Jazz News

Craig Brenner & the Crawdads "Live to Love" Reviewed by George Fish

Source: Michael Ricci
April 13, 2010

Bloomington, Indiana's Craig Brenner & the Crawdads have a new CD, “Live to Love," that not only romps with boogie and blues, but also with jazz, R&B and even country in a delightful potpourri of ten original songs. Craig Brenner, leader of the group and composer, lyricist and arranger of all ten original numbers on the CD, is an exemplar of what can happen when formal musical training meets deep-inside soulfulness and creativity. Brenner graduated from Florida Southern College in ...

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Footsteps in Africa Remix: The Power of Nomads and the Desert

Source: Michael Ricci
April 13, 2010

The Body's Hum, the Desert's Joy: Footsteps in Africa Soundtrack: Nomadic Remix Brings Nomad Freedom to the Dancefloor and Water to the Sahara

There's a sound you hear in the desert, a hum that can only be felt in the deepest silence. It is the high tone of vibrating nerves, the rush of blood in the veins. It's the ultimate beat, the dance of the body itself.

This sound lies behind filmmaker, producer, and former VJ Kathi von Koerber's three-part ...

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Icon Hank Williams Receives Pulitzer Citation

Source: All About Jazz
April 13, 2010

Hank Williams, the country pioneer who is among the most influential singer- songwriters in music, was given a special Pulitzer Prize citation. The Pulitzer board awarded the late singer for his lifetime achievement, based on a confidential survey of experts in popular music. “I don't think any country artist cast a longer shadow than he does, both as a songwriter and a performer," Jay Orr, vice president of museum programs at the Country Music Hall of Fame, said Monday. (A ...

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Eubanks Makes It Official: He's Leaving 'Tonight'

Source: All About Jazz
April 13, 2010

"Tonight Show" bandleader Kevin Eubanks has made it official: He's leaving as Jay Leno's sideman in May after 18 years with the late-night host. He told Leno during Monday's taping of “Tonight" in Burbank, Calif., that he was ready for a career change of pace, but he didn't announce specific plans. Eubanks called the NBC late-night show his “home" and said it had been “a wonderful experience" working there. Eubanks, 52, whose duties included comic sidekick to Leno as well ...

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Cherry Lane Publishing 50th Anniversary Event

Source: Michael Ricci
April 13, 2010

Cherry Lane Music Publishing celebrates 50th Anniversary with year long celebration, kicks off with star studded event in May.

Cherry Lane Music Publishing, the top indie music publisher in the US, celebrates its 50th anniversary with a party, May 19, at trend-setting Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The event will include performances by many of the company's current roster, which include, John Legend, Delta Spirit, Madi, Antigone Rising, Dilana, Moe as well as the first-signed writer to Cherry Lane, folk ...

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Jamie Cullum and All That Jazz

Source: Michael Ricci
April 13, 2010

SINGAPORE: UK singer Jamie Cullum has released five critically acclaimed albums so far and was even nominated for Best Original Song for his work on Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood's 2009 film “Grand Torino". That would be the boring way to describe Cullum (though it is all true). But who is the man behind the music? Cullum is best described by the word 'spontaneous'. The 31-year-old just goes with the flow when it comes to picking which song he would cover ...

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Dr. Yes Will Hear You Now

Source: Michael Ricci
April 13, 2010

Tall, white-whiskered and dressed in a tailored suit, Bruce Lundvall is sitting at his desk in the Manhattan headquarters of EMI Music. Framed platinum discs and photographs on the wall mark the pop, rock and jazz triumphs of a half-century: discovering best-selling artists like Norah Jones and Richard Marx; supporting the careers of Bruce Springsteen and Willie Nelson; reissuing recordings by John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. Mr. Lundvall's story has many chapters. Most recently, he was chief executive of the ...

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Veteran Saxophonist Ralph Lalama Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
April 13, 2010

Ralph Lalama's rich tenor saxophone voice has been heard for years on the New York City scene, perhaps most notably with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and its predecessors, first led by Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, and later by just Lewis. He's a guy who grew up when rock music was fully bursting on the American scene, but maintains that not much of that music touched him. He came from a family that listened to jazz and the American Popular ...

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