Jazz News

Fred's Fest Line Up

Source: All About Jazz
March 15, 2009

Following is the complete lineup for Fred Anderson's 80th Birthday Tribute Festival. Most events at the Velvet Lounge, 67 E. Cermak Rd. 7 p.m. Sunday: Fred Anderson and the Great Black Music Ensemble $15.

8:30 p.m. Wednesday: Richard Davis and Willie Pickens; Edwin Daugherty, Ari Brown, David “Dawi" Williams and Dushun Mosley, with Douglas Ewart and Henry Grimes. $20.

8:30 p.m. Thursday: Justin Dillard ...

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Fred Anderson to Receive Birthday Tribute from Jazz Icons

Source: All About Jazz
March 15, 2009

He doesn't look 80, and he sure doesn't sound it.

Listen to Chicago jazz master Fred Anderson play his horn—his tone as big as all outdoors, his ideas tumbling one atop another—and it's clear that, musically at least, he maintains the vigor of youth (as well as the lung power).

Yet Sunday night, when Anderson takes the stage of his iconic Velvet Lounge, on the Near South Side, he'll launch a weeklong festival celebrating his milestone birthday (which occurs March ...

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Saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa and Pianist Vijay Iyer Launch Jazz in a New Direction

Source: All About Jazz
March 15, 2009

Years from now, listeners surely will marvel at one of the great partnerships in jazz: saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa and pianist Vijay Iyer.

Each has gone a long way toward infusing the music with elements of South Indian culture. Together, they have pointed jazz in a new direction—or at least developed Eastern elements that long have been dormant in the music.

Yet each has a perspective of his own, as Mahanthappa made clear Saturday night at the Green Mill, where an ...

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Stanley Clarke to Release First Acoustic Trio Album

Source: All About Jazz
March 15, 2009

With the May 12 issue of Jazz In The Garden (Heads Up), Stanley Clarke will see the first release of an acoustic trio album that he has led.

I had never done an acoustic bass record, ever. There’s a long list of people on whose records I’ve played acoustic bass--Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Joe Henderson and many others--but I’d never done an acoustic jazz trio record of my own. So I wanted to record one that would just ...

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Sony Legacy Plans New Davis, Brubeck and Mingus Sets

Source: All About Jazz
March 15, 2009

In celebration of the 50th anniversaries of their recording, Columbia/Legacy has plans to release special Legacy Editions of Dave Brubeck's Time Out, Miles Davis' Sketches Of Spain and Charles Mingus' Mingus Ah Um. All three are slated for a May 26 release.

The Time Out Legacy Edition will feature two CDs and a DVD. The DVD features a new 30-minute documentary on the making of Time Out, including footage of Brubeck illustrating selections from Time Out at the piano. The ...

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Philadelphia Orchestra Cancels 2009 European Festivals

Source: All About Jazz
March 15, 2009

The “Philly Sound" (Of Silence): Philadelphia Orchestra Cancels 2009 European Festivals Tour Due To Lack Of Sponsors & Weak Dollar.

The ghost of Eugene Ormandy is very, very angry:

Unable to find sponsorship, the Philadelphia Orchestra has canceled its 2009 European festivals tour.

Such a cancellation is highly unusual, and this one is doubly painful. The concerts in Lucerne, Paris, at the London Proms and the Edinburgh Festival starting in August would have brought the orchestra incalculable artistic credibility with ...

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Philadelphia Orchestra Cuts Staff 20 Percent

Source: Michael Ricci
March 15, 2009

The sour notes of job losses are being heard at the Philadelphia Orchestra.

The orchestra let 12 staff members go Wednesday. Six positions will go unfilled, reducing administrative staff 20 percent.

The job cuts save about $900,000 a year, only a start on filling a more-than-$2 million potential deficit.

An orchestra endowment drive recently raised $130 million. But executive director Frank Slattery Jr. says market conditions have shrunk the nest egg by more than 30 percent.

The orchestra is conducting ...

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Baltimore Opera Pursuing Chapter 7, Dissolution

Source: All About Jazz
March 15, 2009

The Baltimore Opera Company's board of trustees has voted to seek Chapter 7 liquidation and sell off the 58-year-old company's assets.

General Manager M. Kevin Wixted says the company didn't have enough money to do more than struggle month to month. He said the company would never get ahead and could never raise enough money to have one season of opera.

The board took the vote on Thursday. Now the company is going to sell its costumes, equipment, warehouse and ...

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