Festival News

Elvin Bishop Headlines San Francisco Blues Festival

Source: All About Jazz
September 1, 2008

Guitar great Elvin Bishop will headline the 2008 San Francisco Blues Festival on September 27th. The show, a homecoming for the San Francisco resident, will come hot on the heels of his new album, 'The Blues Rolls On' (Delta Groove/Eclecto Groove), set for release on September 23rd. Bishop will perform with The Delta Groove All Star Blues Revue, which includes The Mannish Boys, Mike Zito, and many others. Since his days with the seminal Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Bishop has ...

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Jam-Packed Sunday Challenges a Jazz Critic's Stamina

Source: All About Jazz
September 1, 2008

If any more evidence was needed that the Detroit International Jazz Festival has elevated its product in the last two years, the gloriously stuffed schedule of overlapping talent on Sunday was it. The laws of metaphysics made it impossible to hear it all, and no sane person would even try to ingest as much as I did. Of course, jazz critics have never been known for their mental stability. Here's a diary of thoughts about the performances I heard at ...

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New Grooves Kicks Off 51st Annual Monterey Jazz Festival

Source: Monterey Jazz Festival
September 1, 2008

4onefunk, Rudder, Quantic, Christian McBride Band Star In Funk-Filled Nonstop Jazz Party $35 Ticket Includes Access To 8 Stages Of World Class Jazz, Dancing, DJs, International Shopping, Food, Beverages, And More Monterey, CA; The Monterey Jazz Festival kicks off its 51st edition on Friday, September 19, with a funk-filled night of New Grooves. Started as a special showcase in 2003 for artists and bands that pushed the sonic envelope, New Grooves will continue in the no-holds-barred direction with the electrified ...

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Red Sea Jazz Veterans Soar Far Beyond Memory Lane

Source: All About Jazz
August 31, 2008

This year's Red Sea Jazz Festival delivered on all fronts. Major international draws, such as veteran jazz-world music fusion band Oregon, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington's all-female quartet and iconic pianist Carla Bley's Lost Chords combo, packed in the crowds. And the Israeli contingent showed its mettle too, particularly the Mafrum Sextet, the Shauli Einav Quartet and Avi Lebovich's Orchestra. The latter was celebrating the launch of its latest album, Groove Collage, and its efforts were well received by the sell-out ...

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Jazz Aspen Rocking to Age 17

Source: All About Jazz
August 31, 2008

ASPEN -- Jazz Aspen Snowmass has come along way since 1991 when its troubled beginnings indicated it might not make it. Fast forward 17 years, and it has become a multimillion-dollar nonprofit that brings some of the biggest music shows to the area, as well as funds music educational programs. JAS began as two concerts in the Aspen music festival tent in 1991. Snowmass wooed the new organization with the offer of a little support, and in 1995, the group ...

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Other Places: Detroit and Philly Basses

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
August 31, 2008

The Detroit Jazz Festival is playing this Labor Day Weekend. One reason the four-day event is subtitled “A Love Supreme: The Detroit-Philly Connection" is the powerful legacy of bassists from those cities. In a sidebar piece leading up to the festival, Mark Stryker of The Detroit Free Press writes about their importance.

If it weren't for Detroit and Philadelphia, the history of modern jazz would be a lot shorter and a lot less hip. These two meccas are ...

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Obama to Speak at Hart Plaza; Detroit Jazz Fest Crew to Watch Clock

Source: All About Jazz
August 29, 2008

Leaders of the Detroit International Jazz Festival have been told that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is planning to speak at a Labor Day rally at 11 a.m. Monday at the main amphitheater at Hart Plaza -- just one hour before the festival is scheduled to kick-off its final day. “We really don't know what the overarching impact will be on the festival other than chaos," executive and artistic director Terri Pontremoli said with a laugh of resignation. The Obama ...

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Jazz Speaks to the Soul

Source: All About Jazz
August 29, 2008

Vail Jazz Festival musicians wax poetic about a genre that defies definition VAIL, Colorado -- The definition of jazz has always been elusive. Ever since jazz emerged in the black communities of the South (most notably in New Orleans) in the late 1800s, it has been a style of music that relies heavily on improvising a basic song structure. Over the years jazz music, musicians and audiences have evolved, but the genre's roots remain the same. “When you go to ...

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