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Profiles
Tula's Jazz Club: Soliloquy to a Seattle Jazz Institution
It was the tail end of a long weekend. Temperatures had risen to 80 degrees under a sunny only-in-Seattle blue sky, the waterways and markets humming with a sea of humanity. It was not a night one would expect many to venture into the quiet, dark solitude of Tula's Jazz Club, where for nearly 26 years the best of Seattle's vibrant jazz scene had come to roost. The scene up and down Second Avenue in Belltown was its usual interesting ...
read moreWOKE JAZZ: The Fast-Forward Evolution of British Jazz
After a lifetime in the shadow of its American parent, British jazz is finally coming of age. A community of young, London-based musicians is forging a style which, while anchored in the American tradition, reflects the modern Caribbean and African cultural heritages of the majority of its vanguard players. The music also addresses the race, class and gender inequalities which are features of life in Britain. The new London scene is by no means racially exclusive, but it ...
read moreJazzmobile partners with Minton's Playhouse for synergy of jazz in Harlem, NYC
A synergy in jazz can mean that band members complement and combine with one another for a greater result. That same concept applies to an exciting summer announcement that kicks-off a new partnership between two renowned and heralded jazz organizations, Jazzmobile and Harlem Jazz Enterprises will team-up with the iconic Minton's Playhouse jazz club, to present live music at this storied venue, in Harlem, jny: New York City. This dynamic partnership will create an open-ended residency at Minton's Playhouse jazz ...
read moreJeff Chambers' Chosen Alternative: The Therapies of Tijuana
Jeff Chambers, long a go-to jny: San Francisco Bay Area bassist, looked at death closely and decided it was not yet his time. In 2017 his medical chart revealed Stage IV prostate cancer, commonly and fearfully an endgame diagnosis. Prostate cancer affects African-American men with almost twice the frequency as other races, and is almost twice as likely to be fatal. Chambers had waited for two years with self-treatments before giving up, and booked himself into Tijuana, Mexico, at an ...
read moreOmar Sosa: Building Bridges Not Walls
Cuban-born pianist, Omar Sosa is a passionate man. Music, religion, family, his relationship to the planet—all these are inseparable to an artist whose musical world is steeped in the Afro-Cuban heritage that he draws upon so personally and individually in his work. Spinning culinary metaphors to describe the processes of music-making, he sings the praises of the musicians from so many different cultures with whom he collaborates. But most of all, he is passionate in his concern for the environment ...
read moreUnforgettable: Nat King Cole at 100
Few cities in the U.S. have musical traditions so strong and varied as Chicago's. Although cases can be made for other cities--jny: New Orleans, jny: Detroit, New York, jny: Philadelphia, jny: Los Angeles, and jny: Memphis come to mind--in no other city is the range and depth of musical expression so strong as in Chi-Town. Other cities may dominate certain genres and discrete niches, but in no other burg does the musical tradition run so deeply in genres ranging from ...
read moreBrother Thelonious Re-Released At California North Coast Jazz and Ale House
"Brother Thelonious," an ale named in tribute to pianist Thelonious Monk using a Belgian Trappist brew style, is flowing again out of the North Coast Brewing Company in Fort Bragg, California and its jazz-devoted performance venue, The Sequoia Room. An intermission in production occurred after a dispute between North Coast Brewing and the Estate of the late Thelonious Monk, now resolved, over the use of Monk's image promoting the ale and related products. The Estate, represented by Monk's son drummer ...
read moreSonny Buxton: Strayhorn’s Last Drummer, A Radio Master Class Mid-Day Saturdays
Sociologist, anthropologist, historian: storyteller, raconteur, entrepreneur and griot, in the guise of a deejay. Registrar, dean, professor: The jazz class of Sonny Buxton is barely concealed as entertainment within his weekly radio program every Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Pacific time on San Francisco Bay Area FM station KCSM 91.1, streaming live on kcsm.org. At age 81, with a still-strong crisp baritone voice, he's like a garrulous and enthusiastic great-uncle, spinning classic songs with stories that he ...
read moreRobert Lewis Heads the Charleston's Jazz Orchestra
He is the director of jazz studies at the College of Charleston, a full time (and long time) member of the Charleston Jazz Orchestra (CJO) in Charleston, South Carolina, in great demand for private lessons by aspiring jazz musicians and, when the time is right, a performer who leads his own group. So obviously, what Robert Lewis needed was another job. While he is known primarily by local musicians and avid fans as the somewhat reticent, soft spoken ...
read moreThe Complete Jan Akkerman: Focusing on a Life's Work
He may be largely regarded as the most influential guitarist to emerge from the Netherlands, a country that, bordering on the North Sea, is roughly one-quarter the physical size of England and, with a current number of about seventeen million, has just one-third the population of the UK's largest country. Still, despite garnering major in-country recognition, including the country's most prestigious music prize, the Golden Harp Award, being made a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau, and winning the De ...
read moreIstanbul’s İKSV: An Intensity Beyond Cool
It would be easy to get breathless, even giddy, about the range and schedule of cultural events organized by İKSV, the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (in Turkish: İstanbul Kültür Sanat Vakfı). One individual could not possibly keep up with its jazz and classical music festivals and everything else that's offered by İKSV. It brings under one organization something like the variety and aspirations of Lincoln Center in New York, the National Endowment for the Arts, commercial promoter Live ...
read moreDon Suhor: From Dixieland to Bopsieland
This article first appeared in the 2016 issue of The Jazz Archivist. My brother, Don Suhor, played clarinet and alto sax in a stunning variety of jazz contexts for over fifty-five years--almost exclusively in jny: New Orleans. I always felt frustrated by my brother's lack of concern with legacy. He made a few recordings as a sideman, none of which displayed the range and the uniqueness of his talents. Some of his best work is preserved on tape ...
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