Saturday, December 19, 2009

Holiday Gift Guide 2009

For many years, Your Own Personal Genius earned his drinking money by working retail. I've sold computers, appliances, furniture, mattresses, and kitchen cabinets; and in the process, became somewhat of a Grinch when it came to the material aspects of the holidays. Spending 14 hours a day in a store dealing with surly shoppers, an endless loop of the same maddening Christmas songs, and the insincere and overdone holiday decorations is enough to beat the holiday spirit out of all the Whos in Whoville.

Even Cindy Lou Who, who was no more than two.

Fortunately, my experiences on the business end of the holiday gift-giving tradition weren't enough to completely sour me on the true meaning of the season; an orgy of indiscriminate spending to grease the gears of the economy and keep folks like me in beer till the better warm-weather selling months return.

Even though I no longer spend my days on the retail sales floor, I've still got a reflexive dislike of spending any more time in a store than is absolutely necessary. I even find myself planning the most efficient route through Target to get everything I need without going down even one unnecessary aisle or taking the risk of being ensnared by their vast selection of stylish yet affordable housewares.

Continue...

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Musician News - December 2009: New Photo Gallery, Profile Improvements and More

Dear fellow musician:

We made plenty of musician-related improvements since our September newsletter. We upgraded your musician profile and we added more features to promote yourself and your music. And we're also running a $100 off sale on our Showcase and Listening Party services. Please read on...


Index

  1. Share your photos at All About Jazz!
  2. Musician Profile improvements
  3. Your promotional service checklist: Free & Pay
  4. Your Suggestions / Your Kudos
  5. Showcase and Album Streaming Sale!
  6. Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum
  7. Let's Tribute Ourselves by Vincent Gardner


Share your photos at All About Jazz!

We launched the new AAJ Photo Gallery back in October and we now host over 28,000 photos! Both musicians and professional photographers are uploading and tagging photos daily and we've made several functional improvements to the gallery since its launch.

The gallery works a little like Flickr and MySpace, but is fully integrated with your musician profile at AAJ. So please upload your photos today. Publicity, performance and candid photos are all welcome.


Musician Profile improvements

If you haven't checked out your profile recently, please review the recent changes and make sure your information is current. Many musicians are building their fan base at AAJ and can communicate with them direct from their profiles. View the CONNECT tab on your profile page to view and contact your fans. Click here to learn more about building your fan base.

Make sure you add your Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blog and other links to your profile. We'll then append those links to the bottom of your articles and news announcements. Check out this example.

We're now hosting over 18,000 jazz musician profiles and new ones are created daily. Read about our latest achievement here.


Your promotional service checklist: Free & Pay

We've recently updated the "AAJ Musician's Toolkit" page and we also created a new page detailing services you should be aware of beyond AAJ like ArtistData. Read "More Resources for Jazz Musicians."

If you recently released a CD then consider featuring a track as an AAJ MP3 Download of the Day. Our service is free and we recently featured a track by {{Sylvia Brooks = 16999}} that topped 3,300 downloads in a single day, so it has tremendous potential to raise awareness and drive traffic.


Your Suggestions / Your Kudos

We continue to gather your positive feedback about AAJ and make it public to our readers. You can view the 48 pages of kudos on our "Musicians Dig AAJ" page. We never get tired of the praise (thanks everyone!), but we're also very interested in your suggestions on how to improve AAJ to better serve you. We're collecting them here (FYI, you can input your suggestions from your profile page).

We added the Twitter link, the photo gallery and we're working on an affordable streaming audio solution. The plan is to allow you to upload and stream music right from your AAJ profile page. We'll have more news about that soon!


Showcase and Album Streaming Sale!

Place a Showcase or Listening Party order between now and the end of the year and save $100 off each purchase. The sale price on our Showcase service is $250 for one month and the sale price on the Listening Party is $250 for one week.

Learn more about our Showcase service here and our Listening Party/Album Streaming service here.


Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

Read the December installment from AAJ's resident advice columnist, Mr. P.C.. Inspired by the cutting edge advice of Abigail Van Buren, the storied bass playing of Paul Chambers, and the need for a Politically Correct doctrine for navigating the minefields of jazz etiquette, he humbly offers his services to his fellow musicians. Read Mr. P.C.'s column then ask him a question.


Let's Tribute Ourselves

Trombonist Vincent Gardner would like the opportunity to play original music at a jazz festival. Who can blame him? Read his opinion piece, Let's Tribute Ourselves.


That's it for now. Have a safe and joyous holiday season.

All the best,
Michael Ricci


Share this announcement with a musician friend.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Paul Wertico: All In A Day's Work

Seven-time Grammy winner Paul Wertico, a name long-synonymous with innovation and Herculean energy/talent in the world of drums, has stepped out of the box once again to present an album that defies genre boundaries. In addition to the usual suspects of his trio including guitarist John Moulder and bassist Brian Peters, Wertico has combined forces with Israeli guitarist Dani Rabin and saxophonist Danny Marcovitch to form the Mid East/Mid West Alliance. The product of this marriage of talent recently came together at Studiomedia Recording Studio in Evanston, IL, where, after two short evenings of transcendental artistry, Impressions of a City (Chicago Sessions, 2009) was born.

With the help of Nick Eipers, master engineer and owner of Chicago Sessions, this recording rises above even Wertico's high artistic standards. This team has created a dreamscape that combines experience with differing definitions of mood, daily life and emotional maturation. Their strengths and talents allure from track-to-track. This collective and wholly improvisatory vision manifests itself as a soundtrack for the weary ear, offering a different perspective of what music is and what it can be. There are large servings of ear candy for the soul. A beast lurks deep beneath the musicians thoughts whereas, in other moments, there are tinges of beauty that speak as a siren would, calling out to the vulnerable lives within their sounding range. Tearing through this Babylon of sound, Wertico's impeccable ability to marry artistic dreams with talent are alarmingly in tune and have provided, yet again, a new standard bearer for music and the shape of it to come.

All About Jazz: This recording is quite unique...not like a jazz album at all. Can you tell us the story behind the formation of the Mid East/Mid West Alliance?

Paul Wertico: The story behind this is as intriguing as the record is. I've had my trio since the '90s. It's basically been John Moulder, who is one of my best friends and an incredible guitarist. I've played with him since the early '90s when I played on his first CD, Awakening. Then there's Brian Peters, who I met a few years ago when I recorded my CD, StereoNucleosis. He's this young genius. He plays, or at least it seems like it, just about every instrument imaginable, and also does fantastic engineering, mixing and a lot more. The three of us have been playing together for about five years.

Continue...

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Add AAJ's "Jazz Photo of the Day" Widget for Your Website or Blog

All About Jazz widgets can help you build your website's traffic and keep your readers coming back for more.

Place any or all of these free widgets on your website or blog:

New Widget!

  Photo of the DayGet Code

Other Jazz Widgets

  Articles Get Code
  Birthdays Get Code
  CD Reviews Get Code
  Contest Giveaways Get Code
  Interviews Get Code
  Jazz Video Guy PresentsGet Code
  Listening Party / Album StreamGet Code
  MP3 Download of the Day Get Code
  Musician of the Day Get Code
  News Get Code
  Jazz Session Podcasts Get Code
  Quote of the Day Get Code
  This Day in Jazz History Get Code
  Upcoming Releases Get Code


What are AAJ Widgets?
AAJ Widgets are dynamically updated content boxes that are pushed from AllAboutJazz.com to a user's website or blog. If you know how to copy & paste, you can use our daily jazz content on your site in a matter of minutes. Check out how they appear at the Jazz Excursion website, the Montreal Jazz Festival website or the AAJ News Blog. See them all in action on a single page.


How do I place AAJ Widgets on my website?
For the MP3 Download of the Day box, click here.

Adding an article, birthday, cd review and release schedule content box to your website is simple, but it does require some knowledge of HTML. To get started, click one of the live content links above, then follow the instructions.

Once the code is copied to your web page, upload the page, and you're done. AAJ will then automatically update your content once every 15 minutes, once an hour, or once a day. this sample page.


What are the benefits of using AAJ Widgets?
If you want to build "stickyness", then you need to frequently update your website. AAJ can help by providing new content in the form of daily downloads, daily news, articles, cd reviews and upcoming releases. AAJ Widgets gives your readers a reason to come back.


Who should use AAJ Widgets?
If you're looking to retain visitors, the answer is you. Musicians, bloggers, radio stations, venues, festivals, general purpose sites, fan sites, record stores, publicists... everyone can benefit.

Kurt Rosenwinkel: Reflections from Berlin

Broadly acknowledged as one of jazz's foremost artists, Kurt Rosenwinkel has established a reputation as an innovator and constant seeker on the guitar. He has carved out a unique sound over many years of experiment and refinement and today commands respect for his singular voice as a player and bandleader.

Kurt Rosenwinkel

As a follow-up to the successful double live album The Remedy (ArtistShare, 2008), Rosenwinkel recently released Reflections (Wommusic, 2009), an elegant collection of standards. Rosenwinkel spoke about this latest endeavor from Berlin, the city he now calls home.


Growing Up Philadelphia

All About Jazz: Let's start with some background. You grew up in Philadelphia. How did you first get into music?

Kurt Rosenwinkel: I played my tennis racket along to Peter Frampton. Then went to the piano and made up songs.

AAJ: Were you attracted to jazz from the beginning? How did it develop?

KR: I became interested in jazz in high school, through the talented other students who were into it, and through my friend David Brodie, who is still a jazz bassist in Philadelphia. We listened to a lot of music and his father was friends with a lot of jazz musicians and would host jam sessions at his house.

Before I was in the picture, apparently, Philly Joe Jones used to come over and hang out there too. Then I started going to jam sessions on Mondays at a neighborhood club called the Blue Note, where Tony Williams (the alto saxophonist), Eddie Greene, Sid Simmons, Tyrone Browne, Al Jackson, Mike Boone, and others used to host the session. It was a big club and would be always filled with people all having a good time. I was embraced and encouraged, and loved the feeling there.

AAJ: How did you settle on the guitar as your instrument?

KR: I started piano when I was nine; guitar when I was 12. I always play[ed] both after that point, but was more into guitar. Before I left high school and went to Berklee College of Music to follow my friends, I decided I should take a year of jazz piano lessons and decide which I would focus on at Berklee. I studied with the great Jimmy Amadie for a year, who gave me a strong foundation in jazz harmony, which I thank him for to this day. But I ultimately felt that I was a better guitarist so I should keep going with that.

Continue...

Partisans: Blowing a Storm in Cyberspace

Partisans has been gigging in cyberspace--playing a virtual nightclub in Second Life. Over 13 years and four acclaimed albums, Partisans has developed a strong reputation as one of the most exciting and innovative bands on the British jazz scene. One of the band's strengths is its willingness to keep up to date with technology and experiment with it whenever this might help to expand their work. As a result, the night before saxophonist Julian Siegel and guitarist Phil Robson took part in this telephone interview, they had been involved in an unusual performance.

Partisans
Partisans, from left: Thad Kelly, Phil Robson, Gene Calderazzo, Julian Siegel

The night of Friday November 6, 2009 saw Partisans' debut gig in Second Life, the online virtual world, when their concert at London's Crypt in Camberwell was video-streamed into the Crypt's virtual venue. While the live audience enjoyed the band's set in the small club, in Second Life avatars with exotic names and appearances watched and "danced" as the gig was presented on four large screens. The experience was an obvious subject with which to begin the interview: did playing to a virtual audience as well as real people need any special preparation for the band?

"We were asked to do the gig" explains Siegel, "then we were told about this element of it. What was different about it? Well, the club put a screen up so that the audience could see the various avatars dancing to what we were playing, although with a time lag of five or ten seconds, but we couldn't see the screen. So for us it was pretty much a normal gig although in the back of our minds was the thought that this was going out to a potentially world wide audience, which is a pretty unique thing."

Continue

Charnett Moffett: Improvisational Artistry

"I enjoy all of the music, just as I enjoy different aspects of color in paintings, or different people, or different types of food, or things of that nature. For me, it seems to be a more interesting way of life to have an appreciation for all that is offered on the planet."

Charnett Moffett

With that simple statement, bassist Charnett Moffett says a lot about his career in music that began as young a child, and was pretty much inevitable from the moment he appeared on the planet in 1967, as the son of drummer Charles Moffett. He started playing drums at age two, and then investigated the trumpet before he eventually found his hands around an upright bass, performing with the Moffett Family Band, led by his dad, that included brother Codaryl (Cody) also on drums, brother Mondre on trumpet and brother Charles, Jr. on sax. Bass chores were handled by Patrick McCarthy and young Charnett on a half-sized bas

He toured Japan at the age of seven with the family band and roughly a decade later was in the employ of Wynton Marsalis. He's since spent years playing all kinds of improvised music, moving from the mainstream lodgings of Marsalis to under the aegis of the free-spirited Ornette Coleman. He's recorded over the years with the likes of McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Stanley Jordan, Pharoah Sanders, Wallace Roney and Joshua Redman. Though improvisational is at the base of his musical explorations, his music influences and tastes are broad. That can be seen in his albums, from his 1987 debut on Blue Note records, Beauty Within, right up to his current recording, The Art of Improvisation (Motema, 2009), his tenth as a leader.

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Terry Currier: A Coalition for Music Freedom

There is something almost sensual about the independent record store experience. Perhaps it's the element of discovery with each new find, or the common bond and passion shared with each other. Maybe it's the inspiration of hearing music that seems to arouse all the senses. Or perhaps it's the understanding that there is something more warm and soulful about music played from a treasured record than from a disposable downloaded file. Whatever it is, there is something magical that happens inside these music shrines.

It wasn't long ago that horror stories were being written and the corporates were running scared. Napster was on the horizon and Amazon was ready to kill. File sharing would shred the remains while nostalgia buried the dead. But they are still here and their fires burn deep. They are the independent record store owners, the gatekeepers of the music, the foundation of a community and culture. And they still believe that music can save the world.

Terry Currier is the independent record store owner of Portland's Music Millennium but he also initiated The Coalition of Independent Record Stores in 1995. I had the opportunity to talk with Terry about the coalition and discuss the music industry history along with the struggles and challenges facing the industry as we step further into the 21st century.

All About Jazz: If I remember correctly, you started the Coalition of Independent Music Stores.

Terry Currier: Yes, it was started in May of 1995 but it really all came together in 1992.

Continue...

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Reskinning of AAJ Underway!


It's time for a makeover, and since late November we've been steadily converting All About Jazz to a cleaner and easier to navigate website. For the most part, we're simply moving objects and boxes around and placing them in more convenient locations. For instance, our streaming media content has been moved from the right panel of some pages to the bottom panel of all pages.

We refined each section from the top, to the middle (and right and left panels), and the bottom.

The color scheme is lighter (the background color on the home page was changed from black to white, and the content boxes were changed from dark green to light blue).

We added more items to the menu bar, making the FORUMS, NEWS and RADIO options easier to find. We also added the daily jazz photo to the right panel of each page.

What's left?

We still have to implement the new menu bar, the new Featured Stories box and the new-style content boxes. Once they are all in place we'll work on making each content box on the home page a scrollable region. This will allow readers to access more content direct from the home page.

The feedback so far has been "much cleaner," "easier to navigate," and "doesn't feel as heavy." Sounds like we're on the right track, but we still have a wee bit more to do.

We hope to have AAJ's new design fully in place by mid-December.

Michael Ricci
All About Jazz

18,000 Musician Profiles at All About Jazz

AAJ now hosts more than 18,000 musician profiles at our Musician Center.

Like MySpace, jazz musicians can create a free profile at All About Jazz, submit calendar information, share photos, present MP3s, embed videos, post news, make their teaching information available to students, add their MySpace, Facebook and Twitter links, and much more. AAJ musician profiles rank high on a Google search and drive traffic. We also feature a daily musician and syndicate jazz birthdays around the web.

If you have a profile, make sure it's current. If you're a jazz musician and you don't have a profile, create one today

Related Links

Ian Shaw: From Free Jazz to Noel Coward

Ian ShawIan Shaw is a jazz singer. This simple description is accurate--it's how Shaw refers to himself--but it falls well short of doing the man justice. Ian Shaw is one of the most distinctive, original and creative jazz singers on the scene: he is a talented pianist and songwriter with a knack for working with top-quality musicians, an ability to seek out and cover some of the finest songs in contemporary music, and a showmanship that ensures that his live performances can raise tears of laughter as well as tears of sadness.

Since the early 1990s, Shaw has released 11 albums as leader or co-leader--a diverse collection of recordings featuring songs from the Great American Songbook and from major writers such as Joni Mitchell and Nick Cave. No two albums share the same musicians or the same instrumentation: each one is a departure from its predecessor, yet Shaw's voice, the one ever-present element, makes them all distinctly recognizable as his own. Shaw's development as a musician is equally distinct and perhaps gives some clue to the way in which he works, mixing free jazz influences with comedy and piano bars.

Shaw grew up in Wales, and both his parents had a musical background. He began to learn the piano in a fairly standard fashion: "I did the Trinity College, London, piano course until I was 16. I did my 8 grades [examinations]." Some biographical sources state that Shaw studied at Trinity College, Dublin, but he's keen to emphasize the inaccuracy of this information: "I've never, ever, set foot in Trinity College, Dublin. ...Somebody made up this amazing biography of me, only half of which was true. The rest of it was so spectacularly detailed, but untrue. My father and my mother were both extremely musical. My father played trumpet and cornet and I started with piano and brass band. I was a precocious classical pianist brat. Then I came to London and did a music degree at King's College, which I passed, but not with flying colors. I did no work for three years, just went to jazz clubs, bought Miles Davis records and got pissed." Shaw laughs at the memory. "That was my formal training: I did composition and analysis. ... I got what I needed from it. After that I started gigging almost immediately, playing pubs and wine bars--playing piano but not singing. One of my first collaborators was a guy called John Miller, a good, swinging piano player who used to play with Van Morrison and was really into Frank Zappa and [the late English singer-songwriter] Nick Drake."


Early in his career, Shaw moved into an unexpected area for a budding jazz singer: "I did stand-up comedy with music for about four years. In fact, I did a comedy tour this year with [British comedians] Arthur Smith and Sandi Toksvig." The move into comedy may seem unusual, but Shaw's live shows are genuinely funny events, and it's easy to imagine him in a comedy club setting. Shaw's next move again put music center-stage, as he explains: "I met this guy called Jack Fallon. He was a Canadian bass player [who had settled in England after the Second World War] who played with the likes of Jack Teagarden and Lena Horne. In the '50s, he set up an agency which was still going into the '80s. I auditioned for him, and he sent me out to play piano bars around the world for three years. I'd play four sets a night. I bought all the Real Books and learnt all the standards. I learnt on my feet--well, on my piano stool."

Continue...

Tim Garland: Beyond the Frontier

Composer, arranger and multi-reed virtuoso Tim Garland is a treasure the nation of the UK has yet to fully recognize. Having recorded a dozen albums in his own name, and arranged for and played in the groups of Chick Corea and Bill Bruford, Garland's pedigree as one of the leading jazz saxophonist/composers of his generation is unquestionable. In addition, his collaborations with the country's finest musical institutions, including the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, set him apart as one of the UK's most progressive modern composers. Few musicians have such pedigree or such an abundance of talent, and yet amazingly, Garland still awaits an invitation to appear at the country's premier celebration of jazz, the London Jazz Festival.

Despite this anomaly Garland is in demand around the entire world and, as his Lighthouse Trio's Libra (Global Mix, 2009) demonstrates, with good reason. The second of this two-disc set captures Garland, with trio members Asaf Sirkis (percussion) and Gwilym Simcock (piano), in a live setting, displaying all the energy and innovation which has won the group so many plaudits. Simply put, there few jazz trios quite as compelling as The Lighthouse Trio. But it is the first disc which is the most arresting; here, Garland's imaginative writing brings jazz trio improvisation into the womb of a modern orchestral setting, in this case the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Garland is not the first, and is certainly not the only composer to attempt to fuse such musical polar opposites. Nevertheless, his synthesis of these two genres, and his attempt at achieving balance between the power and structure of an orchestra and the chamber intimacy and freedom typical of the best small jazz groups, places him amongst the foremost composers at the forefront of what Günther Schuller has termed The New Frontier.

Another recording, Celebrating Bach (Audio-B Recordings, 2009), sees Garland interpreting the music of Bach and Stravinsky on soprano saxophone in the company of the Northern Symphonia. Where Garland finds the time to also compose concertos for piano, saxophone and cello, as well as compose film scores is anybody's guess, though one suspects he has more hours than the usual twenty four in his days.

All About Jazz: Libra was three years in the making which is obviously a big investment, but you must be very pleased with the results, no?

Tim Garland: Yeah, absolutely. I remember talking with the people who did the artwork and they asked me how long it had taken, so when I told them I think they felt the gravity of how I felt about it. As a result I'm also very happy with the way it looks, which is all credit to them; they really pushed the boat out on my behalf. Of course, I'm really happy. Even if you listen back after the band has worked so long and you think "Oh, we play this much better now" but that is probably true of every recording. I wouldn't say better, I'd say differently.

Continue...

Bob Perkins: The Art of Listening

Bob Perkins"It's BP with the GM!" That's how the famed and venerable jazz disc jockey Bob Perkins signs on the air, with the code for "Bob Perkins with the good music." And it's not just a slogan. Perkins has a way of selecting jazz that resonates with his listeners' tastes and represents thoughtful choices on his part that invariably convey something important about the music. His program always flows along and entices the listener. As he himself notes, his trade secret is "big ears"--his ability to listen. And he is listening not only to the music but to the musicians, the audience, and the tenor of the times. He wants to know what's on his listeners' minds, and he uses that information in his programming. Plus, Perkins frequently has musicians as guests on his show.

Indeed, Perkins has always heralded and supported Philadelphia jazz players, bolstering the local jazz scene and appearing regularly as a lecturer and concert emcee. (Recently, he gave talks on Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and Miles Davis to accompany related musical performances. In addition, he has emceed the Cape May Jazz Festival and other regional events.) Philly Jazz owes a great deal to Perkins, who has been in jazz radio for over thirty years, and in his current slot at WRTI-FM for more than a decade. And now Bob can be heard on the internet worldwide at wrti.org, so readers anywhere can tune in.

Before he ventured into full-time jazz broadcasting, Perkins was for many years News and Editorial Director at the Philadelphia radio station WDAS, and as an African-American, he helped make inroads into the local political scene that helped the Civil Rights and Equality cause through his advocacy of discussion of issues rather than personalities. More than a jazz disc jockey, Perkins has had radio in his blood from the time he was a child. Appropriately, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia for his work.

AAJ: Since you're always spinning the "good music" on your show, what do you personally listen to on your car radio or at home?

BP: Actually, I very seldom listen music at home. I like the feeling of sharing with an audience, so it's something of a revelation to both myself and the audience, and we're both surprised at the same time, and hopefully delighted by what I play.

Continue...

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Christian McBride: Getting the Inside Straight

If we think about it for a little while, it's possible to believe that there is something almost mystic and undeniably powerful about jazz. The way it developed through the years and its constant ignition-like energy; the creativity of those who lead the way and those who continue the journey today; the improvisation that takes over souls and willingly delivers its magic for an amazed world to listen.

Jazz is a growing teenager whose future is as wide and vast as the horizon that lies before its tapping feet. Looking back, one also realizes that nothing you ever heard before can quite be compared to anything you are hearing today, for jazz is a never-ending adventure, and part of its ongoing, boundless imagination gently rests its head on a past so brilliant that the mind can only welcome what the heart feels...and that can only be described with music.

That is when Christian McBride comes in handy. His versatility has been praised and admired for years, making it seem as though the 37-year-old bassist extraordinaire should be in his late seventies by now. He has mastered an instrument that for many is the absolute essence of jazz, guilty of giving it a sense of unity and control. The former Juillard student's work with a bow is a simple, and rather delicate indication of just how deep his artistry really goes.

Leave it to the bass player to show you the way to musical perfection. And better yet, leave it to him to show you a good time while listening to his new straight-ahead band, Inside Straight, with Carl Allen on drums, Eric Reed (a most celebrated side man for Wynton Marsalis) at the piano, Steve Wilson (Dave Holland Big Band) on sax and Warren Wolf Jr., on vibes, completing this faultless circle that he has created for his new studio project, Kind of Brown (Mack Avenue Records, 2009).

Continue...

Related Links Added to AAJ News Announcements and Articles

Look for several related musician links at the end of a news announcement or article at All About Jazz. Prior to today, we included just the musician's website link--we now include their MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Website, blog, and other links associated with their musician profile. (See example below.)

If you're a musician, please add the related links to your profile. If you're a musician and currently do not have a profile, please create one today. Our service is free.

Update Profile | Create Profile


Monday, November 23, 2009

Myron Walden: Eclectic Reedman

In words often used to describe the music of Duke Ellington, Myron Walden is a saxophonist beyond category. More so than many other musicians, Walden himself eschews reliance on any one instrument, not tenor or alto nor soprano nor bass nor... well, you get the idea. The voice that he is striving to use in any particular setting can vary widely from time to time; there is no favorite child in this man's family of instruments.

Myron Walden

The same can be said of the music he plays. Three current releases (1) conjure Miles Davis, (2) reflect his innermost feelings of love, and (3) jump with countrified vigor. Look up the word "eclectic" in the dictionary, and you'll find a photo of Myron Walden.

While it is not uncommon for saxophonists to stray from their main instrument, or to explore musical variety, Walden is a committed non-denominational. The driving factors are usually the voice, range and weight that he is seeking on a particular performance or composition. Although not unusual on the surface, the fact that he expresses no favorite does suggest a big melodic and tonal palette.

Walden's work ethic is something to behold, having appeared with six different lineups in September and October (some of them as part of a fundraising effort for The Jazz Gallery, the Greenwich Village non-profit venue). And, he is releasing three different recordings between mid-November, 2009 and January, 2010. After a recording hiatus of four years, during which Walden wrote feverishly and wood-shedded the tenor saxophone, the first new release to hit stores was the November 17, 2009 issue of Momentum, to be followed by In This World and Countrified.

Momentum was inspired by the range of expression from Miles Davis' 1960s bands, recordings and compositions. This fall's Jazz Gallery performances included Walden on tenor saxophone, with {{Darren Barrett = 11891}} on trumpet, Eden Ladin on piano, Yasushi Nakamura on bass, and {{John Davis = 6135}} on drums.

In This World is a labor of love and gift to his wife, a project that captures feelings of reflection. This aggregation features Walden on tenor, soprano saxophones and bass clarinet, Jon Cowherd on piano, Mike Moreno on acoustic and electric guitar, Yasushi Nakamura on bass, and Obed Calviare on drums.

Continue...

Sunday, November 22, 2009

AAJ Help Wanted: Editors and Ad Sales

All About Jazz is a crowd-sourcing website produced by a volunteer staff of jazz enthusiasts. Thanks to our dedicated team of writers and editors, we've achieved impressive growth over the last several years. To keep pace with our growth, however, we need to constantly expand our staff. If you have an interest in working with us, even if it's for just a few hours a week, please contact the appropriate person below about our available positions.

POSITIONS AVAILABLE

Editors
Volunteer

  • Article Editors (5)
  • CD review Editors (3)
  • Interview Editor (1)
  • Managing Editor Assistant (1)
  • Photo Editor (1)

Requirements:

All editors are trained and furnished with the necessary tools, reference material and support. Familiarity with the basic HTML tags (bold, italic, paragraph break, line break, hotlink) and image manipulation is helpful, but not mandatory.

Contact: John Kelman


Ad Sales Rep
Paid CommissionAll About Jazz is looking for an ad sales rep to contact record labels, venues, festivals, instrument manufacturers and other potential industry advertisers. Established connections in the industry or at the very least, familiarity with the industry is preferred. Must be a self starter and must have a general understanding of online sales and some familiarity with All About Jazz. You will work directly with Michael Ricci and use Google Ad Manager. AAJ will pay you a 20% commission on the gross sale of each campaign.

Contact: Michael Ricci


CD Assignment Coordinator
Volunteer - Philadelphia Area All About Jazz is looking for someone to listen to and organize incoming promotional CDs, and prepare packages to be sent to AAJ writers for review consideration. One to two days a month at AAJ HQ (in Lansdale) is required.

Contact: Michael Ricci

AAJ Photo Gallery Improvements

We've made several improvements to our new photo gallery which was launched on October 11th (read about it here).

Recent photo gallery improvements include:

  • 22,000 images imported from the old photo gallery
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Ed Palermo: We're Only In It For The Music

It's got to be love, hasn't it? Why else would someone bother to transcribe 200 of Frank Zappa's tunes? For what other reason would someone dedicate himself for over 15 years to presenting his arrangements of Zappa's music in the setting of a 17-piece jazz big band, and at a loss to boot?

Yes, it's safe to say that saxophonist, composer and arranger Ed Palermo really, really loves Frank.


Ed Palermo (center, on alto) with Ed Palermo Big Band

Palermo's love affair with the music of Zappa began in 1969, when as a receptive 14-year-old, he saw Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in concert, an experience which would forever change the way Palermo saw music. Forty years on, the flames of love are undiminished, and Palermo and his wonderfully talented big band have released their third CD of Palermo's adventurous arrangements of Zappa's music, Eddy Loves Frank (Cuneiform, 2009). This latest recording in Palermo's ongoing Zappa project shows Zappa's challenging compositions in a whole new light. At the same time, loudly making the case for Palermo's big band as being one of the very best on the contemporary jazz scene.

Sadly, Eddy's love is unrequited, as Zappa passed away in '93, and never heard Palermo's heartfelt tribute to his vast musical legacy. Listening to Palermo's bold, swinging reinventions of Zappa's music one cannot help but feel that Zappa would have approved mightily.

All About Jazz: Firstly, congratulations on Eddy Loves Frank, I'm sure you must be pretty pleased with the way it turned out.

Ed Palermo: : Yes, it's the best thing I've ever done in my life.

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Portico Quartet: Not Particularly a Jazz Band

The history of Portico Quartet is brief, but it's also eventful. Since forming in 2005, this young British band have seen their first album, Knee Deep In The North Sea (Babel, 2007), become a Mercury Music Award Album of the Year, they've gathered rave reviews for their second album, Isla (Real World, 2009), and they've introduced a brand new acoustic instrument into the jazz repertoire. Although much of their music is recognizably "jazz," their use of the Hang creates a distinctive, instantly recognizable, sound that lies outside the expected sonic boundaries of contemporary jazz. The quartet's formation, development, working methods and even living arrangements are more akin to those of a rock band than a jazz ensemble. They are, in short, one of the most original and intriguing groups to emerge on the British scene for some time.

Portico Quartet
Portico Quartet (l:r): Jack Wyllie, Nick Mulvey, Duncan Bellamy, Milo Fitzpatrick

Saxophone player Jack Wyllie and percussionist Nick Mulvey were more than happy to discuss Portico Quartet's past, present and future over the telephone from East London, taking it in turns to share Nick's mobile phone after some technical problems arose. They are friendly and articulate interviewees and their insights into the band and its activities are illuminating.

Unlike many in the new wave of young British bands, Portico Quartet isn't the result of meetings at music college. Wyllie and bass player Milo Fitzpatrick were friends in Southampton on the south coast of England, where they both played in the Southampton Youth Jazz Orchestra. Mulvey and drummer Duncan Bellamy were friends in Cambridge. All four moved to London to study--Wyllie and Mulvey at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Bellamy at art college and Fitzpatrick at Goldsmith's College. None of them studied music, although three of the band did music-related degrees, as Mulvey explains: "Milo studied popular music, different styles of Western music... Me and Jack both studied ethnomusicology. So there has been related study, but not of performance techniques or styles. I'm quite happy about that...it gives a certain liberation."

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Monday, November 9, 2009

Charlie Hunter: Seven-String Samurai

Jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter is not a musician who's comfortable resting on his laurels. With nearly twenty albums under his belt and no sign of stopping in sight, Hunter continues to wow audiences with the wizardry of his seven-string guitar technique, by which he lays down bass grooves and simultaneously wings guitar solos along the frets with flawless finesse. This has earned him a reputation as an intrepid musician and an incredible showman who draws packed crowds into jazz clubs across the U.S. and overseas to see his magic at work. But the razzle dazzle of his unique virtuosity is second fiddle to the music itself. His albums have run the gamut from blues to bebop, free jazz to funk fusion, with Hunter constantly experimenting with new sounds and rhythmic arcs, all the while perfecting that pocket counterpoint between the guitar and bass.

Hunter recently completed a month-long residency at Rose Live Music in Brooklyn, where he was playing a duo series with veteran musicians from his past projects, such as drummer Tony Mason. There, he chatted at length about music culture, his latest album Baboon Strength (Spire, 2008), family life in Montclair NJ, the current jazz scene, and his personal journey from blues guitarist to European street musician to hybrid guitar/bass phenomenon.

All About Jazz: It seems with every album you produce, you're always working with new sounds and new styles, constantly trying to push the music forward...

Charlie Hunter: Yeah, I'm always thinking, "This is what I'm interested in now, how do I put this into my bag and mess with it? How I can work something out with this?"

AAJ: And you'll be recording a new studio album soon, right? What's your focus when you go into the studio? Are you actively composing or just walking in there to see what you and the musicians can come up with?

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Saturday, November 7, 2009

Clint Eastwood Presents Johnny Mercer: The Dream's On Me

Johnny Mercer
Clint Eastwood Presents Johnny Mercer: The Dream's On Me
TCM (2009)

Film director Clint Eastwood's love of jazz and American popular song is far from a secret, especially following his feature-length biopic about alto saxophonist Charlie Parker (Bird, 1988), during which the ever restless Eastwood got the idea to produce a feature-length film about pianist Thelonious Monk, released somewhat later during the same year as Straight No Chaser. Hence, it should surprise few that Eastwood will introduce viewers to a month-long 100th birthday celebration of American lyricist Johnny Mercer on Turner Classic Movies (TCM), beginning with Eastwood Presents Johnny Mercer: The Dream's On Me, which will be telecast in the U.S. on Wednesday, November 4, 2009 with a repeat on Wednesday, November 18. Throughout the month of November, when Mercer would have been 100, Wednesdays on TCM will be devoted to classic Hollywood films with lyrics penned and, in some instances, performed by Mercer, who not only wrote but sang more hit songs than virtually any other American songwriter.

The Eastwood opener is admittedly a "teaser," a mosaic of familiar songs and faces that nevertheless succeeds in giving viewers, regardless of their degree of familiarity with Mercer, plenty of motivation to delve into his considerable body of work. (The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer, published by Knopf earlier in 2009, must surely rank among the thickest, heaviest tomes ever produced.) While Mercer's is a familiar voice and face to anyone who remembers the popular music of the 1930s and 1940s, as well as his later work with singers Bobby Darin, Andy Williams and Barry Manilow (who set his elegiac lyric "When October Goes" to music before releasing a recorded performance posthumously), it comes as a surprise to even many of his steadfast admirers to learn that it was Mercer who founded Capitol records, which would go on to become one of the several most important recording companies of the latter half of the 20th century.

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ECM at 40: Enjoy Jazz Festival

ECM at 40. It's hard to believe that a record label responsible for stretching the boundaries of modern music has survived the various crises that have threatened and, in some cases, decimated so many others. With Enjoy Jazz's "The Blue Sound: 40 Years of ECM" festival-within-a-festival, it's as good a time as any to take stock of where the label has been, where it is, and where's it's going.

Enjoy Jazz / Mannheim / 40 Years of ECM
Mannheim Castle, Venue for "The Blue Sound: 40 Years of ECM"

In a press conference that took place prior to the first evening's concerts, label head/producer Manfred Eicher spoke of how the label has, indeed, survived such perceived crises as the oil crisis in the late 1970s which, as he dryly put it, "resulted in vinyl as thin as pizza crust." Just as much a threat was the industry's move to CD format, forcing the label to rethink its design approach to accommodate a smaller footprint. And as music seems, at the same time, to be moving away from hard media to digital downloads and returning to vinyl, ECM continues to stand strong with the vision that has not only made it a remarkable innovator, but a rare survivor. There simply is no other independent label in jazz and beyond that has remained so for so long, and it's Eicher's singular vision of sonic transparency and musical cross-pollination that, as he explained, is all about instinct--the intuition that has kept the label at the forefront of modern music--no longer jazz, no longer classical, but simply music.

Eicher talked about the increasingly blurred line between the label's regular series (once considered the "jazz" side) and the New Series line (the "classical" side), and how musicians are surprisingly well-informed about music beyond their apparent purview. He talked of attending a Radiohead concert and being invited backstage, where he ended up in a discussion about Beethoven with the group's bassist, Colin Greenwood. "It was a surprise," Eicher said," but then again it shouldn't have been." It was a sentiment mirrored by Wolfgang Sandner--a respected German journalist who is co-curating the ECM festival with Enjoy Jazz Festival director Rainer Kern and journalist Hans-Jürgen Linke--who talked of how classical composer György Ligeti was informed by jazz, and how violinist Thomas Zehetmair, scheduled for a duo performance with violist Ruth Killius later that evening, takes considerable improvisational liberties with the music of Paganini on his most recent recording, Paganini: 24 Capricci (ECM, 2009).

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Ben Neill: Starting a Dub War

To say that Ben Neill plays the trumpet--the instrument of such jazz legends as Miles Davis and Clifford Brown--is an epic understatement. "I think electronica is like a new form of jazz--it's an instrumental form of music that plays out in popular culture but has musical ideas that go beyond the expectations of pop music," says Neill, a student of the electro-acoustic innovations of Robert Moog and minimalist aesthetic of LaMonte Young. Neill specifically plays the mutantrumpet, a self-designed instrument that he's been slowly perfecting since the mid 1980s. His latest album, Night Science (Thirsty Ear, 2009), is a heady, dark alchemy of improv and electronica. No surprise, then, that the record is the latest release on Thirsty Ear Records' Blue Series.

The brainchild of Thirsty Ear head Peter Gordon, The Blue Series has long sought to find a point where the electronic manipulation of sound (both in post-production and on the spot) and the live interaction of seasoned jazz musicians become blurred, all but insignificant. Night Science, in many ways, is the pinnacle of the Blue Series' raison d'etre. Sans turntables, Neill is DJ-cum-jazz artist. Or perhaps vice versa.

Neill began work on Night Science in late 2007. "The process of the recording happened on several levels simultaneously," Neill explains. "The first layer was developing beats and bass lines in Logic Pro, then exporting those elements to Ableton Live so I could improvise with them from the mutantrumpet.

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1959: The Year Classic Albums Were Born

Miles DavisWhen the year 1959 began, there were only 48 states. Alaska and Hawaii would became part of the United States during that annum, the third year of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's second term. It was the year Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba and took a goodwill tour of the U.S., two months after an interview with Edward R. Murrow on CBS television.

Mattel toy company launched the Barbie doll. In professional basketball, theCeltics beat the Lakers for the NBA crown--but it was the Minneapolis Lakers.

Bob Dylan, (then Robert Zimmerman), graduating from Hibbing High School in Minnesota might have gone that year to see the epic motion picture "Ben Hur" or the comedy "Some Like It Hot" that made cross dressing acceptable under certain circumstances--especially if it involved wooing Marilyn Monroe. Or he might have tuned in television shows like "Bonanza" and "The Twilight Zone," both premiering in 1959.

In music, the Grammy Awards were created and debuted. And on the darker side, a chartered plane transporting musicians Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson crashed in an Iowa snowstorm, killing them and the pilot, a tragedy later termed "the day the music died" in Don McLean's song, "American Pie." Famed New York disc jockey Allan Freed at WABC Radio refused to sign a statement saying he never accepted payola--payment for getting an artist's records on the air--and was fired.

But in jazz, there was no such bad news (if one discounts the increasing popularity of rock n' roll music that was pushing jazz toward the fringes of popularity). The year 1959, for whatever reason, whatever alignment of the planets or whim of the Fates, was a glorious year.

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Bobby Bradford: Self-Determination in the Great Basin

Born in Cleveland, Mississippi in 1934 and raised between Dallas and Los Angeles, trumpeter Bobby Bradford began playing with Ornette Coleman in Los Angeles in the 1950s, and replaced Don Cherry in an unrecorded Coleman quartet during the early 1960s. However, the most significant partnership in Bradford's musical life was with the clarinetist and composer John Carter (1928-1991), with whom he worked and recorded from 1969 into the 1980s a very different brand of free-bop. Now a professor at Pomona College, Bradford continues to lead his Mo'Tet and is being celebrated at the 2009 Festival of the New Trumpet in New York.

Bobby Bradford

All About Jazz: Could you talk a bit about who you're working with presently?

Bobby Bradford: I have a group called the Mo'tet, and for a while we were working about once a month in this Italian restaurant in Sierra Madre, but we could play whatever we wanted--no restaurant music or anything. That band has William Jeffrey on drums; Roberto Miranda on bass; I use Don Preston on piano and on saxophone Chuck Manning; Ken Rosser on guitar; and Michael Vladtkovitch on trombone.

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Thursday, October 29, 2009

How to Listen to Jazz

After surviving a near-fatal marriage and returning once again to the Original Geniusdome, the site of some of my best work (remember that really funny thing I wrote about jazz that time?), I recently took some time to reflect upon my contributions to Our Music. As the Dean of American Jazz Humorists©®, I have long considered it my responsibility both to demystify some of the more esoteric aspects of jazz and to loosen the death grip of the zealot so that the music can breathe. And if by fulfilling these duties, I should somehow end up rich and famous, romantically linked to unspeakably hot actresses like Christina Hendricks and/or Scarlett Johansson and given a lifetime supply of beer by the Anheuser-Busch corporation for my work promoting the consumption of their product by tireless example, well, then, so be it.

But in the process of sifting through my collected works, a glaring oversight was pointed out to me by my parakeet/bodyguard Luca Brasi. "Yes, we get it, {{Wynton Marsalis = 1914}} has a very round head. But where in all this do you give JazzNoobs a lesson in how to listen to this sometimes daunting music?" he said, making a valid point for someone who spends a significant portion of his day chirping at his own reflection in a mirror.

Sure enough, in eight years of occupying my mantle here at AAJ, I had not once addressed the very basic issue that is probably most responsible for keeping people from making a more dedicated foray into the seemingly impenetrable depths of Our Music that lie beyond the safety and comfort of the familiar kind of jazz one hears on those 1970's TV shows where people in polyester bell-bottoms and crocheted sweater-vests are supposed to be hip.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

All About Jazz Launches New Photo Gallery

The new All About Jazz Photo Gallery is live! If you're a professional photographer, a musician or a fan who takes pictures at concerts or festivals, upload your photos to AAJ and share them with the largest jazz community online. Portrait/publicity photos, concert photos, archived photos and candid photos are all welcome. You can upload paintings and illustrations too.

Tag your photos, add descriptions and associate them with musicians, venues, festivals and yourself at AAJ. You can upload 1, 10, 100... 500 photos at a time. It's easy and it's fast.Our new gallery works a little like Flickr, but is fully integrated with the All About Jazz website.Upload your jazz photos to AAJ today!

Photo Credit
Sue Storey

Ask Mr. P.C. - New Musician Etiquette Column at All About Jazz

Attn: Musicians!

You're invited to participate in AAJ's new etiquette column, "Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum."

Read our October questions and answers here.

Have a question for Mr. P.C.? Send it to him here.

Have fun!


About Mr. P.C.

Inspired by the cutting edge advice of Abigail Van Buren, the storied bass playing of Paul Chambers, and the need for a Politically Correct doctrine for navigating the minefields of jazz etiquette, I humbly offer my services. More...

Celebrate Cuneiform Records Download Week: Free MP3s by Wadada Leo Smith, Ergo, Zevious, Jason Adasiewic and Beat Circus

Download five free MP3s courtesy of Cuneiform Records.

She Haunts Me (3:41)
Ergo
From: Multitude, Solitude
Cuneiform Records


South Central L.A. Kulture (4:50)
Wadada Leo Smith
From: Spiritual Dimensions
Cuneiform Records
Where's the Captain? (5:10)
Zevious
From: After the Air Raid
Cuneiform Records
Hide (4:26)
Jason Adasiewicz's Rolldown
From: Varmint
Cuneiform Records
The February Train (4:16)
Beat Circus
From: Boy From Black Mountain
Cuneiform Records

The tracks above are also available on each musician's profile page.

Enjoy!

Singer/Songwriter/Pianist Bruce Hornsby Interviewed at AAJ...and More

For more than 20 years, singer/songwriter, pianist/composer, and band-leader Bruce Hornsby, has proven to be a survivor in an ever changing music environment. From winning multiple awards including a Grammy for Best New Artist in 1987 for the multi-platinum album The Way It Is (RCA, 1986) with his band The Range, to dual releases in 2007 (on Sony/Legacy)--a foot-stomping bluegrass duo Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby and the swinging jazz trio outing Camp Meeting, with drummer Jack DeJohnette and bassist Christian McBride--Hornsby has thrived in a variety of settings.

AAJ Contributor Mark F. Turner spoke with Hornsby recently, about his latest release, Levitate (Verve, 2009)--the first studio disc to feature his longtime band The Noisemakers--his first Broadway musical, SCKBSTD, starting out on guitar, and much more in Bruce Hornsby: The Master of Levitation, published today at AAJ.

You can also read Mark's insightful review of Levitate, also published today at AAJ.

Guitarist Oz Noy Interviewed at AAJ

Oz Noy's Schizophrenic (Magnatude Records, 2009) is the perfect moniker for the Israeli-born, New York-based guitarist. With an array of influences ranging from Charlie Parker to Jimi Hendrix to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Noy melds elements from funk, rock, blues and jazz into his own unique, personal take on modern instrumental music.

Noy's solos seem to be in constant flux as he weaves in and out of hard-driving rock grooves, jazzy based harmonic progressions and rhythmically complex, often lightening fast, improvisations. Listening to Noy's compositions and solos reveals a musician that may be described as having musical schizophrenia, but also one that has emerged with a voice like no other.

AAJ's Matthew Warnock spoke with Noy recently, about recording his latest album, Schizophrenic (Magnatude, 2009) and reconciling his various stylistic influences into one, cogent approach.

Check out Oz Noy: No Longer Making Choices at AAJ today!