W♥M: Jazz Notes

05/18/2023

Hiromi at Dakota Jazz Club (05/17/2023)

Tour Dates

May 18 Minneapolis, MN, US Dakota
May 19 Oakland, CA, US Yoshi's Oakland
May 20 Oakland, CA, US Yoshi's Oakland
May 21 Oakland, CA, US Yoshi's Oakland
May 23 Oakland, CA, US Yoshi's Oakland
May 24 Oakland, CA, US Yoshi's Oakland
Jul 18 Nice, France NICE JAZZ FESTIVAL PASS
Nov 13 London, UK Barbican Centre

Read More

Hiromi

Japanese artist Hiromi is doing a two-night (four shows) residency at the Dakota Jazz Club in downtown Minneapolis. The classical and classical composer (often fused with rock-inspired or pop music) is touring in support of Silver Lining Suite. …

After a nine year hiatus, Hiromi Uehara returned to Dakota Jazz Club to offer the audience an inside peak to her new band, Sonicwonder, with Adam O’Farrill on trumpet, Hadrien Feraud on electric bass and Gene Coye on drums.

“It’s our world premiere,” said Hiromi to the crowd.

It was indeed their first public appearance with sheet music at the ready and songs still to be fine tuned before going into the studio to record their first album.

Lowell Pickett, the host for the evening, said Hiromi wanted a few intimate settings to work out the kinks, and she could do no better than the downtown Minneapolis venue.

Born in Hamamatsu, Japan, Hiromi first started playing the piano at six. At fourteen she played with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, at seventeen she played with Chick Corea. At the Berklee College of Music she was mentored by the great Ahmad Jamal, who told Pickett that she was a generational talent, “Maybe the most talented jazz pianist in the past twenty years.”

Telarc Records must have thought so for they signed her to a recording contract before she even graduated, releasing her debut album Another Mind in 2003.

As the band started off the evening with a laid back vibe and a little funk, Hiromi quickly utilized the three keyboards surrounding her: the grand piano in front, an electric keyboard to the side and a synthesizer resting above.

For “Sunny Wonderland” Hiromi started with the synth creating a sound that hovered between a retro 80’s video game and a high-speed German Discotheque dance beat. Throughout the song she played all three keyboards, at moments, two at a time, looking much like a scientist concocting, pushing, letting her other band mates explore with O’Farrill modulating his trumpet sound and Feraud giving a look to Coye at the end that said: “Whew!”

Exploration was definitely the theme of the evening with no two songs the same. O’Farrill was given the opportunity to play a sweet ballad before the rest of the band joined to create a beautiful and grand ending. Feraud started another song with a laidback solo before Hiromi and O’Farrill continued with a playful call and response. Then Hiromi was back on her synth with a top forty pop sound that soon became untethered, moving into a free jazz jam session with Hiromi laughing at the end, saying the song was entitled “Trial and Error”.

Hiromi told Vie Magazine in 2016 that she felt she was a captain of a boat and wanted to take her audience on a journey. Last night at the Dakota, the audience was given a rare treat from a captain still looking for new seas to explore.

Hiromi at Dakota Jazz Club, Minneapolis (17 May 2023)

dave ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

Posted at 12:15 AM in Dakota Jazz Club, Dave, Hiromi, Jazz, Jazz Notes, Minneapolis | Permalink | Comments (0)

09/13/2022

World Beat: Seun Kuti, Linda Ronstadt, Lucibela

Seun Kuti and Egypt 80: “Love & Revolution” tour

Read More

Seun Kuti

Nigerian Afrobeat musician Seun Kuti recently appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, performing “When We Move” with American rappers Common and Black Thought. …

12/03/2021

A Jazzy Christmas

12/21/2018

R.I.P. Nancy Wilson and Anca Pop

Read More

Nancy Wilson

Growing up in Ohio, Nancy Wilson knew early she wanted to be a singer. After winning talent shows, working clubs, touring with a big band and studying briefly to become a teacher, she decided to make a move to New York City in 1959. …

Anca Pop

Ring Around Anca Pop Original Release Date: January 25, 2017 Release Date: January 25, 2017 Label: Roton Copyright: ℗© Roton Music Total Length: 2:58 …

American singer Nancy Wilson has died on December 13th. I know we’re late to mention the news, but her contribution to blues and jazz is so important that we had at least acknowledge the sad news of her passing.

Wilson’s career spanned over five decades, starting in the mid-1950s to her retirement in 2010. Her signature song was “(You Don't Know) How Glad I Am” and her reinterpretation of “Guess Who I Saw Today”.

We previously wrote about Wilson, noting, “Growing up in Ohio, Nancy Wilson knew early she wanted to be a singer. After winning talent shows, working clubs, touring with a big band and studying briefly to become a teacher, she decided to make a move to New York City in 1959. Cannonball Adderly was so impressed with the up-and-coming singer he helped launch Wilson’s career by sharing his manager, John Levy, and his label, Capitol Records. That’s all the help she would need. Her debut was so well received she released five albums by her within the first two and a half years. And for the next forty Wilson would go on to record 70 albums with the last, “Turn to Blue,” winning a Grammy in 2006 for best jazz vocal.”

Also in the news is the death of Romanian-Canadian singer-songwriter Anca Pop. She was involved in a traffic accident that sent her car into the Danube River. Her body was found on December 17; she was only 34.

Pop’s music style was a little Balkan and mainstream pop. She had a big following in Japan.

Below are more recent deaths - for the full death list: Musicians who died in 2018.

December (18)

[21 Dec 2018] Dipali Barthakur (Indian singer), 77

[20 Dec 2018] Adolfo Echeverría (Colombian composer), 86

[17 Dec 2018] Arun Bhaduri (Indian classical vocalist), 75, respiratory disease

[17 Dec 2018] Galt MacDermot (Canadian-American composer and pianist), 89

[17 Dec 2018] Anca Pop (Romanian-Canadian singer-songwriter), 34, traffic collision

[15 Dec 2018] Jerry Chesnut (American songwriter), 87

[15 Dec 2018] Arthur Maia (Brazilian composer and musician), 56, heart attack

[14 Dec 2018] Joe Osborn (American bass guitarist for The Wrecking Crew), 81

[13 Dec 2018] Nancy Wilson (Grammy winner American jazz singer), 81

[11 Dec 2018] Angelo Conti (Italian singer for Banda Bassotti), 62

[10 Dec 2018] J. R. Reitz (American radio host and disc jockey for WFHN), 66

[10 Dec 2018] Fred Wieland (Australian guitarist for The Strangers), 75, lung cancer

[09 Dec 2018] Yigal Bashan (Israeli singer and composer), 68, , heart attack

[07 Dec 2018] The Mascara Snake (American artist and musician for Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band), 70, traffic collision

[06 Dec 2018] Pete Shelley (English musician for Buzzcocks), 63, heart attack

[02 Dec 2018] Perry Robinson (American jazz musician), 80

[01 Dec 2018] Calvin Newborn (American jazz guitarist), 85

[01 Dec 2018] Jody Williams (American blues musician), 83, cancer

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic

Posted at 07:14 AM in Anca Pop, Jazz, Jazz Notes, Nancy Wilson, News, RIP | Permalink | Comments (0)

08/28/2011

JAZZ NOTE #16 – NAME THAT TUNE

Alfredo Rodriguez playing...

Esperanza Spalding playing...

Roy Hargrove playing...

I’m not a big fan of hastily put together cover albums, especially when the musical cannon comes from the Disney Vault. It seems every song that has been done has been covered again. Do we really need another rendition of “It’s a Small World” after hearing Slim Whitman and The Baha Men? But even with my reservation, I have to say I am pleasantly surprised with Everybody Wants to be a Cat.

This isn’t a Disney album for kids unless they are jazz aficionados. There was actually thought and possible love put into this compilation as the producers reached out to a broad spectrum of the jazz world. There are the elders like Dave Brubeck and Dianne Reeves and the established like The Bad Plus, Roy Hargrove and Joshua Redman. There is even newcomers like the Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez and the tiny gal who carries a big bass, Esperanza Spalding. Then there is one of my favorites, Regina Carter, playing her violin in a beautiful rendition of “Find Yourself” from Cars.

One thing I like about jazz musicians is how they can hide the original theme to a popular song. Some will increase or slow the beat. Others will play in another key. Then others will try to go completely into unchartered territory. The key is can they make it work? I have included three songs by Rodriguez, Spalding and Hargrove. I think they find the right balance with varying grades of difficulty. See if you can guess the song they are playing. It’s okay to cheat. I had to look on the CD cover to figure out the third. I guess I still have a ways to go before I can call myself hip.

Dave

Posted at 07:44 PM in Dave, Disney, Jazz, Jazz Notes | Permalink | Comments (0)

07/01/2011

JAZZ NOTE #15 – HIGHLIGHT A TOWN (PART II)

There is a lot of great music in the Crescent City. More than any other New Orleans is a musician’s town. After all, how many other cities have their airport named after a trumpet player?

If you are looking for music that highlights the rich musical landscape of New Orleans, you can do no better than Dr. Michael White’s Adventures in New Orleans Jazz Part 1. White’s fifth release on Basin Street Records features a traditional New Orleans sound with influences of reggae, as well as African and Caribbean traditions. There are also a few nods to 60’s and 70’s pop music.

FAVORITE SONG: “South African Medley: Pata Pata/The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Mbube).” White’s clarinet is carefree, lighthearted and joyful.

Wynton Marsalis has been a global ambassador for jazz for so long, it’s easy to forget his New Orleans roots run deep.

The Majesty of the Blues reminds us that he never forgot his hometown. The title track is powerful and tight like a stiff shot of bourbon. “Hickory Dickory Dock” shows his penchant for setting nursery rhymes to a jazz beat. And the final tracks demonstrate a very old and established New Orleans’ tradition of the funeral march. In Marsalis' rendition jazz is the body and its funeral is set in three parts:

The lament can be heard in “The Death of Jazz.”

The remembrance can be found in a fiery sermon, “Premature Autopsies.”

The celebration can not be stopped in the toe-tapping strut, “Oh, But on the Third Day.”

Garrison Keillor called BeaSoleil, “The best Cajun band in the world.” Although from Lafayette, BeaSoleil is very much a part of the New Orleans musical landscape. Formed in 1975, they are still out there playing at music festivals and town halls or wherever there is a place to put a band and dance floor. BeaSoleil is in fact the equivalent to Ireland’s The Chieftains, firmly grounded in their own musical tradition, but more than welcoming to other ideas whether it Zydeco, jazz, Tex-Mex, country or blues.

FAVORITE SONG: No doubt “Zydeco Gris-Gris” from Bayou Boogie. The first time I heard it was the beginning of the movie, “The Big Easy,” a crime drama set in New Orleans. The song set a celebratory tone as Police Detective, Remy McSwain, blared his car radio on the way to a murder scene. Who knew solving crimes could be so much fun?

Preservation Hall’s mission is in its name: to preserve the heritage and culture that is the birthplace of jazz. Most people would regard this music as Dixieland and have visions of men on steamboats wearing straw hats and bow ties while playing trumpets, clarinets, banjos and trombones. (Oh yeah, don’t forget the poor guy who has to lug around the tuba.) That certainly was the past but the hall and its players are always evolving.

If you are in New Orleans, you can stop by at 726 Peter Street and listen to nightly music. And if you don’t want to travel, the band may come to you. They are on the road 150 days a year. Recently, they released a new album with bluegrass legend Del McCoury. It doesn’t look like anybody is wearing a bowtie on the cover.

After Katrina a lot of people wondered what they could do to help the devastated city. The town’s musicians knew exactly how to pitch in. They picked up their instruments.

Sing Me Back Home: The New Orleans Social Club is a compilation of a tight-knit group of artists who call New Orleans their home. On the album are the Neville brothers, Ivan and Cyril. There is Dr. John, The Mighty Chariots of Fire and the smooth as can be, John Boutté.

MORE THAN ONE FAVORITE:

John Boutté singing a heartfelt rendition of the Eurythmics’ “Why.”

Big Chief Monk Boudreaux easing into a reggae-infused “Chase.”

Trombone Shorty riding a Caribbean wave in “Hey Troy, Your Mama’s Callin’ You.”

Then there is The Sixth Ward All-Star Brass Band doing what New Orleans does best in “Where Y’At? Medley.”

Speaking of brass bands, I finally know what second line music means. Have you ever been to a parade? Stuffed with mini doughnuts and root beer you feel yourself slightly slipping into the afternoon sun while the classic cars, dairy queens, carnation-covered floats and farm equipment pass by. But before you doze off, your ears perk for off in the distance you hear a rousing marching band. For an instant you are pulled from a sleepy haze until the musicians move down the street. Did you ever wish you could keep listening? In New Orleans you can. You can get off the curb and fall in line, the second line. When you are in New Orleans, why ruin a good time?

Dave

Posted at 03:33 PM in Dave, Jazz, Jazz Notes, John Boutte, Michael White, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Wynton Marsalis | Permalink | Comments (0)

06/29/2011

JAZZ NOTE #15 – HIGHLIGHT A TOWN (PART I)

When TV Creator, David Simon, chose to set his new HBO series in post-Katrina New Orleans, critics wondered if he was going to bring the same Dickensian scope he brilliantly illuminated in The Wire. The short answer is no.

The Wire showed how institutions become dysfunctional by following Baltimore’s low-level drug dealers, city cops as well as district attorneys, sleazy lawyers, beleaguered educators and county officials who seem more concerned rewarding constituents than solving the city’s mounting problems. Simon’s Treme (a neighborhood in New Orleans) stays on the ground level by following people who are trying their best to put their lives and town back together.

There is a bar owner who needs a new roof and a Mardi Gras Indian Chief trying to get his tribe back. There is a restaurant owner wondering if she can hold on until the S.B.A. loan comes through and an unemployed D.J. wondering where he will find his next paycheck. There is a civil rights lawyer who tirelessly searches for a prisoner lost in the shuffle and a Tulane English professor who turns his frustrations into profane rants on You Tube.

What Treme shares with The Wire is an authentic feel for a city. But where Lester Freeman of The Wire once said, “All the pieces matter,” Treme is not concerned with solving the puzzle. Why set a police drama in New Orleans with such great music on every corner? The characters and their travails may provide a bridge from episode to episode. But make no mistake, the musicians are what make this show.

A typical episode runs 60 minutes. If Treme was on NBC, you would be guaranteed 20 minutes of commercials. Since it is on HBO, commercials are turned into music. R&B, Dixieland, funk, jazz, second line, funeral marches, street musicians, Cajun, Zydeco, when the musicians play a song, they play the whole song. No twenty seconds and cut to commercial. This is the Big Easy and the joyful spirit of New Orleans is fully highlighted.

My favorite character is an underemployed trombonist, Antoine Batiste, played by New Orleans native, Wendell Pierce. The way he drifts through the town and interacts with actual musicians is the best part of the show.

There he is playing with trumpeter, Kermit Ruffins, in a smoky low-lit bar.

There he is playing at a strip club while catching the act.

There he is playing in a big band for a wedding party, trying to stay awake while they plow through Ellington’s “Take the A Train” or as he whispers to a fellow trombonist, “Take the Z Train.”

There he is half-inebriated singing with a pair of street musicians.

There he is on the phone trying to get a touring gig with Dr. John.

There he is in baggage claim at Louis Armstrong Airport, playing for visitors from Tulsa and Cincinnati.

There he is doing a funeral march.

There he is working the Second Line.

After he takes some time off to visit his kids in Baton Rouge, Batiste climbs into a bus headed back to his hometown.

A little old lady sitting next to him asks if his trip to New Orleans is for business or pleasure.

Batiste leans back and smiles, “Pleasure, always for pleasure.”

Dave

Posted at 12:22 PM in Antoine Batiste, Dave, HBO, Jazz, Jazz Notes, Kermit Ruffins, Mardi Gras, New Orleans, The Wire, Treme, Wendell Pierce | Permalink | Comments (0)

06/04/2011

Michael

Michael is a name that means "Who is like God".

>>>

West African Strut

DR MICHAEL WHITE
basinstreetrecords.com

If we can afford it, we would love to head down to the annual New Orleans Jazz Festival someday. I suppose the next best thing is to get music from the New Orleans area, and like various tributes, Dr Michael White, a clarinetist, basically dedicate his fifth album to the city with Adventures in New Orleans Jazz, Part 1. I have put in a request for the album to be reviewed (Dave has agreed to review it), but I wanted to pass on the news that his album is coming out on June 21^st. I have posted a preview track, "West African Strut" for you to check out. As the song title suggests, the song's melodies were influenced by African rhythm, but if you listen some more, it definitely also feels like a fun 50s bop.

Anyway, the album comes out near the end of the month on New Orleans-based label, Basin Street Records, which is currently the only label with three albums on the Billboard Jazz Chart in May (#10-Rebirth Brass Band’s Rebirth of New Orleans, #11 Irvin Mayfield’s A Love Letter to New Orleans & #16 Kermit Ruffins’ Happy Talk).

Look for Adventures in New Orleans Jazz, Part 2 sometime in 2012.

THE COPPER FIELD
facebook.com/thecopperfield

Michael Grey from Mercurial Rage sent me this note that he has a solo project called The Copper Field. The debut EP called The Standard and Poor will come out digitally on June 21^st.

On June 24^th, 2011, the band will have a CD release party at The Aster Cafe in Minneapolis. I know where the cafe is, but I've personally have never been to a show there - but it looks like a quiet intimate setting. Cover is only $5.

I've only briefly listen to the EP, but based on the first song "Desire", it sounds pretty epic in its theme (religion, love, happiness, etc) all wrapped up in a nice tidy folky/pop song.

Their slowest song on the EP is called "Matilda", which is quite different from his Mercurial Rage's work that is "surprisingly more electro-dance" (quote is taken from their live show).

MOVING THE MOUNTAIN
www.linktv.org

I was sent this information that the 1994 Tian’anmen Square documentary, directed by Michael Apted, will air on Link TV today (Saturday June 4th), just in time for the commemoration of the June 4th, 1989 protest. If you've missed the airdate last night, they are re-airing it all this week:

DIRECTV Channel 375 | DISH Network Channel 9410
Sunday, June 5th 09:00 am
Sunday, June 5th 08:00 pm
Tuesday, June 7th 04:30 pm
Wednesday, June 8th 11:00 pm
Saturday, June 11th 02:00 am

Since I don't have cable or DirecTV, I probably won't see it. Maybe when it comes out on Netflix, we'll see.

Update: I am told you can watch the documentary online on linktv.org.

vu (

) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ podcast.weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic

Posted at 11:56 PM in Films, Jazz, Jazz Notes, Mercurial Rage, Michael White | Permalink | Comments (0)

04/27/2011

JAZZ NOTE #13 – GO GLOBAL

The Girl From Ipanema

If you need someone to blame every time you hear “The Girl from Ipanema” in a hotel lobby or office elevator, you can take it out on Stan Getz. But how did a Jewish kid from the Bronx usher in a new global sound?

At a young age Getz took to the music of jazz. Having a photographic memory and a pitch-perfect ear, he could hum Benny Goodman solos after a couple of listens. By the time he was 18 he had already played for Jack Teagarden, Jimmy Dorsey and Stan Kenton. And in 1947 he relocated to California to play with Woody Herman.

But by 1950 Big Band Swing was on the wane and Getz moved onto the Cool Movement, which concentrated on clean lyrical phrasing and a more subdued sound. But even that movement would give way as musicians started to move further and further from any inherent structure and into modal and free jazz.

Getz couldn’t go that far into the water. To him the new music did not speak to him. So that’s maybe why he was so open to a new sound that guitarist, Charlie Byrd, brought back after a State Department tour of South America.

Bahia (Aka Baia)

JAZZ NOTE

Immediately, Getz fell in love with the Brazilian music of Bossa Nova and released Jazz Samba in 1962. The album was so well received Getz invited two of the founding fathers, Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim to fly up to New York and record Getz/Gilberto. From there “The Girl from Ipanema” would reach #5 on the pop charts in July of 1964 and the album would go on to win a Grammy, beating out the Beatle’s Hard Day’s Night.

What made the music so popular was at the time it felt like a breath of fresh air. Getz was the perfect ambassador to introduce this sophisticated rhythmic sound. His saxophone creates a calm and relaxed feeling, like a cool evening breeze coming off the ocean. Every time I listen to either of these albums I am transported to a sunnier, more happening place, especially when I listen to “Bahia” as Getz floats above the bass that propels the beat like a giant trampoline.

Dave

Posted at 05:25 PM in Bebel Gilberto, Bossa Nova, Dave, Jazz, Jazz Notes, Joao Gilberto | Permalink | Comments (0)

04/04/2011

JAZZ NOTE #12 – FRAME THE MOMENT

Nancy Wilson: Moon River

Cannonball Adderly was so impressed with the up-and-coming singer he helped launch Wilson’s career by sharing his manager, John Levy, and his label, Capitol Records. That’s all the help she would need. Her debut was so well received she released five albums by her within the first two and a half years. And for the next forty Wilson would go on to record 70 albums with the last, “Turn to Blue,” winning a Grammy in 2006 for best jazz vocal.

Although Wilson has been described as a blues, jazz and/or cabaret singer, she has always preferred the title, song stylist. She is definitely one of those artists that can take a standard and make it her own. With the bright clarity of Ella Fitzgerald, the phrasing of Billie Holiday, the command of Frank Sinatra and the sensibility of her childhood idol, Nat King Cole, Wilson crafts a warm, sophisticated sound or as Time Magazine wrote in 1964, “She is all at once, both cool and sweet, both singer and storyteller.”

Like all the greats, Wilson can bring you in and make you feel at ease. Take “Moon River.” Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s original is wistful and longing, but Wilson’s interpretation is a breezy. She doesn’t so much sing as soar, gliding over the subtle percussive beat as to never land on a single note. No wonder Joe Williams once called her the Thrush from Columbus.

Dave

Posted at 12:31 PM in Dave, Jazz, Jazz Notes, Nancy Wilson | Permalink | Comments (0)

W♥M

We Heart Music

05/18/2023

Hiromi at Dakota Jazz Club (05/17/2023)

09/13/2022

World Beat: Seun Kuti, Linda Ronstadt, Lucibela

12/03/2021

A Jazzy Christmas

12/21/2018

R.I.P. Nancy Wilson and Anca Pop

08/28/2011

JAZZ NOTE #16 – NAME THAT TUNE

07/01/2011

JAZZ NOTE #15 – HIGHLIGHT A TOWN (PART II)

06/29/2011

JAZZ NOTE #15 – HIGHLIGHT A TOWN (PART I)

06/04/2011

Michael

04/27/2011

JAZZ NOTE #13 – GO GLOBAL

04/04/2011

JAZZ NOTE #12 – FRAME THE MOMENT

June 2023

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30