Jazz Articles

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Highbrow/Lowdown: Theater, Jazz, and the Making of the New Middle Class

by David Rickert
August 22, 2009

Highbrow/Lowdown: Theater, Jazz, and the Making of the New Middle Class David Savran Hardcover; 336 pages ISBN: 978-0-472-11692-8 University of Michigan Press 2009

Jazz was blamed for many of the societal ills of the 1920s, and with Highbrow/Lowdown David Savran considers, with intelligence, one particular supposed victim: the theater. Jazz, as a music and also as a broader cultural force, became during the decade a handy bellweather for ...

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Fred Hess Big Band: Hold On

by Dan McClenaghan
August 22, 2009

Fred Hess has been prolific this millennium. For those familiar with the Denver-based saxophonist's last six discs, however, Hold On may come as a surprise. Since 2004, Hess has immersed himself in the art of the piano-less quartet, before augmenting his group--first, with a second saxophonist, and then a guitarist, moving from quintet to sextet and offering up a fresh and energetic take on free jazz.With Hold On, Hess jumps into the big band arena for the first ...

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Jon B and Ryan Leslie at Central Park Summerstage, NYC

by Ernest Barteldes
August 22, 2009

Jon B and Ryan Leslie at Central Park Summerstage New York, New York August 9, 2009

Vocalist Chrisette Michelle was a no-show last Sunday (according to a source, she cancelled two days before, but no further explanation was given), but that didn't stop fans from once again filling Rumsey Playfield to capacity for this showcase of neo-soul music--a genre that has been omnipresent during this season.

One of the main ...

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Mungolian Jet Set: We Gave It All Away...Now We Are Taking It Back

by John Kelman
August 22, 2009

Living in an alternate universe, where groove is paramount regardless of where it finds its inspiration, Mungolian Jet Set's debut, Beauty Came to Us in Stone (Jazzland, 2006), found its primary members--turntablist/sonic manipulator DJ Strangefruit, known in this dimension as Pål Nyhus, of Nu-Jazz progenitor/trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær's group until recently, and sound sculptor Reider Skar--creating sonic collages that defied any kind of easy categorization. The double-disc We Gave It All Away...Now We Are Taking It Back is a little ...

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First Lady Knows "Salt Peanuts!"

by Fradley Garner
August 22, 2009

JAZZ FOUND A PLACE in more than the president's BlackBerry when the first lady invited some 150 young music high school students to the White House this summer for an afternoon workshop led by Wynton Marsalis and four other members of the distinguished trumpeter's musical family. The youngsters were instructed in “American History and Jazz," “Syntax of Jazz," The Blues Experience and Jazz" and “Duke Ellington and Swing." Michelle Obama said jazz might be “America's greatest artistic gift to the ...

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Take Five With Ricky Exton

by AAJ Staff
August 22, 2009

Meet Ricky Exton:Ricky Exton was born in Cleveland, Ohio on November 8, 1977. At the age of five, he took notice of his brothers' interest in music and had a chance to see his first concert. This concert was the first step in the direction of music.

By the age of eight, he became interested in the drums along with his brother. So they both started to take drum lessons within the jazz style. The ...

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Denise Donatelli and Geoffrey Keezer at the Douglas Beach House, Half Moon Bay, CA

by Bill Leikam
August 21, 2009

Denise Donatelli and Geoffrey KeezerDouglas Beach HouseHalf Moon Bay, CaliforniaSunday, August 9, 2009Arriving at the Douglas Beach House after performing at the San Jose Jazz Festival, up and coming Los Angeles-based jazz vocalist Denise Donatelli brought with her a stellar jazz quartet featuring pianist Geoffrey Keezer on piano, bassist Hamilton Price, Duncan Moore on drums, and saxophonist/flutist Bob Sheppard on an array of reeds. Her performance was based on her latest newest CD album release ...

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Newport 2009: One for the Ages

by Sandy Ingham
August 21, 2009

Newport Jazz Festival 2009George Wein's CareFusion Jazz Festival 55International Tennis Hall of Fame and Fort Adams State ParkNewport, Rhode IslandAugust 7-9, 2009“We have three stages now, and I wish we could have more to give all these young musicians a chance to be heard," Newport jazz festival founder (and savior for 2009) George Wein told thousands of listeners at the August 7-9 gala, re-dubbed George Wein's CareFusion Jazz Fest 55."

And ...

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Ellington Uptown: Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and the Birth of Concert Jazz

by David Rickert
August 21, 2009

Ellington Uptown: Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and the Birth of Concert Jazz James Howland Hardcover; 360 pages ISBN: 978-0-472-11605-8 University of Michigan Press 2009

Ellington Uptown addresses the development of concert jazz, a largely neglected style that emerged near the beginning of the 20th century and has popped up periodically ever since. The impetus to develop this style of jazz came from the desire to create something ...

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Marc Ducret: Le sens de la marche

by Jean-Marc Gelin
August 21, 2009

From the word go, guitarist Marc Ducret's Le sens de la marche enters another world, an unsettled one full of surprise and anguish--one for which there can be no preparation. Vaguely reminiscent of Frank Zappa, King Crimson and Tim Berne, it's a musical hubbub of organized chaos--systematic in theory but brutal and brilliant in practice.

The references, however, are many and various. Ducret's jungle is wild and urbane; on “Tapage," the distant echoes of Duke Ellington's jungle can be heard, ...