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Free Concert at Rutgers Featuring Richard Wyands, 12-3-14

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The Institute of Jazz Studies is presenting our second concert in our 2014-15 concert series called: Jazz Piano: Contemporary Currents. The concert is free and takes place from 2-4 PM in the Dana Room on the fourth floor of the John Cotton Dana Library on the Rutgers-Newark campus. So please join us for the following:

Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 2-4 pm

Richard Wyands

RIchard Wyands is a hard bop pianist best known as a side-man. He began playing in his teens in San Francisco, but later moved to New York City. He worked with guitarist Kenny Burrell in the 1960s and also played in Gigi Gryce’s quintet. He moved to New York in 1958, where he played with Roy Haynes, Charles Mingus, Gigi Gryce, and others. Wyands has also headed his own trios, but has only had a handful of sessions as a leader thus far including a 1978 date for Storyville (Then, Here And Now), a 1992 date for DIW (The Arrival), a 1995 date for Criss Cross (Reunited), as well as sessions for Steeplechase (Get Out of Town), Venus (Lady of the Lavender Mist), and Savant (As Long As There’s Music).

For directions to Rutgers:

—
Vincent Pelote
Interim Director
Institute of Jazz Studies
Rutgers University
Dana Library
185 University Avenue
Newark, NJ 07102
phone: 973-353-5595
email: pelote@rulmail.rutgers.edu (mailto:pelote@rulmail.rutgers.edu)

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Free Concert at Rutgers Featuring Richard Wyands, 12-3-14

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676

The Institute of Jazz Studies is presenting our second concert in our 2014-15 concert series called: Jazz Piano: Contemporary Currents. The concert is free and takes place from 2-4 PM in the Dana Room on the fourth floor of the John Cotton Dana Library on the Rutgers-Newark campus. So please join us for the following:

Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 2-4 pm

Richard Wyands

RIchard Wyands is a hard bop pianist best known as a side-man. He began playing in his teens in San Francisco, but later moved to New York City. He worked with guitarist Kenny Burrell in the 1960s and also played in Gigi Gryce’s quintet. He moved to New York in 1958, where he played with Roy Haynes, Charles Mingus, Gigi Gryce, and others. Wyands has also headed his own trios, but has only had a handful of sessions as a leader thus far including a 1978 date for Storyville (Then, Here And Now), a 1992 date for DIW (The Arrival), a 1995 date for Criss Cross (Reunited), as well as sessions for Steeplechase (Get Out of Town), Venus (Lady of the Lavender Mist), and Savant (As Long As There’s Music).

For directions to Rutgers:

—
Vincent Pelote
Interim Director
Institute of Jazz Studies
Rutgers University
Dana Library
185 University Avenue
Newark, NJ 07102
phone: 973-353-5595
email: pelote@rulmail.rutgers.edu (mailto:pelote@rulmail.rutgers.edu)

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From: Desert Island Jazz David May
Looking for some help identifying the musicians in this photo; pianist Jack Wilson is standing in the doorway, early 60’s, probably at the Cotton Club in Atlantic City, NJ. Does anyone recognize the other three?

Thank you.

David May
Desert Island Jazz
WHFC 91.1 FM
Bel Air, MD

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Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

Help with a Photo

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676

From: Desert Island Jazz David May
Looking for some help identifying the musicians in this photo; pianist Jack Wilson is standing in the doorway, early 60’s, probably at the Cotton Club in Atlantic City, NJ. Does anyone recognize the other three?

Thank you.

David May
Desert Island Jazz
WHFC 91.1 FM
Bel Air, MD

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=f2c80cb039) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=f2c80cb039&e=[UNIQID])

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE ON THIS MAILING LIST PLEASE RESPOND WITH ‘REMOVE’ IN THE SUBJECT LINE. IF YOU ARE RECEIVING DUPLICATE EMAILS OUR APOLOGIES, JAZZ PROMO SERVICES ANNOUNCEMENT LIST IS GROWING LARGER EVERY DAY…..PLEASE LET US KNOW AND WE WILL FIX IT IMMEDIATELY!

Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

Help with a Photo

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676

From: Desert Island Jazz David May
Looking for some help identifying the musicians in this photo; pianist Jack Wilson is standing in the doorway, early 60’s, probably at the Cotton Club in Atlantic City, NJ. Does anyone recognize the other three?

Thank you.

David May
Desert Island Jazz
WHFC 91.1 FM
Bel Air, MD

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=f2c80cb039) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=f2c80cb039&e=[UNIQID])

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE ON THIS MAILING LIST PLEASE RESPOND WITH ‘REMOVE’ IN THE SUBJECT LINE. IF YOU ARE RECEIVING DUPLICATE EMAILS OUR APOLOGIES, JAZZ PROMO SERVICES ANNOUNCEMENT LIST IS GROWING LARGER EVERY DAY…..PLEASE LET US KNOW AND WE WILL FIX IT IMMEDIATELY!

Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

Help with a Photo

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676

From: Desert Island Jazz David May
Looking for some help identifying the musicians in this photo; pianist Jack Wilson is standing in the doorway, early 60’s, probably at the Cotton Club in Atlantic City, NJ. Does anyone recognize the other three?

Thank you.

David May
Desert Island Jazz
WHFC 91.1 FM
Bel Air, MD

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=30f51a27b7) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=30f51a27b7&e=[UNIQID])

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE ON THIS MAILING LIST PLEASE RESPOND WITH ‘REMOVE’ IN THE SUBJECT LINE. IF YOU ARE RECEIVING DUPLICATE EMAILS OUR APOLOGIES, JAZZ PROMO SERVICES ANNOUNCEMENT LIST IS GROWING LARGER EVERY DAY…..PLEASE LET US KNOW AND WE WILL FIX IT IMMEDIATELY!

Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

Help with a Photo

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676

From: Desert Island Jazz David May
Looking for some help identifying the musicians in this photo; pianist Jack Wilson is standing in the doorway, early 60’s, probably at the Cotton Club in Atlantic City, NJ. Does anyone recognize the other three?

Thank you.

David May
Desert Island Jazz
WHFC 91.1 FM
Bel Air, MD

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=30f51a27b7) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=30f51a27b7&e=[UNIQID])

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Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

Help with a Photo

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676

From: Desert Island Jazz David May
Looking for some help identifying the musicians in this photo; pianist Jack Wilson is standing in the doorway, early 60’s, probably at the Cotton Club in Atlantic City, NJ. Does anyone recognize the other three?

Thank you.

David May
Desert Island Jazz
WHFC 91.1 FM
Bel Air, MD

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=30f51a27b7) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=30f51a27b7&e=[UNIQID])

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE ON THIS MAILING LIST PLEASE RESPOND WITH ‘REMOVE’ IN THE SUBJECT LINE. IF YOU ARE RECEIVING DUPLICATE EMAILS OUR APOLOGIES, JAZZ PROMO SERVICES ANNOUNCEMENT LIST IS GROWING LARGER EVERY DAY…..PLEASE LET US KNOW AND WE WILL FIX IT IMMEDIATELY!

Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

Doc Cheatham and Percy France at the West End (1980)

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Respond to this post by replying above this line

** New post on Crownpropeller’s Blog
————————————————————
http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/author/crownpropeller/

** Doc Cheatham and Percy France at the West End (1980) (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/doc-cheatham-and-percy-france-at-the-west-end-1980/)
————————————————————
by crownpropeller (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/author/crownpropeller/)

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheatham_blow.jpeg

(Click to enlarge): Doc Cheatham at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980.
Photo by Otto Flückiger

In the early 1980s in New York the place to be when you were in the mood to listen to some legendary swing and bop veterans was the West End on Broadway near Columbia, where Phil Schaap was curating the program.

During his 1980 trip to the USA my friend the late jazz researcher Otto Flückiger went to the West End to see the band led by Doc Cheatham (1905–1997), who had been Cab Calloway’s lead trumpeter from 1932 to 1939. In the early 1980s Cheatham was said to play better then ever before, because he had started practicing again, in the process ridding his playing of any cliches that had crept into his work through the years.

As always Otto made some photos and recorded a little music at the West End.

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cd_inlet.jpg

Inlet for the CD onto which Otto copied his original tape. Unfortunately the original photograph does not seem to exist anymore.

I have not yet found Otto’s original tapes, but I found a CD onto which Otto had edited the concert down. Since all the announcements have been edited out, I can not tell which of the tracks was recorded on May 21 and which on May 22.

The tenor player with Doc Cheatham was the totally underrated Percy France. Interestingly, France is announced with his own group at the West End for May 23 and 24! Was Cheatham France’s trumpeter then?

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/percy_france.jpg

(Click to enlarge): Percy France at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980.
Photo by Otto Flückiger

Otto got to know Percy France a little (I do not know if they first met at this concert). France had been playing with Bill Doggett in the early 1950s. He told Otto that the band had already played Doggett’s “Honky Tonk” while he was there. But since it looked like this band will never have the success it deserved, France left. Half a year later “Honky Tonk” became one of the biggest R’n’B instrumentals ever!

Back to the West End in 1980, here is Doc Cheatham’s band playing “Indiana”:

cheathamindiana.mp3 (http://www.jazzdocumentation.ch//blog/cheathamindiana.mp3)

Unfortunately audio quality is not that good, especially the pianist is hardly to be heard. Maybe he was not to be seen either? At least Otto has no photograph of him and added a “probably” to Sonny Donaldson’s name. Maybe the pianist’s name was announced and Otto was not sure if he heard it right?

If we take the “probably” on the cover as pertaining to the pianist only, then this must be a photo of drummer Ronnie Cole at the West End:

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheathams_drummer.jpg

(Click to enlarge): Ronnie Cole (or is he?) at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980. Photo by Otto Flückiger

The bassist can be seen in the back of a photo that prominently shows Cheatham:

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheatham_to_the_sky.jpeg

(Click to enlarge): Peck Morrison (???) and Doc Cheatham at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980. Photo by Otto Flückiger

Finally there are two photos showing a second trumpeter besides Doc Cheatham. There also glimpses of the drummer again.https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheatham_and_2ndtp_wide.jpg

(Click to enlarge): Doc Cheatham and unidentified trumpeter at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980. Photo by Otto Flückiger

Unfortunately I have no idea about the second trumpet man’s identity – and he can not be heard on the eight tracks saved by Otto. If you do have any suggestions, please let me know.

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheatham_and_2ndtp.jpg

(Click to enlarge): Doc Cheatham and unidentified trumpeter at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980. Photo by Otto Flückiger

Finally here are Doc Cheatham and Band playing “Rosetta”:

cheathamrosetta.mp3 (http://www.jazzdocumentation.ch//blog/cheathamrosetta.mp3)

Enjoy!

crownpropeller (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/author/crownpropeller/) | November 16, 2014 at 5:46 pm | Tags: Doc Cheatham (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=doc-cheatham) , Indiana (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=indiana) , jazz (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=jazz) , Peck Morrison (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=peck-morrison) , Percy France (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=percy-france) , Ronnie Cole (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=ronnie-cole) , Rosetta (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=rosetta) , Sonny Donaldson (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=sonny-donaldson) , West End (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=west-end) | Categories: Doc Cheatham (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?cat=3208002) , documents (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?cat=17783) , jazz (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?cat=21992) , Percy France (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?cat=16893890) |
URL: http://wp.me/pOgZZ-ND

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PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE ON THIS MAILING LIST PLEASE RESPOND WITH ‘REMOVE’ IN THE SUBJECT LINE. IF YOU ARE RECEIVING DUPLICATE EMAILS OUR APOLOGIES, JAZZ PROMO SERVICES ANNOUNCEMENT LIST IS GROWING LARGER EVERY DAY…..PLEASE LET US KNOW AND WE WILL FIX IT IMMEDIATELY!

Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

Doc Cheatham and Percy France at the West End (1980)

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676

Respond to this post by replying above this line

** New post on Crownpropeller’s Blog
————————————————————
http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/author/crownpropeller/

** Doc Cheatham and Percy France at the West End (1980) (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/doc-cheatham-and-percy-france-at-the-west-end-1980/)
————————————————————
by crownpropeller (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/author/crownpropeller/)

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheatham_blow.jpeg

(Click to enlarge): Doc Cheatham at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980.
Photo by Otto Flückiger

In the early 1980s in New York the place to be when you were in the mood to listen to some legendary swing and bop veterans was the West End on Broadway near Columbia, where Phil Schaap was curating the program.

During his 1980 trip to the USA my friend the late jazz researcher Otto Flückiger went to the West End to see the band led by Doc Cheatham (1905–1997), who had been Cab Calloway’s lead trumpeter from 1932 to 1939. In the early 1980s Cheatham was said to play better then ever before, because he had started practicing again, in the process ridding his playing of any cliches that had crept into his work through the years.

As always Otto made some photos and recorded a little music at the West End.

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cd_inlet.jpg

Inlet for the CD onto which Otto copied his original tape. Unfortunately the original photograph does not seem to exist anymore.

I have not yet found Otto’s original tapes, but I found a CD onto which Otto had edited the concert down. Since all the announcements have been edited out, I can not tell which of the tracks was recorded on May 21 and which on May 22.

The tenor player with Doc Cheatham was the totally underrated Percy France. Interestingly, France is announced with his own group at the West End for May 23 and 24! Was Cheatham France’s trumpeter then?

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/percy_france.jpg

(Click to enlarge): Percy France at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980.
Photo by Otto Flückiger

Otto got to know Percy France a little (I do not know if they first met at this concert). France had been playing with Bill Doggett in the early 1950s. He told Otto that the band had already played Doggett’s “Honky Tonk” while he was there. But since it looked like this band will never have the success it deserved, France left. Half a year later “Honky Tonk” became one of the biggest R’n’B instrumentals ever!

Back to the West End in 1980, here is Doc Cheatham’s band playing “Indiana”:

cheathamindiana.mp3 (http://www.jazzdocumentation.ch//blog/cheathamindiana.mp3)

Unfortunately audio quality is not that good, especially the pianist is hardly to be heard. Maybe he was not to be seen either? At least Otto has no photograph of him and added a “probably” to Sonny Donaldson’s name. Maybe the pianist’s name was announced and Otto was not sure if he heard it right?

If we take the “probably” on the cover as pertaining to the pianist only, then this must be a photo of drummer Ronnie Cole at the West End:

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheathams_drummer.jpg

(Click to enlarge): Ronnie Cole (or is he?) at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980. Photo by Otto Flückiger

The bassist can be seen in the back of a photo that prominently shows Cheatham:

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheatham_to_the_sky.jpeg

(Click to enlarge): Peck Morrison (???) and Doc Cheatham at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980. Photo by Otto Flückiger

Finally there are two photos showing a second trumpeter besides Doc Cheatham. There also glimpses of the drummer again.https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheatham_and_2ndtp_wide.jpg

(Click to enlarge): Doc Cheatham and unidentified trumpeter at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980. Photo by Otto Flückiger

Unfortunately I have no idea about the second trumpet man’s identity – and he can not be heard on the eight tracks saved by Otto. If you do have any suggestions, please let me know.

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheatham_and_2ndtp.jpg

(Click to enlarge): Doc Cheatham and unidentified trumpeter at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980. Photo by Otto Flückiger

Finally here are Doc Cheatham and Band playing “Rosetta”:

cheathamrosetta.mp3 (http://www.jazzdocumentation.ch//blog/cheathamrosetta.mp3)

Enjoy!

crownpropeller (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/author/crownpropeller/) | November 16, 2014 at 5:46 pm | Tags: Doc Cheatham (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=doc-cheatham) , Indiana (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=indiana) , jazz (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=jazz) , Peck Morrison (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=peck-morrison) , Percy France (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=percy-france) , Ronnie Cole (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=ronnie-cole) , Rosetta (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=rosetta) , Sonny Donaldson (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=sonny-donaldson) , West End (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=west-end) | Categories: Doc Cheatham (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?cat=3208002) , documents (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?cat=17783) , jazz (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?cat=21992) , Percy France (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?cat=16893890) |
URL: http://wp.me/pOgZZ-ND

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Doc Cheatham and Percy France at the West End (1980)

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** Doc Cheatham and Percy France at the West End (1980) (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/doc-cheatham-and-percy-france-at-the-west-end-1980/)
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by crownpropeller (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/author/crownpropeller/)

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheatham_blow.jpeg

(Click to enlarge): Doc Cheatham at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980.
Photo by Otto Flückiger

In the early 1980s in New York the place to be when you were in the mood to listen to some legendary swing and bop veterans was the West End on Broadway near Columbia, where Phil Schaap was curating the program.

During his 1980 trip to the USA my friend the late jazz researcher Otto Flückiger went to the West End to see the band led by Doc Cheatham (1905–1997), who had been Cab Calloway’s lead trumpeter from 1932 to 1939. In the early 1980s Cheatham was said to play better then ever before, because he had started practicing again, in the process ridding his playing of any cliches that had crept into his work through the years.

As always Otto made some photos and recorded a little music at the West End.

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cd_inlet.jpg

Inlet for the CD onto which Otto copied his original tape. Unfortunately the original photograph does not seem to exist anymore.

I have not yet found Otto’s original tapes, but I found a CD onto which Otto had edited the concert down. Since all the announcements have been edited out, I can not tell which of the tracks was recorded on May 21 and which on May 22.

The tenor player with Doc Cheatham was the totally underrated Percy France. Interestingly, France is announced with his own group at the West End for May 23 and 24! Was Cheatham France’s trumpeter then?

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/percy_france.jpg

(Click to enlarge): Percy France at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980.
Photo by Otto Flückiger

Otto got to know Percy France a little (I do not know if they first met at this concert). France had been playing with Bill Doggett in the early 1950s. He told Otto that the band had already played Doggett’s “Honky Tonk” while he was there. But since it looked like this band will never have the success it deserved, France left. Half a year later “Honky Tonk” became one of the biggest R’n’B instrumentals ever!

Back to the West End in 1980, here is Doc Cheatham’s band playing “Indiana”:

cheathamindiana.mp3 (http://www.jazzdocumentation.ch//blog/cheathamindiana.mp3)

Unfortunately audio quality is not that good, especially the pianist is hardly to be heard. Maybe he was not to be seen either? At least Otto has no photograph of him and added a “probably” to Sonny Donaldson’s name. Maybe the pianist’s name was announced and Otto was not sure if he heard it right?

If we take the “probably” on the cover as pertaining to the pianist only, then this must be a photo of drummer Ronnie Cole at the West End:

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheathams_drummer.jpg

(Click to enlarge): Ronnie Cole (or is he?) at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980. Photo by Otto Flückiger

The bassist can be seen in the back of a photo that prominently shows Cheatham:

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheatham_to_the_sky.jpeg

(Click to enlarge): Peck Morrison (???) and Doc Cheatham at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980. Photo by Otto Flückiger

Finally there are two photos showing a second trumpeter besides Doc Cheatham. There also glimpses of the drummer again.https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheatham_and_2ndtp_wide.jpg

(Click to enlarge): Doc Cheatham and unidentified trumpeter at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980. Photo by Otto Flückiger

Unfortunately I have no idea about the second trumpet man’s identity – and he can not be heard on the eight tracks saved by Otto. If you do have any suggestions, please let me know.

https://crownpropeller.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cheatham_and_2ndtp.jpg

(Click to enlarge): Doc Cheatham and unidentified trumpeter at the West End, N.Y.C., May 1980. Photo by Otto Flückiger

Finally here are Doc Cheatham and Band playing “Rosetta”:

cheathamrosetta.mp3 (http://www.jazzdocumentation.ch//blog/cheathamrosetta.mp3)

Enjoy!

crownpropeller (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/author/crownpropeller/) | November 16, 2014 at 5:46 pm | Tags: Doc Cheatham (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=doc-cheatham) , Indiana (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=indiana) , jazz (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=jazz) , Peck Morrison (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=peck-morrison) , Percy France (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=percy-france) , Ronnie Cole (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=ronnie-cole) , Rosetta (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=rosetta) , Sonny Donaldson (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=sonny-donaldson) , West End (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?tag=west-end) | Categories: Doc Cheatham (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?cat=3208002) , documents (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?cat=17783) , jazz (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?cat=21992) , Percy France (http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/?cat=16893890) |
URL: http://wp.me/pOgZZ-ND

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Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
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Resurrecting the Artistry, and the Name, of a Singular Guitar Craftsman – NYTimes.com

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/nyregion/resurrecting-the-artistry-and-the-name-of-a-singular-guitar-craftsman.html?_r=0

** Resurrecting the Artistry, and the Name, of a Singular Guitar Craftsman
————————————————————
Photo
Steve Pisani of D’Angelico Guitars, center, with Jay Jay French, of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister, left, and the Italian jazz guitarist Fabrizio Sotti. Credit James Estrin/The New York Times

When John D’Angelico died in 1964 (http://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/03/john-dangelico-59-a-maker-of-guitars.html) , at the age of 59, he left behind a line of guitars that he had made by hand, one by one, in his shop below his apartment on Kenmare Street on the Lower East Side. His archtop guitars produced a stirring sound that could stand up to horns and percussion in big bands, and became some of the most coveted instruments in the world.

Half a century later, four stories above Manhattan’s flower district, Mr. D’Angelico’s instruments have been reborn. Rows and rows of guitars bearing his name — smooth and shiny, with curves and arches, in rich tones and with taut strings — adorn the walls of D’Angelico Guitars (http://dangelicoguitars.com/) .

“They’re works of art,” said Steve Pisani, one of the store’s owners, standing in a denlike showroom decorated with big leather furniture and animal prints. Mr. Pisani, 56, has played guitar since he was a teenager and, until recently, worked at Sam Ash Music on a faded strip of West 48th Street that generations of New Yorkers remember as Music Row.
Photo

John D’Angelico made about 1,160 guitars, mostly for jazz players. They are being reproduced.Credit James Estrin/The New York Times

Mr. Pisani and the brand’s two other owners, Brenden Cohen, 30, and John Ferolito Jr., 27, have spent the past few years researching Mr. D’Angelico’s craftsmanship to resurrect his artistry. They have reproduced two of Mr. D’Angelico’s original guitars, following his exacting design: a 1943 Excel and a 1942 Style B. They have also produced a line of guitars under the D’Angelico name with a more contemporary influence, basically “our take if D’Angelico was still alive,” Mr. Cohen said.

Mr. D’Angelico made about 1,160 guitars, mostly for jazz musicians. According to the book “D’Angelico, Master Guitar Builder: What’s in a Name?” by Frank W. M. Green, Mr. D’Angelico once said: “I want to build guitars under my own name, for my own customers, the way I do it! For me that’s a good life!” His guitars are cherished by collectors and musicians and are so highly regarded that 11 of them were part of a 2011 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Among the visitors to the exhibition were Lawrence D’Angelico, the guitar maker’s great-nephew, and his young daughter, who plays the instrument. He said he appreciated the continuing brand, “especially in an era not as dedicated to craftsmanship as my great-uncle was.”

After past efforts foundered, the current resurrection of the D’Angelico name began with a 1943 Excel and Mr. Ferolito’s father, John Ferolito Sr., a businessman, guitar player and guitar collector. The older Mr. Ferolito, who had bought the rights to the D’Angelico brand from a guitar string company in 1999, sold it several years later to the current owners. He also owned a 1943 D’Angelico Excel.

Then, at a 2012 trade show of music merchants, Mr. Pisani ran into Gene Baker, a master luthier who had worked at Fender Music on Music Row, and told him: “Man, have I got a job for you.”

“I had been waiting for this all my life,” Mr. Baker recalled in an interview.

Mr. Cohen, John Ferolito Jr. and his father’s Excel guitar flew to visit Mr. Baker at his office in Arroyo Grande, Calif. There, Mr. Baker placed the vintage guitar on a flatbed scanner, then had it put into a surface model scanner, gathering details about what made a D’Angelico guitar a D’Angelico guitar.
Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story

With images of its shapes and measurements, including the thickness of the wood and the bracing inside, Mr. Baker had the information converted into a hollow-body guitar. He used computer-aided drafting and re-engineering to duplicate the Excel, with most of the building done by hand, “to get it as authentic as it can be,” he said.

It was difficult to find the precut shapes of maple and spruce, as well as the plastics, that Mr. D’Angelico used. “The way you have to cut archtop lumber,” Mr. Baker said, “is basically a dying art.”

It typically takes about four luthiers to build a D’Angelico replica guitar. The process from raw wood to finely crafted instrument can take up to two years.

When asked about the possibility of offending purists with their replicas, Mr. Cohen said: “It’s not like we’re destroying anything. We’re just allowing people to play a guitar that they wouldn’t be allowed to play.”

The owners of the showroom also recreated a 1942 D’Angelico Style B first for Eric Clapton. Mr. Clapton wanted a D’Angelico to take on tour, Mr. Pisani said, and keeps his original D’Angelico in his living room next to his piano.

Next up for the brand: Mr. D’Angelico’s classic New Yorker model, whose big body and grand Art Deco design evoked the heyday of jazz in New York. The owners of the D’Angelico brand found a New Yorker model at Rudy’s Music in SoHo.

When he worked at Sam Ash and a customer brought in a D’Angelico guitar, Mr. Pisani said, everyone would crowd around. “It was a thrill to get that thing on my lap,” he said.

Original D’Angelico guitars, which the company does not sell, are rarely on the market, but some have sold for over six figures. The replicas start at around $10,000 and can sell for as much as $11,500, though the company does make less expensive versions.

The demand for a D’Angelico guitar, it seems, has never waned; the company will turn its first profit this year, the owners said. One afternoon in the showroom, which features a stage and black-and-white photos of the master builder, Fabrizio Sotti, a jazz guitar virtuoso who has worked with Cassandra Wilson, Whitney Houston and Tupac Shakur, among others, walked in. He had come to see Mr. Pisani and to try out some of the guitars.

Jay Jay French of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister soon joined them. Mr. French used to buy guitar strings from Mr. Pisani on Music Row.

“I have known him longer than most of my wives,” Mr. French said, eliciting laughs. Mr. French, who lives in Manhattan, recently bought a new model D’Angelico guitar, a single cutaway with a spruce top and mother-of-pearl inlay.

The three men reminisced about the fervor of Music Row, and its demise to clear the way for high-rise development. They talked about the legacy of Mr. D’Angelico and his guitars. “You try to respect the history,” Mr. Sotti said. Then they grabbed three guitars off the wall, from the nascent acoustic line, and started to play.
Correction: November 14, 2014

Because of an editing error, a description of John D’Angelico’s shop misstated its location. The shop was located below his apartment, not above.

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Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

Resurrecting the Artistry, and the Name, of a Singular Guitar Craftsman – NYTimes.com

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/nyregion/resurrecting-the-artistry-and-the-name-of-a-singular-guitar-craftsman.html?_r=0

** Resurrecting the Artistry, and the Name, of a Singular Guitar Craftsman
————————————————————
Photo
Steve Pisani of D’Angelico Guitars, center, with Jay Jay French, of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister, left, and the Italian jazz guitarist Fabrizio Sotti. Credit James Estrin/The New York Times

When John D’Angelico died in 1964 (http://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/03/john-dangelico-59-a-maker-of-guitars.html) , at the age of 59, he left behind a line of guitars that he had made by hand, one by one, in his shop below his apartment on Kenmare Street on the Lower East Side. His archtop guitars produced a stirring sound that could stand up to horns and percussion in big bands, and became some of the most coveted instruments in the world.

Half a century later, four stories above Manhattan’s flower district, Mr. D’Angelico’s instruments have been reborn. Rows and rows of guitars bearing his name — smooth and shiny, with curves and arches, in rich tones and with taut strings — adorn the walls of D’Angelico Guitars (http://dangelicoguitars.com/) .

“They’re works of art,” said Steve Pisani, one of the store’s owners, standing in a denlike showroom decorated with big leather furniture and animal prints. Mr. Pisani, 56, has played guitar since he was a teenager and, until recently, worked at Sam Ash Music on a faded strip of West 48th Street that generations of New Yorkers remember as Music Row.
Photo

John D’Angelico made about 1,160 guitars, mostly for jazz players. They are being reproduced.Credit James Estrin/The New York Times

Mr. Pisani and the brand’s two other owners, Brenden Cohen, 30, and John Ferolito Jr., 27, have spent the past few years researching Mr. D’Angelico’s craftsmanship to resurrect his artistry. They have reproduced two of Mr. D’Angelico’s original guitars, following his exacting design: a 1943 Excel and a 1942 Style B. They have also produced a line of guitars under the D’Angelico name with a more contemporary influence, basically “our take if D’Angelico was still alive,” Mr. Cohen said.

Mr. D’Angelico made about 1,160 guitars, mostly for jazz musicians. According to the book “D’Angelico, Master Guitar Builder: What’s in a Name?” by Frank W. M. Green, Mr. D’Angelico once said: “I want to build guitars under my own name, for my own customers, the way I do it! For me that’s a good life!” His guitars are cherished by collectors and musicians and are so highly regarded that 11 of them were part of a 2011 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Among the visitors to the exhibition were Lawrence D’Angelico, the guitar maker’s great-nephew, and his young daughter, who plays the instrument. He said he appreciated the continuing brand, “especially in an era not as dedicated to craftsmanship as my great-uncle was.”

After past efforts foundered, the current resurrection of the D’Angelico name began with a 1943 Excel and Mr. Ferolito’s father, John Ferolito Sr., a businessman, guitar player and guitar collector. The older Mr. Ferolito, who had bought the rights to the D’Angelico brand from a guitar string company in 1999, sold it several years later to the current owners. He also owned a 1943 D’Angelico Excel.

Then, at a 2012 trade show of music merchants, Mr. Pisani ran into Gene Baker, a master luthier who had worked at Fender Music on Music Row, and told him: “Man, have I got a job for you.”

“I had been waiting for this all my life,” Mr. Baker recalled in an interview.

Mr. Cohen, John Ferolito Jr. and his father’s Excel guitar flew to visit Mr. Baker at his office in Arroyo Grande, Calif. There, Mr. Baker placed the vintage guitar on a flatbed scanner, then had it put into a surface model scanner, gathering details about what made a D’Angelico guitar a D’Angelico guitar.
Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story

With images of its shapes and measurements, including the thickness of the wood and the bracing inside, Mr. Baker had the information converted into a hollow-body guitar. He used computer-aided drafting and re-engineering to duplicate the Excel, with most of the building done by hand, “to get it as authentic as it can be,” he said.

It was difficult to find the precut shapes of maple and spruce, as well as the plastics, that Mr. D’Angelico used. “The way you have to cut archtop lumber,” Mr. Baker said, “is basically a dying art.”

It typically takes about four luthiers to build a D’Angelico replica guitar. The process from raw wood to finely crafted instrument can take up to two years.

When asked about the possibility of offending purists with their replicas, Mr. Cohen said: “It’s not like we’re destroying anything. We’re just allowing people to play a guitar that they wouldn’t be allowed to play.”

The owners of the showroom also recreated a 1942 D’Angelico Style B first for Eric Clapton. Mr. Clapton wanted a D’Angelico to take on tour, Mr. Pisani said, and keeps his original D’Angelico in his living room next to his piano.

Next up for the brand: Mr. D’Angelico’s classic New Yorker model, whose big body and grand Art Deco design evoked the heyday of jazz in New York. The owners of the D’Angelico brand found a New Yorker model at Rudy’s Music in SoHo.

When he worked at Sam Ash and a customer brought in a D’Angelico guitar, Mr. Pisani said, everyone would crowd around. “It was a thrill to get that thing on my lap,” he said.

Original D’Angelico guitars, which the company does not sell, are rarely on the market, but some have sold for over six figures. The replicas start at around $10,000 and can sell for as much as $11,500, though the company does make less expensive versions.

The demand for a D’Angelico guitar, it seems, has never waned; the company will turn its first profit this year, the owners said. One afternoon in the showroom, which features a stage and black-and-white photos of the master builder, Fabrizio Sotti, a jazz guitar virtuoso who has worked with Cassandra Wilson, Whitney Houston and Tupac Shakur, among others, walked in. He had come to see Mr. Pisani and to try out some of the guitars.

Jay Jay French of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister soon joined them. Mr. French used to buy guitar strings from Mr. Pisani on Music Row.

“I have known him longer than most of my wives,” Mr. French said, eliciting laughs. Mr. French, who lives in Manhattan, recently bought a new model D’Angelico guitar, a single cutaway with a spruce top and mother-of-pearl inlay.

The three men reminisced about the fervor of Music Row, and its demise to clear the way for high-rise development. They talked about the legacy of Mr. D’Angelico and his guitars. “You try to respect the history,” Mr. Sotti said. Then they grabbed three guitars off the wall, from the nascent acoustic line, and started to play.
Correction: November 14, 2014

Because of an editing error, a description of John D’Angelico’s shop misstated its location. The shop was located below his apartment, not above.

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=fd99bec2bc) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=fd99bec2bc&e=[UNIQID])

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Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

Resurrecting the Artistry, and the Name, of a Singular Guitar Craftsman – NYTimes.com

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/nyregion/resurrecting-the-artistry-and-the-name-of-a-singular-guitar-craftsman.html?_r=0

** Resurrecting the Artistry, and the Name, of a Singular Guitar Craftsman
————————————————————
Photo
Steve Pisani of D’Angelico Guitars, center, with Jay Jay French, of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister, left, and the Italian jazz guitarist Fabrizio Sotti. Credit James Estrin/The New York Times

When John D’Angelico died in 1964 (http://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/03/john-dangelico-59-a-maker-of-guitars.html) , at the age of 59, he left behind a line of guitars that he had made by hand, one by one, in his shop below his apartment on Kenmare Street on the Lower East Side. His archtop guitars produced a stirring sound that could stand up to horns and percussion in big bands, and became some of the most coveted instruments in the world.

Half a century later, four stories above Manhattan’s flower district, Mr. D’Angelico’s instruments have been reborn. Rows and rows of guitars bearing his name — smooth and shiny, with curves and arches, in rich tones and with taut strings — adorn the walls of D’Angelico Guitars (http://dangelicoguitars.com/) .

“They’re works of art,” said Steve Pisani, one of the store’s owners, standing in a denlike showroom decorated with big leather furniture and animal prints. Mr. Pisani, 56, has played guitar since he was a teenager and, until recently, worked at Sam Ash Music on a faded strip of West 48th Street that generations of New Yorkers remember as Music Row.
Photo

John D’Angelico made about 1,160 guitars, mostly for jazz players. They are being reproduced.Credit James Estrin/The New York Times

Mr. Pisani and the brand’s two other owners, Brenden Cohen, 30, and John Ferolito Jr., 27, have spent the past few years researching Mr. D’Angelico’s craftsmanship to resurrect his artistry. They have reproduced two of Mr. D’Angelico’s original guitars, following his exacting design: a 1943 Excel and a 1942 Style B. They have also produced a line of guitars under the D’Angelico name with a more contemporary influence, basically “our take if D’Angelico was still alive,” Mr. Cohen said.

Mr. D’Angelico made about 1,160 guitars, mostly for jazz musicians. According to the book “D’Angelico, Master Guitar Builder: What’s in a Name?” by Frank W. M. Green, Mr. D’Angelico once said: “I want to build guitars under my own name, for my own customers, the way I do it! For me that’s a good life!” His guitars are cherished by collectors and musicians and are so highly regarded that 11 of them were part of a 2011 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Among the visitors to the exhibition were Lawrence D’Angelico, the guitar maker’s great-nephew, and his young daughter, who plays the instrument. He said he appreciated the continuing brand, “especially in an era not as dedicated to craftsmanship as my great-uncle was.”

After past efforts foundered, the current resurrection of the D’Angelico name began with a 1943 Excel and Mr. Ferolito’s father, John Ferolito Sr., a businessman, guitar player and guitar collector. The older Mr. Ferolito, who had bought the rights to the D’Angelico brand from a guitar string company in 1999, sold it several years later to the current owners. He also owned a 1943 D’Angelico Excel.

Then, at a 2012 trade show of music merchants, Mr. Pisani ran into Gene Baker, a master luthier who had worked at Fender Music on Music Row, and told him: “Man, have I got a job for you.”

“I had been waiting for this all my life,” Mr. Baker recalled in an interview.

Mr. Cohen, John Ferolito Jr. and his father’s Excel guitar flew to visit Mr. Baker at his office in Arroyo Grande, Calif. There, Mr. Baker placed the vintage guitar on a flatbed scanner, then had it put into a surface model scanner, gathering details about what made a D’Angelico guitar a D’Angelico guitar.
Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story

With images of its shapes and measurements, including the thickness of the wood and the bracing inside, Mr. Baker had the information converted into a hollow-body guitar. He used computer-aided drafting and re-engineering to duplicate the Excel, with most of the building done by hand, “to get it as authentic as it can be,” he said.

It was difficult to find the precut shapes of maple and spruce, as well as the plastics, that Mr. D’Angelico used. “The way you have to cut archtop lumber,” Mr. Baker said, “is basically a dying art.”

It typically takes about four luthiers to build a D’Angelico replica guitar. The process from raw wood to finely crafted instrument can take up to two years.

When asked about the possibility of offending purists with their replicas, Mr. Cohen said: “It’s not like we’re destroying anything. We’re just allowing people to play a guitar that they wouldn’t be allowed to play.”

The owners of the showroom also recreated a 1942 D’Angelico Style B first for Eric Clapton. Mr. Clapton wanted a D’Angelico to take on tour, Mr. Pisani said, and keeps his original D’Angelico in his living room next to his piano.

Next up for the brand: Mr. D’Angelico’s classic New Yorker model, whose big body and grand Art Deco design evoked the heyday of jazz in New York. The owners of the D’Angelico brand found a New Yorker model at Rudy’s Music in SoHo.

When he worked at Sam Ash and a customer brought in a D’Angelico guitar, Mr. Pisani said, everyone would crowd around. “It was a thrill to get that thing on my lap,” he said.

Original D’Angelico guitars, which the company does not sell, are rarely on the market, but some have sold for over six figures. The replicas start at around $10,000 and can sell for as much as $11,500, though the company does make less expensive versions.

The demand for a D’Angelico guitar, it seems, has never waned; the company will turn its first profit this year, the owners said. One afternoon in the showroom, which features a stage and black-and-white photos of the master builder, Fabrizio Sotti, a jazz guitar virtuoso who has worked with Cassandra Wilson, Whitney Houston and Tupac Shakur, among others, walked in. He had come to see Mr. Pisani and to try out some of the guitars.

Jay Jay French of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister soon joined them. Mr. French used to buy guitar strings from Mr. Pisani on Music Row.

“I have known him longer than most of my wives,” Mr. French said, eliciting laughs. Mr. French, who lives in Manhattan, recently bought a new model D’Angelico guitar, a single cutaway with a spruce top and mother-of-pearl inlay.

The three men reminisced about the fervor of Music Row, and its demise to clear the way for high-rise development. They talked about the legacy of Mr. D’Angelico and his guitars. “You try to respect the history,” Mr. Sotti said. Then they grabbed three guitars off the wall, from the nascent acoustic line, and started to play.
Correction: November 14, 2014

Because of an editing error, a description of John D’Angelico’s shop misstated its location. The shop was located below his apartment, not above.

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Shit Record Covers | Dangerous Minds

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http://dangerousminds.net/comments/shit_record_covers?utm_source=Dangerous+Minds+newsletter

** Shit Record Covers
————————————————————

Whenever I see a gallery of crappy album covers, I get annoyed because it’s always the same ones—By Request Only – Ken (http://i.imgur.com/YJv0Efb.jpg) , Julie’s Sixteenth Birthday – John Bult (http://i.imgur.com/bFHbX4s.jpg) , Jesus Use Me – The Faith Tones (http://i.imgur.com/PQZx8R9.jpg) etc.

It’s time to update that… shit.

I’ve been following Shit Record Covers (https://www.facebook.com/groups/29222983061/?ref=br_tf) for some time now on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/29222983061/?ref=br_tf) as a lurker (I’ve never posted anything) and they do shit record covers right. Here’s a collection of the best of the… shit… a few choice selections that deserve some Internet recognition.

“Three Oates = One Hall!” – John Riley

Released in 1973 (http://www.45cat.com/record/m25531)

“Get some of the bellmen to sweep up the driveway. They can pose for their damn album cover while they’re doing it.” – Robert Barron

“I have a feeling that these lads may not be genuine Native Americans.” – David McCarthy‎

“Boyd Rice will resort to any measure to promote ‘Hirsute Pursuit’” – David Van Cleve

“He took advantage of a stoned girl.” – Kenny Mendenhall

“This may not be actual shit but it will be soon.” – Simon Bedford-James

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Shit Record Covers | Dangerous Minds

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http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/shit_record_covers?utm_source=Dangerous+Minds+newsletter

** Shit Record Covers
————————————————————

Whenever I see a gallery of crappy album covers, I get annoyed because it’s always the same ones—By Request Only – Ken (http://i.imgur.com/YJv0Efb.jpg) , Julie’s Sixteenth Birthday – John Bult (http://i.imgur.com/bFHbX4s.jpg) , Jesus Use Me – The Faith Tones (http://i.imgur.com/PQZx8R9.jpg) etc.

It’s time to update that… shit.

I’ve been following Shit Record Covers (https://www.facebook.com/groups/29222983061/?ref=br_tf) for some time now on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/29222983061/?ref=br_tf) as a lurker (I’ve never posted anything) and they do shit record covers right. Here’s a collection of the best of the… shit… a few choice selections that deserve some Internet recognition.

“Three Oates = One Hall!” – John Riley

Released in 1973 (http://www.45cat.com/record/m25531)

“Get some of the bellmen to sweep up the driveway. They can pose for their damn album cover while they’re doing it.” – Robert Barron

“I have a feeling that these lads may not be genuine Native Americans.” – David McCarthy‎

“Boyd Rice will resort to any measure to promote ‘Hirsute Pursuit’” – David Van Cleve

“He took advantage of a stoned girl.” – Kenny Mendenhall

“This may not be actual shit but it will be soon.” – Simon Bedford-James

ADVERTISEMENT

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=f03542ac3d) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=f03542ac3d&e=[UNIQID])

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Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
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Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

Shit Record Covers | Dangerous Minds

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http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/shit_record_covers?utm_source=Dangerous+Minds+newsletter

** Shit Record Covers
————————————————————

Whenever I see a gallery of crappy album covers, I get annoyed because it’s always the same ones—By Request Only – Ken (http://i.imgur.com/YJv0Efb.jpg) , Julie’s Sixteenth Birthday – John Bult (http://i.imgur.com/bFHbX4s.jpg) , Jesus Use Me – The Faith Tones (http://i.imgur.com/PQZx8R9.jpg) etc.

It’s time to update that… shit.

I’ve been following Shit Record Covers (https://www.facebook.com/groups/29222983061/?ref=br_tf) for some time now on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/29222983061/?ref=br_tf) as a lurker (I’ve never posted anything) and they do shit record covers right. Here’s a collection of the best of the… shit… a few choice selections that deserve some Internet recognition.

“Three Oates = One Hall!” – John Riley

Released in 1973 (http://www.45cat.com/record/m25531)

“Get some of the bellmen to sweep up the driveway. They can pose for their damn album cover while they’re doing it.” – Robert Barron

“I have a feeling that these lads may not be genuine Native Americans.” – David McCarthy‎

“Boyd Rice will resort to any measure to promote ‘Hirsute Pursuit’” – David Van Cleve

“He took advantage of a stoned girl.” – Kenny Mendenhall

“This may not be actual shit but it will be soon.” – Simon Bedford-James

ADVERTISEMENT

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=f03542ac3d) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=f03542ac3d&e=[UNIQID])

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USA

Buddy Catlett, 1933-2014: Rifftides

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** Buddy Catlett, 1933-2014
————————————————————

http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Buddy-Catlett.jpgI was saddened to learn on the road that Buddy Catlett died yesterday. I remember him looking as he does in this photograph made around the time we were both involved in Seattle’s vibrant jazz community in the early-to-mid 1950s. He left town to work with a variety of large and small bands. By the end of the decade Buddy had joined the big band his childhood friend Quincy Jones took to Europe that also included Seattleites Floyd Standifer and Patti Bown. For an obituary, read the Seattle Times article (http://blogs.seattletimes.com/soundposts/2014/11/13/buddy-catlett-renowned-seattle-jazz-bassist-dies/) by Paul de Barros, the leading chronicler of Seattle’s rich jazz history.

Buddy solos on Thelonious Monk’s “Straight No Chaser” with a combo from the Jones band in 1959. His companions are Phil Woods, alto saxophone; Clark Terry, trumpet; Patti Bown, piano; Quentin Jackson, trombone; Sahib Shihab, flute; and Joe Morris, drums.

Buddy Catlett, RIP.

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USA

Buddy Catlett, 1933-2014: Rifftides

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** Buddy Catlett, 1933-2014
————————————————————

http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Buddy-Catlett.jpgI was saddened to learn on the road that Buddy Catlett died yesterday. I remember him looking as he does in this photograph made around the time we were both involved in Seattle’s vibrant jazz community in the early-to-mid 1950s. He left town to work with a variety of large and small bands. By the end of the decade Buddy had joined the big band his childhood friend Quincy Jones took to Europe that also included Seattleites Floyd Standifer and Patti Bown. For an obituary, read the Seattle Times article (http://blogs.seattletimes.com/soundposts/2014/11/13/buddy-catlett-renowned-seattle-jazz-bassist-dies/) by Paul de Barros, the leading chronicler of Seattle’s rich jazz history.

Buddy solos on Thelonious Monk’s “Straight No Chaser” with a combo from the Jones band in 1959. His companions are Phil Woods, alto saxophone; Clark Terry, trumpet; Patti Bown, piano; Quentin Jackson, trombone; Sahib Shihab, flute; and Joe Morris, drums.

Buddy Catlett, RIP.

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269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

Buddy Catlett, 1933-2014: Rifftides

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http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/2014/11/buddy-catlett-1933-2014.html

** Buddy Catlett, 1933-2014
————————————————————

http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Buddy-Catlett.jpgI was saddened to learn on the road that Buddy Catlett died yesterday. I remember him looking as he does in this photograph made around the time we were both involved in Seattle’s vibrant jazz community in the early-to-mid 1950s. He left town to work with a variety of large and small bands. By the end of the decade Buddy had joined the big band his childhood friend Quincy Jones took to Europe that also included Seattleites Floyd Standifer and Patti Bown. For an obituary, read the Seattle Times article (http://blogs.seattletimes.com/soundposts/2014/11/13/buddy-catlett-renowned-seattle-jazz-bassist-dies/) by Paul de Barros, the leading chronicler of Seattle’s rich jazz history.

Buddy solos on Thelonious Monk’s “Straight No Chaser” with a combo from the Jones band in 1959. His companions are Phil Woods, alto saxophone; Clark Terry, trumpet; Patti Bown, piano; Quentin Jackson, trombone; Sahib Shihab, flute; and Joe Morris, drums.

Buddy Catlett, RIP.

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BBC News – Elvis Presley’s first recording to be sold

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http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-30042815

** Elvis Presley’s first recording to be sold
————————————————————
13 November 2014 Last updated at 13:47 ET
Elvis Presley – My Happiness Presley made the recording as a present for his mother – but the family did not have a record player

The first record Elvis Presley ever made is to be sold at auction.

In June 1953, an 18-year-old Presley went to the Memphis Recording Service to record My Happiness and That’s When Your Heartaches Begin onto acetate.

He wanted to find out what his voice sounded like on record and paid $4 for the session.

He returned to record sessions for Sun Records the following year and went on to become the “king of rock ‘n’ roll”. The auction will take place in January.

It will be one of 68 rare artefacts to be auctioned at his former home of Graceland in Memphis.

The announcement from Graceland described the record as “part of the ‘Holy Grail’ of artefacts in rock ‘n’ roll history”.

Presley was said to have made the recording partly as a present for his mother.

But the family did not have a record player, so he took it to a friend’s house to listen to the results of the session and left it there.

This will be the first time it has come up for public sale.

The other items in the auction will include his driving licence, issued in 1952, a 1955 contract to perform on the Louisiana Hayride radio and TV programmes and a jacket worn in the film Viva Las Vegas.

The auction will take place on 8 January, what would have been the star’s 80th birthday. The items have not been given estimated values.

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USA

BBC News – Elvis Presley’s first recording to be sold

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http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-30042815

** Elvis Presley’s first recording to be sold
————————————————————
13 November 2014 Last updated at 13:47 ET
Elvis Presley – My Happiness Presley made the recording as a present for his mother – but the family did not have a record player

The first record Elvis Presley ever made is to be sold at auction.

In June 1953, an 18-year-old Presley went to the Memphis Recording Service to record My Happiness and That’s When Your Heartaches Begin onto acetate.

He wanted to find out what his voice sounded like on record and paid $4 for the session.

He returned to record sessions for Sun Records the following year and went on to become the “king of rock ‘n’ roll”. The auction will take place in January.

It will be one of 68 rare artefacts to be auctioned at his former home of Graceland in Memphis.

The announcement from Graceland described the record as “part of the ‘Holy Grail’ of artefacts in rock ‘n’ roll history”.

Presley was said to have made the recording partly as a present for his mother.

But the family did not have a record player, so he took it to a friend’s house to listen to the results of the session and left it there.

This will be the first time it has come up for public sale.

The other items in the auction will include his driving licence, issued in 1952, a 1955 contract to perform on the Louisiana Hayride radio and TV programmes and a jacket worn in the film Viva Las Vegas.

The auction will take place on 8 January, what would have been the star’s 80th birthday. The items have not been given estimated values.

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BBC News – Elvis Presley’s first recording to be sold

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** Elvis Presley’s first recording to be sold
————————————————————
13 November 2014 Last updated at 13:47 ET
Elvis Presley – My Happiness Presley made the recording as a present for his mother – but the family did not have a record player

The first record Elvis Presley ever made is to be sold at auction.

In June 1953, an 18-year-old Presley went to the Memphis Recording Service to record My Happiness and That’s When Your Heartaches Begin onto acetate.

He wanted to find out what his voice sounded like on record and paid $4 for the session.

He returned to record sessions for Sun Records the following year and went on to become the “king of rock ‘n’ roll”. The auction will take place in January.

It will be one of 68 rare artefacts to be auctioned at his former home of Graceland in Memphis.

The announcement from Graceland described the record as “part of the ‘Holy Grail’ of artefacts in rock ‘n’ roll history”.

Presley was said to have made the recording partly as a present for his mother.

But the family did not have a record player, so he took it to a friend’s house to listen to the results of the session and left it there.

This will be the first time it has come up for public sale.

The other items in the auction will include his driving licence, issued in 1952, a 1955 contract to perform on the Louisiana Hayride radio and TV programmes and a jacket worn in the film Viva Las Vegas.

The auction will take place on 8 January, what would have been the star’s 80th birthday. The items have not been given estimated values.

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New England Public Radio’s premier jazz program to celebrate 30 years

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New England Public Radio to celebrate Jazz À La Mode’s 30th Anniversary on November 16

[November 13, 2014 — Springfield, Mass.]

On Sunday, November 16th from 3:00pm to 6:00pm, New England Public Radio will host a sold-out celebration at the Community Music School of Springfield in honor of western New England’s premier jazz program Jazz À La Mode, and its host Tom Reney.

In 1984, Reney took the microphone at WFCR and started a jazz program in his vision with a name he created, Jazz à la Mode. Thirty years later, he continues to share his vision of jazz five nights a week with audiences both established and new.

“If I had a mission statement for Jazz à la Mode,” said Reney, “it’s been to cultivate an audience for this wonderfully rich genre of music that has touched so many elements of our culture. What impresses me most about the last 30 years is both the enduring presence of an audience for jazz around the world and the musicians that dedicate their lives to it.”

The sold-out event will include an all-star line-up of music. Featured players will include Charles Neville, Karrin Allyson, Steve Davis, Avery Sharpe, Grant Stewart, Nat Reeves, Paul Arslanian, George Kaye, Jay Hoggard, Billy Arnold, and Jon Fisher.

The media is welcome to attend. Please contact Ken LeBlond at (413) 735-6605 or to confirm your attendance as a member of the media.

The Community Music School of Springfield is located at 127 State St. A cocktail hour will run from 3:00-3:45 pm followed by presentations by Congressman Richard Neal, Springfield Mayor Dominic Sarno and State Rep. Steve Kulik. The jazz concert will continue until 6:00 pm.

About New England Public Radio
New England Public Radio is a premier public broadcasting organization that delivers exceptional news, information, music, and cultural programming on air and online. New England Public Radio combines the best of NPR, other national public programming, and signature local programming to serve to listeners in New England and beyond.
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269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
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New England Public Radio’s premier jazz program to celebrate 30 years

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New England Public Radio to celebrate Jazz À La Mode’s 30th Anniversary on November 16

[November 13, 2014 — Springfield, Mass.]

On Sunday, November 16th from 3:00pm to 6:00pm, New England Public Radio will host a sold-out celebration at the Community Music School of Springfield in honor of western New England’s premier jazz program Jazz À La Mode, and its host Tom Reney.

In 1984, Reney took the microphone at WFCR and started a jazz program in his vision with a name he created, Jazz à la Mode. Thirty years later, he continues to share his vision of jazz five nights a week with audiences both established and new.

“If I had a mission statement for Jazz à la Mode,” said Reney, “it’s been to cultivate an audience for this wonderfully rich genre of music that has touched so many elements of our culture. What impresses me most about the last 30 years is both the enduring presence of an audience for jazz around the world and the musicians that dedicate their lives to it.”

The sold-out event will include an all-star line-up of music. Featured players will include Charles Neville, Karrin Allyson, Steve Davis, Avery Sharpe, Grant Stewart, Nat Reeves, Paul Arslanian, George Kaye, Jay Hoggard, Billy Arnold, and Jon Fisher.

The media is welcome to attend. Please contact Ken LeBlond at (413) 735-6605 or to confirm your attendance as a member of the media.

The Community Music School of Springfield is located at 127 State St. A cocktail hour will run from 3:00-3:45 pm followed by presentations by Congressman Richard Neal, Springfield Mayor Dominic Sarno and State Rep. Steve Kulik. The jazz concert will continue until 6:00 pm.

About New England Public Radio
New England Public Radio is a premier public broadcasting organization that delivers exceptional news, information, music, and cultural programming on air and online. New England Public Radio combines the best of NPR, other national public programming, and signature local programming to serve to listeners in New England and beyond.
Media Contact
Ken LeBlond
Interim Director of Marketing and Communications
(413) 545-9717
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—
Tom Reney
Jazz à la Mode
Monday-Friday, 8 – 11 p.m.

Blogs/Podcasts http://nepr.net/jazz-la-mode/

WFCR
New England Public Radio
1525 Main Street
Springfield, MA 01103

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Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

New England Public Radio’s premier jazz program to celebrate 30 years

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New England Public Radio to celebrate Jazz À La Mode’s 30th Anniversary on November 16

[November 13, 2014 — Springfield, Mass.]

On Sunday, November 16th from 3:00pm to 6:00pm, New England Public Radio will host a sold-out celebration at the Community Music School of Springfield in honor of western New England’s premier jazz program Jazz À La Mode, and its host Tom Reney.

In 1984, Reney took the microphone at WFCR and started a jazz program in his vision with a name he created, Jazz à la Mode. Thirty years later, he continues to share his vision of jazz five nights a week with audiences both established and new.

“If I had a mission statement for Jazz à la Mode,” said Reney, “it’s been to cultivate an audience for this wonderfully rich genre of music that has touched so many elements of our culture. What impresses me most about the last 30 years is both the enduring presence of an audience for jazz around the world and the musicians that dedicate their lives to it.”

The sold-out event will include an all-star line-up of music. Featured players will include Charles Neville, Karrin Allyson, Steve Davis, Avery Sharpe, Grant Stewart, Nat Reeves, Paul Arslanian, George Kaye, Jay Hoggard, Billy Arnold, and Jon Fisher.

The media is welcome to attend. Please contact Ken LeBlond at (413) 735-6605 or to confirm your attendance as a member of the media.

The Community Music School of Springfield is located at 127 State St. A cocktail hour will run from 3:00-3:45 pm followed by presentations by Congressman Richard Neal, Springfield Mayor Dominic Sarno and State Rep. Steve Kulik. The jazz concert will continue until 6:00 pm.

About New England Public Radio
New England Public Radio is a premier public broadcasting organization that delivers exceptional news, information, music, and cultural programming on air and online. New England Public Radio combines the best of NPR, other national public programming, and signature local programming to serve to listeners in New England and beyond.
Media Contact
Ken LeBlond
Interim Director of Marketing and Communications
(413) 545-9717
ken@nepr.net (mailto:ken@nepr.net)

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—
Tom Reney
Jazz à la Mode
Monday-Friday, 8 – 11 p.m.

Blogs/Podcasts http://nepr.net/jazz-la-mode/

WFCR
New England Public Radio
1525 Main Street
Springfield, MA 01103

tr@nepr.net (mailto:tr@nepr.net)
413.735.6649
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In Ethiopia’s Capital, a Resurgent Jazz Scene – NYTimes.com

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** In Ethiopia’s Capital, a Resurgent Jazz Scene
————————————————————
Photo
Mulatu Astatke, seen as the father of Ethio-jazz, performs at African Jazz Village, which opened in late 2013. Credit Nichole Sobecki for The New York Times

Cultured Traveler

By RACHEL B. DOYLE

On a recent Sunday evening, a stylish audience in their 20s packed Mama’s Kitchen, a wood-and-glass lounge on the fourth floor of an otherwise closed shopping center near the Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. They were there to hear an adventurous young pianist, Samuel Yirga, as he careened between free jazz, études, R&B and the popular local style known as Ethio-jazz, a bewitching genre that fuses jazz with traditional Ethiopian music.

Mr. Yirga’s fingers flew across the keyboard, and the crowd nodded their heads reverently even through deep forays into dissonance. The musician’s intricate arrangements for his band featured psychedelic guitar lines and funky drumming, but the focus remained on the piano melody, which Mr. Yirga accentuated with the kind of ornaments and leaps characteristic of Ethiopian music.

“I think we Ethiopians love our own thing more than other things,” the dreadlocked 29-year-old, who has signed with Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records label, said before the concert. “We respect and love other cultures, but we love our own music, our own food, dance and clothes the most.”

Mama’s Kitchen is one of several venues featuring different jazz styles — from swing to acoustic, instrumental to free jazz — that have sprung up in the Ethiopian capital in recent years. The resurgent music scene is far from the only change occurring in this frenetic city of nearly four million.
Continue reading the main storySamuel Yirga – Ambassel in Box Revisited (Live) Video by Real World Records

Bulldozers have created canyons between the palm trees planted on busy boulevards to make way for a light rail system, set to debut in 2015. Domed Orthodox churches and tiny stalls with tin roofs and painted signs are interspersed with brand-new skyscrapers, glass-fronted malls and the spaceship-like complex that houses the headquarters of the African Union. During rush hour, visitors can spend a lot of time listening to Ethiopian pop in the Soviet-era blue Lada sedans that serve as taxis.

Nowadays jazz concerts take place all over the city, and on nearly every night of the week a clarinet is being played in a mirrored discothèque in an old hotel, or in a smoky one-room club near the airport. But even though Ethio-jazz dates from the 1960s, its reappearance in the capital is a fairly new development.

For nearly two decades until 1991, the country was ruled by a Communist military junta, the Derg, and its dictatorial leader, Mengistu Haile Mariam. There was an evening curfew in place, so the nightclubs, concert spaces and traditional music houses called azmari bets that had been vital parts of society essentially ceased to exist. The free-form nature of jazz music made it particularly suspect to the country’s authoritarian rulers. Many musicians, along with hundreds of thousands of other Ethiopians seen as fomenting opposition to the regime, were killed, jailed or exiled.

“Imagine the city where you live without a single night of night life for 18 years,” said Francis Falceto, the producer of “Éthiopiques,” a 29-disc series of music recordings from the 1960s and 1970s that helped ignite global interest in Ethiopian jazz. “It totally destroyed, almost overnight, the music life and radically stopped the development of Ethiopian modern music.”
Continue reading the main story

Colonel Mengistu was overthrown in 1991, but the Addis music scene began a slow comeback only starting in the late 1990s. “The curfew was there for so long that it really was a part of the lifestyle. It took some time for people to start to go out more, for nightclubs to flourish,” said Girum Mezmur, who plays in the jazz group Addis Acoustic Project. “After the Derg time it was a lot freer. People started moving back home, and it was a revival not only for music but for other forms of art as well.”

Known for its jazzy arrangements of midcentury Ethiopian classics, Addis Acoustic Project performs every Friday night at Jazzamba Lounge, a popular music space that opened in 2011 in the former ballroom of the capital’s oldest hotel, the Itegue Taitu. Owned by musicians who returned to Ethiopia after decades in exile in the United States, the club hosts live performances seven nights a week, mostly of jazz.

Outside Jazzamba sits a cannon commemorating the Battle of Adwa, which saw the Ethiopian army defeating the Italians in 1896 and halting a planned colonization of their country. Patrons enter the club through a wooden revolving door. Inside is a large, homey space with antique furniture, yellow patterned curtains and a French chandelier hung from a painted dome. Framed photos of musicians decorate the walls, and waitresses in gold embroidered tunics pour glasses of the local Gouder red wine for music fans at candlelit tables.
Continue reading the main storyAddis Acoustic Project by Girum Mezmur – Live at Jazzamba August, 2012, “Meche Dereshe”Video by Addis Acoustic Project

On a recent evening, Addis Acoustic Project’s concert at Jazzamba began with a short, mellifluous composition played on a krar, a traditional lyre made of wood and hide. Afterward the members of the band, ranging in age from 29 to 73, took to the small, elevated stage. A snaking clarinet melody began, quickly merging with a hypnotic drumbeat and a double bass guitar rhythm. A dapper man in a light blue suit began strumming a mandolin. He was Ayele Mamo, a venerable musician who had recorded prolifically in the 1950s and helped shape the sound of that era.

The honeyed melody coming from Mr. Mamo’s instrument provided a perfect backdrop for the strong, clear tenor of Girma Negash, a legendary singer from the old days. Before Jazzamba opened, he had not sung in decades. After years of making ends meet as a school bus driver in the capital, Mr. Negash was clearly enjoying his moment back in the spotlight, beginning his love ballads with whistles that mimicked bird song. “I hope I will see you again. Even though I am so scared, I still have hope,” he crooned in the Amharic language, beaming nearly as brightly as his golden tie.

Across town, the Ethiocolor Band, dressed in leopard-print costumes and clutching wooden spears, was launching into an expressive hunting dance from the small town of Konso, in Ethiopia’s southwest. Every other Friday, the music and dance troupe performs something of a cultural variety show for a rapt local audience at Fendika Azmari Bet, a cozy bar where colorful fabrics cover the walls and braided palm leaves decorate the ceiling.
Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story
Photo
The Addis Acoustic Group plays at Jazzamba Lounge, which opened in 2011. Credit Nichole Sobecki for The New York Times

Ethiopia has been home to azmari bets — taverns featuring sung comedy accompanied by a lyre — for centuries, but what the Ethiocolor Band does at Fendika is quite different. Led by the charismatic Addis-born dancer Melaku Belay, the 13-member group has reimagined traditional Ethiopian culture for the 21st century, combining tribal dances and indigenous instruments with jazz, rock, theater and lots of costume changes. On a recent late night, the crowd that gathered around the dancers — wearing spiky wigs made from the hair of gelada baboons — was invited to show off their skills at the eskista, a shoulder-shaking jig.

“I believe tradition is never stuck,” Mr. Belay said. The self-taught dancer, who is 38, had first come to the place where the Ethiocolor Band performed when he was a child living on the street. Mr. Belay said that he’d slept under the bar for seven years, earning his board by working without pay. Many years later he bought Fendika Azmari Bet from its former owners and began to shake up the city’s cultural life. As he put it, “I am the bridge to connect jazz and theater to azmaris.”

While azmaris are traditional here, jazz instruments first made their way to Ethiopia through a surprising route early in the 20th century. In 1924, Haile Selassie (then known as Ras Tafari) visited Jerusalem. The future emperor was welcomed to the city at the St. James Cathedral, a Crusader-era Armenian church, by a brass band composed entirely of teenage orphans, survivors of the Armenian genocide. What happened next changed the course of musical history in Ethiopia.

“Prince Ras Tafari adopted 40 Armenian orphans from Jerusalem to be the first imperial band,” said Aramazt Kalayjian, a documentary filmmaker working on a film about the Armenian community in Ethiopia. “They played for his honor, and he loved the music and what they were doing, and decided to give them jobs.”

This palace band, called Arba Lijoch (The 40 Orphans), helped to popularize trombones, saxophones and trumpets in Ethiopia. With this foundation, and the work of a few inspired bandleaders, including several Armenians, a jazz scene began to take shape in Addis over the next decades. During the 44-year reign of Haile Selassie, jazz and brass bands were often hired to play for the emperor and his guests.

Starting in the mid-1960s, musicians like Mulatu Astatke began fusing Western-style jazz and funk with traditional Ethiopian folk and religious melodies, creating a unique strand of jazz. Mr. Astatke is seen as the father of Ethio-jazz and is Ethiopia’s most famous living musician.
Photo

Fendika Azmari Bet. Credit Nichole Sobecki for The New York Times

While the 70-year-old Mr. Astatke has a demanding tour schedule, he still found the time to open a music venue and school called African Jazz Village here in late 2013. On a recent Saturday night, a boisterous crowd of Ethiopians and expats was just beginning to trickle onto the sunken dance floor of the club, a historic spot on the grounds of the boxy, government-owned Ghion Hotel, known in its heyday in the 1970s for hosting Bob Marley and Billy Ocean.

The circular room, with its disco ball and colorful strobe lights, looked like a mirrored roulette wheel. A saxophone player launched into a sinuous lead-in, then Mr. Astatke strode out on stage and began to play the conga drums. The crowd, delighted at this rare live appearance of the jazz icon, showed its appreciation by thronging the dance floor.

Before the concert, Mr. Astatke spoke enthusiastically about the future of the genre he invented and the next generation that is embracing it. “There are a lot of young musicians playing Ethio-jazz,” Mr. Astatke said in his low, raspy voice. “It’s developing, which I think feels great.”

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=add364cc8b) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=add364cc8b&e=[UNIQID])

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE ON THIS MAILING LIST PLEASE RESPOND WITH ‘REMOVE’ IN THE SUBJECT LINE. IF YOU ARE RECEIVING DUPLICATE EMAILS OUR APOLOGIES, JAZZ PROMO SERVICES ANNOUNCEMENT LIST IS GROWING LARGER EVERY DAY…..PLEASE LET US KNOW AND WE WILL FIX IT IMMEDIATELY!

Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

In Ethiopia’s Capital, a Resurgent Jazz Scene – NYTimes.com

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/travel/in-ethiopias-capital-a-resurgent-jazz-scene.html?emc=edit_tnt_20141113

** In Ethiopia’s Capital, a Resurgent Jazz Scene
————————————————————
Photo
Mulatu Astatke, seen as the father of Ethio-jazz, performs at African Jazz Village, which opened in late 2013. Credit Nichole Sobecki for The New York Times

Cultured Traveler

By RACHEL B. DOYLE

On a recent Sunday evening, a stylish audience in their 20s packed Mama’s Kitchen, a wood-and-glass lounge on the fourth floor of an otherwise closed shopping center near the Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. They were there to hear an adventurous young pianist, Samuel Yirga, as he careened between free jazz, études, R&B and the popular local style known as Ethio-jazz, a bewitching genre that fuses jazz with traditional Ethiopian music.

Mr. Yirga’s fingers flew across the keyboard, and the crowd nodded their heads reverently even through deep forays into dissonance. The musician’s intricate arrangements for his band featured psychedelic guitar lines and funky drumming, but the focus remained on the piano melody, which Mr. Yirga accentuated with the kind of ornaments and leaps characteristic of Ethiopian music.

“I think we Ethiopians love our own thing more than other things,” the dreadlocked 29-year-old, who has signed with Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records label, said before the concert. “We respect and love other cultures, but we love our own music, our own food, dance and clothes the most.”

Mama’s Kitchen is one of several venues featuring different jazz styles — from swing to acoustic, instrumental to free jazz — that have sprung up in the Ethiopian capital in recent years. The resurgent music scene is far from the only change occurring in this frenetic city of nearly four million.
Continue reading the main storySamuel Yirga – Ambassel in Box Revisited (Live) Video by Real World Records

Bulldozers have created canyons between the palm trees planted on busy boulevards to make way for a light rail system, set to debut in 2015. Domed Orthodox churches and tiny stalls with tin roofs and painted signs are interspersed with brand-new skyscrapers, glass-fronted malls and the spaceship-like complex that houses the headquarters of the African Union. During rush hour, visitors can spend a lot of time listening to Ethiopian pop in the Soviet-era blue Lada sedans that serve as taxis.

Nowadays jazz concerts take place all over the city, and on nearly every night of the week a clarinet is being played in a mirrored discothèque in an old hotel, or in a smoky one-room club near the airport. But even though Ethio-jazz dates from the 1960s, its reappearance in the capital is a fairly new development.

For nearly two decades until 1991, the country was ruled by a Communist military junta, the Derg, and its dictatorial leader, Mengistu Haile Mariam. There was an evening curfew in place, so the nightclubs, concert spaces and traditional music houses called azmari bets that had been vital parts of society essentially ceased to exist. The free-form nature of jazz music made it particularly suspect to the country’s authoritarian rulers. Many musicians, along with hundreds of thousands of other Ethiopians seen as fomenting opposition to the regime, were killed, jailed or exiled.

“Imagine the city where you live without a single night of night life for 18 years,” said Francis Falceto, the producer of “Éthiopiques,” a 29-disc series of music recordings from the 1960s and 1970s that helped ignite global interest in Ethiopian jazz. “It totally destroyed, almost overnight, the music life and radically stopped the development of Ethiopian modern music.”
Continue reading the main story

Colonel Mengistu was overthrown in 1991, but the Addis music scene began a slow comeback only starting in the late 1990s. “The curfew was there for so long that it really was a part of the lifestyle. It took some time for people to start to go out more, for nightclubs to flourish,” said Girum Mezmur, who plays in the jazz group Addis Acoustic Project. “After the Derg time it was a lot freer. People started moving back home, and it was a revival not only for music but for other forms of art as well.”

Known for its jazzy arrangements of midcentury Ethiopian classics, Addis Acoustic Project performs every Friday night at Jazzamba Lounge, a popular music space that opened in 2011 in the former ballroom of the capital’s oldest hotel, the Itegue Taitu. Owned by musicians who returned to Ethiopia after decades in exile in the United States, the club hosts live performances seven nights a week, mostly of jazz.

Outside Jazzamba sits a cannon commemorating the Battle of Adwa, which saw the Ethiopian army defeating the Italians in 1896 and halting a planned colonization of their country. Patrons enter the club through a wooden revolving door. Inside is a large, homey space with antique furniture, yellow patterned curtains and a French chandelier hung from a painted dome. Framed photos of musicians decorate the walls, and waitresses in gold embroidered tunics pour glasses of the local Gouder red wine for music fans at candlelit tables.
Continue reading the main storyAddis Acoustic Project by Girum Mezmur – Live at Jazzamba August, 2012, “Meche Dereshe”Video by Addis Acoustic Project

On a recent evening, Addis Acoustic Project’s concert at Jazzamba began with a short, mellifluous composition played on a krar, a traditional lyre made of wood and hide. Afterward the members of the band, ranging in age from 29 to 73, took to the small, elevated stage. A snaking clarinet melody began, quickly merging with a hypnotic drumbeat and a double bass guitar rhythm. A dapper man in a light blue suit began strumming a mandolin. He was Ayele Mamo, a venerable musician who had recorded prolifically in the 1950s and helped shape the sound of that era.

The honeyed melody coming from Mr. Mamo’s instrument provided a perfect backdrop for the strong, clear tenor of Girma Negash, a legendary singer from the old days. Before Jazzamba opened, he had not sung in decades. After years of making ends meet as a school bus driver in the capital, Mr. Negash was clearly enjoying his moment back in the spotlight, beginning his love ballads with whistles that mimicked bird song. “I hope I will see you again. Even though I am so scared, I still have hope,” he crooned in the Amharic language, beaming nearly as brightly as his golden tie.

Across town, the Ethiocolor Band, dressed in leopard-print costumes and clutching wooden spears, was launching into an expressive hunting dance from the small town of Konso, in Ethiopia’s southwest. Every other Friday, the music and dance troupe performs something of a cultural variety show for a rapt local audience at Fendika Azmari Bet, a cozy bar where colorful fabrics cover the walls and braided palm leaves decorate the ceiling.
Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story
Photo
The Addis Acoustic Group plays at Jazzamba Lounge, which opened in 2011. Credit Nichole Sobecki for The New York Times

Ethiopia has been home to azmari bets — taverns featuring sung comedy accompanied by a lyre — for centuries, but what the Ethiocolor Band does at Fendika is quite different. Led by the charismatic Addis-born dancer Melaku Belay, the 13-member group has reimagined traditional Ethiopian culture for the 21st century, combining tribal dances and indigenous instruments with jazz, rock, theater and lots of costume changes. On a recent late night, the crowd that gathered around the dancers — wearing spiky wigs made from the hair of gelada baboons — was invited to show off their skills at the eskista, a shoulder-shaking jig.

“I believe tradition is never stuck,” Mr. Belay said. The self-taught dancer, who is 38, had first come to the place where the Ethiocolor Band performed when he was a child living on the street. Mr. Belay said that he’d slept under the bar for seven years, earning his board by working without pay. Many years later he bought Fendika Azmari Bet from its former owners and began to shake up the city’s cultural life. As he put it, “I am the bridge to connect jazz and theater to azmaris.”

While azmaris are traditional here, jazz instruments first made their way to Ethiopia through a surprising route early in the 20th century. In 1924, Haile Selassie (then known as Ras Tafari) visited Jerusalem. The future emperor was welcomed to the city at the St. James Cathedral, a Crusader-era Armenian church, by a brass band composed entirely of teenage orphans, survivors of the Armenian genocide. What happened next changed the course of musical history in Ethiopia.

“Prince Ras Tafari adopted 40 Armenian orphans from Jerusalem to be the first imperial band,” said Aramazt Kalayjian, a documentary filmmaker working on a film about the Armenian community in Ethiopia. “They played for his honor, and he loved the music and what they were doing, and decided to give them jobs.”

This palace band, called Arba Lijoch (The 40 Orphans), helped to popularize trombones, saxophones and trumpets in Ethiopia. With this foundation, and the work of a few inspired bandleaders, including several Armenians, a jazz scene began to take shape in Addis over the next decades. During the 44-year reign of Haile Selassie, jazz and brass bands were often hired to play for the emperor and his guests.

Starting in the mid-1960s, musicians like Mulatu Astatke began fusing Western-style jazz and funk with traditional Ethiopian folk and religious melodies, creating a unique strand of jazz. Mr. Astatke is seen as the father of Ethio-jazz and is Ethiopia’s most famous living musician.
Photo

Fendika Azmari Bet. Credit Nichole Sobecki for The New York Times

While the 70-year-old Mr. Astatke has a demanding tour schedule, he still found the time to open a music venue and school called African Jazz Village here in late 2013. On a recent Saturday night, a boisterous crowd of Ethiopians and expats was just beginning to trickle onto the sunken dance floor of the club, a historic spot on the grounds of the boxy, government-owned Ghion Hotel, known in its heyday in the 1970s for hosting Bob Marley and Billy Ocean.

The circular room, with its disco ball and colorful strobe lights, looked like a mirrored roulette wheel. A saxophone player launched into a sinuous lead-in, then Mr. Astatke strode out on stage and began to play the conga drums. The crowd, delighted at this rare live appearance of the jazz icon, showed its appreciation by thronging the dance floor.

Before the concert, Mr. Astatke spoke enthusiastically about the future of the genre he invented and the next generation that is embracing it. “There are a lot of young musicians playing Ethio-jazz,” Mr. Astatke said in his low, raspy voice. “It’s developing, which I think feels great.”

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=add364cc8b) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=add364cc8b&e=[UNIQID])

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE ON THIS MAILING LIST PLEASE RESPOND WITH ‘REMOVE’ IN THE SUBJECT LINE. IF YOU ARE RECEIVING DUPLICATE EMAILS OUR APOLOGIES, JAZZ PROMO SERVICES ANNOUNCEMENT LIST IS GROWING LARGER EVERY DAY…..PLEASE LET US KNOW AND WE WILL FIX IT IMMEDIATELY!

Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

In Ethiopia’s Capital, a Resurgent Jazz Scene – NYTimes.com

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/travel/in-ethiopias-capital-a-resurgent-jazz-scene.html?emc=edit_tnt_20141113

** In Ethiopia’s Capital, a Resurgent Jazz Scene
————————————————————
Photo
Mulatu Astatke, seen as the father of Ethio-jazz, performs at African Jazz Village, which opened in late 2013. Credit Nichole Sobecki for The New York Times

Cultured Traveler

By RACHEL B. DOYLE

On a recent Sunday evening, a stylish audience in their 20s packed Mama’s Kitchen, a wood-and-glass lounge on the fourth floor of an otherwise closed shopping center near the Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. They were there to hear an adventurous young pianist, Samuel Yirga, as he careened between free jazz, études, R&B and the popular local style known as Ethio-jazz, a bewitching genre that fuses jazz with traditional Ethiopian music.

Mr. Yirga’s fingers flew across the keyboard, and the crowd nodded their heads reverently even through deep forays into dissonance. The musician’s intricate arrangements for his band featured psychedelic guitar lines and funky drumming, but the focus remained on the piano melody, which Mr. Yirga accentuated with the kind of ornaments and leaps characteristic of Ethiopian music.

“I think we Ethiopians love our own thing more than other things,” the dreadlocked 29-year-old, who has signed with Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records label, said before the concert. “We respect and love other cultures, but we love our own music, our own food, dance and clothes the most.”

Mama’s Kitchen is one of several venues featuring different jazz styles — from swing to acoustic, instrumental to free jazz — that have sprung up in the Ethiopian capital in recent years. The resurgent music scene is far from the only change occurring in this frenetic city of nearly four million.
Continue reading the main storySamuel Yirga – Ambassel in Box Revisited (Live) Video by Real World Records

Bulldozers have created canyons between the palm trees planted on busy boulevards to make way for a light rail system, set to debut in 2015. Domed Orthodox churches and tiny stalls with tin roofs and painted signs are interspersed with brand-new skyscrapers, glass-fronted malls and the spaceship-like complex that houses the headquarters of the African Union. During rush hour, visitors can spend a lot of time listening to Ethiopian pop in the Soviet-era blue Lada sedans that serve as taxis.

Nowadays jazz concerts take place all over the city, and on nearly every night of the week a clarinet is being played in a mirrored discothèque in an old hotel, or in a smoky one-room club near the airport. But even though Ethio-jazz dates from the 1960s, its reappearance in the capital is a fairly new development.

For nearly two decades until 1991, the country was ruled by a Communist military junta, the Derg, and its dictatorial leader, Mengistu Haile Mariam. There was an evening curfew in place, so the nightclubs, concert spaces and traditional music houses called azmari bets that had been vital parts of society essentially ceased to exist. The free-form nature of jazz music made it particularly suspect to the country’s authoritarian rulers. Many musicians, along with hundreds of thousands of other Ethiopians seen as fomenting opposition to the regime, were killed, jailed or exiled.

“Imagine the city where you live without a single night of night life for 18 years,” said Francis Falceto, the producer of “Éthiopiques,” a 29-disc series of music recordings from the 1960s and 1970s that helped ignite global interest in Ethiopian jazz. “It totally destroyed, almost overnight, the music life and radically stopped the development of Ethiopian modern music.”
Continue reading the main story

Colonel Mengistu was overthrown in 1991, but the Addis music scene began a slow comeback only starting in the late 1990s. “The curfew was there for so long that it really was a part of the lifestyle. It took some time for people to start to go out more, for nightclubs to flourish,” said Girum Mezmur, who plays in the jazz group Addis Acoustic Project. “After the Derg time it was a lot freer. People started moving back home, and it was a revival not only for music but for other forms of art as well.”

Known for its jazzy arrangements of midcentury Ethiopian classics, Addis Acoustic Project performs every Friday night at Jazzamba Lounge, a popular music space that opened in 2011 in the former ballroom of the capital’s oldest hotel, the Itegue Taitu. Owned by musicians who returned to Ethiopia after decades in exile in the United States, the club hosts live performances seven nights a week, mostly of jazz.

Outside Jazzamba sits a cannon commemorating the Battle of Adwa, which saw the Ethiopian army defeating the Italians in 1896 and halting a planned colonization of their country. Patrons enter the club through a wooden revolving door. Inside is a large, homey space with antique furniture, yellow patterned curtains and a French chandelier hung from a painted dome. Framed photos of musicians decorate the walls, and waitresses in gold embroidered tunics pour glasses of the local Gouder red wine for music fans at candlelit tables.
Continue reading the main storyAddis Acoustic Project by Girum Mezmur – Live at Jazzamba August, 2012, “Meche Dereshe”Video by Addis Acoustic Project

On a recent evening, Addis Acoustic Project’s concert at Jazzamba began with a short, mellifluous composition played on a krar, a traditional lyre made of wood and hide. Afterward the members of the band, ranging in age from 29 to 73, took to the small, elevated stage. A snaking clarinet melody began, quickly merging with a hypnotic drumbeat and a double bass guitar rhythm. A dapper man in a light blue suit began strumming a mandolin. He was Ayele Mamo, a venerable musician who had recorded prolifically in the 1950s and helped shape the sound of that era.

The honeyed melody coming from Mr. Mamo’s instrument provided a perfect backdrop for the strong, clear tenor of Girma Negash, a legendary singer from the old days. Before Jazzamba opened, he had not sung in decades. After years of making ends meet as a school bus driver in the capital, Mr. Negash was clearly enjoying his moment back in the spotlight, beginning his love ballads with whistles that mimicked bird song. “I hope I will see you again. Even though I am so scared, I still have hope,” he crooned in the Amharic language, beaming nearly as brightly as his golden tie.

Across town, the Ethiocolor Band, dressed in leopard-print costumes and clutching wooden spears, was launching into an expressive hunting dance from the small town of Konso, in Ethiopia’s southwest. Every other Friday, the music and dance troupe performs something of a cultural variety show for a rapt local audience at Fendika Azmari Bet, a cozy bar where colorful fabrics cover the walls and braided palm leaves decorate the ceiling.
Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story
Photo
The Addis Acoustic Group plays at Jazzamba Lounge, which opened in 2011. Credit Nichole Sobecki for The New York Times

Ethiopia has been home to azmari bets — taverns featuring sung comedy accompanied by a lyre — for centuries, but what the Ethiocolor Band does at Fendika is quite different. Led by the charismatic Addis-born dancer Melaku Belay, the 13-member group has reimagined traditional Ethiopian culture for the 21st century, combining tribal dances and indigenous instruments with jazz, rock, theater and lots of costume changes. On a recent late night, the crowd that gathered around the dancers — wearing spiky wigs made from the hair of gelada baboons — was invited to show off their skills at the eskista, a shoulder-shaking jig.

“I believe tradition is never stuck,” Mr. Belay said. The self-taught dancer, who is 38, had first come to the place where the Ethiocolor Band performed when he was a child living on the street. Mr. Belay said that he’d slept under the bar for seven years, earning his board by working without pay. Many years later he bought Fendika Azmari Bet from its former owners and began to shake up the city’s cultural life. As he put it, “I am the bridge to connect jazz and theater to azmaris.”

While azmaris are traditional here, jazz instruments first made their way to Ethiopia through a surprising route early in the 20th century. In 1924, Haile Selassie (then known as Ras Tafari) visited Jerusalem. The future emperor was welcomed to the city at the St. James Cathedral, a Crusader-era Armenian church, by a brass band composed entirely of teenage orphans, survivors of the Armenian genocide. What happened next changed the course of musical history in Ethiopia.

“Prince Ras Tafari adopted 40 Armenian orphans from Jerusalem to be the first imperial band,” said Aramazt Kalayjian, a documentary filmmaker working on a film about the Armenian community in Ethiopia. “They played for his honor, and he loved the music and what they were doing, and decided to give them jobs.”

This palace band, called Arba Lijoch (The 40 Orphans), helped to popularize trombones, saxophones and trumpets in Ethiopia. With this foundation, and the work of a few inspired bandleaders, including several Armenians, a jazz scene began to take shape in Addis over the next decades. During the 44-year reign of Haile Selassie, jazz and brass bands were often hired to play for the emperor and his guests.

Starting in the mid-1960s, musicians like Mulatu Astatke began fusing Western-style jazz and funk with traditional Ethiopian folk and religious melodies, creating a unique strand of jazz. Mr. Astatke is seen as the father of Ethio-jazz and is Ethiopia’s most famous living musician.
Photo

Fendika Azmari Bet. Credit Nichole Sobecki for The New York Times

While the 70-year-old Mr. Astatke has a demanding tour schedule, he still found the time to open a music venue and school called African Jazz Village here in late 2013. On a recent Saturday night, a boisterous crowd of Ethiopians and expats was just beginning to trickle onto the sunken dance floor of the club, a historic spot on the grounds of the boxy, government-owned Ghion Hotel, known in its heyday in the 1970s for hosting Bob Marley and Billy Ocean.

The circular room, with its disco ball and colorful strobe lights, looked like a mirrored roulette wheel. A saxophone player launched into a sinuous lead-in, then Mr. Astatke strode out on stage and began to play the conga drums. The crowd, delighted at this rare live appearance of the jazz icon, showed its appreciation by thronging the dance floor.

Before the concert, Mr. Astatke spoke enthusiastically about the future of the genre he invented and the next generation that is embracing it. “There are a lot of young musicians playing Ethio-jazz,” Mr. Astatke said in his low, raspy voice. “It’s developing, which I think feels great.”

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=add364cc8b) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=add364cc8b&e=[UNIQID])

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE ON THIS MAILING LIST PLEASE RESPOND WITH ‘REMOVE’ IN THE SUBJECT LINE. IF YOU ARE RECEIVING DUPLICATE EMAILS OUR APOLOGIES, JAZZ PROMO SERVICES ANNOUNCEMENT LIST IS GROWING LARGER EVERY DAY…..PLEASE LET US KNOW AND WE WILL FIX IT IMMEDIATELY!

Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

ARC Holiday Record + CD Sale + Cataloging Volunteer Needed

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676
ARC has gotten more than 700 jazz books donated and we are trying to catalog them in a hurry before our sale. So we are looking for a few volunteers to help. If you know some dedicated jazzbows who would like to help, or can post our plea, that would be swell. If they can type and spell, well, that’s good enough! We can offer them early admission to our sale via the sale party for their time. That means nice food, drinks and first dibs on all the records. Along with the books that are duplicates there will be plenty of jazz LP, many of them near-mint, from the same donor that we will be offering at this sale. Thanks. Bob George

http://arcmusic.org

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=0a3c028b89) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=0a3c028b89&e=[UNIQID])

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE ON THIS MAILING LIST PLEASE RESPOND WITH ‘REMOVE’ IN THE SUBJECT LINE. IF YOU ARE RECEIVING DUPLICATE EMAILS OUR APOLOGIES, JAZZ PROMO SERVICES ANNOUNCEMENT LIST IS GROWING LARGER EVERY DAY…..PLEASE LET US KNOW AND WE WILL FIX IT IMMEDIATELY!

Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

ARC Holiday Record + CD Sale + Cataloging Volunteer Needed

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676
ARC has gotten more than 700 jazz books donated and we are trying to catalog them in a hurry before our sale. So we are looking for a few volunteers to help. If you know some dedicated jazzbows who would like to help, or can post our plea, that would be swell. If they can type and spell, well, that’s good enough! We can offer them early admission to our sale via the sale party for their time. That means nice food, drinks and first dibs on all the records. Along with the books that are duplicates there will be plenty of jazz LP, many of them near-mint, from the same donor that we will be offering at this sale. Thanks. Bob George

http://arcmusic.org

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ARC Holiday Record + CD Sale + Cataloging Volunteer Needed

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ARC has gotten more than 700 jazz books donated and we are trying to catalog them in a hurry before our sale. So we are looking for a few volunteers to help. If you know some dedicated jazzbows who would like to help, or can post our plea, that would be swell. If they can type and spell, well, that’s good enough! We can offer them early admission to our sale via the sale party for their time. That means nice food, drinks and first dibs on all the records. Along with the books that are duplicates there will be plenty of jazz LP, many of them near-mint, from the same donor that we will be offering at this sale. Thanks. Bob George

http://arcmusic.org

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RCA Victor-made ‘race records’ of ’20s infuse new musical premiering in Camden — NewsWorks

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http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/homepage-feature/item/73996-victor-made-race-records-of-20s-infuse-new-musical-premiering-in-camden?linktype=hp_impact

** RCA Victor-made ‘race records’ of ’20s infuse new musical premiering in Camden — NewsWorks
————————————————————

An original musical theater production about the historic Victor Records recording studio in Camden premieres in Camden this weekend.

“Hand Me Down the Silver Trumpet,” at the Walter Gordon Theater on the Rutgers-Camden campus, features a live 12-piece band performing “race records” originally recorded in Camden in the early 20th century.

Since the dawn of the recording industry, African-Americans were behind the microphone, but at first their records were sold mainly to white audiences.

“It wasn’t until 1920 that Mamie Smith made ‘Crazy Blues’ for Okeh Records, marketed to African Americans in places like Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo,” said Kenneth Elliott, an associate professor of theater at Rutgers-Camden and creator of “Silver Trumpet.” “They had amazing sales. Record companies realized they were missing a major market.”

Victor Records was a little late to the game, not producing its first race records catalog until 1927. “Silver Trumpet” incorporates songs from that catalog, taking creative liberties by including additional songs from the 1930s.

Elliott was first inspired by “Sounds of Camden,” an exhibition of the history of the Victrola Talking Machine Company (later owned RCA), at the neighboring Stedman Gallery. Victrola made the hand-cranked record players and the records to be played on them in a massive campus near the Camden waterfront.

The company bought a church at Fifth and Cooper Streets to serve as a recording studio for some of the biggest talent in the country, including Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, and Alberta Hunter.

The songs in “Hand Me Down the Silver Trumpet” are bound together by a time-traveling story, in which a young man is cleaning out his grandmother’s attic and discovers a cache of old 78s. On the records he hears, for the first time, the voice of his great-aunt Mamie, a diva of her time.

The production includes a medley of food-related songs, including “Rumsteak Serenade” and “All That Meat and No Potatoes.”

“There’s a third one called ‘Hold Tight (I Want Some Seafood Mama),’ which the Andrew Sisters did and made a huge hit,” said Elliott. “It was written by an African-American composer, and Fats Waller did a spectacular recording of it that is much more sensual than the Andrews Sisters. These food songs are metaphors for sex.”

Elliott may not have been able to pull off this musical without Dionne Grooms-Fields, a singer he discovered at a jazz concert. Grooms-Fields is a local gospel singer and Rutgers-Camden graduate with a clear, shouty voice that can vibrate and growl when she wants it to. As Aunt Mamie, dressed head to toe in flapper attire and long strings of pearls, she nails the classic blues diva.

She plays both the modern-day mother of the attic explorer, urging him to finish cleaning, and the 1927 Aunt Mamie, a part written for her.

“Mamie is very feisty, very with it,” said Grooms-Fields during a rehearsal. “She has Smithers wrapped around her finger — Smithers is the engineer. When she says go, he goes. When she says cut, he cuts.”

“Hand Me Down the Silver Trumpet” (http://finearts.camden.rutgers.edu/theater-program/production-season/) plays just three times this weekend at Rutgers-Camden.

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Warwick, Ny 10990
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RCA Victor-made ‘race records’ of ’20s infuse new musical premiering in Camden — NewsWorks

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** RCA Victor-made ‘race records’ of ’20s infuse new musical premiering in Camden — NewsWorks
————————————————————

An original musical theater production about the historic Victor Records recording studio in Camden premieres in Camden this weekend.

“Hand Me Down the Silver Trumpet,” at the Walter Gordon Theater on the Rutgers-Camden campus, features a live 12-piece band performing “race records” originally recorded in Camden in the early 20th century.

Since the dawn of the recording industry, African-Americans were behind the microphone, but at first their records were sold mainly to white audiences.

“It wasn’t until 1920 that Mamie Smith made ‘Crazy Blues’ for Okeh Records, marketed to African Americans in places like Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo,” said Kenneth Elliott, an associate professor of theater at Rutgers-Camden and creator of “Silver Trumpet.” “They had amazing sales. Record companies realized they were missing a major market.”

Victor Records was a little late to the game, not producing its first race records catalog until 1927. “Silver Trumpet” incorporates songs from that catalog, taking creative liberties by including additional songs from the 1930s.

Elliott was first inspired by “Sounds of Camden,” an exhibition of the history of the Victrola Talking Machine Company (later owned RCA), at the neighboring Stedman Gallery. Victrola made the hand-cranked record players and the records to be played on them in a massive campus near the Camden waterfront.

The company bought a church at Fifth and Cooper Streets to serve as a recording studio for some of the biggest talent in the country, including Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, and Alberta Hunter.

The songs in “Hand Me Down the Silver Trumpet” are bound together by a time-traveling story, in which a young man is cleaning out his grandmother’s attic and discovers a cache of old 78s. On the records he hears, for the first time, the voice of his great-aunt Mamie, a diva of her time.

The production includes a medley of food-related songs, including “Rumsteak Serenade” and “All That Meat and No Potatoes.”

“There’s a third one called ‘Hold Tight (I Want Some Seafood Mama),’ which the Andrew Sisters did and made a huge hit,” said Elliott. “It was written by an African-American composer, and Fats Waller did a spectacular recording of it that is much more sensual than the Andrews Sisters. These food songs are metaphors for sex.”

Elliott may not have been able to pull off this musical without Dionne Grooms-Fields, a singer he discovered at a jazz concert. Grooms-Fields is a local gospel singer and Rutgers-Camden graduate with a clear, shouty voice that can vibrate and growl when she wants it to. As Aunt Mamie, dressed head to toe in flapper attire and long strings of pearls, she nails the classic blues diva.

She plays both the modern-day mother of the attic explorer, urging him to finish cleaning, and the 1927 Aunt Mamie, a part written for her.

“Mamie is very feisty, very with it,” said Grooms-Fields during a rehearsal. “She has Smithers wrapped around her finger — Smithers is the engineer. When she says go, he goes. When she says cut, he cuts.”

“Hand Me Down the Silver Trumpet” (http://finearts.camden.rutgers.edu/theater-program/production-season/) plays just three times this weekend at Rutgers-Camden.

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=25639c7aac) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=25639c7aac&e=[UNIQID])

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Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
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Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

RCA Victor-made ‘race records’ of ’20s infuse new musical premiering in Camden — NewsWorks

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http://twitter.com/#!/jazzpromo https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz-Promo-Services/216022288429676
http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/homepage-feature/item/73996-victor-made-race-records-of-20s-infuse-new-musical-premiering-in-camden?linktype=hp_impact

** RCA Victor-made ‘race records’ of ’20s infuse new musical premiering in Camden — NewsWorks
————————————————————

An original musical theater production about the historic Victor Records recording studio in Camden premieres in Camden this weekend.

“Hand Me Down the Silver Trumpet,” at the Walter Gordon Theater on the Rutgers-Camden campus, features a live 12-piece band performing “race records” originally recorded in Camden in the early 20th century.

Since the dawn of the recording industry, African-Americans were behind the microphone, but at first their records were sold mainly to white audiences.

“It wasn’t until 1920 that Mamie Smith made ‘Crazy Blues’ for Okeh Records, marketed to African Americans in places like Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo,” said Kenneth Elliott, an associate professor of theater at Rutgers-Camden and creator of “Silver Trumpet.” “They had amazing sales. Record companies realized they were missing a major market.”

Victor Records was a little late to the game, not producing its first race records catalog until 1927. “Silver Trumpet” incorporates songs from that catalog, taking creative liberties by including additional songs from the 1930s.

Elliott was first inspired by “Sounds of Camden,” an exhibition of the history of the Victrola Talking Machine Company (later owned RCA), at the neighboring Stedman Gallery. Victrola made the hand-cranked record players and the records to be played on them in a massive campus near the Camden waterfront.

The company bought a church at Fifth and Cooper Streets to serve as a recording studio for some of the biggest talent in the country, including Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, and Alberta Hunter.

The songs in “Hand Me Down the Silver Trumpet” are bound together by a time-traveling story, in which a young man is cleaning out his grandmother’s attic and discovers a cache of old 78s. On the records he hears, for the first time, the voice of his great-aunt Mamie, a diva of her time.

The production includes a medley of food-related songs, including “Rumsteak Serenade” and “All That Meat and No Potatoes.”

“There’s a third one called ‘Hold Tight (I Want Some Seafood Mama),’ which the Andrew Sisters did and made a huge hit,” said Elliott. “It was written by an African-American composer, and Fats Waller did a spectacular recording of it that is much more sensual than the Andrews Sisters. These food songs are metaphors for sex.”

Elliott may not have been able to pull off this musical without Dionne Grooms-Fields, a singer he discovered at a jazz concert. Grooms-Fields is a local gospel singer and Rutgers-Camden graduate with a clear, shouty voice that can vibrate and growl when she wants it to. As Aunt Mamie, dressed head to toe in flapper attire and long strings of pearls, she nails the classic blues diva.

She plays both the modern-day mother of the attic explorer, urging him to finish cleaning, and the 1927 Aunt Mamie, a part written for her.

“Mamie is very feisty, very with it,” said Grooms-Fields during a rehearsal. “She has Smithers wrapped around her finger — Smithers is the engineer. When she says go, he goes. When she says cut, he cuts.”

“Hand Me Down the Silver Trumpet” (http://finearts.camden.rutgers.edu/theater-program/production-season/) plays just three times this weekend at Rutgers-Camden.

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=25639c7aac) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=25639c7aac&e=[UNIQID])

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Camden’s silver sound – Philly.com

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http://articles.philly.com/2014-10-14/entertainment/54976132_1_gospel-music-victrolas-emile-berliner

** Camden’s silver sound
————————————————————

“RACE RECORDS.” Today, the term sounds prejudiced – evil in a not-quaint, old-fashioned way.

But with “Hand Me Down the Silver Trumpet,” a musical world premiering at Rutgers University Camden this week, race records are being remembered and evoked anew as a great breakthrough for and celebration of African-American culture.

“That’s what this ragtime, blues and gospel music represented in the 1920s and ’30s, when it was first being recorded and released,” said Rutgers professor and show author Kenneth Elliott. “African-Americans were proud to finally have recordings they could buy and play on their Victrolas, records made by and for their own.”

This music would also prove “highly influential and popular across the musical spectrum and color lines, both here and abroad,” added Iceland-born Rutgers prof (and the show’s musical supervisor) Stefan Orn Arnarson.

Also being celebrated in a “Sounds of Camden” exhibit of memorabilia now in Rutgers Stedman Gallery, “Hand Me Down the Silver Trumpet” has already proved an eye- and ear-opener for show performers like Donnel Treadwell Jr. It’s introduced the lead actor/singer (a college senior and music major) to “a highly expressive, personal music like I’ve never heard before,” and to a world “so completely different, it’s like diving into ‘The Chronicles of Narnia.’ ”

** Camden’s own
————————————————————

The musical could likewise go a long way to buff up Camden’s civic image and sense of self-pride, especially if the production has “legs.”

There’s a good chance of that.

Elliott has helmed his share of off-Broadway productions, and Arnarson and choreographer Samuel Antonio Reyes are recent Barrymore Award nominees.

From 1901 forward, our Jersey border town was one of America’s entertainment capitals, awash in the musical machinery and millions of discs churning out of the Victor Talking Machine factories.

Founded by Eldridge Johnson (1867-1945), and building on technology he’d licensed and evolved from Gramophone inventor Emile Berliner, Victor grew to encompass 10 Camden city blocks and employ as many as 4,000.

Two recording studios operated “virtually around the clock, attracted many of the most famous artists from around the world,” Elliott shared. “African-American musicians were recording from the start, but initially it was repertoire targeted to a white audience. Then, with the great waves of black migration north, Victor began targeting the market with music they could call their own.”

** Treasures in the attic
————————————————————

Treadwell leads the musical’s journey back in time, playing a contemporary kid going through his great-grandmother’s attic after her death.

“I come upon these amazing old records that magically transport me back to the time and place where they were recorded, a 1928 recording session at Victor Records,” he said.

Elliott said they lit on that year “because we found a catalog from 1928, that listed all the recordings Victor had put out on the [African-American centric] Black Label.”

Rutgers grad student Bashawn Moore and guest artist Mike Weeks play a pair of jazz singers who become Treadwell’s guides. Another guest artist, Langston Darby, plays a preacher man, modeled after the Rev. F.W. McGee, who “recorded sermons like ‘Jonah in the Belly of the Whale,’ distilled down to three minutes – that were very strong sellers back in the day,” Elliott said.

So, too, were gospel numbers like “Hand Me Down the Silver Trumpet,” source of the musical’s title, plus lots of hardscrabble blues – “as political as that music would get,” noted Arnarson – and double-entendre blues and ragtime tunes dreamed up for Victor by the likes of Jelly Roll Morton, Alberta Hunter, Louis Armstrong and an especially prolific and rascally Fats Waller.

One of Waller’s favorite winky ploys was writing songs ostensibly about eating but really about sex – “Rump Steak Serenade,” “All That Meat and No Potatoes,” “Hold Tight, I Want Some Seafood Mama.”

“We’ve put them together in a food medley,” Elliott said.

Digging up the vintage material wasn’t all that hard. It’s certainly a city disgrace that Camden doesn’t have a big repository of Victor stuff, that the Johnson Victrola Museum is located in, ugh, Dover, Del. (The company founder was born in Wilmington and attended Dover Academy.)

But Rutgers’ campus in Newark houses a huge jazz library, including some original period arrangements that proved “extremely helpful” for Arnarson in recreating his period-correct arrangements for the show’s 12-piece orchestra and cast, which also includes Davonna Patterson, Adeja Rice, Markenzie Johnson, Malcolm Ortis and Linda Ibeneche.

And some of the songs listed in that 1928 Victor catalog actually turned up on YouTube, of all places.

“Record collectors are great at sharing their treasures,” Elliott said. “They put up videos of the music playing on their windup Victrolas.”
————————————————————

Walter Gordon Theater, Rutgers University Camden, 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, $15, $10 seniors and Rutgers alumni, $7 non-Rutgers students, 856-225-6211, rugerscamdentheater.com.

Stedman Gallery, Fine Arts Center, 314 Linden St., 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Monday and Saturday, until 8 p.m. Thursday, 856-225-6350, rcca.camden.rutgers.edu.
————————————————————

Blog: philly.com/GizmoGuy

Online: ph.ly/Tech

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Copyright (C) 2014 All rights reserved.

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
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USA