Jazz Producer, Historian Frank Driggs Dies at 81
Associated Press - September 21, 2011
Frank Driggs, a music historian and producer who amassed a world-class archive of more than 100,000 jazz-related images, has died. He was 81.
Friend and co-worker Donna Ranieri told the Associated Press that Driggs was found dead in his Manhattan home on Tuesday. She says he died of natural causes.
A 1952 Princeton University graduate, Driggs became enamored with jazz and swing while listening to late-night broadcasts in the 1930s. He later joined Marshall Stearns, founder of the Rutgers University-based Institute of Jazz Studies, and began documenting jazz history.
Driggs produced numerous recordings, including Columbia Records' "Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings." He received a Grammy for it in 1991.
Driggs also co-published "Black Beauty, White Heat," a pictorial history of classic jazz culled from his vast collection.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Win tix to Hauschka & Glenn Jones
Sure to be a chilling, powerful night of acoustic music, we have two pairs of tickets for the stellar double bill of Hauschka and Glenn Jones this Saturday at the West Park Church. Email to enter@othermusic.com for your chance to win a pair of tickets.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
WEST PARK CHURCH: 165 W. 86th Street
NYC, NY
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
WEST PARK CHURCH: 165 W. 86th Street
NYC, NY
"Guitar Man": George Benson returns, one more time, to his jazz roots
Once in a while, we have a "comeback jazz album" delivered by one of the Top 5 jazz guitarists of all time, George Benson. The extremely versatile artist, catapulted to pop stardom as a singer via "This Masquerade" (from the million-selling "Breezin'" magnificently orchestrated by my friend Claus Ogerman), once in a while announces a return to his jazz facets. Many of these highly anticipated projects were very disappointing smooth-jazz offerings, like his previous soporific "Songs and Stories," which was closer to poor instrumental pop than anything else despite the presence of Marcus Miller and other heavyweights.But now, the New Jersey-based Benson promises a "true jazz guitar album" scheduled for release on the Concord label next October 4. Simply titled "Guitar Man," it's actually a mix of pop hits from the Beatles ("I Want To Hold Your Hand") and Stevie Wonder ("My Cherie Amour," previously recorded by GB for "Tell It Like It Is" in the late 60s during the A&M/CTI years), some GAS standards ("Tenderly," "My One and Only Love"), old Benson favorites like "Tequila" (jazzified by his idol Wes Montgomery at Creed Taylor's suggestion), "Since I Fell For You," the opening tune "Tenderly" (previously recorded as the title track from his 1989 excellent project with McCoy Tyner & Marty Paich), and "Danny Boy" (often played as a solo guitar number on his live concerts).
Plus: "The Lady In My Life" (Rod Temperton's great pop hit for Michael Jackson's "Thriller," later an essential track from Stanley Jordan's [Al DiMeola-produced] debut album, "Magic Touch," a best-selling item in 1985. Oh, there's really a jazz standard: John Coltrane's sublime ballad "Naima." Among the musicians are Harvey Mason, Joe Sample, David Garfield and Ben Williams. For vinyl fanatics, Concord will release a limited LP edition on October 11.
I really wanna hear this new CD with no prejudice, but something tells me I'll be soon after returning to "White Rabbit," "Bad Benson," "The Other Side of Abbey Road," "Livin' Inside Your Love," "In Flight", "In Concert - Carnegie Hall," the long-forgotten gem "Pacific Fire" (never reissued on CD not even in Asia!), "Weekend in L.A." and "Breezin'". If I were a millionaire, I would reunite Benson with Don Sebesky & Claus Ogerman in the same album, inviting Creed Taylor & Tommy LiPuma to co-produce it. Guess what the Gods would say?
The press release follows:
Grammy-winning legend George Benson brings his guitar to the forefront in his newest album Guitar Man. The 12-song collection includes a mix of jazz and pop standards - some in a combo setting and some solo, but all of them tied together seamlessly by Benson's soulful and exploratory signature sound.
Lending a hand on this recording is a solid team made up of veterans and newcomers alike - pianist Joe Sample, keyboardist and musical director David Garfield, bassist Ben Williams and drummer Harvey Mason. Williams is one of the hottest up-and-coming new artists on the jazz scene. Mason is a regular member of Fourplay, and a studio collaborator with Benson all the way back to Benson's 1976 blockbuster album, Breezin'.
In a career that spans five decades, more than 30 recordings as a leader and ten Grammy Awards, Benson has used his jazz roots as the foundation for an engaging mix of pop, R&B and other shades that add up to a style that appeals to a broad mainstream audience. Along the way, he has also established himself as a formidable jazz singer - one whose biggest career hits have showcased his vocals. But Guitar Man is just what the title implies - an album that highlights Benson's unparalleled guitar playing, perhaps more than any other album he has released in decades.
For the new project, the crew came together in the studio with a minimum of prior rehearsal time but an eagerness to jump in and lay down tracks in something very close to the live experience - what Benson describes as an "old school" approach. The impromptu sensibility comes across in the final product, much of which came together with minimal takes in a single day of recording.
"We figured that we would get the best energy if we went into the studio with some live musicians who are savvy and flexible," says Benson, "and boy, did we accomplish that." On Guitar Man, Benson's mastery of the guitar is demonstrated in a variety of styles and settings, all with legendary jazz roots. Benson has never been one to shy away from innovation or experimentation. For this guitar man, putting a jazz spin on pop standards - not just on this recording but throughout his career - is less of a taboo when you're willing to dispense with labels and the limitations that come with them.
Tracklist:
1. Tenderly
2. I Want to Hold Your Hand
3. My Cherie Amour
4. Naima
5. Tequila
6. Don't Know Why
7. The Lady In My Life
8. My One and Only Love
9. Paper Moon
10. Danny Boy
11. Since I Fell For You
12. Fingerlero
Three of Benson's classic CTI albums will be reissued on a box set
Not coincidentally, three of George Benson's ten albums for CTI Records (not counting the ones for the A&M/CTI era in the 60s), will be reissued once again, in Europe, on October 4 -- the release date of "Guitar Man" -- by the UK division of Sony Music on its Legacy label.The 3-CD box set titled "Original Album Classics" (specially priced at US$19.44) comprises "Beyond The Blue Horizon," "White Rabbit" and "Body Talk," all produced by Creed Taylor, engineered by Rudy Van Gelder and recently reissued by Sony Masterworks on the CTI 4oth Anniversary series.
Erin McDougald w/ Rob Block @ Pete Miller's Steakhouse in Evanston, tonite
Erin McDougald is singing @ Pete Miller's Steakhouse in Evanston tonight, September 20, as well as next Tuesday, Sept 27, at 6-10pm with Rob Block on guitar and piano. Tonight's theme? Songs about cyclothymic men and the soul-battered fools who love them: "My Man," "When the Sun Comes Out," "Blue Prelude," "Cry Me a River," "Don't Wait Up for Me," "I Told Ya I Love Ya Now Get Out," and "Undecided," among other pearls. Don't miss!Pete Miller's Seafood & Prime Steak
1557 Sherman Avenue
Evanston, IL 60201
847-328-0399
Never A Cover & Never A Minimum!
For more info:
http://www.petemillers.com/music-evanston/index.html
Critically acclaimed, Chicago-based Jazz Vocalist Erin McDougald has been captivating international audiences with her dulcet, evocative voice and savvy rhythmic phrasing. Jazz Improv attests “McDougald’s voice is a rare instrument, sweet and spicy in equal measure… worldly… gorgeous… positively mercurial… thrilling phrasing and… superb material… She really stands out”. Gaining nods of respect from such jazz authorities as Gene Lees, Nicholas Payton, Keely Smith, Buddy Bregman, Freddie Cole and Oscar Peterson, McDougald’s prowess lies in her innovative arrangements, emotional interpretations and her several octave, warm-toned vocal range.Gracing numerous magazine covers and featured in a CBS syndicated documentary, McDougald is also an ambassador with The China Jazz Project as well as an active Music Advisor for students at Columbia College Chicago. With three Nationally-aired albums under her lead and her music appearing in films and advertisements, and a heartfelt penchant for charitable performances for Hospice, Erin’s enthusiastic “all-ages” audience continues to grow.
Today, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is officially over
"Dear Arnaldo --According to our records, you are currently living and registered in California's 30th Congressional District.
Today, we want you to know that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is officially over.
Gay men and lesbians in the military no longer have to hide who they are, and the servicemembers who were discharged under this policy can re-enlist.
This is one of the administration's signature achievements. Countless Americans fought hard to end this law over the course of nearly two decades, and President Obama is proud to have signed the repeal.
But today's news isn't just a policy promise kept -- it's a personal promise kept to the thousands of people who needed and deserved this change.
I want to share a video the campaign put together about some of the people affected by this law: four stories from men and women who served in the military during "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
You should watch the video and share it with everyone who cares about fairness and equality in America.
It's a reminder that -- as broken as Washington is and as long as change can take -- people and organizations can do amazing things when they work together and never waver from the vision that unites them.
Watch four people say what today means to them -- and let us know what it means to you:
http://my.barackobama.com/DADT-Is-History
There's a lot more to do in the months ahead. But today is one to savor.
Thanks,
Jim Messina
Campaign Manager - Obama for America"
NYT - MacArthur Foundation Selects 22 ‘Geniuses’
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/arts/macarthur-foundation-announces-winners-of-genius-awards.html?_r=2&scp=3&sq=jazz&st=nyt
The MacArthur Foundation has announced the recipients of their "genius awards". One of them is jazz drummer Dafnis Prieto (New York Times).
The MacArthur Foundation has announced the recipients of their "genius awards". One of them is jazz drummer Dafnis Prieto (New York Times).
Monday, September 19, 2011
Keith Jarrett's "Rio" CD coming out soon!
Recorded live in Brazil @ Rio de Janeiro's Municipal Theater on April 9, 2011, Keith Jarrett's new album of solo piano improvisations will be released in the U.S. next October 25 on the ECM label, distributed by Universal Music. The 2-CD set includes 15 tracks, simply titled from "Rio Part I" to "Rio Part XV".Last April, Keith Jarrett returned to Brazil to play some solo concerts. After a performance in São Paulo on April 6, he traveled to the final concert in Rio de Janeiro in front of a packed house and enthralled audience. Inspired by the electrifying atmosphere, the pianist pulls a broad range of material from the ether: thoughtful/reflective pieces, abstract sound-structures, pieces that fairly vibrate with energy. The set climaxes with a marvelous sequence of encores.
Forty years ago, Jarrett recorded his first ECM album, "Facing You," a series of eight solo piano improvisations recorded in studio. He has refined his approach to solo music many times since then, reaching his height with the ground-breaking "The Köln Concert," followed by several other live albums. Now we have "Rio," his first engaging recording done in Brazil.
This specially-priced (suggested retail price of US$21.87) 2-CD set is, according to Jarrett, one of his best: "beautifully structured, jazzy, serious, sweet, playful, warm, economical, energetic, passionate, and connected with the Brazilian culture in a unique way. The sound in the hall was excellent and so was the enthusiastic audience."
We wish that, someday, ECM could also release some of Jarrett's previous concerts in Brazil, most specially a memorable performance in Rio (at the Theater of the National Hotel), back in 1987, with his "Standards" Trio featuring Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette.
Obama: "This is not class warfare -- it's math."
"Dear Arnaldo --According to our records, you are currently registered and living in California's 30th Congressional District.
This morning, the President proposed the "Buffett Rule," which would require those earning more than $1 million a year to pay the same share of their income in taxes as middle-class families do.
This proposal makes sure millionaires and billionaires share the responsibility for reducing the deficit. It would correct, for example, the fact that Warren Buffett's secretary currently pays taxes at a higher rate than he does.
The other side is already saying it's "class warfare" -- that's their rhetorical smokescreen for providing millionaires and billionaires special treatment.
As the President said this morning, "This is not class warfare -- it's math."
The wealthiest Americans don't need further tax cuts and in many cases aren't even asking for them. Requiring that they pay their fair share is the only practical way forward. The Republican alternative is to drastically slash education, gut Medicare, let roads and bridges crumble, and privatize Social Security. That's not the America we believe in -- but many in the Republican leadership actually prefer those policies, which explains their refusal to act.
That's why they'll say "tax increase" over and over again, trying to muddy the waters and trick ordinary Americans into thinking the Buffett Rule will hurt them. And if we don't speak out right now, they just might get away with it.
If you stand with President Obama in this fight and want to see the Buffett Rule passed -- say you'll get his back now.
Of course, the Buffett Rule won't really touch most Americans -- only 0.3% of households will even be affected.
And without it, the only way to reduce our debt is to savage the programs that seniors and middle-class families rely on.
That's exactly what the President refuses to do -- in fact, he's said he'll veto any bill that changes benefits for folks who rely on Medicare but doesn't raise serious revenue by asking the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to pay their fair share.
This isn't just a commonsense approach to cutting the deficit -- it's the only way to make sure we can provide security to people who work hard and play by the rules.
So right now, I'm asking you to say you'll stand with the President on something that won't be easy. Get the President's back today:
http://my.barackobama.com/Buffett-Rule
Thanks,
Jim Messina
Campaign Manager - Obama for America"
This campaign isn't funded by Washington lobbyists or corporate interests. It relies on donations from people like you. Please make a donation today.
Contributions or gifts to Obama for America are not tax deductible.
Human League ticket give away
Touring behind their well-received new album "Credo," synthpop legends the Human League are sure to play the classics too when they hit NYC next Friday. We have a pair of tickets for the show and you can enter to win by emailing giveaway@othermusic.com, and then check out their new music video for "Never Let Me Go."
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
BEST BUY THEATER: 1515 Broadway (W. 44th St)
NYC, NY
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
BEST BUY THEATER: 1515 Broadway (W. 44th St)
NYC, NY
Chick Corea's RTF shifts into 4th gear
(Jean-Luc Ponty, Lennie White, Chick, Stanley Clarke & Frank Gambale)http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/18/PK5Q1L1IMF.DTL
Lee Hildebrand talks to Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke about the band Return to Forever, which is on tour in its 4th reincarnation these days (San Francisco Chronicle).
R.I.P.: Graham Collier
James Graham Collier, composer, bass player, educator, author
(born Tynemouth, February 21, 1937;
died Crete, September 9, 2011)
Brian Morton writes a very personal obituary on the composer Graham Collier (The Independent).
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/graham-collier-jazz-musician-whose-work-explored-the-space-between-composition-and-improvisation-2356803.html
(born Tynemouth, February 21, 1937;
died Crete, September 9, 2011)
Brian Morton writes a very personal obituary on the composer Graham Collier (The Independent).
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/graham-collier-jazz-musician-whose-work-explored-the-space-between-composition-and-improvisation-2356803.html
For Charles Owens, "it's all about jazz"
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/18/entertainment/la-ca-charles-owens-20110918
Greg Burk meets the saxophonist Charles Owens who just came back from Europe where he toured with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra and is rehearsing with the Cal State L.A.'s Luckman Jazz Orchestra which he conducted for the last four years (Los Angeles Times). Owens talks about the importance of teaching jazz, about pianist Horace Tapscott, about John Coltrane and about mastering playing two instruments at once and circular breathing all of which he does to find those "undiscovered notes and sounds".
Greg Burk meets the saxophonist Charles Owens who just came back from Europe where he toured with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra and is rehearsing with the Cal State L.A.'s Luckman Jazz Orchestra which he conducted for the last four years (Los Angeles Times). Owens talks about the importance of teaching jazz, about pianist Horace Tapscott, about John Coltrane and about mastering playing two instruments at once and circular breathing all of which he does to find those "undiscovered notes and sounds".
Arturo Sandoval interviewed
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1407279-la-mejor-trompeta-del-jazz-latino
Gabriel Plaza talks to Cuban trumpeter and latin-jazz hero Arturo Sandoval (La Nacion), who will perform at Gran Rex Theater in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Gabriel Plaza talks to Cuban trumpeter and latin-jazz hero Arturo Sandoval (La Nacion), who will perform at Gran Rex Theater in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
CD of the Week - "Katchie & Le Monde Caché: Tales & Tongues"
CD of the WeekKatchie & Le Monde Caché: "Tales & Tongues" (HCW) 2011
Produced by Katchie Cartwright
Recorded by Robert de la Garza @ BAM Recording Studio (Bulverde, TX) on July 29, 2010 and September 5, 2010
Graphic Design: Barbara McMahon
Cover Photo: Dora Pete
Photography: Justin Parr
Total Time 61:21
Featuring: Katchie Cartwright (vocals, flutes), Richard Oppenheim (alto saxophone), Mark Lomanno (piano), Billy Satterwhite (bass) & Kevin Hess (drums)
Vocalist/flutist Katchie Cartwright and her group Le Monde Caché are proud to announce the release of "Tales & Tongues" — a collection of songs spanning cultures and epochs, performed by a fiery jazz quintet and imbued with a vibrant improvisational aesthetic.
The great Jimmy Heath has hailed Cartwright as “a soulful intellectual with a velvet sound and uncommon ability.” JazzTimes has described her as “one helluva singer.” Holding a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology, she melds her insights as a scholar, educator and performer into an original, forward-thinking musical vision she terms the “global songbook.”
Honoring the great songwriting talents of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Charles Trenet, Argentina’s Carlos Gardel and more, Cartwright sings in Yiddish (“Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn,” “Ikh Hob Dikh Tsufil Lib”), Ladino (“Alta Va La Luna”), Spanish (“El Día Que Me Quieras”), French (“Sous Le Ciel De Paris,” “Que Reste-t-il De Nos Amours”), Italian (“Estate”) and Portuguese (“Triste,” “Chega de Saudade”). She concludes with an instrumental flute feature on the Victor Young standard “Delilah.”
Through it all she projects a surefooted individuality — a remarkable feat in a set of music this diverse and far-reaching. As music journalist David R. Adler writes in the liner notes: “Ultimately, "Tales & Tongues" is about musical openness, about jazz’s particular way of drawing in the world and still remaining unmistakably itself.”
Cartwright’s partners on "Tales & Tongues" are saxophonist Richard Oppenheim — her husband and musical collaborator of long standing — along with pianist Mark Lomanno, bassist Billy Satterwhite and drummer Kevin Hess. Together the group lends supple rhythm, luxuriant harmony and springy interplay to a set rich in melody and poetic vocal expression.
A longtime New Yorker, Cartwright relocated in 2006 to San Antonio, Texas, where she has a tenured appointment at Northwest Vista College. She has received Fulbright awards for residencies in Greece and Lebanon, and has performed and conducted workshops in South Asia, West Africa, South America, the Caribbean and Europe.
“When I got to San Antonio,” she states, “I started a radio show, ‘Planet Jazz,’ on the Trinity University station, and a lot of that was the global songbook — playing music that has gone into the jazz ‘stream,’ things that have gone back and forth from African diaspora cultures and can be considered a part of jazz, in one way or another.”
This process of listening and sharing fed into the project that became "Tales & Tongues." Cartwright’s previous efforts with Richard Oppenheim include "A Mumbai of the Mind: Ferlinghetti Improvisations" and "La Faute de la Musique: Songs of John Cage," hailed by David Dupont of One Final Note as “a pair of estimable releases … each session has a distinct flavor, yet the more I listened to them, the more they merged into one beautiful expression....”
Earlier releases are "Soulmates" by the Cartwright/Oppenheim Quintet (“Intriguing and unpredictable” – Scott Yanow), and "Live! At the Deer Head Inn" by the Katchie Cartwright Quintet (“Highly recommended” – Phil Woods). These CDs feature Oppenheim with James Weidman on piano, (producer) Bill Goodwin on drums, and Cameron Brown or Belden Bullock on bass.
With every outing, Cartwright solidifies her reputation as “an uncommonly disciplined, unaffected artist” (Joel Siegel, Washington City Paper). "Tales & Tongues" is another new departure and a sign of more great music to come.
********
Liner notes by David R. Adler:
Standing apart, making music of distinction and lasting value, isn’t easy in any field. But as my colleague Francis Davis argued in a 2006 essay for The Atlantic: “We expect more from singers...because words speak to us in a way no trumpet or saxophone can — and because their instrument is also ours.” For Katchie Cartwright, standing apart isn’t a problem. A longtime New Yorker with a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology, she relocated to San Antonio, Texas in 2006 and has a tenured appointment at Northwest Vista College. Her previous efforts include treatments of works by John Cage and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Now, with Tales and Tongues, she shifts her attention to what she terms the “global songbook.”
If we’re convinced by Davis’s take on the immediacy of words, just think of the possibilities and poetic richness of a collection sung in Ladino, Yiddish, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French. Leading her group Le Monde Caché (“the hidden world”), Cartwright brings out the ardor and melodic refinement in this material, singing with great poise and also playing flute, her first instrument, which to her constitutes a language in itself. “My specialization is cross-cultural theories and
practices of improvisation,” Cartwright explains, drawing a line from her academic to her artistic work. “When I got to San Antonio I also started a radio show, ‘Planet Jazz,’ on the Trinity University station, and a lot of that was the global songbook — playing music that has gone into the jazz ‘stream,’ things that have gone back and forth from African diaspora cultures and can be considered a part of jazz, in one way or another.”
From all these various corners came the songs of Tales and Tongues. Cartwright enlisted a group of musicians who would do them justice, beginning with her husband and frequent collaborator, alto saxophonist Richard Oppenheim. “A friend calls him the flamethrower,” says Cartwright. “He’s a great musician, with a lot of depth and breadth and great ears. We talk a lot about what it is that we’re going for: the sound, the timbres, the arrangements and so on.”
Cartwright met pianist and fellow ethnomusicologist Mark Lomanno “while we were founding the Southern Plains chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology. I was really fortunate to have him to work with.” Of Billy Satterwhite, the bassist, Cartwright says: “He’s one of the younger generation, working on a Masters in Ann Arbor, Michigan with some colleagues of mine. ‘Billy the Kid’ we call him, very eager and wonderful.” Drummer Kevin Hess, she adds, “is from a piano-tuning and musician dynasty here in San Antonio.” Together, they all “get” Cartwright’s intention on Tales and Tongues, coming to grips with music from vastly different
traditions and vocabularies and giving it life in a new context.
While readying these songs for performance, Cartwright wrestles with subtleties of pronunciation and phrasing, of meaning and syntax. In the end she connects not just to the poignant texts, but also to the doleful minor-key melodies that make up this set. That subtle Old World tonality, Cartwright notes, can be found in certain corners of American pop — she cites Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies” or Cole Porter’s “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” as examples. From the Benny Goodman-associated
classic “Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn” (sung in the original Yiddish) to Victor Young’s “Delilah” (a flute feature that closes out the album), Cartwright hits on that undefined yet universal feeling that goes by different names, from blues to saudade. She quotes the old club joke: “D minor — to you it’s a key, to me it’s living.” The themes can be outright sad: young women scorned, for instance, in the Ladino “Alta Va La Luna” (“high goes the moon”) and the Yiddish tango “Ikh Hob Dikh Tsufil Lib” (“I have too much love for you”). Yet redemptive hope can always peek through the clouds.
“The two parts of ‘Ikh Hob’ are really different,” Cartwright observes. “The verse tells the story of being left at the altar, and then in the tango part, she’s happy despite it all in her dreams, saying, ‘I can’t hate you, the love I have for you gives me pleasure rather than pain.’ I think that’s great.” Yes, there are Jewish tangos, and hand it to Cartwright for digging them up. She also highlights the tango tradition with “El Día Que Me Quieras” by Carlos Gardel, the Argentine legend lost in a plane crash in 1935. “For my doctorate I did research on how the new tango came
out of the old, so I’ve been interested in Gardel for 10 or 15 years,” Cartwright says. “This is a standard that jazz musicians in Argentina would do. It’s a tremendously romantic song — a curious little glowworm nests in her lover’s hair…. Here in San Antonio we’re a majority Latino city, so the audience loves it.”
Of course, no South American jazz journey would be complete without Brazil. Cartwright includes the Jobim staples “Triste” and “Chega de Saudade” and pointedly steers clear of the English lyrics that are often used. “The lyrics by Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes capture something much more,” she argues. “That’s a beef I have — in English they’re fourth- rate lyrics, but they’re first-rate in Portuguese. So why not sing them that way?” Another famous bossa, “Estate,” comes to us from Italy: “Think Nino Rota,” Cartwright says of the general vibe. “Italian bossas are more surreal, they’re once more removed.” French is Cartwright’s strongest language besides English — she lived in Lebanon for a year as a teen — and so “Sous Le Ciel de Paris” and “Que Reste-t-il De Nos Amours” have a natural, homey quality. “Kevin and Rich tore it up,” Cartwright enthuses, referring to the sax-drum breakdown (her idea) on the former. Who knows if this bright waltz was on Kenny Dorham’s mind when he wrote “Blue Bossa,” but the passing melodic resemblance is there. Like the Brazilian tunes, the Charles Trenet number, better known to Americans as “I Wish You Love,” has a far greater impact in its original language. “In French,” Cartwright notes, “it’s about what happened to our youth, what happened to those stolen kisses and trysts in little villages, and your hair blowing in the wind, what happened? It’s all part of our past now. That’s totally different than ‘I Wish You Love,’ which is sappy by comparison.”
Ultimately, Tales and Tongues is about musical openness, about jazz’s particular way of drawing in the world and still remaining unmistakably itself. Jazz history is rife with artists who’ve embodied that ideal in their work, and this musician/scholar, from her haven down in Texas, is doing that history proud. As the saying (sort of) goes, you can take Cartwright out of New York, but you can’t take New York and its restless global mindset out of Cartwright.
- David R. Adler January 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Oscar Peterson honoured with mural
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2011/09/15/peterson-mural-unveiled.html
(The mural, located at the corner of Saint-Jacques and Des Seigneurs streets, honouring Peterson was unveiled Thursday.)
Oscar Peterson: A Jazz Giant
Residents of Little Burgundy now have a permanent reminder of a local legend.
CBC News, Sept. 15, 2011
A new mural honouring jazz artist Oscar Peterson was unveiled Thursday in the Montreal neighbourhood where he was born and raised.
The mural, created by Montreal artist Gene Pendon, was painted on a building at the corner of Saint-Jacques and Des Seigneurs streets.
It’s right across the street from the Oscar Peterson Park.
Peterson's widow, Kelly, said he always had fond memories of growing up in Little Burgundy. CBC “I am overwhelmed and I am so pleased for Oscar to be a visible part of this community for a very long time,” said Peterson’s widow, Kelly Peterson.
"It was very important to him to always keep in mind where he came from and to always be a part of the community."
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was born on Aug. 15, 1925 in the city's southwest. He went on to become an internationally recognized and highly-regarded jazz musician.
He played with some of the biggest artists in the business and received a host of awards and accolades including the Order of Canada and the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Peterson died at the age of 82 in 2007.
At the mural unveiling Thursday, Michael Farkus, director of the local youth centre, said the work prominently displayed in the place of Peterson’s roots would show young people what possibilities could lie ahead.
“It will inspire the youth and give a different perception to see that good things very good things come out of Little Burgundy.”
(The mural, located at the corner of Saint-Jacques and Des Seigneurs streets, honouring Peterson was unveiled Thursday.)Oscar Peterson: A Jazz Giant
Residents of Little Burgundy now have a permanent reminder of a local legend.
CBC News, Sept. 15, 2011
A new mural honouring jazz artist Oscar Peterson was unveiled Thursday in the Montreal neighbourhood where he was born and raised.
The mural, created by Montreal artist Gene Pendon, was painted on a building at the corner of Saint-Jacques and Des Seigneurs streets.
It’s right across the street from the Oscar Peterson Park.
Peterson's widow, Kelly, said he always had fond memories of growing up in Little Burgundy. CBC “I am overwhelmed and I am so pleased for Oscar to be a visible part of this community for a very long time,” said Peterson’s widow, Kelly Peterson."It was very important to him to always keep in mind where he came from and to always be a part of the community."
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was born on Aug. 15, 1925 in the city's southwest. He went on to become an internationally recognized and highly-regarded jazz musician.
He played with some of the biggest artists in the business and received a host of awards and accolades including the Order of Canada and the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Peterson died at the age of 82 in 2007.
At the mural unveiling Thursday, Michael Farkus, director of the local youth centre, said the work prominently displayed in the place of Peterson’s roots would show young people what possibilities could lie ahead.
“It will inspire the youth and give a different perception to see that good things very good things come out of Little Burgundy.”
Pannonica's adventures
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/sep/17/rothschild-great-dynasties-ian-sansom?INTCMP=SRCH
Ian Samson looks at the "The Rothschilds (...), a vast banking clan of exceptional people" and in an aside also mentions the "Jazz Baroness" Pannonica de Koenigswarter, mentioning some of her musicians friends but leaving out the name of Thelonious Monk (The Guardian).
Ian Samson looks at the "The Rothschilds (...), a vast banking clan of exceptional people" and in an aside also mentions the "Jazz Baroness" Pannonica de Koenigswarter, mentioning some of her musicians friends but leaving out the name of Thelonious Monk (The Guardian).
Brad Mehldau's article for The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/sep/15/brad-mehldau-music-expression-stravinsky?INTCMP=SRCH
Blank expressions: Brad Mehldau and the essence of musicAre the saddest songs really written by tortured souls – or do we just project our own feelings on to them?
by Brad Mehldau for guardian.co.uk
Thursday 15 September 2011
Blank expressions: Brad Mehldau and the essence of musicAre the saddest songs really written by tortured souls – or do we just project our own feelings on to them?
by Brad Mehldau for guardian.co.uk
Thursday 15 September 2011
(Brad Mehldau from PR Photograph: Augusta Quirk)
Music often seems to suggest an emotion or a state of being – we reach a consensus, for example, that one piece of music expresses carefree youth, while another expresses world-weary wisdom. But is music properly expressing anything? Here's Stravinsky on the subject in 1936, from his autobiography: "For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc … Expression has never been an inherent property of music … It is simply an additional attribute which, by tacit and inveterate agreement, we have lent it, thrust upon it, as a label, a convention – in short, an aspect unconsciously or by force of habit, we have come to confuse with its essential being."
Alas, Stravinsky does not tell us what music's "essential being" is, only that we have mistaken the property of expression with it. He seems to be repeating the gambit of thinkers from Plato onward – he tells us that what we observe is false, posits another realm that is more real, but gives us no concrete information about it. There is no information to give, after all – what is essential lies beyond our reach; we're stuck in our empirical shallowness. Essentialist tropes are everywhere in discussions about music, smugly short circuiting further inquiry, maintaining: "We cannot put in words what is essential about music."
It is probably more reasonable to say we cannot put in words what is essential about anything. Essence is a cipher, a phantom, and a perilous one at that – by the time Stravinsky was writing those words, essentialist ideas were being stapled on to notions of race and nation with horrific results. These kinds of tropes about music always persist, though, because music acts like language in its ability to represent things, yet its mode of expression, if Stravinsky will pardon us, is free of language. So we see it as the ideal form of communication – one that supersedes language. The irony and ultimately the weakness of this viewpoint is that our ability to posit this idealised communication is dependent on the very language that we wish to transcend. Language is simply feasting on itself, on its own poverty – it has revealed nothing about music.
Was Stravinsky merely perpetuating a kind of sophistry? For years, his statement confounded and bothered people who took it at face value, assuming that he meant music is not expressive, period. In 1962, he clarified what he meant – a little grumpily: "The over-publicised bit about expression (or non-expression) was simply a way of saying that music is supra-personal and super-real, and as such, beyond verbal meanings and verbal descriptions. It was aimed against the notion that a piece of music is in reality a transcendental idea 'expressed in terms of' music, with the reductio ad absurdum implication that exact sets of correlatives must exist between a composer's feelings and his notation. It was offhand and annoyingly incomplete, but even the stupider critics could have seen that it did not deny musical expressivity, but only the validity of a type of verbal statement about musical expressivity. I stand by the remark, incidentally, though today I would put it the other way around: music expresses itself."
So Stravinsky wanted to do away with a subtle but pervasive notion: that of a pre-existing idea or emotion that a composer will then set to music. A composer does not "feel sad" and then write "sad" music; that is a childishly reductive view of how music is created. It is the listener, after all, who assigns meaning, ideas and emotions to music once he or she hears it. We commit a blunder when we imagine a transcendental idea that existed before music, like one of Plato's ideal forms.
When Stravinsky says "music expresses itself", he is speaking of the process by which it comes into being – for himself at least. It does not borrow from language to generate itself; the composer does not have to have a particular feeling as he composes. Music's abstract quality – the way in which it does not refer to something other than itself – gives it autonomy in this reasoning.
This is not cut and dried, of course. Someone could point to any number of works that seem to be driven by a specific idea, or music that we retrospectively know was inspired by specific feelings – happy, sad, what have you – that came about from an event in the composer or performer's life. Many of Stravinsky's works seem to be related to a concrete idea – an imagined primitive ceremony, famously, in The Rite of Spring. And I'm excluding music with words, which is a whole other matter.
Stravinsky's statement was probably born out of frustration, as he repeatedly encountered reductive, mistaken characterisations of the composer's creative process. To the extent that he is correcting that reduction, I agree with him. It is easy to demonstrate the validity of his view by considering perceived youth in one work, and wisdom in another.
Consider two examples among many: Schubert's perfect song, Gretchen am Spinnrade. This song changed the expressive possibility of song, upping the ante for ever. He wrote it when he was 17. Or there is Jimi Hendrix's album, Are You Experienced, recorded when he was 24. The guitar was never the same again; rock music was never the same again; music was never the same again.
How was Schubert able to think up music like that – music that telegraphed the emotions of desire, fear, passion and unrest so uncannily? Doesn't it take wisdom to portray emotions like that? From where did young Schubert's psychological insight into female desire come? From what deep, sad place did a song like Hendrix's The Wind Cries Mary emerge; what informed the ecstasy of his Third Stone from the Sun – memories of high school?
It was not wisdom that comes with age, strictly speaking, in any of those cases. In day-to-day life, wisdom means we have grown older, we have learned much through numerous experiences, some painful and some pleasurable, we have reflected on them, and we base our observations, judgments and actions on them. Music is different. A musician does not necessarily need a wealth of experiences to express something that others will find profound. He or she obviously needs some – you can't live in a cave and pop out and start waxing profound – but not as many as one would expect. A musician can demand our attention without having necessarily lived many years.
That suggests musical wisdom has different rules than the wisdom that tells someone, for instance, not to argue a point, because he's argued it so many times before and it's an argument he can't win; or the wisdom that helps an older guy win the affection of a beautiful younger woman for a night because he understands her – he knows what she wants to hear more than the twentysomething guy vying for her attention. The twentysomething guy, on the other hand, might be arguing shrilly about politics, full of youthful stridency, sounding self-important to everyone except himself; he might be saying all the wrong stuff to the girl at the bar while the silver fox steals her away. But that night he might go home and write some music of profundity, music that has no stridency, music that bewitches us and soothes us.
Should we say, then, that musical wisdom arrives somehow faster than normal wisdom? That hypothesis won't do, though, because, in essentialist fashion, it brackets out the experience of composing and playing music from other experiences. There must be some way to account for the ability of musical expression to arrive before the depth of experience it seems to convey. The key word there is "seems" – it takes us back to Stravinsky, who would say, simply, that music only "seems" to convey wisdom; there is not a shred of actual wisdom in it at all. Music is only representing wisdom for a group of listeners; it is not properly exuding it. So let us not assign this agency to music; let us more accurately say that the group of listeners is attaching a quality to the music – it comes from them.
That works the other way around as well: Older musicians and composers create "youthful" music – music that sounds quirky, full of anxious energy, untamed – awkward, jagged, rhapsodic, or even foolish – at a station in their lives where they are not particularly anxious, foolish or awkward in their bearing at all. (Brahms' Double Concerto is a beloved example for me.)
This should be good news for the listener. I propose that we never grow out of good music – the whole idea is nonsense. Anything that is strong stays with us our whole lives. We forget about music sometimes, but then we come back to it, and it yields fresh pleasure and insight, along with a beautiful, bittersweet cadence of our past merging with the present moment. Thank goodness it is this way; thank goodness great music isn't "age sensitive" – what a sad world that would be!
Rock'n'roll is often by definition a young man's game – Led Zeppelin, the Who, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix or the Rolling Stones released some of their most enduring music before they were 30. We don't stop listening to their music past the age of 30, though. Any music that is strong will speak to us in different ways at different points in our lives, and will never truly grow irrelevant.
*****************
Brad Mehldau plays at the Wigmore Hall, London, tonight. Details: wigmore-hall.org.uk. His album "Modern Music" is released on Monday on Nonesuch.
Flora Purim memorabilia - "Nothing Will Be As It Was...Tomorrow" poster
Promo poster of Flora Purim's "Nothing Will Be As It Was...Tomorrow" (her first album for Warner after a long stint at Milestone Records), originally released in the USA in 1977.
STK Mondays by Ana Isabel & Eric Even w/ DJ Danny Stern in Miami Beach
Who says Mondays have to suck? If you are in the Miami area, join us for the Monday Night Dinner Party - Ana Isabel Alvarado, Eric Even & Co. promise a little STK will cure your case of the Monday Blues. Sounds by DJ Danny Stern.STK MIAMI
2377 Collins Avenue
Miami Beach, FL
Since the first day, STK MONDAYS received a broad welcome from food connoisseurs and party-goers alike.
This huge restaurant/lounge, started in New York and perfected in LA, consists of two floors, with a catwalk mezzanine in between that's perfect for either vamping with your 16-ounce rib eye or surveying the crowd below.
With signature dishes such as “Lil Big Macs”, “Shrimp Rice Krispies”, “Parmesan Truffle Fries”, “Mac n Cheese” or “Filet Mignon”, STK provides a range of tastes that will be sure to satisfy even the most discerning of palates.
The hipster crowd gathered every Monday will surely achieve to win you over.
After all, the slogan says it all, "Not your Daddy's Steakhouse"!
For Dinner and Table reservations, please call 305.244.8322 or 786.273.8600
or by email to rsvp@VIPembassy.com
"We hope you will enjoy your dinner experience as much as we enjoy organizing this new party," say Ana Isabel & Eric from VIP Embassy. They have my "seal of approval!"
(Danny Stern deejaying!)
Jon Hendricks: The Father Of Vocalese At 90 - NPR
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/16/140532273/john-hendricks-the-father-of-vocalese-at-90
Jon Hendricks: The Father Of Vocalese At 90
by Lara Pellegrinelli
September 16, 2011
(Hendricks gives a clinic on vocalese at the 2007 Art of Jazz Festival.)
Jon Hendricks turned 90 on Friday. The singer and lyricist is best known for his work with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross in the 1950s, putting words to jazz — including insanely complex vocal arrangements of instrumental solos.
One of Hendricks' favorite anecdotes involves a party where the wives of composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II had a little dispute over who wrote "Old Man River."
"Beg your pardon. Your husband wrote, 'Da da da da.' My husband wrote 'Old Man River,' " Hendricks recalls, laughing. "And that's a good illustration of how the lyric brings the song out like a flower blossoms. It's the lyric that makes the song."
The Word That Describes The Sound
Jon Hendricks writes his own songs — words and music — and is also a critically acclaimed jazz singer. But he's best known for fashioning lyrics to the big-band arrangements of Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Woody Herman — not just the melodies, but all of the parts, down to the most technically demanding solos.
"You find a word that exactly describes that sound. And then you've got it," Hendricks says. "Words are very flexible things."
Hendricks' lyrical dexterity found the perfect outlet in Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, the pioneering vocal trio he co-founded with singers Dave Lambert and Annie Ross in the 1950s. A new generation was getting hip to swing music, and the group inspired legions of young fans.
Al Jarreau was a teenager when he first heard the trio on The Steve Allen Show. "I have this image in my head of me in the house I grew up in, and hearing this incredible music on the television show, going over to it, and there's Jon Hendricks, Dave Lambert and Annie Ross," Jarreau says. "It knocked me out of my socks, and I'm still in flight."
The son of a minister, and one of 14 children, Hendricks was born in Newark, Ohio, in 1921.
Hendricks performed as a child with piano virtuoso Art Tatum. He served in WWII, and afterward studied law on the GI Bill. But it was a chance to sit in with legend Charlie Parker — nicknamed "Bird" — that pointed to his real future.
"It seemed like I must have scatted about 34 choruses," Hendricks says. "I kept thinking I should quit, but just one more. I can do better than that. One more, one more. So we had this bandstand confab. Bird says, 'What you doing, man?' I said, 'I'm studying law.' He says, 'You ain't no lawyer.'"
Hendricks moved to New York, ghostwrote lyrics for a Tin Pan Alley publisher and met Dave Lambert. The two convinced a producer (Creed Taylor) to make a record of Count Basie's charts arranged for a full vocal ensemble. But they had a problem: The singers couldn't swing. So Lambert, Hendricks and Ross went into the studio after hours.
"So Dave says we'll come in at 8," Hendricks says. "And we'll do a process called multitracking."
The 12 voices heard on Lambert, Hendricks and Ross' debut, "Sing a Song of Basie," belong to the trio's three singers.
In spite of its success, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross lasted only a few years. Dave Lambert was killed in a roadside accident. Hendricks kept performing. Jarreau finally got the chance to record with his idol when Hendricks came up with an arrangement of the Miles Davis and John Coltrane classic "Freddie Freeloader."
"In that solo of Trane's, which is something like [sings]," Hendricks says, "it's that complex and precise in the notes that have to be sung. And then, to have the idea that you can write a lyric for that and say, 'Speaking of Freddie. Who is Freddie to me?' And all these stories about the kind of drink that he sells and kind of bar he tends. That's insane."
These days, Hendricks in a little more low-key in his performances. It took him a few minutes to make his way to the stage during a summer show with Annie Ross at New York's Blue Note, the first to celebrate his 90th birthday. Nevertheless, one thing's for sure: Hendricks is never at a loss for words.
(Jon Hendricks & Arnaldo DeSouteiro in NY back in 1987)
Jon Hendricks: The Father Of Vocalese At 90
by Lara Pellegrinelli
September 16, 2011
(Hendricks gives a clinic on vocalese at the 2007 Art of Jazz Festival.)Jon Hendricks turned 90 on Friday. The singer and lyricist is best known for his work with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross in the 1950s, putting words to jazz — including insanely complex vocal arrangements of instrumental solos.
One of Hendricks' favorite anecdotes involves a party where the wives of composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II had a little dispute over who wrote "Old Man River."
"Beg your pardon. Your husband wrote, 'Da da da da.' My husband wrote 'Old Man River,' " Hendricks recalls, laughing. "And that's a good illustration of how the lyric brings the song out like a flower blossoms. It's the lyric that makes the song."
The Word That Describes The Sound
Jon Hendricks writes his own songs — words and music — and is also a critically acclaimed jazz singer. But he's best known for fashioning lyrics to the big-band arrangements of Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Woody Herman — not just the melodies, but all of the parts, down to the most technically demanding solos.
"You find a word that exactly describes that sound. And then you've got it," Hendricks says. "Words are very flexible things."
Hendricks' lyrical dexterity found the perfect outlet in Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, the pioneering vocal trio he co-founded with singers Dave Lambert and Annie Ross in the 1950s. A new generation was getting hip to swing music, and the group inspired legions of young fans.
Al Jarreau was a teenager when he first heard the trio on The Steve Allen Show. "I have this image in my head of me in the house I grew up in, and hearing this incredible music on the television show, going over to it, and there's Jon Hendricks, Dave Lambert and Annie Ross," Jarreau says. "It knocked me out of my socks, and I'm still in flight."
The son of a minister, and one of 14 children, Hendricks was born in Newark, Ohio, in 1921.
Hendricks performed as a child with piano virtuoso Art Tatum. He served in WWII, and afterward studied law on the GI Bill. But it was a chance to sit in with legend Charlie Parker — nicknamed "Bird" — that pointed to his real future.
"It seemed like I must have scatted about 34 choruses," Hendricks says. "I kept thinking I should quit, but just one more. I can do better than that. One more, one more. So we had this bandstand confab. Bird says, 'What you doing, man?' I said, 'I'm studying law.' He says, 'You ain't no lawyer.'"
Hendricks moved to New York, ghostwrote lyrics for a Tin Pan Alley publisher and met Dave Lambert. The two convinced a producer (Creed Taylor) to make a record of Count Basie's charts arranged for a full vocal ensemble. But they had a problem: The singers couldn't swing. So Lambert, Hendricks and Ross went into the studio after hours.
"So Dave says we'll come in at 8," Hendricks says. "And we'll do a process called multitracking."
The 12 voices heard on Lambert, Hendricks and Ross' debut, "Sing a Song of Basie," belong to the trio's three singers.
In spite of its success, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross lasted only a few years. Dave Lambert was killed in a roadside accident. Hendricks kept performing. Jarreau finally got the chance to record with his idol when Hendricks came up with an arrangement of the Miles Davis and John Coltrane classic "Freddie Freeloader."
"In that solo of Trane's, which is something like [sings]," Hendricks says, "it's that complex and precise in the notes that have to be sung. And then, to have the idea that you can write a lyric for that and say, 'Speaking of Freddie. Who is Freddie to me?' And all these stories about the kind of drink that he sells and kind of bar he tends. That's insane."
These days, Hendricks in a little more low-key in his performances. It took him a few minutes to make his way to the stage during a summer show with Annie Ross at New York's Blue Note, the first to celebrate his 90th birthday. Nevertheless, one thing's for sure: Hendricks is never at a loss for words.
(Jon Hendricks & Arnaldo DeSouteiro in NY back in 1987)
How this dinner thing works
"Dear Arnaldo --You got an email from the President a couple days ago, inviting you to sit down to dinner with him.
I know some people might think this is just some kind of trick or something. It's not.
The fact is that someday soon, four people reading this note right now will be on a plane to have dinner with President Obama in Washington, or Chicago, or wherever he might be that day.
Think about that for a second. The four people who win will sit down with the President of the United States of America -- not for a two-minute photo-op or a quick meet-and-greet, but for a private meal with face-to-face conversation. That's just not something too many people will ever get to do.
The President obviously has very little time to spend on anything related to the campaign. And this is how he chooses to spend it -- having real, substantive conversations with people like you.
This is really something you should be a part of.
Donate $5 today and you'll be automatically entered for the chance to have dinner with the President and three other supporters.
Worst-case scenario: you don't get selected. But if you donate, you'll have pitched in to support an organization that's funded at the grassroots level by folks across the country -- not Washington lobbyists or special-interest PACs. You'll have given this campaign a boost, however small, to hire organizers, open offices, and build our organization this fall so it's ready for the hard work ahead of us.
And best-case scenario, you'll find yourself sitting across the dinner table from President Obama.
So give it a shot -- donate $5 or more today:
https://donate.barackobama.com/Dinner
Thanks,
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Campaign Manager - Obama for America"
No purchase, payment, or contribution necessary to enter or win. Contributing will not improve chances of winning. Void where prohibited. Entries must be received by midnight on 9/30/11. You may enter by contributing to Sponsor at https://donate.barackobama.com/Dinner-with-Barack-Sept or click here, http://my.barackobama.com/Dinner-with-Barack-Alt-Sept, to enter without contributing. Four winners will each receive the following prize package: one round-trip ticket from within the fifty U.S. States, DC, or Puerto Rico to a destination to be determined by the Sponsor; hotel accommodations for one; and dinner with President Obama on a date to be determined by the Sponsor (approximate combined retail value $1,050). Odds of winning depend on number of entries received. Promotion open only to U.S. citizens, or lawful permanent U.S. residents who are legal residents of 50 United States, District of Columbia and Puerto Rico and 18 or older (or of majority under applicable law). Promotion subject to Official Rules, http://my.barackobama.com/Dinner-Rules-Sept, and additional restrictions on eligibility. Sponsor: Obama for America, 130 E. Randolph St., Chicago, IL 60601.
Contributions or gifts to Obama for America are not tax deductible.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
London Guardian - "Reprise Records"
They Did It Their Way -- the Story of Reprise Records (Radio Review)
Frank Sinatra's own label had a wide variety of stars and this show made good use of its back catalogue
Tom Meltzer for London Guardian - September 13, 2011
"They Did It Their Way: the Story of Reprise Records" (Radio 2) was an eye-opening chronological tour of the label set up and owned by Frank Sinatra. Paul Gambaccini's emotive narration matched the tone of the times, giving Sinatra's story the air of a frivolous film noir: "Fabulous Frank was unhappy. He hated the artistic limitations he thought were imposed on him. He wanted out."
The interviews, meanwhile, were impressive in their breadth and expertise, if often brief -- rarely did we hear more than two sentences from a speaker before an excerpt from a song arrived to illustrate the point. It made the show an easy listen but in places frustrating, where it felt that more insightful comments had been held back for the sake of pace.
That pace, however, did allow the show to make liberal use of Reprise's back catalogue, and bursts of the Kinks, Eric Clapton and Hendrix underlined the truth of one speaker's early claim: "There is no Reprise sound." This point was then hammered home with songs from more recent stars Green Day, Josh Groban and Michael Buble.
While Sinatra himself would likely have been embarrassed by the effusive praise he received throughout, as this record showed, it's much deserved: they took the blows and did it their way.
Frank Sinatra's own label had a wide variety of stars and this show made good use of its back catalogue
Tom Meltzer for London Guardian - September 13, 2011
"They Did It Their Way: the Story of Reprise Records" (Radio 2) was an eye-opening chronological tour of the label set up and owned by Frank Sinatra. Paul Gambaccini's emotive narration matched the tone of the times, giving Sinatra's story the air of a frivolous film noir: "Fabulous Frank was unhappy. He hated the artistic limitations he thought were imposed on him. He wanted out."
The interviews, meanwhile, were impressive in their breadth and expertise, if often brief -- rarely did we hear more than two sentences from a speaker before an excerpt from a song arrived to illustrate the point. It made the show an easy listen but in places frustrating, where it felt that more insightful comments had been held back for the sake of pace.
That pace, however, did allow the show to make liberal use of Reprise's back catalogue, and bursts of the Kinks, Eric Clapton and Hendrix underlined the truth of one speaker's early claim: "There is no Reprise sound." This point was then hammered home with songs from more recent stars Green Day, Josh Groban and Michael Buble.
While Sinatra himself would likely have been embarrassed by the effusive praise he received throughout, as this record showed, it's much deserved: they took the blows and did it their way.
Video of the Day - "Tony Bennett & Amy Winehouse: Body and Soul"
Song of the Day: 'Body and Soul,' Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouseby Jay Lustig
Newark Star-Ledger, September 14, 2011
Amy Winehouse would have turned 28 today, had she not died under still-not-totally-explained circumstances in London, in July. A video of her last recording, a duet with Tony Bennett on "Body and Soul," was released today, and it's a nice, solid version: certainly not embarrassing, but far from a revelation. I'm not crazy about her slurred, overly mannered phrasing, preferring her occasional light, playful touches, as in the flirtatious way she delivers the line "I'm yours for just the taking." Bennett does his usual classy job, though, and overall, I think the duet can be considered a success. Proceeds from sales of the track will be donated to the Amy Winehouse Foundation.
It's impossible to watch the clip and not wonder about Winehouse's state of mind. Sometimes, she seems a bit bored, or lost in her thoughts, but generally she seems engaged. A couple of times, she looks skyward -- I'm not sure what that's about. The final hug with Bennett is a nice touch.
She seems a bit jittery at times, especially when compared to the calm and collected Bennett, but on the other hand, it's not like her behavior is extremely odd or anything (unlike the YouTube clips of her last several stage performances). If you were watching this session when it occurred, you might have had hopes that she had put her demons behind her and was on the way to straightening her life out. And maybe she really was making some progress -- we'll never really know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9BZLTuYMXI
"Body and Soul," written by Edward Heyman, Robert Sour and Frank Eyton (lyrics) and Johnny Green (music), has been a pop-jazz standard since the 1930s. Among the most famous versions is one by one of Winehouse's main vocal influences, Billie Holiday. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHcppf61OoM
Bennett's "Duets II" album, also featuring Lady Gaga, Aretha Franklin and many others, comes out on Tuesday.
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/music/index.ssf/2011/09/song_of_the_day_body_and_soul.html
Branford Marsalis: "The Problem with Jazz"
http://www.seattleweekly.com/2011-09-14/music/branford-marsalis-the-problem-with-jazz/In an interview with Chris Kornelis, saxophonist Branford Marsalis tries to put the jazz genre into perspective (Seattle Weekly). "Can we really use the word 'important' for something that the majority of the people have never heard?", he asks provocatively. If listeners have to analyze music first in order to understand it, the musicians have a problem. Marsalis also questions the "illusion" of constant reinvention in jazz. He argues against virtuosity for virtuosity's sake and concludes with his personal credo: "My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me. Because I believe that if the songs have emotional meaning, that will translate to a larger audience that has the capacity to appreciate instrumental music."
Michael Wollny, a portrait
The Frankfurter Rundschau brings a portrait of the pianist Michael Wollny, who moved from Berlin to Frankfurt because of love, and who enjoys the enthusiastic audience and meeting interesting Frankfurt artists, thinkers and writers (Frankfurter Rundschau). Wollny talks about his collaboration with tenor saxophonist Heinz Sauer, 45 years his elder, about influential musicians and producers during his career, about his grand piano and his spinet which are housed together with another piano and a reed organ in his rehearsal room in the old town of Frankfurt-Höchst, There, he says, he enjoys a view which reminds him of Paris.
http://www.fr-online.de/frankfurt/das-glueckder-klaenge,1472798,10835486.html
http://www.fr-online.de/frankfurt/das-glueckder-klaenge,1472798,10835486.html
Monday, September 12, 2011
The EU Council voted to extend the copyright on sound recordings from 50 to 70 years
Rock Veterans Win Copyright Fight
Musicians are set to receive royalties from sales and airplay well into their old age under a new EU ruling.
BBC, September 12, 2011
On Monday, the EU Council voted to extend the copyright on sound recordings from 50 to 70 years.
The move follows a campaign by artists like Cliff Richard as well as lesser-known performers, who said they should continue to earn from their creations.
Critics argue that most musicians will see little benefit, with most income going to big stars and record labels.
The change applies to the copyright on studio recordings, which is often owned by record labels, rather than the right to the composition, which is owned by the songwriters.
Under the 50-year rule, the copyright on songs by The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and The Who would have expired in the next few years.
That would have meant that anyone could have used and sold those songs in any way, and the performers and record labels would have ceased to receive royalties.
Rolling Stone Mick Jagger told the BBC that the EU's decision was "obviously advantageous" to musicians.
"Obviously the record business is not what it was, so people don't earn as much as they used to," he said. "[The royalties] can extend their lives and the lives of their families who inherit their songs."
Abba star Bjorn Ulvaeus added that one benefit was that he would retain control over how his compositions were used in the future.
"Now I won't have to see Abba being used in a TV commercial," he said. "And the thousands of lesser-known musicians around Europe who are enriching our life and culture can get the fair reward in return for their work that they deserve."
Announcing the ruling, the council of the European Union said: "Performers generally start their careers young and the current term of protection of 50 years often does not protect their performances for their entire lifetime.
"Therefore, some performers face an income gap at the end of their lifetimes."
The new law also includes a number of provisions designed to ensure that musicians see a fair proportion of the extra income, including a fund for musicians who signed away their rights when a recording was made.
The fund will be financed by record labels, who put aside a percentage of the benefits they get from the prolonged copyright.
There is also a clause to allow performers to renegotiate contracts with record labels after 50 years.
And artists will be able to regain the rights to a recording if their label has kept it in a vault and not made it available to the public.
John Smith, general secretary of the Musicians' Union, said it was a "brilliant moment".
"We were having to deal with quite old people who were saying: 'My music's been used for something else -- it's been sampled, it's been used in a pop song, it's been used in an advert.' And we couldn't do anything for them."
Geoff Taylor, head of the BPI, which represents record labels, added that the ruling would "ensure that UK record labels can continue to reinvest income from sales of early recordings in supporting new British talent".
The move comes five years after the government-backed Gowers Report into copyright rejected the arguments for an extension.
It said change would "negatively impact upon consumers and industry", noting that the average level of royalties paid to performers from sales was "very low".
It also cited research by the University of Cambridge, which suggested that the benefits to artists would be highly skewed in favour of "a relatively small number of performers of successful older works".
In May, another government-commissioned report by Professor Ian Hargreaves said the effect of an extension to copyright would be "economically detrimental".
Jim Killock, executive director of the campaigning organisation the Open Rights Group, said there was "never any evidence it was going to do any good".
He said: "It puts money into the pockets of big labels. It's unlikely to benefit smaller artists and it will mean that a lot of sound recordings that are out of print will stay out of print."
Musicians are set to receive royalties from sales and airplay well into their old age under a new EU ruling.
BBC, September 12, 2011
On Monday, the EU Council voted to extend the copyright on sound recordings from 50 to 70 years.
The move follows a campaign by artists like Cliff Richard as well as lesser-known performers, who said they should continue to earn from their creations.
Critics argue that most musicians will see little benefit, with most income going to big stars and record labels.
The change applies to the copyright on studio recordings, which is often owned by record labels, rather than the right to the composition, which is owned by the songwriters.
Under the 50-year rule, the copyright on songs by The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and The Who would have expired in the next few years.
That would have meant that anyone could have used and sold those songs in any way, and the performers and record labels would have ceased to receive royalties.
Rolling Stone Mick Jagger told the BBC that the EU's decision was "obviously advantageous" to musicians.
"Obviously the record business is not what it was, so people don't earn as much as they used to," he said. "[The royalties] can extend their lives and the lives of their families who inherit their songs."
Abba star Bjorn Ulvaeus added that one benefit was that he would retain control over how his compositions were used in the future.
"Now I won't have to see Abba being used in a TV commercial," he said. "And the thousands of lesser-known musicians around Europe who are enriching our life and culture can get the fair reward in return for their work that they deserve."
Announcing the ruling, the council of the European Union said: "Performers generally start their careers young and the current term of protection of 50 years often does not protect their performances for their entire lifetime.
"Therefore, some performers face an income gap at the end of their lifetimes."
The new law also includes a number of provisions designed to ensure that musicians see a fair proportion of the extra income, including a fund for musicians who signed away their rights when a recording was made.
The fund will be financed by record labels, who put aside a percentage of the benefits they get from the prolonged copyright.
There is also a clause to allow performers to renegotiate contracts with record labels after 50 years.
And artists will be able to regain the rights to a recording if their label has kept it in a vault and not made it available to the public.
John Smith, general secretary of the Musicians' Union, said it was a "brilliant moment".
"We were having to deal with quite old people who were saying: 'My music's been used for something else -- it's been sampled, it's been used in a pop song, it's been used in an advert.' And we couldn't do anything for them."
Geoff Taylor, head of the BPI, which represents record labels, added that the ruling would "ensure that UK record labels can continue to reinvest income from sales of early recordings in supporting new British talent".
The move comes five years after the government-backed Gowers Report into copyright rejected the arguments for an extension.
It said change would "negatively impact upon consumers and industry", noting that the average level of royalties paid to performers from sales was "very low".
It also cited research by the University of Cambridge, which suggested that the benefits to artists would be highly skewed in favour of "a relatively small number of performers of successful older works".
In May, another government-commissioned report by Professor Ian Hargreaves said the effect of an extension to copyright would be "economically detrimental".
Jim Killock, executive director of the campaigning organisation the Open Rights Group, said there was "never any evidence it was going to do any good".
He said: "It puts money into the pockets of big labels. It's unlikely to benefit smaller artists and it will mean that a lot of sound recordings that are out of print will stay out of print."
They will keep coming after us
"Dear Arnaldo --According to our files, you are currently registered in California's 30th Congressional District.
Remember the claims that President Obama wasn't born in the United States?
Or that health care reform -- a law that brings down costs and improves health care for all Americans -- would help "pull the plug on grandma"?
Yep: The President has seen his share of absurd attacks over the years. And as the election gets closer, they'll only get worse.
This campaign isn't going to wait to find out what's coming. We're building a program right now to snuff out these false attacks the moment they start, fight back against distortions of the President's record, and mobilize our supporters around the truth.
It's called AttackWatch.com -- and if you have an interest in seeing lies about President Obama countered, you should give it a close look.
Will you visit AttackWatch.com today and sign up to fight back on the President's behalf?
Yes, I want to help respond to attacks on the President.
Not right now, but I can donate $5 to fund the 2012 campaign and support this work.
Not right now, but I want to check out AttackWatch.com.
Being a part of AttackWatch.com is simple. Just visit the site when you see a new attack on the President. If we've heard it before, you'll be able to download all the facts and resources you need to fight back. If we haven't, you can be the first to let us know about it.
You can also sign up to be on the front lines as attacks develop -- we'll be in touch in the months ahead with new tips for how to spread the truth to your friends and neighbors.
The Republican candidates -- and their Super PAC friends, like Karl Rove's American Crossroads -- have shown they're not going to let up with the false attacks.
So if you're concerned about holding the Republicans accountable as they spread ever more desperate false attacks -- and you should be -- I hope you'll join us in building the team that fights back:
http://my.barackobama.com/Join-Attack-Watch
More to come,
Jim Messina
Campaign Manager - Obama for America"
Contributions or gifts to Obama for America are not tax deductible.
CD Reissue of the Week - "Sambacana"
CD Reissue of the WeekPacífico Mascarenhas: "Sambacana" (Odeon/Think! Records) 1964/2011
The debut album in the "Sambacana" series, featuring Roberto Menescal, Ugo Marotta, Eumir Deodato, Sergio Barroso, João Palma, Henri Ackselrud and Joyce, among others
CD of the Week - "Armen Donelian: Leapfrog"
CD of the WeekArmen Donelian: "Leapfrog" (Sunnyside) 2011
Rating:
**** (music performance & sound quality)
Featuring: Armen Donelian (acoustic piano), Dean Johnson (acoustic bass), Tyshawn Sorey (drums), Mike Moreno (guitar) & Marc Mommaas (saxophone)
Produced by Armen Donelian
Engineered by Nick Lloyd
Recorded, Mixed and Mastered at Firehouse 12 Studio, July 2010 - January 2011, New Haven, CT
Total Time 60:35
Tracklist:
Rage (Donelian)
The Poet (Donelian)
Winter (Donelian)
Behind The Veil (Donelian)
Bygone (Mommaas)
Smoke (Donelian)
Mexico (Donelian)
Inner Sanctum (Donelian)
Back in 1976, probably due to some "mistake," RCA released in Brazil a Mongo Santamaria album titled "Sofrito" licensed from Vaya Records. I was familiar with Mongo's earlier work, but that LP really surprised me due to the excellent repertoire of original tunes and the superb performances of two musicians who were "new" to me: Roger Rosemberg, arguably the warmest and most lyrical baritone sax player since Gerry Mulligan -- besides the fact that he was also playing bass clarinet, soprano sax and alto sax --, and keyboardist Armen Donelian.
For sure Mongo also had the good reputation as a great bandleader thanks to his ability to bring together new musicians in memorable groups. Just think about the guys who occupied the piano chair on his bands during the 60s: Rodgers Grant, Brazilian genius João Donato and Chick Corea. In the 70s, Armen Donelian was added to the list.
Oddly, except Corea of course, all others remained extremely underrated in the USA, although regarded as "musicians' musicians" by his peers.
Listening to Donelian on "Sofrito" was a huge pleasure. On the top of his own killer grooves and notable solos on both acoustic & electric pianos, he once in a while overdubbed a Hohner clavinet and some synths like the Arp Strings that added extra orchestral colors to the scores. Besides such incredible performances, Donelian also wrote and arranged my three favorite tracks from that album: "Spring Song," "Cruzan" and a Spanish-tinged samba titled "Iberia."
Since then I tried to keep Armen on my radar, but it was difficult. His low "popularity" wasn't compatible with his talent. "Leapfrog" may change it a little, at least in the "jazz magazines circle" that only praises people like Brad Melhdau and Jason Moran, always looking for novelties. Armen is now on a prestigious label (Sunnyside), has the support of one of the best jazz publicists in the world (Terri Hinte deserves to be credited), and offers a tremendously impressive and creative body of work.
The level of density, intensity and energy on his playing is also noticed on (and in perfect sync with) the contributions of all the other musicians, specially Mike Moreno (gorgeous tone, playing a Stephen Marchione guitar) and Marc Mommaaas. They can't be called sidemen here. They're an integral part of the overall challenging experience, making contemporary jazz of the highest caliber.
Highlights: "Rage," "Bygone" (only piano, bass & sax), "Smoke" and "Inner Sanctum." All tunes composed by Donelian, except "Bygone," written by tenorist Mommaas.
***********
Pianist, composer, bandleader, and educator Armen Donelian has carved out an enviable career spanning four decades, including seminal stints with Sonny Rollins, Billy Harper, Chet Baker, and Mongo Santamaria. His new album "Leapfrog," his ninth release for Sunnyside, due for release tomorrow, September 13, should go a long way in rectifying his relatively unsung status as an improvising artist of the highest order.
Working with an exceptional band comprised of Dutch tenor saxophonist Marc Mommaas, guitarist Mike Moreno, veteran bassist Dean Johnson, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, Donelian focuses on his spacious, lyrically charged compositions.
“The inspiration for this music came from my reflections on where the world is going these days,” Donelian says. “There’s so much regurgitation of older styles in jazz today, I feel the need to carry the ball a little further. As Diz once said, it’s about keeping one foot in the tradition, and one in the future.”
Determined to distill each composition to its essentials, Donelian has honed a group concept that flows from his belief that less is indeed more. “I like stating an idea and leaving space for listeners to absorb it,” Donelian says. “It’s especially important for band members to be mindful of space, so they can really hear each other. When there’s too much happening there’s not much listening going on.” One explanation for the band’s profound affinity for Donelian’s music is that he shares significant history with these players, and often helped shape them during their formative years.
His collaboration with Dean Johnson stretches back to the 1980s, when Johnson was establishing himself as an in-demand accompanist through his work with Gerry Mulligan. Donelian met Marc Mommaas while teaching at the Manhattan School of Music shortly after the saxophonist arrived in New York City from the Netherlands; they’ve developed potent bandstand chemistry over the past decade.
Donelian first met Mike Moreno while teaching in the New School’s jazz program about ten years ago, just as Moreno was starting his ascent to his current status as one of the most esteemed young guitarists in New York. And he encountered Tyshawn Sorey as a standout high school student in the mid-1990s, a relationship that continued when the drummer enrolled in William Paterson University, where Donelian is also on faculty.
Born in Queens, NY in 1950 to Armenian parents, Armen Donelian grew up in a multicultural household, surrounded by classical and Armenian music. His first exposure to jazz came at age 12, and as a Columbia University undergrad he studied music history, theory, and composition; but his jazz studies commenced in earnest after his graduation, when he fell under the sway of pianist Richie Beirach.
During that time Donelian apprenticed with a series of jazz giants, starting in 1975 with Mongo Santamaria, where he presided over the piano chair once filled by Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea. “I learned so much about time, professionalism, and stamina,” he says of his time with Santamaria. “It was one of the greatest experiences of my life, to investigate Latin music from the inside.”
In the midst of his four-year tenure with Billy Harper’s band, he made his recording debut with 1981’s "Stargazer" (Atlas), a trio date with Billy Hart and Eddie Gomez featuring his original compositions.
Through the 1980s, Donelian led a series of outstanding bands, culminating in his quintet with Dick Oatts at the end of the decade, when he feels that his music really came into its own. Donelian has consistently explored his Armenian roots in his music, and recorded for several labels with the Middle Eastern jazz ensemble Night Ark; he also co-produced (with legendary jazz producer George Avakian) "Listen to My Heart," a collection of jazz interpretations of Armenian folk songs.
Donelian has frequently traveled to Armenia to perform, and taught at the Yerevan State Conservatory as a 2002 Fulbright Senior Scholar. An invaluable educator and international clinician, Donelian has written several authoritative texts, including two volumes of "Training the Ear" and the forthcoming "Whole Notes," a new book about piano playing. “Over the years I discovered I had a knack for teaching and later a talent,” he says, “and beyond that a responsibility.”
Armen Donelian’s quintet will be performing the music from "Leapfrog" at two CD release shows in September: 9/23 Firehouse 12, New Haven, CT, 8:30pm & 10pm; and 9/24 Cornelia Street Café, NYC, 9pm & 10:30pm.
For additional infos or to order the CD, please visit:
www.armenjazz.com
www.sunnysiderecords.com
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Tony Bennett on João Gilberto
What Makes Tony Bennett Swoon
USA Weekend
Sept. 11, 2011
Oh, the good life: Tony Bennett still has it, and he'll be the first to tell you so. On his 85th birthday (this past Aug. 3), the legendary singer beams as he greets a guest in his art studio overlooking Manhattan's Central Park. He is impeccably dressed, in a snazzy suit and tie, but the smidgen of green on his left hand betrays that morning's activity: painting, Bennett's other great love.
"I've had a lot of nice birthdays," Bennett says. "When I was 70, my son Danny had a party for me at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That was unbelievable. But this one is really my favorite. I'm really content with my whole life right now." As he should be: Bennett releases his second collection of superstar collaborations, Duets II, on Sept. 20; the album teams him with famous fans such as Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood, Andrea Bocelli, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Lady Gaga and the late Amy Winehouse, with whom Bennett recorded in March.
There's also a new box set due later this year, Tony Bennett -- The Complete Collection, consisting of 73 CDs and three DVDs spanning "every record I've made, from 1950 till now." And on Sept. 18, the veteran star will throw a belated birthday bash after his debut gig at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House. The post-show event, hosted by Alec Baldwin and featuring a performance by Elton John, will benefit Bennett's Exploring the Arts, an organization that supports and funds arts education throughout New York City's five boroughs.
So what does the octogenarian who has everything do in his free time? Bennett took out a few moments to tell us what's on his…
CD player: "Joao Gilberto, from Brazil. I love him because he's just so honest and uncompromising. He sings beautiful music without any tricks, just acoustic guitar and a beautiful orchestra behind him. He sings in a whisper but with great intonation. I could listen to him all day long."
Bookshelf: "Gay Talese is writing a piece on me for The New Yorker. I have his major book right here, Unto the Sons, which is amazing. This is the whole history of his family. His family is from Calabria, the very southern tip of Italy, and so is mine. We're very similar; his mother was a seamstress, my mother was a seamstress. His father was a great tailor, and to this day he's one of the best-dressed men in the world on a daily basis. So it's been very interesting to read this book and to get to know him personally."
Vacation plans: "I've always had a dream about going to the Thousand Islands, just below Canada. I grew up during the Depression, and my mother and father had a very tough time raising three children. The only relief that ever had was a vacation they would take out in the Thousand Islands. As a child I thought that must be paradise. I'd never seen them, but I have friends who have been there who say that I'm right. So the day after my birthday, for the first time in my life, my wife and I are going up there for four days, to just relax and paint and read Gay Talese."
Movie-viewing plans: "There's one woman I love so much -- my wife Susan and I both do: Helen Mirren. We're big fans of hers, love to see her in anything."
Wish list: "I'm blessed with the fact that I've got my health. My wish is for that to continue, so that I'll never retire. I want to keep working till the day I die -- because my work is not work to me. I'm doing the two things that I love -- I sing and I paint. And there's so much to learn about both mediums. It's a great adventure; my life is a great, enjoyable life."
USA Weekend
Sept. 11, 2011
Oh, the good life: Tony Bennett still has it, and he'll be the first to tell you so. On his 85th birthday (this past Aug. 3), the legendary singer beams as he greets a guest in his art studio overlooking Manhattan's Central Park. He is impeccably dressed, in a snazzy suit and tie, but the smidgen of green on his left hand betrays that morning's activity: painting, Bennett's other great love.
"I've had a lot of nice birthdays," Bennett says. "When I was 70, my son Danny had a party for me at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That was unbelievable. But this one is really my favorite. I'm really content with my whole life right now." As he should be: Bennett releases his second collection of superstar collaborations, Duets II, on Sept. 20; the album teams him with famous fans such as Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood, Andrea Bocelli, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Lady Gaga and the late Amy Winehouse, with whom Bennett recorded in March.
There's also a new box set due later this year, Tony Bennett -- The Complete Collection, consisting of 73 CDs and three DVDs spanning "every record I've made, from 1950 till now." And on Sept. 18, the veteran star will throw a belated birthday bash after his debut gig at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House. The post-show event, hosted by Alec Baldwin and featuring a performance by Elton John, will benefit Bennett's Exploring the Arts, an organization that supports and funds arts education throughout New York City's five boroughs.
So what does the octogenarian who has everything do in his free time? Bennett took out a few moments to tell us what's on his…
CD player: "Joao Gilberto, from Brazil. I love him because he's just so honest and uncompromising. He sings beautiful music without any tricks, just acoustic guitar and a beautiful orchestra behind him. He sings in a whisper but with great intonation. I could listen to him all day long."
Bookshelf: "Gay Talese is writing a piece on me for The New Yorker. I have his major book right here, Unto the Sons, which is amazing. This is the whole history of his family. His family is from Calabria, the very southern tip of Italy, and so is mine. We're very similar; his mother was a seamstress, my mother was a seamstress. His father was a great tailor, and to this day he's one of the best-dressed men in the world on a daily basis. So it's been very interesting to read this book and to get to know him personally."
Vacation plans: "I've always had a dream about going to the Thousand Islands, just below Canada. I grew up during the Depression, and my mother and father had a very tough time raising three children. The only relief that ever had was a vacation they would take out in the Thousand Islands. As a child I thought that must be paradise. I'd never seen them, but I have friends who have been there who say that I'm right. So the day after my birthday, for the first time in my life, my wife and I are going up there for four days, to just relax and paint and read Gay Talese."
Movie-viewing plans: "There's one woman I love so much -- my wife Susan and I both do: Helen Mirren. We're big fans of hers, love to see her in anything."
Wish list: "I'm blessed with the fact that I've got my health. My wish is for that to continue, so that I'll never retire. I want to keep working till the day I die -- because my work is not work to me. I'm doing the two things that I love -- I sing and I paint. And there's so much to learn about both mediums. It's a great adventure; my life is a great, enjoyable life."
Compilation of the Day - "Fashion Art Lounge Bar"
Compilation of the Day"Fashion Art Lounge Bar 01"(Pyramide) 2011
Tracklist:
01. O Vento (Parov Stelar Remix) - Dom Um Romao feat. Ithamara Koorax 5:19
02. Zombie(Jako Risen Remix) - Yvan Genkins, Jako Risen 7:44
03. Life Is A Tree (Truby Trio Treatment) - Silicone Soul, Truby Trio 6:42
04. Celebrity (Silicon Soul's Hypnohouse Dub Mix) - Silicon Soul, Max Sedgley 8:59
05. Hotel Capri (Cybophonia Circumvesuviana Remix) - Cybophonia, Ohm Guru 6:28
06. Things Happen (Guido Nemola '10s Remix) - Guido Nemola, Matteo Matteini, Francesco Bonora 7:23
07. Hold U Close (Feeling Vox) - Nubian Mindz 7:28
08. Don't Cry For Me (Submantra Deep Remix) - Submantra, Big Mojo 6:25
09. Can We Live (Murk Boys Remix) - Jestofunk, Murk Boys 6:41
10. Sushi (Original Mix) - Pepper (IT) 7:02
11. Rasp (Tommie Sunshine & Dan Aux Brooklyn Fire Remix) - Tommie Sunshine, Supabeatz, Jay Robinson, Dan Aux 6:03
12. Tranquila (DJ Keemani Remix) - Caradefuego, DJ Keemani 8:00
A Tony Bennett Revival? They're Singing His Song
A Tony Bennett Revival? They're Singing His Songby Steven Zeitchik for the Los Angeles Times
Sept. 11, 2011
By his own admission, Tony Bennett doesn't get nervous often. But he was anxious that day, more than 50 years ago, when he was filling in for Perry Como as host on the crooner's variety television show.
"Como had a big orchestra and great stars," Bennett recalled. "And all they gave me was a blank stage. I thought, 'There was no way I'm going to get through this.'"
Bennett decided there was pretty much only one person who could help: a certain blue-eyed singer. "I had never met Frank Sinatra. I didn't even know he knew me," Bennett said. "But they brought me to his dressing room at the Paramount Theater [where he was performing]. I asked him what I should do, and he told me one simple thing: 'If you're nervous, the audience will sense that. And they'll help pull you through.'"
The audience has been pulling Bennett through for a long time, and he has returned the favor. In a 59-year recording career that has netted him 15 Grammys, Bennett has become famous for songs such as "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," "Because of You" and "For Once in My Life," among many others. He has released an eye-popping 74 albums, selling more than 50 million.
Bennett will look to add to that total with "Duets II," another album of odd-couple standards that comes out Sept. 20. A follow-up to the 2006 hit "Duets," the new collection features Bennett recording with a panoply of stars young and old, and it stands as a kind of implicit testament to his timeless, cross-genre appeal. Carrie Underwood is on the album; so are Aretha Franklin, Lady Gaga, Alejandro Sanz and Willie Nelson.
In a particularly poignant turn, Amy Winehouse accompanies him in the 1930 standard "Body and Soul" ("You try to not hear / Turn a deaf ear / To my prayer... My heart is sad and lonely / For you I cry"). It's one of the last recordings Winehouse made, and Bennett talks openly about how moved he was by the experience, "She was such a talent, so sweet," he said, describing how he indeed cried when he heard of her death.
Dressed casually in a button-down shirt and slacks, Bennett is riffling through art books in his painting studio, housed in a luxury apartment building that overlooks a pretty but busy intersection at the southern edge of New York's Central Park. Even with a deliberate manner -- the result, perhaps, of his advancing years -- Bennett radiates a kind of tireless energy that would prompt envy in a man half his age. Behind him sit a few of his finished paintings (a brightly colored abstract portrait of Louis Armstrong stands out) and several other in-progress works.
Not even two months removed from his 85th birthday, Bennett continues to expand into new artistic realms. "I've just started learning to sculpt," he said, with a childlike glee.
Bennett has achieved the age and milestones that make most men sit back on a beach somewhere and reflect, maybe pen a ghost-written autobiography. But he practically laughs when presented with that scenario. "The idea of retirement," he said, "is like death to me. You work until your last day on this Earth. I don't know any other way."
His routine remains vigorous. Bennett tries to paint and perform or record at least several times a week, and anyone who happens to find themselves wandering through the green spaces of Central Park just after dawn on a weekday morning might see a familiar face standing with easel and paintbrush -- Bennett says he likes to paint natural scenes there early in the morning. Is he recognized? "There's no one else there," he said.
Los Angeles will be a particular locus of celebration for Bennett's recent birthday and his continued productivity. On Sept. 24, a number of music luminaries, including Stevie Wonder and Diana Krall, will perform for and with Bennett in a fundraising concert (for AARP's Drive to End Hunger) at Staples Center.
Despite his popularity, Bennett's career arc is a bundle of contradictions. His stylings evoke a particular moment in postwar-America songcraft, yet he's also timeless, popular to at least three generations and in many ways even emblematic of this one.
"I really felt when he was sandwiched between Nine Inch Nails and PJ Harvey at concerts in the mid-1990s that he became a kind of precursor to the iPod generation," said Danny Bennett, Tony's eldest son, manager and the man perhaps most responsible for the singer's late-career success. "It showed that people were willing to listen to something they liked and it didn't matter what kind of music it was."
After a robust recording and performing career in the 1950s and 1960s, Bennett fell on hard times during the increasingly rock-oriented era of the 1970s. But a renaissance took hold when the singer was watching MTV in the early 1990s and thought, basically, "I could do that." His calculus was simple: While he once had to barnstorm the country asking radio stations to play his songs, he could now get an instant burst of credibility via a single platform.
The problem was that the person in charge of that platform wasn't terribly interested in giving it to him. Judy McGrath, the powerful former chief of MTV, didn't especially think the kids wanted to see a sexagenarian singer. It was only when Danny Bennett convinced her that he should engage in a little costume stunt with the Red Hot Chili Peppers at that year's Video Music Awards that the tide began to turn. (Members of the Chili Peppers wore Bennett's trademark tuxedo and Bennett was outfitted to look like bassist Flea.)
Soon after, in 1994, he appeared on the then-influential "MTV Unplugged" (where k.d. lang and other contemporary performers joined him), resulting in a platinum-selling record and one of the stranger comebacks that music has ever seen. Despite a decidedly nonrock attitude, Bennett connected with a crowd that was otherwise interested in an artistically raw sound.
In a sense, Bennett became popular again by not deviating from what made him popular in the first place. In the years since, he has managed to maintain that status by staying true to his trademark style -- delicate, romantic, a little smooth -- and letting the culture come to him.
"I learned early on that you don't pick up the money and run. Don't do anything obsolescent," he said. "That was my lesson from studying theater, and it became quite a battle for me throughout the years" -- alluding to some record-company pressure to perform rock songs at the dawn of the rock era -- "but I stayed with it."
Bennett says he's not surprised that a young audience has embraced him; it's a function of the "quality" and his willingness "never to sing a bad song."
"I've never had a problem with the audience; there hasn't been an empty seat at one of my concerts since the 1950s," he said, with a kind of endearing boastfulness that characterizes some of his comments.
Instead, Bennett says that the problem during some of the lean years is that most young people weren't exposed to his music. "It's a mistake that the demographic thing was ever created," he said. "'Your music is for these guys and not the other guys.' Who made that up? It's ignorant."
The legendary producer Phil Ramone, who produced the new "Duets" album, attributed Bennett's staying power to his willingness to subtly reinvent the songs without changing his overall sound.
"Some people who do the same song six nights a week fall into the pattern of repeating the same ideas," Ramone said. "Tony will remain Tony, but he'll do a song differently each time, changing an accent or a phrasing that will change the whole song. If you're playing behind him you have to really be on your toes."
That said, the singer has not been above making some clever maneuvers to attract a youthful market; the Tony Bennett revival is in some ways as much a marketing triumph as an artistic one.
The first "Duets" album blended songs with oldster-friendly artists like Barbra Streisand and James Taylor with newer acts such as the Dixie Chicks, John Legend and Michael Bublé, all in a way that seem custom-designed to broaden his appeal.
Bennett has also continued to use television to his advantage, appearing several years ago on the youth-skewing "Entourage" and recently filming a performance on the Tom Selleck police drama "Blue Bloods." Bennett can sometimes seem so ubiquitous (wasn't that him the other week next to Lady Gaga/Jo Calderone at the VMAs?) that Bill Clinton once quipped to Danny that he was running his father's career as though Tony was running for president.
The Bennett scion acknowledges that he's had to push hard to keep his father in the limelight. "But the Beatles had a lot of marketing too. There's nothing wrong with it as long as it's done right."
And he also says he's conscious of a larger goal when it comes to his father. "I'm not managing a career. I'm managing a legacy," Danny said.
That legacy has Tony Bennett feeling few regrets, despite some doubts along the way. "There were many times when I didn't think it was going to work, but now Columbia Records is releasing a boxed set -- all 74 of my albums -- and there's not one cut that I'm not proud of," he said, beaming.
But wary that he may sound as if he's resting on his laurels or -- God forbid -- thinking about retirement, Bennett quickly adds, "I'm 85, but I have a long way to go with what I really want to learn about music. There are a lot of things I want to do before my 90th birthday."
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