MusicSprings
News From A Blog Supreme
“We’re happy to announce that NPR Music is returning to the Newport Jazz Festival for a live webcast and recording Aug. 6-7, 2011. Along with hosts, engineers and producers from WBGO (New Jersey/New York), WYPR (Baltimore) and WGBH (Boston), we’ll be presenting a live online stream of concerts from ‘the grandfather of jazz festivals.’”
See the full article here.
Watch Live On Wednesday, July 6 At 9 p.m. ET
Jimmy (left) and Albert “Tootie” Heath.
Jimmy Heath, saxophones
Albert “Tootie” Heath, drums
Jeb Patton, piano
David Wong, bass
“Jimmy is an affable jazz statesman — he has a new autobiography, and was named an NEA Jazz Master for 2003 — and Albert (nicknamed “Tootie”) has freelanced with anyone who’s anyone. Despite the 2005 death of their elder brother Percy, The Heath Brothers still convene on occasion. At the Village Vanguard this week, Jimmy and Tootie will add bass and piano to form a quartet. NPR Music and WBGO will be on hand for a live radio broadcast and online video webcast of their performance this Wednesday, July 6 at 9 p.m. ET. Check this page for live video, audio, chat and a recording afterwards.“
I recently “attended” three hour long concerts by ICE, the International Contemporary Ensemble, led by Ms Claire Chase. I attended them on line, courtesy of Q2 the 24/7 New Music stream from New York Public Radio.
Ms Chase
Here are a couple of links to the videos still available at Q2
ICELab with Mario Diaz de León
You can “attend” the concerts, and then go to the ICE web site and “buy a ticket” by making a contribution of financial support. I paid $10 for each.
So, today at The Record from NPR/music, we have the really wonderful Lara Pellegrinelli writing about Ms Chase: Following Claire Chase: A Week In The Life Of A Working Musician.
I often give a few lines from an article to entice the reader. But, Laura is such a good writer, I just cannot pick out any text without diminishing the rest of her article.
So see the complete article here.
by Alex W. Rodriguez
“Last month, my station, WBGO, celebrated its 32nd birthday. Strangely enough, another jazz titan turns the same age this Saturday: the Montreal International Jazz Festival. One of the largest music festivals of any kind in the world, it runs from June 25 through July 4.
The two of us have grown up together. WBGO’s Michael Bourne and Becca Pulliam first collaborated with the festival in the 1990s, and the station began live remote broadcasts from Montreal in 2004. This weekend, WBGO will be back in Montreal for another live broadcast.”
See the full article here.
Trombone Shorty
The kids these days: They want to sound like Mark Turner. Well, at least the saxophone students do, and sure, certainly not all of them. But he’s still probably the most influential tenor man of his generation. Why is that?
Perhaps you haven’t heard of Turner, if you don’t follow modern jazz closely. He hasn’t put out any records as a clear leader for about 10 years now; he has no website. But he has an innovative sonic signature, a certain floating chromaticism, rhythmic mindfulness and lightness of tone, filled with subtleties. Basically, his music has personality, which keeps the best musicians ringing his phone, and the aspiring ones listening hard.
Watch Live On Tuesday, June 21 At 9 p.m. ET
Personnel
Mark Turner, tenor saxophone
David Virelles, piano
Ben Street, bass
Paul Motian (!), drums
See the full article here. And come back for the videocast.
by Olivia Giovetti of WQXR and Q2
June 12, 2011
Olivia Giovetti
“Nico Muhly has a flair for entrances. His 2007 album, Speaks Volumes, opens with a cello toward the apex of its register that quickly takes a multi-octave plunge. Mothertongue, from 2008, frenetically launches with a repeated high-octane read-through of the alphabet. Last year’s I Drink the Air Before Me pierces with a series of staccato arrows paired with more luscious, ominous rumbles, while its sister release, A Good Understanding, is heralded by a bracing organ flourish.
Nico Muhly
Varied though these opening salvos may be, they always signal a true listening experience. With his newest album, Seeing Is Believing, Muhly doesn’t let listeners down: A repeated arabesque on a violin curves and twirls as several additional layers of strings and percussion are added to the spiral, at once complementing and contrasting the title work’s first four notes, culminating with the addition of winds. It’s not unlike the ever-expanding universe, the mapping of which inspired this concerto for solo electric six-string violin. For nearly 30 minutes, Muhly commands rapt attention, referencing influences from former mentor Philip Glass to Stravinsky, circa Rite of Spring, and Ravel at his most impressionistic.”
Nico Muhly Seeing Is Believeing
Bedroom Community
Released via Decca Records
See the full article, and listen to the whole album or individual tracks here.
NPR/music continues to expand its presence in our musical lives with First Listen. Full albums are offered in streaming. Take a listen, then buy the music from the artists of your choice.
Erik Friedlander
“Erik Friedlander is resolutely a cellist. His Pettiford-inspired 2008 recording, Broken Arm Trio, rests firmly in the subset of jazz cello music. Friedlander’s newest recording, Bonebridge, congeals that trio (bassist Trevor Dunn, drummer Mike Sarin) with another jazz outlier: Tennessean Doug Wamble and his resonating slide guitar.
‘ It hit me like a ton of bricks,’ Friedlander says. ‘ I was really writing another book of music for the Broken Arm Trio. The music, however, was pushing me in another direction, and I was working against myself. I needed to uncork it. I thought slide guitar. It’s got the legato, soulful vibe, and it’s similar to the cello, but it’s completely different. So I wanted to play with that tension and see what happens when you put us together.’
See the full article and stream the complete album or individual tracks here.
“92YTribeca and WBGO present The Checkout: Live from 92YTribeca, a new series created by Joshua Jackson, host of WBGO’s hour-long music magazine The Checkout, who is widely recognized as an unparalleled enthusiast for modern expressions in jazz. Curated by Jackson in conjunction with 92YTribeca, The Checkout: Live will convene some of the most exciting and innovative players on the NYC scene for monthly concerts that will be broadcast live on WBGO as well as streamed on WBGO.org. Portions will also be recorded for future broadcast and podcast as part of The Checkout.
Josh Jackson
The Checkout: Live series will also be video webcast live and archived at NPR Music as part of NPR Music’s ongoing commitment to bring the vibrant jazz scene to a nationwide audience through its website and mobile apps.”
See the full JazzCorner article here.
Watch A Live Webcast Wednesday, May 25 At 9 p.m. ET.
May 24, 2011
“There’s no one standard model of jazz, but there are standards. There’s a standard repertoire, for sure; also, standard conventions of instrumentation, group interaction, overall “sound.” Trumpeter Roy Hargrove, when he commits to playing straight-ahead jazz, leads a quintet that is very comfortable with those standards. If you’re new to jazz, it would seem distantly familiar, like how you might imagine jazz to be. If you aren’t new to jazz, you might just find it proves how satisfying those standards remain, and how much room for self-expression is in them.
R.H.
Same guy, maybe a bit younger?
It’s what’s made Roy Hargrove a star in the jazz world, and what allows the Roy Hargrove quintet to play two straight weeks at the world-famous Village Vanguard in New York City. WBGO and NPR Music will present a live on-air broadcast and live video webcast of the band’s early performance this Wednesday, May 25 at 9 p.m. ET. The video and live chat will be hosted on this page.
See the full article also at the same page.
Nico Muhly: Gaming One’s Way Into Classical Music
“I want to offer a slightly more obscure but, I think, much more popular (in terms of numbers) counterexample. Although my parents had classical music on LP’s in the house, the childhood music I remember the most vividly is fragments from either live performances or, strangely, video games at my friends’ houses.
For me, living in the country, playing a video game was sort of like music minus one: The actions of my hands informed, in a strange way, the things I heard. Collect a coin, and a delighted glockenspiel sounds. Move from navigating a level above ground to one below ground, and the eager French chromaticism of the score changes to a spare, beat-driven minimal texture. Hit a star, and suddenly the score does a metric modulation. All of these things come to bear in a later musical education; I’m positive I understand how augmented chords change an emotional texture because of Nintendo music.
These are private musical revelations that happened in the manic, parched late-night of a sleepover, but then came to bear later in the context of actual chamber music.”
See the full article here.
