Innehållsförteckning för November 2020 från JazzTimes

Exclusive Content Our weekly online video conversation series, Speakin’ My Piece, hosted by guitarist Dekel Bor, airs Thursdays at 3 PM ET on JazzTimes’ Facebook page and YouTube channel; past episodes are archived on jazztimes.com. Upcoming guests include Keyon Harrold, Antonio Sánchez, Sonny Rollins, Dave Douglas, and Melissa Aldana. JT Blog Billie, an in-depth new documentary about jazz vocalist and icon Billie Holiday, opens in theaters and on streaming platforms November 13. Directed by award-winning filmmaker James Erskine, Billie is based on 200 hours of largely unheard interviews conducted from 1970 to 1978 by journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who died in 1979, leaving her book—intended to be the definitive Holiday biography—unwritten. Watch the film’s official trailer on jazztimes.com. Audio & Video Exclusive premieres of tracks by Christopher Parker & Kelley…

As a freshman at the University of Montana in Missoula, drummer Whit Dickey had an instructor who seemed like a mystic and offered him a sage bit of advice: “If you stick with one thing long enough and keep doing it and doing it, you could be called a fool, but you’ll gain wisdom.” Dickey mentions this halfway through a phone conversation reflecting on a musical career that has grown slowly but steadily over several decades. “It turned out to be true,” he says of his teacher’s words. Dickey is known as much for his associations with pianist Matthew Shipp and saxophonist Ivo Perelman as for his own work as a leader. But the last 16 months have seen the release of three albums under his own name, all containing…

When the world was in a more social way, the sight of Johnathan Blake behind the drum kit was a sign of maximum support, comfort, and taste. It still is today, as we gather around our laptops to enjoy music online. Ask any of the notable bandleaders who’ve brought Blake onstage over the years, Pharoah Sanders, Tom Harrell, Ravi Coltrane, Kenny Barron, Maria Schneider, Q-Tip, and Dr. Lonnie Smith among them: His balance of drive and openness—locking down a pulse free of a locked-down feel, being propulsive without the push—is one of the subtler charms on the current scene. He also offers one of the more distinctive sights in modern jazz. Other than perhaps Antonio Sánchez, do any drummers position their cymbals lower or flatter? He’s a photographer’s dream, unobstructed…

The American composer and inventor Harry Partch (1901-1974) had lots of unusual ideas. Dissatisfied with the sounds that Western music could offer, he became interested in exotic scales that made use of the microtones lying between standard notes. Eventually, he came up with new scales, which divided an octave into 43 notes instead of the 12 that most of us know best. Because few instruments could play the music he wrote using these scales, Partch decided to build his own. The strikingly odd string, keyboard, and percussion instruments he created over the course of 40 years had fanciful names like the Chromelodeon, the Zymo-Xyl, the Cloud Chamber Bowls, and the Quadrangularis Reversum. That last one, built in 1965, is the monumental contraption you see pictured on this page. Essentially, the…

The word “resilience” well describes Shirazette Tinnin’s life and career. During the course of her 41 years, the drummer, whose latest album Sonic Wallpaper Volume 1: The Cards That Life Can Deal was released at the onset of the pandemic, has faced plenty of setbacks—physical, emotional, and economic—yet she has persevered. Perhaps some of her indomitable toughness can be traced to her background as an athlete. Born and raised in a small town called Pleasant Grove, near Burlington, North Carolina, Tinnin began playing basketball when she was nine, won a weightlifting competition in her teens, and eventually received a hoops scholarship to Appalachian State, where she majored in music performance and music industry. Her affinity for drums and percussion began even earlier. Raised in a musical family—her mother marched trombone…

For jazz fans, hearing loss can be as devastating as a chronic injury is to an athlete, because it makes it more difficult to enjoy what you love. It’s not unusual for middle-aged and elderly people to experience hearing loss comparable to the effect of draping a heavy blanket over your head—a situation in which even Coltrane won’t sound good. But a new product category called personal sound amplification products, or PSAPs, is making it easier and more affordable than ever to combat the effects of hearing loss—and even to do things the human ear can’t on its own. According to the National Institutes of Health, hearing loss affects 8.5 percent of people aged 55 to 64, 25 percent of people aged 65 to 74, and more than 50 percent…

CHRISTIAN McBRIDE BIG BAND For Jimmy, Wes and Oliver Mack Avenue Christian McBride’s first two big-band albums won Grammys. The new one is grounded in specific history. Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery recorded two LPs in 1966, The Dynamic Duo and Further Adventures of Jimmy and Wes. McBride says he and his classmate Joey DeFrancesco “wore out the grooves” of these records when they were in high school in Philadelphia. DeFrancesco fills Smith’s organ role on McBride’s new release. The Smith/Montgomery recordings had pieces for big band arranged by Oliver Nelson and also quartet tracks. So does For Jimmy, Wes and Oliver. But McBride’s tribute is more spiritual than one-for-one. He repeats only four tunes from the 1966 albums. All are big-band tracks. It is fun to hear “Night Train”…

U.S. Colleges & Universities ALABAMA Auburn University 320 W. Samford, Auburn, AL 36849 Primary contact: Dr. Mike Pendowski 334-844-3164, mjp0023@auburn.edu Jacksonville State University 700 Pelham Rd. North, Jacksonville, AL 36265 www.jsu.edu/music/jazzstudies/about.html Primary contact: Andy Nevala 256-782-5559, andy@andynevala.com University of Alabama School of Music 810 2nd Ave., Tuscaloosa, AL 35401 jazz.music.ua.edu/about Jazz contact: Chris Kozak 205-348-6333, ckozak@ua.edu Wallace State College 801 Main St., Hanceville, AL 35077 www.wallacestate.edu Primary contact: Ricky Burks 256-352-8287, ricky.burks@wallacestate.edu ARIZONA Arizona State University School of Music 50 E. Gammage Pkwy., Tempe, AZ 85287 music.asu.edu/degree-programs/jazz-studies Jazz contact: Michael Kocour 480-965-5348, Michael.Kocour@asu.edu Chandler-Gilbert Community College 2626 E. Pecos Rd., Chandler, AZ 85225 www.cgc.edu Jazz contact: Adam Roberts 480-732-7290, Adam.roberts@cgc.edu Mesa Community College Music Dept. 1833 W. Southern Ave., Mesa, AZ 85202 www.mesacc.edu/departments/music Primary contact: Craig Peterson 480-461-7164, craig.peterson@mesacc.edu Northern…

When James Brown famously yelled, “Give the drummer some,” it was a recognition of sorts that drummers deserved a moment in the spotlight. Cindy Blackman Santana, however, has never been content to wait for her moment; she took it, thundering away with unrelenting fire as both a band member and leader. She’s still doing so on her newest recording, titled—yes—Give the Drummer Some. Three years in the making, it’s essentially a double CD with 17 tunes. “I wanted to do something that wasn’t boxed [genre-wise] and I couldn’t tell the story I wanted to with just eight tracks,” Blackman Santana explains. Another factor: It’s been a while since she put out an album as a leader—her previous one was 2010’s Another Lifetime, a tribute to one of her main influences,…

This month: July/August 2016 We’d been doing oral histories on legendary artists for several years before we decided, in 2016, to use that same format to talk about a place rather than a person. But it was a place with a whole lot of personality. The jazz club Seventh Avenue South in New York City was owned by Randy and Michael Brecker, along with some other folks, and became famous not only for great music but for its raucous scene. As editor Evan Haga noted in an introduction to the piece for JazzTimes’ website, “They don’t make jazz clubs like this anymore.” He added, “The club flourished in the late 1970s and ’80s, presenting legendary artists, legends-to-be, the hottest session aces and groundbreaking fusion bands, helping to define a brilliant…

It only makes sense that Brooklyn-connected big bands have proliferated in recent years, for the borough is stocked with underemployed world-class musicians who can easily read complex music, relate comfortably to diverse genres, and blow their hearts out. Darcy James Argue, Shan Barnet, Mike Fahie, Alan Ferber, Michael Formanek, Pedro Giraudo, Miho Hazama, Ryan Keberle, Brian Krock, Remy Le Boeuf, Jihye Lee, Angela Morris, Justin Mullens, Dafnis Prieto, Erica Seguine, Emilio Solla, Anna Webber, and Miguel Zenón are just a few of the names currently hiring. Two excellent 2020 releases by trombonist Jacob Garchik and alto saxophonist Andrew D’Angelo document extremes of the BK spectrum. Garchik’s Clear Line (Yestereve) is a meticulous, mostly notated puzzle box filled with composerly delights. The suite is inspired by varied non-musical sources, especially the…

Swing or play straight? Push or lay back? Not so long ago, decisions about groove were fairly straightforward, almost set-and-forget. Now look: Every groove can be mapped and re-mapped, tweaked from beat to beat through menus and submenus, massaged with software plug-ins that dial in the precise levels of “humanity” that might be desired in a programmed groove. Want more hiccup? Want a longer hiccup? These computer-age tools have accelerated the evolution of loop-based music, and helped renew reverence for the pioneering work of such early hip-hop beatmakers as the late J Dilla, who stretched time without the benefit of software. Their deep, granular options have swept through all genres of music, and they’ve created a kind of arms race among those working in improvised music: Suddenly, the most hotly…

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO JAZZ ORCHESTRA Embargo UofT Jazz The University of Toronto’s student big band is a mighty 19-piece ensemble with traditional instrumentation augmented by a pair of French horns. The resulting sound is crisp, lush, and able to tackle a wide range of musical moods. On this outing, the orchestra honors one of Canada’s greatest arrangers before delving into seven very different student-composed or -arranged tunes. Embargo opens with the late Rob McConnell’s arrangement of Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the A Train,” which became the Duke Ellington Orchestra’s signature tune. This intricate version features solos from trombonist Nick Adema and tenor saxophonist Geoff Claridge. Bassist Evan Gratham establishes the foundation for grad student Hannah Barstow’s swinging, melodic gem “Medium Blue,” which features saxophonists Zach Griffin on alto and Jacob Chung…