Monday, May 11, 2015

News From The Jazzinstitut Darmstadt

7 May 2015                          
Kamasi Washington / Club Award (Germany)

Chris Barton talks to the saxophonist  Kamasi Washington about his new album "The Epic", about the creative music scene in Los Angeles, about growing up with jazz, about being taught by Gerald Wilson, about hip-hop being no less intellectual than jazz when it comes to rhythm, about his love for the jazz masters and his search for his own style and about jazz (and the universe) being "a vast, vast place. There's room for everything" ( Los Angeles Times). Chris Hoard talks to Kamasi Washington as well, finding that the live rendering of "The Epic" leaves its young audience "astonished by the musical spectacle, and the overwhelming volume and cacophony of the live mix alternated between inspiration and bombast" ( Variety). Nick Chiles quotes (through Billboard and other sources) Kamasi Washington as well, about his collaboration with the rapper Kendrick Lamar, about the links between hip-hop and jazz and the potential for a younger audience through these channels, as well as about his own album "The Epic" ( Atlanta Black Star). Finally, Dan Johnson also reports about the saxophonist ( LA Downtown News). --- The German federal government announces the third annual club award, financial support for jazz, rock and pop clubs who can apply until 30 June ( Initiative Musik). The club award has a total budget of 1 million Euro and comes in three categories providing funding of 5,000 Euro, up to 20,000 Euro and up to 40,000 Euro.

8 May 2015
Colin Webster / Irvin Mayfield

Sammy Stein talks to the British saxophonist Colin Webster about musical inspiration on his work, about emotions while performing and audience response, about his own listening habits, about current and future projects, and about improvised music very well being a young music attracting both young performers and a young audience ( Something Else!). --- David Hammer ( WWLTV) and Richard Rainey ( New Orleans Times-Picayune) report about the trumpeter Irvin Mayfield who was criticized for funneling "donations from the [New Orleans Public] library's private fundraising arm to his own nonprofit New Orleans Jazz Orchestra". Meanwhile, Mayfield's employee Ronald Markham who also sat on the library foundation's board, resigned ( WWLTV) while New Orleans' mayor called for changes on the Library Foundation ( WWLTV).

9 May 2015
Keith Jarrett / Christoph Pepe Auer

It was Keith Jarrett 's 70th birthday yesterday, and congratulations come from Wolfgang Sandner ( FAZ), Hans-Jürgen Linke ( Frankfurter Rundschau), Alex Rühle ( Süddeutsche Zeitung), Gregor Dotzauer ( Zeit Online), Giuseppe Vide ( Tages-Anzeiger), Ueli Bernays ( Neue Zürcher Zeitung), Conny Paul ( Deutsche Welle), Rachel Martin ( NPR) and many others. --- Ljubiša Tošić talks to the Austrian bass clarinetist Christoph Pepe Auer about his latest album "Songs I Like", about having been inspired by the popular music he heard on the radio, about finding his own way in jazz, about his choice of the bass clarinet in favor of the saxophone, and about his own record label, Session Work Records ( Der Standard).

10 May 2015
Klaus Doldinger / B.B. King

Jürgen Overkott talks to the German saxophonist and composer Klaus Doldinger about the name of his band Passport, about his success both as a jazz and fusion musician and as a film composer, about a trip to Brazil and about feeling like a professional traveler ( Der Westen). --- Last week we read that B.B. King entered home hospice care ( Los Angeles Times). This week rumors make the round that the blues guitarist is being "held captive" by his longtime manager "and denied access to medical care and his friends like Eric Clapton and Carlos Santana" ( The Daily Beast). This claim meanwhile has been rejected by the spokesman of his manager ( TMZ).

11 May 2015
Tim Berne / Paul Grabowsky

Andy Robson talks to the saxophonist Tim Berne about 40 years in the improvised music business, about his work both for the Columbia and ECM labels, as well as about the freedom in his band Snakeoil ( Star-Tribune, Minneapolis). --- The Australian pianist Paul Grabowsky writes about his interest in music by Australian indigenous people, about the power of music to form connections, and about the "Crossing Roper Bar" project resulting from this interest ( Sydney Morning Herald).

12 May 2015
Infracom / Nigeria

Stephan A. Dudek talks to the Jan Hagenkötter, founder of the German record company Infracom, about the need for and business aspects of an independent label today, about his project [re:jazz] which involves music as well as graphic design and other creative processes in interpretations of electronic music in acoustic jazz versions, about the pianist and producer Matthias Vogt and his ability to bridge jazz and pop, about his decision to release a recent production as vinyl and mp3 download only and about the art value of vinyl records ( Main-Spitze). --- Yinka Olatunbosun talks to the promoter and record store owner Kunle Tejuosho about the history of jazz in Nigeria , about specifically African kinds of fusion such as Afrobeat, about Fela Kuti's contribution to the country's music scene, about a film documentary he made about Yoruba music, and about the aesthetic of the Jazzhole record store and label in Lagos ( This Day Live).

13 May 2015
... what else ...

Ben Ratliff hears the Dutch Instant Composers Pool at Roulette ( New York Times) and the saxophonist Pharoah Sanders at Baby's All Right in Brooklyn ( New York Times). --- A.D. Amorosi reports about an upcoming tribute to Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center and talks to the Jazz Orchestra of Philadelphia's musical director Terell Stafford ( Philadelphia Inquirer). --- Rudi Greenberg talks to the pianist Jason Moran about the "Harlem Nights / U Street Lights" program at Kennedy Center celebrating two jazz communities in New York City and Washington, D.C. ( Washington Post). --- James Reaney remembers the Canadian singer Phyllis Marshall ( London Free Press). --- In a short interview the trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and the saxophonist Christine Jensen talk about their start in music ( CBC). --- Cam Fuller talks to the pianist and singer Diana Krall ( The Vancouver Sun). --- Julia Bähr reports about a study about the development of the pop and rock repertoire between 1960 and 2010 ( Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ). --- Joe Klopus talks to the Israeli trumpeter Avishai Cohen ( Kansas City Star).

Obituaries
We learned of the passing of Father Peter O'Brien, the executive director of the Mary Lou Williams Foundation, at the age of 74 ( New Jersey Star-Ledger ), the percussionist Jerome Cooper at the age of 68 ( Chicago Reader), the Swiss trumpeter Umberto Arlatti at the age of 84 ( Oltner Tagblatt), the trumpeter Travis Hill at the age of 28 ( New Orleans Times-Picayune), tr Rudi Martini.he violinist Johnny Gimble at the age of 86 ( The Tennessean), as well as the German drummer Rudi Martini.

Last Week at the Jazzinstitut:

Klaus Mümpfer reports about the first Mainz Jazz Talk which took place a week and a half ago, with Larry Appelbaum, jazz curator of the Library of Congress, Wolfram Knauer, director of the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt, as well as musicians from the Mainz conservatory ( Wiesbadener Kurier).

The German train system was on strike, yet Arndt Weidler made it to Schaffhausen, Switzerland, on Saturday where he had been invited to give keynote at the Schaffhausen Jazz Talks talking about strategies to move jazz back into the focus of a larger audience ( Schaffhauser Jazzfestival; see also Neue Zürcher Zeitung ).

The band Tria Linvo with André Nendza, Johannes Lemke and Christoph Hillmann played the Jazzinstitut's concert space last Friday ( Tria Lingvo). In the JazzTalk part of the concert, the bassist Nendza spoke about the advantages of a working band, about the Cologne jazz scene as well as about teaching music and band concepts at a university for design.

This Monday loads of jazz musicians showed up at the central station in Frankfurt, Germany, in a flash mob called the "JazzMob", meant to focus the public interest on the lively jazz scene in the federal state of Hesse ( Netzwerk Jazz in Hessen ). The Jazzinstitut is a member of the Network Jazz in Hesse which organized the event. The "Hessenschau", our regional TV magazine, reported ( Hessenschau), as did the radio stations of Hesse Radio ( hr-online).

Last week, we received a donation of more than 500 CDs from the journalist Maximilian Preisler.

The JazzNews will pause the next week, while Wolfram Knauer travels to New York for several meetings. The next edition of our JazzNews will be in your mailbox by late May.

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