Aug 24, 2010
Getting twenty fingers to work together is no easy task. However, the husband and wife team of Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes does a darn good job of making it work. Double Portrait is an album of piano duets, and when they take on Brazilian classics (a groove-less version of Jobim’s “Double Rainbow”) and standards...
Aug 16, 2010
One of my favorite singers, Abbey Lincoln, has died in New York over the weekend. She was 80 years old. She was not merely a singer, but a songwriter, an actress, an advocate for civil rights, and a participant in some of the most daring jazz recordings of the 1960’s..
As a jazz singer, Ms. Lincoln traced her lineage...
Aug 15, 2010
Given that my late father was a bass player, I confess a certain soft spot in my heart – and blog – for bands led by bassists. Thanks to Harvie S., I have a new CD to return to anytime I want an understated, yet powerful, bass fix.
These days, the pyrotechnics of a Stanley Clarke or Victor Wooten are what comes...
Aug 14, 2010
More free jazz in Connecticut! For the next two Saturdays – August 14 and August 21 – the historic Downtown Green in New Haven, in the shadows of Yale University, will play host to some outstanding music and musicians. It’s two wonderful days at what they are calling “Jazz Haven”.
On Saturday August 14, jazz...
Aug 13, 2010
For 50 years, a famed artists' retreat in Peterborough, New Hampshire -- the MacDowell Colony -- has made a prestigious annual award to artistic greats -- painters, playwrights, classical musicians. now, for the first time, the MacDowell medal will recognize a jazz musician - saxophonist Sonny Rollins.
Click here to go...