Jazz Station - Arnaldo DeSouteiro's Blog (Jazz, Bossa & Beyond): August 2020

Saturday, August 29, 2020

Delza Agricola: "Valsa"

Delza Agricola DeSouteiro: "Valsa" (Para Piano)

DC Jazz Festival Announces Full Lineup For 16th Annual DC JazzFest

Danilo Perez, Marc Cary, Matthew Whitaker, Allyn Johnson and The String Queens are just a few of the first-class artists set to stream live from our Nation's Capital
Thursday, September 24 - Monday, September 28

The DC Jazz Festival® (DCJF) announced the full roster of performers for The 16th Annual DC JazzFest. This year's festival will be streamed live from our Nation's Capital from September 24th through 28th as we take our world-class jazz programming to the global stage for the very first time. The lineup features some of the biggest names in jazz, showcasing international superstars alongside some exciting, homegrown talent. Audience members can watch any of the 2020 #DCJazzFest performances for free on Gather by EventsDC or at Fans.com.

This year's full 2020 DC JazzFest lineup includes:
Danilo Perez (pictured above) • Marc Cary • Matthew Whitaker • Allyn Johnson and Sonic Sanctuary • Frédéric Yonnet • The String Queens • Ben Williams • Christie Dashiell • Nasar Abadey Trio • Jack Kilby & The Front Line • Baby Rose • Cecily • The Chuck Brown Band • Blacks' Myths Giveton Gelin • Allison Au • Heidi Martin • Herb Scott

“DC JazzFest is proud to bring world-class jazz performances to the global stage in our 16th edition,” said DC Jazz Festival Executive Director Sunny Sumter. “Celebrating the real DC, performances will stream from neighborhoods across the city.”

As part of the festival, the organizers will also be presenting the DCJazzPrix Finals, an annual competition that recognizes and supports jazz bands from around the world - happening Sunday, September 27th.

The five finalists for 2020 are:
Camilla George • DreamRoot • EJB Quartet • Reis-Demuth-Wiltgen • Mike Casey

Each band will compete at the DCJazzPrix Finals at the 16th Annual DC JazzFest at Union Stage at The Wharf. The response from DCJazzPrix's "virtual" audience will be a vital factor in the determination of the winner, and audience members will be vote on their favorite finalists to help crown a champion. Aside from gaining significant exposure, the winner will be awarded a $15,000 cash prize and benefit from a yearlong association with DCJF to assist in their professional development. The winner will also have a future main stage performance at DC JazzFest as well as a NYC showcase opportunity at Tribeca Performing Arts Center.

The DCJazzPrix prize is made possible by the generous support of Conrad Kenley and the Galena-Yorktown Foundation. Read more about the five finalists in advance of the competition.

For more information about the 2020 DC Jazz Fest, including schedule updates, please stay connected to the DC Jazz Festival at dcjazzfest.org.

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The DC Jazz Festival presents world-renowned and emerging artists in celebration of jazz; unifies diverse communities; advances jazz and music education with exciting and adventurous musical experiences for backgrounds; shines the spotlight on DC-based musicians; and highlights DC as a premier cultural destination. The signature programs are the annual DC JazzFest, now in its 16th year with 150 performances in 40 venues including tribute concerts in partnership with The Kennedy Center; Jazz in the 'Hoods with citywide partnerships in 20+ neighborhoods; DC JazzFest at The Wharf, a weekend with free outdoor stages and The Anthem; the year-round DCJF Education in partnership with DC public and charter schools, and arts centers; the Charles Fishman Artist Embassy Series honoring our founder; and DCJazzPrix, an international band competition. The DC Jazz Festival won the DC Mayor's Arts Award for Excellence on Creative Industries. The New York Times named DC JazzFest one of "50 Essential Summer Festivals." For more information, visit: dcjazzfest.org.

Keep up with the DCJF:
Twitter: @dcjazzfest
Facebook: facebook.com/dcjazzfest
Instagram: @dcjazzfest
Everything Else: linktr.ee/dcjazzfest

The DC Jazz Festival®, a 501(c)(3) non-profit service organization, and its 2020 programs are made possible, in part, with major grants the Government of the District of Columbia, Muriel Bowser, Mayor; the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs program and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts; and with awards from the National Endowment for the Arts; the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities; and, in part, by major grants from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Galena-Yorktown Foundation, the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, Wells Fargo Foundation, Gillon Family Charitable Fund, Venable Foundation, The Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts, The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, the Kaiser Family Foundation, the John Edward Fowler Memorial Foundation, and The Leonard and Elaine Silverstein Family Foundation. ©2020 DC Jazz Festival.

Friday, August 28, 2020

"Rollins In Holland," a previously unreleased 3-LP and 2-CD set, comes out soon on Resonance

On Nov. 27, “Black Friday,” independent jazz label Resonance Records will continue its ongoing tradition of releasing previously unissued archival recordings as limited-edition Record Store Day exclusives with a stellar new three-LP collection of historic Sonny Rollins performances, titled "Rollins in Holland: The 1967 Studio & Live Recordings."

Featuring more than two hours of music, this stunning collection, drawn from tenor saxophone master Rollins’s Netherlands tour of May 1967, will also be presented as a two-CD set, due Dec. 4. The Rollins set succeeds Resonance’s critically acclaimed RSD archival finds from such jazz giants as Bill Evans, Eric Dolphy, and Wes Montgomery. Last November saw the release of the label’s poll-topping 10-LP/seven-CD Nat King Cole box Hittin’ the Ramp: The Early Years (1936-1943).

Resonance co-president Zev Feldman, known within the industry as “the Jazz Detective,” says of the forthcoming release, “The music on Rollins in Holland is extraordinary. Rollins fans will rejoice when they hear the news of this discovery. These performances follow an important time in his life, and he brought those experiences along with him to make this incredible music.”

In a new interview with Feldman included in the set, the 89-year-old Rollins says, “I’m so happy that Resonance is putting it out because it really represents a take-no-prisoners type of music. That’s sort of what I was doing around that period of time; that was sort of Sonny Rollins then—a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am approach. It was very much me. And I loved it and I loved playing with those guys.”

The music heard on the Resonance album is drawn from a little-documented period in Rollins’s career. The musician’s 1966 Impulse! album East Broadway Run Down was his final record date before a studio hiatus that lasted until 1972. In 1969, mirroring a celebrated public exit of a decade earlier, he began a two-year sabbatical from live performing.

Rollins in Holland captures the then 36-year-old jazz titan in full flight, in total command of his horn at the height of his great improvisational powers. He is heard fronting a trio, the same demanding instrumental format that produced some of the early triumphs of his long career: the live A Night at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 1957) and the studio dates Way Out West (Contemporary, 1957) and Freedom Suite (Riverside, 1958).

During his brief but busy 1967 stay in the Netherlands, the saxophonist was supported by two of the nation’s top young players, bassist Ruud Jacobs and drummer Han Bennink. The pair had together supported such visiting American jazzmen as Johnny Griffin, Ben Webster, Wes Montgomery, and Clark Terry, among others. Jacobs was a celebrated straight-ahead accompanist, while Bennink had developed a reputation as an avant-garde lion, having backed Eric Dolphy on 1964’s Last Date. The pair jelled magnificently behind their celebrated leader.

Rollins in Holland brings together material drawn from three separate appearances by the trio: a freewheeling May 3 concert at the Arnhem Academy of Visual Arts, at which Rollins stretched out in expansive performances that sometimes topped the 20-minute mark; a four-song May 5 morning studio session at the VARA Studio in Hilversum, where Dolphy and Albert Ayler had also cut unforgettable dates; and two live shots captured during the band’s stand that evening on “Jazz met Jacobs,” a half-hour national NCRV TV show presented from the Go-Go Club in Loosdrecht and hosted by bassist Jacobs’s pianist brother Pim and his wife, singer Rita Reys.

In his essay for the collection, Dutch jazz journalist, producer, and researcher Frank Jochemsen notes that while recordings of the Arnhem show (presented here with carefully restored sound) had been passed hand-to-hand by Dutch jazz buffs over the years, the rest of the music was only recently unearthed.

In 2017, the four stereo tracks from VARA Studio were discovered by Jochemsen, and they were authenticated by Ruud Jacobs and Han Bennink as they were being digitized for the Dutch Jazz Archive (NJA). In 2019, Jochemsen also discovered the audio from the “Jazz met Jacobs” appearance in the Dutch Jazz Archive, along with a unique set of photos shot at the sound check and live broadcast of this lost TV show.

Jochemsen says, “I find it an exciting idea that so much has been recovered and documented from this modest tour and that the music is indeed of such high quality. Even more sensational is the fact that the whole world can listen to it now. The great Sonny Rollins at his best, accompanied by a great rhythm tandem, which makes me, as a Dutchman, extra proud.”

An extensive overview of Rollins’s Holland trek is supplied by jazz journalist Aidan Levy, whose biography of the saxophonist will be published by Da Capo Books. Levy says, “Rollins in Holland is a resounding, still-urgent argument for jazz as a universal art form, transcending time, place and race. This is jazz at its most international and interdependent, with no boundaries or borders.”

Rollins in Holland also includes an in-depth interview by Levy with Han Bennink and Ruud Jacobs, conducted a year before Jacobs’s death from cancer in July 2019. In it, the late bass virtuoso recalled the experience of playing with the American legend as “something spiritual. [There was] a very special atmosphere on the stage where I felt I could do anything.”

The opportunity to bring Rollins’s exceptional Netherlands performances to the public for the first time has proven a special moment for Resonance, Feldman says: “Working with Mr. Rollins has been the experience of a lifetime, and I’m so grateful that he has put his trust in Resonance and our team to bring forth this newly unearthed, previously undocumented chapter in his career.”

Photography: Toon Fey (at Academie voor Beeldende Kunst, Arnhem, Netherlands; May 3, 1967)

Press release for Jimmy Smith's "The Cat"

Press release written by Arnaldo DeSouteiro for a 1985 reissue of Jimmy Smith's Grammy-winning album "The Cat," released on Verve/PolyGram! Produced by Creed Taylor, engineered by Rudy Van Gelder and arranged by Lalo Schifrin, featuring Kenny Burrell, Grady Tate, George Duvivier, Thad Jones, Urbie Green et al, Grammy winner for "best instrumental performance" and "best original jazz composition" in 1965 (re: 1964).

Press release for Oscar Peterson

Press-release written by Arnaldo DeSouteiro for the Oscar Peterson albums "Tristeza On Piano"(MPS), "Night Train" (Verve) and "West Side Story" (Verve), released in Brazil by PolyGram in 1985.

Durante duas décadas - 1980 e 1990 - escrevi cerca de 50 press-releases por ano. Para várias gravadoras: PolyGram, Top Tape, Copacabana, Warner, Ariola etc. Mas a principal cliente era mesmo a PolyGram, que distribuía no Brasil selos como Verve, MPS (que havia sido representado pela Copacabana no início dos anos 80), ECM (previamente distribuido pela WEA), Pablo, Milestone e Fantasy.

Em 1985, no auge da indústria fonográfica, que iniciava a revolução digital da fabricação de CDs, aconteceu até mesmo de serem lançados simultaneamente três discos de Oscar Peterson. Então, ao invés de três press-releases individuais, fazíamos um texto geral que era enviado para a imprensa.

Minha prolífica associação com a PolyGram tornou-se possível graças a Vanira Monteiro, que substituiu Ezio Servulo (convidado a trabalhar na Deutsche Grammophon) na gerência do "departamento de jazz & clássicos" da gravadora. Lembro com carinho e saudade das tardes em que Vanira, com quem ainda mantenho contato via Facebook, agendava reuniões na minha casa para que eu sugerisse possíveis lançamentos. Olhávamos os catálogos dos selos (sim, existiam catálogos impressos que traziam as capas dos discos e as fichas técnicas) e ouvíamos alguns álbuns. Depois preparávamos uma listinha e ela fazia a escolha final de acordo com questões burocráticas e de marketing. O lançamento simultâneo de três discos do Oscar Peterson, por exemplo, se justificava pela vinda dele ao Brasil para uma turnê. Eu recebia essas informações em primeira-mão e repassava para as gravadoras que tinham, em seus catálogos, discos dos artistas que vinham se apresentar no país

Tenho achado vários desses press-releases antigos, para discos de nomes como Pat Metheny, Stan Getz, João Gilberto, Hank Crawford e muitos mais. Além de textos (originais ou traduções) para capas de álbuns de Ella Fitzgerald e Toots Thielemans, isso já numa fase posterior. Irei escanear e postar este material aos poucos.

Delza Agricola: "A Borboleta Azul"

Delza Agricola DeSouteiro: "A Borboleta Azul"

(Suite Infantil Para Piano, No. 2)

Champian Fulton celebrates Charlie Parker’s Centennial with "Birdsong"

New York-based pianist and vocalist Champian Fulton is thrilled to announce the release of her highly-anticipated new album Birdsong. A celebration of Charlie Parker’s centennial, Birdsong features saxophone luminary Scott Hamilton along with Fulton’s long-standing quartet made up of bassist Hide Tanaka, drummer Fukushi Tainaka and her father, Stephen Fulton on flugelhorn. Birdsong will be available today, celebrating Charlie Parker’s 100th birthday.

The music of Charlie Parker has played an integral part in Champian’s life since the very beginning. Before she was born, her father Stephen wanted to ensure she came into the world accompanied by “the most beautiful music there ever was.” For him, that was Charlie Parker with Strings, the sessions on which producer Norman Granz granted Bird’s longtime wish to record with an orchestra. Stephen made a cassette tape of the recording and played it consistently throughout his wife Susan’s pregnancy. That tape played when Champian was first brought into the world, and it was the first sound the future musician heard when she was placed into her mother’s arms.

As Champian grew as a musician and performer, so did her affinity for Bird and his music. She particularly felt a kinship with Parker due to their shared regional backgrounds (Champian hails from the southwest region of the United States: Norman, Oklahoma). “Jazz was once a regional music,” she says, “and I feel very connected to that southwest jazz tradition. That intangible something that has to do with a commitment to swing and an approach to the music that’s joyful, instinctual and at the same time intellectual.” This bright spirit shines through on Birdsong, which is arguably her most playful album yet.

Birdsong is Champian’s second collaboration with Scott Hamilton, and their first studio recording together. The duo first connected in 2017 for a live concert in Spain, which was recorded and released as The Things We Did Last Summer by Blau Records. The two hit it off, and continued to stay in touch. During the summer of 2019, Champian worked with Scott in the medieval Tuscan village of Certaldo, where the saxophonist has lived for over a decade, and made concrete plans to get Birdsong off the ground. The rest, as they say, is history.

Champian and Scott delved into the Bird songbook and eventually settled on eleven carefully chosen compositions written by and/or made famous by Charlie Parker. “I wanted to focus not only on his originals, but on his recordings that I consider to be some of the most beautiful songs ever recorded in the world,” said Champian, adding, “...these songs are classic Bird, with rangy and dramatic melodies, romantic lyrics and adventurous chord changes.” Album opener “Just Friends” serves as a brilliant introduction to Scott and the steadfast rhythm section, and is, according to Champian, one of their favorite songs to play. His best selling single, Bird often said that his recording of “Just Friends” was among his personal favorites. Other highlights include the melodic favorite “Yardbird Suite”, the trio treatment of “Quasimodo” (a contrafact of “Embraceable You” and Champian’s favorite Bird head), and a beautiful rendition of “This Is Always”.

Birdsong is a career milestone for Champian Fulton, who is deemed one of the brightest rising stars on the contemporary jazz scene. This is her 12th release, and comes on the heels of last years’ critically acclaimed duo album with Cory Weeds, Dream A Little (Cellar Live). She was recognized as a Rising Jazz Star Vocalist in the 67th Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll, and was awarded the 2019 Hot House Magazine & Jazzmobile NYC Readers Jazz Award for Vocalist and Pianist of the year. Her “galvanizing presence” (the New Yorker) and her alluring musical presentation has made her “a charming young steward of the mainstream Jazz tradition.” (The New York Times).

With Birdsong, Champian Fulton pays tribute to the mammoth musician who has played such an integral role in her life as an artist. In addition to that, she hopes to expose the music of Charlie Parker to new audiences and prove that even on the eve of his centennial, Bird truly is timeless.

Jacam Manricks Reveals New Musical Dimensions On "Samadhi"

Saxophonist/composer Jacám Manricks marks his arrival as a full-fledged auteur on the splendid Samadhi, set for a September 4 release on his own Manricks Music Records. Already an accomplished composer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist, and improviser, Manricks’s sixth album adds recording, engineering, producing, and mixing to his overflowing skill set. Thus it stands as a vision entirely of the leader’s own making—albeit with input from his high-caliber colleagues, pianist Joe Gilman, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Clarence Penn.

Samadhi is a Sanskrit term that refers to a state of heightened, holistic focus that allows for communion with the divine. Manricks uses that title not to announce his achieving it, but his goal of reaching it: “Getting to that state of intense concentration where everything else disappears around you and only the music exists,” as he explains in the liner notes. The wide spectrum of creative mastery he deploys on the album reflects that goal.

So does the music on display. Samadhi’s eight tracks (seven Manricks originals, with one improvised collaboration between the saxophonist and Gilman) feature a remarkable range of ideas and emotions, from the paradoxically bright yet tense opener “Formula One,” to the ruminative title track, to the playful “Common Tone” and the mysterious “Ethereal.” The range of textures and timbres is also formidable; Manricks plays alto, tenor, and soprano saxophones as well as clarinet and bass clarinet, flute and alto flute, and MIDI strings (for which he wrote the orchestrations).

Of course, part of Samadhi’s purpose, Manricks says, is to allow him to flex these polymathic muscles. “It’s not just the horn anymore. It’s about me as a composer and orchestrator. It’s about what sort of environments I’m putting myself in and how I’m orchestrating colors within that. … ultimately trying to make something beautiful with rhythms and pitches”.

“I’m wearing so many hats,” he adds. “This is the culmination of a lot of things for me, and I’m extremely proud of Samadhi.”

Jacám Manricks was born in 1976 in Brisbane, Australia, the child of two classical musicians in the Queensland Symphony Orchestra—and the grandson of a celebrated Portuguese jazz saxophonist and clarinetist, and a Sri Lankan concert pianist. As a boy, Jacám quickly began finding a niche in this musical family, immersing himself in his father’s jazz records and in his parents’ concert performances. He began learning to play the piano at age five and the saxophone at age nine.

After receiving a degree in music performance (classical and jazz saxophone) from the Queensland Conservatorium, Manricks began making his way in the Sydney music scene before moving to New York in 2001 to study at William Paterson University. He earned a master’s degree in composition there, then a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Manhattan School of Music in 2007.

While at the Manhattan School, he composed and premiered a large-scale work, “Chromatic Suite for Jazz Philharmonic Orchestra,” for the school’s 90th birthday celebration. Its combination of classical and jazz traditions presaged Manricks’s 2009 debut album, Labyrinth, which blended a chamber orchestra with a venturesome jazz quintet. Trigonometry followed in 2010, then Cloud Nine in 2012, Chamber Jazz in 2016, and GilManricks in 2017. Each received international acclaim.

One could say that Manricks, with 16 international tours as a leader and countless credits as a sideman, has also graduated from the “real school,” particularly during his 13 years in New York working for luminaries such as Jeff “Tain” Watts, Tyshawn Sorey, and Elio Villafranca, to name a few.

Relocating to Sacramento, California, in 2014, Manricks spent five years teaching at the nearby University of California, Davis, working as a member of Sacramento’s Capital Jazz Project, running his own super sax style ensemble (Super Saxto) and leading his own 19-piece big band (Jacám Manricks Orchestra). Meanwhile, Manricks also learned the ins and outs of sound engineering, using that knowledge to build his own home studio where Samadhi was recorded and mixed.

“2020 has been rough,” says Manricks. “The pandemic is hitting the performing arts hard with prospects for safe public gatherings more than ever remote. The loss of artistically enriching events, which typically uplift and create our communities, imposes a cultural deficiency impacting the quality of life for all, including those working outside the arts industry. Therefore, it has never before been more important that artists create and where necessary find new ways to share our work. For me, this means producing new music and providing access to it through any means I can.

“In late June,” he adds, “I was bedridden for two weeks with COVID, quarantined in my son’s bedroom while my family remained safely at bay. During the entire shutdown and especially while quarantined, I’ve had more time to reflect on life, my personal goals, music and how it enriches our lives. One thing that became abundantly clear was that focused listening to music—the kind you do with your eyes shut—is an incredibly healing experience. Using your ears and mind to escape, meditating to music in search of beauty, we can find solace, inspiration, and a refreshed state of mind. Samadhi is being released during the shutdown for this purpose primarily. Go forth and find solace in this music.”

Manricks and his Quartet (with Joe Gilman, p; Michael Gilbert, b; Tim Metz, d) will be performing a CD release concert to be live-streamed on Saturday 10/10 at 5:30 pm Pacific time (see poster above right).
Photography: Lauren Jenkins

Thursday, August 27, 2020

Carmen McRae interviewed by Arnaldo DeSouteiro

Interview with Carmen McRae for the "Ultima Hora" daily newspaper on November 30, 1984. At that time, due to contractual reasons (I was under contract with another newspaper), I had to write using the nickname Ernani Guimarães. / Entrevista com Carmen McRae para o jornal Última Hora em 30 de Novembro de 1984; numa época em que, por questões de contrato e logística (a demanda era maior do que a minha possibilidade de oferta), precisei escrever usando o pseudônimo Ernani Guimarães para outros jornais, inclusive O Globo.

Monday, August 24, 2020

Jair Rodrigues, Elis Regina, Jongo Trio & Walter Silva

Jair Rodrigues, Elis Regina, Jongo Trio (Cido Bianchi, Sabá, Toninho Pinheiro) and Walter Silva

Ernani Agricola (1887-1978)

Dr. Ernani Agricola, my grandfather

born on August 9, 1887 in Palma, Minas Gerais

died on July 14, 1978 in Rio de Janeiro, RJ

Dr. Ernani Agricola, Arnaldo DeSouteiro & Walter Souteiro, 1966

Dr. Ernani Agricola & Arnaldo DeSouteiro, 1973

Irmãos de Ernani:

Hilda Agricola, Zanyra Agricola, Derthys Agricola, Atalá Agricola, Maria Agricola, Ondina Agricola, Naíla Agricola, Jonas Agricola, Ulisses Agricola, Jarbas Agricola e Gildo Agricola.

Ernani Agricola: Formou-se em Odontologia em 1912 e médico em 1919 pela Faculdade de Medicina de Belo Horizonte. É pioneiro no país na luta contra a hanseníase e participou da elaboração do Plano Nacional de Combate à Lepra em 1935. É considerado um dos maiores leprologistas do continente.

Recebeu a Medalha da Inconfidência, concedida pelo Governo do Estado de Minas Gerais, em 21 de Abril de 1978, cuja entrega foi adiada para o dia 29, por motivo de mau tempo em Ouro Preto. Não pôde comparecer à cerimônia na nova data por motivo de saúde.

Em 04 de Maio de 1978 sofreu um AVC (trombose) e veio a falecer em 14 de Julho de 1978.
Foi homenageado com o nome do Centro Municipal de Saúde do bairro de Santa Tereza, no Rio de Janeiro. Existe ainda uma Rua Ernani Agricola no bairro Buritis, na cidade de Belo Horizonte.