Jazz News

Saxophonist and Composer Sarah Manning Signed to Posi-Tone Records

Source: Michael Ricci
August 31, 2009

New York City based alto saxophonist and composer Sarah Manning has signed on to Posi-Tone Records and will be recording a new album this fall, with an anticipated release of Spring or Summer of 2010. The Posi-Tone release will be Manning’s third album as a leader, and the first to feature her regular quartet, Shatter the Glass, with Art Hirahara on piano, Linda Oh on bass and Kyle Struve on drums. During performances at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola After Hours ...

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Legendary British Saxophonist John Surman Interviewed at AAJ

Source: ECM Records
August 31, 2009

It's increasingly risky to be a musician on the road. When British saxophonist John Surman was traveling from his home in Oslo, Norway, to New York City in September, 2007 for a recording session, he almost lost his baritone saxophone to the airlines. “It is a nightmare traveling now," says Surman, “and hardly a tour goes by without something going missing, and of course there's the damage problem. Nowadays you get one handbag, which of course is my soprano, so ...

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Recent Jazz Session Podcasts: Carl Allen, Terence Blanchard, Gene Ludwig, Bill Anschell, Avery Sharpe and More!

Source: Michael Ricci
August 30, 2009

In case you missed one of our recent Jazz Session Podcasts by Jason Crane, click any of the links below to tune in. We've posted 7 new interviews in the last 2+ weeks.

Enjoy!

Steve Kuhn (51:47) Posted: 2009-08-28 Steve Kuhn's new album, Mostly Coltrane (ECM, 2009), pays tribute to John Coltrane, with whom Kuhn worked for several weeks in the early 60s. In this interview, Kuhn talks ...

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Aardvark Jazz Orchestra: All Blues Show at Scullers Jazz Club on September 30th

Source: Mary Curtin Productions
August 30, 2009

Aardvark Jazz Orchestra: All Blues Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 8:00 pm, one show only Scullers Jazz Club Doubletree Guest Suites 400 Soldiers Field Road, Boston, MA Admission: $18 Reservations and information: 617-562-4111 The celebrated Aardvark Jazz Orchestra will open its 37th season at Scullers with a show of “All Blues,” painting the many shades of blues in jazz from Miles and Duke to Mingus and Basie to ...

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#Jazzlives: A Twitter Campaign by Listeners of Live Jazz

Source: Michael Ricci
August 29, 2009

A grass roots group of jazz journalists and broadcasters, websites, bloggers, and presenters have launched a #jazzlives campaign on Twitter, using the social networking platform to demonstrate that recent reports of jazz's demise are, in the words of Mark Twain, greatly exaggerated. According to data from a 2008 survey of audience participation in the arts released by the National Endowment for the Arts and featured in recent articles in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, fewer people ...

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Berle Adams Dies at 92; Co-Founder of Mercury Records and an MCA Executive

Source: Michael Ricci
August 29, 2009

Adams booked road dates for big bands in the '40s. At MCA, he was in charge of packaging new TV programs. For two decades he was the sole international distributor of the Emmy Awards.

Berle Adams, a onetime big-band booking agent who co-founded Mercury Records in the 1940s and later became a senior executive at MCA before launching his own successful business as an international television program sales representative and distributor, has died. He was 92.

Adams, who had been ...

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Sergei Mikhalkov Dies at 96; Author of Soviet, Russian National Anthems

Source: Michael Ricci
August 29, 2009

Sergei Mikhalkov, who wrote the lyrics for the Soviet and Russian national anthems and also persecuted dissident writers as part of the Soviet propaganda machine, has died. He was 96. Mikhalkov, who fathered two noted film directors, died Thursday in a Moscow hospital. A cause of death was not given. He was born March 18, 1913, in Moscow. As a young author and war correspondent favored by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, he was commissioned to write lyrics for a new ...

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AllAboutJazz-New York September 2009 Issue Now Available!

Source: Michael Ricci
August 29, 2009

This month, we mourn the passing of the seminal composer George Russell, whose book, Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, was the precursor for a modal approach to jazz and such masterworks as Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. But for such a pedigree, Russell may not be well-known to some readers. The history of jazz, for all its iconic figures like Miles, is made richer for its more obscure participants. These may play a less assertive instrument or just have ...

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