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Live Stream of Anat Cohen Quartet at the Blue Note Milan

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May 17th, 2013 – IMN Update:

Tune into ShowGo.tv tomorrow night and you can watch a live stream of the Anat Cohen Quartet’s set from the Blue Note Milano, 9pm local time (Milan, Italy). The live stream will be here

Joshua Redman Brings 'Walking Shadows' to Life at Town Hall

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May 16th, 2013 – IMN Update:

From Broadway World

Jazz Saxophonist Joshua Redman Performs June 4th at Town Hall
By: BWW News Desk

Jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman’s May 7, 2013 release, Walking Shadows (Nonesuch), is a collection of vintage and contemporary ballads and Redman’s first recording to include an orchestral ensemble. Redman’s June 4 performance at the historic Town Hall will include the same quartet featured on Walking Shadows – longtime collaborators and close friends Brad Mehldau on piano, Larry Grenadier on bass, and Brian Blade on drums. The New York based orchestra The Knights will help bring the music of Walking Shadows to life. This is the first of a very limited number of Redman performances that will include a strings ensemble and the only engagement that will include the album’s all-star quartet.

Creating his own take on the classic jazz-with-strings album was the initial impetus for Joshua Redman’s Walking Shadows, a collection of ballads that Jeff Simon from the Buffalo News calls “sometimes exquisite and never less than exceptionally beautiful.” With his friend and frequent collaborator, pianist Brad Mehldau, on board as producer, Redman has retooled a familiar formula. The jazz-with-strings concept serves as a starting point, as foundation and inspiration, for Redman’s exploration of an ambitiously eclectic set of tunes performed in a variety of configurations. The strings themselves are an active, emotive presence on the six songs in which they are featured and their absence on other tracks only seems to heighten the drama of those more austerely arranged compositions.

“The strings add a richness and a lushness, a romanticism and even a touch of nostalgia to the music,” explains Redman. “We wanted the orchestra to feel like an essential element of the tracks on which it performs and sound as if it were genuinely a part of the improvisation and conversation, of the ebb and flow. It’s one of the reasons it was so important for us to record everything live, with the strings at the same time, as opposed to recording them in a session as an overdub, which might have been technically and logistically a lot easier. But musically, I think that would have made everything feel less natural and integrated. “

To read more click here

Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival begins final year as women-only showcase

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May 16th, 2013 – IMN Update:

washingtonpost.com

Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival begins final year as women-only showcase

The headline blared: “Why Women Musicians Are Inferior.” It was cringe-inducing even in 1938, when the respected jazz publication DownBeat printed the essay. A rebuttal from a female saxophonist — a “skirt swinger” — was further ridiculed when DownBeat slapped on the title “How Can You Blow a Horn With a Brassiere?”

Two generations passed before female bandleaders, instrumentalists and composers — long ensconced in jazz history but often marginalized or maligned — began being saluted at “women-in-jazz” festivals.

To read the full article click here:http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/mary-lou-williams-women-in-jazz-festival-begins-final-year-as-women-only-showcase/2013/05/15/6a6579ae-b672-11e2-aa9e-a02b765ff0ea_story.html

Watch Kathy Mattea's 'My Coal Journey'

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May 16th, 2013 – IMN Update:

A dedicated arts and education advocate, Grammy Award winning singer Kathy Mattea is also deeply involved in social and environmental activism. She believes that music can influence social change by giving a voice to those who have none. Trained by Al Gore following An Inconvenient Truth, Mattea has traveled the country with her own lecture presentation: My Coal Journey, a reflection on her coal country heritage, her personal experiences as an activist, and her artistic journey. My Coal Journey is a one hour program of stories, illustrated through a PowerPoint slideshow, and enhanced by solo performances of select songs from Mattea’s hit album, COAL. The presentation traces Mattea’s motivation for beginning the recording project, her research into the musical genre’s history, her family’s ties to coal mining culture in Appalachia, and the environmental and social justice issues surrounding coal mining methods in today’s world.

Watch Kathy’s My Coal Journey presentation at Penn State from January 31, 2013:

Live Review: The Bad Plus at Colston Hall

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May 14th, 2013 – IMN Update:

from classical-music.com (The official website of BBC Music Magazine)

Neil McKim enjoys a Bristol concert by jazz misfits The Bad Plus
by Neil McKim

This was one of the most good-humoured concerts I have seen for a long time… and for the right reasons. The audience was in stitches after a five-minute meandering introduction to a song, apparently inspired by a 1960s stuntman who kept turtles… and who hung out with Steve McQueen… and who liked baloney sandwiches. I was pleasantly surprised at this mirth as I was watching The Bad Plus, an American jazz band that is best-known for its relentlessly aggressive musical approach.

Over the last decade The Bad Plus (pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson, and drummer Dave King) has maintained a reputation for tearing up the rulebook when it comes to jazz trio performance. They are often portrayed as throwing aside older forms of jazz and instead recreating a contemporary format that is heavily influenced by other genres, as demonstrated by infamous cover versions, ranging from heavy metal’s Black Sabbath to Abba or to dance music’s Aphex Twin. Their tracks, whether cover versions or their own, have a beguiling ability to lull a listener into a calm state and then to rip up the floorboards in a ferocious audio assault.

As I sat watching the trio in Bristol last weekend I couldn’t really see what all the critical ‘fuss’ has been about. The band, although now older than when they first burst on to the worldwide scene in the early 2000s, has survived some very varied reviews in the UK over the years.

To read the full article click here

Live Review: Joshua Redman & Christian McBride at Wigmore Hall, London

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May 13th, 2013 – IMN Update:

from ft.com

The saxophonist and bassist duetted with clarity, control and fine detail
By Mike Hobart

American saxophonist Joshua Redman’s relationship with Christian McBride goes back 20 years, when Redman sought out the bassist in New York, soon after graduating from Harvard. They formed a fertile creative partnership, but here, both men seemed somewhat surprised that this was their first gig together for five years, and only their second in this format.

Duets leave little room for manoeuvre and, in the revealing acoustics of the Wigmore Hall, no room for error. With nerves a-jangle and each pitch and nuance laid bare, the temptation to overplay is strong. Both Redman and McBride pack a hefty punch, but at this concert, the emphasis was more on clarity and control, fine detail and the careful construction of emotional highs. It was an enormous pleasure just to hear Christian McBride walk through the common-stock cadences of jazz tradition, let alone the mighty strums and super-fast be-bop that came down the line.

Each musician comes with an extensive knowledge of lineage and style. They opened with the sly theme and soul-jazz vamp of Ray Bryant’s “Chicken and Dumplings” and chose “On the Sunny Side of the Street” as their encore. They took in modern blues, an early funk classic, Eddie Harris’s “Cold Duck Time” and added a slow and sensuous ballad, “Easy Living”. And mid-set, they captured the full force of Dizzy Gillespie’s Afro-Cuban big-band classic “Manteca” with overlapping beats and muscular lines. Extra riffs, sudden harmonies and short unison bursts added spice, while Redman’s development, for all the playful references and high-note virtuosity, had an iron logic that stayed in focus throughout the long single set.

To read the full article click here

Video: Jason Moran + Skateboarding

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May 13th, 2013 – IMN Update:

From Thrasher Magazine

Check out the video below by Thrasher Magazine from last weeks Jason Moran performance at the SFJAZZ Center featuring a skateboarding mini ramp session.

To view the video click here

Kurt Elling ... and all that jazz

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May 11th, 2013 – IMN Update:

from independent.ie
By Aedn Gormley

Kurt Elling … and all that jazz

Yes, jazz singer Kurt Elling is easy on the eye. But forget about all that for now, ladies… The American baritone with a four-octave range is one of the most innovative jazz singers to come along in years.

It’s hard to picture him as a young boy singing motets by JS Bach, but that’s where his love of singing started. His father was a church musician in the Lutheran tradition and Kurt sang sacred music in choirs throughout his childhood and played a range of musical instruments.

“I was given a feeling of what music can do for the human spirit, to move you to a different place, to lift you up, to help you feel better, to explore how pain feels in a dignified fashion and I feel very fortunate to have had those experiences very early on,” he says.

I spoke to Chicago-born Elling during a particularly busy touring schedule that stops off in Dublin this month. He is doing upwards of 200 gigs on the road this year. He laments the fact that he doesn’t get to spend more time in New York where he moved a few years ago with his wife and young daughter, but it’s clear to see that he also loves performing and tells me that he was built to sing.

To read the full article here

May 10th: Women In Jazz Day

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May 10th, 2013 – IMN Update:

From Broadway World

Mayor Bloomberg Proclaims May 10 ‘Women in Jazz Day’
By: BMW News Desk

To celebrate the acclaimed documentary The Girls in the Band coming to Lincoln Center, Mayor Bloomberg has proclaimed Friday, May 10 “Women in Jazz Day.” The date celebrates the legacies of female jazz musicians and marks the first in a weeklong series of screenings of The Girls in the Band at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center. Written, directed and produced by Judy Chaikin and produced and executive produced by Michael Greene, the film tells the stories of female jazz and big band instrumentalists from the 1920s to the present day and chronicles their inspired journeys and struggles for recognition. Tickets for the screenings are on sale now at http://bit.ly/10tfvNn; please see below for complete screening schedule. More info on the film can be found at http://www.thegirlsintheband.com/home/.

The Lincoln Center screening is hosted in part by the Women in the Arts and Media Coalition and New York Women in Film and Television with support from artists and the New York business and cultural community including Woody Allen, Herb Alpert, Mercedes Ellington, Renée Fleming, Wynton Marsalis, Bette Midler, Maria Schneider and Jonathan Tisch. The host committee chair is Ann Ziff, Chairman of the Metropolitan Opera, with additional funding provided by the American Federation of Musicians Local 802 and herFlix.

Combining archival footage and interviews with musicians including drummer Viola Smith, saxophonists Roz Cron, bassist Carline Ray and trumpeter Clora Bryant, Chaikin explores how even in the face of extreme prejudice, sexism and racism these women helped shape the history of American music and bravely challenged the racial barriers that prevented white and black musicians from working together. The film also reveals how female jazz musicians of today, including Maria Schneider, Anat Cohen, Sherrie Maricle and Esperanza Spalding, are continuing to build upon the talent and courage of their predecessors.

To read more click here

Youssou N'Dour Awarded Sweden's Prestigious Polar Music Prize

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May 10th, 2013 – IMN Update:

from Access Hollywood

N’Dour, Saariaho Share Sweden’s Polar Music Prize

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour and Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho have been awarded the international 2013 Polar Music Prize, Sweden’s most prestigious award for musicians.
They will each receive 1 million kronor ($153,300) and an invitation to the prize ceremony in Stockholm Aug. 27.

In its awarding citation on Tuesday, the prize committee said 53-year-old N’Dour, who has collaborated with artists including Sting, Bruce Springsteen and Neneh Cherry, has a voice that “encompasses an entire continent’s history and future, blood and love, dreams and power.”

To read more click here

Catching Up with Trumpeter Avishai Cohen

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May 9th, 2013 – IMN Update:

from jazztimes.com

Catching Up with Trumpeter Avishai Cohen
By: Marta Ramon

Trumpeter Avishai Cohen has emerged in the past decade as one of the rising stars of jazz. The brother of saxophonist/clarinetist Anat and saxophonist Yuval Cohen, he he attended the Berklee College of Music in the late ’90s and placed third in the 1997 Thelonious Monk Jazz Trumpet Competition, after which he began his career in earnest in New York City. In 2011 he joined the SFJAZZ Collective.

To read the full article click here

Jason Moran & the Bandwagon bridge the generation gap

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May 9th, 2013 – IMN Update:

From The Los Angeles Times

Jason Moran & the Bandwagon bridge the generation gap
By Chris Barton

It says something about the capacity for invention displayed by pianist Jason Moran that it was almost a disappointment to see him taking the stage Tuesday night joined “only” by his band the Bandwagon at a show presented by the Jazz Bakery. Granted, the New York City-based Moran is already appointment viewing for jazz fans given his mountains of acclaim and how rarely he ventures west (Moran performed solo at the Hammer Museum in 2011 but estimated it had been 10 years since his band last played L.A.).

Yet the pianist nearly upstaged himself with two audacious shows at the new SFJAZZ Center last weekend that found him improvising alongside a ramp full of skateboarders. The unexpected juxtaposition of two creative forms became one of the most buzzed-about shows of the year.

Anyone familiar with the 38-year-old pianist had to know that Moran would still have plenty of high-flying tricks of his own Tuesday. Taking the stage at the Musicians Institute’s cavernous performance space, the group showed why it’s one of the most arresting piano trios today with a show that tapped a number of sources at jazz’s roots and incorporated daring new moves that pushed its sound into the future.

To read the full review click here

The Guardian: Avishai Cohen with Strings

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May 8th, 2013 – IMN Update:

from guardian.co.uk

Avishai Cohen with Strings

Maybe it’s because he’s a strings player, but the Israeli bassist, singer and composer Avishai Cohen revealed on this UK premiere how fine-tuned he is to what chamber players do best – in contrast to those jazz musicians who write for classical strings as if they just needed the usual riffs, but played on softer instruments. Cohen, the former Chick Corea double-bassist who took off as a composer at the end of the 90s, has boldly merged his own jazz trio with a bespoke chamber group comprising one violin, two violas, a cello and an improvising oboist and cor anglais player in the versatile Yoram Lachish.

Cohen’s materials are the Hebrew folksongs and poetry he heard as a child in Israel, the Judaeo-Spanish Ladino songs of the Sephardic tradition, classical music and jazz. Within the first 20 minutes, the band had moved from a graceful, elegantly harmonised classical opening to a poignant Hebrew song (Cohen has an expressively light, ardent voice), to the jazz ballad A Child Is Born for Lachish (soloing like a mellower-toned soprano saxist) and the accomplished young jazz pianist Nitai Hershkovits. A Red Army theme started off dolorously stamping, before being playfully twisted by Cohen’s funky polyphonic parts for strings, woodwind and his own incisive bassline.

To read the full article click here

Blue Note to Partner with ArtistShare

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May 8th, 2013 – IMN Update:

From The New York Times

Blue Note to Partner With ArtistShare
By: Nate Chinen

Blue Note Records, the most storied label in jazz, has plans to partner with ArtistShare, a pioneering crowd-funding platform, for a hybrid called Blue Note/ArtistShare. The joint venture suggests one tactical response to the pressures now facing the record business, especially in and around the jazz field.

The new arrangement — orchestrated by Brian Camelio, the founder of ArtistShare; Bruce Lundvall, chairman emeritus of Blue Note; and Don Was, Blue Note’s president — will essentially serve as a low-risk development arm of the label. Blue Note will help select the artists, and apply its imprimatur and promotional resources to each finished album. But the costs of recording will be shouldered by fans, in the standard mode of ArtistShare projects. Musicians will retain full ownership of their master recordings.

“Young artists worldwide are making fresh musical statements left and right, but are forced to do their own marketing campaigns, too, often when their main focus should be their creative output,” Mr. Lundvall said in a statement released on Wednesday. While Blue Note/ArtistShare has the potential to lighten that burden, it still leaves the artist in charge of his or her own fundraising efforts.

To read more click here

WAYNE SHORTER: ZERO GRAVITY DOCUMENTARY PLEDGE MUSIC CAMPAIGN

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May 8th, 2013 – IMN Update:

WAYNE SHORTER: ZERO GRAVITY, A DOCUMENTARY ON ONE OF THE GREATEST LIVING JAZZ LEGENDS IS TO BE RELEASED IN 2014.

The inception of ZERO GRAVITY began in 2006 and principal photography is now in progress. Join us in celebrating Wayne Shorter’s life and musical legacy by pledging to help us complete this film by 2014.

PLEDGE NOW
For a limited time you will have the opportunity to pledge for some pretty cool exclusives – Everything from an invitation to a live digital premiere of the director’s cut of the documentary (you’ll get to see the film online before it is released to the general public), autographed DVDs, concert tickets, Wayne’s artwork, a voice mail recording with Wayne and Esperanza Spalding to a private dinner with Wayne and Herbie Hancock!!

ZERO GRAVITY is an intimate portrait of an artist who has influenced music for over six generations. Wayne Shorter continues to break through the imposed limitations of jazz with even more innovative compositions and recordings than he has achieved in the last 50 years.

To learn more about the documentary and donate to the Pledge Music Campaign click here