Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation
What’s it mean that the back catalogs of record companies documenting 100 years of American music are now wholly owned by the Japanese Sony Corporation, which has bought out Bertelsmann, its German partner in the four-year-old behemoth music corporation Sony BMG?
Johnny Griffin, tenor saxophonist, b. Chicago 4-24-28, d. at his home in the French countryside,  7–27-08 — such bare facts don’t say much about the music this man could wring from his instrument, back when jazz giants entertained the earth. From his pro emergence at age 15 in 1945 well past the mid ’60s, when Griffin relocated to Europe due to tensions in the U.S. and civilization abroad — he stood fast and tall for vigor and rigor, sophisticated lyricism and humor, impassioned drive, true blue grit, the spirit of collaborataion  — attributes audiences shouldn’t take for granted.
A concert sponsored by The Onion — so expect to be amused, Wednesday July 30, starting at 6:30 pm, free in a tent by the Brooklyn waterfront:Â
P.S. to yesterday’s musings re the BBC Jazz Awards: the Guardian’s blog posting on the Awards show (which featured performances by Return to Forever, Tommy Smith, singer Ian Shaw and Jeff Beck with Jamie Cullum and Kyle Eastwoood jamming on “Let The Good Times Roll”, plus presentations by Sir George Martin, among others) mentions that this event can be heard (free, online) through midnight Wednesday, July 30.Â
According to Slate
(formerly, Salon’s) tech writer Farhad Manjoo, reviewing the
iPhone makeover and cool third-party programs that optomize its
potential, the expense and hassle of securing the new device is worthwhile
if only for mobile access to Pandora.com. The personally-programmed radio site has captivated me, too
— Pandora’s Music Genome Project reliably
streams known and unknown music I like — jazz-beyond-jazz — on my B **tches Brew “station”
in surprising juxtapositions and successions.
Virtually free, nearly boundless music exploration at one’s fingertips!
As an enclave of the newly gilded during the Gilded Age, the town of Newport, Rhode Island was  somewhat privileged by its relative isolation. The easiest ways to get to this promontory during the 1890s may have been by making a fortune in railroads, or by yacht — the old town (dating from 1639) has long been considered sailing capitol of the U.S. In some circles, though, it’s better known as home to the Newport Jazz Festival starting in 1954.
Do-it-yourself public sound installations are serendipitous surprises: Former Talking Head David Byrne wired the Battery Maritime Building to emphasize its haunted house groans and creaks, and it’s further improved by human agency. A few hundred yards away, chimes are planted amidst the shrubbery. Leap on them.
“We’re doing everything we can to eliminate jazz from American culture,” a promoter for Live Nation Artists, the world’s dominant pop music production and marketing firm “joked” to Florida councilmen considering a proposed upcoming music festival. Jazz responds with a can’t-be-bothered shrug.Â
“Music that we’re playing now is just the blues of all of
America, all over again, it’s just a different kind of blues. This is the
blues, the real blues, it’s the new blues, and people must listen to this music
because they’ll be hearing it all the time. Because if it’s not me it’ll be
someone else that’s playing it. The majority of the younger musicians I’ve
heard in New York, they’ve begun to play this way because this is the only way
left for musicians to play. All the other ways have been explored, in the time
past.”Â
B.B. King played coy at the 25th annual Chicago Blues Festival last weekend. “I won’t say what party I’m for,” the great vocalist and guitarist began, in obvious reference to local resident Barack Obama’s ascension to Democratic presidential nominee, “but everybody has something to be happy about now. Including the women — who found out ‘Yes, we can!‘” Few other of the hundreds of performers were even that explicit onstage, but the fest reportedly drew 750,000 listeners over four days, and the music projected a general air of triumph against daunting odds.