Articles by Katchie Cartwright
Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Exuberance
by Katchie Cartwright
Exuberance is part of a “long-form tonal conversation" between two award-winning artists in complementary fields, composer Christopher Zuar and animator Anne Beal. Zuar, a Long Island New Yorker, describes the work as “a journey of personal growth," which began in 2017 when he and Beal met as fellows at the MacDowell Colony in the woods of New Hampshire. He explains that the album is a “collaborative project that charts the last seven years of our lives." “In Winter ...
read moreKarrin Allyson: A Kiss for Brazil
by Katchie Cartwright
A Kiss for Brazil is Kansas-bred Grammy-nominated singer Karrin Allyson's third release to feature Brazilian music (From Paris to Rio, Concord, 1999; Imagina, Concord, 2008), and her first to showcase Brazilian musicians: Vitor Gonçalves on piano and accordion, Rafael Barata at the drums, plus the acclaimed singer-guitarist and songwriter Rosa Passos. First-call New York-based guitarist Yotam Silberstein and bassist Harvie S complete the group. The album sprang into being spontaneously, in response to a concert Passos had scheduled in New ...
read moreVinicius Cantuaria: Psychedelic Rio
by Katchie Cartwright
Formed in Rio in 1968 when he was 17 and Brazil was under military rule, O Terço (The Third/Rosary) was singer-songwriter and guitarist Vinicius Cantuária's first working band. He played drums with the trio, which was, as he put it, “under the influence" of Crosby Stills & Nash. One can hear other psychedelic-folk-rock influences as well. With their first release in 1970 (O Terço, Forma), the group quickly became popular, but--after two successful albums--he left them for greener pastures, joining ...
read moreBecoming Ella Fitzgerald
by Katchie Cartwright
Becoming Ella Fitzgerald Judith Tick 560 Pages ISBN: 978-0-393-24105-1 W.W. Norton & Company 2024 In his 859-page monograph The Swing Era (1989), composer and historian Gunther Schuller skipped past Ella Fitzgerald. In 2011, when Judith Tick asked him about the omission, he responded that “there wasn't room to cover two singers, and he had chosen Billie Holiday" (Becoming Ella Fitzgerald, p. 429). Tick's meticulously researched and insightful Becoming Ella Fitzgerald fills that hole ...
read moreDani Gurgel: DDG19 Big Band
by Katchie Cartwright
Dani Gurgel was born into a musical family in jny:São Paulo. Her mother Débora Gurgel (a busy pianist and arranger) and father (an amateur jazz saxophonist) met on the bandstand. Following her own musical path, Dani skirted gender biases in jazz culture that might have limited her opportunities by learning to do and play “everything," as she put it. She is quick to point out that things are “getting better," but hedged her bets by gaining proficiency in many instruments, ...
read moreCyrille Aimée: À Fleur de Peau
by Katchie Cartwright
Like other parts of Cyrille Aimée's musical journey (her time spent learning “gypsy jazz" with Manouche Romani people in Samois-sur-Seine, for example), À Fleur de Peau (Hypersensitive) has an engaging tale attached. In 2018, on a visit to the Costa Rican jungle at a pivotal moment in her personal life, Aimée was inspired to write “Inside and Out" (track four on the album). Upon her return to the US, she played the composition for producer and multi-instrumentalist Jake Sherman. They ...
read moreJamie Baum Septet+: What Times Are These
by Katchie Cartwright
Reading Marge Piercy's poem “To Be of Use" (track two onWhat Times Are These), Jamie Baum could be speaking of herself, one of those “who jump into work head first without dallying in the shadows, who swim off with sure strokes," knowing that “the thing worth doing has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident." What Times Are These is a satisfying form of this sort. Confined to her New York apartment during the Covid-19 lockdown, Baum responded ...
read moreCliff Korman: Bossas and Ballads
by Katchie Cartwright
Pianist-composer Cliff Korman lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, where he serves on the faculty of the Instituto Villa Lobos at the Federal University. A New Yorker with a jazz degree from City College of New York, he trained under Roland Hanna, Ron Carter and Kenny Barron. His “musical journey," as he put it, began years earlier at the innovative Creative Music Studio in Woodstock founded by Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso and Ornette Coleman. There, he encountered Brazilian clarinetist ...
read moreThe Jazz Cruise 2024
by Katchie Cartwright
Celebrity Summit The Jazz Cruise Miami, Labadee, Puerto Plata, St. Thomas January 18-25, 2024 Founded by Anita E. Berry in 2001, The Jazz Cruise has been offering patrons a yearly action-packed weeklong jazz experience at sea with some 100 world-class musicians in 200 hours of programming for over two decades (with a hiatus during the COVID pandemic). The ambience of the cruise encompasses house concert, nightclub theatre, urban bar, rooftop ...
read moreRamona Horvath Trio: Carmen's Karma
by Katchie Cartwright
Ramona Horvath grew up in Romania under communist rule. Her father was a classical cellist, her mother an art restorer. By age three, she was eagerly exploring the piano in a home filled with music of many kinds (Romanian, European classical, Jewish, American). Willis Conover's nightly broadcasts on Voice of America (the family listened in secret) introduced her to jazz. After graduating from Bucharest Conservatory, she moved to Paris to study with Romanian jazz pianist Jancy Korossy, and has remained ...
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