances by Stefon Harris, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Snarky Puppy, Jon Batiste, Michael Franks, Joshua Redman, Joey Alexander, and Terri Lyne Carrington, among many others. ➜ www.dcjazzfest.org Festival International de Jazz de Montréal 6/27-7/6 | Montreal, QC, Canada The Montreal Jazz Festival turns 40 in 2019, and its co-founder/VP André Ménard has announced that this…

On their debut album, Pride & Joy (Posi-Tone), the all-female sextet Lioness makes a potent jazz statement while celebrating female jazz artistry past and present. The ensemble features six acclaimed musicians—alto saxophonist Alexa Tarantino, tenor saxophonist Jenny Hill, baritone saxophonist Lauren Sevian, guitarist Amanda Monaco, organist Akiko Tsuruga, and drummer Allison Miller—and all the tracks were composed by women (okay, there’s one man with a composer credit, but he’s a co-composer). Fittingly, Pride & Joy was released on International Women’s Day, March 8. “Camaraderie is really the biggest thing,” Tarantino tells me in the lobby of a hotel on New York’s Upper West Side. The young altoist plays with another distinguished all-female ensemble, the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, and she likens the vibe of the Lioness sessions to that of DIVA’s…

When guitarist Jon Lundbom recalls what has fired his imagination, he frequently talks about music that “blew my mind.” Three specific examples have inspired the writing for his band Big Five Chord. The first is Focus, the 1962 Stan Getz album that put the tenor saxophonist’s improvisations in the midst of Eddie Sauter’s written works for orchestra. The second is Ornette Coleman, whose disregard for chord changes liberated Lundbom. Third is Voodoo, the 2000 neo-soul album by D’Angelo that featured jazz musicians such as Roy Hargrove and toyed with beat placement and polyrhythms. On Lundbom’s ninth album with BFC, Harder on the Outside (Hot Cup), all these influences blend together in satisfying ways; engaging melodies and free-jazz interplay combine, without losing a sense of groove. “A lot of people have…