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Bobby Zankel: Peaceful Jazz Warrior
by Victor L. Schermer
For many decades, Philadelphia has been home to a cadre of multi-generational jazz musicians who go on year-after-year composing, arranging and performing some of the best, highest level music to be heard anywhere. This tradition is exemplified in no better way than by alto saxophonist, composer and bandleader Bobby Zankel. Zankel apprenticed with legendary ...
Discoveries Along The Pitch Continuum
by Amir ElSaffar
Growing up in an Iraqi-American household in Chicago, I was exposed to many musical influences from an early age: first Louis Armstrong, then Lutheran Hymns, then the Beatles, then Hendrix, then Miles. Arabic music, though constantly playing in the background during family gatherings, did not capture my attention until I was in my mid-teens and my ...
Danilo Pérez: Things to Come: 21st Century Dizzy
by Alain Londes
Danilo PérezKoerner HallToronto, ONMarch 27, 2010 Danilo Pérez was part of Dizzy Gillespie's United Nations Orchestra back in 1989 and is now firmly established as a pianist in his own right. In tribute to one of bebop's pioneers, he brought a multicultural program entitled “Things To Come: 21st Century Dizzy" to ...
Amir ElSaffar / Hafez Modirzadeh: Radif Suite
by Stuart Broomer
This is an illuminating meeting between musicians who share similar cultural background and creative directions. Trumpeter Amir ElSaffar is an Iraqi-American whose work has fused elements of jazz and the maqam music of Iraq. His CD-length suite from 2007, Two Rivers, was a triumph of synthesis and vision. Tenor saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh is an older Iranian-American ...
September 2009
by AAJ Staff
Jenny ScheinmanLe Poisson RougeNew York City August 4, 2009The chameleon-like but ever electric Nels Cline seemed at first to be an unusual partner for violinist Jenny Scheinman, but if anything the guitarist knows how to make things work and he pushed the quartet (with bassist Matt Penman and drummer Jim ...
CMA Announces $253,000 in Grants to Jazz Ensembles
NEW YORK, NY -- Chamber Music America (CMA), celebrating its 32nd year of service to ensemble music professionals, today announced the recipients of 12 grants through CMAs New Jazz Works: Commissioning and Ensemble Development program. The grantees were selected in June by an independent, five-member panel of professional jazz musicians. CMA received 161 applications from jazz ...
Tom Warner: Honoring the Legacy
by Victor L. Schermer
Tom Warner recently replaced Mervon Mehta as vice-president of programming for the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, when the latter took the head position at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Among his eclectic musical tastes, the accessible, warm and articulate Warner has a strong interest in jazz.
Amir ElSaffar's Two Rivers at Firehouse 12 This Friday May 30
On Friday, May 30th, New Haven's Firehouse 12 will present the penultimate event of its 2008 Spring Jazz Series, a two-set performance by Iraqi-American trumpeter/composer Amir ElSaffar and his working group, Two Rivers. This group takes its name from ElSaffar's groundbreaking cross-cultural suite, which was commissioned by Philadelphia's Painted Bride Arts Center and documented on the ...
Amir ElSaffar: Two Rivers
by Laurel Gross
This exploration of Iraqi, American and Arab sensibilities, rooted in the lands and cultures bordering the Tigris and Euphrates rivers--the two flowing sources of the CD's title--is deeply affecting, musically adventurous and provocative. American-born ElSaffar, a talented New York-based trumpeter/composer, ventured to Iraq six years ago to study the music of his father's ...
Two Rivers
Label: Pi Recordings
Released: 2007
Track listing: Menba' (Maqam Bayat) / Jourjina; Hemayoun; Shatt al-Arab (Maqam Hadidi); Flood (Maqam Hijaz Kar); Awj Intro; Khosh Reng (Maqam Awj); Lami Intro; Diaspora (Maqam Lami); Blood and Ink (Maqam Awshar) / Aneen (Maqam Mukhalif); Blues in E Half-Flat.
