arneth

“It wasn't simplicity I was after, it was the opposite, the voluptuous feeling of simplicity.”
(Leonard Cohen)

Always on the top of this site: A norwegian jazz talent.



Stian Omenås
Ringing Chamber 1
NORCD / Music Operators

Stian Omenås is a 31 year old trumpet player and teacher from Valldal in Sunnmøre. After studies in jazz studies in Trondheim and the Music Academy in Oslo, he has now settled in Moss. He plays and leads several different ensembles and is a musician that has been talked a lot about the late most years.

I like to break up and admit one of my sins of omission: I have heard far too little on Stian Omenås far. With music and the quartet, he surrounds himself with his debut CD for NORCD so I understand that there should be a change in it.


Aided by a team consisting of Mats Eilertsen on bass, Erik Nylander on drums and Rob Waring on vibraphone, Omenås tells us that he has much original to say. The musicians he has invited to be the type that do not have anything to prove and which therefore makes it all the time. Here's egos aside for the collective and therefore also the whole been so good at "Klang Chamber 1".

It is in the title of the album that the music has a clear chamber music feel. Short lyrical pieces, sketches, chorale and rhythmic ideas, mostly from Omenås, with a song written by Eilertsen and three collectively and spontaneously conceived, the basis for these excursions where space and sound is an important ingredient.

Omenås Stian is a musician with a lot of important and exciting time. He's still not the unique tone predecessors and inspirational Arve Henriksen, Per Jørgensen, Nils Petter Molvaer and especially Miles Davis - who is hailed with "Thank you Miles" as the final track is called - but he is well on its way



Stian Omenås - Ringing Chamber 1 - Release 27 January 2012

After many years as a musician seeking Stian Omenås finally succeeded in putting together an exciting group of musicians with a common understanding of composed and improvised music. In this recording, strong and clear instrumentalists with a taste for minimalism, expanded understanding of form, dramaturgical and compositional development. And importantly, stylistically credibility lyrical contemporary art music, where the friction is at times a

necessity for a balanced tonal expression. The music has a chamber musical backgrounds and created in the room - and space as an important medmusiker. Certainly in rooms that have natural sound. Hence the name: Omenås Klang Chamber. The acoustic basis of this instrumentation gives inspirasjonfor exploration. All the instruments sound rich in solo, duo, trio, and interaction. The music varies and develops naturally - in chamber music style.

Omenås himself says, "The trumpet as a solo instrument provides great scope for vibraphones many techniques and sounds, the bass capabilities of a large registry and drums musical diversity element both phonetic and rhythmic. An example is how clanging cymbal overtones occasionally trigger melodic and harmonic solutions in our interaction. I find that all musicians are equal. A good starting point for good and playful communication. Our repertoire consists of a selection of short lyrical pieces, sketches, chorale and rhythmic ideas of yours truly, some pure improvisations, and compositions of Mats Eilertsen. The term varies from free improvisation to the specific themes and harmonies. Common to all is a lyrical identity - again chamber music, in a wandering and exciting friction landscape. "



Marius Neset is just 25 years old, yet as a musician and composer he brings an astonishing maturity to all his work. He was born in Bergen, Norway but moved to Copenhagen in 2003 to study at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory. It was there that he met and studied with British keyboard virtuoso and composer Django Bates. Bates was quick to recognize the young man’s talents and Neset has been a member of Bates’ stoRMChaser big band since 2005. More recently, he has joined his former teacher’s small group Human Chain and played with the group to great acclaim at Ronnie Scott’s early in 2010.

Michael Brecker was Neset’s first influence on saxophone but he also learned a lot from Jeff Harrington, when he spent a semester at Berklee College of Music in 2002. To these early influences, Neset has more recently added those of Wayne Shorter and the tenor sax giant Joe Henderson. Neset is a very strong rhythm player and perhaps that is his greatest debt to Henderson.

As a composer, Neset’s influences are similarly diverse – Django Bates (with whom he studied composition), Pat Metheny, Frank Zappa and also Bach, Stravinsky and Shostakovich. Yet already, Neset has absorbed these influences and found his own musical language for expressing their virtues.

A multi-award winner, since graduating from RMC, Marius Neset has pursued his musical goals through different bands. His main project since 2005 has been JazzKamikaze. With its eclectic mix of jazz, rock, electronica and classical music, the group has had great international success playing concerts in Europe, Asia, both North and South America and Africa. People Are Machines provides another outlet with its emphasis on a diverse range of rhythmical concepts.

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This site is a Jazz site. But you will find artists and groups of artists represented - from all musical genre. Examples: song writers, klezmer groups, eminent soloists within classical music etc.

http://youtu.be/k7DiNTzzJzg



Dolores Keane (born 1953) is an Irish folk singer. She was a founding member and vocalist of De Dannan, an Irish folk music group. Dolores left to marry John Faulkner in 1977. They were both multi-instrumentalists. Dolores played concertina, flute, whistle, hurdy gurdy and bodhrán. The anthology “A Woman’s Heart” (1992), with three songs by Dolores Keane, was one of the the most popular folk anthologies of the nineties.

Keane was born in Caherlistrane, County Galway, Ireland. She is a sister of musician Seán Keane. Her aunts Rita and Sara Keane are also singers. She has duetted with American singer John Prine on his album In Spite of Ourselves.



Leonard Cohen is worried about what comes after Amerika. I wonder what comes after Leonard Cohen.

Anthem: Ring the bells that still can ring:
http://youtu.be/W-vSfwIJkjY

No Cure For Love:
http://youtu.be/F24VqlFBvrU

Everybody Knows:
http://youtu.be/GUfS8LyeUyM



Leonard Cohen, (born September 21, 1934 in Montréal, Quebec, Canada) is a poet, novelist and musician. His musical career has largely overshadowed his prior work as a poet and novelist, although he has continued to publish poetry sporadically after his breakthrough in the music industry.

Musically, Cohen’s early songs are based in folk music, in terms of both melody and instrumentation; from the 1970s, though, his work begins to show the influence of various types of popular and cabaret music. Since the 1980s he has typically sung in a deep bass register, accompanied by synthesisers and female backing vocals.

Cohen’s songs are often emotionally heavy and lyrically complex, owing more to the metaphoric word play of poetry than to established conventions of songcraft. His work often explores the themes of religion, isolation, and complex interpersonal relationships.

Cohen’s music has become highly influential to other singer-songwriters, and more than a thousand cover versions of his works have been recorded. He is also popular in his native land, having been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and awarded the Order of Canada, the nation’s highest civilian honour.



Kroke has it own musical univers. We can call it "klezmer", but its quality that makes the difference.



The History of Kroke KROKE (which means Kraków in Yiddish) was formed in 1992 by three friends, graduates of Kraków Academy of Music: Jerzy Bawoł (accordion), Tomasz Kukurba (viola) and Tomasz Lato (double bass). The group members completed all stages of standard music education, including jazz and modern music. KROKE began to play music which was deeply set in Jewish tradition, and strongly influenced by Balkan music, to enrich it later on with Oriental and Indian sounds, elements of jazz and world music, creating their own characteristic style.

Initially, KROKE performed only in clubs and galleries situated in Kazimierz, a former Jewish district of Kraków. There for the first time one could listen to KROKE's songs. They were later recorded on their first cassette released at their own expense in 1993. While performing at the Ariel gallery they were noticed by Steven Spielberg who at that time was shooting in Kraków Schindler's List. Spielberg invited them to Jerusalem, where he was shooting the last scenes. The group gave a concert at Survivors Reunion for those of the Oskar Schindler's list who survived the war. Spielberg also sent a copy of the group's cassette to Peter Gabriel who in 1997 invited KROKE to WOMAD Festival, where the audience gave a rousing welcome both to the group and its debut record called "Trio" (1996). The cooperation with Peter Gabriel resulted in joint recording sessions at Real World Studio - parts of these recordings were later on used by Peter Gabriel on his record "Long Walk Home", a soundtrack to Phillip Noyce's film "Rabbit-Proof Fence".

In 1997 KROKE also released their second album called Eden. On one hand the record carried on the Jewish music tradition, started with "Trio" and on the other, it was a result of both musical and archival search. The audience received an album which combined traditional ornamentation with modern technique, and traditional motives combined with modern musical sensitivity gave a totally new tone colour. This first period of KROKE's activity was well summed up by a live album called "Live At The Pit" (1998), recorded in the United Kingdom and nominated for the German Record Critics' Award.

Invitations to the most significant European festivals and important meetings with numerous musicians, and personages of art and culture earned them many concert tours. The meetings and concerts enabled KROKE to find the root of new sounds and music cultures. In their new original compositions even though Jewish or Balkan inspirations were still audible, KROKE more often has been reaching for Sephardic, Arabic, and even Indian sounds. It resulted in the next record "The Sounds of the Vanishing" (1999), an evidence of KROKE's music evolution and the capability of the musicians to create their own unique style. Gaining enormous popularity in Poland and Europe, the record received in 2000 a prestigious award Preis der Deutsche Schalplattenkritik (German Record Critics' Award).

In summer 2001, while on concert tour in Cornwall, KROKE met for the first time with Nigel Kennedy, who immediately presented the group a cooperation offer. The result was a joint record "East Meets East" (2003), which was a smash hit. KROKE was nominated for the BBC 3 Radio award in the World Music category, and their concerts with Nigel Kennedy played at numerous European festivals received enthusiastic applause. At the same time another KROKE's own record "Ten Pieces to Save the World" (2003) was released. This tuneful, climatic album was ranked second on the World Music Charts and was a crowning achievement of group's ten years on the music market.

In 2004, KROKE released another concert record called Quartet - Live At Home, recorded at S-5 Studio of Radio Kraków. In the recording a Kraków jazz percussionist Tomasz Grochot took part, and since then he has been recording and performing with KROKE. In 2005, in cooperation with a jazz pianist, Krzysztof Herdzin, the group started to work on Edyta Geppert's record "Śpiewam życie" (2006); the record also appeared in Western Europe, released by KROKE's record company Oriente Musik as "I Sing Life". At the same time the group was working with the Sinfonia Baltica Orchestra on a joint music project. In 2006, one of KROKE's songs appeared on the soundtrack to David Lynch's picture "Inland Empire".

Cooperation with Nigel Kennedy and Edyta Geppert does not make KROKE forget about their own audience. In 2007 following nearly four years of concert tours in numerous European countries (and on their fifteenth birthday) KROKE released another studio album called "Seventh Trip", a record full of energy, a music journey along new music routes.

Numbered concerts in Poland and Europe, and work on the new "symphonic" project filled the year 2008. The new works arranged for a symphony orchestra were elegant, soft, and gentle, and they received a warm welcome of Polish, Spanish, and German audiences. Yet KROKE didn't content themselves and continued their search for a new sound. It was a jazz pianist, Krzysztof Herdzin who wrote new arrangements, and the Sinfonietta Cracovia, an outstanding orchestra from Krakow, brought a new style verging on the classical and modern sounds. The KROKE's concerts in Krakow and Sankt Petersburg (Autumn 2009) proved the decision was right. The audience heartily applauded every work, and the musicians had to give many encores.

In 2009 KROKE decided to do the next turnaround; more and more often the group played concerts as a trio, without Tomasz Grochot and his drums. As a result, the concerts become more cosy, as the music turned back to the Ashkenazi and Balkan sounds, so long absent in KROKE's music. Janusz Makuch, the head of the Jewish Culture Festival, called it "a return to the roots". KROKE proved his opinion with their new album "Out of Sight" released in October 2009. One can find there energetic compositions inspired by Klezmer tradition, verging on jazz, and mood vocalises by Tomasz Kukurba.



Nigel Kennedy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nigel Kennedy (born 28 December 1956) is a British-born violinist and violist. He made his early career in the classical field, and he has performed and recorded most of the major violin concerti. He later included jazz, klezmer and other genres in his repertoire.

Musical lineage

Nigel Kennedy's grandfather was Lauri Kennedy, a British-born musician and principal cellist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra,[1] who played with Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Arthur Rubinstein and others. His grandmother was Dorothy Kennedy, a pianist, who accompanied John McCormack and taught Enrico Caruso's children. Lauri and Dorothy settled in Australia, where their son, the cellist John Kennedy, was born. At the age of 24, John moved to England and joined the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, later becoming the principal cellist of Sir Thomas Beecham's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. While in England, John developed a relationship with an English pianist, Scylla Stoner, with whom he eventually toured in 1952 as part of the Llewellyn-Kennedy Piano Trio (with the violinist Ernest Llewellyn; Stoner was billed as "Scylla Kennedy" although she and John never married). However, John ultimately left Stoner and returned to Australia, unaware she was pregnant by him. John remained unaware of the existence of his son, Nigel Kennedy, until they met for the first time when Nigel was 11.[2] Nigel Kennedy has about 30 close relatives in Australia, whom he visits whenever he tours there.[3]

Early life

Nigel Kennedy was born in Brighton, East Sussex. A boy prodigy, as a 10-year-old he would pick out Fats Waller tunes on the piano after hearing his stepfather's jazz records.[4] He was a pupil at the Yehudi Menuhin School of Music, and later studied at the Juilliard School in New York with Dorothy DeLay.

Career

At the age of 16, Kennedy was invited by Stéphane Grappelli to appear with him at New York's Carnegie Hall, under the threat from his teachers at the Juilliard that it would ruin his classical career.[5] He made his recording debut in 1984 with Elgar's Violin Concerto. Kennedy's recording of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons with the English Chamber Orchestra in 1989 sold over 2 million copies and earned a place as one of the best-selling classical works ever.[6] The album remained top of the UK classical charts for over a year with sales equivalent to one copy sold every 30 seconds.[7]

He gave numerous performances for The Prince's Trust, the Royal Variety Performance and private performances at St. James's Palace and Buckingham Palace. He released his biography Always Playing in 1991.[8] He then took the controversial and highly publicised decision to withdraw completely from public performance, at which point he made the album Music In Color with Stephen Duffy. He made a triumphant return to the international concert platform to critical acclaim five years later.[7] In 1997, Kennedy received an award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music at the BRIT Awards, and in 2001 received the 'Male Artist of the Year' award.[7]

Kennedy recorded a cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" for the 1993 album Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix. In 1999 Sony Classical released The Kennedy Experience, which featured improvisational recordings of Hendrix compositions. According to a BBC interview with Kennedy, the violinist stated that the recording is "an album of music inspired by Jimi Hendrix. It is an extended instrumental work in six movements, each movement a classical interpretation of a Hendrix song".[9] On the recording, Kennedy is accompanied by seven other musicians, and the lineup includes two cellos, an oboe, two guitars, a Dobro, flute, and double bass. With cellist Lynn Harrell, he has recorded an album of duets.

In 2000, he has recorded Riders on the Storm: The Doors Concerto (with Jaz Coleman), a violin based orchestral version of many Doors songs, including "Strange Days", "LA Woman", "The End", and "Riders On The Storm". And, on the 27th of November, Kennedy joined rock group The Who at the Royal Albert Hall to play the violin solo on the song "Baba O'Riley", released three years later on the album Live at the Royal Albert Hall. Kennedy has played on several tracks by British singer/songwriter Kate Bush, who was a guest on Kennedy's episode of This Is Your Life. He was featured on two of Sarah Brightman's songs for her 2003 album Harem.

He has been exploring Klezmer music with the Polish jazz band Kroke. The band consists of musicians "who have been knocking around with Kennedy for five years. ... [Kennedy explains], 'I met them all separately at jam sessions in the jazz club near where I live in Cracow, ... I thought: that’s the drummer I want, that’s the bass player, and so on. They’ve all got their own projects.'"[10]

In late 2005, Kennedy went to New York to record his first album for the jazz label Blue Note Records. Other musicians on the album were Ron Carter on double bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums; and saxophonist Joe Lovano. Kennedy has since stated that "from now on, at least 50 per cent of my endeavour is going to be in the jazz field".[4]

Kennedy appointed a new manager, Terri Robson[citation needed], and returned to the Proms after an absence of 21 years, performing Elgar's Violin Concerto and a late-night Prom with the Nigel Kennedy Quintet.[10]

He also plays the viola, and has recorded Sir William Walton's Viola Concerto.[11]

Image

Kennedy's persona is seen by some as abrasive and limiting to his career,[12] citing as an example his use of a 'Mockney' accent instead of the Received Pronunciation he had when he was interviewed as a child in 1964 on the BBC's Town and Around.[13]

Kennedy was attacked for his approach to classical music by John Drummond in 1991, who called him "a Liberace for the Nineties" and criticised his "ludicrous clothes and grotesque, self-invented accent."[14][15]

Until 2006 he had expressed his intention of not appearing on the classical London concert scene with a London orchestra, seen by some as arrogance[5] and stated by Kennedy in terms of frustrated perfectionism: "It all comes down to the amount of rehearsal you get, or don't get, in this country. I insist on three or four sessions prior to a concert, and orchestral administrators won't accommodate that. If I didn't care about getting it right I could do three concerts in the same amount of time and earn three times the money. But you can't do something properly in less time than it takes."[5]

Kennedy expresses a preference[16] for the immediate appeal of live performance, and often records entire works or movements in single 'takes' to preserve this sense in his recordings. He also introduces improvisatory elements in his performances, as in his Jimi Hendrix-inspired cadenza to the Beethoven Violin Concerto and his jazz and fusion recordings.

Personal life

When not touring, Kennedy divides his time between residences in Malvern, Worcestershire (where his ex-partner and son Sark live); and London and Kraków where he lives with his Polish second wife, Agnieszka.[4][5][17][18]

In the late 80s, Kennedy was romantically involved with singer/guitarist Brix Smith.

Kennedy is a well-known Aston Villa F.C. supporter.[19] At Przystanek Woodstock 2010, he had his orchestra wear Aston Villa shirts, while directing the crown in the team's chants. Whilst living and recording in Poland he also took an active interest in Cracovia, in whose 100th anniversary club replica kit he appeared.

On 24 October 2006, Kennedy broke his arm in a cycling accident, confirmed in an interview on BBC Radio 3 on 20 April 2007.[20]

Kennedy has acknowledged regularly smoking cannabis in order to aid his creativity.[21]

Politics

Kennedy is a socialist.[22] He supported David Davis's campaign when he quit his shadow home secretary post to force a by election in protest over proposals to allow terrorist suspects to be locked up for 42 days without charge.

The musician is a vocal opponent of Israel's policies in the West Bank, and, in the summer of 2007, he told a Ha'aretz reporter:

"I was shocked to see these walls, it's a new apartheid, barbaric behaviour: How can you impose such a collective punishment and separate people? After all, we are all living on the same planet. It seems to me the world should have already learned from what happened in South Africa. And a country that hasn't learned should be boycotted, so that's why I don't perform in your country."[23]



JAZZ then .... and let´s start wIth RAY BOWN "who played a leading role in defining the modern jazz rythm".



SYNOPSIS
Ray Brown was a Grammy Award-winning double-bassist who played a leading role in defining the modern jazz rhythm. He played both as a soloist and with other jazz masters such as Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald, to whom he was also married for a brief time. He has also accompanied some of the world's top singers including Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughn and Tony Bennett.
EARLY LIFE
Best known as a contributing member of the bebop jazz movement and a member of the Oscar Peterson Trio, jazz bassist Ray Brown performed with jazz giants from Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker to his wife Ella Fitzgerald. Despite Fitzgerald's short-lived marriage to Brown (1947-1953), she remained a lifelong friend and musical associate.

A disciple of the 1940s Oscar Pettiford school of jazz bass, Brown developed an individual style renown for its tastefully executed rhythmic lines within the context of ensemble accompaniment. His talent reflects such breadth and diversity that he was the most cited musician in the first edition of the Penguin Guide to Recorded Jazz (1992). Unlike many of the founders of bebop bass, Brown performed and earned a successful living as a studio musician, record producer, and nightclub owner.

Raymond Matthews Brown was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 13, 1926. He took piano lessons at age eight and gained knowledge of the keyboard through memorizing the recordings of Fats Waller. A member of the high school orchestra, he soon found himself overwhelmed by the number of pianists among his classmates. "There must have been 14 piano players in it. And 12 of them were chicks who could read anything on sight," explained Brown in Jazz Masters of the Forties. In the book Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing, Brown revealed the main reason for ending his study of piano: "I just couldn't find my way on it. It just didn't give me what I wanted." Soon afterward, Brown, unable to afford a trombone, switched to bass, an instrument provided by the school's music department.



Bass solo: Black Orpheeus
http://youtu.be/6bJu2owDM2E



MUSICAL INFLUENCES
Brown's new musical role model emerged in Duke Ellington's innovative bassist, Jimmy Blanton. As he told Jack Tracey in Down Beat, "I just began digging into Blanton because I saw he had it covered--there was nobody else. There he was, right in the middle of all those fabulous records the Ellington band was making at the time, and I didn't see any need to listen to anybody else." As a teenager Brown played local engagements. Despite offers by bandleaders, he followed his mother's advice and finished high school before performing on the road with regional territory bands. After graduating in 1944, he performed an eight-month stint in Jimmy Hinsley's band. Around this time, Brown fell under the influence of bassists Leroy "Slam" Stewart and Oscar Pettiford, a prime mover of a modern jazz bass approach. He next joined the territory band of Snookum Russell. Eight months later, while on the road with Russell, Brown followed the suggestion of fellow band members and moved to New York City.

In 1945 Brown arrived in New York City, and during his first night visited Fifty-Second Street--"Swing Street," a mob-controlled

thoroughfare lined with various jazz clubs. That evening he encountered pianist Hank Jones, a musical associate, who introduced him to Dizzy Gillespie. That same evening, Gillespie, prompted by Jones' recommendation, hired Brown without an audition. Attending the band's rehearsal the next day, Brown--a 19-year-old musician still largely unfamiliar with many of bebop's innovators-- discovered that his fellow bandmembers were Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Max Roach. "If I had known those guys any better I would have probably never gone to the rehearsal," admitted Brown in Jazz Journal International. "The only guy I knew something about was Dizzy because some of his records had filtered down through the south where I'd been playing with a territory band." The group's leader, however, immediately recognized the talent of his young bassist. As Gillespie commented, in his memoir To Be Or Not to Bop, "Ray Brown, on bass, played the strongest, most fluid and imaginative bass lines in modern jazz at the time, with the exception of Oscar Pettiford." Shortly afterward, Gillespie added Detroit-born vibraphonist Milt Jackson. In Jazz Masters of the Forties, Brown recounted his early years with Jackson: "We were inseparable. They called us twins."

PERFORMING WITH DIZZY GILLESPIE
In 1945 Brown appeared with Gillepsie at Billy Berg's night club in Hollywood, California, an engagement which, with the exception of a small coterie of bebop followers, failed to generate a favorable response from west coast listeners. In Gillespie's memoir To Be Or Not to Bop, Brown summarized the band's Hollywood stint: "The music wasn't received well at all. They didn't know what we were playing; they didn't understand it." During the winter of 1946, Gillespie returned to New York and opened at Clark Monroe's Spotlite on 52nd Street with a band consisting of Brown, Milt Jackson, Stan Levey, Al Haig, and alto saxophonist Sonny Stitt. In To Be Or Not to Bop, Brown modestly described his role in the sextet, "I was the least competent guy in the group. And they made something out of me." In May of 1946, the sextet recorded for the Musicraft label, cutting the sides such as "One Bass Hit"--featuring Brown's bass talents-- and "Oop Bop Sh' Bam,' and "That's Earl Brother." On Feb 5, 1946, Brown took part in one of Charlie Parker's sessions for the Dial label, recording such numbers as "Diggin' Diz."

In 1946 Gillespie formed his second big band, using the same six- member line-up. On February 22, 1946, Brown appeared with Gillespie's big band for a RCA/Victor session organized by pianist and jazz critic Leonard Feather. As Feather wrote in his work Inside Jazz, "Victor wanted an all-star group featuring some of the Esquire winners, so we used J.C. Heard on drums and Don Byas on tenor, along with Dizzy's

own men--Milt Jackson, Ray Brown, and Al Haig--and the new guitarist from Cleveland, Bill de Arango." The date produced the numbers "52nd Street Theme," "Night in Tunisia," "Ol' Man Rebop," and "Anthropology." Between May and July of 1946, Brown appeared on such Gillespie recordings as "Our Delight," "Things To Come," and "Rays Idea" (co-written with Gil Fuller). In November of the same year, he cut the classic Gillespie side "Emanon."

In 1947 Gillespie assembled a smaller group inside his big band which included Brown, Milt Jackson, pianist John Lewis and drummer Kenny Clarke. As Jackson told Whitney Baillett, in American Musicians II, "We'd play and let the band have a rest. I guess it was Dizzy's idea." Attending an August 1947 Gillespie big band session Brown's bass is heard on such numbers as "Ow!," "Oop-Pop-A- Da," and John Lewis' "Two Bass Hit" which Brown's bass is heard driving the band and, at the composition's close, soloing with force and a controlled sense of melody. On December 10, 1947, Brown married vocalist Ella Fitzgerald in Ohio and moved into a residence on Ditmars Boulevard in the East Elmhurst section of Queens, New York. Soon afterward, the couple adopted a son, Ray Jr.



MARRIAGE TO ELLA FITZGERALD
After leaving Gillespie's band in 1947, Brown and performed with Fitzgerald on Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic tours and various record dates. "When I left Dizzy," commented Brown in Ella Fitzgerald, "the band was getting ready to go to Europe, and I couldn't. I'd just gotten married to Ella Fitzgerald. At that time I was in a bit of a curl between her and wanting to be with her as well. She wanted me to travel with her trio; she had Hank Jones playing piano. So I finally decided I was going to stay in New York." During a concert series in September 1949, Brown performed when Canadian-born pianist Oscar Peterson made his debut with the tour (according to Brown, he had already performed with Peterson at informal Canadian jam sessions). In 1950 Brown and Peterson performed as a duo, and for the next several years, were also billed on various tours. In 1950 Brown recorded with Charlie Parker and, between 1950 and 1952, appeared with the Milt Jackson Quartet. The quartet's pianist John Lewis recounted in The Great Jazz Pianists, "We were all friends and would play together when Dizzy's band wasn't working." At another Parker session in August 1951, Brown found himself in the company of such sidemen as trumpeter Red Rodney, John Lewis, and drummer Kenny Clarke. Together they backed Parker on sides which included "Swedish Schnapps," "Si Si," "Back Home Blues," and "Lover Man." A few months later, Brown appeared with the Milt Jackson Quartet, and on March 25, 1952 Brown attended a Charlie Parker big band recording

session in Hollywood, California.

In 1952 Brown and guitarist Irving Ashby became the founding members of the Oscar Peterson Trio. Ashby's replacement, Barney Kessel, performed with the trio a year before Peterson recruited guitarist Herb Ellis who, along with Brown on bass, formed one of the most famed jazz trios of the 1950s. "Herb and I rehearsed all the time," stated Brown in Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing. "For a trio that didn't have any drums, we had it all. Herb and I roomed together and we played everyday. Not just the gig. We played golf in the morning and guitar and bass in the afternoon, and then we would shower, take a nap, go to dinner, and go to the gig. We had it all." Under Peterson's leadership, Brown and Ellis underwent a challenging musical regimen. In Jazz Journal International, Brown revealed his admiration for Peterson's reputation as a difficult task master: "If you are not intimidated by absolute professionalism, then you have no problem. Sure he'll throw you a curve form time to time by calling unscheduled numbers or unexpectedly doubling the tempos, but if you're not good enough to handle that, you shouldn't be with Oscar anyway."

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Watch Ray Brown in master class

http://youtu.be/o8QazNAZjhM



LATER RECORDINGS
By 1953 Brown and Fitzgerald ended their marriage. As Stuart Nicholson noted his book Ella Fitzgerald, "Ray remained adamant that he would pursue his career with Oscar Peterson, and the couple had begun to see less and less of each other. Finally, they decided to bring their marriage to and end and filed for a 'quickie' divorce." The divorce was finalized on August 28, 1953 in Juarez, Mexico. Fitzgerald maintained custody of Ray Jr., yet she and Brown remained friends. In November 1953 they, along with Oscar Peterson, appeared at a concert in Japan. In 1958 Peterson replaced Ellis with drummer Gene Gammage, who stayed with the trio a few months until Peterson recruited drummer Edmund Thigpen. Fortunately, Brown was able to stay with the trio and earn a comfortable living. However, by the early 1960s, the group also proved demanding in its performance schedule. As Brown explained in Jazz Journal International, "Some of the tours were really punishing--we'd come to Europe and do 62 one-nighters in 65 days." After his 15-year membership in the Oscar Peterson Trio, Brown left the group in 1965, and settled in Hollywood, where he worked in the areas of publishing, management, and record production. In 1974 he co-founded the L.A. Four with saxophonist Bud Shank, Brazilian guitarist Luarindo Almeida, and drummer Shelly Manne (later replaced by Jeff Hamilton). One of Brown's exemplary studio dates emerged in the 1974 album Dizzy Gillespie Big 4.

By 1976 Brown appeared four days a week on the Merv Griffin Show. A year later, after two decades of appearing as a sideman on the Contemporary label, Brown recorded the solo effort Something for Lester, placing him in the company of pianist Cedar Walton and drummer Elvin Jones. In Down Beat

Zan Stewart gave the album the magazine's highest rating (five stars), and commented, "Walton and Jones are apropos partners-in sound for the superlative bassist ... Ray's imparts the line to 'Georgia'--what glorious tone he possesses! It continually overwhelms the listener, as does his superb intonation, for Brown is always at the center of each note."

LEGACY
In a 1980 Jazz Journal International interview, Brown told Mike Hennessey, "I'm very fortunate. I'm still able to travel and play various countries and still be liked by the public. I'm able to play what I like to play and as long as people want to listen, that's fine with me." During the 1980s, Brown recorded solo albums for the Concord label as well as releases by the L.A. Four, and numerous guest sessions with pianist Gene Harris. Since his first appearance on Telarc Records in 1989, his albums for the company include the 1994 trio Lp (with pianist Benny Green and drummer Jeff Hamilton) Bass Face, Live at Kuumbwa, the 1995 work Seven Steps to Heaven (with Green and drummer Greg Hutchinson), and the 1997 release Super Bass. Brown still performs both as a leader and accompanist at festivals and concert dates. "During the past decades Brown's sound and skill have remained undimmed, "wrote Thomas Owens, in his 1995 book Bebop: The Music and Its Players. "He is an agile, inventive, and often humorous soloist. His arco {bow} technique is excellent, though he seldom reveals it. But he shines most brilliantly as an accompanist. Examples of his beautiful lines are legion." Interviewed in The Guitar Player Book, Herb Ellis also lauded the talents of his former music partner: "{Ray Brown} is in a class all by himself. There's is no other bassist in the world for me, and a lot of players feel the same way. On most instruments, when you get to the top echelon it breaks down to personal taste, but I tell you, there are a lot of guys on his tail, but Ray has it all locked up."

Master clas



GIANTS OF JAZZ (Jazzens Giganter) ON DANISH RADIO:

http://www.dr.dk/P2/Jazz/Jazzens+giganter/

The list: Michael Brecker, Joe Zawinul, Keith Jarrett
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, John Coltrane
Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Stan Getz
Gil Evans, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie
Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday
Lester Young, Count Basie, Duke Ellington
Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson
Louis Armstrong

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John Lewis (pianist)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Lewis

John Lewis ca. 1946-48
Background information
Birth nameJohn Aaron Lewis
BornMay 3, 1920
OriginLaGrange, Illinois, USA
DiedMarch 29, 2001 (aged 80)
GenresJazz
InstrumentsPiano
Years active1940s–1990s
John Aaron Lewis (LaGrange, Illinois, May 3, 1920 – New York City, March 29, 2001) was an American jazz pianist and composer best known as the musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet.

Contents

1 Early life
2 Jazz career
3 Piano style
4 Discography
5 External links
Early life

Born in LaGrange, Illinois and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he learned classical music and piano from his mother starting at the age of seven. He continued his musical training at the University of New Mexico and also studied anthropology. He served in the Army in World War II. While stationed in France on a three-year tour of duty, he met and performed with Kenny Clarke. Clarke was an early developer of the bop style and Lewis composed and arranged for a band he and Clarke organized. Lewis returned from service in 1945 and resumed his university studies.

Jazz career

In the fall however, he went to New York where he found work in 52nd Street clubs with Allen Eager, Hot Lips Page and others. After that year, he joined Dizzy Gillespie's bop-style big band where Clarke was the drummer. Lewis developed his skill further by composing and arranging for the band as well as attending the Manhattan School of Music. In January 1948, the band made a concert tour of Europe, interrupting Lewis' studies. Lewis stayed in Europe for a time after the tour, writing and studying piano. He returned to the United States and started working for Charlie Parker in 1948 (playing on the famous recording "Parker's Mood"), Illinois Jacquet from October 1948 to 1949, Lester Young from 1950 to 1951, and others. He participated in the second Birth of the Cool session with Miles Davis in 1949 but was unable to attend the first because of an engagement with Ella Fitzgerald, whom he accompanied. Al Haig substituted for him, and the band did not include a pianist for its third session in 1950. Lewis arranged the compositions "Move" and "Budo" (immediately released as singles in 1949) and contributed one tune, "Rouge", to these seminal sessions.

Lewis, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, drummer Clarke, and bassist Ray Brown had been the small group within the Gillespie big band (something that harked back to the peak of the big band era, when most big bands also featured small groups within) and played their own short sets when the brass and reeds needed a break. It led to the foursome forming a full-time working group in 1950, known at first as the Milt Jackson Quartet, and usually featuring the vibraphonist's distinctive, swinging, blues-heavy improvisations.

The group replaced Brown (who departed to join wife Ella Fitzgerald's group) with Percy Heath and changed their name to the Modern Jazz Quartet. Lewis gradually transformed the group away from being strictly a vehicle for Jackson's improvisations, assuming the role of musical director, and oriented it toward a quiet, chamber style of music that found a balance between his gentle, almost mannered compositions, and Jackson's more elemental writing and playing. He obtained his master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music in 1953 and soon made the MJQ his full-time career. From 1954 through 1974, he wrote and performed for the quartet, with the group earning a worldwide reputation for managing to make jazz mannered without cutting the swing out of the music, before Jackson decided he wanted to leave and return to his purely blues and swinging roots.

Lewis also directed the School of Jazz at the Music Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts, annually in August from 1957 to 1960. From 1958 to 1982 he also served as music director of the annual Monterey Jazz Festival, and in 1962 he formed the cooperative big band Orchestra U.S.A., which performed and recorded Third Stream (jazz/classical combined) compositions (1962–65). (The MJQ themselves had recorded an album, Third Stream Music, that amplified Lewis's and others' hopes that there could be a new stream of music welding jazz to classical music.)

After the MJQ disbanded temporarily in 1974, Lewis taught at the City College of New York and at Harvard University, while performing solo recitals and duo recitals with Hank Jones and others and continued composing.

But in 1981, the Modern Jazz Quartet re-formed, though Lewis also played with his own sextet, the John Lewis Group and, in 1985, founded the American Jazz Orchestra with Gary Giddins and Roberta Swann. (The MJQ's return album, Three Windows, was dominated by chamber orchestra accompaniment, similar to tracks on the earlier Third Stream Music, including a re-written "Three Windows," a quarter piece he'd written for the MJQ's music for the film No Sun in Venice.)

In the 1990s he continued to teach, compose, and perform, both with the MJQ and independently. He participated in the Re-birth of the Cool sessions with Gerry Mulligan in 1992 (and was this time able to play on the entire album). He was also involved in various Third Stream music projects with Gunther Schuller and others, as well as being an early and somewhat surprising advocate of the music of Ornette Coleman.

John Lewis died in New York City after a long battle with prostate cancer.

Piano style

Lewis was among the most conservative of bop pianists. His improvised melodies, played with a delicate touch, were usually simple and quiet. The accompaniments were correspondingly light, with Lewis’s left hand often just grazing the keys to produce a barely audible sound. His method of accompanying soloists was similarly understated: rather than comping—punctuating the melody with irregularly placed chords—he often played simple counter-melodies in octaves which combined with the solo and bass parts to form a polyphonic texture. Occasionally, Lewis played in a manner resembling the stride styles of James P. Johnson and Fats Waller, all the while retaining his light touch.

Many of Lewis’s solos had a degree of motivic unity, which is rare in jazz. For example, in "Bluesology" (1956) each chorus of his solo builds on the previous one by establishing a link from the end of one chorus to the beginning of the next. His 64-bar solo in "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" (1957) derives almost entirely from its first two bars, which in turn derive from the first four notes of the theme. As the solo progresses Lewis subjects its opening motif to inversion (bar 9), chromatic alteration (bars 47 and 57), and a variety of other alterations in pitch and shape (bars 25-6, 41), which nevertheless retain their links with the basic figure.

Lewis was similarly conservative as a composer, for his music drew heavily on harmonic and melodic practices found in 18th-century European compositions. From the 1950s, he wrote a number of Third Stream works combining European compositional techniques and jazz improvisation. Most of these were written for the Modern Jazz Quartet or for the quartet with instrumental ensembles of various sizes and published by MJQ Music. Among his best pieces for the Modern Jazz Quartet are "Django" (an homage to gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, first recorded in 1954, the year after Reinhardt's death), the ballet suite The Comedy (1962), and especially the four pieces "Vendome" (1952), "Concorde" (1955), "Versailles" (1956), and "Three Windows" (1957), all of which combine fugal imitation and non-imitative polyphonic jazz in highly effective ways. Other notable compositions that have become standards include "Milano" (1954), "Afternoon in Paris" (1956), and "Skating in Central Park" (1959, from the film score he wrote for Odds Against Tomorrow).

Discography

As leader
Improvised Meditations and Excursions (1959, Atlantic 1313)
Odds Against Tomorrow (1959, UA 5061)
The Golden Striker (1960, Atlantic 1334)
P.O.V. (1975, Columbia PC33534), including "Mirjana of my Heart and Soul"
Preludes and Fugues from the Well-tempered Clavier Book 1 (1984, Philips)
The Bridge Game (1984, Philips)
As sideman with Charlie Parker
The Genius of Charlie Parker (1945–8, Savoy 12009)
"Parker’s Mood" (1948)
Charlie Parker (1951–3, Clef 287)
"Blues for Alice" (1951)
As leader of Orchestra U.S.A. (with Gunther Schuller and Harold Farberman)
Orchestra U.S.A. (1963, Colpix 448), including "Three Little Feelings"
Recordings with the Modern Jazz Quartet
Vendome (1952, Prestige 851)
Modern Jazz Quartet, ii (1954–5, Prestige 170) incl. "Django" (1954)
Concorde (1955, Prestige 7005)
Fontessa (1956, Atlantic 1231) included "Versailles"
One Never Knows (1957, Atlantic 1284), including "Three Windows"
Third Stream Music (1957, 1959–60, Atlantic. 1345) including "Sketch for Double String Quartet" (1959)
Exposure (1960)
European Concert (1960, Atlantic 1385–6), including. "Vendome"
The Modern Jazz Quartet and Orchestra (1960, Atlantic 1359), including "England’s Carol"
Original Sin (1961, Atlantic 1370)
The Comedy (1962, Atlantic 1390)
A Quartet is a Quartet is a Quartet (1963, Atlantic 1420), including "Concorde"; "In Memoriam" (1973, Little David 3001)
Under the Jasmin Tree (1968, Apple SAPCOR4)
The Last Concert (1974, Atlantic), including "Blues in A Minor," "Confirmation," "'Round Midnight."
Bill Evans: A Tribute, 1982, Palo Alto Records
With Clifford Brown





Charles Mingus (22nd April 1922 – 5th January 1979) was an American jazz bassist, composer, bandleader, and occasional pianist from Los Angeles. He was also known for his activism against racial injustice.

Mingus’ legacy is notable: he is ranked among the finest composers and performers in jazz, and recorded many highly regarded albums. Dozens of musicians passed through his bands and later went on to impressive careers. His songs - though melodic and distinctive - are not often recorded by later musicians, due in part to their unconventional nature. Mingus was also influential and creative as a bandleader, recruiting talented and sometimes little-known artists whom he assembled into unconventional and revealing configurations.

Nearly as well known as his ambitious music was Mingus’ often fearsome temperament, which earned him the nickname “The Angry Man of Jazz”. His refusal to compromise his musical integrity led to many onstage explosions, though it has been argued that his temper also grew from a need to vent frustration. Ironically, a perfect show could irritate him by closing this outlet.

Mingus was prone to depression. He tended to have brief periods of extreme creative activity, intermixed with fairly long periods of greatly decreased output.

Most of Mingus’s music retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third Stream Jazz and free jazz. Yet Mingus avoided categorization, forging his own brand of music that fused tradition with unique and unexplored realms of jazz. Mingus focused on collective improvisation, similar to the old New Orleans Jazz parades, paying particular attention to how each band member interacted with the group as a whole. In creating his bands, Mingus looked not only at the skills of the available musicians, but also their personalities. He strived to create unique music to be played by unique musicians.

Due to his brilliant writing for mid-size ensembles - and his catering to and emphasising the strengths of the musicians in his groups - Mingus is often considered the heir apparent to Duke Ellington, for whom he expressed unqualified admiration.




1. Sam Jones, a greatly in-demand bassist who often teamed up with drummer Louis Hayes, was also a talented jazz cello soloist. He always took advantage of the fairly rare opportunities he had to lead sessions to create memorable music. He played with Tiny Bradshaw (1953-1955), moved to New York in 1955 and worked with the groups of Kenny Dorham, Cannonball Adderley (1957), Dizzy Gillespie (1958-1959), and Thelonious Monk, among others. While a member of Cannonball Adderley’s very successful quintet (1959-1965), Jones wrote such originals as “Unit 7” and “Del Sasser” and led three highly recommended albums for Riverside during 1960-1962 (all have been reissued in the OJC series) that featured some of his finest cello playing. Sam Jones was with the Oscar Peterson Trio (as Ray Brown’s first replacement) during 1966-1970 and then freelanced for the remainder of his life, making many recordings, including albums of his own for East Wind (1974), Xanadu, Muse, Inner City, SteepleChase, Interplay, and SeaBreeze.

2. Sam Jones, bedroom artist with 4 albums released for free. Collaborated heavily with MC Franklin. Recently since attending Liverpool University, he has played many gigs in the city, headlining the University’s BandSoc events.



http://www.npr.org/series/10208861/npr-s-jazz-profiles/?ps=sa



Danish radio: http://podcast.dr.dk/p2/jazzensgiganter/2007/nhop.mp3

Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (27 May 1946 – 19 April 2005) was a Danish jazz bassist known for his impressive technique and an approach that could be considered an extension of the innovative work of Scott LaFaro. He was born in Osted near Roskilde, on the Danish island of Zealand.

The “great Dane with the never-ending name” was known as “NHØP” among many jazz fans. In Denmark he was most often simply talked about as “Niels-Henning” and certainly never “Pedersen”, a name shared by almost 4% of the Danish population…

As a child, NHØP played piano. As a teenager, he started learning to play contrabass and at the age of 14, he began his professional jazz career in Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen. At 17 he turned down an offer to join the Count Basie orchestra.

During the 1960s, NHØP played with several important American jazzmen who were touring in Denmark, including Albert Ayler, Bill Evans, Brew Moore, Bud Powell, Count Basie, Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, Jackie McLean, Roland Kirk, Oscar Peterson, Sonny Rollins, and the vocalist Ella Fitzgerald.

In the 1970s he worked in a duo with pianist Kenny Drew, and began making occasional appearances with the Oscar Peterson Trio throughout Europe and North America. Together, they have recorded over 50 albums.

He has also worked with Stéphane Grappelli and recorded extensively as a leader. His most known songs are My little Anna, Jaywalkin and The Puzzle. Besides jazz, he also was an interpreter of Danish folk poetry and songs. Besides many other awards, he was also awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize in 1991.

Together with his friend Ole Koch Hansen he toured Denmark with the theme “Danske toner” comprising old Danish folk songs.

NHØP died in Copenhagen, Denmark, of heart failure, at the age of 58.



Charlie Haden Biography
Born: August 6, 1937 Instrument: Bass, acoustic

“No other instrument in jazz is more essential than the bass, both backbone and heartbeat, and Haden is its master.” (Francis Davis /August, 2000 issue of The Atlantic Monthly)

Charlie Haden:On Music http://youtu.be/4bEGFgwLNv0

Time Magazine has hailed jazz legend Charlie Haden as “one of the most restless, gifted, and intrepid players in all of jazz.” Haden's career which has spanned more than fifty years has encompassed such genres as free jazz, Portuguese fado and vintage country -- the last of which is featured on his latest album, Rambling Boy -- not to mention a consistently revolving roster of sidemen and bandleaders that reads like a list from some imaginary jazz hall of fame.

Born in Shenandoah, Iowa, Charlie Haden began his life in music almost immediately, singing on his parents’ country & western radio show at the tender age of 22 months. He started playing bass in his early teens and in 1956 left America’s heartland for Los Angeles, where he met and played with such legends as Art Pepper, Hampton Hawes, Dexter Gordon and Paul Bley.

In 1957, Haden met Ornette Coleman to form the saxophonist’s pioneering quartet with trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins. As an original member of this ground-breaking Ornette Coleman Quartet that turned the jazz world on its head , Haden...” revolutionized the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz. His ability to create serendipitous harmonies by improvising melodic responses to Coleman’s fee-form solos (rather than sticking to predetermined harmonies) was both radical and mesmerizing. His virtuosity lies…in an incredible ability to make the double bass ‘sound out’ and Haden cultivates the instrument’s gravity as no one else in jazz. He is a master of simplicity which is one of the most difficult things to achieve.” (Author Joachim Berendt in The Jazz Book)

Haden played a vital role in this revolutionary new approach, evolving a way of playing that

sometimes complemented the soloist and sometimes moved independently. In this respect, as did bassists Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden helped liberate the bassist from a strictly accompanying role to becoming a more direct participant in group improvisation.

In addition to his hugely influential work with Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Billy Higgins, Ed Blackwell and Dewey Redman, throughout the ‘60s, and 70’s, Haden subsequently collaborated with a number of adventurous jazz giants, including John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Chet Baker and Joe Henderson.



From 1967-1976, Haden became a member of Keith Jarrett’s stellar trio, quartet and quintet which included drummer Paul Motian, percussionist Guilherme Franco and tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman. In 1976, he formed the band Old and New Dreams with fellow Ornette Coleman alumni Don Cherry, Dewey Redman and Ed Blackwell to perpetuate Coleman’s music as well as their own with musicians who knew and could perform Coleman’s improvisational concept.

In 1969, under the banner of Liberation Music Orchestra (MCA/Impulse), Charlie commissioned Carla Bley to arrange for a large cast of illustrious improvisers including Don Cherry and Gato Barbieri and Roswell Rudd and made a record that has become a milestone in recorded jazz. In 1970, it won among many awards, France's Grand Prix Charles Cros as well as Japan’s Gold Disc Award from Swing Journal. The group’s self-titled debut is a true milestone of modern music, blending experimental big band jazz with the folk songs of the Spanish Civil War to create a powerfully original work of musical/political activism.

A few years later he met Pat Metheny who was to become a life-long friend and collaborator and played alongside Dewey Redman, Michael Brecker and Jack DeJohnette in Pat Metheny’s 80/81 band.

In 1982, Haden established the Jazz Studies Program at California Institute of the Arts The program he developed is unique in that it emphasizes smaller groups and the spiritual connection to the creative process and helps students discover their individual sound, melodies and harmonies. For his educational work he was recently honored by the Los Angeles Jazz Society as “Jazz Educator of the Year”.

In 1986 he formed his acclaimed straight ahead band Quartet West with saxophonist Ernie Watts, pianist Alan Broadbent and drummer Larance Marable who because of illness was replaced by Rodney Green. “Haden's vision for Quartet West recognizes the beginning of modernism in jazz. Along with lush forties pop ballads and lilting originals by Haden or Alan Broadbent, the group's pianist, the Quartet’s elegant “noir” infused bop- oriented style and stellar instrumentalists perfectly evoke a sense of place like no other band. Beautiful melodies are given lush, lyrical interpretations that captivate with their sublime beauty and passionate delivery.” (Frances Davis, Atlantic Monthly) The Quartet has celebrated over twenty years together and it is one of the rare groups in jazz that has continued to perform as an ensemble over a long stretch of time.

Through the ‘90s and early 2000’s to the present, Haden continued to explore diverse streams of American popular music with both his acclaimed Quartet West and the Liberation Music Orchestra as well as on his inventive alliance with Michael Brecker, “American Dreams.” He produced recordings and performed with Pat Metheny, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, John Scofield, Tom Harrell, Hank Jones, Kenny Barron, Shirley Horn, Ginger Baker, Bill Frisell, Jack DeJohnette, Joe Lovano, Abbey Lincoln, Stan Getz, Alice Coltrane and his former student Ravi Coltrane among many others.

In 1997, the classical composer Gavyn Bryars wrote an extended adagio for Charlie Haden “By the Vaar” accompanied by strings, bass clarinet and percussion. Recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra on the album “Farewell to Philosophy” (Philips), the piece hauntingly echoes Haden's bass sound with its gut strings and resonant pizzicato notes in a wonderful synthethis of jazz and classical chamber music

Over the years Charlie Haden has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and several NEA grants for composition as well as three Grammy awards and more than fifteen Grammy nominations and countless international awards. In 1997 he was awarded a Grammy for his duet recording with Pat Metheny “Beyond the Missouri Sky” (Verve) which Haden dubbed “contemporary impressionistic Americana”. The chord voicings and harmonic sense the two musicians display is uncanny as they bend and flex the melody and solo lines to create expressive and contemplative musical statements.

in 2001 Haden received the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz CD “Nocturne” (Verve) featuring luscious boleros from Cuba and Mexico. Following that triumph, he was again awarded a Latin Grammy for his follow- up cd “Land of the Sun” (Verve) which explores the compositions of the great Mexican composer Jose Sabre Marroquin “It’s an homage to Marroquin, to the beauty of Mexican music. It’s the ‘day’ to Nocturne’s ‘night’ ”, says Haden. With arrangements by Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Haden weaves a gorgeous tapestry of sound reflecting the beauty of Mexico.

His love of world music has seen him teaming with a variety of diverse international players for many years, including Brazilian guitarist Egberto Gismonti, Argentinean bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi and Portuguese guitarist Carlos Paredes and even players outside the jazz genre such as Rickie Lee Jones, Beck, the Minute Men, James Cotton and Ringo Starr.

Along with a few rare concert reunions with Ornette Coleman- most recently in the summer of 2009 during the Southbank Festival’s Meltdown in London - Haden has made a specialty of performing and producing intimate duet recordings with such jazz greats as Hank Jones as on his album “Steal Away” (Verve) and with Kenny Barron on “Night and the City” (Verve) which are a perfect showcases for Haden's rich elegant tone.

As he continues to perform with his piers such as Lee Konitz as well as younger musicians such as Brad Mehldau and Ethan Iverson, “There may be no greater ambassador for jazz these days than L.A.'s adopted son Charlie Haden.” Chris Barton AAJ, 2009

In 2008 Haden brought his personal history full circle to record “Rambling Boy” (Decca) connecting the bluegrass music from his earliest childhood beginning at the age of two as a member of the Haden Family, a legendary Midwest music institution in the 1930s and 1940s which toured and sang on the radio, to the new generation of the Haden Family now reborn in the 21st century. Rambling Boy includes songs made famous by the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams alongside fabled traditional tunes and some striking original compositions. The performing cast includes Haden, his wife and co-producer Ruth Cameron, all four of his children (the triplets Petra, Rachel and Tanya Haden, their brother Josh Haden), and his son-in-law Jack Black-- each of whom has his or her own career in music. In addition, “Rambling Boy” features guest appearances by some of the most illustrious names in contemporary Americana and popular music: Roseanne Cash, Elvis Costello, Vince Gill, Bruce Hornsby, Pat Metheny, Ricky Skaggs & the Whites, and Dan Tyminski and also includes such illustrious musicians as Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, Bryan Sutton and more.

To complement this Grammy nominated recording, Swiss film director Reto Caduff released a documentary film in 2009 about the Haden’s life also named “Rambling Boy”. It’s making the film festival circuit both internationally and in the U.S. and Canada including the 2009 Telluride and Vancouver International Film Festivals.

In October 2009, Haden received Bass Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2010 Charlie recorded several albums which have just been recently released in 2010 & 2011 and are all currently among the top one hundred bestsellers on the jazz chart:

“Jasmine” on ECM Records, a duet album with former long- time collaborator Keith Jarrett. This was the result of a reunion of the two musicians when Keith was interviewed for the Swiss documentary film about Charlie called “Charlie Haden Rambling Boy”.

“Sophisticated Ladies” on Emarcy/Decca Records with Quartet West and strings arranged by Alan Broadbent featuring the vocalists Cassandra Wilson, Diana Krall, Melody Gardot, Norah Jones, Renee Fleming, Ruth Cameron. As a follow-up to “Art of the Song” with Shirley Horne and Bill Henderson and Quartet West, Haden wanted to further explore little known gems of the American Songbook with Quartet West and contemporary vocalists.

“Live at Birdland” on ECM Records with Lee Konitz, Brad Mehldau and Paul Motian which is a live recording from a date at Birdland in 2011 with four masters of improvisation.

Haden has been honored with the 2012 NEA JAZZ MASTER AWARD, the nation’s highest honor in jazz which will be given to him and four other honorees at a ceremony in Lincoln Center, NYC.

Charlie Haden truly is beyond category!

http://youtu.be/mJGY-LV1fZ8



Mathias Eick, Pasha Hanjani and Ertan Tekin

Three Wise Men

Christmas CD sheds new light on the Bible story

Mathias Eick, multi-instrumentalist and jazz-signature, together with Ertan Tekin from Turkey and Pasha Hanjani from Iran appointed their meeting in Istanbul, the city where east meets west and history meets the present. The three have played their way into a very soulful and unique Christmas album built over the well-known Christmas tunes like "A rose is sprung," "I sing the Christmas poem" and "My Heart Stood Still". Here we meet the beautiful oriental tones and sounds of conflicts with western melodies.

Matthew writes in the New Testament about the Magi from the East who followed the star and brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to honor the king who was born in Bethlehem. History has been to many legends and stories of all time. The show has been three in number, named, and in many traditions are made to the kings. We see them for us with camels and a flock of servants, and while science has it that they may have come from Iran, where astrology was the strongest, the saga has it that they came from different places, one of them was even from Africa.

Mathias Eick, Ertan Tekin and Pasha Hanjani has added a new chapter to the legend gathering around the three wise men. They show neither blue blood or servants. They are musicians, and they come from the north and east. And the gifts they bring are not gold, frankincense or myrrh. They will rack your child with the precious, but also the most volatile of all taxes: Music. And since Bethlehem is a closed city, in particular for the Iranians, they go to Istanbul, the city where east meets west, south meets north and the past meets the present is the child still in Mary's lap.

Three wise musicians with roots in many religions have contributed greatly to the regeneration of how Christmas songs interpreted in our time. The arrangements are by Mathias Eick. The recordings are done in Bugge's Room in Oslo and the Bulgarian church in Istanbul. Lydmennene Daniel Wold and Martin Abrahamsen has taken care of authenticity and texture of sound. Manufacturer of disc Erik Hillestad.

"Three Wise Men" is the result of an intersection between two lines in Church Culture Workshop productions in recent years. One is a series of plates with instrumental interpretations of Christmas melodies. The other is a sustained focus on cultural and religious encounters between East and West.

http://www.kkv.no/en/Music/Utgivelser/2009/Mathias-Eick/



Steinar Raknes is one of Norway’s foremost jazz bassists and songwriters. With his fearless and explosive playing style, he is often compared with the legendary bassist and songwriter Charles Mingus. Many know Raknes through his work as composer and musician in the award-winning jazz trio Urban Connection, and for collaborations with artists such as Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, Steve Grossman and Per Texas Johansson. After completing a Master of Arts (music) degree in jazz at NTNU in2001, he has collaborated in a number of ensembles, including The Core, the Ola Kvernberg Trio, SKAIDI, Kirsti Huke Quartet and Trondheim Jazz Orchestra.

Tangos, Ballads & More is the Norwegian bass player Steinar Raknes´ new band. Strongly influenced by latin American music and Norwegian folk music bass player Steinar Raknes has created new music and a new sound. The band with the original line up plays, in addition to Raknes´original music, tangos and bossa nova ballads, merged with elements from norwegian folk music. This is inspired jazz music, soft and melodic, powerful and energetic at the same time, jazz from the north, played by the best of Norwegian improvising musicians.



Mathias Eick was born on June 26 1979. His main instrument is trumpet, but he also plays double bass, vibraphone, piano and guitar. He grew up close to a small village called Eidsfoss (Vestfold, Norway) in a very musical family.

Mathias Eick has performed with several well-known music groups and musicians, e.g. Jaga Jazzist, Thomas Dybdahl and “Trondheim Jazz Orchestra” together with Chick Corea and Pat Metheny.

Awards

Mathias Eick was awarded “The International Jazz Award for New Talent 2007”. He received a prize of $20,000 US on 13 January 2007 during the IAJE 34th Annual International Conference in New York where he also performed. The annual prize was founded by IAJE in cooperation with the International Jazz Festivals Organization (IJFO).






Ola Kvernberg, violin impresario par excellence, returns to Jazzland with yet another astounding album: Liarbird.

The album effortlessly moves between moments of serene beauty and raucous full-on jams, at times almost ambient in texture, at times sounding like a drunken night of revelry.

The division between composition and improvisation is often blurred, with moments of unison emerging and disappearing unexpectedly, all the time carrying the music forward to new heights.

Developed from an original live concept by Kvernberg, Liarbird follows a structure based on movements, creating a conceptual whole rather than a selection of individual pieces. The intensity of the album increases with each subsequent track, but “intensity” is not merely a term used here to describe increases in boisterous energy; rather, it describes the feeling within each track.

Kvernberg’s violin is obviously to the fore, but never exclusively dominant. Instead, it acts like a guide for the music to follow, leading it through the uncharted territories between free jazz and compositional expertise, with sparse moments of haunting beauty and large walls of full band sound. Minimalist compositional techniques are given a new setting, allowing an unparalleled line-up of musicians to move freely. Accompanying Kvernberg are Bergmund Waal Skaslien on viola and vocals, Eirik Hegdal on soprano, sopranino and baritone saxophones and vocals, Mathias Eick on trumpet, Håkon Kornstad on tenor saxophone, flutonette, and vocals, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten on double bass, electric bass, electronics, and vocals, Ole Morten Vågan on double bass and vocals, Erik Nylander and Torstein Lofthus on drums and percussion.

The opening track, the eponymous “Liarbird” sets the album’s agenda perfectly, with languid notes and elongated harmonies alongside chattering percussion and exquisite soloing. “Boog” creates a kind of Macedonian atmosphere, using exotic scales and obtuse instrumentation, building into a kind of free jazz horo. “Boun’Amina” begins with a clearly improvisational character, although not necessarily existing outside composition, using extended string instrument techniques. It evolves into a kind of shambolic military march, with elements of classic New Orleans jazz ingredients. “Wintermelon” comes in with an utterly different attitude, like classic cool jazz on one hand, bebop on the other, while the feet are almost ready to make their way to the nearest disco; yet the free jazz ethos in never far away. “Vilje” begins with sedate bass, moving towards a chamber ensemble sound. It is perhaps one of the most beautiful pieces of music to grace the Jazzland catalog, and is certainly a highpoint in Kvernberg’s already exemplary career. “Olero” enters with a near discordant pulse, before breaking into a stumbling journey through Middle Eastern vibes and classical overtones. “Cobb” strides in with bravado, a strong beat, strong melodies and harmonies at the fore, and fast becomes a full-throttle improvisational workout. But it retains a DNA structure found throughout the album. “Spannung” brings the album to a close, with broad yet deep structures, and a more distilled sense of the album’s overarching structural intentions. Little motifs abound throughout the album, with each track echoing the others in some way. The unity of each part with the others is unmistakeable.

"Ola Kvernberg has composed a musical masterpiece" said Norwegian concert critic Pia F. Eriksen after Liarbird's performance at Molde Jazzfestival 2010. Allaboutjazz.com critic John Kelman called the same concert "positively nuclear" and listed it among his best live shows of 2010. Norwegian critic Terje Mosnes from Dagbladet followed up with a 6/6 stars review after the group's third performance in Oslo, January 2011.

Liarbird follows its live ancestry with equal determination, invention and craftsmanship.




World-renowned saxophonist Branford Marsalis, born in 1960, has always been a man of numerous musical interests, from jazz, blues and funk to such classical music projects as his Fall 2008 tour with Marsalis Brasilianos. The three-time Grammy winner has continued to exercise and expand his skills as an instrumentalist, a composer, and the head of Marsalis Music, the label he founded in 2002 that has allowed him to produce both his own projects and those of the jazz world’s most promising new and established artists.

The New Orleans native was born into one of the city’s most distinguished musical families, which includes patriarch/pianist/educator Ellis and Branford’s siblings Wynton, Delfeayo and Jason. Branford gained initial acclaim through his work with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and his brother Wynton’s quintet in the early 1980s before forming his own ensemble. He has also performed and recorded with a who’s-who of jazz giants including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock and Sonny Rollins.

Known for his innovative spirit and broad musical scope, Branford is equally at home on the stages of the world’s greatest clubs and concert halls, where he has performed jazz with his Quartet and his own unique musical approach to contemporary popular music with his band Buckshot LeFonque. In recent years, Branford also has become increasingly active as a featured soloist with such acclaimed orchestras as the Chicago, Detroit, Düsseldorf and North Carolina Symphonies and the Boston Pops, in a growing repertoire that includes compositions by Copland, Debussy, Glazunov, Ibert, Mahler, Mihaud, Rorem and Vaughan Williams.

As Marsalis continues to establish his presence in the classical realm, his propensity for innovative and forward thinking compels him to seek new and challenging works by modern classical composers. One such composer, Sally Beamish, after hearing Branford perform her composition “The Imagined Sound of Sun on Stone” at the 2006 North Sea Jazz Festival, was inspired to reconceive a piece in progress, “Under the Wing of the Rock,” which he premiered as part of the Celtic Connections festival Beamish’s home country of Scotland in January 2009. This performance followed on the heels of his two month classical tour with the Philarmonia Brasileira in a program featuring the music of Brazil’s master composer Heitor Villa Lobos and his friend, French composer Darius Milhaud, allowing the saxophonist the opportunity to more thoroughly engage the music and make it his own.

Marsalis’s nearly two dozen recordings in these various styles have received numerous accolades, with his latest CD, Metamorphosen, scheduled for release in March 2009. Metamorphosen marks the tenth anniversary of Marsalis’ quartet, which features pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts, and includes original compositions by all four members in a variety of moods, as well as features for Marsalis on tenor, soprano and alto saxophones.

His previous disc, the Grammy-nominated Braggtown, was acknowledged as his quartet’s greatest recorded achievement to date. The Marsalis quartet’s Eternal also received a Grammy nomination as well as virtually universal inclusion in lists and polls for the best jazz recording of 2004. Marsalis’ playing on the DVD Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’ Live in Amsterdam also received a Grammy nomination for best instrumental jazz solo, while also garnering awards for music and video excellence from the DVD Association.

Marsalis is also dedicated to changing the future of jazz in the classroom. He has shared his knowledge at such universities as Michigan State, San Francisco State, Stanford and North Carolina Central, with his full quartet participating in an innovative extended residency at the NCCU campus. Beyond these efforts, he is also bringing a new approach to jazz education to student musicians and listeners in colleges and high schools through Marsalis Jams, an interactive program designed by Marsalis in which leading jazz ensembles present concert/jam sessions in mini-residencies. Marsalis Jams has visited campuses in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Southwest, and established an ongoing Marsalis Berklee Jams series with the Berklee College of Music in 2008.

These diverse interests are also reflected in Marsalis’ other activities. He spent two years touring and recording with Sting, and was the musical director of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno for two years in the 1990s. He has collaborated with the Grateful Dead and Bruce Hornsby, acted in films including Throw Mama from the Train and School Daze, provided music for Mo’ Better Blues and other films and hosted National Public Radio’s syndicated program Jazz Set.

Among the most socially conscious voices in the arts, Marsalis quickly immersed himself in relief efforts following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. He is the honorary chair of the New Orleans Habitat for Humanity effort to rebuild the city, and together with his friend Harry Connick, Jr. conceived the Habitat Musicians' Village currently under construction in the city's historic Ninth Ward.

Whether on the stage, in the recording studio, in the classroom or in the community, Branford Marsalis represents a commitment to musical excellence and a determination to keep music at the forefront.



Some YouTube favourites:

http://youtu.be/Y9M8EzqAS3c
http://youtu.be/IHbW2mtwZKM
http://youtu.be/hLOPPv6GE7k
http://youtu.be/bF3jszOtHzY
http://youtu.be/D0EnwzMSNXU



Karl Seglem is described as one of the most exciting contemporary tenor saxophonists and composers in Norway. He has consistently extended musical frontiers with his original perspectives and daring improvisational style. He combines Norway's rich folk music traditions, both the vocal traditions and specially the Hardanger fiddle music, with his own mode of expression. Seglem creates modern soundscapes, a mix between jazz, folk, world, where improvisation and composition are given equal weight.

His saxophone tone blazes a fresh trail through his innovative use of breath, resonance and syncopation. Seglem also plays the Norwegian goat horns. His many CD recordings with different ensembles such as UTLA, SOGN-A-SONG and ISGLEM ranges across the entire spectrum from rooted folk to free form, and is inspired by deep Norwegian roots, via world beats to the poetic and dramatic Nordic landscape.He has composed and performed several works/pieces and has produced a number of CDs for mainly Norwegian, but also some Swedish artists.

He was awarded the EDVARD prize in 1998 for his work "Tya" (with R.Skår), and have received many other National and local prizes, grants and awards for his work.

Karl Seglem has toured Norway, Scandinavia and Germany, played in the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Japan, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Iceland, The Pharaoe Islands, USA among other countries.

http://youtu.be/-jMjW-mMmk8



Troen Trio:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqhOsR5oRM0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szv8WhCvNDA






Blues Alley, founded in 1965,[1] is a jazz dinner-and-nightclub in an alley off Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown neighborhood. As of 2008, exclusively jazz musicians are booked into Blues Alley for approximately 360 nights out of the year.

Over the years many of the world's very greatest jazz musicians have performed at Blues Alley, including Monty Alexander, Mose Allison, Tony Bennett, Ruby Braff, Charlie Byrd, Mel Clement, Buck Clayton, Billy Cobham, Larry Coryell, Roy Eldridge, Maynard Ferguson, Rachelle Ferrell, Ella Fitzgerald, Kenny Garrett, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby Hackett, Roland Hanna, Clancy Hayes, Buck Hill, Earl Hines, Freddie Hubbard, Lurlean Hunter, Phyllis Hyman, Ahmad Jamal, Dr John, Stanley Jordan, Steve Jordan, Stacey Kent, Ramsey Lewis, Les McCann, Taj Mahal, Pat Martino, Wynton Marsalis, Charles Mingus, Mark Murphy, Oscar Peterson, Joshua Redman, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Rushing, Gil Scott-Heron, Charlie Shavers, George Shearing, Wayne Shorter, Maxine Sullivan, Stanley Turrentine, McCoy Tyner, Sarah Vaughan, Grover Washington, Jr., Mary Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Teddy Wilson and Sol Yaged.[2][3]



The Front Entrance to Blues Alley
Among the several jazz musicians to record a "Live at Blues Alley" album are the late Eva Cassidy and Dizzy Gillespie [featuring tenor saxophonist Ron Holloway], Ahmad Jamal, Ramsey Lewis, Wynton Marsalis, Stanley Turrentine and Grover Washington, Jr.

In 1975 Earl Fatha Hines spent a week, during the afternoons while the club was closed, making an hour-long solo film for British TV entirely in Blues Alley, prominently featuring Frank Hart, Blue's Alley's famous 'clean-up man'.[4]

Blues Alley also has a non-profit jazz arm, the Blues Alley Jazz Society, dedicated to jazz education and outreach for young performers in the local area. Education and outreach programs include the Blues Alley Youth Orchestra and Blues Alley Jazz Summer Camp. Blues Alley honors its most popular performers by allowing them to create dishes and have them as a regular part of the restaurant's menu. Phyllis Hymans jumbo shrimp dish is one of the most popular items on the menu. Not all performers have this honor and it is shared with the greats such as Nancy Wilson and John Williams.







In jazz and blues, a blue note (also "worried" note[1]) is a note sung or played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations from the diatonic pitches with emotive blue-notes. Blue notes are often seen as akin to relative pitches found in traditional African work songs.

Like the blues in general, the blue notes can mean many things. One quality that they all have in common, however, is that they are flatter than one would expect, classically speaking. But this flatness may take several forms. On the one hand, it may be a microtonal affair of a quarter-tone or so. Here one may speak of neutralintervals, neither major nor minor. On the other hand, the flattening may be by a full semitone--as it must be, of course, on keyboard instruments. It may involve aglide, either upward or downward. Again, this may be a microtonal, almost imperceptible affair, or it may be a slur between notes a semitone apart, so that there is actually not one blue note but two. A blue note may even be marked by a microtonal shake of a kind common in Oriental music [sic].
The degrees of the mode treated in this way are, in order of frequency, the third, seventh, fifth, and sixth.
—Peter van der Merwe (1989), [2]
The blue notes are usually said to be the flattened third, flattened fifth, and flattened seventh scale degrees.[3] Though the blues scale has "an inherent minor tonality, it is commonly 'forced' over major-key chord changes, resulting in a distinctively dissonant conflict of tonalities".[4] A similar conflict occurs between the notes of the minor scale and the minor blues scale, as heard in songs such as "Why Don't You Do Right?."
In the case of the flattened third over the root (or the flattened seventh over the dominant), the resulting chord is a neutral mixed third chord.
Blue notes are used in many blues songs, in jazz, and in conventional popular songs with a "blue" feeling, such as Harold Arlen's "Stormy Weather." Blue notes are also prevalent in English folk music.[5] Bent or "blue notes", called in Ireland "long notes", play a vital part in Irish music.[6]






The Village Vanguard is a jazz club located at 178 7th Avenue South in Greenwich Village, New York City.[1] The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. At first, it also featured other forms of music such as folk music and beat poetry, but it switched to an all-jazz format in 1957.

Over 100 jazz albums have been recorded at the venue since the (originally single) album under Sonny Rollins' name in 1957. The two most famous engagements in the club's history are probably those of Bill Evans and John Coltrane, both of which took place in 1961. Joe Zawinul made his recording debut at the venue on The Cannonball Adderley Sextet in New York (1961).[2] Wynton Marsalis regularly recorded at the club in the early 1990s; the results were issued in a multi-disc set. Other musicians to release notable albums recorded live at the Village Vanguard include John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Art Pepper, Chris Connor, Keith Jarrett, Bill Frisell,Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson, Gerry Mulligan, Michel Petrucciani, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Barbra Streisand and Brad Mehldau.
Since Max Gordon died in 1989, the club has been run by Lorraine Gordon, his widow.[3]









Ever since most of Chicago’s top musicians moved to New York in the mid-to-late 1920s, New York City has been the Jazz Mecca. Nearly every major jazz style of the past seventy years has been initiated in the Big Apple.
It was Charlie Parker, familiarly known to his fans and fellow musicians as “Bird,” a contraction of Yardbird, his formal nickname, who was the dynamic creative personality and genius of the alto saxophone who served as the inspiration for Birdland.
When the original Birdland opened sixty years ago in December, 1949, Charlie Parker was the headliner and the club was located on Broadway, a block west of the 52nd Street scene, which was a hotbed of jazz in the 1930s and 40s.
Miraculously, just as the scene on 52nd Street caved in, Birdland was born and quickly came to prominence. For the next fifteen years, the club’s survival formula was built upon memorable double and triple bills, commencing at 9 p.m. and sometimes lasting ’til dawn.
In addition to Bird, many jazz legends were regulars at the club. Count Basie and his smokin’ big band made Birdland their New York headquarters, eventually recording George Shearing’s “Lullaby of Birdland” live at the club. John Coltrane’s classic Quartet regularly appeared at the club in the early 1960s, recording “Live at Birdland.” And the famous DJ, Symphony Sid Torin made a name for himself broadcasting live from the club to radio listeners up and down the eastern seaboard.



In its first five years of existence, 1,400,000 paid the $1.50 admission to make their way either right to the cabaret section or left to the intense listening bullpen to hear Birdland’s attractions and sample its atmosphere. Given the artists on the bill, that comes as no surprise. Birdland’s booking history reads like a who’s who of jazz: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bud Powell, Stan Getz, Lester Young, Erroll Garner, and many, many others.
Considering the excitement that Birdland generated on a daily basis, it’s no surprise that the club attracted its share of celebrities. Regulars to the nightly festivities included such household names as Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Joe Louis, Marlene Dietrich, Ava Gardner, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Sugar Ray Robinson.
As Allan Morrison, the long-time editor of Ebony once put it, “Birdland was both a cultural vantage point and a barometer of trends where all the big names in jazz performed.”
But as a new popular music, Rock & Roll emerged, Birdland’s fortunes declined in the 60′s and its doors were closed on Broadway and 52nd in 1965. After many 5 am nights, the club needed to take a nap.
Birdland awoke uptown in 1986 at 2745 Broadway, on the corner 105th Street where it was well renowned for its great acoustics and unique setup. In ten years, more than 2,000 emerging artists performed at the club. On many occasions, artists who performed at the original club on 52nd street graced the stage of the second version of Birdland as well.
Still there was something missing. “After ten successful years uptown, I felt the mystique of Birdland returning to midtown – it would be the natural continuation of the legendary jazz corner of the world,” said Birdland owner John Valenti.
Now, half a century later, the Birdland banner has been reborn in midtown and called, “close to perfection for serious fans and musicians,” by The New York Times. After a decade of neighborhood success on the Upper West Side, John decided to move the club back to Midtown. The new Birdland offers top-flight jazz in a world class setting, good sight lines and acoustics, elbow room, and an award-winning menu featuring American cuisine with a Cajun flair.
Since the reemergence of the club, midtown Manhattan has been treated to some of the best jazz on the planet, including memorable sets by such musicians as Oscar Peterson, Pat Metheny, Diana Krall, Roy Haynes, Michel Legrand, Dave Brubeck, Pat Martino, Tony Williams, Hank Jones, Michel Petrucciani, Maynard Ferguson, Freddie Hubbard, Marian McPartland, John Pizzarelli, Kurt Elling, Joe Lovano, McCoy Tyner, Michael Brecker, Clark Terry, Ron Carter, Jon Hendricks, George Shearing, James Moody, Yellowjackets, John Scofield, Phoebe Snow, Dave Holland, and Tito Puente, as well as the big bands of Chico O’Farrill, Duke Ellington, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Maria Schneider. In addition, Birdland is home to such popular musical events as the Umbria Jazz Festival in NYC and the Annual Django Reinhardt NY Festival.

http://youtu.be/pj1OVLfnmms





The Real Pee Wee

If you've ever heard US3's Cantaloop (and if you haven't, you'd better correct that by clicking here), you may have wondered - as I have - who made the introduction ("Ladies and gentlemen, as you know we have something special down here at Birdland this evening - a recording from Blue Note Records.....")
I always thought it was Ella Fitzgerald, but it turns out it was this really pissed-off black midget who was the M.C. for the Birdland Jazz Club. Check this out:
He had a reputation for being mean and demanding "tips" to the point of extortion. An explanation of this system is given by Bobby Hutcherson in an interview. He claims Marquette told him on his first day that he was not needed and that he should "pack your things and get on out of here." This did not occur as he had been asked to play, but Marquette still made Hutcherson's first night playing at the club difficult. Marquette intentionally announced his name wrong to embarrass Hutcherson and blew cigar smoke in his face to further the irritation. However once Marquette was paid his "tip" he announced Hutcherson's name correctly. This is said to have been a pattern for him and other musicians had similar stories of having to pay him to avoid public humiliation.
I mean........he's a midget.....who runs a night club....abuses the talent.....and is a successful extortionist. How cool that can possibly be? Viscous has nothing on this guy. Here he is with Count Bassie - - Pee Wee is the 3' 9" guy on the left.

Announcement by Pee Wee Marquette

http://youtu.be/VKXsnDvILmI




Born in 1919, Art Blakey began his musical career, as did many jazz musicians, in the church. The foster son of a devout Seventh Day Adventist Family, Art learned the piano as he learned the Bible, mastering both at an early age.

But as Art himself told it so many times, his career on the piano ended at the wrong end of a pistol when the owner of the Democratic Club — the Pittsburgh nightclub where he was gigging — ordered him off the piano and onto the drums.

Art, then in his early teens and a budding pianist, was usurped by an equally young, Erroll Garner who, as it turned out, was as skilled at the piano as Blakey later was at the drums. The upset turned into

a blessing for Art, launching a career that spanned six decades and nurtured the careers of countless other jazz musicians.

As a young drummer, Art came under the tutelage of legendary drummer and bandleader Chick Webb, serving as his valet. In 1937, Art returned to Pittsburgh, forming his own band, teaming up with Pianist Mary Lou Williams, under whose name the band performed.

From his Pittsburgh gig, Art made his way through the Jazz world. In 1939, he began a three-year gig touring with Fletcher Henderson. After a year in Boston with a steady gig at the Tic Toc club, he joined the great Billy Eckstine, gigging with the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sarah Vaughn.

In 1948, Art told reporters he had visited Africa, where he learned polyrhythmic drumming and was introduced to Islam, taking the name Abdullah Ibn Buhaina. It was in the late ’40s that Art formed his first Jazz Messengers band, a 17-piece big band.

After a brief gig with Buddy DeFranco, in 1954 Art met up with pianist Horace Silver, altoist Lou Donaldson, trumpeter Clifford Brown, and bassist Curly Russell and recorded "live" at Birdland for Blue Note Records. The following year, Art and Horace Silver co-founded the quintet that became the Jazz Messengers. In 1956, Horace Silver left the band to form his own group leaving the name, the Jazz Messengers, to Art Blakey.

Art’s driving rhythms and his incessant two and four beat on the high hat cymbals were readily identifiable from the outset and remained a constant throughout 35 years of Jazz Messengers bands. What changed constantly was a seeming unending supply of talented sidemen, many of whom went on to become band leaders in their own right.

In the early years luminaries like Clifford Brown, Hank Mobley and Jackie McLean rounded out the band. In 1959, tenor saxophonist Benny Golson joined the quintet and — at Art’s behest — began working on the songbook and recruiting what became one of the timeless Messenger bands — tenor saxman Wayne Shorter, trumpeter Lee Morgan, pianist Bobby Timmons and bassist Jymmie Merritt.

The songs produced from ’59 through the early ’60s became trademarks for the Messengers — including Timmon’s Moanin’, Golson’s Along Came Betty and Blues March and Shorter’s Ping Pong.

By this time, the Messengers had become a mainstay on the jazz club circuit and began recording on Blue Note Records. They began touring Europe, with forays into North Africa. In 1960, the Messengers became the first American Jazz band to play in Japan for Japanese audiences. That first Japanese tour was a high point for the band. At the Tokyo airport, the band was greeted by hundreds of fans as Blues March played over their airport intercom and their visit was televised nationally.

In 1961, trombonist Curtis Fuller transformed the Messengers into a proper sextet, giving the band the opportunity to incorporate a big band sound into their hard bop repertoire. Throughout the ’60s, the Messengers remained a mainstay on the jazz scene with jazz greats including Cedar Walton, Chuck Mangione, Keith Jarrett, Reggie Workman, Lucky Thompson and John Hicks. In the jazz drought of the ’70s, the Messengers remained a strong force, with fewer recordings, but no less energy. At a time when many jazz musicians were experimenting with electronics and fusing their music with pop, the Messengers were a mainstay of straight-ahead jazz.

Art’s steadfast belief in jazz music left him well positioned to take advantage of the music’s resurgence in the early ’80s. Art had been working with musicians including trumpeter Valery Ponomarev, tenor Billy Pierce, alto saxman Bobby Watson and pianist James Williams. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ 1980 entrance into the band coincided — and played no small part in — the resurgence of the music in the ’80s.

Throughout the ’80 and until his death in 1990, Art maintained the integrity of the message, incubating the careers of musicians including trumpeters Wallace Rooney and Terence Blanchard, pianists Mulgrew Miller and Donald Brown, bassists Peter Washington and Lonnie Plaxico and many others.

Art died at the age of 71 after a career that spanned six of the best decades of jazz music. The messenger has moved on, but his message lives on in the music of the scores of sidemen whose careers he nurtured, the many other drummers he mentored and countless fans who have been blessed to hear the Messengers’ music.

— By Yawu Miller, Managing Editor, The Baystate Banner (Boston, MA)

Pee Wee anounce the end of concert

http://youtu.be/9rN3nPsY


Wynton Marsalis is the most famous jazz musician since 1980. He was born in New Orleans in 1961 and is the son of famous jazz pianist and teacher Ellis Marsalis. He studied both jazz and classical music at a young age. He attended Julliard and in 1980, he joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. By 1981, he was the talk of the jazz world and in 1982, he recorded his first album, using the players from Miles Davis' 1960s quintet (Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, and Ron Carter), along with his own quintet, which featured Kenny Kirkland (piano), Jeff "Tain" Watts (drums), Robert Hurst (bass), and his brother, Branford Marsalis, on tenor saxophone. His early influence was Freddie Hubbard, but by the time he recorded, his playing was more influenced by Davis.

At the time of this recording, jazz had become so fused with other music (such as rock music, funk, and r&b) that it was losing its identity and some wondered if jazz was indeed dead. Furthermore, trumpet players were in short supply during the 1970s. Marsalis showed that the future of jazz can be found by looking backwards to its tradition. His arrival inspired and ushered in the "Young Lions" movement - young players who played traditional acoustic jazz, such as Roy Hargrove, Joshua Redman, and Antonio Maurice Hart.



He recorded classical music records as well and in 1984 and 1985 Marsalis became the first musician to win dual Grammy awards for best soloist on both a jazz and classical record. He was ranked as one of the greatest classical trumpet players in history. He went on to record many albums and become the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. In the late 1980s, he studied the works of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington more. He started breaking free from the Miles Davis influence and developing his own sound. Ellington inspired him to compose. In 1997, he recorded (with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra) his composition Blood on the Fields, a musical depiction of slavery, and became the first jazz musician to win a Pulitzer Prize for music.

He has often been a controversial figure, not so much from his playing, as from what he said. He has a selected knowledge of jazz history, basically discounting the 1960s avant garde and 1970s fusion music). In the process angered a large number of musicians, who criticized his playing (based on his early Miles Davis-influenced music, which lacked a lot of originality). Davis, himself, was among the critics. However, he balances this by influencing the direction of jazz from 1980-present, his technical brilliance in multiple genres of music, his compositional abilities, and his educational work. Marsalis works with many school children and in the process introduces many to jazz and inspires young musicians through his work. Some, such as Hargrove, benefited directly from Marsalis' help.




Eva Marie Cassidy (February 2, 1963 in Washington, DC – November 2, 1996 in Bowie, Maryland) was an American vocalist described by the British newspaper The Guardian as “one of the greatest voices of her generation.” She had a diverse repertoire of jazz, blues, folk, gospel and pop. Cassidy remained virtually unknown outside of her native Washington, DC, when she died of melanoma (which had spread to her bones) in 1996. Her posthumously released recordings have since sold in excess of four million copies, and in early 2001 the compilation album Songbird reached #1 on the UK album charts.

Eva Cassidy was the third of four children born to Hugh and Barbara Cassidy. From an early age, she displayed artistic and musical talent. When she was nine years old, her father taught her to play the guitar, and she began to play and sing at family gatherings.

While a student at Bowie High School, she did sing with a local band, called Stonehenge, and received considerable praise.

At the age of eighteen, Cassidy began her professional career, singing and playing guitar in a Washington, D.C., area band, called Easy Street. This band performed in a variety of styles, at weddings, corporate parties, and pubs.

During the summer of 1983, Cassidy sang and played guitar, six days per week, at Wild World, in Maryland. Her brother Dan was also a member of this working band.

Throughout the 1980s, Cassidy worked with a number of other bands, including the soul and Motown-oriented band The Honeybees, and the techno-pop band Characters Without Names, later called Method Actor.

During this period, Cassidy also worked as a propagator at a plant nursery and as a furniture painter in Annapolis, Maryland. In 1986, she met (bassist and recording engineer) Chris Biondo, who encouraged her and helped her find work as a backup singer for various acts. In 1990, Biondo and Cassidy hired the so-called “Eva Cassidy Band”, composed of Chris Biondo, Lenny Williams, Keith Grimes and Raice McLeod, and she began to perform frequently in the Washington area.

In 1992, Biondo played a tape of Cassidy’s voice for Chuck Brown. Best known as the “Godfather of Go-go”, Brown is also a jazz and blues vocalist. This led to the first commercial recording of Cassidy, the duet album with Chuck Brown, The Other Side; which featured performances of classic songs such as “Fever”, Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child” and Cassidy’s signature tune “Over the Rainbow”. The album was released and distributed by Liaison Records, the label that also released Brown’s Go-go albums. The duet CD attracted the attention of various record companies, but the offers all required Cassidy to pigeonhole herself within a single style (e.g., pop or jazz), something she adamantly refused to do.[citation needed]

In 1993 Eva Cassidy was first honored by the Washington area music community when she was awarded two Wammie awards for “Female Vocalist Roots/Traditional R&B” and “Vocalist Jazz/Traditional.” The next year she was chosen to perform for the awards ceremony.


In January 1996, Cassidy recorded the album Live at Blues Alley, about which The Washington Post later commented that “she could sing anything and make it sound like the only music that mattered”. [1] Cassidy was unhappy with her singing on the album, because she had a bad cold on the night of the recording; she began recording a studio album which was eventually released as Eva by Heart posthumously in 1997.

During a promotional event for the Live at Blues Alley CD in July 1996, Cassidy noticed an ache in her hips, which she attributed to stiffness from painting murals. The pain persisted, and, a few weeks later, Cassidy was diagnosed with melanoma. By the time of her diagnosis, the cancer had spread throughout her body. Cassidy’s health rapidly deteriorated, and her final performance was in September 1996. At the performance, she had used a walker to reach the stage, sang “What a Wonderful World” in front of an audience of friends, and was subsequently admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital.[citation needed]

Eva Cassidy died on November 2, 1996, at the age of 33. She was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Washington Area Music Association.

female vocalists folk jazz

Anouar Brahem was born in 20 th October 1957 in Halfaouine in the Medina of Tunis. Encouraged by his father, an engraver and printer, but also a music lover, Brahem began his studies of the oud, the lute of Arab world, at the age of 10 at the Tunis National Conservatory of Music, where his principal teacher was the oud master Ali Sriti. An exeptional student, by the age of 15 Brahem was playing regularly with local orchestras. At 18 he decided to devote himself entirely to music. For four consecutive years Ali Sriti received him at home every day and continued to transmit to him the modes, subtleties and secrets of Arab classical music through the traditional master / disciple relationship.
Little by little Brahem began to broaden his field of listening to include other musical expressions, from around the Mediterranean and from Iran and India... then jazz began to command his attention. "I enjoyed the change of environment," he says" and discovered the close links that exist between all these musics".

Brahem increasingly distanced himself from an environment largely dominated by entertainment music. He wanted more than to perform at weddings or to join one of the many existing ensembles which he considered anachronistic and where the oud was usually no more than an accompanying instrument for singers. A deepfelt conviction led him to give first place to this preferred instrument of Arab music and to offer the Tunisian public instrumental and oud solo concerts. He began writing his own compositions and gave a series of solo concerts in various cultural venues. He also issued a self-produced cassette, on which he was accompanied by percussionist Lassaad Hosni.

A loyal public of connoisseurs gradually rallied around him and the Tunisian press gave enthusiastic support. Reviewing one of Brahem's first performances, critic Hatem Touil wrote: "this talented young player has succeed not only in overwhelming the audience but also in giving non -vocal music in Tunisia its claim to nobolity while at the same time restoring the fortunes of the lute. Indeed, has a lutist produced such pure sounds or concretised with such power and conviction, the universality of musical experience"

In 1981, the urge to seek new experiences became ever stronger and his departure for Paris, that most cosmopolitan of cities, enabled him to meet musicians from very different genres. He remained for four years, composing extensively, notably for Tunisian cinema and theatre. He collaborated with Maurice Béjart for his ballet "Thalassa Mare Nostrum" and with Gabriel Yared as lutist for Costa Gavras’ film "Hanna K.".

In 1985 he returned to Tunis and an invitation to perform at the Carthage festival provided him with the opportunity of bringing together, for "Liqua 85" , outstanding figures of Tunisian and Turkish music and French jazz. These included Abdelwaheb Berbech, the Erköse brothers, François Jeanneau, Jean-Paul Celea, François Couturier and others. The success of the project earned Brahem Tunisia's Grand National Prize for Music.

In 1987, he was appointed director of the Musical Ensemble of the City of Tunis (EMVT). Instead of keeping the large existing orchestra, he broke it up into formations of a variable size, giving it new orientations: one year in the direction of new creations and the next more towards traditional music. The main productions were "Leïlatou Tayer" (1988) and "El Hizam El Dhahbi" (1989) in line with his early instrumental works and following the main axis of his research. In these compositions, he remained essentially within the traditional modal space, although he transformed its references and upset its heirarchy. Following a natural disposition towards osmosis, which has absorbed the Mediterranean, African and Far-Eastern heritages, he also touched from time to time upon other musical expressions: European music, jazz and other forms.

With "Rabeb" (1989) and "Andalousiat" (1990), Anouar Brahem returned to classical Arab music. Despite the rich heritage transmitted by Ali Sriti and the fact that this music constitued the core of his training, he had in fact, never performed it in public. With this "return" he wished to contribute to the urgent rehabilitation of this music. He put together a small ensemble, a "takht", the original form of the traditional orchestra, where each instrumentalist plays as both a soloist and as an improviser. Brahem believes this is the only means of restoring the spirit, the subtlety of the variations and the intimacy of this chamber music. He called upon the best Tunisian musicians, such as Béchir Selmi and Taoufik Zghonda, and undertook thorough research work on ancient manuiscripts with strict care paid to transparency, nuances and details.

With "Ennaoura el achiqua" (1987), Brahem presented a performance of song, a result of his association with the poet Ali Louati. In this exploration of vocal music, he revealed a desire to reacquaint himself with its elaborate classical forms, such as the "Quassid", in the footsteps of Khemais Tarnane, Saied Derwich, Riadh Sombati and Mohamed Abdelwahab. "Ennaoura el achiqua", a marginal work, going against the grain, nevertheless had considerable impact on both press and public.

"Ennaoura el achiqua" was not to be his only incursion into the field of song. He would return to it from time to time, for film music or in association with a singer and often with the complicity of Ali Louati. For instance, he collaborated with Nabiha Karaouli whom he revealed to the public, Sonia M’barek, Saber Rebaï, Teresa de Sio, Franco Battiato and Lotfi Bouchnak, who sang "Ritek ma naaref ouin", composed in the spirit of an "imaginary folklore", and wich, by an ironic twist of fate, became extremely popular, a must for every wedding party!

In 1988, before an audience of 10.000 he opened the Carthage festival with "Leilatou tayer". The newspaper Tunis-Hebdo wrote: "if we had to elect the musician of the 80's, we would without the least hesitation, chose Anouar Brahem".
In1990, he decided to leave the EMVT and embarked on a tour to the USA and Canada.
It was upon his return that he met with Manfred Eicher, the producer/founder of the German label ECM Records, and from the meeting resulted a fruitful collaboration that without a doubt marked an important evolution in his work. So far, seven albums have resulted from this association, received extremely well by the international press and the public.

The same year he chose to make his first record "Barzakh" with two outstanding Tunisian musicians with whom he had already established a close artistic relationship, Béchir Selmi and Lassaad Hosni. Considered by the German magazine "Stereo" as "a major musical event" this record confirmed his position as "an exceptional musician and improviser".
In "Conte de l’incroyable Amour", recorded in 1991, improvisation was at the heart of the game and the tone was quiet different, due in particular to the remarkable presence of Barbarose Erkose and the expressive power of his clarinette, and to the Sufic inspiration of Kudsi Erguner’s nai. According to the "Monde", "the album unfurls around the poetic talent of Anouar Brahem’s lute. One follows him with delight around the subtle arrangement of the melody, the silences of the musical phrasing, accross the unspoken into oriental paths, in a poetry of light and delicate beats". The same paper selected "Conte de l’Incroyable Amour" as one of the best records of 1992.

The same year, he was called upon to conceive and participate actively in the creation of the Centre for Arab and Mediterranean music in the palace of the Baron d’Erlanger at Sidi Bou Saïd.
In November 1993, he fulfilled a dream very dear to him for a long time: that of paying a worthy tribute to his master Ali Sriti, who for the occasion, agreed to return to the stage after having left it nearly thirty years earlier. Brahem set up "Awdet Tarab", a concert of traditional instrumental and sung music, at the Erlanger Palace. The Tunisian public will most certainly retain the indelible memory of the duos of the master and his pupil, accompanied by the voice of Sonia M’barek.In 1994 he recorded "Madar" with the Norwegian saxophonist, Jan garbarek and Pakistani master of tablas, Shaukat Hussain. The story of this record is simply told: Jan Garbarek, was impressed by Brahem’s first two albums and had expressed the wish to work with him. Brahem for his part, had admired the musician for years and shared the same wish. The meeting therefore came quite naturally, warmly encouraged by Manfred Eicher. Brahem and Garbarek were united in a common quest, that for an universal tradition. "Madar" constitues a strong statement on how the mingling of traditions can be achieved without harming the essence of each.

Anouar Brahem has composed the original scores for many films and plays, amongst which, "Sabots en Or" and "Bezness" by Nouri Bouzid, Ferid Boughedir’s "Halfaouine", Moufida Tlatli’s "Les Silences du Palais" and " La saison des hommes" as well as for Iachou Shakespeare and "Wannas el kloub" by Mohamed Driss, "El Amel", "Borj El hammam" and "Bosten Jamalek" by the Theatre Phou. In "Khomsa" (1995), he picked up a few of these pieces which he had always dreamed of performing in a free, airy and purely musical manner "freed from the chains of images and texts" as he put it. He assembled an eclectic formation to perform this music, including Richard Galliano (accordion), Palle Danielsson (double -bass), Jon Christensen ( drums), François Couturier ( piano), Jean-Marc Larché (saxophone) and Béchir Selmi ( violin) . The sextet brought together by the composer, also featured on oud of course, is constantly being divided into solos, duos, trios, "hence the dominant and delicious impression of being on a motionless voyage full of secret passages, of novel tones, of suspended endings" as Alex Dutilh put it on "France Musique". The british daily "The Guardian" declared that "Khomsa is one of the great records of the year. Brahem is at the forefront of jazz because he is far beyond it".

Three years later Anouar Brahem was back in the studio to pick up where he had left off with Madar, passionately exploring that much further the orchestral form of the trio, but this time in a context wide open to the infinite variety of the “worlds” of jazz. Flanked by two monumental musicians, pillars of the ECM label for the last thirty years, John Surman the saxophonist and Dave Holland the double bass player, heralds of British free music in the late 60’s and since pursuing each his own highly particular and artistically perfectly coherent universe, Anouar Brahem ventured with infinite delicacy the refined poetry of his instrument at the “risk” of conceptions of improvisation far removed from his own universe. The result is in keeping with the challenge : Thimar is an outstanding success, a meditative and supremely musical work, permeated with intense poetry, where each piece is played in a contemplative atmosphere of extreme concentration, as if awake in a dream. In this recording, without for as much deviating from his personal aesthetic line, Anouar Brahem explores the “mysteries of jazz” to an extent he had never reached before. In Germany, Thimar received the “Preises der Deutshen Shallplattenkritik. It was named “Best jazz album of the year” by the English magazine Jazz Wise.

Astakan Café, his sixth album in 10 years for the Munich company, came out in September 2000, and to the inattentive listener it might seem, if not a work of transition then at least an introspective pause in Anouar Brahem’s career. This would be misreading this music of maturity, for although the oud player undoubtedly revisits the oriental and Mediterranean roots of his universe, it was undeniably with the added wealth of the imaginary and aesthetical journeys of his preceding albums. Playing once again for the occasion with his two most faithful partners, the clarinettist of Romany origin, Barbaros Erköse, and Lassad Hosni the Tunisian percussionist, Brahem drifts away on a wonderful intimate and eminently personal line, celebrating the syncretic spirit of Arab music, while enhancing his approach to improvisation and collective sound with the great all-embracing works , Madar and Thimar.

Today, Anouar Brahem is back with a surprising, atypical, and highly personal album. His most beautiful perhaps. Certainly his most ambitious. In a trio, again, with the pianist François Couturier, longstanding partner and, more unexpectedly, with the accordionist Jean-Louis Matinier, Anouar Brahem gives us with Le pas du chat noir a soothing, melancholy music, with a tone of exquisite refinement and whose formal balance is nothing short of miraculous.
Anouar Brahem is an artist who, while profoundly imbued with his Arab heritage, is unequivocably modern, well anchored in his times and headed towards the future. He is furthermore, an artist unperturbed by the clash of cultures. He has always enjoyed initiating meetings with musicians of different horizons: Jan Garbarek, Richard Galliano, Dave Holland and John Surman of course, but also Manu Di Bango, Manu Katche, Taralagati, Fareed Haque, Pierre Favre ... , finding in each meeting the means of renewing himself while retaining his own identity. When questioned as to his inspiration, Brahem refers to " the tree which, while rising above the ground and taking up more space, continues to develop and dig its roots deeper into the ground ", an image which quite obviously has references to Tunis, his native city, a multi-faceted city, rooted in its Arab-Moslem culture and nourished on its African and Mediterranean influences, a solar universe as it were, its traces always present in the artist’s work. In fact, he believes that a tradition which is unable to change and adapt is doomed to die. This is why he unhesitantly takes up challenges and opens his music to new forms of expression. "It would seem," wrote Wolfgang Sandner in the "Frankfurter Allegemeine Magazine", "that the man from Tunisia has gone much further than many jazz musicians busily seeking out new music".

From the French by Anne-Marie Driss





Mercan Dede believes that when you put digital, electronic sounds together with hand-made, human ones, you can create universal language, capable of uniting old and young, ancient and modern, East and West. It’s a bold claim, but the Turkish-born and Montreal-based musician/producer/DJ has the career and the music to back it up. When he takes the stage with his group Secret Tribe, he hovers at the side behind his turntables and electronics, occasionally picking up a traditional wooden flute, or ney to float in sweet, breathy melodies, while masters of the kanun (zither), clarinet, darbuka (hand drum) and whatever other instruments he’s decided to include that night, ornament his grooves and spin magical, trance melodies to match the whirling of the group’s spectacular dervish dancer, Mira Burke. Not to mention the many great international artists appear as guest musicians both in his albums and his concerts.

This contrast between electronica and classical or folkloric arts cuts to the core of the Sufi philosophy that guides this one-of-a-kind artist. ‘Those things are not really separate,’ says Dede. ‘The essence of Sufism is counterpoint. Everything exists with its opposite. On one side, I am doing electronic music. The other side of that is this really acoustic, traditional music.’ Dede doesn’t just bring in any traditional sounds and sights as adornment to his techno beats. He is ever on the lookout for new collaborators, and they might come from any tradition, any country, any generation. For Secret Tribe’s U.S. debut in January, 2004, he flew in three, teenage prodigies of Turkish classical music from Istanbul and two of the pieces they played were improvised during the concert. ‘When I choose a musician,’ says Dede, ‘I need to be connected with them in terms of personality, heart-wise we say in Turkey. We should have a similar energy and feeling about life. The second thing is they need to be done with the technical part of music. Once they’ve done that, you don’t need to worry. They can play anything not from mind but from soul.’

Mercan Dede and Secret Tribe’s splendid 2002 release Nar realizes this elegant marriage of old and new stunningly. Along with the groups’ spellbinding performances, it is helping them build a worldwide following. When the group plays in Turkey, they can draw as many as 20,000 people. But for Dede’whose name comes from a minor character in a contemporary Turkish novel’it has been a long, highly unconventional road to success. Raised poor in a Turkish village in the 1970s, Dede recalls the moment when listening to the radio as a six-year-old, he fell in love with the sound of the ney. But even when he moved to Istanbul to study journalism, he could not afford an instrument, so he made his first one from a length of plastic plumbing pipe. Although he eventually found a ney teacher, Dede did not pursue music as a career. He was more deeply involved with photography, and by chance, an official at the Saskatoon Public Library in Canada saw some of his work and invited him to come and do an exhibition.

Dede wound up studying multimedia in Saskatoon, and he worked in a bar to earn rent money. That was where he first encountered the art of deejaying. One day the bar’s deejay couldn’t make it, and Dede stepped in. The techno revolution was just beginning, and Dede was getting in on the ground floor. By the mid-80s, he was traveling to do ‘technotribalhouse’ deejay gigs under the name Arkin Allen. He debuted as Mercan Dede in 1995 with he released his first album, Sufi Dreams, recorded for Golden Horn Records in San Francisco. The album was a minimalist techno ambiant project featuring the ney flute, and it earned impressive reviews. A few years later, Dede moved to Montreal where he first studied, then taught, at Concordia University, moving ever more forcefully into the burgeoning techno scene. Recordings he made under the name Mercan Dede got noticed in Istanbul, and a festival invited him to perform, expecting an older gentleman, as Dede means ‘grandfather’ in Turkish. When people saw a young band mixing techno and tradition, they were exhilarated, and Dede has stuck with this adapted name ever since.

Dede formed his first group in 1997 and created more recordings, Journeys of a Dervish (Golden Horn, 1999) Seyahatname (Doublemoon, 2001), and Nar (Doublemoon, 2002 ) From the start, the group was more an idea than a set lineup. ‘I always get different musicians,’ says Dede, ‘all the time. When I do a European tour, each country, I choose a guest musician from that country. This is the essence of the group.’ The Canadian TV station Bravo filmed and aired Dede’s concert with Turkish master kemence (Persian violin) player Ihsan Ozgen at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in the Fall of 1998. German television producers Saarlandischer Rundfunk were so moved by Dede’s music that they traveled to Canada to feature him in their documentary about Sufi Music. While filming Dede at work in Montreal and Toronto in February of 1998, the producers requested that Dede create the soundtrack for this project. Same year Mercan Dede’s album Seyahatname includes pieces composed for a dance theatre project, directed and choreographed by Beyhan Murphy for the Turkish State Modern Dance Troupe.

Both as Mercan Dede and his alter ego DJ Arkin Allen, he has performed at events as diverse as the Black & Blue 98 (a world-renowned Montreal circuit party attended by 15,000 people) and a concert of improvisations with on classical Turkish music at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. In July 2001, Mercan Dede performed at the highly acclaimed Montreal Jazz Festivals, sharing the General Motors Big Event stage with Burhan Öçal and Jamaaladeen Tacuma, in a concert called ‘East Meets the West’ before an audience of more than 170,000 people. On that same evening, right after his concert, he appeared at Spectrum, this time performing with his project Montreal Tribal Trio, again as part of the festival program. In 2002, the group electrified the WOMEX world music trade fair in Essen, Germany, and also the International Transmusicales Festival in Rennes.

Dede has also performed with such musical personalities as Kani Karaca, I’hsan Özgen, Misirli Ahmet, Ilhan Ersahin, Peter Murphy, Natacha Atlas, Azam Ali Musafir, I’lhan Ers¸ahin, Jamaledeen Tacuma, Hugh Marsh, Omar Sosa, Mich Gerber, Fazil Say, Susheela Raman, Trans Global Underground, Dhafer Youssef, Coldcut, Dhol Foundation, Emma Shaplin, Ludavico Eunadi, Trilok Gurtu. Mercan Dede and Secret Tribe’s summer tour 2003 included Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland), Arezzo Wave (I’taly), Skopje Festival (Macedonia), Moers Festival (Germany),World Roots Festival (The Netherlands), Jaen-Etnosur (Spain), Rhythm Sticks Festival (UK) and many others. The group’s 2004 U.S. debut took place at Joe’s Pub in New York in January, 2004, as part of the city’s groundbreaking world music marathon at Global Fest. Mercan Dede was invited to play at GlobalFest’ (APAP Conference) in New York in January 2004, where 16 different bands from 5 continents played. He performed and completed his USA tour with 3 young gypsy musicians from turkey in their early teens.

Mercan Dede’s concert was reviewed by various press and music critics including Global Rhythm Magazine who made a cover story on him and his music calling his performance at Joes Pub; ” one of the best world music performance of recent years” .
The following year, turkey & germany based Production Company “Medya’ made a documentary film about his life and music which aired the same year and received great reviews.

Mercan Dede also provided music for Pina Bausch’s recent work, “Istanbul, Nefes’ performed in the city it was named for in the spring of 2003. He calls meeting Pina Bausch one of the most amazing moment in his career. He is commissioned by the Turkish Ministry of Culture as the music director of the Güldestan Project. The project is destined to represent Turkish Culture and Arts all around the Globe.

Over the next three years ( 2005,2006,2007) he travelled the world spanning over 1,5 million km and performed almost every corner of the world. He also released “Water” (2005) and Breath (2006) albums which both topped the BBC world music charts making him the first turkish artist whose albums received the #1 of the world music charts. Over the last 4 years he was also nominated in different categories of world music as the best world music artist of the year by BBC.

In 2007, as a dedication to Sufi master Rumi, he recorded and released his last album “800” as a celebration of his masters 800th birthday. Following it’s release, he chose to follow a different path in his life leaving both his beloved record label Doublemoon and management Pozitif, allowing him to continue his journey on his own. Recently he is living quietly and preparing new projects in Montreal. Although he declined to show his recent paintings and visual art works, feeling he is not yet ready, he is however giving signals to including visual arts in his future projects.

Under 9 different names, he has released more than 100 singles world wide. Mercan Dede, Arkin Allen, Blueman and Poundmaker aside, he still keeps 5 other names secret even from his own management and family; believing that nothing should stand between sound and the ear, include the artist himself.

Mercan Dede is keen on bring his extraordinary music and stagecraft to the entire world feeling that its inclusive spirit carries a profound message of understanding and reconciliation. ‘I don’t like the separation,’ says Dede. ‘The Sufi poet Rumi has a very good saying: ‘If you are everywhere, you are nowhere. If you are somewhere, you are everywhere.’ My somewhere is my heart. I try to figure it out. The rest’the hype, the trends’they are not important. We are here for nothing else but Love, the rest is nothing but bunch of gossip” If music does not make us a better person even in a small way, who cares if you are the best musician in the world. I prefer to be someone who follows his heart no matter where it goes. Succes is not something to which I aspire but rather I accept as simply a wonderful gift of life from the Creator as a recogniton of my naive and simple belief that with music we can help ourselves and others in a most humble way.

Whether as Mercan Dede with his Secret Tribe or dj Arkin Allen with his tribal trio; he is one of the most unique artist uniting many people from different backgrounds regardless of their age, cultural background or personal differences never failing to impress his audiences with the explosive energy he creates on stage. He is rightly recognized as one of the most creative, unique yet modest artists in the world music scene today.





Jacques Coursil was born in Paris but moved to New York in 1965. “In 1965, just around the assassination of Malcolm X, this is a natural propensity of a person of me like, having been in Africa, Senegal, West Africa, now I got to see the United States. I sold my library, I was not old at the time, I was 28 but I had a lot of books so I sold my books, paintings and I started playing almost immediately.” Coursil is nostalgic for those early days in New York, a much different time for the city. “New York has changed considerably. It was extremely appealing. For years, I slept three hours a day. I would go to the theater at 1 am because someone was having a rehearsal there, someplace in a warehouse. I would meet all sorts of people. People were friendly, open, not keeping their stuff for themselves.” This environment was a particularly expansive one. The October Revolution in Jazz was still fresh and the movement of free players in New York was substantial. The young trumpeter, whose experience was more traditional, found the city invigorating and in line with his philosophical thinking, concepts that would serve him in his then future career. “I had a lot of things intellectually also to unlearn all the time. This is how knowledge goes, it doesn’t pile up, it takes out what was only beliefs and it gets clearer and clearer or maybe it becomes the opposite, it becomes more chaotic because you discover a fact you believed was true was not… What I am interested in is how people listen, not what they want to listen to… The human is a musical animal basically. So I am not trying to play things for him that he wants but things that he can hear in his range, his capability of listening.”

Coursil played around a lot during the ‘60s and appeared on two recordings for the ESP label - the home for the New York avant garde. Sunny Murray’s eponymous debut and Frank Wright’s second disc for the label, Your Prayer, are monumental documents of the genre. Coursil even recorded his own disc for ESP in 1967 with Marion Brown but it remains unissued because, as Coursil says, “I was afraid he would publish the record under Marion Brown’s name. I think he was about to do that. I would have been extremely mad, not that I have anything against Marion, but this is my record with compositions that I wrote, very funny bebop Ornette Coleman type of stuff.” For those who lump Coursil squarely in with the free movement, hearing him talk about his influences belies that notion: “When I was a kid I was studying the cornet. You cannot match the French masters on the cornet. Those guys are too much, especially the tradition of the 19th century. And then came Armstrong, no rubato, no virtuoso at all but such a timbre, such a clarity of timbre. You hardly know those people before him existed… vanished into the garbage can of history.”

Just around 1975, when Coursil would leave New York to begin his career in linguistics, he had a musical moment that would only come to fruition 30 years later with the recording of Minimal Brass. “I was walking on Park Avenue late in ‘75. I met my good friend Jimmy Owens who is the finest trumpet player ever with a lot of soul. And I said to him ‘Would you tell me how to do circular breathing?’ And as he was walking towards his home, he picked up straws from the cafeteria and he showed me the trick. And then I think I willed myself into that and started stopping all the clichés that I heard and learned, dropping them off, and in jazz, rhythm and blues, free jazz, there’s a lot of that. Then dropping all the clichés I have invented myself, as far I could know. And keep on circular breathing, just one note. And from then until now, it’s just been one note. It’s an interesting itinerary. Then what’s left? Sounds.” Those sounds and that one note gave birth to Minimal Brass. The album is just Coursil playing fanfares he wrote for the trumpet. He wrote 12 parts and played them all, creating an acoustic music that reflects the sensibilities of all the sounds that have come subsequently. It is solo by design but also out of necessity. “It would have been too long to explain and I don’t know many people who circular breathe and who know how to double tongue, triple tongue and certainly not 8 or 10 or 12 of them.”

To say that Coursil is back is inaccurate. He so far doesn’t wish to be an active musician with a touring schedule but in other ways, the layoff is just time with no significance. “…Artistic or literary or scientific, this is the same person… for a long long time, I’ve not really been interested in playing in public. But I never considered myself an amateur musician… I’ve been a musician from this first day.”






Jazzhus Montmartre is a leading jazz club in Copenhagen, Denmark that is described as "legendary".[1][2] Many jazz musicians, including Dexter Gordon,[3] Stan Getz,[4] andChet Baker,[5] have performed there. It is sometimes also called Cafe Montmartre[6] The Montmartre was located first in the Dahlerupsgade, then from 1961 on in Store Regnegade and finally since 1976 in Nørregade 41 before it closed here in 1995. Since May 1st 2010 is has been re-opened in Store Regnegade 19A by media executive and entrepreneur Rune Bech together with jazz pianist Niels Lan Doky and saxophonist Benjamin Koppel.[7] It is considered to be one of Europe's major jazz clubs for live world class jazz.

History
It was opened in 1959 by Anders Dyrup with a two week stint by George Lewis. In the beginning the program was dominated by Dixieland-Jazz (then very popular in Denmark). Shortly afterwards Stan Getz, who lived from 1958 to 1961 with his Swedish wife in Copenhagen, played regularly in the Club. He was followed by other exiled US-American Jazz-musicians like Dexter Gordon (who lived from 1962 to 1976 in Copenhagen) and Ben Webster (from 1964 on in Copenhagen and Amsterdam). New Year's Eve 1961 the ClubJazzhus Montmartre reopened under the lead of Herluf Kamp-Larssen in the Store Regnegade. The Montmartre developed into one of the main locations for Jazz in Europe, for long years with Kenny Drew (p), Alex Riel (dr) and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen as regular rhythm group, who accompanied guest musicians. From 1976 on it was in the Nøerregade 41 with Kay Sørensen (1938–1988) as owner, known in Denmark as JazzKay. Already during Søerensens time the Club had to offer Pop and Rock for commercial reasons and after his death less and less Jazz was played. The Club was closed in 1995. For two years the new owner Pop Musician Anne Linnet continued a mainly Techno-Music-Club under the old name, and 1995 a Disco replaced the Club. The new main center for Jazz in Copenhagen was from 1991 on the Copenhagen Jazz House (Niels Hemmingsens Gade 10) but now Montmartre is back in its original place in Store Regnegade 19A.
From 1959-1976, the club made jazz history as the European home for jazz giants Dexter Gordon, Ben Webster, Stan Getz, Kenny Drew and many other masters of the 60's and 70'. They all moved to Copenhagen because of Montmartre. The club got under their skin with its special atmosphere and extraordinary people. While living in Copenhagen, the great American jazz icons educated a whole generation of Danish jazz masters, including the famous Danish bass players Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Mads Vinding, Jesper Lundgaard and Bo Stief, drummer Alex Riel, trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg, and many others. Among the other giants playing on and off at Montmartre were i.e. Roland Kirk, Oscar Pettiford, Joe Harris, Buddy Tate, Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas, Bud Powell, Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley, Cecil Taylor, Brew Moore, Harold Goldberg, Lucky Thompson, Archie Shepp, Johnny Griffin, Art Taylor, Booker Erwin, Albert Ayler, Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim), Don Cherry, Rune Gustafsson, Albert 'Tootie' Heath, Eli Thompson, Sonny Rollins, Yusef Lateef, George Russel, Teddy Wilson, Paul Bley, Bill Evans, Eddie Gomez, Richard Boone, Herbie Hancock, Eddie Henderson, Billy Hart, Keith Jarrett, Miroslav Vitous, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Lee Konitz, Louis Jordan, Charles Mingus, Ken McIntyre, Nat Adderley, Donald Byrd, Tony Williams, Lou Bennett, Phil Woods, Charles McPherson and Dizzy Gillespie.

Re-opening
In May 2010 Jazzhus Montmartre re-opened in its original premesis in Store Regnegade (Great Rain Street) with a high-end international music profile. The re-opening of Jazzhus Montmartre made news around the globe, and the new Jazzhus Montmartre quickly made it back on the map as a top attraction of Copenhagen. The New York Times included Jazzhus Montmartre on its much-hyped list of must-see-places in the city under the headline "Rebirth Of Cool". New York Times: "Rebirth of Cool" - on the re-opening af Jazzhus Montmartre
The re-opening of Montmartre in May 2010 was initiated by serial entrepreneur, journalist and former media executive Rune Bech together with jazz pianist Niels Lan Doky (who after eight months was replaced as music director by saxophonist Benjamin Koppel as of February 2011). The original historic venue were run by former proprietor Herluf Kamp-Larsen in the 60's and 70's, who was present at the re-opening night. When the premises became vacant after many years as a hairdressing school the founders jumped at the opportunity and reopened Montmartre at its original location. Restoring the club became a passion project for a dedicated group of volunteers out of love for jazz and the history of Montmartre, which has often been called "The Village Vanguard of Europe" in homage to its legendary sister club in New York.
Montmartre's co-founder and part-time director, Rune Bech, was originally a foreign correspondent for Politiken from 1989. In 1998 he co-founded the successful health portal NetDoctor.com, and in 2001 became the internet director for the leading Danish broadcaster TV 2 and a member of the executive management team. Rune Bech donated the funding capital for Jazzhus Montmartre that is his con-amore hobby project. In his spare time the serial entrepreneur is helping out at the front desk of Montmartre together with the many dedicated volunteers. Rune Bech had a vision to establish Montmartre as a non-profit organization from which it should not be possible for any private person to take out profit. As a consequence Jazzhus Montmartre is set up as a charity foundation with DR chairman Michael Christiansen as Montmartre's chairman, and Rune Bech and lawyer Christian Schwarz-Hansen as fellow board members.
Before re-opening Jazzhus Montmartre the founders wrote eight missions for the club, The Montmartre Manifesto. In short, Montmartre should be an international landmark of great jazz and a place that discovers and presents new talent with world class potential. It is the ambition "to create a paradise for life lovers with a cozy and sincere ambience". And, most importantly, "Montmartre should be known for its warm, welcoming and homey atmosphere attracting good people that follow their heart in life". The Montmartre Manifesto
The Danish saxophonist Benjamin Koppel is the Music Director of Montmartre. He is backed up by an Artistic Council whose members are drummer Alex Riel, bass players Mads Vinding and Bo Stief, trumpet player Gerard Presencer and jazz publisher Christian Brorsen. The club is run by a few of part time staffs together with a great team of dedicated volunteers. With a limited audience capacity of only 85 seats, Montmartre is dependent on donations and membership fees from its club, Friends of Montmartre. Some of Denmark's large foundations have supported the re-opening. With its high level of artistic ambition, Montmartre is dependent on support and donations.
The old Jazzhus Montmartre was known for the plaster masks that became an icon for the club in the 1960's. They were created in 1959 by the artist Mogens Gylling and attracted attention around the world as a remarkable work of art. When Montmartre closed in 1976 the masks disappeared, but the Montmartre team convinced Gylling, who still lives outside Copenhagen, to make a reincarnation of his famous wall art with a twist. The ten new masks were put back on the wall by the artist himself during Copenhagen Jazz Festival 2010, an event heavily covered by the media. Official website http://jazzhusmontmartre.dk Official website

Discography
Live albums documenting concerts in Jazzhus Montmartre include:
•Dexter Gordon & Atli Bjorn Trio: Cry Me a River (SteepleChase, November 1962)
•Roland Kirk: Kirk in Copenhagen (Mercury Records, October 1963)
•Stuff Smith: Live at the Montmartre (Storyville Records, 1965)[8]
•Thad Jones: Live at Montmartre (Storyville Records, 1978)
•Cecil Taylor: Nefertiti, the Beautiful One Has Come (Arista Freedom, 1976)
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Literature, Film
•Article in Barry Kernfeld (editor) The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, MacMillan 1991
•Frank Büchmann-Møller, Henrik Wolsgaard-Iversen: "Montmartre. Jazzhuset i St. Regnegade 19, Kbhvn K 1959-1976", Syddansk Universitetsforlag (University Press of Southern Denmark), 2008 & 2010, 300 pages, ISBN: 978-87-7674-297-3 (Danish, with list of concerts)
•Erik Wiedemann "Montmartre 1959–76: Historien om et jazzhus i København", 1997 (Danish)
•Jens Jørn Gjedsted, Thorborg, Niels Christensen "Montmartre gennem 10 år (1976–1986), 1986 (Danish book on occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the Club in the new place)
•Between a Smile and a Tear, 2004, Film by Niels Lan Doky



Dexter Gordon is considered to be the first musician to translate the language of Bebop to the tenor saxophone.
Dexter Keith Gordon was born on February 27, 1923 in Los Angeles, California. His father, Dr. Frank Gordon, was one of the first African American doctors in Los Angeles who arrived in 1918 after graduating from Howard Medical School in Washington, D.C. Among his patients were Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton. Dexter’s mother, Gwendolyn Baker, was the daughter of Captain Edward Baker, one of the five African American Medal of Honor recipients in the Spanish-American War.
Dexter began his study of music with the clarinet at age 13, then switched to the alto saxophone at 15, and finally to the tenor saxophone at 17. He studied music with Lloyd Reese and at Jefferson High School wi