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The 27th Annual IAJE Conference: New Orleans And All That Jazz
by Jack Bowers
This article was first published on All About Jazz in March 2000. The 27th annual Conference of the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE), held January 12-15, 2000 in the birthplace of Jazz, New Orleans, left me with mixed emotions but no visible wounds (unlike Anaheim the year before, where I managed to fall down twice, skinning a knee and splitting my forehead open). On the one hand, the yearly get-together of Jazz educators, musicians, industry ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Russell: Ezz-thetics & The Stratus Seekers revisited
by Maurizio Comandini
George Russell è uno dei pilastri sui quali si è costruito il jazz moderno degli ultimi 70 anni. Forse non è uno dei primi nomi che ci vengono in mente, ma di sicuro il suo contributo come compositore, come band leader, come musicologo, è fondamentale. Nei primi anni sessanta i suoi album fornirono una interessante variante al free jazz 'classico' che abitualmente associamo ad Ornette Coleman, ad Albert Ayler, a Cecil Taylor e a tanti altri. Russell preferiva ...
Continue ReadingBobby Wiens: Talking Drums
by Jack Bowers
If drums could talk, Bobby Wiens' kit would no doubt have some nice things to say about how he enlivened and supported his teammates on this tasteful quintet date that was recorded in July 2020, with masks and social distancing, at the UNC Studios in Greeley, CO. Apparently, the quintet were then students at the University of Northern Colorado; if true, they learned their lessons well and were more than ready to test how readily that knowledge might harmonize in ...
Continue ReadingDavid Ake: Bridges
by Dan Bilawsky
Experimentalist composer Gavin Bryars once proclaimed that “music history has flowed under the bridges for many years." That particular quote adorns the inside flap of pianist David Ake's Bridges which, like Bryars' statement itself, contains many a mystery about music, bridges and history. The pieces that Ake presents herein are modernistic, wide-ranging and wholly original. Melodic stability and consonance come in unlikely form and cacophony liberally colors the water that Ake swims in, yet the water feels just right. While ...
Continue ReadingDavid Baker: A Legacy in Music
by Monika Herzig
This article appears in Chapter 2 “A Star is Born" of David Baker: A Legacy in Music by Monika Herzig (Indiana Univ. Press, 2011). The George Russell Sextet Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 23, 1923, George Russell started out as a drummer and soon entered the New York jazz scene.32 Bouts of tuberculosis kept him for extended periods in hospitals, where he developed much of the framework for his Lydian Chromatic Concept. The 1953 pamphlet ...
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