The jazz world convenes in two U.S. cities this weekend, as high school and college bands + directors gather at the JEN Conference in New Orleans, jazz presenters focus themselves at the APAP convention in New York City and jazz journalists get together on topics vital to better and continued music coverage at the JJA’s “New Media for New Jazz” conference, in APAP-provided spaces at the Sheraton New York, Jan 7 – 11. Concurrently, 60 new jazz ensembles showcase in five NYC Greenwich Village clubs for Winter Jazzfest, the NEA celebrates its newly enrolled Jazz Masters at Jazz at Lincoln Center (with live streaming! — see below) and the entire community mourns/celebrates at the memorial service for Dr. Billy Taylor at Riverside Church.
Last glance 2010: great performances and best beyond jazz
There’s not much time left, so here are three of my best memories of live music over this crazy year, and a couple handfuls of favorite recordings that promise to be listenable for quite a while forward —
Fighting history and myth re racial politics in jazz
I completely disagree with the point of Randall Sandke‘s bookWhere the Dark and the Light Folks Meet: Race and the Mythology, Politics, and Business of Jazz. 
Rather than celebrate a century of inter-racial collaboration modeling society’s progress on civil rights, instead Sandke proposes that a cabal of journalists, scholars and left-leaning “activist” producers exaggerated black musicians’ centrality while downplaying white Americans’ contributions to jazz. He thinks white musicians deserve more attention and credit, if jazz is a true meritocracy; I think instead that the generally accepted shape of jazz’s narrative and its canon is representative of jazz’s meritocracy, and that white musicians for the most part have gotten plenty of notice, plus fame and fortune frequently disproportionate to their artistic achievements. Read my review at JJANews.org — and look for Sandke, a composer-trumpeteras well as author, to post a response, here or there.
American Bandstand loved Captain Beefheart
In 1966, long before the original Hairspray, black and white teens danced together to the bass overdrive and deep croak of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. Today blues lovers, avant-gardists and fans of dada, surrealism and abstract expressionism mourn and celebrate the Captain, aka Don Van Vliet. If you don’t believe people jitterbuged to “Diddy Wah Diddy,” watch the clip. And thanks to Jim Macnie for bringing it to my attention.
James Moody, bop saxophonist, flutist, humorist: 3/25/25 – 12/9/10
Sad news: Jazz giant James Moody died of pancreatic cancer today, age 85. This is confirmed on Moody’s own website. A brilliant improviser who emerged from Dizzy Gillespie’s big band to join the young turks of bebop (Monk, Bags, Klook, Blakey) in the late 1940s, he became internationally admired for his tenor sax and flute mastery and on-stage good cheer, as when he’d sing both male and female parts to “Moody’s Mood for Love,” his etched-in-gold solo given lyrics by his pal Eddie Jefferson.
Seasonal electricity: jazz “fusion” in NYC
Fusion, fission, energy and virtuosity reign supreme over coming holiday weeks as jazzers beyond genre constraints fill New York clubs. Starting tonight (Dec. 9) double-necked guitar madman Dave Fiuczynski fires up Iridium with ripping alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa and jam-band idol John Medeski on keybs; jazz sambas and tangos, ex-Milesian Mike Stern and smooth trumpeter Chris Botti, soul-drench organist Dr. Lonnie Smith and the Bad Plus follow. Details here, at my new column for City Arts-New York. And below — Fuze, vocalist Dean Bowman + Roy Hargrove knock out Miles Davis’ “What It Is” from Decoy (1984, and still state-of-jazz-funk).
More on McFerrin, and the voices of New York
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 . . .
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.
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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.
Randy Weston, Giant Standing
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.