Festival News

Life Not All a Carnival for Rio's Drum Queens

Source: All About Jazz
February 20, 2009

RIO DE JANEIRO For 18-year-old Raissa de Oliveira, there are only two seasons in a year -- Carnival, and the rest.

For most of the year, the pretty, diminutive teen-ager is a journalism student from a rough part of town. In the weeks leading up Brazil's annual festival of Bacchanalia, she becomes a cross between a pin-up girl and a star athlete as the drum queen of one of Rio's top Samba schools.

The schedule is exhausting -- ...

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Portland Jazz Festival, Part 2

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
February 20, 2009

Further reflections on highlights of the festival's first weekend:

Gonzalo Rubalcaba opened the first major concert of the festival with a band of young sidemen who are in the thick of the latterday New York Latin jazz explosion that is producing some of the most important music of the new century. The virtuoso pianist's quintet is twice or three times removed from the Charlie Parker-Dizzy Gillespie generation but it has a distinct bebop lineage, particularly in the ensembles. The rhythms ...

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Portland Jazz Festival, Part 1

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
February 19, 2009

The sagging economy has led the Portland Jazz Festival to cancel one of the major concerts of its final weekend. Artistic director Bill Royston announced that for the first time in his 32-year-career as a jazz impresario he was pulling the plug on a primary event. Advance sales to a Friday night concert by singer Cassandra Wilson and pianist Jason Moran amounted to about 400 seats in a 3000-seat hall in downtown Portland. Royston called the cancellation “an arduous decision."

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RVAjazzfest: Steven Bernstein

Source: RVAjazz
February 19, 2009

Steven Bernstein will perform at RVAjazzfest with Fight the Big Bull on February 21, 2009, 8pm, at The Camel. Boots of Leather and Glows in the Dark open. Tickets are $10, all ages welcome. By Dean ChristesenTrumpeter and arranger Steven Bernstein considers himself to be in a fortunate position. He is one of the few people in New York City that is able to make a living being a musician and, despite working extremely hard ...

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MTN. Jam '09 Adds: Umph, Kdtu

Source: JamBase
February 18, 2009

ALREADY STUFFED JAM-CENTRIC LINEUP JOINED BY BENEVENTO, GOMEZ, KRASNO, GENE WEEN, KREUTZMAN

Warren Haynes - Mtn. Jam 2008 by Adam McCullough Radio Woodstock and Warren Haynes have confirmed that Umphrey's McGee, The Grateful Dead's Bill Kreutzmann with Oteil Burbridge and Scott Murawski, Gomez,Gene Ween Band, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, Marco Benevento Trio, Eric Krasno & Chapter 2 and Alberta Cross have joined the fifth annual Mountain Jam Music Festival's growing lineup. Mountain Jam will return to ...

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Roberto Magris in Ecuador

Source: All About Jazz
February 17, 2009

Italian pianist Roberto Magris is scheduled on March 10, 2009 to perform at the Ecuador Jazz Festival in Quito.

About Roberto Magris Born in Trieste (Italy) in 1959 and began his jazz career in the late ‘70s. In the ‘80s, he led a jazz trio named “Gruppo Jazz Marca”, whose recordings were reissued in 2006, as collector’s items, by the English label Arision. During the times of the “iron curtain”, Magris was privileged to be one of the very few ...

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The 2009 Melbourne International Jazz Festival: April 26 to May 2

Source: All About Jazz
February 16, 2009

More than 55 events Five world premieres Nine Australian premieres Four Festival commissions Five Australian/international collaborations Melbourne International Jazz Festival April 26 to May 2, 2009 Venues Around Melbourne Ticketek, Ticketmaser, Moshtix, Melbourne Recital Centre In a week of unparalleled musicianship--26th April to 2nd May--the streets and theatres of Melbourne will come alive with the dynamism, excitement and diversity of jazz music during the 2009 Melbourne ...

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Pacific's Jazz Ensemble Selected to Compete in Next Generation Festival

Source: All About Jazz
February 16, 2009

Stockton, CA Pacific's Jazz Ensemble, a group composed of Conservatory of Music students studying jazz, was selected to participate in this year's “Next Generation Festival." The “Next Generation Festival" is put on by the Monterey Jazz Festival to showcase the best emerging talent in the world of jazz. Only six university groups are selected each year to compete.

“I'm thrilled to share news that the Pacific Jazz Ensemble has again been selected as a finalist," said Patrick Langham, director of ...

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