Jazz News

Pianist Elio Villafranca Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
January 12, 2009

Cuban born pianist Elio Villafranca has spent a lifetime observing the space between different worlds. He spent his childhood in the small Piñar de Rio region on the Western coast of Cuba and then jumped into the centralized bustle of Havana. He went through a broad and varied musical education that not only focused on the piano, but also included intensive investigations of the guitar, percussion, and composition. He immersed himself in the complex musical constructions of Havana's academic classical ...

Continue Reading

The Winter Jazzfest Acts Onstage and on the Market

Source: Michael Ricci
January 12, 2009

During the windup to his prime-time slot at the fifth annual Winter Jazzfest on Saturday, the trumpeter Steven Bernstein assumed the rapid-fire patter of a salesman.

Mr. Bernstein was onstage at Kennys Castaways with Sex Mob, his rambunctious small band, and he was in fact being serious. (He also leads Baby Loves Jazz, which has won awards from parent councils.) His pitch was aimed, with stagy transparency, at those audience members who were in town for the yearly conference of ...

Continue Reading

Critics Jazz CD Reviews

Source: Michael Ricci
January 12, 2009

New York Times Critics CD Reviews

ROKIA TRAOR Tchamantch (Nonesuch)

In its traditional roles as historical chronicle and community conscience, West African music doesnt favor introspection. Thats what makes the Malian songwriter and singer Rokia Traor such a graceful exception. Not a member of a musical dynasty like the many musicians named Diabat and Kouyat, with no family tradition to uphold, Ms. Traor is a well-traveled diplomats daughter who is creating her own radically delicate fusions.

She almost ...

Continue Reading

The Knitting Factory Finale in Fotos

Source: Michael Ricci
January 12, 2009

Megafun performed the first set on the main stage on the final night of the Knitting Factory in Manhattan.

The Knitting Factory has been celebrating noise and eclecticism since it opened on East Houston Street in 1987, and in its earlier days the club gained a wide reputation as a defining stage of downtown music, that clamorous and unclassifiable New York amalgam of jazz, punk, art-rock and experimental new music.

Continue and take in the sites from the ...

Continue Reading

Faith Gibson Returning to Berlin to Record CD in April

Source: All About Jazz
January 12, 2009

American jazz vocalist Faith Gibson announced today that she will start production of a new CD in Berlin in April, 2009. The sessions, to be recorded at the award-winning Audio Cue studio, will feature some of the city's most sought-after jazz musicians.

Since the release of her debut CD You Don't Know Me in 2004, Gibson has found a second musical home in Berlin, within the lively jazz scene of Germany's pulsating, “poor but sexy" (as its mayor famously called ...

Continue Reading

Wally's Cafe Jazz Club Recieves Bostonian Society Plaque

Source: All About Jazz
January 12, 2009

It's Official: Wally's Makes History Wally's Cafe Jazz Club has been making history for decades, a fact that will be made official later this month. On Jan. 30, the Boston Historical Society will recognize Wally's for the contribution it has made to the cultural fabric of the city by adding a plaque to the front of the building designating the landmark bar and music club an historic site. The venue joins other famed Boston sites like Fanueil Hall, the Custom ...

Continue Reading

Boney James "Send One Your Love" CD Available on February 3

Source: Special Ops Media
January 12, 2009

On February 3, 2009 Concord Records will release Send One Your Love, a new collection of seductive love songs from sax icon Boney James. On February 3, 2009 Concord Records will release Send One Your Love, a 10-track album of seductive love songs from sax icon Boney James. Just in time for Valentine's Day, Boney has put together the ultimate “musical valentine." Send One You Love includes new James originals as well as covers from Stevie Wonder, Barry White, the ...

Continue Reading

Mark Rapp / Heather Greene at Le Poisson Rouge

Source: All About Jazz
January 12, 2009

Mark Rapp named one of the “top emerging jazz trumpeters" (Downbeat), Mark Rapp bridges the gap between modern and contemporary jazz music.

Under the tutelage of Ellis Marsalis, Rapp earned a Masters in Jazz at the University of New Orleans. He has performed with Branford Marsalis, Wess Anderson and Walter Blanding Jr among many others and has toured with rock band Hootie & The Blowfish.

His featured performances at the JVC 2008 Newport Jazz Festival ended with a standing ovation. ...

Continue Reading