May 6th 2008
By Larry Blumenfeld
For years, Arturo O’Farrill says, his wife would ask as he left for work, “Is this a ‘Gon-ki gon-ki gon-ki’ gig? ” Meant as an inside joke — they’re both musicians — the question couched a simple truth: Much of what passes for Latin jazz is caricature, exemplified by a single watered-down rhythmic phrase to approximate a vast sea of musical culture.
Continue Reading »
May 6th 2008
By Lyn Horton
In March of ‘08, an email came into my inbox from The Jazz Institute in Darmstadt, Germany about a three-day panel discussion on jazz journalism.
Continue Reading »
May 6th 2008
By Larry Blumenfeld
“Condoms. Tampons. Excess hair. SMALL AN-I-MALS!”
Continue Reading »
March 12th 2008
By Lyn Horton
Reading Ben Ratliff’s 200-page book, Coltrane: The Story of a Sound, is close to being on a roller-coaster ride. The subject matter of John Coltrane alone has absorbed the energy of countless students. Yet Ratliff makes an effort to enter the mystery of how Coltrane generated his music. But, the author’s consciousness takes a vacation.
March 12th 2008
By Mike Zwerin
Many people complain that jazz ain’t what it used to be, and it always gives me pleasure to disprove it.
March 10th 2008
Mardi Gras Indian Chiefs Stand
Spectacular, Tall, and Proud
Doing their part to keep New Orleans culture alive
by Larry Blumenfeld
“It’s amazing how much joy and hope these beads and feathers bring.”
The Sunday before Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Donald Harrison Jr., Big Chief of the Congo Nation, son of Big Chief Donald Sr., lay on the living-room floor of his mother’s house in the Ninth Ward, cutting leopard-print fur in a pattern as he spoke. Nearby, a sofa and chair were covered with beads and rhinestones, along with ostrich and turkey feathers that had been dyed a golden yellow. Harrison was preparing to “mask,” to enact the city’s least-understood tradition, and these days, perhaps, its most essential: Mardi Gras Indian culture. These rituals, which date to at least the mid-1800s, are an African-American homage to the Native Americans who once sheltered runaway slaves and to the spirit of resistance.
March 5th 2008
By Larry Blumenfeld
If any music label’s identity is staked to that of American jazz, it is Blue Note Records. Beginning with its launch in 1939, and especially since the 1950s, Blue Note has chronicled jazz’s progression, while becoming an intrinsic element of the American musical landscape. The musical ferment of New York City from 1950-70 among a close-knit cadre of jazz players can be fairly well-depicted by a succession of the distinctive album covers designed by Reid Miles, often featuring iconic black-and-white photographs taken by Francis Wolff. The two men behind Blue Note’s formation, Alfred Lion and Wolff, were immigrants from Germany, a detail especially worth noting in light of the fact that, so far this year, the Blue Note banner has been waved most emphatically by two musicians born and raised outside the United States: pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, from Havana, Cuba; and guitarist Lionel Loueke, from Benin, Africa. Continue Reading »
March 3rd 2008
By Lyn Horton
What does the jazz writer know about the creative experience? That is the first question that the writer must ask himself when attempting to write about music that is fashioned spontaneously, intuitively, from the heart, from the gut, from the spirit, from living…the struggles, the hardships, the joys and the love.
Continue Reading »
February 29th 2008
The move-to borough’s expanding scene: on a Saturday night the “creative music community” has a choice of alluring concerts.
Has it happened — Brooklyn become the center of the avant world?
February 12th 2008
The scene has been enacted countless times in coffee shops and dorm rooms: Folks sitting around and listening to or, maybe, just reading Joni Mitchell lyrics, digging for biographical facts, mulling over meanings, exclaiming “ooh” or “ahh” at an unexpected image drawn with words. But in May 2007, these were no college students on study break, no latte-sipping dilettantes kicking back, dissecting Mitchell’s work. This was Herbie Hancock reading aloud the lyrics of “Court and Spark.” And that was Wayne Shorter clapping his hands as he let out a deep sigh of recognition. It was the prelude to a session at Hollywood’s Ocean Way Recording studio for Hancock’s new album, River: The Joni Letters (Verve), which turned out to be not so much a tribute to Mitchell as an investment by a master musician in the power of exalted lyrics.