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Composer And Jazz Supporter Andrea Clearfield Actively Involved In Campaigns For Nepal Earthquake Relief
Source:
Victor L. Schermer
Celebrated composer Andrea Clearfield has written important musical compositions based on the long and vital tradition of music in Nepal, where she has traveled, transcribed and documented indigenous folk music and made many friends. (In the photograph on the right, on a recent trip there, she is recording Nepalese composer, Tashi Tsering.) A long-time resident of Philadelphia, Clearfield has for several decades run a music and arts salon which has featured hundreds of jazz musicians including Tom Lawton, Mary Ellen ...
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When Haiku Inspires Music: Bobby Zankel Ensemble Performs Original Composition Celebrating Peace
Source:
Victor L. Schermer
Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane inspired saxophonist and composer Bobby Zankel is usually heard with his Warriors of the Wonderful Sound big band performing large-scale compositions such as his recent re-setting of Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. Here, on the occasion of a celebration of mural art, which has turned numerous outside walls of Philadelphia buildings into high art, Zankel was inspired to produce a more compact piece for six instrumentalists and singer. The stimulus for the composition was a wall ...
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Philadelphia's Mayor Nutter Launches Jazz Appreciation Month With City's Award To Benny Golson
Source:
All About Jazz
In Philadelphia, and across the country, April is celebrated as Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM). To honor jazz as an original American art form, JAM was created in 2002 by John Edward Hasse, curator of the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of American History. Philadelphia has been one of the cities celebrating JAM for several years now, with the blessing and support of the Mayor’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy as well as local jazz organizations and venues, notably ...
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February 28 WRTI Panel Discussion Anticipates Celebration Of Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, And Sun Ra
Source:
All About Jazz
On the evening of Thursday, February 21, as a prelude to an upcoming concert series, J. Michael Harrison, host of the long-running multi-genre program “The Bridge” on radio station WRTI-FM, taped a rich and provocative discussion of the innovative contributions of jazz icons Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, and Sun Ra. These three key figures in the history of jazz generated new music, controversy, and concepts that are still impacting the music a half-century after their inception. The discussion will be ...
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Vocalist Mary Ellen Desmond Brings Comfort And Joy To Philadelphia And The World
Source:
Victor L. Schermer
Mary Ellen Desmond, revered Philadelphia vocalist, has brought her “Comfort and Joy” holiday benefit concert to the Church of St. Luke and the Ephiphany for several years now. This year, she has also released a newly minted CD by the same name with the same stellar backup group: Larry McKenna, tenor saxophone; Tom Lawton, piano; Lee Smith, bass; and Dan Monaghan, drums. On December 20, Desmond held a CD release party at Chris’ Jazz Cafe, showcasing many of the tunes ...
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Good Vibes To Take Place At First Annual Vibraphone Congress In Asbury Park, NJ
Source:
Victor L. Schermer
Vibraphonist Tony Miceli has been making a big splash with his recent international gigs, recordings, master classes, workshops, and internet vibes website, and on-line classes with many of the great contemporary vibes players. A dedicated musician, he seems intent on bringing to the vibraphone the kind of visibility and instructional opportunities that are more common for the saxophone, guitar, and other of the more “popular” instruments. With the initiation of the 2014 Annual Vibraphone Congress, Miceli takes these efforts to ...
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United Jazz Festival Livens Up Philadelphia Scene
Source:
All About Jazz
By Victor L. Schermer The First Annual Philadelphia United Jazz Festival and Celebration was held on Septermber 21-22, 2013 at the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz. Under the capable leadership of Warren Oree and Graziella Damelio of Lifeline Music Coalition, a lineup of small groups, vocalists, larger ensembles, and yes, poets and a fashion extravaganza, showed off their wares in two full afternoons and evenings of what local WRTI DJ Bob Perkins has referred to as “the GM, the good ...
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Celebratory "Round Midnight" Film Event Acclaimed By Philadelphia City Council
Source:
Victor L. Schermer
On Sunday, March 24, as part of the Dexter Gordon worldwide 90th birthday celebration, “Dexter @ 90,” the International House presented an uncut screening of the iconic jazz film “Round Midnight” with an in-person appearance by Dexter Gordon’s widow, Maxine, an active jazz scholar and director of the Dexter Gordon Foundation. Maxine introduced the film and, with WRTI DJ Bob Perkins, led a discussion after the screening. Perkins hosted the occasion, which was followed by a reception for Ms. Gordon. ...
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