EXPLORE JAZZ

                   AMERICA'S NATIONAL ARTFORM

                                     FUSION

             STRAIGHT AHEAD                                                                                BE-BOP

                                                                                 CONTEMPORARY

                      THE JAZZ BUZZ

                                                      THE LATEST NEWS IN THE WORLD OF JAZZ.........

      


Jazz legend Norman Connors' just produced 3 tunes on Urban Jazz Guitarist Drew Davidsen's upcoming CD.






Norman featured the following players on this upcoming project. Bobby Lyle, Tom Browne, Kim Waters, Gerald Veasley, and Danny Boy. Stay tuned more surprises on this new Drew Davidsen CD. Coming in 2013!

“Jumpinjazz Kids-a Swinging Jungle Tale” Set For Release 9/25, Featuring Dee Dee Bridgewater, Al Jarreau And Hubert Laws

“JumpinJazz Kids is a great model for what needs to be presented to young people. The age group that it targets is a great addition to music, and it’s wonderful for any organization or school. The manner in which it’s presented strikes a nerve – everyone should take a look at it and listen to it!” — Dr. Billy Taylor

Los Angeles, CA. “JumpinJazz Kids – A Swinging Jungle Tale” celebrates the rich history of Jazz and Popular music by paying tribute to its legendary pioneers through story, song and a variety of musical styles. This unique blend of classic storytelling and fun, original jazz/pop songs are performed by world-renowned jazz artist’s Dee Dee Bridgewater, Al Jarreau and Hubert Laws and backed by an energetic jazz quartet, full symphony orchestra and narration and voice characterizations by James Murray. “JumpinJazz Kids – A Swinging Jungle Tale” introduces children to the imaginative worlds of jazz, the spoken word and the Symphony in a fun yet educational, engaging and unique way. Produced and created by music industry veterans Steve Barta and Mark Oblinger, “JumpinJazz Kids – A Swinging Jungle Tale” is set for release September 25th.

                                                                                                                                                    

Wynton Marsalis And Eric Clapton Play The Blues – Live From Jazz At Lincoln Center Arrives On September 13

LOS ANGELES – New York City’s premier jazz venue got the blues last April when Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton performed together in Rose Theater at Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center for two sold-out shows dedicated to vintage blues. The extraordinary collaboration, billed as Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton Play the Blues, paired these musical virtuosos with members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra as they brought to life a repertoire of songs selected by Clapton and arranged by Marsalis.
 
Reprise Records captures the magic of these unprecedented shows from earlier this year on CD and as a CD/DVD combo that both feature selections taken from the two public concerts (April 8-9), as well a special performance for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s annual gala (April 7). WYNTON MARSALIS & ERIC CLAPTON PLAY THE BLUES – LIVE FROM JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER will be available September 13 at physical and digital retail outlets

                    TONY BENNETT STILL MAKING MUSIC AT 86

Tony Bennett, one of music's most legendary performers, celebrated his 86th birthday (August 3rd) and continues the celebration with news of the upcoming release of his next album. His newest CD, "Tony Bennett: Viva Duets" is hitting shelves on October 23rd.

This particular album will take an international approach, featuring songs in English, Portuguese, and Spanish and has quite a star-studded roster. Artists hailing from eight different countries and three continents will help Bennett achieve the foreign flair.

                    LOOKING BACK AT  VON FREEMAN - A CHICAGO LEGEND

Von Freeman, a tenor saxophonist who was iconic within Chicago's music scene and to jazz conoisseurs worldwide, died Saturday at the Kindred Chicago Lakeshore care center. He was 88 and had been in declining health for more than a year.

Freeman became a godfather of Chicago's jazz community not only through his distinctive style, which refracted the core language of bebop through its antecedents and outgrowths, but through his active leadership. For decades, "Vonski" hosted a weekly gig and jam session at the New Apartment Lounge on Chicago's South Side, attracting musicians and tourists alike. Unlike many contemporaries of similar talent, he never moved away from the town where he was born.

In 2004, he described his "Chicago sound" on the saxophone to NPR's Tony Cox. "Well, it's tough and it's windy, it's broad," Freeman said. "It means getting down to business, so to me it's just a composite of Chicago, all four sides. Of course, we have a lakefront, don't we?"

Earle Lavon Freeman Sr. was born in 1923 and grew up in a musical home. Major figures like Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller visited his house and Freeman's brothers George (guitar) and Bruz (drums) also become musicians. Freeman attended DuSable High School, where Captain Walter Dyett's music program was regularly producing future stars like Nat "King" Cole, Dinah Washington and Eddie Harris. He worked in just about every conceivable situation, from a Navy band to strip clubs to blues groups to the nascent AACM to jamming with stars passing through town. He did it all in the Chicagoland area, even refusing opportunities to join bands led by Miles Davis and Billy Eckstine.

Despite his talent, wide recognition, even within the jazz community, came late in life. Freeman was already 49 when he recorded his first album as a bandleader, 1972's Doin' It Right Now. It took him a few more decades and albums to develop a national profile. In January 2012, he was honored with the NEA's Jazz Masters award in a New York ceremony he was unable to attend. His sons Chico Freeman, a well-known saxophonist himself, and Mark Freeman accepted on his behalf.

Far from being bitter, Freeman said his relative obscurity allowed him to develop a unique artistic profile. In a 2004 All Things Considered story, he told Tony Sarabia of Chicago's WBEZ that his only regret was that his mother, who lived to be 101, never saw him receive fame.

"That makes me almost want to cry 'cause she was — she never really wanted us [her sons] to play music, but after we behaved ourselves to a certain extent, she was proud of us," Freeman said. "And she stuck it out with us, and she never saw any of us really make it, you know. And now I'm — I don't think I've made it, but, I mean, at least I'm being sought after for this 15 minutes."

ROBERTA FLACK AND DAVID SANBORN IN CONCERT

Billed as a "historic celebration of peace, music and common ground," the One World Concert is set to take place on October 9 at Syracuse University's Carrier Dome.  The concert is scheduled to follow a talk by the Dalai Lama at the University.  The all-star lineup for the show includes Roberta Flack, David Sanborn, host band Don Was and his All-Star Band, Dave Matthews, Phillip Phillips, Cyndi Lauper, Bebe Winans, Angelique Kidjo and David Crosby, among others.  Whoopi Goldberg will be the emcee for the evening, while Ann Curry from NBC News will be a special guest.  Proceeds from the concert will be donated to international relief efforts and to fund a new scholarship named for Bassel Al Shahade, a Syracuse University graduate student killed this year in Syria while filming a documentary about the violence in his homeland

       KEEPING JAZZ ALIVE IN BROOKLYN

On the wall nearby was a framed photo of Barack Obama standing in the White House gazing at a black-and-white photo of another musician, a saxophonist like Ravi. “To Ravi,” it is inscribed. “From a huge fan of your father’s.”

Not a little of the ambition of the new record is due to the ever-present specter of Ravi’s father, John Coltrane, one of most influential musicians of the 20th century. “Spirit Fiction,” with its rhythmic complexity and slippery structures, doesn’t so much challenge John’s legacy as move astride it. The album radiates a quietly adventurous artistry and a serene self-confidence.

That serene feeling emerged from conditions that were anything but. “Spirit Fiction” is Coltrane’s first record for Blue Note, the most legendary label in jazz and the company that in 1957 released “Blue Train,” the classic that made John Coltrane’s name as a bandleader. For the “Spirit Fiction” sessions, Ravi pushed himself and his bandmates hard. After recording tracks with his longtime quartet, Coltrane felt the urge to return to the studio again, this time in hastily arranged sessions with a quintet of musicians he has known since college. Thrown together with tape running, the quintet played with refreshing looseness, hitting on a mood that Coltrane had been seeking.

The final record contains tracks from both ensembles. Cobbling it together was an exhausting effort that strained some relationships; Coltrane’s quartet, formed in 2003, has gone on hiatus in its wake. It was a lesson his father might have passed along to Ravi: artistic searching sometimes leaves collaborators in its wake.

John Coltrane died of liver cancer at age 40 in 1967, when Ravi was not quite 2. He was raised by his mother, Alice, herself a brilliant composer and performer whose music — a trippy, meditative style of jazz that brought harps, synthesizers and chanting into the mix — was heavily influenced by her Eastern-inflected spiritual practice.

As a boy, Coltrane was sensitive, shy and a little nerdy. He aimed at becoming a filmmaker or a photographer. But he played the clarinet in his high-school marching band, and music — jazz, symphonic, pop (his aunt is the Motown songwriter Marilyn McLeod) — was always around.

“I used to sit in my mom’s car, back in the days when you could play the tape player without having to cue it,” he said. “And I’d literally just sit there after school and play tapes and stare out the windows just looking at the trees moving in the wind.”

He left high school after his older brother died in a car crash in 1982, and as he put it, “I just let a bunch of time pass.” When he emerged, he had left photography behind and returned to his musical roots. He began hanging out with serious jazz lovers, people who for the first time instantly recognized his surname.

“I had been anonymous in that regard,” he said. “Someone would say, ‘John Coltrane — I know that name. Wasn’t he a blues singer?’ I was just me growing up. No one knew who John Coltrane was. He was still an underground figure in many ways.”

He decided to study music and enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts. “Showing up with a saxophone and having the name Coltrane,” he said, “I immediately recognized that this was going to be distracting for people.” But it was also an opportunity. He spent summer breaks in New York with Rashied Ali, the drummer whose free-form style helped define John Coltrane’s late period. During daily jam sessions in Ali’s apartment, Ravi impressed older musicians who once played with his dad. Right out of school he scored a gig in the band of Elvin Jones, who played in John Coltrane’s legendary quartet of the 1960s. He proved himself on grueling international tours, but there were still people attracted solely by the novelty value of his lineage. Some record companies were more interested in getting him to join supergroups made up of the sons of jazz greats than in his own work.

“There were a lot of people who just wanted to take advantage of these things that for me — I felt, Man, I’m not here for that reason,” he said. “Anyone who knows me ultimately understands what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.”

In his airy home studio, he keeps his mother’s Steinway piano and his father’s saxophone, its keys capped in pristine mother-of-pearl. There’s a bass clarinet that belonged to Eric Dolphy, who played with his father. The miniature drum kit seems to have seen the most recent action, though his son Aaron, after begging for it, promptly grew bored by it. I asked Coltrane, who just turned 47, if he wanted Aaron and his brother to grow up to be musicians.

“Secretly, I’d love — ” He stopped himself and started to laugh. “Well, I can’t put that out there. Because it’s up to them — it’s up to them. They’ll be great no matter what they do. They’ll be cool no matter where they go in life.”

The Newport Jazz Festival will be anchored this year by the guitarist Pat Metheny, the drummer Jack DeJohnette and the vocalist Kurt Elling, among dozens of other acts, George Wein, a festival founder, announced on Tuesday.

Mr. Wein said he wanted to present not just veterans but also younger musicians who represent currents in contemporary jazz. These will include the saxophonist Miguel Zenon, the pianist Jason Moran, the trumpet player Ambrose Akinmusire, the composer Darcy James Argue and the drummer Dafnis Prieto.

First held in 1954, the festival has long been an important yearly showcase of top jazz stars. This year's festival will start on Aug. 3 in the International Tennis Hall of Fame at the Newport Casino in Newport, R. I. Outdoor concerts will be held in Fort Adams State Park on Aug. 4 and 5. Tickets go on sale on Thursday.

                                                   Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute

                                                        Phase 1: Intensive, August 7-11, 2012

                                  UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music -Los Angeles, CA

                                                 Eligibility & Guidelines            

       Terence Blanchard Named Jazz Chair For The Detroit Symphony Orchestra

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) unveiled one of the most ambitious seasons in recent years for the Paradise Jazz Series – a collection of one-night-only appearances hand-picked by the legendary jazz musician and composer Terence Blanchard.  Five-time Grammy Award-winning Blanchard will join the DSO as the Fred A. & Barbara M. Erb Jazz Creative Chair beginning with the 2012-13 season of the Paradise Jazz Series, sponsored by MGM Grand Detroit.

“We are thrilled to welcome such a renowned jazz musician to oversee our jazz series,” said Anne Parsons, DSO President and CEO. “Since Orchestra Hall was once home to the famous Paradise Jazz Theatre, it is very important to us to maintain that legacy by bringing the most talented acts of the genre to Detroit audiences. We believe Terence is the perfect choice to help do just that.”

In this role, Blanchard will assist in curating the acts for the Paradise Jazz series and contribute to community education initiatives.  As Jazz Chair, he plans to add an unprecedented facet to the position: for the first time in Paradise Jazz Series history, Blanchard will make special guest appearances throughout the season, serving as host and at times even performing with the featured acts.

“I am very excited to play an active role in shaping the future of the DSO’s jazz series,” said Blanchard. “It was extremely important to me to choose artists who I personally respect and whose talent is indicative of the inspiring jazz history in Detroit.”

We're proud to announce the inaugural Bass BootCamp EXPO! On Saturday, March 17th, Bass manufacturers and vendors will be exhibiting their merchandise from noon to 6pm at the Crowne Plaza in Reading, PA!  As a valued member of the bass community, you're receiving this exclusive invitation to attend the EXPO.  As an invited guest, your admission is FREE!

The stellar Bass BootCamp faculty will be making appearances during the EXPO including a master class by bass great, Victor Bailey! 

                                                             EXPO Basics

                                                       Date: March 17, 2012

                                         Time: Noon to 6PM (Sign-in starts at 11AM)
              Location: Reading Crowne Plaza, 1741 Papermill Road, Wyomissing, PA 19610
                                      

                                (Reading, PA is about one hour's drive from Philadelphia)

Can a massive jazz museum take root in Chicago?

Howard Reich Arts critic

February 29, 2012

Back in the 1990s, several influential Chicagoans joined forces to try to build a National Jazz Museum here.

They quickly raised $350,000 in seed money to launch an institution that would do for jazz what Symphony Center does for classical music or the Lyric Opera of Chicago for music drama: provide a world-class venue that nurtures the art form.

Better still, the proposed National Jazz Museum would achieve what none of its Loop counterparts attempted, giving music with African-American roots high visibility in a downtown cultural grid mostly devoted to white, European-derived art.

• Wynton Marsalis

But the effort lost steam in 1999, when the City of Chicago turned down the planners' proposal to take over a choice parcel of land up for redevelopment at the northwest corner of Roosevelt Road and Michigan Avenue, where the decaying Avenue Motel once stood. After that setback, the National Jazz Museum quickly faded into memory.

Now a group of respected Chicago cultural figures has revived the idea, in somewhat altered form and under a new name: the International Jazz Hall of Fame. But the core goal remains the same: To create a downtown institution for jazz, a music identified with Chicago around the world.

Considering that New York has Jazz at Lincoln Center, a multi-faceted cultural institution in Manhattan that opened in 2004, and that next January San Francisco will have the SFJAZZ Center, a free-standing edifice dedicated to the music, Chicago already seems late to the party.

Could the timing finally be right?

"We decided Chicago would be the city – if it wanted us," says Norman Brander, who co-founded the International Jazz Hall of Fame in Kansas City, Mo., as a nonprofit two decades ago and recently revived the idea.

"We've talked to a number of different people in the city, and they're excited about it."

Specifically, Brander, 68, has recruited for his advisory committee such jazz heavyweights as pianist Ramsey Lewis, Columbia College Chicago president Warrick Carter (a former jazz drummer) and Indiana University music professor David Baker, among others. In addition, the Chicago architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill – which had created initial designs for the original National Jazz Museum – has been helping Brander develop the concept.

The idea, according to the Hall of Fame's business plan, is to build "a world-class museum and tourist attraction," at an estimated cost of $45-$50 million, says Brander, that will hum with performances, recording sessions and educational offerings. To begin launching the project, Brander and his colleagues recently met with Michelle Boone, the city's Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, to pitch the idea. As a former member of the Chicago Jazz Partnership, a consortium of foundations and corporations that has poured millions into Chicago jazz in recent years, Boone indeed was intrigued.

"I love it – it's a great idea, that we would have an institution that would solidify the role of Chicago in jazz music internationally," says Boone. "But they've got a lot of work to do. …

"What I encouraged them to do is to meet with the Chicago Jazz Partnership, that that's a group of stakeholders really committed to jazz. I also encouraged them to meet with the people who years ago were trying to build a jazz museum in Chicago.

"What were some of the roadblocks? Who were the real crusaders? How do you re-enlist those people?"

As Boone says, the work involved in realizing such a colossal project is immense. Jazz at Lincoln Center was operating for years before opening its state-of-the-art, $128 million home at Broadway and 60th Street in 2004 – and that campaign was led by Wynton Marsalis, then and now one of the most celebrated jazz musicians in the world.

SFJAZZ, meanwhile, has been presenting the San Francisco Jazz Festival and concerts across the Bay Area for decades and is in the midst of raising $60 million for its state-of-the-art new home (including a $10 million endowment).

Though the International Jazz Hall of Fame has produced various jazz awards shows and jazz cruises, says Brander, who's based in Boca Raton, Fla., it has nowhere near the assets or track records of either Jazz at Lincoln Center or SFJAZZ. Yet Brander's quest clearly has found initial support from important quarters in Chicago, not least Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

"It's really exciting, but it's very early (in the process)," says Brian Lee, a design partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill who's involved with the Hall of Fame project.

"We'd love to see something like this come to the city of Chicago … so we'd love to help. As an architectural, engineering and urban design firm based here, we think we can assist them."

Yet past experiences raise an inevitable question: Considering all the support that the planned National Jazz Museum generated more than a decade ago, why did it implode after its first setback, the loss of its hoped-for site?

Jazz Musicians Expand Pension Protest

Les Brown Centennial Festival

The general public is invited to the  Les Brown Centennial Weekend in Tower City, PA on March 23 – 25.  This year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Les’ birth.

The Les Brown Dance is on Friday, March 23, 7:00 pm at Kevin’s Place in Lykens.  It features 2 hours of swing dance music by the valley’s big band, After Hours (www.theafterhoursbigband.com) .  Admission is $10 per person. Food and drinks are available

SAINT LUCIA (January 31, 2012) – Saint Lucia Jazz, now into its 21^st year, will feature some of the best live performances from renowned local, regional and international superstars, with celebrated performer and multiple Grammy winner Lionel Richie headlining this year’s festival.

The 2012 event, April 30 – May13, will feature over fifty artists performing against diverse Saint Lucian locales, from the signature Atlantic Ocean backdrop of the Pigeon Island National Landmark, to quaint and rustic village settings like Fond D’Or in Dennery, Rudy John Beach Park in Laborie and Seaside jazz at Duty free Pointe Seraphine in the heart of Castries.

Commenting on the diverse and star-studded list of performers, Tourism Director Louis Lewis noted that much thought had gone into presenting a package that truly reflected the record 21 year history of the event. “The longevity of Saint Lucia Jazz is testament to constant innovation and determination which is warranted to ensure that as a product, Saint Lucia Jazz remains fresh and exciting, so as to sustain public appeal and visitor attraction.”

Lewis told the gathering, “2012 innovations include a reduced yet more robust jazz centric lineup reflecting pure, smooth, Caribbean and Creole jazz with touches of R&B and world musical genres, and a more cohesive grouping of supporting community-based jazz events, which continue to define Saint Lucia Jazz.”

Main stage performances get underway from May 9 to13 and are headlined by Lionel Richie, who has garnered five Grammys and 18 American Music Awards, among other accolades. Other musical heavy weights include accomplished South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela; five time Grammy winning artiste Ziggy Marley – the son of iconic reggae legend Bob Marley; jazz aficionado Joshua Redman; hit R&B song writer turned performer and soulful songstress Keri Hilson; pop and hip-hop phenom Melanie Fiona and gospel king Kirk Franklin among others. A slue of Saint Lucia’s leading musical masterminds like Luther Francois, Ronald ‘Boo’ Hinkson, Richard Payne, Derek Yarde Project and others complement the casts.

Stretching Out, Close to Home

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Vaneese Thomas, center, will appear with a five-piece band on Feb. 25.

Steve Berman/The New York Times

Drummer Rudy Royston will perform with Mr. Patitucci.

Susan Stava for The New York Times

                         Tony Jefferson, a drummer turned part-time singer, will be at NewUrbanJazz on March 3.

G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times

The bassist John Patitucci will perform with a classic trio configuration.'

Tom White for The New York Times

James Weidman on piano.

This series, which runs through March 17 at the ArtsWestchester performance space in White Plains, is gaining traction with audiences — most of the 125 seats in the space sell out — and the word is out among artists of national stature who live in Westchester County that the series is a useful forum for delving into formats they don’t often explore.

The bassist John Patitucci, who will close the season, is a case in point. Widely known for his long associations with luminaries like the pianist Chick Corea and the saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and as the leader of a trio with saxophone and drums, Mr. Patitucci, who lives in Hastings, will return to a classic trio configuration — piano, bass and drums — when he performs in White Plains.

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  The 1984 hit movie Ghostbusters will be re-released worldwide this Halloween in an all-new digitally restored format. The film was nominated for two Oscars, 'Best Visual Effects' and 'Original Song' for Ray Parker Jr's chart-topping "Ghostbusters" theme song. The movie starred Bill Murray, Harol Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Sigourney Weaver and quickly became a cult classic.  Currently on tour with the legendary Jazz Crusaders, Ray Parker Jr. must be a happy camper. He wrote Ghostbusters, and  with this  re- release  he will soon hear.....  Cha Ching, Cha Ching!

Tony Bennett’s fans will have multiple options if they want to purchase music in celebration of the legendary singer’s 85th birthday.

On Sept. 20, Columbia  released Duets II, which includes Bennett’s collaborations with a host of vocalists. The tracks include “The Lady Is A Tramp” (with Lady Gaga), “On The Sunny Side Of The Street” (with Willie Nelson), “Speak Low” (with Norah Jones), “Blue Velvet” (with k.d. lang) and “How Do You Keep The Music Playing” (with Aretha Franklin).

The album will also include “Body And Soul,” a collaboration that was recorded with Amy Winehouse prior to her death in July. Bennett and Winehouse recorded the song at London’s Abbey Road Studios. The track will be released as a charity single, with proceeds going to the Amy Winehouse Foundation.

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  Michael Buble announced he'll release his first new studio CD since his 2009 multi-platinum release Crazy Love.  Christmas will be available in October and will coincide with the debut of his first memoir, titled Michael Bublé: Onstage, Offstage on October 13. Christmas is Buble's first full holiday CD and it includes a cover of Bing Crosby's classic 'White Christmas', featuring Shania Twain.

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SFJAZZ today announced the release of the SFJAZZ Collective’s eight limited-edition set, SFJAZZ Collective: Music of Stevie Wonder and New Compositions, Live in New York 2011 – Season 8, of which a maximum of 5,000 copies will be produced. Available exclusively from SFJAZZ — presenter of this year’s 29th San Francisco Jazz Festival, running September 15 through December 18 — the deluxe, hand-numbered 3-CD set is the definitive recording of this all-star jazz ensemble’s eighth year. Recorded live April 30-May 3, 2011 at famed New York City venue, the Jazz Standard, the release features new arrangements of the classic works of Stevie Wonder, as well as, all-new original compositions by Collective members.

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• Mindi Abair has been working on a 'tell-all' of sorts... it's her new book How To Play Madison Square Garden: A How-To Guide For Stage Performance.  Mindi says, "It's the culmination of a lot of years of experience being on stage and learning what works and what doesn't.  I've made every mistake you can think of, and I thought I'd condense what I know and have learned from these experiences in written form."  The book will be available in print and as an e-book that can be downloaded and is due out in a few weeks.  In the meantime, she's got a special performance coming up this Wednesday, September 14th at The Canyon Club in Los Angeles where she'll be filming the show.
  

Kicking off this Fall’s ambitious schedule is the much-anticipated opening night gala of the Los Angeles Philharmonic pairing Hancock with conductor Gustavo Dudamel at Walt Disney Hall.  Hancock will then set out on his first ever solo tour, which will see the artist explore his catalog alone on stage, accompanied only by his arsenal of keyboards and his signature Fazioli Grand piano.  Hancock will re-arrange and reinterpret his contributions to the canon of modern jazz, funk and electronic music for an evening of unprecedented virtuosity.  A trio of cities, Calgary, Portland and Seattle, will see Hancock revisit George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” in collaboration with their local symphony orchestras.

                                                               

Trumpeter Rick Braun spends a lot of time touring and recording, including his latest CD "Sings With Strings".   But, he revealed in a recent interview with the LA Daily News, he loves to spend his free time at home in his Mediterranean-style garden.  He's spent countless hours building terraces, patios and decks which surround the pool and the lush gardens, filled with fruit trees and native California plants.  He even worked in a 'river' with a small bridge over it at the request of his son, Kyle.  You can catch Rick on tour this fall with the Jazz Attack, featuring Gerald Albright and Peter White.    

 

                                    DIZZY GILLESPIE MEMORIAL FUND SILENT E- AUCTION

                                                          
 
100% donor supported, the Dizzy Gillespie Fund helps underwrite the costs of hospitalization, diagnostics, and a full range of surgical and medical care for jazz musicians who are uninsured or unable to pay. The Englewood Hospital and a network of more than 50 dedicated physicians, provide free care to the musicians at the medical center.

In 2003, a local jazz lover, Steve Fulgoni, helped wrest the house away from developers who coveted its three and a half woodsy acres. Thanks to his efforts, the Town of Huntington preserved the land. A foundation owns the house, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, but the National Trust for Historic Preservation just put it on its most-endangered list.

Mr. Fulgoni, an engineer, is teaching himself to be a historian and preservationist. He dreams of creating a cultural destination like Louis Armstrong’s house in Queens. There is no great enthusiasm in Dix Hills; some neighbors hate the idea of school buses and concerts on the lawn.

Long Island has lots of history, but does not do memory well. Walt Whitman’s birthplace is lost in the shadow of the Walt Whitman Mall. There are very few landmarks of its African-American history, beyond Booker T. Washington’s summer home in Fort Salonga and some cemeteries.

It is easy to share Mr. Fulgoni’s enthusiasm when you see the faded lime-green shag carpet in the practice room, and the living room’s fancy wood paneling. He estimates that he needs about a million dollars to do it. Meanwhile, if there are masons or carpenters who love jazz and could help fix things, he says, he would love the help.

                                               Amy Winehouse’s Dad Releases Jazz Record

In a unique coincidence, just a month before his daughters death, Mitch Winehouse, the 60-year-old father of pop singer Amy Winehouse, released his first record, Rush Of Love… and it’s swing in the Sinatra tradition.

Is it good? Well, he won’t make you forget Ol’ Blue Eyes, Nat Cole or Tony Bennett. But for all the raised eyebrows bound to glance his way, the elder Winehouse has a firm grasp of the truth.

“If Amy wasn’t my daughter, I wouldn’t be given this opportunity. I’m not stupid. I know that. But if I couldn't sing, I wouldn’t be given the opportunity either,” he said in a statement that accompanied the record.

Winehouse runs through a program of standards like “How Insensitive” and “April In Paris,” with four new tunes written by family friend, songwriter and producer Tony Hiller (writer of “Save Your Kisses For Me” among others). Hiller also produced this record.

                                                                       DAVE GRUSIN GOES APP

Composer Dave Grusin has released his recent An Evening With Dave Grusin (Heads Up) as a CD, Blu-ray disc and iPad app. The album was recorded with the 75-member Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami in December 2009. Arturo Sandoval, Gary Burton and Patti Austin are among the guest artists. Tracks include “Maria” and the nearly 12-minute “Suite From The Milagro Beanfield War.”

The Grusin iPad app will include photos, interviews, additional audio clips and other multimedia material.

For more info go to: concordmusicgroup.com

JONATHAN BUTLER, the  electrifying South African Jazz guitarist/vocalist, will perform for The Bernie Mac Foundations Jazz & Soul Sessions Concert Series , Thursday, September 8th 2011 at Mayne Stage on Chicago's North Shore.  Bernie Mac was a huge Jazz fan & loved every style of Jazz.  The Bernie Mac Foundation is keeping Bernie's dream alive by  holding Jazz fundraisers for  the Bernie Mac Foundation for Sarcoidosis.  Tickets available  by phone (866)-468-3401 or Order on line - Click this link: 

 http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sa​le/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=lo​adSelectionData&eventId=376456​5&pl=mayne