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31 July – 6 August 2014
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Ausgabe 26, 2014
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We read the morning paper for you!
Dear colleagues and jazz friends,
Jazzinstitut's JazzNews keeps you up-to-date with news of the jazz world, which we collect, summarize, and issue via e-mail about once a week. This service can also be accessed on our website ( www.jazzinstitut.de), where it is updated on a daily basis. You’re invited to post comments on the entries there.
If you need bibliographies of the musicians named in our JazzNews, please click on our website’s Jazz Index page. This is a bibliographical reference of jazz-related books, magazines, journals and other sources that you can access without charge. If you don't find the name(s) you’re looking for, feel free to e-mail us! We will send you Jazz Indexdigests of articles about musicians as they make the news.
Now, have fun reading about the jazz week that was!
If you want us to change your e-address, stop sending JazzNews for a specified period, or permanently, please let us know.
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31 July 2014
Hal Russell / Sun Ra
Howard Reich remembers the Chicago saxophonist Hal Russell whose NRG Ensemble was a major voice of the avant-garde since the late 1970s ( Chicago Tribune). Reich quotes from an interview he had with Russell in 1991, one year before his death, about playing drums behind Miles Davis, Billie Holiday and John Coltrane, about overcoming his drug addiction, about musical money jobs which he balanced by playing powerful experimental improvisations on the side. Russell will be celebrated this Thursday in a concert featuring some of his former collaborators, among them Ken Vandermark and Fred Lonberg-Holm. Howard Mandel reports about the event ( Arts Journal). — Joann Stevens talks to the author and illustrator Chris Raschka who just published a children's book about "The Cosmobiography of Sun Ra. The Sound of Joy Is Enlightenment" (Smithsonian Magazine).
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1 August 2014
Jean-Félix Mailloux / Louis Armstrong
Peter Hum talks to the Canadian bassist Jean-Félix Mailloux about his decision to become a jazz musician, about the concept behind his strings-heavy band Cordâme, about the appeal of exotic music, about his relationship with the jazz tradition, about collaborating with the pianist François Bourassa, and about working with his partner, the violinist Marie Neige Lavigne ( Ottawa Citizen). — On the brink of Satchmo Summerfest in New Orleans, Chris Waddington talks to Louis Armstrong specialist Ricky Riccardi about Armstrong's importance for 20th century popular culture ( New Orleans Times-Picayune). The Summerfest itinerary can be found here ( Satchmo Summerfest). On Armstrong's real birthday, August 4th, Natalie Pompilio writes about "ten things to know about Louis Armstrong", including information about his birthday, the pronunciation of his first name, his nicknames, his parents, his status as a trumpeter and singer, his outgoing personality, his firm stand against racism, and his relationship to his hometown New Orleans ( Legacy).
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2 August 2014
Newport Jazz Festival
Will Friedwald reports about the 60th anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festivalhappening this weekend ( Wall Street Journal). He recalls the history of the festival founded in 1954 by George Wein and how Wein's idea both adapted the example of classical music festivals to the jazz genre and reconnected jazz to its New Orleans roots of "outdoorsy, weekend-afternoon presentation". Friedwald explains how the Newport Festival grew, begot a folk festival sister, attracted big name pop acts, and claims that Wein "deserves to be credited as the inadvertent father of the entire era of Woodstock and sports-arena rock concerts". — Charles J. Gans talks to George Wein about his career as a pianist ( Washington Post). He will again perform at the Newport Jazz Festival, and Wein asks himself whether this might "mark the end of a tradition dating back to the inaugural event 60 years ago: playing with his Newport All-Stars band". — Andy Smith reports about the festival's successful program including some rain and a marriage proposal while Ron Carter's trio was playing "My Funny Valentine" ( Providence Journal).
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3 August 2014
Sonny Rollins / Sean Jones
A certain "Django Gold" lets tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins supposedly talk about the sound of the saxophone ("horrible"), the art form of jazz ("the stupidest thing anyone ever came up with"), jamming with Bud Powell and Charlie Parker in his youth ("the worst day in my life"), and the compulsion of music ("I hate music. I wasted my life.") ( The New Yorker). Only the fact that this piece was published in the "Humor / Daily Shouts" section makes the reader realize that this might be a rather unfunny joke. An editor's note, marking "This article (…) is a work of satire" was only added after many protests, such as by Howard Mandel ( Arts Journal), Marc Myers ( JazzWax), Nicholas Payton (NicholasPayton) and others. Last not least, Sonny Rollins himself responds in a video interview with Bret Primack, first stating that he likes humor (we knew that) and is a longtime subscriber of Mad Magazine, then admitting that he felt hurt, not only by the New Yorker "joke" but by sensing that many readers had taken it for real. He emphasizes how much jazz musicians struggled to be creative and continue to develop their art form and that jazz as an art form and a musical statement "isn't funny" ( Sonny Rollins). We are also alerted to some real interviews Sonny Rollins gave to Ishmael Reed six years ago ( CounterPunch) and to Greg Thomas four years ago ( The Root). — Chuck Yarborough reports about the trumpeter Sean Jones who has been named head of brass at Boston's Berklee College of Music ( Cleveland Plain Dealer). Other newspapers report as well ( Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).
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4 August 2014
Lee Konitz / T.S. Monk
The pianist Dan Tepfer speaks with the alto saxophonist Lee Konitz about the magic of spontaneity, humor and the discipline needed for making music, about jazz education, about the concept of original players and copyists in jazz, about trying to be oneself in music, about having been lucky to have stayed away from hard drugs in his life, about the need for and his own experiences with the idea of musical challenges and competition, as well as about "playing sharp" on his instrument ( Jazz Speaks). — Brennan Williams talks to the drummer T.S. Monk about the upcoming centennial of Thelonious Monk's birth in 2017, about the involvement of the Thelonious Monk Institute with the International Jazz Day, and about the interest of actors such as Denzel Washington, Bill Duke and Don Cheadle to be part of a Thelonious Monk biopic ( Huffington Post).
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5 August 2014
New Orleans / Evan Christopher
Alison Fensterstock reports about a lecture by Hogan Jazz Archive director Bruce Raeburn at Satchmo Summerfest in which he emphasizes that the exodus of musicians after the city of New Orleans' red light district Storyville was closed in 1917 was mostly a myth ( New Orleans Times-Picayune). Many musicians had left the city earlier already, others continued to play there. Most of all, though, "New Orleans jazz was circulating throughout America long before Storyville shut down". — Chris Waddington talks to the clarinetist Evan Christopher about the Summerfest and the New Orleans jazz group approach which he likes to call "spontaneous orchestration" ( New Orleans Times-Picayune).
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6 August 2014
… what else …
Scott Mervis talks to the pianist and singer Dr. John about the influence of Louis Armstrong, his long career and young musicians in New Orleans ( The Blade), while Alison Fensterstock reports that the star had to cancel his Newport Jazz Festival appearance due to a flu virus which had him hospitalized in New York City ( New Orleans Times-Picayune). — The German photographer Arne Reimer talks about his current exhibition (and book) "American Jazz Heroes" shown at Berlin's Prince Charles Club (Wild Heart Recordings). — David Palmquist has launched a new website listing a chronology of Duke Ellington's working life and travels ( The Duke – Where and When). — The trombonist Troy Andrews aka Trombone Shorty had his Trombone Shorty Foundation replace the instrument of a 14-year-old boy whose trombone was stolen at gunpoint ( Washington Post). — Lisa Shresberry talks to the pianist (former trumpeter)Bob Thompson ( San Francisco Chronicle ). — Hans Hielscher reflects about the fascination of jazz festivals ( Spiegel Online). — Ben Ratliff hears the drummer Tyshawn Sorey and the pianist Marilyn Crispell at The Stone, New York ( New York Times). — Stefan Michalczik hears the Dutch saxophonist Tineke Postma at the Palmengarten in Frankfurt, Germany ( Frankfurter Rundschau). — Hans-Jürgen Linke reads the autobiography of the German clarinetist and accordionist Rüdiger Carl ( Frankfurter Rundschau; our own review can be found here)
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Obituaries
We learned of the passing of the Italian pianist Giorgio Gaslini at the age of 84 ( La Stampa, La Repubblica), the drummer Idris Muhammad at the age of 74 ( New Orleans Times-Picayune), the drummer Frankie Dunlop at the age of 85, the pianist Kenny Drew Jr. at the age of 56 ( Jazz Truth), the painter and founder of Hamburg's major venue Die Fabrik Horst Dietrich at the age of 79 ( NDR), and the documentary filmmaker Robert Drew ("On the Road with Duke Ellington") at the age of 90 ( Contact Music).
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Last Week at the Jazzinstitut
On Friday and Saturday our 23rd Darmstadt Jazz Conceptions ended with two well-attended concerts. The small ensembles presented new interpretations of jazz standards (Kalle Kalima, Jürgen Wuchner), irregular meters and free improvisation (Norbert Stein), Brazilian music (Felix Astor), as well as own pieces (Uli Partheil, Jürgen Wuchner). A large ensemble led by Hazel Leach combined more than 30 musicians who played some of her compositions, among them "According to Albert" from her recent suite "Songs from the Edge", which in its combination of voice and big orchestra had quite a special effect on the listeners. The teachers ended the workshop with a concert of their own, playing pieces by each of the six professors. In all of this, the Jazz Conceptions again prove to be more than a mere workshop: Everybody participating agreed that the sounding result was just stunning, and that the week's intensive work will continue to inspire everybody…
The Jazz Conceptions literally segued into the Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (Holiday Courses for Contemporary Music), a Darmstadt institution known all over the world. We are looking forward to hearing some of the Ferienkurse's many concerts, lectures and discussions, and we'll start this Tuesday evening with a multi-media event called "Dead Serious" featuring the Belgian Nadar Ensemble and the Iraqui/US artist Wafaa Bilal in a performance of Michael Maierhof's piece "Exit F" for four hot air balloons and ensemble.
We support the important work of the Union Deutscher Jazzmusiker and its engagement for musicians in Germany. In its newest e-mail-newsletter the UDJ features a short interview with the Jazzinstitut's Wolfram Knauer ( UDJ Rundbrief).
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About this mailing:
Older Jazz News issues can be accessed through our Website (www.jazzinstitut.de).
The Jazz News is being mailed in a German language edition as well. If you feel more comfortable with the German version, let us know by sending a mail.The newspaper articles summarized on this page have been archived in our digital archive. If you need the complete article of one of the notes on this page, write us an e-mail. You may also be interested in our Jazz-Index, the world's largest computer-based bibliography on jazz, which lists books, jazz periodicals, but also essays from daily and weekly newspapers. You can order excerpts from our Jazz-Index on specific musicians for free by sending us a mail with the respective name(s). A short aside about the links on this page: Some of the linked articles cannot be read without prior registration; with many online newspapers older articles can only be accessed for a fee. Please bear in mind that the summaries and translation on this page are our summaries and translations. If you want to quote any of the articles listed here, you should use the original sources.We send this newsletter to the following e-mail address: jim@jazzpromoservices.com
If you do not want to receive further mails from this mailing list, please let us know and we will take you from the list at once. Of course, you might also want to recommend this service to others …
Jazzinstitut Darmstadt is a municipal cultural institute of the city of Darmstadt, Germany.
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Contact:
Jazzinstitut Darmstadt
Bessunger Strasse 88d
D-64285 Darmstadt
Germany
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