Music Industry News

Wallace Roney: Becoming Part of the Whole

Source: All About Jazz
November 1, 2005

The hush on stage at Joe's Pub was circumvented with the squeal of brass. It's piercing shrill evolved into a cacophony of instruments screaming, wailing, writhing, throbbing, breaching the silence with a language and tonality that took on a musical expression all its own. It had an intelligence that created and recreated itself while giving order to chaos. The Wallace Roney Band was playing pure jazz. They were playing the songs within their new CD Mystikal.

And indeed, an aura ...

Continue Reading...

News from Fantasy Records - November 2005 Update

Source: All About Jazz
October 31, 2005

"The Soul Stirrers were very well named," Specialty Records' Art Rupe told Peter Guralnick, whose brand-new biography “Dream Boogie: The Triumph of SAM COOKE" (Little, Brown) offers several meaty, dishy, revelatory chapters' worth of Soul Stirrers and Specialty history. “They tried to get [that] feeling, emphasized and built themselves up on soul-stirring--slower singing, very melismatic. That's why Sam [Cooke] was the way he was. Sam was shaped in large measure by the Soul Stirrers during their rehearsals. He reacted to ...

Continue Reading...

Benin Brass Band

Source: All About Jazz
October 31, 2005

by J. Poet SF Chronicle

When Benin's Gangbe Brass Band starts playing, it's impossible to stay in your seat. The merry sounds of tubas, trumpets and trombones swoop and dart through the air like drunken hummingbirds, while the drums lay down a foundation of percolating percussion that puts heart, soul and feet in motion. The rhythms sound familiar: echoes of Nigeria's juju, Cuba's son and Trinidad's calypso float through the mix. The cheery horn lines bring ...

Continue Reading...

The Bad Plus: Smells Like Jazz

Source: All About Jazz
October 31, 2005

By Rich Manley boulderdirt

Of all musical genres, there are two - classical and jazz - that stick out as a communities rife with purists, people who feel like going back is better than going forward.

While both of those musical types feature pasts robust with virtuosos, the defining musicians within those categories were virtuosos because they did something different and amazing. Today, it seems like there are many musicians within those genres who are bent ...

Continue Reading...

Alfonzo Blackwell Multi Media Mogul

Source: All About Jazz
October 27, 2005

Alfonzo has done it again! After launching his successful record label, Utopia Records, Inc. in the early part of the year; he went onto head the musical direction of a hot internet radio station(SoulfulSmoothJazz.com Radio). Alfonzo's back again heading another internet radio enterprise, SoulfulClassics.com Radio. This new internet station is the fastest growing station of it's kind. Thousands are tuning in, giving listeners great and soulful mixtures of RnB & Soul hits from the 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's.

Continue Reading...

Mississippi Coast Jazz Society Hopes to Spread a Little Cheer

Source: All About Jazz
October 27, 2005

By Pete Tattersall Sun Herald

Have instrument, will travel.

The Mississippi Coast Jazz Society wants to get a message to the public. “We're willing to come perform for the relief workers that are down here and encamped and helping us out," said Louis Zocchi, vice president of the organization. “We'd like to thank them for their efforts by providing them with the playing of Dixieland jazz. And we do a little comedy show during the intermission." ...

Continue Reading...

News from Fantasy Records - October 2005 Update

Source: All About Jazz
October 24, 2005

PRESTIGE PROFILES: The first new reissue-series release since the Concord / Fantasy sale / merger late last year will debut on October 25 with 10 specially-priced CDs and 10 bonus disc samplers, all drawing on the deep resources of the Prestige catalog.

Generously programmed discs by Miles Davis, Red Garland, Sonny Rollins, Coleman Hawkins, Eric Dolphy, Jackie McLean, Kenny Burrell, John Coltrane, Eddie “Lockjaw" Davis, and - from Prestige's Bluesville imprint - Lightnin' Hopkins offer highlights from each artist's Prestige ...

Continue Reading...

Hermosa Beach Honors Legendary Artists of 1940s

Source: All About Jazz
October 24, 2005

Plaques at Pier Plaza harken back to the days that jazz musicians help put the city on the world music map. By Deepa Bharath Daily Breeze

You had to strain your ears to listen to that music.

You had to focus and hear past the pounding techno beat, the hip-hop, whooping twentysomethings and the clinking of beer glasses and dishes on Sunday afternoon at Hermosa Beach's Pier Avenue to hear those perfect notes and that soft ...

Continue Reading...