Jazzhouse Diaries

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?

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Posted by hman under Howard Mandel | Comments Off on Howard Mandel: Splendors of Brooklyn

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.

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Posted by lbumenfeld under Larry Blumenfeld | Comments Off on Larry Blumenfeld: How Herbie Learned the Lyrics