Jazz News

Singer Lola Danza Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
February 25, 2009

Free jazz has wound its way through many permutations since arriving in the early '60s. An important custodian of its new directions is vocalist and composer Lola Danza, of Brooklyn.

Danza is a graduate of Berklee College of Music, Boston, and stayed in Boston for a few years after graduating, developing her approach to music before becoming completely “free" over the last three years.

Her latest album, Live Free (Evolver, 2009), is a live recording from a gig at Boston's ...

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Jazz Video Guy Meets Blue Note's Magnificent 7

Source: All About Jazz
February 24, 2009

The Blue Note 7 performing Steve Wilson's arrangement of Thelonious Monk's “Criss Cross" highlights the latest entry from Jazz Video Guy Bret Primack's bi-weekly blog, jazzvideoguy.tv. Blue Note Records' 70th Anniversary was the catalyst for the group featuring Nicholas Payton, Steve Wilson, Ravi Coltrane, Bill Charlap, Peter Bernstein, Peter Washington and Lewis Nash playing their own arrangements of Blue Note classics. A few months after the group recorded an album, Mosaic, they began an extensive US tour thanks to Danny ...

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D.C. Celebrates Duke Ellington Quarter Release

Source: All About Jazz
February 24, 2009

Jazz legend is first black American to be featured on coin in circulation

Jazz musician Duke Ellington has become the first black American to be prominently featured on a U.S. coin in circulation with the release of a quarter honoring the District of Columbia.

U.S. Mint and D.C. officials celebrated the release of the coin Tuesday during a ceremony at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. “Like many great Americans who succeed in what they love doing, Duke Ellington ...

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Branford Marsalis Quartet Album and Tour

Source: Universal Music Enterprises
February 24, 2009

WORLD RENOWNED BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET RELEASES METAMORPHOSEN ON MARSALIS MUSIC MARCH 17TH ** US TOUR DATES ANNOUNCED BELOW** (New York, NY—January 22, 2009) After releasing the “dynamic” and “passionate” (Jazz Times) Braggtown in 2006, the multiple Grammy-nominated Branford Marsalis Quartet toured worldwide for two years before returning to the recording studio. The result, a nine track masterpiece, is one of the band’s strongest and most broadly appealing albums to date. Metamorphosen is ...

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Arturo O’Farrill and the Grammy Winning Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra Return to Symphony Space

Source: Two for the Show Media
February 24, 2009

Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra return to Symphony Space for a multicultural exploration of the future of Latin jazz, featuring guest composers and artists! Thursday March 5th, 2009 & Friday March 6th, 2009. Showtime: 8:00 PM

Highlights of the upcoming performance:

Guest composers Frank London, Gabriel Alegra, Fernando Otero, Pablo Mayor, and David Bixler Works by Arturo O'Farrill and Michael Phillip Mossman Guest appearances by Heather Bixler, Freddy “Huevito" Lobatn, and others Compositions will include, “Paroxysm ...

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Dafnis Prieto Si O Si Quartet Live at the Jazz Standard -Live Recording

Source: Two for the Show Media
February 24, 2009

Drummer/Composer & Bandleader Dafnis Prieto will be performing with his SI O SI Quartet at The Jazz Standard in New York City from Friday March 20th, 2009 thru Sunday March 22nd, 2009.

Set Times are 7:30 PM & 9:30 PM – with an 11:30PM set added on Friday and Saturday. This performance is being recorded for Dafnis Prieto’s new release on Dafnison Music. Come and be part of this live recording!!

Dafnis Prieto SI O SI Quartet: Peter ...

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Beauty Affects Men's and Women's Brains Differently

Source: All About Jazz
February 24, 2009

Beauty is famously in the eye of the beholder; but it's also in the beholder's brain, and may work differently in the brains of men and women.

In men, images they consider to be beautiful appear to activate brain regions responsible for locating objects in absolute terms — x- and y-coordinates on a grid. Images considered beautiful by women do the same, but they also activate regions associated with relative location: above and behind, over and under. The difference could ...

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Infringement Case Against McCain Advances

Source: All About Jazz
February 24, 2009

John McCain says he was a puppet for the Republican National Committee and therefore should not be held accountable for a presidential campaign commercial that used the popular song “Running on Empty" by Jackson Browne without permission.

But the Los Angeles federal judge presiding over the copyright- infringement case was not buying it. The judge refused late Friday to remove the Arizona senator from the lawsuit in which he and the Republican National Committee are accused of violating the rights ...

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