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MARC MYERS
FEBRUARY 7, 2012

“On Saturday, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences will honor Mr. [Rudy] Van Gelder with a Trustees Award—a Grammy that recognizes his lifelong contribution to jazz recording. As an engineer, Mr. Van Gelder is credited with revolutionizing the sound of music in the LP era—capturing the distinct textures of each instrument and giving jazz albums a warm, natural tone.

Mr. Van Gelder is still a stickler for details. Since 1952, the 87-year-old engineer has recorded thousands of jazz albums—first at his parents’ home in Hackensack, N.J., and then here [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.]. The lengthy list includes Miles Davis’s “Workin’,” Sonny Rollins’s “Saxophone Colossus,” Art Blakey’s “Moanin’,” John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme,” Wayne Shorter’s “Speak No Evil” and Freddie Hubbard’s “Red Clay.”

See the full article here. Or, hey!! Buy the paper.

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Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim
January 28, 2012
“Last week’s concert by flutist Claire Chase at (Le) Poisson Rouge, celebrating the release of her new CD “Terrestre,” offered no shortage of athletic challenges and technical sorcery of its own. But what struck me the most about the recent compositions for flute was the return of the breath. By turns expressive, mysterious, and dramatic, it was always unapologetically human. As Chase later told me over the phone, ‘Breath is the one thing we can’t live without. As flute players, it’s something we should honor.’ ”

Claire Chase

See the full article here.

Ms Chase is the leader of ICE – The International Contemporary Ensemble.

At Q2 from New York Public Radio, you can find three long form videocast concerts by ICELAB, the performance group from ICE. Just visit Q2 and search on ICELAB.

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LARRY BLUMENFELD
DECEMBER 10, 2011

“During a recent Symphony Space concert, bassist Andy Gonzalez stepped forward to conduct a few tunes. He passed his instrument to Luques Curtis, whose tone and dexterity soon reflected preternatural skills. The concert, hosted by the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, was a tribute to Mr. Gonzalez and his brother Jerry [probably best know as the core of the Fort Apache Band, who plays congas and trumpet. These siblings of Puerto Rican descent, now in their 60s, represent an empowering bridge between a grand generation of Latin-jazz masters and the younger musicians who now take innate connections between Latin and jazz idioms as mere starting points…

Jerry and Andy Gonzales

“Mr. Curtis belongs to that latter group. So does his older brother Zaccai, a pianist who led a quartet with Mr. Gonzalez two weeks later, at Lehman College. If the Curtises aren’t yet a sibling team worthy of a tribute concert, they nevertheless command attention….”

Zaccai , left, and his brother Luques, right, have shared a passion for Latin jazz for most of their lives.

See the full article here.

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By WILL FRIEDWALD
Friday Nov 11, 2011

“Joe Lovano will perform Coltrane’s ‘Ascension’ in its entirety.
at the Jazz Standard 116 E. 27th St., Nov. 16
(212) 576-2232

Joe Lovano… [is]going to be playing the whole piece on Wednesday with a stellar lineup co-starring fellow saxophonists Donny McCaslin, Sabir Mateen and Vincent Herring, brassmen Jeremy Pelt (a good stand-in for Freddie Hubbard), and the double drum team of Billy Drummond and Matt Wilson…Recorded in June 1965 and released the following year, “Ascension” is one of the albums that defined the 1960s…It’s often described as the record on which Coltrane made his final break with every kind of jazz that he’d been involved with up until then—bebop, modal jazz, his so-called “sheets of sound”—and plunged head first and irrevocably into the icy waters of the avant-garde.”

Joe Lovano

See Will’s full article here.

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WILL FRIEDWALD
OCTOBER 27, 2011

“Mr. Corea has expressed himself in countless, widely disparate ensembles, in formats ranging from world-music ensembles to bebop trios to free-form collectives to symphony orchestras. Throughout November, he’ll lead 10 of these combinations in a monthlong celebration of his 70th birthday at the Blue Note club on West Third Street.”

Chick in 2009

Chick Corea will perform with Herbie Hancock, Brian Blade and others.

[Comparing the two photos, I am motivated to ask about what looks like a significant loss of weight. Unhealthy?]

See the full article here.

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WILL FRIEDWALD
October 18, 2011

“Trumpets will be center stage during the two most attention-worthy events this week: the ninth annual Festival of New Trumpet Music, or FONT, which is honoring the 81-year-old veteran brass guru Kenny Wheeler starting Thursday at Jazz Standard; and Tom Harrell’s week-long run at the Village Vanguard starting Tuesday, which features two different ensembles and amounts to a celebration of that veteran trumpeter-composer.”

Festival of New Trumpet Music, at the Jazz Standard.

Tom Harrell

See the full article here.

Whirling Through a Wynton Wonderland is Will Friedwald’s title in today’s Wall Street Journal. This is copyright protected, so just a riff.

Wynton Marsalis

“Trumpeter-composer-bandleader Wynton Marsalis has long acknowledged his debt to Duke Ellington—it’s hard to miss it in the specific voicings that he employs for trumpet and brass sections, and in the way those sections interact with one another. Yet it’s also there in the way he and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra deport themselves. Also, like Ellington, Mr. Marsalis has mastered the art of sequencing the most attractive sections from his many extended works. In fact, he often surprises this long-time listener, because the most joyous and hard-swinging selections turn out to be from long-form pieces that I never regarded as completely successful, like Back to Basics from Blood on the Fields. Wynton Marsalis at 50 is an exceedingly entertaining assemblage of highlights, a three-ring circus of a concert that keenly focuses on the expansive vision of a single maestro. “

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By STUART ISACOFF
8.30.2011

“Sometimes the most crucial elements in a musical work are the least noticed. A symphony’s slowly shifting harmonies shape its dramatic structure, yet audiences will more likely notice the fancy figurations that skitter above them. The same is true of jazz bassists, who lay down the foundation in a musical ensemble, yet often remain in the shadows. Ron Carter, who will be leading a big band at Jazz Standard from Tuesday through Sunday, is an exception: His skill, taste and creativity compel us to pay attention.

R.C.

See the full article about this master of the bass here.

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By WILL FRIEDWALD
AUGUST 3, 2011

“…every time the composer and pianist Cedar Walton releases a new album (as he has just done with The Bouncer) or brings his band to Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola (which he is doing for the next two weeks), you will hear at least one unforgettable new melody, and it will remain in your head for much longer than the train ride home.”

See the full article here.

Cedar Walton

Cedar Walton The Bouncer
High Note 757223 (2011)

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By WILL FRIEDWALD
JULY 19, 2011

“On Tuesday, pianist Bill Charlap will open the annual Jazz in July series at the 92nd Street Y. It will be his seventh year at the helm of the two-week festival, which was launched in 1985 by Dick Hyman, yet the circumstances under which the event’s six concerts are presented today are vastly different from those in Mr. Hyman’s day.

B.C.

‘ When Dick Hyman asked me if I want to take over, he said, Do this your way, don’t feel like you have to continue what I’ve been doing,’ Mr. Charlap said, acknowledging that the series has jumped ahead a generation since his appointment as its artistic director, from a traditional jazz outlook to a bebop base. ‘ Still,’ he said, ‘ the goal with everything we do is to swing. But I’m having a lot of fun with it. It becomes easier every year.’ “

Read the full article here.