main: February 2010 Archives

Under-sung, mid-career jazz pianists of innovative distinction in New York City -- the topic of my new column in City Arts - New York's Review of Culture -- considerations prompted by David Hajdu's NYT magazine feature on Fred Hersch. Who'd I leave out?

Composer-saxophonist Henry Threadgill performed his quicksilver music with quintet Zooid at the Jazz Gallery a few days back: here are the photos. He talked at Jazz at Lincoln Center, also: a brief synopsis.

B.B. King, 84 yr old #1 living blues icon of the world, and Buddy Guy, 73 yr old 1st runner-up, concertized in New York City last weekend, but there's been a near-total news blackout. Here's a review from the Financial Times of London. Meanwhile, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, British blues pretenders (as in pretenders to the throne) rated a three-column photo and full front page New York Times arts section review,

City Arts, for space reasons, left off the last graph I'd submitted: True blue fans will flock to hear David "Honeyboy" Edwards, running buddy of legendary Robert Johnson and recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, at B.B. King's March 11. Edwards is 95, a lifetime achievement for any blues musician, and according to this report from two years ago, he can still play. Continuing with the strength that it has for more than 100 years is an achievement for the blues itself, and American culture, too. howardmandel.com
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My column  http://tinyurl.com/NYCblues in City Arts - New York's Review of Culture, focuses on America's deep, dark musical strain as it is today in a blues-challenged city. It doesn't mention that Wynton Marsalis is the world's greatest blues trumpeter, as he proved last night playing "bread and butter" from the Count Basie songbook with the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra, a show repeated tonight (2/12) and Saturday.

Flutists drawn to the instrument's floating high pitch also want to get down, according to Robert Dick, world master of the contrabass flute and extended flute techniques. He demonstrated this truism Monday at Dixon Place (NYC) with an improv titled "Fumarole," after the undersea vents for volcanic gasses that support unique ecosystems and lifeforms. It sounded like little else I've ever heard.

Steve Colson, pianist/composer and band leader, with vocalist Iqua Colson --  a couple  members of American experimental music's cutting edge AACM for some 35 years --  give a rare performance quartet Saturday night (Feb 6) at NYC's Thalia theater in Symphony Space. Everyone who attends gets the Colsons' new CD, The Untarnished Dream, for free. One-time promotion? Start of a trend? Acceptance of reality?

Are all Jazz Masters in/of NYC? Most, yes -- but can that last? My new City Arts column. See photos that demonstrate the thesis.