Celebrating Miles Davis with Quotes
We're celebrating Miles Davis's birthday (May 26, 1926) today with quotes about him and by him. All About Jazz senior writer R.J. DeLuke also compiled several from his past interviews with various ex-band members--and we included a salty one by Miles for good measure. If you know of a quote about Miles or one that can ...
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Brad Mehldau Trio: Denver, CO, May 11, 2012
Brad Mehldau Trio
Newman Center
Denver, CO
May 11, 2012 Pianist Brad Mehldau takes jazz seriously. He named his second album as a leader The Art of the Trio (Warner Bros., 1997). But wait, he didn't use that name for just one album; he released five albums, as a series, under that name. ...
Jim McCarty and John Hawken: New York, NY, May 2, 2012
Jim McCarty and John Hawken with special guest Jann Klose
Iridium
New York, NY
May 2, 2012
Former Yardbirds drummer McCarty and his cohort from Renaissance, keyboardist John Hawken--along with special guest, German singer/songwriter Jann Klose--delivered a spirited first set performance at New York City's Iridium jazz club ...
Missives from Distant Fronts
Bio Ritmo
La Verdad
Electric Cowbell Records
2011
In September 2011, Bio Ritmo, the ten-piece salsa band from Richmond (Virginia), celebrated twenty years together, no small accomplishment for a band originally formed (says its official company bio) “as a percussion ensemble brought together by two misplaced Puerto Ricans who met at art school, ...
Jazz on the Bosphorus: Troubled Waters
For seven years now the rather laboriously named Istanbul Jazz Center (confusingly the logo includes the letters “JC's," I don't know why) has been one of the major clubs of the Turkish city. Situated in the posh neighborhood of Ortakoy, in the shadow of the first Bosphorus Bridge, its schedule has featured major international jazz stars ...
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Siobhan Lamb: The Nightingale And The Rose / Meditations
Experiments blending jazz with choral music are few and far between. Perhaps with good reason. Classical composer and flautist Siobhan Lamb and her husband, Gerard Presencer, the English jazz trumpeter, nonetheless accepted the challenge.
Lamb's suite, “Meditations," was premiered at the 2007 London Jazz Festival, where it received rave reviews. The Guardian called it “expansively beautiful." ...
Undead Music Festival, Greenwich Village Edition: New York, NY, May 9, 2012
Undead Music Festival
Greenwich Village Edition
Kenny's Castways, Sullivan Hall and Le Poisson Rouge
New York, NY
May 9th, 2012 Despite its constant and ambitious expansion into other geographic and spatial situations, the Undead Music Festival (formally the Undead Jazz Festival, a change that says more than a bit about the nature ...
Astor Piazzolla and Manos Hadjidakis: L'Ultime Concert
Astor Piazzolla and Manos Hadjidakis
L'Ultime Concert
Warner Jazz
2012 Astor Piazzolla's international breakthrough albums, Tango: Zero Hour and The Rough Dancer And The Cyclical Night (Nonesuch, 1986 and 1991), were made with small groups, with which the bandoneonist and composer is still most commonly associated outside Argentina. But Piazzolla also wrote for ...
Indaba Music Women's Music Summit
In Texas you'll often hear someone who's being asked why they've been out of touch for a long time respond with an old saying. The conversation is this: “Where've you been?" “Oh, to Hell and back." Well, since my last column, my husband (guitarist Jackie King) and I have suffered the loss of our oldest son, ...
The Rocket Ship Takes Off
I have good news and bad news. The bad news is the big record companies are dead. The good news is the big record companies are dead. Gone are the days of Columbia Records signing trumpeter Wynton Marsalis to a million dollar contract and then promoting the hell out of his vision of jazz, selling his ...
Vangthanousone Bouaphanh: Lao Jazznova
Cradling his Epiphone Emperor Regent as he stands against the backdrop of a Buddhist temple, guitarist Vangthanousone Bouaphanh cuts a dashing figure. Vangthanousone comes from the “Land of a Million Elephants," better known these days as Laos--a small, Buddhist/animist country sandwiched between Vietnam, China, Burma, Thailand and Cambodia. Vangthanousone may look like a star, but he's ...
Take Five With Douglas Johnson
Meet Douglas Johnson:
Douglas Johnson is a bassist, composer and bandleader in Chicago, Illinois. He earned a bachelors' degree in music performance from Northwestern University, studying with Jeff Bradetich, and has been a Fellow for the Tanglewood Music Institute and Bach Aria Festival. Doug served as Associate Principal Bass of the Honolulu Symphony for ...
Herbie Mann: An Amalgamation of Everything
[Flauist Herbie Mann was often ahead of the trend with his wide explorations into sounds from everywhere. When I asked him in this 1978 interview where music in general was heading, he talked about a broad mix--"an amalgamation of everything"--which might be a good way to describe Mann's overall career, except that it doesn't account for ...
Sachal Vasandani: A Deep Thinking Jazz Singer
Even with a few albums behind him, vocalist Sachal Vasandani is still considered a member of the younger generation of jazz musicians. What sets him apart from many of his contemporaries or predecessors is his keen intellectualism when it comes to his musicality and career aspirations. He does not just get by with a gorgeous tone ...
