Results for "Los Angeles"

Bill Cunliffe: Always Doing It The Right Way

by Jim Worsley
March 18, 2021

Most notably a jazz pianist, it comes as more than a surprise that Bill Cunliffe was not in the same orbit as jazz until he was in college. With the sheer volume of top shelf jazz he has written and recorded since, he would seem to have made up for any lost time. That time, those ...

Modern Sounds From California

March 15, 2021

West Coast jazz was the music of migrants. After World War II, work opportunities for skilled jazz musicians skyrocketed in Los Angeles, attracting gifted artists from different parts of the country. Two principal architects of the West Coast jazz sound in the early 1950s were Gerry Mulligan and Shorty Rogers—transplants from the East Coast. Many other ...

Gipsy Kings Co-Founder Diego Baliardo Releases Debut CD, 'Este Ritmo,' With New Group, The Gypsy Evolution

March 15, 2021

Diego Baliardo, one of the founders of the world-famous Gipsy Kings, is carrying on the group’s tradition of playing their unique blend of musical styles with a new generation of musicians steeped in Romani culture. Baliardo is releasing Este Ritmo (This Rhythm), the debut release with his new group, The Gypsy Evolution (March 19, 2021, Moondo ...

Quinn Johnson

Pianist and composer Quinn Johnson has lived in four different countries on three different continents, and has played music from around the world with Cuban, Brasilian, Persian, African, Middle Eastern and Chinese artists. Some of those he has had the pleasure of working with include Rod Stewart, Diana Ross, Rita Coolidge, Mike Stoller, Martin Short, Jack Sheldon, Diane Schuur, Tom Scott, Richard Carpenter, Judith Hill, Poncho Sanchez, Flora Purim, Wayne Brady, John Densmore (of The Doors), Ben E King, Bettye La Vette, Elba Ramalho,DowntotheBone,JerrySeinfeld, AirtoMoreira,FranciscoAguabella,Christopher Cross, Alvaro Torres and Dancing with the Stars (US/Canada tour). Quinn was the music director/pianist for American songbook singer Steve Tyrell for 16 years

A New Jazz Opera From Kabir Sehgal And Marie Incontrera, 'Angela's Ring,' Explores The European Debt Crisis

March 13, 2021

The mere thought of a jazz opera based on the European debt crisis might be enough to send potential listeners running for the exits, but Angela's Ring, a new work co-composed by bassist Kabir Sehgal and pianist Marie Incontrera, is an entertaining and enlightening view of recent history perfectly set to a unique hybrid genre. Uniting ...

Los Angeles Guitar Quartet

Active since: 1980

The Grammy Award-winning LAGQ is one of the most multifaceted groups in any genre. The LAGQ is comprised of four uniquely accomplished musicians bringing a new energy to the concert stage with programs ranging from Bluegrass to Bach. They consistently play to sold-out houses world-wide. Their inventive, critically acclaimed transcriptions of concert masterworks provide a fresh look at the music of the past, while their interpretations of works from the contemporary and world-music realms continually break new ground. Programs including Latin, African, Far East, Irish, Folk and American Classics transport listeners around the world in a single concert experience

That Slow Boat to China: How American Jazz Steamed Into Asia

by Arthur R George
March 3, 2021

A kind of jazz was already waiting in Asia when American players arrived in the 1920s, close to a hundred years ago. However, it was imitative and incomplete, lacked authenticity and live performers from the U.S. Those ingredients became imported by musicians who had played with the likes of Joseph “King" Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, ...

Amber Weekes

Born: July 9, 1962

American jazz recording artist Amber Weekes has given the world a special and unique gift:  her voice.  Her producer Mark Cargill described it as “a voice from Heaven,” and hears “harps, violins, trumpets on a cloud of velvet whenever she begins to sing.”

Weekes is rising to the pinnacle of her career with the upcoming 2024 release of “A Lady with a Song – Amber Weekes Celebrates Nancy Wilson,” an homage to the legendary jazz singer and fellow storyteller.

Weekes, raised in Los Angeles, says she was “born singing” in her parents’ musical household.  At four, she stepped onto her first stage, the living room coffee table in her childhood home.  The daughter of singers from Harlem, Weekes’ home oozed with the sounds of Frank Sinatra, Nancy Wilson, Barbara Streisand, Diahann Carroll, The Beatles, Leontyne Price, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Brown, Jr., and Ray Charles.  Generations earlier, her grandparents, Wilfred and Nettie Weekes, served musical giants Lena Horne, Duke Ellington, Billy Strahorn and many others inside Weekes’ Luncheonette in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem.  These famous patrons left their musical mark on the family.  It was just a matter of time that Weekes would step into and fully claim her musical inheritance. 

Dennis Mitcheltree

Born: September 25, 1964

Saxophonist/composer Dennis Mitcheltree’s new recording, his sixth as a leader, Golden Rule, is one brimming with humanity. The music celebrates family, lost friends, his major inspirations (including tenor giants John Coltrane, Joe Henderson, and others), and speaks directly to our shared journey through life, and the imperative to treat each other with love, respect, trust and dignity – in short – to treat others as you wish to be treated. The music on Golden Rule is a reflection of that notion. It also swings like mad and engages the listener with nine wonderfully crafted compositions from Mitcheltree.

Andrea Balestra: A Rich Sicilian Odyssey

by Jim Worsley
February 17, 2021

Guitarist Andrea Balestra makes a cerebral investment with every note he plays and with all of his compositions. A lot of guitarists like to jam. Balestra isn't one of them. Substance is preferred over droning speed. His highly intensified music is born of traditional Italian music...being from Sicily perhaps a factor...a deep integration of blues, a ...