As of today, I (with the help of web guru and talented bassist, Professor Hummingflower of The Waitiki 7) have ported all of this blog's old content to a new Wordpress format. For those of you who read The Jazz Clinic in a RSS aggregator, please update your RSS subscriptions to http://jazzclinic.net/?feed=rss2.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Waiting for the festivities at Gojjo to begin at 2 pm. Its the 1 year anniversary of SciFi Philly! Congratulations Dan, Jon and Stephen. DIY creative music in Philly presented by musicians is thriving thanks to these guys. Especially looking forward to out-of-towners Russell Baker (from my alma mater B-CC) and Pete Robbins.
Saturday, May 09, 2009
RIP Calvin Dominique Wilkerson, son of Philadelphia drummer and former Ornette Coleman sideman, G. Calvin Weston. Dominique, as he was known was the victim of a deadly hit-and-run in Northeast Philadelphia on Thursday night. For more info: http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=6803840.
Friday, May 08, 2009
Sitting around trying to decide whether to stay up and go to Burnt Sugar at the North Star Bar or go to sleep and catch up on the week's lost zzz's. Had a really productive day at work. Listened to some killer punk band called Gun Club as well as the brilliant new Akron/Family release on Dead Oceans called "Set 'em Wild, Set 'em Free" - a great mixture of soft folk and dancy krautrock.
Since I've last blogged, I've been to DC for Passover, Seattle and San Francisco (for a professional and personal vacation). And of course, I've been in and out of New York a whole bunch of times (3X since I came back April 26). And I'm going back yet again tomorrow for a recording session, then down to DC on Saturday night and back up to Philly on Monday. Whew!
Maybe at some point I'll get around to blogging something about my excellent trip to the Left Coast, but for now I'll just leave you with a few pictures and let the pictures do the talking.
A specialty record store called Zion's Gate Records on E. Pike St. in Seattle. My first day there before the EMP Pop Conference began. Strangely enough, in Zion's Gate, I found a copy of Quartet Music's Window on The Lake on Nine Winds (yes, that's Nels and Alex Cline, Jeff Gauthier and the late Eric Von Essen, for whom Cryptogramophone records was founded). Nels and Jeff look like they are straight out of Ridgemont High. Alex looks like the wolf man. I kid you not. Of all places - a reggae specialty shop in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle!?!? Who knew?
a rad skateboard and urban chic clothing/hat/shoe shop also on E. Pike St.
me on Pike St. with my first vinyl purchase of the trip.
A human-sized bunny in a store window. Naturally.
Pike Place Market - with blue skies.
flowers at Pike Place Market
belt buckles at Pike Place Market
more to come soon...
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On another note, I've been wondering if there is a way to get my Twitter feed syndicated on my blog (but do I want you all to see what I'm tweeting?). I don't know the answer to that question. And I also would like to set up mobile blogging once again which I had set up on my old iPhone but never set up for my new one.
I'm strongly considering migrating this blog to a WordPress format as I am beginning to get used to that system on my new business website. Let me tell you, its way better than anything Google has come up with yet (but you do have to pay for the hosting).
I have been tempted to blog on many different subjects in the last few weeks/months. Everytime I start to put a post together, I abort and delete. But I just had to repost this one at the very least.
So Bret Primack, aka jazzvideoguy has posted an excellent video on Bartz in anticipation of a new record dedicated to Coltrane. Obviously, I'd wished for something original, but after almost a decade keeping a very low profile with extremely scant updates to his website, it's good to see Bartz back in the mix - especially on video. Thanks Bret!
If you're in any of these locales, go check out Gary with McCoy Tyner, his old buddy from the Milestone years.
FEBRUARY 2009 19 guest W/ McCoy Tyner Trio - Penn State / University Park, PA 21 guest W/ McCoy Tyner Trio - SUNY Purchase / Purchase, NY 24-25 guest W/ McCoy Tyner Trio - Blue Note / New York, NY 27-28 guest W/ McCoy Tyner Trio - Regatta Bar / Boston, MA
Even though he needs to hook up a RSS feed already so all of us RSS nuts can subscribe in our readers, ChristianMcBrideisabadman.
I never knew a musician could work so much and still find time months later to put it all together so coherently. In particular, what he says about his friends Freddie Hubbard and Tony Reedus is just priceless. We need more musicians blogging! But for our generation, there is no better connector between today and yesteryear than Christian McBride.
Some YouTube video is indispensable for such a remarkable year in a musician's career:
Five Peace Band in The Hague, Netherlands (featuring bowed bass solo):
All-Star Salute to Ray Brown: JANUARY 28 Los Angeles, CA Walt Disney Concert Hall
Christian with "Five Peace Band": JANUARY 31 Seoul, Korea Welch-Ryang Auditorium FEBRUARY 02 Tokyo, Japan (THRU 2/8) Blue Note Tokyo (THRU 2/8) 10-11 Kowloon, Hong Kong Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall 13 Manila, Phillipines Harbour Garden/Sofitel Phillipine Plaza 17 Adelaide, Australia Her Majesty's Theater 18 Melbourne, Australia Hamer Hall 20-21 Sydney, Australia Sydney Opera House 22 Auckland, New Zealand Aotea Centre - ASB
CHRISTIAN McBRIDE BAND: FEBRUARY 27 Parkersburg, WV West Virginia University - Parkersburg (CAC) MARCH 03 Gainesville, FL University of Florida/Phillips Center 04 Jacksonville, FL Florida Theater
A CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE SITUATION w/ Ron Blake, DJ Logic & David Gilmore: MARCH 06 South Orange, NJ SOPAC (South Orange Performing Arts Center)
Christian with "Five Peace Band": MARCH 19 Los Angeles, CA Royce Hall - UCLA 20 Santa Barbara, CA Campbell Hall - UCSB 21 Berkeley, CA Zellerbach Auditorium - UC Berkeley 24 Modesto, CA Gallo Center for the Arts - Mary Stuart Rogers Theater 25 Denver, CO Paramount Theater 27 Miami, FL Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts 28 Savannah, GA Savannah Music Festival - Trustees Theater APRIL 01 Houston, TX Verizon Wireless Theater 02 Austin, TX University of Texas Performing Arts Center - Bass Concert Hall 03 Chicago, Ill Chicago Theater 04 Ann Arbor, MI Hill Auditorium/University of Michigan 06 Nashville, TN Schermerhorn Symphony Center 07 Urbana, IL Krannert Center/Tryon Festival Theater 23-25 New York, NY Frederick P. Rose Hall/Lincoln Center 26 Glenside, PA Keswick Theater 28 Montreal, QUE Place des Arts 29 Bethesda, MD Music Center at Strathmore 30 Boston, MA Berklee Performance Center MAY 01 Burlington, VT Flynn Center for the Performing Arts
Shame on me for not including the fantastic albums by:
Randy Newman - Harps & Angels (Nonesuch) - pointed commentary on the state of our country (the US) we've come to expect from America's favorite piano satirist and Pixar composer.
Ry Cooder - I, Flathead Limited Deluxe Edition (Nonesuch) - Classic guttural Cooder sound with steel guitars and mandolins and stacked fifths of vocal harmony. I, Flathead is much more even-headed than the previous installment in this trilogy about life for migrants in Southern California (which was called My Name is Buddy). The new disc, in my opinion, was one of the most thoughfully put-together packages of recorded sounds I have had the pleasure of owning. The CD comes in a hard cover-bound book with all lyrics and a short novel which is a fictional account of what it might have been like for working class immigrants and migrants arriving in Southern California in the early to mid-20th century and their trials and tribulations. Also it's about the hobby of drag racing on wide open salt flats (about which there was a stunning article with remarkable panoramic photography in the Travel section of the Sunday New York Times the Sunday before Thanksgiving).
Moss - Moss (Sunnyside) - I really began listening to this record in earnest in late 2008 when preparing my final list. I could try to elaborate on the sound of this remarkable ensemble but I think Jeff Simon of The Buffalo News said it best in his review of this disc:
"This jazz vocal supergroup has just created the greatest vocal fusion of jazz, rock and folk music since the first record by Bobby McFerrin 26 years ago. And Moss' version of Neil Young's "Old Man" in Kate McGarry's and Peter Eldridge's arrangement is the most extraoridinary jazz version of a great folk rock song since McFerrin's version of Lennon and McCartney's "Blackbird." You've never before encountered anything that even remotely resembles their blend of close harmony, folk song, classical composition and jazz rhythms. The singers involved are Brazilian jazz singer Luciana Souza, jazz/folk singer Kate McGarry, jazz singer Peter Eldridge, downtown genre buster Theo Bleckmann and Lauren Kinhan of, yes, New York Voices. It's as if they invented an entirely new blend of urban madrigalism for the 21st century, composed of coffee shop, jazz club, off-Broadway theater and church basement. It's not all on the same incredible level, but what's great here is amazing." - Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News
More may come to mind but these three were the most glaring omissions from my Best Recordings lists which I took a lot of time in considering this year.
Hopefully coming soon will be a rundown of my recent concert-going activities during APAP including last weekend's Winter Jazz Fest put on by Brice Rosenbloom, founder of boomBOOM Presents (one of the true champions of live music presentation in New York City) at three new venues for this now five-year-old ritual which used to take place at the now-shuttered (though quickly reopened) SoHo club (now in Williamsburg), The Knitting Factory. The new venues which worked remarkably well given the snowy, icy circumstances were Sullivan Hall, (Le) Poisson Rouge and Kenny's Castaways) and globalFEST arranged by veteran concert producer/curator Bill Bragin of Lincoln Center (formerly of Joe's Pub) and Shanta Thake, currently of Joe's Pub and other world music mavens such as Fabian Alsultany. Both were amazing musical nights and terrific hangs. Hopefully I will get around to posting details and impressions, thought it's all still really a blur...
Posts
A specialty record store called Zion's Gate Records on E. Pike St. in Seattle. My first day there before the EMP Pop Conference began. Strangely enough, in Zion's Gate, I found a copy of Quartet Music's Window on The Lake on Nine Winds (yes, that's Nels and Alex Cline, Jeff Gauthier and the late Eric Von Essen, for whom Cryptogramophone records was founded). Nels and Jeff look like they are straight out of Ridgemont High. Alex looks like the wolf man. I kid you not. Of all places - a reggae specialty shop in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle!?!? Who knew?
me on Pike St. with my first vinyl purchase of the trip.
