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New York Beat
Nick Catalano has a beat on the Big Apple. Find out what's cookin' in NYC.
Eliane Elias: A Study in Longevity
It must be more than 30 years or so since I went to the Blue Note to review a new vocalist/ pianist/ composer/ teacher who had just arrived from São Paulo with a musical entourage and extended family members. Inordinately glamorous and confidently poised, Eliane Elias sat at the piano playing the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim whose music was still in ascendancy in the U.S. The performance of this lithesome chanteuse who had begun playing as youngster, was enjoyable ...
read moreCanadian Jazz: Remembering Maynard Ferguson
The recent Montreal Jazz Festival (read about it here) sparked many conversations hailing the evolution of the event in recent years and its growing importance for musicians everywhere. It certainly ranks among the best jazz convocations in the Western Hemisphere. The occasion of the festival offered me an opportunity to reflect on the history of Canadian jazz and my association with some of its leading exponents. The first name I thought of was Maynard Ferguson. My multiple associations ...
read more92nd Street Y Jazz in July: The Music of Clifford Brown
The Y's Jazz in July programing this summer included an evening celebrating the music of Clifford Brown on July 23rd—a treat for me as it was one of the few such tributes I've seen since Oxford U. published my biography of Brownie over a decade ago. The production included a panorama of Brownie photos projected onto the stage's big screen and some knowledgeable commentary from the series' director Bill Charlap. The musical aggregation amassed for the evening included ...
read moreFrench Gypsy Jazz
At various times since its origin, jazz has had an interesting claimant. The French have long maintained that the various musics leading up to the development of jazz in the early years of the 20th century contain Gallic seedlings....Their claim is justifiable. Without parsing the complex origins of the music one can simply make reference to the legendary Creole composer/ musicians led by Jelly Roll Morton and show how, because they were classically trained, they added new dimensions to the ...
read moreGretchen Parlato at The Jazz Standard
The New Year was dramatically ushered in at the Jazz Standard on January 2nd when Gretchen Parlato and her band wowed an SRO audience with some of the most prescient music of the season. No vocalist of recent vintage has garnered more acclaim than the brilliant chanteuse, transplanted from L.A. to Gotham awhile back. Grammy nominations, critical commendation from writers and musicians ("A singer with a deep, almost magical connection to the music." --Herbie Hancock, “There's no one out there ...
read moreJazz at Kitano: Duduka Da Fonseca and Brazilian Express
Brazilian percussionist Duduka Da Fonseca has led a variety of groups in Gotham venues for the past several years, performing the wildly popular samba music he learned growing up in Rio de Janeiro. His December 8 performance at The Kitano Hotel lounge in New York City was a high point of the holiday season, celebrating the music of pianist Dom Salvador. Fourteen-year-old Da Fonseca would play along with Salvador's album Rio 65 Trio (Philips, 1965). Da Fonseca and Brazilian Express ...
read moreSonny Rollins Remasters Legendary Album with Clifford Brown
At 87, saxophone immortal Sonny Rollins remains at work honing his recording legacy. No longer performing upon receiving medical advice, the star is busily attending to an archive which contains recordings he made with virtually every bop and post-Bop virtuoso in jazz. His latest effort is a remastering of Sonny Rollins + 4 a Prestige session recorded on March 22, 1956 with Clifford Brown and Max Roach. The recording is significant for several reasons. Initially, it contains outings ...
read moreEric Reed at Smoke Jazz & Supper Club
Hard Bop continues to find a home in NY's Smoke Jazz & Supper Club. For decades the room featured One for All -a group whose stalwart players Eric Alexander, Steve Davis, David Hazeltine, John Webber, Jim Rotondi, and Joe Farnsworth had critics comparing them to Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. These players often led smaller groups into Smoke with players such as Harold Mabern and other hard boppers. Last week (7-22) the club brought in Eric Reed and company ...
read moreCecil Taylor: Courage in Creation
Ever since innovative artists were faced with reflecting and reacting in their art to seismic events (WWI) revolutionary science (Einsteinian relativity, Darwinian evolution, and political convolution (fascism, bolshevism) over a century ago, many faced years of scorn and condemnation. When they chose abstraction in art (Mondrian, Kandinsky) dissonance in music (Schoenberg, Bartok) or stream of consciousness in writing (Eliot, Joyce) to describe a disjunctive new world they were destined to lose the masses and rely on clairvoyant critics for small ...
read moreBobby Sanabria & Band at Dizzy's
A scintillating evening of Latin jazz with a novel twist was the order of business Monday, March 26, 2018 at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola. Bobby Sanabria, the director of The Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Band, has conducted superlative shows at Dizzy's in the past, but this one had a packed audience chatting up laudable encomiums long after the opening set had concluded. The program “Cartoon and TV Music Goes Latin Jazz!!!" featured the theme music from ...
read moreAfrican-American Music: A retrospective at Jazz at Lincoln Center
One of Jazz at Lincoln Center's most thoughtful concert ideas in recent memory came to life at the Appel Room on March 2, 2018. Dubbed “Rags, Strides & Habaneras" the intimate program managed to survey a host of strategic forms from origins in West Africa that shaped the art of music in the Americas. Most jazz fans know about ragtime and its popularity a century ago, which was led by the genius of Scott Joplin. Ageless piano wizard ...
read moreJelly Roll Morton Front and (Lincoln) Center
With a three-night gala celebrating the music of Jelly Roll Morton, the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra marked its 30th season at Rose Hall. Focusing on Morton's pioneer arranging achievements with amplifications of them from Jazz at Lincoln Center performers, the evening offered a penetrating exploration of the Creole legend's multifarious compositional musings and featured a quintet of sparkling piano soloists who recalled his keyboard wizardry. The full breadth and scope of Morton's talents--his multiple syncopations, latin-textured musical ...
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