Interview News

At Home with Dave Brubeck

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
December 2, 2010

On the day before Thanksgiving last week, I pulled my car into the driveway of Dave Brubeck's home in Connecticut. From the front, the residence looks like a Japanese teahouse. But once inside, you realize that it's a modern split-level structure perched on a granite bluff and that the back features two-story, floor-to-ceiling windows with a Heidi view of a rushing stream, pine trees and a lily pond. Architecturally, the house is a brash contemporary statement cloaked in a kimono. ...

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Why We're All Fans, and We're All Artists Now

Source: HypeBot
December 1, 2010

This is part two of my interview segment with Aram Sinnreich, who is assistant professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University and author of the book Mashed Up: Music, Technology, And The Rise Of Configurable Culture. In this interview, Sinneich talks about the challenges of democracy in the digital age; why we're all fans and artists, in our own right; and how music provides us with a roadmap for social evolution. Will the RIAA ever succeed in their ...

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Dennis Rushton: Jamaica's Greatly Entertaining Pianist

Source: JamaicaMusic Offbeat
December 1, 2010

Dennis Rushton relationship with the piano began at age 9. He was classically trained, but in later years studied other music styles with an emphasis on jazz. The founder/director of DenRush Productions, consisting of a music school and recording studio, is the executive producer of the concert series 'Creative Praise." Rushton albums are Sail On (2002), The Star, a Christmas special, also in 2002, and Quiet Time released in September 2003. Active in the Jamaica Cultural Development Corporation (JCDC) national ...

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Rickie Lee Jones on Bix, Billie and the art of song

Source: Michael Ricci
November 30, 2010

Rickie Lee Jones, the acclaimed singer and songwriter, is on a short tour that includes a Saturday stop at the Temple Performing Arts Center, formerly the Baptist Temple.

Jones' smashing debut album of 1979, Rickie Lee Jones, brought a jazz-infused, bohemian-poet ethos to both pop music and fashion, and her idiosyncratic approach to composition and singing has influenced artists from Tori Amos to Norah Jones.

Her most recent album, last year's Balm in Gilead, reflected on family, friends, maturity, and ...

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Saxophonist/Writer/Historian Loren Schoenberg Interviewed at All About Jazz

Source: John Kelman
December 7, 2010

Saxophonist, band-leader and writer Loren Schoenberg, now Executive Director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, spent an interesting childhood and teenager-hood growing up in New Jersey in the 1970s, meeting and befriending both Teddy Wilson and Hank Jones, and ultimately becoming employed by Wilson's famous '30s boss, Benny Goodman. Schoenberg was first an assistant to Goodman and then Goodman's manager, and, as a tenor saxophonist, formed the big band that Goodman was eventually to lead himself for a year ...

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Pianist/Composer Nik Bartsch Interviewed at All About Jazz

Source: All About Jazz
December 6, 2010

Pianist and composer Nik Bärtsch would be the first to recognize that he is no revolutionary, as his aesthetic vision draws inspiration from multiple sources, ranging from 20th century classical music to funk, and from Japanese ritual music to minimalism. The distillation of all these sounds results in a music that invites meditation and at the same time urges you to move to the groove—something of a feat, it has to be said. Whether or not Bärtsch's group, Ronin, has ...

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The Mysterious Death of a Tenor Man - Wardell Gray and the Moulin Rouge

Source: Groove Notes
November 29, 2010

On May 25, 1955, the body of a 34 year-old black man was found in the desert outside of Las Vegas. The man's neck had been broken, and the body had apprently been dumped from a car. Even though this scenario may sound like it would warrant an autopsy, none was performed. The local coroner and law enforcement officials ruled that the man had died of a drug overdose and the case was closed. It has never been explained how ...

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Maurice Gordon: A Jamaican Guitarist of Great Versatility

Source: JamaicaMusic Offbeat
November 29, 2010

Guitarist Maurice Gordon describes his music as contemporary jazz delicately flavored with hints of reggae, R&B, funk, rock and fusion. He is an artist of great versatility one who is well admired in jazz circles for his fluid technique, dexterity and highly personal style which has earned him wide-ranging appeal from Canada to the Caribbean, from South Africa to South America. Quietly respected as a credible musician and composer, Maurice Gordon has recognized and draws upon the great wealth and ...

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