Jazz News

Jorma Kaukonen Ex-Jefferson Airplane Guitarist Still Flies High

Source: All About Jazz
February 15, 2009

Jorma Kaukonen has left the psychedelic '60s behind him. “The ’60s were a long time ago,” Kaukonen says.

“You just can’t go backward. The arrow of time only goes in one direction.” Kaukonen has a new album, River of Time

Even though his guitar helped Jefferson Airplane soar with the San Francisco Sound on hits such as “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love,” Jorma Kaukonen is not sentimental about the psychedelic ’60s.

“The ’60s were a long time ago,” Kaukonen ...

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Trump Quits Trump Entertainment, Bankruptcy Possible

Source: All About Jazz
February 15, 2009

Donald Trump resigned from the board of Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., the debt-laden casino company he founded, ahead of a possible involuntary bankruptcy filing next week.

“I’m not managing it, it’s not me that’s responsible for managing,” Trump, who was chairman, said in a telephone interview today. “Unless we’re going to be responsible for management it’s just not something that’s worthwhile.”

Trump’s departure comes ahead of a Feb. 17 deadline to make a $53 million bond payment originally due on ...

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Fewer Conventions Hurting Las Vegas Economy

Source: All About Jazz
February 15, 2009

Fewer conventions having ripple affect on other businesses. Gaming revenue fell for the 12th month in a row in December and last year's overall drop is historic.

Some locals who depend on conventions to survive say they can't afford the war of words going on between President Obama and Mayor Oscar Goodman.

Last week, both Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs canceled corporate junkets scheduled to take place here in Las Vegas. They were trying to get away from the perception ...

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Debt Finally Topples a Las Vegas High Roller

Source: Michael Ricci
February 15, 2009

Omar Siddiqui, a top executive at Fry's Electronics, was coveted and coddled by Las Vegas casinos. Now he faces fraud charges.

Casinos vied with one another to lure the high-stakes Bay Area gambler to their tables. They flew him to Las Vegas on private jets. They put him up free in opulent suites. And they extended him millions of dollars in credit on his signature alone. He was good for business.

Fry's fires executive is accused in kickback scheme, Siddiqui, ...

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Daring to Take a Chisel to Two Monuments of Jazz

Source: Michael Ricci
February 14, 2009

Miles Davis' Kind of Blue and John Coltrane's Giant Steps may be the most fetishized jazz records in the last 50 years, and this year they both turn exactly 50.

The saxophonists, George Garzone, Ted Nash, Sherman Irby and Walter Blanding Jr. Backing them, bassist Ivan Taylor, and the drummers Rodney Green and Jimmy Cobb.

A Jazz at Lincoln Center concert in their honor is almost something to dread: not necessarily because the records are technically beyond reach, but because ...

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For the Lonely: 150 Songs for Sobbing on Valentine's Day

Source: Michael Ricci
February 14, 2009

Valentine's Day is almost here, and as everyone from your bubbe to your Facebook status won't stop reminding you: You are alone. All alone.

Profound sadness is not for the faint of heart. And sometimes the best place to be is right in the middle of it.

Because that's just the kind of mood we're in. Honest. We're not one of those toothy, gleaming motivational speakers. We're not here to sell you a bill of goods about positive thinking and ...

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Neko Case Wild Thing

Source: Michael Ricci
February 14, 2009

Case and her “strays" — a half-dozen pianos in varying degrees of disrepair that she has collected sit in her Vermont barn during the recording of her latest record, Middle Cyclone.

“I wish I had a tremolo,” Neko Case said. She looked at the Samburger she was wolfing down — Samburgers and Zinburgers being the specialties of a restaurant called Zinburger, in downtown Tucson, where Case lives, for now. With their maple bacon, American cheese and Thousand Island dressing, Samburgers ...

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Matt Ward Four-Track Guy in a Digital World

Source: Michael Ricci
February 14, 2009

THERE is a century-old house in the southeast section of this city, with an attic full of vintage instruments and audio equipment and a drum kit in the dining room, and this is where the indie musician M. Ward likes to record.

Reel-to-reel tapes are stacked on the linoleum floor upstairs; a broken film projector with an old coil speaker serves as an amplifier; bells and shakers crowd a shelf in a studio lit mostly by Christmas lights; the Wurlitzer ...

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