Jazz News

21st Annual Long Beach Jazz Festival Has Soul and R&B

Source: All About Jazz
July 21, 2008

Long Beach, CA - Southern California's premiere music festival presenting the best in Jazz and Rhythm & Blues for the 21st year. The Long Beach Jazz Festival takes place the weekend of August 8, 9, and 10, 2008. Once again, the festival venue is the breath-taking seaside setting of Rainbow Lagoon Park on Shoreline Drive in Long Beach, California, where for two decades now thousands of faithful music fans have made the Long Beach Jazz Festival an annual family affair. ...

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James McMurtry Melds Literature and Lyrics

Source: Michael Ricci
July 21, 2008

The singer-songwriter plays the Troubadour on Tuesday and says his music has always been character-driven.

For a long time, James McMurtry was skeptical of the whole notion that songs could be described as literary. He figured it was just a label that journalists stuck on him because his father was the novelist Larry McMurtry, author of “Lonesome Dove" and “The Last Picture Show." But when the younger McMurtry heard his fellow Texan Steve Earle describe songs as “literature you can ...

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Pianist Geoffrey Keezer Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
July 21, 2008

Pianist/composer Geoffrey Keezer has been playing piano since age three and has been on the road since 1989 when he joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers after a year at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Over the years, he's recorded steadily and played with numerous jazz luminaries including Ray Brown, Diana Krall, Joshua Redman, Christian McBride, Kenny Barron, Chick Corea, Benny Green, and Mulgrew Miller.

But of late, things have changed for Keezer. In a few different ways.

He ...

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Pixar's New Bunny Toon Steals Wall-E Show

Source: All About Jazz
July 20, 2008

PRESTO Well Worth the Price of Admission Alone

Chances are you've been urged to check out Disney's animated robot flick “WALL-E," which has received critics' praise this summer. And you should--if only for Pixar's exuberant introductory short, “Presto," which steals the show as a throwback to classic Warner Bros. critter capers.

The minifeature stars Presto DiGiotagione, a stage magician whose headlining gag is pulling a bunny out of his top hat. Problem is, that bunny (named Alec Azam) is in ...

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Toots Thielemans in from the Storm: Music of Jimi Hendrix

Source: All About Jazz
July 20, 2008

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The Major Works of John Coltrane

Source: All About Jazz
July 20, 2008

John Coltrane - The Major Works of John Coltrane (Impulse, 1992)

This two CD set brings together some very intense and transitional music recorded by John Coltrane in 1965. This was a fascinating period in his career, as his longtime quartet with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums was in the process of dissolving, and his role as a mentor to the younger “New Thing" musicians led him to seek out new collaborators ...

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Yardbirds Jeff Beck and Nigel Kennedy Make Jazz at Albert Hall

Source: All About Jazz
July 20, 2008

Jeff Beck, the rock guitarist, was making a surprise appearance at the Proms last night -- and creating a piece of musical history. Beck, 64, who made his name with the Yardbirds in the 1960s, was due to play a guitar solo during a late-night concert of jazz and blues organised by Nigel Kennedy, the violinist. The two men have got to know each other over the past few months through a mutual love of jazz. Kennedy, best known for ...

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Gerald Wiggins Public Memorial Set

Source: All About Jazz
July 20, 2008

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