Today is the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Ian Gilmore Green, better known to jazz fans as Gil Evans, one of the greatest arrangers, conductors and composers in jazz history. I think it’s safe to say that only Duke Ellington, rivaled Gil for his contributions to large ensemble music, as both created new sounds, harmonies and textures in the jazz orchestra sound. After using new and different instrumentation with the orchestra of his mentor Claude Thornhill, Evans worked with Miles Davis to create a quartet of masterpieces – The Birth of the Cool, Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, and Sketches of Spain – that helped create the “cool sound” that became his signature.

NPR has a tremendous profile of Gil that you can check out here. It should not be missed. My interview with Ryan Truesdell, who heads the Gil Evans Project, can be heard here.

Gil’s masterpiece without Miles or Thornhill was Out of the Cool, recorded in 1960. The Penguin Guide to Jazz selected this album as part of its suggested "Core Collection" Click here to listen to his version of Kurt Weill’s “Bilbao Song”, by an orchestra featuring musicians like Evans on piano, Johnny Coles (trumpet), Jimmy Knepper (trombone), Bill Barber (tuba), Ron Carter (bass), and Elvin Jones (drums).

Recorded Apr 25, 1999, this is a live performance of a top quartet - Alto saxophonist George Robert, pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Rufus Reid, and drummer Kenny Washington -performing in Lausanne, Switzerland. The second song that night was a lovely ballad that Robert had composed to honor his late mother, who had passed away two years earlier. "Mom's Song" from the album Inspiration is the Official Straight No Chaser Song of Mother's Day, so be sure to share this with your mom, or pause to remember her while listening to the tune.
 

Maybe it’s the fallout from International Jazz Day, or the onset of warmer weather, but I’ve been increasingly drawn to releases with a Brazilian or South American sound. The weather in New England has been rainy, so perhaps these mellow sounds will chase away the clouds and give us some much needed late spring sunshine. What better reasons for Podcast 274, which features tracks from several of those releases, including:

Receita De Samba – “E Lux O” from Receita De Samba. Receita De Samba are husband and wife duo Anna Borges and Bill Ward, and the band name means “recipe for samba” in Portuguese  They hail from Boston’s vibrant Brazilian music and mix acoustic music with drum machines or electronic sampling to make their unique sound.

Frank Herzberg Trio – “Mil Saudades” from Handmade. Herzberg was born and raised in East Berlin, Germany, but followed his love, Brazilian pianist Marta Karassawa, south to São Paulo. His trio is made up of Herzberg on bass, drummer Zé Eduardo Nazário and pianist Alexandre Zamith. . Zamith, who holds a Doctorate in Classical Performance, and Nazário, who seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of rhythms from Brazil, help make this groove of a track go.

New World Beat – “Song for Brazil” from After Carnival. Miami-based New World Beat mixes Brazilian and other World tones into what they call a “sonic cocktail”, reminiscent of past  Pat Metheny sounds. The band - Richard Sprince - vibraphone;  Matt Vashlishan – soprano & alto saxophones; Tom Lippincott - 8 String guitar; Diogo Brown – fretless bass; Goran Rista – drums; Tony Cruz, Terezinha Valois – vocals; Cezar Santana - nylon string guitar;  and Dwili Dewongy –percussion; are joined by Jorge Pardo on flute for this ballad, which has bolero overtones.

Kate McGarry – “O Cantador” from Girl Talk. Singer McGarry is gaining more exposure and greater acclaim with each album release. This wonderful duet with Kurt Elling is made even more stunning by the deep and talented backing band of Keith Gantz - guitars; Gary Versace - organ and piano; Reuben Rogers - bass; and Clarence Penn - drums and percussion.

Towner Galaher – “Café Con Samba” from Uptown! This is a peak at a CD not due out for another month. Drummer Galaher has put together a band that features trumpeter Brian Lynch, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison, and tenor saxophonist Craig Handy. To give the sound some soul he has added Pat Bianchi, on the B-3 organ. Galaher wrote this one in 6/4, and the band, which has roots in Eddie Palmieri’s groups, knows how to bring the fuego.

Marisa Monte – “Descalço no Parque”  from O Que Você Quer Saber De Verdade. The album title translates as “What You Really Want To Know”, and while filled mostly with Monte originals, it also features covers from some of her favorite artists. Here she chooses Jorge Ben’s tune for her latest Blue Note Records release.

May 13 will be the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Gil Evans, one of Jazz’s greatest bandleader/composer/arrangers. First as a member of, and arranger for, the highly influential Claude Thornhill Orchestra in the early 1940’s, and then as a long-time collaborator with Miles Davis, Evans re-wrote the book on instrumentation and sound for jazz combos.

It would not be an overstatement to suggest that there might not have been a “cool jazz” or even a “modal jazz” sound without Evans. In 1942, he helped put together and write the book for a nonet whose members included Miles Davis, John Lewis and Gerry Mulligan. That group played the Royal Roost for a week, and then recorded an album’s worth of material that became known as The Birth of the Cool. Although initially released in 1948 and 1949, the full album did not appear until 1957. By that time, the lush sounds, “cool” phrasings and unusual instrumentation (French horns?) had reshaped forwarding thinking musicians’ thoughts on what was “jazz”.

From 1957 to 1960, Evans collaborated with Davis on three classic albums – Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain. Wildly popular and hugely influential, these albums re-imagined the Big Band and the jazz soloist in new and different ways. It’s said that Evans worked with Davis on his quintet recordings of the time as well, giving his thoughts on material that ended up being Kind of Blue.

To celebrate the Evans Centennial, bandleader/composer/arranger Ryan Truesdell has put together Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans, an impressive collection of previously unrecorded arrangements discovered during Truesdell’s work with the Evans family. Throughout this process, he discovered more than forty works of Evans’ that were never before recorded or released. Urged to record these works, Truesdell gathered an all-star orchestra that includes Steve Wilson and Donnie McCaslin on woodwinds, a rhythm section of James Chirillo (acoustic and electric guitar), Romero Lubambo (acoustic guitar), Frank Kimbrough (piano, harmonium), Jay Anderson (bass) and Lewis Nash (drums), along with vibraphonist Joe Locke and table player Dan Weiss.

In addition to releasing the CD, the Gil Evans Project will perform at the Jazz Standard for a week May 13-20, performing different parts of the Evans oeuvre each night. Truesdell will lead groups at the Umbria and Newport Jazz Festivals later this summer.

I spoke with Truesdell as he was putting the finishing touches on the CD. He spoke animatedly about Evans and the importance of these discoveries. Click here to listen to an illuminating conversation, including musical selections:

Ryan Truesdell – “The Maids of Cadiz” from Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans. Known as an inclusion in Miles Ahead, this is  a strikingly different version, featuring solos by Dave Pietro (alto saxophone), Frank Kimbrough (piano), and Greg Gisbert (trumpet).

Ryan Truesdell – “Look to the Rainbow” from Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans. This E.Y. Harburg/Burton Lane tune was arranged by Evans in 1965 for a project with singer Astrid Gilberto. It was dropped from the final version, and presented here for the first time, with help from Brazilian songstress Luciana Souza.

Ryan Truesdell – Excerpt from “So Long” from Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans. Part of a long medley, Truesdell said he knew that Donnie McCaslin, with whom he has worked with in Maria Schneider’s Orchestra, would kill on this solo. You be the judge.

Claude Thornhill & His Orchestra – “Anthropolgy” from Uncollected Claude Thornill & His Orchestra in 1947. It was Thornhill that first dared to have a Big Band that included at one time four vocalists, seven clarinets; two French horns and a tuba. The band on this tune, which was arranged by Gil Evans, features Red Rodney on trumpet and Lee Konitz, on alto sax.  Konitz would go on to work with Evans and Davis on The Birth of the Cool.

“Jazz ... that’s America’s only true indigenous art form. It’s our classical music, you’ve got to remember that…It’s the heart and soul of American music and we can’t afford to let it slip into obscurity.” – Quincy Jones at International Jazz Day at the United Nations.

Co-host Quincy Jones’ comments set the tone for the closing concert of International Music Day, a musical extravaganza on the floor of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York. The show, featuring many of jazz’s top talent, was the culmination of a day long musical marathon that began in Congo Square in New Orleans earlier that morning.

The concert, the brainchild of UNESCO ambassador Herbie Hancock, stressed the roots of jazz and the blues as American music, while showing that the music had become an international language. Performers from more than three dozen countries participated in the New York concert, from Africa (Angelique Kidjo, Richard Bona, Hugh Masakela) to the Middle East (Eli Degibri, Tarek Yamani) to Asia and beyond (Lang Lang, Hiromi, Zakir Hussain, Shankar Mahadavan).

The concert kicked off with a three song min-set by the ageless Tony Bennett and his group. Bennett still looks and sounds great, and if he reached a bit on an impassioned version of Kurt Weill’s “Lost in the Stars” (from a musical about Apartheid), he can be forgiven. Long may he sing.

The first collective “shiver down the spine” came when Hancock joined with former Miles Davis Quintet members Ron Carter and Wayne Shorter to honor their former boss with “Milestones”. Jack DeJohnette filled in admirably for the late Tony Williams, and it seemed only appropriate that no trumpet player graced the stage to fill in for Miles.

A core rhythm section of George Duke on piano, Christian McBride on bass and Vinnie Colaiuto on drums backed most of the performers, as jazz legends Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk were name checked. Chaka Khan dazzled on “Them There Eyes”, while the perpetual motion machine that is Dee Dee Bridgewater paired with Indian singer  Mahadavan for a scat-happy version of “Cottontail”. Joe Lovano added fiery flourishes on sax as the pair traded bars.

Danilo Perez turned in the first of two star turns paying tribute to Monk with an energetic version of “Think of One”. Perez, a Panamanian native, later joined Wynton Marsalis to pay tribute to Louis Armstrong with a growling “St. James Infirmary”. Esperanza Spalding showed her vocal chops on a rhythmic take on Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”, laying down fluid bass lines as she sang.

The crowd roared their approval when Michael Douglas introduced surprise guest Stevie Wonder to join Hugh Masakela and Jimmy Heath on “Grazin’ in the Grass”. Wonder’s harmonica was a foil for Masakela’s flugelhorn, with Heath getting his licks in as well. Wonder would return later in the evening for a moving duet with Esperanza Spalding.

The blues was given its due with the pairing of Robert Cray with husband and wife tandem Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi on Howlin’ Wolf’s “How Many More Years”.  Trucks whipped out a few of his now patented slide guitar solos, urging Cray on to match riffs. Similarly hot was the tribute to Latin Jazz, with legendary conga player Candido, a veteran of the 1940’s bands of Machito and Charlie Parker, dueling with percussionists Sheila E. and Bobby Sanabria.  Brazilian guitarist Romero Lubambo supplied the tasty fills.

The evening’s theme of the world-wide embrace of jazz was brought to a peak with Angelique Kidjo dancing and singing in the aisles of the General Assembly, urging the crowd to sing along with “Africa”. Another international high point was the matching of tabla genius Hussain with a trio of foreign born saxophonists including Troy Roberts (Australia) on John Coltrane’s “India”.

Clearly the company was there to celebrate the classic, while showing new talent and world-wide approaches to the vintage. When twenty-seven year old Esperanza Spalding plays with eighty-six year old Jimmy Heath, the passing of the torch is clear. The sole disappointment of the evening was the failure of the musical selections to reverse that theme, perhaps allowing septuagenarian stars to tackle 21^st century compositions. Similarly, the absence of any nod to hip-hop’s debt to jazz, perhaps by including a hip-hop stylist like Robert Glasper or Courtney Pine, or a jazz-influenced rapper like Common  was noted.

But this is nitpicking in the face of a stage full of true legends, celebrating on a scale previously unimagined for a jazz concert. Audiences all over the world were able to watch the show on the internet and listen on radio, and even play along with Hancock earlier that morning on a planet-wide version of “Watermelon Man” that allowed the New Orleans-bound composer to share solos with horns in South Africa and Asia via You Tube.

The evening ended with Stevie Wonder leading an enthusiastic company sing-along to his song “As” from Songs in the Key of Life. That album title could have served as the title for the show, which resonated with a power of positive energy. Bringing old and young performers from across the world was an unparalleled event, and one that will be remembered long after the music ended Monday evening. One can only hope that the General Assembly can see this kind of harmony, joy and love on its floor when the world’s representatives return for business in the near future. We’ll all be the better for it.

At 8:15 this morning, musicians, students and others (that means me) were asked to perform Herbie hancock's "Watermelon Man" with Hancock via streaming video. Here is my faithful, if a bit clumsy, bass part for the song. Special guest appearances in the video from my dogs Angus and Hamish.

Despite a tremendous body of work, pianist Steve Kuhn remains somewhat an afterthought when the great pianists of the past fifty years are named. From his days backing greats like Kenny Dorham, John Coltrane, and Art Farmer; through his days recording trio and solo albums of almost universal excellence, he has been a player and composer of integrity and style. His tenure living and playing in Scandinavia in the sixties coincided with the development of the European style of jazz, captured so often on ECM records. His work with singer Sheila Jordan is a high-water mark in singer-pianist collaborations, matched only by the likes of Bill Evans’ work with Tony Bennett.

Kuhn releases his latest CD on ECM this week, a trio recording called Wisteria. He plays with two long-time collaborators, bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Joey Baron. Strangely, this is the first time the three have recorded together. I spoke with him as he recovered form some trio dates in Spain, and was gearing up for a run of shows at Birdland to promote the new CD. He’ll perform some solo and trio shows over the summer, and will also return to the University of Massachusetts as a faculty member in the famous “Jazz in July” program established by Dr. Billy Taylor.

Click here to listen to the conversation, including tracks from the new CD and other Kuhn materials, such as:

Steve Kuhn Trio - “Pastorale” from Wisteria. This new album takes a fresh look at several pieces last heard on record in Kuhn’s orchestral Promises Kept collection. Why rerecord these older tunes? Partly, Kuhn says, because he simply hasn’t been writing much new material these days.

Steve Kuhn Trio – “Chalet” from Wisteria. A re-write of “The Real Guitarist (in the House)”, this tune kicks off the CD on a high note.

Steve Kuhn Trio - “The Real Guitarist (in the House)”from Raindrops…Live in New York. And here’s the original tune, performed to a samba beat by Kuhn on piano, George Mraz on bass, Sue Evans on percussion and Bruce Dilman on drums. Recorded in 1972 at Folk City, NY.

Steve Kuhn Trio with Joe Lovano – “The Song of Praise” from Mostly Coltrane. Kuhn was John Coltrane’s first piano player, working with the great man prior to McCoy Tyner. He talks glowingly of what he learned from Coltrane, and how he came to finally record some of Trane’s material almost fifty years after their collaborations.

Steve Kuhn Trio - “Today I Am A Man” from Three Waves. The trio format is Kuhn’s favorite way of interpreting music. This 1975 recording featured Swallow on bass and Pete La Roca on drums.

The inaugural International Jazz Day will be celebrated by millions worldwide on Monday, April 30, and will begin with an all-star sunrise concert in New Orleans' Congo Square, the birthplace of jazz and culiminate with a sunset concert at the United Nations. Presented by UNESCO in partnership with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, International Jazz Day will encourage and highlight intercultural dialogue and understanding through jazz, America's greatest contribution to the world of music.

Herbie Hancock will be joined in New Orleans by jazz luminaries Terence Blanchard, Ellis Marsalis, Dianne Reeves, Kermit Ruffins, Treme Brass Band, and Jeff 'Tain' Watts and many more.

The sunrise concert from Congo Square is open to the public and begins at 7am (8am EDT), and will be video streamed live at Jazz Day and Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.

We invite students and schools from around the world to join in the celebration of International Jazz Day and play "Watermelon Man" along with Herbie Hancock live from Congo Square, New Orleans at 8:15am EDT on April 30, 2012. Sheet music and an MP3 is available to download on JazzDay.com. Please video your performances of "Watermelon Man" and upload them to youtube.com and title them: International Jazz Day - Watermelon Man. Please include tags: JazzDay, April30, IntlJazzDay, HerbieHancock. Let us know the link and the musicians and where you performed and for how many people on this form. We'll post your videos and your photos on JazzDay.com.

International Jazz Day culminates at the United Nations with an all-star sunset concert. Joining Herbie Hancock are: Tony Bennett, Terence Blanchard, Richard Bona (Cameroon), Dee Dee Bridgewater, Candido, Robert Cray, Eli Degibri (Israel), Jack DeJohnette, Sheila E., Herbie Hancock, Jimmy Heath, Zakir Hussain (India), Chaka Khan, Angelique Kidjo (Benin), Lang Lang (China), Romero Lubambo (Brazil), Shankar Mahadevan (India), Wynton Marsalis, Hugh Masekela (South Africa), Christian McBride, Danilo Pérez, Dianne Reeves, Wayne Shorter, Esperanza Spalding, Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, Hiromi (Japan), and others. George Duke will serve as Musical Director. Confirmed Co-Hosts include Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Quincy Jones.

The concert at the United Nations General Assembly Hall begins at 7:30pm EDT and will be video streamed live at Jazz Day and Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.

In addition to viewing the concerts from Paris, New Orleans and New York at JazzDay.com, JazzCorner.com created JazzDay.com as an informational portal for jazz education resources and the site where you too can inform and show the world your jazz events and educational activities on April 30th. There are instructions and forms located on the site. After April 30th, hundreds of videos will be on display on JazzDay.com. To stay up to date: follow on twitter @intljazzday with hash tag #jazzday; Facebook: http://facebook.com/intljazzday. 

A live recording of Louis Armstrong playing his trumpet for one of the last times is being released to the public for the first time.

The recording is being played Friday at the National Press Club in Washington where it was created in January 1971. Armstrong was a featured performer celebrating the inauguration of fellow Louisiana native Vernon Louviere as president of the club.

The performance was a comeback of sorts. Armstrong had been in poor health and didn't play for much of 1970. But he felt strong enough to play in Washington and surprised the crowd with tunes like "Hello Dolly."

Armstrong died later that year.

Smithsonian Folkway Recordings is releasing Armstrong's music on CD and digital download after collaborating with the press club and the Louis Armstrong Foundation.

Today is Yom Ha'atzmaut (Hebrew for "Independence Day") and commemorates Israel's declaration of Independence in 1948. It was preceded yesterday by Yom Hazikaron, the Israeli Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism Remembrance Day.

Yom Ha'atzmaut centres around the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel by The Jewish Leadership led by future Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, just 8 hours before the end of the British Mandate of Palestine.The operative paragraph of the Declaration of the Establishment of State of Israel expresses the declaration to be “by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly.” The operative paragraph concludes with the words of Ben-Gurion, where he thereby declares “the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.”

Regardless of your politics, the establishment of Israel, and its survival these past 64 years is something of a modern miracle, given the ear total destruction of European Jewry just a few years before. I have had the pleasure of visiting twice, and have always left with a pronounced sense of wonder at the mixture of modern and ancient, or multiple religions, and cultures.

Israel has produced an amazing number of top jazz musicians over the past two decades, many of whom are now fixtures on the New York scene. A wonderful posting in NPR’s A Blog Supreme points out that:

Twenty-five years ago, the Israeli jazz scene was barely on the cultural map. But enough American musicians moved there, and enough foreign-trained Israelis moved back — and they started teaching. There's long been an infrastructure for classical music in Israel, and jazz latched onto that model. U.S. jazz schools have since established relationships with Israeli ones, owing in part to long-standing political relations.

So let’s celebrate the day with this podcast of Israeli-made jazz, including selections from:

Third World Love – “Im Ninalu” from Songs and Portraits. One of the leaders of this ensemble, Avishai Cohen, is one of the most in-demand trumpet players in the business. When not recording as a band leader or with this group, he is part of the SF Jazz Collective, Traveni, and with his siblings Anat and Yuval, the 3 Cohens. This quartet from their brand new CD features Israeli members Cohen, Omar Avital (bass), and Yonatan Avishai (piano). Drummer Daniel Freedman is American, but has a strong world music background, having been a part of Angelique Kidjo’s band.

Gilad Hekselman – “The Bucket Kicker” from Hearts Wide Open. Hekselman arrived in the US in 2004, and has been a key part of the New York jazz scene since then. This track from the fluid guitar player’s latest CD features Mark Turner (sax), Joe Martin (bass) and Marcus Gilmore (drums).

Anat Fort Trio – “Lanesboro” from And If. Pianist Fort arrived in the U.S. about 20 years ago, before a lot of other Israeli musicians were coming en masse. She's emerged with an idiosyncratic style: a European classical flourish here or there, with a marked interest in dissonant, occasionally free improvising. Her long-running trio (with Gary Wang and Roland Schneider) is the unit on this track from her second disc for ECM Records, named after a Minnesota town where she spent a residency developing her music.

Anat Cohen & the Anzic Orchestra – “Do It” from Noir. Cohen is at or near the top of every critic’s poll for her clarinet playing, but also can kill them on sax and other reed instruments. Her record label Anzic, is home to many of the musicians featured in this podcast, but aggressively seeks other talent as well. “Anzic” is a contraction of “ANat [Cohen] and muZIC [i.e."music" spelled subject to artistic license]. The backing band is an all-star ensemble comprising three woodwinds, three trumpets, two trombones, three cellos, and a guitar-bass-drums-percussion rhythm section and features performances by Ted Nash, Ali Jackson, Scott Robinson and others

 Gilad Atzmon & the Oriental House Ensemble – “My Refuge” from Live Frankfurt 2008. One of the most political of the Israeli musicians, saxophonist Atzmon named his band after the PLO headquarters in East Jerusalem. Band members here are Frank Harrison on piano, Yaron Stavi on bass and Asaf Sirkis on drums.

Avishai Cohen – “Yad Anuga” from Sensitive Hours. Not the trumpet player, this is the bass player with the same name. A founding member of Chick Corea’s band Origin, he also records as a bandleader. This CD was released only in his home of Israel, under the Hebrew name of Sha'ot Regishot.

Daniel Zamir – “You are My G-d” from I Believe. A John Zorn disciple who immigrated to the US and then returned to Israel after discovering a deeper sense of his religion, Zamir is a saxophone player of great range and sensitivity, as witnessed by this solo track.

Rafi Malkiel – “Aguanile Mai” from Water. Trombonist Malkiel built this entire album around sounds and treatments of water. Released as part of the "Radical Jewish Culture" series on John Zorn’s Tzadik record label, this song finds him backed by Anat Cohen (clarinet); Avishai Cohen (trumpet); Chris Karlic (bass clarinet, tenor saxophone); Itai Kriss (flute); Gili Sharett (bassoon); Jack Glottman (piano); Dave Hertzberg (bass); Daniel Freedman (drum set); and Benny Koonyevsky, Nestor Gómez, Shane Shanahan; Mauricio Herrera; and Anthony Carrillo (percussion, timbales, congas, bongo, clave).

Eli Degibri – Title Track from Israeli Song. If you go through saxophonist Degibri's biography, you learn he largely represents the trend of Israeli jazz musicians.  He studied with some of the folks who came to Israel to teach jazz; and at a popular Tel Aviv arts magnet high school; he spent time at The Rimon School, which has a connection with Boston's famous Berklee College of Music. After time in a prestigious master's program, he finally made it to New York, where he ended up playing with some of his heroes on this record - Brad Mehldau (Piano), Ron Carter (Bass) and Al Foster (Drums).

3 Cohens –“Rhapsody in Blake” from Family. And so we end where we begin, with the Cohen family – Anat (Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet), Yuval (Soprano Saxophone), and Avishai (Trumpet), backed by a crack rhythm section of Aaron Goldberg (Piano), Matt Penman (Bass), and Gregory Hutchinson (Drums). The tune, written by Yuval, shows off their tight interplay as well as their ability to solo with panache.