Music column

28/07/2021

a*z at Lincoln Center’s Swing University “Summer of Saxophone”
For its 20th anniversary, the adult education program focuses on the work of great reed men (and women)

PUBLISHED JULY 22, 2021 – BYJAZZTIMES
Sonny Rollins at the Go-Go Club, Loosdrecht, Netherlands, May 5, 1967
Sonny Rollins at the Go-Go Club, Loosdrecht, Netherlands, May 5, 1967 (photographer unknown/courtesy of Beeld en Geluid)
Swing University, the virtual adult education component of Ja*z at Lincoln Center, is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2021. It will mark the milestone with a new summer program called Summer of Saxophone, guiding pupils through the work of the great ja*z saxophonists.

Summer of Saxophone studies figures such as Benny Carter, Lester Young, Vi Redd, Sonny Rollins, and many others. Teachers include saxophonists Mark Gross, Oliver Lake, Allen Lowe, Yunie Mojica, Loren Schoenberg, Camille Thurman, and others, as well as JALC Director of Public Programs Seton Hawkins.

The Swing University virtual summer term runs from August 1 to September 8. The complete class schedule is below.

The Lost Generation: Great Ja*z Saxophonists of the 1950s
Instructor: Allen Lowe
Sundays, 3 p.m. ET
August 1, 8, 15, 22, 29

28/07/2021

Live Ja*z Returns to NYC, Part 1
The start of a four-day post-lockdown ja*z show-watching marathon in New York City

PUBLISHED JULY 23, 2021 – BYLEE MERGNER
Ken Peplowski, Martin Wind, Ted Rosenthal, and Matt Wilson at Birdland
L to R: Ken Peplowski, Martin Wind, Matt Wilson, and Ted Rosenthal at Birdland, New York, July 17, 2021 (photo by Lee Mergner)
With so many New York ja*z clubs and venues now reopening their doors to more than just black-garbed audio and video production people for live streams, it seemed that the time was right to assess what’s really happening—for the musicians, for the fans, and for the music itself. So I came from hot sweltering Washington, DC to hot sweltering NYC in order to go to as many shows as I could manage in the span of four days and nights. Have MetroCard, will travel. What I saw was revealing in many ways, reflecting the myriad challenges faced by both the ja*z community and the world at large.

My first show on Saturday night turned out to be two shows, or more accurately two sets, by a band led by Ken Peplowski at Birdland, a club located in the super-pricy neighborhood of Times Square (Hell’s Kitchen, actually, but that doesn’t sound quite as attractive to tourists using Google Maps). Located just off 8th Avenue on 44th Street near numerous theaters hoping to open in September, the club is one of the best venues in the city to hear ja*z or any music, with its professional sound and lighting and tiered, not-so-squeezed-in seating. Gianni Valenti, the vigorous and hands-on owner, was faced with an epic challenge last year, having recently created a second, smaller room at the same location just a year or so before the pandemic, leaving him with a very, very large nut to crack.

Like many—make that all—ja*z club owners who paradoxically don’t own the physical space that their clubs occupy, Valenti was faced with the prospect of having to pay a monthly rent on a business that was returning zero revenue for what at first seemed like it would only be a month or two, but soon stretched into more than a year. As he watched other clubs like Ja*z Standard and Blues Alley in DC throw in the towel on their leases, Valenti turned to the online crowdfunding platform GoFundMe for a campaign to keep the hope alive. It worked. On July 1, the club presented its first shows to live audiences since 2020 with sets from Emmet Cohen, who fittingly has been perhaps the most successful artist at navigating the pandemic landscape, thanks in large part to a weekly Monday-night stream series via Facebook called Live from Emmet’s Place that presented great live shows with his trio and special guests.

28/07/2021

Compilation on Newvelle Honors the Late Frank Kimbrough
Sales of Kimbrough—which features Joe Lovano, Dave Douglas, and many more—will benefit the new Juilliard scholarship in the pianist/composer's name

PUBLISHED JULY 23, 2021 – BYJAZZTIMES
Cover of Newvelle Records' Kimbrough compilation
Cover of Newvelle Records’ Kimbrough compilation
Pianist Frank Kimbrough, who passed away after a heart attack in December 2020, was a beloved musician, educator, and composer who built a formidable legacy in his 64 years. Newvelle Records is celebrating that legacy with the release of Kimbrough, a compilation of his compositions as performed by many of his associates.

Recorded over three days in May, the album is a 61-track digital anthology of Kimbrough’s original compositions—including “Quickening,” “Lullabluebye,” “Capricorn Lady,” and “Eventualities”—available as a high-quality download from Bandcamp. The performances feature an enclave of 67 of Kimbrough’s friends, bandmates, collaborators, and students, representing four generations of musicians who gathered to commemorate his life and work.

The musicians—ranging from Joe Lovano, Dave Douglas, Fred Hersch, and Matt Wilson to Alexa Tarantino, Ryan Keberle, and Immanuel Wilkins—form 55 different configurations across the 61 tunes.

All proceeds from sales of the compilation will benefit the new Frank Kimbrough Ja*z Scholarship at the Juilliard School in New York City, where the pianist was a longtime faculty member.

28/07/2021

Fire Music Documentary to See National Release
Tom Surgal's film on the history of avant-garde ja*z will premiere in New York and L.A. in September

PUBLISHED JULY 26, 2021 – BYJAZZTIMES
Sun Ra in December 1968, as seen in Tom Surgal's Fire Music
Sun Ra in December 1968, as seen in Tom Surgal’s Fire Music (photo: Baron Wolman)
Fire Music, Tom Surgal’s 2018 documentary about the ja*z avant-garde, is finally receiving a wide release. The film will have its theatrical premiere at New York’s Film Forum on September 10, with a Los Angeles premiere following at Laemmle Glendale on September 17. A national release will follow.

Eleven years in the making, Fire Music traces the origins and history of the free-ja*z movement. Featuring archival footage of such pioneers as Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra (in a riotous German TV performance that literally gets things off to a smashing start), Cecil Taylor, Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, and others, the film clearly demonstrates the lines that link avant-garde ja*z to earlier styles like swing and bebop. Critic Gary Giddins, as well as a number of important players in the movement—several of whom, such as Prince Lasha, Roswell Rudd, and Sonny Simmons, have since passed away—provide further insights. “I only half-mockingly refer to this project as the parts that were left out of Ken Burns’ [2001 PBS documentary series] Ja*z,” Surgal said about the film in a 2018 interview with Ja*zTimes.

Fire Music was an official selection of the 2018 New York Film Festival, where it received its world premiere.

28/07/2021

Lyle Mays’ Final Studio Work to Be Released in August
The late pianist and composer's "mini-symphony" Eberhard was recorded in 2019 and 2020

PUBLISHED JULY 27, 2021 – BYJAZZTIMES
Lyle Mays
Lyle Mays
Lyle Mays, the longtime pianist and keyboardist for the Pat Metheny Group, passed away in February 2020 after a long illness. Before his death, however, Mays worked hard to complete a final, large-scale piece in tribute to one of his heroes. That work is now being released posthumously as Eberhard, available as an independent release on August 27.

Eberhard—named after and dedicated to German bassist and composer Eberhard Weber, whom Mays considered a profound influence—is a “mini-symphony”: a 13-minute, long-form, multi-sectional composition for 16 musicians, including a cello quartet and a three-piece vocal section (with Mays’ niece, Aubrey Johnson, as the featured vocalist). The ensemble also includes such august players as saxophonist Bob Sheppard, guitarist Bill Frisell, and drummer/percussionist Alex Acuña.

Recording for the project took place between August 2019 and January 2020 in Los Angeles. Mays died on February 10, working on this final statement until almost the very end.

26/07/2021

https://ucclub.ru/ja*z/

В самом центре Москвы, в Брюсовом переулке, расположился джаз клуб «Союз композиторов». Джаз – это стиль импровизации. Важнейшим видом импровизационной музыки явл...