Archive for September, 2009
Each time things start to happen again
Submitted by Secret Society
Infernal Machines is reviewed in the October issue of the newly arisen JazzTimes:
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Rating 3.00 out of 5
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Great “New Thing” Albums
Submitted by Jazz Note SDP
One of the things I have been thinking about lately are those great albums produced as the “new thing” blossomed in jazz in the late fifties and early sixties. The reach for freedom from earlier musical constraints gave rise to some very challenging but very rewarding recordings. Most of the major [...]
Tom Garcia’s neck mod
Submitted by Casa Valdez Studios
A while back I wrote about my buddy Tom Garcia’s neck modification. Right about the time I wrote about this Tom left town to spend the summer in New Orleans and touring Europe, so he wasn’t able to make neck mods for anyone. Tom wanted me to let my readers [...]
Allard/Dempsey Overtone exercises
Submitted by Casa Valdez Studios
Regular reader David Wells, a smoking tenor player who teaches at the University of Maine at Augusta, sent me some overtone exercises that Dave Dempsey adapted from Joe Allard’s overtone routine. You can hear Michael Brecker demonstrating some of these exercises in the Berklee master class that I posted a [...]
Cecil Taylor, the Envelope, and the Abyss
Submitted by Jazz Note SDP
According to legend, Cecil Taylor invented free jazz in 1957. I like that legend. That’s the year I was born. Obviously the Creator was in one of his creative periods. Taylor is surely among the great figures in avant garde jazz. But his magnum opus was recorded a year earlier. Jazz [...]
Stephen Brown on Kind of Blue
Submitted by Jazz Suite
I have been listening to Cecil Taylor today, and had intended to post something on his wonderfully challenging music, when I happened to glance at a copy of the Times Literary Supplement, my single favorite book review publication, and found “Finished Sketches,” a review by Stephen Brown of Richard Williams’ The Blue [...]
Recordings of new sextet charts
Submitted by Casa Valdez Studios
This week I finally got a chance to play through the new sextet charts that Dan Gaynor arranged for me. Last month I posted all of the charts here on this blog.
Keep in mind that these are recordings of a band sight reading, so there are a few rough spots. [...]
Nothin’ on but the radio
Submitted by Secret Society
Audio of Secret Society’s Excellent Adventure on WNYC this afternoon can be had here:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/episodes/2009/09/21
Solos: on “Transit,” Matt Holman (fluegelhorn); on “Zeno,” Alan Ferber (trombone).
CO-CONSPIRATORS
WINDS
Erica vonKleist
Rob Wilkerson
Sam Sadigursky
Dan Pratt
Josh Sinton
TRUMPETS
Seneca Black
Jon Owens
Matt Holman
Eli Asher
John Bailey
TROMBONES
Alan Ferber
Josh Brown
James Hirschfeld
Max Seigel
RHYTHM
Sebastian Noelle, electric guitar
Gordon Webster, piano
Matt Clohesy, bass
Jon Wikan, drums
Visit 1800blogger to see all of [...]
Speaking on the themes of stolen virtue missing from the radio, radio
Submitted by Secret Society
Secret Society will be performing live on the air during today’s episode of WNYC’s Soundcheck. The show airs from 2:00 - 3:00 PM EDT — our segment will start around 2:35 PM or so.
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Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]
Jazz Guitar, Bill Evans, Al Dimeola, and Memory
Submitted by Jazz Note SDP
Back when I was a college student I tried to learn to play the guitar. I tried, I really did. I failed. I wanted to play jazz. But the desire did guide my jazz collecting. I bought Guitar Player magazine, and just when I purchased my first decent stereo system GP [...]
A series of mistakes without the ‘oops.’
Submitted by Secret Society
Wow, that Branford clip has sparked so much discussion that now even Nigel, David, and Derek evidently felt the need to weigh in on the state of jazz education today:
When Derek says “you can get a degree in how to play it wrong,” surely he could not be referring to the teachings of [...]
Dave Holland Interview
Submitted by Jazz Note SDP
On September 6, 2009, I had the opportunity to sit down with the great bass player and composer Dave Holland before his performance at the Tanglewood Jazz Festival. Dave’s career took off after being invited by Miles Davis to come to the US from his native England. During that tenure, Dave [...]
Travis Shook
Submitted by EyeShotJazz
Travis Shook at the piano at Tula’s, Weds September 9th.
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Rating 4.00 out of 5
[?]
Singer Youman Wilder Talks about Jazz/Soul and Hip Hop and his lastest project Pearls In Gold
Youman Wilder .Pearls In Gold
Pearls In Gold
Artist Interview by: Kenya D\’ashabi
Written by: Kenya
Youman Wilder is running late from the theater where he is dong a small role on the Off Broadway show
“The Dutchman”written by Amiri Baraka.
I had been trying to get Wilder to agree to do a sit down with me, and he finally agreed,as [...]
Now, did you fall at first sight or did you need a shove?
Submitted by Secret Society
I’m grateful to Greenleaf’s Michael Bates for drawing my attention to practicesightreading.com, an incredibly cool random rhythm generator that supports multiple levels of complexity, and both single and mixed meters. As the name of the site suggests, it’s intended to generate customized exercises for rhythmic sight-reading, but the compositional possibilities of a [...]
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Submitted by Secret Society
Branford Marsalis on lessons he’s learned from his students:
(And you guys thought Terry Teachout was a master at stirring shit up… )
Via Ronan Guilfoyle.
UPDATE: Ronan has more:
The ability to make a decision, to take responsibility for that decision, and to see it through, is a pre-requisite for a jazz improvisation. At the [...]
Discovering Henri Texier
Submitted by Jazz Note SDP
One of the services yours truly provides is this: I spend some time digging through the fifteen hundred pages of the Penguin Guide to Jazz, and lately the equally weighty All Music Guide, and when I find something borrowed, something blue in those vast libraries, I bring it to your attention.
This [...]
The John Patitucci Trio
Submitted by Jazz Note SDP
Here is an album review I just wrote for JazzTimes.
Remembrance is a lovely album, but I think that anyone listening to it would have to think she was listening to a Joe Lovano album. So much of the music is carried by Lavono’s superb sax explorations, that it is sometimes easy [...]
More Mobley
Submitted by Jazz Note SDP
I picked up an excellent box set this week: Hank Mobley: The Complete Blue Note Fifties Sessions. I can’t imagine that very many copies of this have sold, except to libraries. But it is six CDs of very fine jazz, covering one of the most important periods in the history of [...]
Quotes about Jazz
Submitted by Casa Valdez Studios
My buddy Joel Frahm posted a bunch of great quotes about Jazz on his MySpace blog.
Quotes about Jazz
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Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]
