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Evelyn Glennie Inducted into Pas Hall of Fame / Endorses Hammerax Hybrid Instruments
Source:
All About Jazz
Clearwater, Florida – Hammerax, famed for making cymbal-like instruments with sustain and musical effects that go well beyond the sonic possibilities of ordinary cymbals, has made Dame Glennie an official endorser. The first artist to sustain a full-time career as a touring solo percussionist, Glennie performs on the company's Boomywhang hybrids, which produce deep, fluttering sounds with cymbal-like highs. She also is playing Hammerax glass hybrids, instruments that can be crashed, raked or rolled with one hand. This approach to ...
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Lester Young Said It
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
“I had a decision to make between Frankie Trumbauer and Jimmy Dorsey, you dig, and I wasn't sure which way I wanted to go. I'd buy me all those records and I'd play one by Jimmy and one by Trumbauer, you dig? I didn't know nothing about Hawk then, and they were the only ones telling a story I liked to hear. I had both of them made... I developed my tenor sound like an alto, to sound like a ...
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Lou Levy Said It
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
“I remember sitting, with the saxophone section in the bend of the piano--Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, and Sam Marowitz and Stan Getz and Serge Chaloff when these guys would stand up to play, I would hear all this stuff coming out. When the section would play, I would hear Al Cohn. Now I didn't know him that well, but I could hear that sound coming out of the section, that soulful sound. Then when he'd stand up to play a ...
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Musicians' Group Asks Obama for Change
Source:
All About Jazz
One of the difficulties in music policy advocacy is that there are always more pressing matters at hand. Rising unemployment rising, a declining environment, a somersaulting economy, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other pressing matters understandably occupy more of our policymakers' time. Nonetheless, the Future of Music Coalition hopes the upcoming Obama administration will prioritize music industry reform, particularly as it involves corporate interests. The FMC points out that as the internet loosens music's geographical ties, radio ...
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Joe Sullivan
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
This is Joe Sullivan's birthday. Although Rifftides posted an item about Sullivan and others only three months ago, it is never too soon to call him to the attention of listeners who may not have made the acquaintance of a man who inspired countless other pianists. Here is a Rifftides golden oldie.
It is not good enough simply to recycle an archive piece. As a double bonus, here are two versions of Sullivan's most famous composition, “Little Rock Getaway." The first ...
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Scratch-Scratch
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
In the scratch-scratch tradition of cross-referencing that is an important aspect of the blogosphere, Don Heckman has responded to the November 4 Rifftides piece about him, The Los Angeles Times and the general decline of writing about jazz in newspapers. That posting is two exhibits down the page. Heckman asks:
Do the complaints, the angry emails, the letters to the editor make a difference? Well, as Jake Barnes said to Lady Brett in The Sun Also Rises, “Isn't ...
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After the Election
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
When I was in college and involved in the jazz community in Seattle, I helped to arrange a concert in my home town. Some of the musicians who traveled to the interior of the state to perform in that conservative agricultural community were black. One of my closest childhood friends came to the concert. Afterward, I took him to a party for the musicians. In the course of the socializing, I danced with a newer friend, the pianist Patti Bown. ...
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