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Pittsburgh JazzLive International Festival 2014

by C. Andrew Hovan
Pittsburgh JazzLive International Festival 2014 Cultural District Pittsburgh, PA June 20-22, 2014 With its modest beginnings back in 2011, the Pittsburgh JazzLive International Festival had nothing but an uphill battle in terms of sustaining a free jazz festival. It took a billion dollar endowment to keep North America's largest free ...
European And American Jazz Meets In DLC Project "Into The Unknown"

The title of the latest album by DLC Project, Into the Unknown, could easily have been called Nothing ventured, nothing gained". The driving concept behind this collection of compositions is one of exploration and the imagining of possibilities - the taking of risks, and the anticipation that goes hand-in-hand with the redefining of parameters. Into the ...
Tribute To Sammy Nestico at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola

by Nick Catalano
On Monday March 24th Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola was the again the scene of a memorable big band concert from the Manhattan School of Music Concert Jazz Band under the direction of Justin DiCioccio. On the occasion of Sammy Nestico's 90th birthday, the director (who was a cohort of Nestico's in White House dance bands of the ...
Art Blakey: The Musical Drummer

by Anton Rasmussen
Jazz Washes Away the Dust of Everyday Life" --Art Blakey So said, Abdullah Ibn Buhaina (1919-1990), more widely known to the world of jazz by his pre-Islamic name: Art Blakey. Blakey was my first introduction into the musicality of jazz drumming and, in some senses, my introduction to a lifelong love of jazz.
Jimmy Ponder: His Recorded Output

by Colter Harper
Jazz history has been intimately tied to its recorded output. Styles and genres are defined by landmark records, which stand responsible for representing the diffuse activities and artistic visions of a given musical community or individual. However, recordings are not simply glimpses of past musical realities but rather images of those realities filtered through various lenses." ...
Guitarist Jimmy Ponder (1946-2013)

By Colter Harper I first met Jimmy when he was teaching at a jazz camp for high school students in Pittsburgh. I was 15, recently turned on to Wes Montgomery, and trying to make sense of the music. Ponder was the first guitarist I had heard in person who embodied the music. He poured himself through ...
Jimmy Ponder: 1946-2013

Soul-Jazz guitarist Jimmy Ponder was well known to serious jazz lovers for his recordings as a leader and appearances as a sideman on 80 albums. His unique bluesy sound, which incorporated Wes Montgomery's approach of playing octaves with the thumb, has influenced other guitarists. Ponder's playing was described as aggressive rhythm-and-blues figurations with swift and lucid ...
Stanley Cowell: It's Time

by Greg Simmons
The durable piano trio, with bass and drums accompaniment, is one of the most frequently employed and time-tested combos in jazz. The competition is fierce to say anything new or noteworthy, with plenty of attempts that yield mixed results. So it's a great pleasure to hear Stanley Cowell's It's Time: a finely crafted collection of mostly ...
The Harlem Renaissance and American Music

by Mike Oppenheim
The Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro"One of the most significant intellectual and artistic trends of twentieth century American history, the Harlem Renaissance impacted art, literature, and music in a manner that forever altered the American cultural landscape. The Harlem Renaissance was a movement in the 1920s through which African-American writers, artists, musicians, and thinkers sought ...
Scott Boni Trio: Scott Boni Trio

by Greg Simmons
Washington, Pennsylvania is no hot spot for jazz music. With one possible exception (Al & Reuben's Restaurant), you are more likely to hear the latest hits from Brad Paisley or Carrie Underwood; no, let's face it, you are more likely to hear dead silence than jazz in almost any establishment in or around this small city ...