Jazz News

Banjo's Live!

Source: All About Jazz
June 20, 2008

The Banjo is quietly making a comeback in various musical genres, from Folk to African to Jazz. It's Alive!

Wildwood Banjo Co. has been quietly building banjos since 1972. We believe that building a great banjo is the best form of advertising. We depend on people telling people about our instruments.

Wildwood Banjos are hand made from the finest woods and hardware available, offer a range of models in both open-back and bluegrass banjos from the simplicity of the Minstrel ...

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Banjo Hall of Fame Annouces New Home

Source: All About Jazz
June 20, 2008

Board decides not to present the Guthrie Jazz Banjo Festival in 2008

For the past year the National Four-String Banjo Hall of Fame Museum -currently located in Guthrie, Oklahoma and presenter of the Guthrie Jazz Banjo Festival, has been searching for a new home in which to share its incredible collections with banjo enthusiasts and the general public alike. After a long search with careful consideration being given to all aspects of the Museum's long term success and financial stability, ...

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Jayme Stone & Mansa Sissoko's African American Folk

Source: Michael Ricci
June 20, 2008

American Music is African Music

From blues to R&B to disco to electronica to bluegrass, every strain of American music can trace its DNA back to ideas rooted in the African American and African traditions, from the rhythms and melodies to the instruments themselves. Jayme Stone and Mansa Sissoko's new collaborative album, Africa to Appalachia, brings that shared history to light in deft arrangements of Stone's banjo and Sissoko's kora playing. After Stone's trip to Mali a year ago, they ...

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RZA Gets into Digital Mind Frame for the Fonda

Source: Michael Ricci
June 20, 2008

Wu-Tang Clan's abbot and resident chess master, RZA

He's starting to look more like a neo-soul singer instead of the ruckus-bringer from the early '90s. I guess that's what becoming a Hollywood composer and actor will do to you. The change has actually brought him a fair amount of flack from his brethren for his softened, more focused beat production on the Wu's recent “8 Diagrams" album. But fear not, RZA loyalists: Superhero hedonist alter ego Bobby Digital is back. ...

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Alicia Keys Raw Emotions in the Garden

Source: Michael Ricci
June 20, 2008

Raw Emotions, Meticulously Outlined The singer and songwriter Alicia Keys at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night.

Seated behind her piano on Wednesday night, plucking out the first few chords of “Sure Looks Good to Me," Alicia Keys finally looked at ease. For about 20 minutes she had breathlessly, and limply, worked the Madison Square Garden stage -- forcing sensuality on “You Don't Know My Name," getting lost amid her backup singers on “Teenage Love Affair." But “Sure ...

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Charlie Haden's Old Hollywood

Source: Michael Ricci
June 20, 2008

Sounds of Old Hollywood, Augmented by Memories

Charlie Haden's Quartet West opened its late set at the new club Le Poisson Rouge on Wednesday with Charlie Parker's “Passport" and got right into it. The saxophonist Ernie Watts began as if he were in the middle of things, with a controlled medium projection, playing fast and smoothly and using language from Parker and Coltrane, devices that coolly showed how much he knew. Then Alan Broadbent put in an organized piano solo ...

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Adventure Music Signs Acclaimed Vocalist Lucia Pulido

Source: GoMedia PR
June 20, 2008

Label Will Release Waning Moon, Pulido's First CD in Nearly Three Years, On September 16 Lucia Pulido, the critically acclaimed Colombian singer whose work is noted for its fusion of the traditional with the experimental, has signed with Adventure Music, announced label co-owner Richard Zirinsky, Jr. The label will release Pulido's Waning Moon on September 16. Pulido was a featured vocalist on Adventure Music's 2007 release, Contemporary America. In its review of the CD, The Instrumental Observer said, “Lucia Pulido ...

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2008 TD Canada Trust Toronto Jazz Festival--Weekend Listings

Source: All About Jazz
June 20, 2008

Saturday, June 21

1pm: Jeff Healey's Jazz Wizards - Toronto Star Stage, Nathan Phillips Square, FREE

3pm: WORKSHOP w/ John Norris (40 years of Sackville, 50 years of Coda) - Friends of Jazz Lounge, Nathan Phillips Square, FREE

4pm: Steve Koven's Project Rex - Primus Stage, Nathan Phillips Square, FREE

6pm: TALKBACK w/ Danny Marks - JAZZ.FM91 Broadcast Centre, Nathan Phillips Square, FREE

8pm: MAINSTAGE CONCERT - The John Hammond Quartet (opening act) / Grand Divas of R&B feat. Ronnie ...

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