Following on from my post about Gretchen Parlato last week, I’ve decided to instigate a new regular feature on this blog for your listening pleasure, dear reader: the jazz/pop cover of the week. Snappy title, no? As I wrote in my review of Parlato’s latest recording, it’s been a long tradition of jazz musicians to take the popular music of …
Recent Listening – Gretchen Parlato
Gretchen Parlato is a young jazz singer who has charmed much of the jazz world with her new release, In a Dream. It’s a clever, soulful record, full of interesting tunes and top notch playing and singing. I admit that I did not immediately warm to Parlato’s voice. It’s clean and unfussy – almost to a fault. Unencumbered by any …
Modern Jazz for Beginners
There’s been much chatter in the jazz blogosphere of late about why young people (apparently) don’t go to see live jazz any more. One of the more interesting consequences of all the hand-wringing is an interesting project by Patrick Jarenwattananon, who is the editor of NPR’s jazz blog, A Blog Supreme. He has asked all sorts of hip young cats …
Recent Listening
I’ve always had a bit of a problem with Cassandra Wilson. She possesses a unique and compelling voice, an alluring and smoky contralto, and she’s easily the coolest jazz singer out there, by a mile. So what’s the problem? Well, for years Wilson has been determinedly following her own path, exploring different musical avenues that never made for especially fulfilling …
Recent Listening
In an effort to keep myself honest, I am going to try and record for posterity (or whatever the bloggy equivalent of posterity is) every CD I purchase from now on. I am sure that my wife must look at all the entries for “amazon.com” on our credit card statement and wonder what on earth I’ve been buying. Well, mainly …
Welcome Back, Jazz Times
Nice surprise waiting for me at home yesterday afternoon – a copy of Jazz Times was delivered in the mail, with none other than my man Joe Lovano on the cover. The magazine had ceased production earlier this year and at the time there was much mourning and chin-scratching in the jazz blogosphere about the financial viability of small-interest publications …
Two Jazz Greats Gone
Yesterday was a rough day. Every year Jazz Times has a “goodbye” issue where it celebrates the lives of the jazz musicians who have passed in the previous year. It’s always sobering reading, as the number of true greats still with us slowly diminishes. A couple of weeks ago we lost George Russell,little-known outside the music world, but an incredibly …
Jazz Dispute
This excellent bit of business has been around for a while, but Doug Ramsay’s excellent jazz blog Rifftides turned me on to this a while ago. It’s very good. The music, as we all know, is “Leap Frog”, with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
Technology is a Wonderful Thing
No, really. I was listening to my new favorite podcast, the Checkout, a jazz show from WBGO in New Jersey, and they had an interview with Spike Wilner, who is manager of Small’s Jazz Club in Greenwich Village (as well as being a great pianist – check out this.) I’ve been itching to go to Small’s for the longest time …
Download Day
It’s the end of the month, which means it’s time for my regular downloading extravaganza, courtesy of emusic. This month I have acquired the following gems: Seamus Blake – Live in Italy I’m not that familiar with tenor player Seamus Blake, but will be soon. This got a great review in this month’s Down Beat, and that’s usually good enough …