Tag: Blu Notes

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Trumpeter Terence Blanchard Enters Online Fan-Funding Ring To Document His Jazz Opera "Champion"

Aubrey Allicock as a young Emile Griffith in Terence Blanchard's "Champion"/ photo courtesy Opera Theatre of Saint Louis

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"”

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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”

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How I Fell For Cécile

Photo by Rob Davidson/courtesy Jazz at Lincoln Center

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”

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John Zorn Closes the Book on Masada with "The Book Beriah"

John Zorn, last July, during the Lincoln Center Festival, after an a capella vocal-quintet performance of his piece “The Holy Visions”, sitting down at Alice Tully Hall’s magnificent pipe organ to play “The Hermetic Organ, Office No. 8”, stirring up a glorious din with childlike glee. Photo: Stephanie Berger

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"”

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Mary Lou Williams' Harlem Salon Goes Digital

Mary Lou Williams/ photo: William P. Gottlieb

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”

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Harry Belafonte, Long a Healer, Declared Doctor at Berklee

l-r: Berklee Provost Larry Simpson, Harry Belafonte, President Roger H. Brown, Professor Larry Watson. Photo by Kelly Davidson.

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.

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Pianist Danilo Pérez Opens a Jazz Club, and a Conversation About Culture

Danilo Pérez Jr. (left) in performance with Danilo, Sr. (right) at the opening of Danilo's Jazz Club in Panama City. image courtesy of American Trade Hotel by Doug Bruce, 2014.

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.

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Sport of Jazz, Jazz of Sport

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (left) likened his role on the basketball court to bassist Christian McBride's (right) on the bandstand. Photos: Courtesy Lakers.topbuzz.com/ Courtesy Christian McBride Facebook

Bassist Christian McBride has been scoring big lately.
Last year, he released two acclaimed CDs—“People Music,” from his Inside Straight septet, and “Out Here,” which introduced a sharply refined trio with pianist Christian Sands and drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. (both on Mack Avenue Jazz). In 2013, he also assumed a post as jazz advisor for The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), where he serves as artistic director for the annual TD James Moody Democracy of Jazz Festival.
Still, McBride’s got to feel a bit like a loser.
His beloved 76ers, the basketball team from his hometown, Philadelphia, are a mess, posting the second-worst record in the NBA.
That’s got to hurt for McBride, who is a true sports guy—enough so to contribute to the popular sports website The Bleacher Report. (Here’s a piece he wrote about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.)
So it makes perfect sense that on Sunday, March 2, at NJPAC’s Victoria Theater, McBride will host “Jazz Meets Sports.” Continue reading “Sport of Jazz, Jazz of Sport”

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Whole Gritty City

11-year-old Jaron “Bear” Williams, in the Roots of Music program/photo by Andre Lambertson

It’s not often that a documentary about how real culture transforms actual lives airs on Saturday-night network TV.
I’m not talking about a lucky aspirant getting plucked out of ordinary existence and voted into stardom by a celebrity panel (though I suppose that’s a form of transformation, too, and maybe even a vehicle for someone’s idea of culture).
What I mean is the way that rigorous and deep training by musicians steeped in both excellence and jazz culture offers boys and girls in New Orleans a path away from danger and despair and toward something admirable, promising and, yes, frequently swinging.
That’s the story told by “The Whole Gritty City,” a poignant, feature-length documentary that goes behind the scenes with three dedicated New Orleans marching band directors— Wilbert Rawlins Jr., Lonzie Jackson and Derrick Tabb—and that airs this Saturday, Feb. 15 (9pm EST, 8 Central).  No narration. No voiceover commentary. Just real life, real music and the connections and contrasts between the two. And sometimes the camera is held by one of those young musicians. (You can find a trailer here, and another website with useful links here.)
The film is billed as “48 Hours Presents: The Whole Gritty City,” and the link to the true-crime newsmagazine program makes sense, not just because the school-based marching-band programs in New Orleans may be among the city’s most effective safeguards against violent crime, but due to the genesis of the film itself.
O. Perry Walker High School Band/courtesy of "The Whole Gritty City"

I first met Richard Barber, a “48 Hours” editor-producer (who created this film with cinematographer and photojournalist Andre Lambertson) in early 2007, in New Orleans. Barber was researching a “48 Hours” episode investigating two murders that sent shock waves through New Orleans. Continue reading “Whole Gritty City”

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Fresh Spots for New Sounds: Ibeam Brooklyn

(l-r.) Sylvie Courvoisier, Max Johnson, Lou Grassi and Mikko Innanen performing at Ibeam Brooklyn. photo by Peter Gannushkin

There was an excellent panel discussion at the City of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center Monday night, titled “Jazz and New York: A Fragile Economy,” within a worthy series called “Cultural Capital: The Promise and Price of New York’s Creative Economy.” (The series continues Feb. 25 with a conversation between composer Steve Reich and critic Justin Davidson, followed by a performance by Reich and friends of the composer’s “Clapping Music” and “Mallet Quartet.”)
I’ll transcribe my notes and unpack some of the issues discussed Monday in another post soon, and they relate well to the stuff I’ve been writing of late about both New York and New Orleans..
For now, I’ll simply mention that when the subject of venues came up, pianist Jason Moran (one of the three panelists, with critic Gary Giddins as moderator) cited a few places run by musicians that he thought were especially dynamic in terms of exposing worthy talents, nurturing new audiences and creating modest and self-sustaining business models: in Manhattan, John Zorn’s club, The Stone; and in Brooklyn, Matt Garrison’s Shapeshifter Lab, which is among my current favorite music spots, and Ohad Talmor’s Seeds, where I heard one of the most memorable sets of 2013.
I’d add to that list Ibeam Brooklyn. On his website, trombonist Brian Drye describes his place this way:

…a performance, rehearsal and teaching space for professional musicians and students located in the Gowanus area of Brooklyn, NY.  [directions here] Our goal is to foster a community of innovative musicians, educators and students in a clean, comfortable environment. Ibeam Brooklyn features a Schimmel Concert Grand piano, a vintage Gretsch drumset and a state of the art sound system.  Ibeam supports established and emerging artists by providing the rare opportunity to experiment with new works.

In February, Ibeam will host residencies by two pianists, Aruán Ortiz (Feb. 13-15) and Mara Rosenbloom (Feb. 27-March 1), each leading three different bands, some of which include the likes of saxophonist Darius Jones and singer Fay Victor. (Scroll down for full listings for these gigs.)
In an email exchange, here’s how Drye described the genesis of his venue: Continue reading “Fresh Spots for New Sounds: Ibeam Brooklyn”