Nearly a decade ago, I ended a feature story about Jason Moran with this comment from him:
“I’m a straight-up jazz musician, no doubt. But I also like to think of myself as an urban performance artist who happens to play piano.”
Much of my work since then and all of Moran’s—which has earned him, among other honors, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and artistic directorships at The Kennedy Center and SFJazz—has been in some way an attempt to understand and celebrate the tensions within such duality.
So it made perfect sense when I learned on Friday that the Manhattan-based Luhring Augustine gallery had signed Moran among the artists it represents.
“The new works I’m creating have started to bear objects for the gallery,” Moran explained. “It’s a natural progression.” The papier-mache Fats Waller mask, above, created by Didier Civil, is owned by the gallery. “I actually sold it in a gala auction for Harlem Stage three years ago, and Roland Augustine purchased it,” said Moran. “He’s a big Fats Waller fan.”
According to gallery representative Lauren Wittels, Continue reading “Luhring Augustine Gallery Now Represents Jason Moran, Urban Performance Artist”
Trumpeter Terence Blanchard Enters Online Fan-Funding Ring To Document His Jazz Opera "Champion"
As trumpeter, bandleader, educator, and composer, Terence Blanchard usually projects supreme confidence. At 52, he’s a multiple Grammy Award winner whose influence upon jazz’s landscape is deep and elemental. His music has reached millions through his scores for more than 50 films and for Broadway productions.
Yet in the living room of his New Orleans home last year, he described to me how he felt before composing “Champion,” an opera based on the story of boxer Emile Griffith.
“What can you think, as a jazz musician, when somebody comes up and asks you to write an opera?” he said. “For a little while,” Blanchard said, “I was so intimidated I stayed away from it.”
He dove in, with winning results. “Champion” had its premiere last June at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis to great acclaim, and is nominated for Best World Premiere at the upcoming 2014 International Opera Awards (the only modern American opera so honored).
Bold and moving as is the staged tale of Griffith’s life and career—I’ll get to that—Blanchard’s music, taken on its own, says much and hits hard. It frames both Griffith’s unique story and Blanchard’s singular voice .
Now Blanchard has launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for a recording of his score by the original cast, which includes mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, with members of the St. Louis Symphony. He hopes to record in June at Powell Hall in St. Louis. The online campaign features many levels of participation—one offers a one-on-one music lesson with Blanchard—and closes on April 22.
Blanchard is not the only high-profile jazz musician to pursue and ambitious project through fan funding. Maria Schneider’s 2013 Grammy-winning work, “Winter Morning Walks,” featuring two chamber orchestras and opera singer Dawn Upshaw, was funded through the ArtistShare site. And he’s not the only trumpeter composing music that challenges our notions of jazz pedagogy and social justice: Wadada Leo Smith‘s recent “Ten Freedom Summers” paired jazz quartet and chamber orchestra to fill four CDs with a musical account of the Civil Rights Movement.
Yet Griffith’s story struck a personal chord with Blanchard, and fits within other legacies as well. As I wrote in the Wall Street Journal last year: Continue reading “Trumpeter Terence Blanchard Enters Online Fan-Funding Ring To Document His Jazz Opera "Champion"”
Bright Stars (Some in New Alignments) to Highlight the Blue Note Jazz Festival
Back in the late 1980s—before I began writing and editing—I worked at the Blue Note jazz club in Manhattan. Even then, the club had an expanding empire, with franchises in three Japanese cities.
The company (Blue Note Entertainment Group) has continued to spread its wings and its headliner-booking might in other cities and in its hometown, New York City—especially through its multi-venue June Blue Note Jazz Festival, now in its fourth year (this year, June 1-30). Continue reading “Bright Stars (Some in New Alignments) to Highlight the Blue Note Jazz Festival”
The Roots of Pianist Fabian Almazan's "Rhizome" and The Tree That Worked
In my review piece in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, I discussed two new CDs by two brilliant musicians on the rise—trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and pianist Fabian Almazan. Each album involved a core small jazz ensemble augmented by a string quartet and other musicians as well as singers, and tethered to extra-musical ideas.
As I wrote:
These new recordings by Mr. Akinmusire, who is 31, and Mr. Almazan, 29, sound nothing alike. Neither artist adheres to standard notions of “jazz with strings,” which often involve little more than the sweetening and thickening of harmonies. If the two albums are emblematic of any trend, they reveal a generation of musicians with training in jazz, classical and other styles successfully chipping away at the walls between genres and cultures, or simply enjoying freedoms afforded by natural decay. Both CDs feature vocalists and original lyrics, integrated within mostly instrumental frameworks in ways that also suggest the erosion of the lines between sung songs and small-ensemble jazz compositions.
I’ll get to more specifics about Akinmusire in a later post. But here’s more on Almazan, who will celebrate the recent release of his CD, “Rhizome” (Blue Note/ArtistShare), at Manhattan’s Jazz Standard March 27-30. The music is compelling, suggestive of many things—here’s a link he sent to me with a filmed dance interpretation of some of this music.
Above is the new CD’s cover, which is meant to evoke both a rhizome—”the subterranean part of a plant that survives regardless of the conditions above ground, within a giant system in which what we see as separate is intricately connected,” Almazan explained—and the notion, also expressed in Almazan’s Spanish lyrics to his composition, “Espejos,” that “we are mirrors of each other, connected despite our differences.”
Here’s what Almazan wrote to me in an email about the album’s title: Continue reading “The Roots of Pianist Fabian Almazan's "Rhizome" and The Tree That Worked”
How I Fell For Cécile
I’d heard about her charms.
I’d heard her voice, so I knew her charms.
But not really. Not yet.
I’d resisted. Been busy. Besides, been burned so many times by singers who promised to take me to that place only real jazz singers can yet then left me cold. Or worse, I felt nothing at all, like the problem were mine, as if I were just hung up on singers that are gone (Abbey Lincoln, Betty Carter) or had made themselves scarce but still wonderful (Cassandra Wilson).
They said she was from Miami. From Haiti. From France. (In fact, she is from all those places, by way of birth, heritage and study abroad.)
It’s not like I didn’t notice Cécile McLorin Salvant, like that time she copped top prize at the 2010 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition.
Yes, I was paying attention. I listened to her Grammy-nominated CD, “WomanChild” (Mack Avenue), on which I heard both the woman and the child, both born singers with something to say and century’s worth of less-traveled (and some brand-new) material through which to express it. Probably because I hadn’t caught her in live performance, I thought all those voices buzzing around her were, well, just buzz.
I did nod when Ben Ratliff wrote, in his astute New York Times review of that CD:
“….to concentrate on Ms. Salvant’s song choices and all the bases she’s covering might gloss over the best parts of “WomanChild,” which is the precision of her wide voice and also her volatility, her tension between deference and extravagance, her willingness to play with sound and start rising to the higher atmospheres of improvising, where some of the greatest musicians get more mileage out of forgetting than out of remembering. And, too, her rich partnership with the pianist Aaron Diehl, who is also a kind of classicist at play…”
The connection she had with Diehl said nearly as much as the way she phrased a lyric—knowing and utterly in control. Continue reading “How I Fell For Cécile”
John Zorn Closes the Book on Masada with "The Book Beriah"
Were I in New York City on March 19, I’d head to Town Hall for the world premiere of John Zorn’s “Masada Book Three: The Book Beriah.” It’s the final installment in a 20-year project, bringing Zorn’s total number of Masada compositions to 613 (the number of mitzvot, or commandments, contained in the Jewish Torah).
Masada is just one element of Zorn’s musical identity, one frame within his composite portrait. Taken as a whole, it has made profound suggestions about both Jewish identity and musical possibility. Zorn will present this third book in a marathon “shuffle” concert at Town Hall, featuring 20 different bands and more than 50 musicians from wildly divergent backgrounds.
Here are some relevant excerpts from a feature story I did for The Saturday Paper, an Australian newsweekly, pegged to the last of Zorn’s 60th-birthday events, and his first-ever trip Down Under.
(You can find that story, which includes some of Zorn’s reflections on turning 60, on inane interview questions, and on General George S. Patton, here.)
….By the time Mike Patton’s trademark screams punctuated the high-voltage tremors of John Zorn’s Electric Masada group at Lincoln Centre’s David H. Koch Theater in Manhattan, it was past 11pm. A Masada Marathon, drawn from Zorn’s immense body of compositions employing the often-mournful sounding scales characteristic of Jewish music, had lasted more than three hours, with 12 bands delivering an equal number of musical styles and ensemble configurations. Among other things, we’d heard the Bar Kokhba sextet’s singular blend of violin, cello and guitar; surf-rock grooves as conjured by the guitar, vibraphone and electric keyboard of The Dreamers; a devastatingly elegant String Trio; and the Masada Quartet, which includes Zorn on his customary alto saxophone, trumpeter Dave Douglas, bassist Greg Cohen and drummer Joey Baron, and stands among the most expressive and cohesive small ensembles in modern jazz. That was 2011, when Zorn, an American composer of restless energy, had just completed his second book of Masada works. He recently finished Book Three, bringing the total of these compositions alone to more than 600, and culminating some 20 years of musical and personal discovery. And the Masada project is just one strand of Zorn’s story….
The massive Masada project began as simply “an attempt to write new tunes that I could play”. Yet it was also his “personal answer to what new Jewish music is”. At that 2011 Masada Marathon, I felt a genuine sense of ritual enacted. When Zorn sat onstage directing (conducting isn’t quite the right word), his hand movements fleetingly reminded me of my grandmother kindling Sabbath candles on Friday evenings. It dawned on me that each half of the concert presented six bands playing three pieces each: That’s 18, a number that, in Jewish tradition, carries life-affirming mystical properties. Continue reading “John Zorn Closes the Book on Masada with "The Book Beriah"”
Mary Lou Williams' Harlem Salon Goes Digital
Anytime stride piano, swing, bebop and yet further developments in jazz styles intermingle, which is to say most times a living jazz pianist plays, the influence of Mary Lou Williams gets felt.
Anytime jazz’s purpose—its essential connection to African American history and culture and to social justice in general, its intellectual search, it spiritual legacy and potential, there is Williams too.
When we speak of Kansas City or Pittsburgh or Greenwich Village or, especially, Harlem, when we talk about how jazz legacies get passed on, how women were always right there, or how any jazz player today might best follow her or his heart, there also is Williams.
I’ll say more about all that in tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal, though a story tied to a fascinating two-week celebration of her legacy at Manhattan’s Harlem Stage, and a three-night theatrical production with Geri Allen at the piano.
Allen is perhaps the clearest inheritor today of Williams’s influence and her music, into which she has delved deeply and for decades.
Wednesday morning, March 12, she convenes a rare, wide-ranging and fascinating national symposium that draws upon her touch at the piano, her network of fellow musicians and scholars and online technology.
LINK TO IT LIVE HERE, from 11am-2pm EST. (It will also be archived.) Continue reading “Mary Lou Williams' Harlem Salon Goes Digital”
Harry Belafonte, Long a Healer, Declared Doctor at Berklee
No American should need an introduction to singer, songwriter, producer and activist Harry Belafonte.
But a good one can be found in the documentary, “Sing Your Song.”
An even better one can be found in Belafonte’s autobiography (written with Michael Shnayerson), “My Song,” which is among the best books I know of for contextualizing 20th-century African American music and culture within social and political revolution, and which contains a riveting (and if Belafonte is to be believed, transformative) moment in which Robert F. Kennedy essentially gets told off (pages 267-68).
I bring up Belafonte because I just got an email informing me that he was recently presented with an honorary doctor of music degree at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. According to a press release, the degree was awarded “in recognition of Belafonte’s inspiring musical and humanitarian achievements, exposing America to world music and challenging and overturning racial barriers across the globe.”
Read the entire article at ARTINFO.
Fanfare For Brooklyn (A Brass Fest is Born)
I played trumpet in junior high band, in Brooklyn. My father-in-law is a professional trumpeter. When I’m in New Orleans, I hang out with trombonists and tuba players.
Brass players are their own breed, with calloused lips and unusual ideas about harmony and volume.
Earl McIntyre was born in Brooklyn. His career as a trombonist, composer an arranger includes work with a long list of famous names that spans genres and generations: Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, among others, and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, with which he was associated for more than 20 years.
He’s gathered some of his best brass-wielding friends in his (and my) home borough for his first annual “Brooklyn Brass Festival,” March 7-9 at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and Long Island University’s Kumble Theater (for a schedule, scroll down or go here). It includes a tribute to one of McIntyre’s closest collaborators, the late trumpeter Lester Bowie, featuring the brilliant trumpeter Tom Harrell and including Bowie’s rarely (as in inly once before) performed piece, “Beyond The Gray Haze.”
For anyone who plays, teaches or studies brass instruments (like McIntyre, most of these musicians are distinguished educators) or anyone in Brooklyn who just likes the sound of them, this festival should offer many and rare joys (such as 11 trombones in one band). The website says that students attend free.
We discussed the event via email:
How and why did you create the Brooklyn Brass Festival?
I created it to increase the brass presence in the New York City area. Years ago, we had many stores and vendors dedicated to selling brass and band instruments in New York. Now, we have very few. New York City students receive a limited amount of exposure to band instruments. We had brass conferences and other events where professionals met and shared ideas. Up and coming artists met masters of their craft.
We no longer have that for various reasons, including the cost of real estate, hotel prices, and changes in educational priorities. Brooklyn, as a borough, and both the Brooklyn Conservatory and Long Island University as sponsors strike me as components of what could be a positive situation. We hope to make this an annual event.
Do you think the festival communicates anything about the identity of brass players, and about Brooklyn’s scene?
I think it communicates Brooklyn’s “cutting edge” status within the arts community. Things that aren’t possible in other areas of New York for various reasons are occurring here. As for brass players, I think many of us miss the camaraderie that our community had years ago. Things are a bit far-flung, making it harder for us to exchange ideas, and certain performance practices are much easier to exchange live instead of online.
What do you think audiences will get out of this that they don’t normally get from the New York scene?
Students will learn how to improve their abilities and develop a greater understanding of the various cultures that use brass instruments to perform their music. General audiences will see great brass players in a higher concentration than in other situations. Also, we’re presenting the New York premiere of Lester Bowie’s “Beyond The Gray Haze.” This work has only been performed once—in Chicago, 15 years ago—and never in a brass/percussion configuration with trumpet master Tom Harrell, and an all-star version of [Bowie’s former band] Brass Fantasy. We’ve got the incredible [trombonist] Steve Turre! A David Taylor-Slide Ride event featuring 11 trombones!
What were your experiences with Lester Bowie like?
I met and began to work with Lester Bowie through the “Musicians of Brooklyn Initiative”. This was an organization Lester, [alto saxophonist] Oliver Lake and [pianist] Cecil Taylor started in order to increase music performance situations in Brooklyn. I later went on to write quite a bit for Brass Fantasy and for special projects involving the Art Ensemble of Chicago [of which Bowie was a founding member] and other bands.
Lester and I had similar backgrounds. Family bands, brass bands, the Salvation Army band. We also both had a wide musical concept, and a love for musical humor.
Lester never told me what to write. I do remember him telling me this, when he had me do an arrangement of “My Way”: “All the things you always wanted to do to the tune that no would let you do—Do that for me.”
Brooklyn Conservatory of Music presents the
First Annual Brooklyn Brass Festival
in Association with the
Long Island University Brooklyn Campus
March 7-9, 2014
Event locations
BCM Concert hall
LIU Brooklyn Campus
LIU Kumble Theater LIU Kumble Theater
Friday March 7th
Steve Turre Quintet & 7:30 & 9pm BCM Concert Hall
Saturday, March 8 Long Island University Brooklyn Campus
10:00 am-6:00 pm Exhibits
10:00 am-1:00 pm Spotlight Performance with High School/College Band & critique
Bob Stewart, Conrad Herwig, Wayne Escoffery, Jerome Harris
Lunch Break 1-2pm (vendors remain operational)
2:00-3:20 “Classical, Jazz & Beyond” Workshop for Euphonium & Tuba with Dave Bargeron
2:00-3:20 pm Art of French horn Improvisation” Workshop with Jeff Scott
2:00-3:20 Jimmy Owens Wilmer Wise Trumpet discussion.
3:40- 5:00 pm Trombone Workshop (Conrad Herwig)
3:40- 5:00 Rhythm master class (Jerome Harris)
3:40-5:00 Wayne Escoffrey saxophone master class
5:00-6:00 Exhibits continue
6:00-7:00) Break
7:00-9:00pm
Brass Fantasy
Tribute Concert to Lester Bowie with Brass Fantasy/Carnival with guest artist
Tom Harrell
“Lester Bowie Day Award” to Deborah Bowie
(Lester Bowie’s wife)
Sunday March 9th
BCM 3pm
Dave Taylor Solo set
Slide Ride
Round table Discussion on Contemporary trombone
(where is it going and why?)
I played trumpet in junior high band, in Brooklyn. My father-in-law is a professional trumpeter. When I’m in New Orleans, I usually hang out with trombonists and tuba players.
Brass players are their own breed, with calloused lips and, often, unusual ideas about harmony and volume.
Earl McIntyre, who was born in Brooklyn. His career as a trombonist, composer an arranger includes work with a long list of famous names that spans genres and generations: Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, among others, and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, with which he was associated for more than 20 years.
He’s gathered some of his best brass-wielding friends, including trombonists Steve Turre, Dave Taylor and Conrad Herwig, and trumpeter Tom Harrell, for his fist annual “Brooklyn Brass Festival” (for a schedule, scroll down or go here). It includes a special tribute to one of McIntyre’s closest collaborators, the late trumpeter Lester Bowie, and includes Bowie’s rarely (as in inly once before) performed piece, “Beyond The Gray Haze.”
For anyone who plays, teaches or studies brass instruments (like McIntyre, most of these musicians are distinguished educators) or anyone in Brooklyn who just likes the sound of it should offer many and rare joys.
We discussed the event via email:
How and why did you create the Brooklyn Brass Festival?
I created it to increase the brass presence in the New York City area. Years ago, we had many stores and vendors dedicated to selling brass and band instruments in New York. Now, we have very few. New York City students receive a limited amount of exposure to band instruments. We had brass conferences and other events where professionals met and shared ideas. Up and coming artists met masters of their craft.
We no longer have that for various reasons, including the cost of real estate, hotel prices, and changes in educational priorities. Brooklyn, as a borough, and both the Brooklyn Conservatory and Long Island University as sponsors strike me as components of what could be a positive situation. We hope to make this an annual event.
Do you think the festival communicates anything about the identity of brass players, and about Brooklyn’s scene?
I think it communicates Brooklyn’s “cutting edge” status within the arts community. Things that aren’t possible in other areas of New York for various reasons are occurring here. As for brass players, I think many of us miss the camaraderie that our community had years ago. Things are a bit far-flung, making it harder for us to exchange ideas, and certain performance practices are much easier to exchange live instead of online.
What do you think audiences will get out of this that they don’t normally get from the New York scene?
Students will learn how to improve their abilities and develop a greater understanding of the various cultures that use brass instruments to perform their music. General audiences will see great brass players in a higher concentration than in other situations. Also, we’re presenting the New York premiere of Lester Bowie’s “Beyond The Gray Haze.” This work has only been performed once—in Chicago, 15 years ago—and never in a brass/percussion configuration with trumpet master Tom Harrell, and an all-star version of [Bowie’s former band] Brass Fantasy. We’ve got the incredible [trombonist] Steve Turre! A David Taylor-Slide Ride event featuring 11 trombones!
What were your experiences with Lester Bowie like?
I met and began to work with Lester Bowie through the “Musicians of Brooklyn Initiative”. This was an organization Lester, [alto saxophonist] Oliver Lake and [pianist] Cecil Taylor started in order to increase music performance situations in Brooklyn. I later went on to write quite a bit for Brass Fantasy and for special projects involving the Art Ensemble of Chicago [of which Bowie was a founding member] and other bands.
Lester and I had similar backgrounds. Family bands, brass bands, the Salvation Army band. We also both had a wide musical concept, and a love for musical humor.
Lester never told me what to write. I do remember him telling me this, when he had me do an arrangement of “My Way”: “All the things you always wanted to do to the tune that no would let you do—Do that for me.”
Brooklyn Conservatory of Music presents
First Annual Brooklyn Brass Festival in Association with the
Long Island University Brooklyn Campus
March 7-9, 2014
Event locations
BCM Concert hall
LIU Brooklyn Campus
LIU Kumble Theater LIU Kumble Theater
Friday March 7th
Steve Turre Quintet & 7:30 & 9pm BCM Concert Hall
Saturday, March 8 Long Island University Brooklyn Campus
10:00 am-6:00 pm Exhibits
10:00 am-1:00 pm Spotlight Performance with High School/College Band & critique
Bob Stewart, Conrad Herwig, Wayne Escoffery, Jerome Harris
Lunch Break 1-2pm (vendors remain operational)
2:00-3:20 “Classical, Jazz & Beyond” Workshop for Euphonium & Tuba with Dave Bargeron
2:00-3:20 pm Art of French horn Improvisation” Workshop with Jeff Scott
2:00-3:20 Jimmy Owens Wilmer Wise Trumpet discussion.
3:40- 5:00 pm Trombone Workshop (Conrad Herwig)
3:40- 5:00 Rhythm master class (Jerome Harris)
3:40-5:00 Wayne Escoffrey saxophone master class
5:00-6:00 Exhibits continue
6:00-7:00) Break
7:00-9:00pm
Brass Fantasy
Tribute Concert to Lester Bowie with Brass Fantasy/Carnival with guest artist
Tom Harrell
“Lester Bowie Day Award” to Deborah Bowie
(Lester Bowie’s wife)
Sunday March 9th
BCM 3pm
Dave Taylor Solo set
Slide Ride
Round table Discussion on Contemporary trombone
(where is it going and why?)
Pianist Danilo Pérez Opens a Jazz Club, and a Conversation About Culture
Were he not a brilliant pianist and composer, an insightful educator and a forceful advocate for culture as a primary means of transnational relations and economic development, Danilo Pérez would still be the kind of guy you’d want to hang around—for his charm, positivity and seriousness of purpose. He looks you squarely in the eye while conversing—to engage, not to challenge—yet is willing to talk about challenging things.
Read the full article here.