I already posted about Bobby McFerrin’s Jazz at Lincoln Center performance of VOCAbuLarieS, his uplifting choral suite co-composed by Roger Treece — but my new column in City Arts-New York goes further, noting other singers giving voice to Thanksgiving and other warm sentiments. And slightly belated happy birthday to Sheila Jordan, who recently celebrated her 82nd year performing at the Jazz Standard. She’s a peach, and having her with us is something to be thankful for . . .
Archives for November 2010
Announcing eyeJAZZ.tv & Happy 45th b’day AACM
eyeJAZZ.tv, a wave of guerrilla video music-news clips being initiated by the Jazz Journalists Association, has posted its first example — my brief production from last week’s 45th birthday concert of the AACM featuring composer-saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, flutist and AACM chair Nicole Mitchell (no relation) and saxophonist Ari Brown, at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
Bobby McFerrin: Don’t worry, just sing
Vocalist extraordinaire Bobby McFerrin, composer-conductor Roger Treece and 40 voices including the Danish “rhythm choir” Vocal Line performed pieces from the album VOCAbuLarieS at Jazz at Lincoln Center Friday and Saturday night, establishing a high standard for contemporary vernacular choral music and breaking down the 4th wall between artists and audiences. It was a deeply satisfying, beautiful and joyous show.
Launch of the Jazz Forward Coalition
A new business-focused collaboration, the Jazz Forward Coalition, announces itself: An influential Midwestern jazz presenting organization, a jazz-speciality public relations firm, a major jazz website, a long-surviving independent record company and Pittsburgh-based strategic marketer firm joining forces to “raise jazz’s profile by enhancing it’s vitality and cultural relevance.” Well, that’s how musicians try to do it. Can an industry-oriented cadre succeed? Read more in my article at JJANews.org.
howardmandel.com
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AACM at 45: “Creative Musicians” span generations, U.S., globe
The AACM — Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians — continues after 45 years to encourage highly original, edgy and exciting artists — as I detail in my new City Arts column. Examples in New York City: reedist/composer Henry Threadgill’s Zooid performs tonight and tomorrow at Roulette; trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith’s 22-piece Silver Orchestra and the duo of keyboardist-singer Amina Claudine Myers and drummer Reggie Nicholson are the bill for the AACM-New York”s concluding concert of its fall 2010 season on November 19 at The Community Church of New York; NEA Jazz Master Muhal Richard Abrams, the pianist, composer and improviser who co-founded the organization 45 years ago and has guided it ever since celebrates his 80th birthday by collaborating with two very different small ensembles at Roulette on December 2.
And in Chicago, an AACM 45th anniversary festival is going on with trombonist-computer composer George E. Lewis, Roscoe Mitchell, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Ernest Dawkins, Douglas Ewart, Mike Reed, Phil Cohran and many others concertizing at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and conducting open master classes. Hail to creative musicians everywhere!
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CareFusion drops jazz fest sponsorships
CareFusion, a global corp. specializing in hospital equipment, has ended its two-year sponsorship of George Wein’s New York Jazz Festival and Newport Jazz Festival, and the Chicago Jazz Festival, a day after reporting the retirement of its Chairman and CEO David L. Schlotterbeck, and the first quarter financials of its 2010 fiscal year.
The company announced steep revenue losses and plans to cut 5% of its workforce last August; in October, CareFusion recalled 17,000 Alaris PC infusion units, cited by the FDA as a product the use of which has “a reasonable probability” of causing “serious adverse health consequences or death.” But a publicist cautioned against linking these happenstances, and enthused about what she called CareFusion’s jazz-related marketing campaign.