Jazz beyond Jazz: October 2010 Archives

Pianist, composer, ensemble leader, now autobiographer -- at age 84, Randy Weston is a huge and undiminished presence. Read my column in City Arts New York about how he's just published African Rhythms, his life story, is signing it at Tribecca Performing Arts Center (NYC)  Oct. 30, and leads his 22-piece orchestra at that same venue in a 50th anniversary concert of his 4-part suite Uhuru Afrika, (lyrics by Langston Hughes) on November 13.  howardmandel.com
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Five acts, all jazz headliners, in 3 hours at the Jazz Foundation of America's Loft Jazz Party, plus Chicago drummer-composer Mike Reed's thrilling People, Places & Things quartet and alto saxist Darius Jones' trio at Drom in the East Village -- bountiful blues, soul, swing, groove, creativity, tradition, big names and newcomers in NYC on Saturday and Sunday. It's like this all the time in the jazz capital of the universe, but good not to take it for granted.

The MacArthur Fellowship to pianist/composer/bandleader Jason Moran follows from that Foundation's ongoing trend to give $500,000 no-strings-attached to musicians who've demonstrated accomplishment and seem to promise more. Here's my City Arts-New York column  re what Moran's done and how things have changed since Monk, Bird, Dizzy et al brought modernism to jazz, without any dream of non-profit or governmental financial support.

Roulette, since 1978 a formerly humble Manhattan-based presenter of avant-garde "intermedia," has signed a 20-year lease on a former YWCA art deco 600-seat theater in Brooklyn. This  Next weekend (Oct. 7, 8, 9) is the space's three-night benefit "Easy Not Easy," assigning emerging (read: little known) artists presumably simple scores by such its longtime stalwarts as Pauline Oliveros and John Zorn. Read more all about it in my column in City Arts - New York . . .