Music
On Marcus & E.J. Strickland
My preview of their dual-CD-release show at Joe’s Pub (Friday, Aug. 21), in the current Time Out New York.
Philadelphia haps cont’d.
In the current Philadelphia Weekly: Avant Ascension Wed., Aug. 19, 9pm-2am. $5. Tritone, 1508 South St. 215.545.0475 www.tritonebar.com How time flies! It’s been a year since Avant Ascension, one of Philly’s bootstraps, artist-run jazz series, got off the ground at Tritone. Hosted by two young colleagues from Bobby Zankel’s big band Warriors of the Wonderful Sound — trombonist Larry Toft
The week on disc (49)
In case you missed the last one… Paul Meyers, World on a String (Miles High Records) Andrew Rathbun, Where We Are Now (SteepleChase) Edmar Castaneda, Entre Cuerdas (ArtistShare) Donny McCaslin, Declaration (Sunnyside) Pete McCann, Extra Mile (Nineteen-Eight) Steve Swell, Planet Dream (Clean Feed)
Here’s to Jimmy
Belatedly linking to this nice NYT photo gallery featuring the work of jazz photographer Jimmy Katz. (Hat tip Patrick J.) I had the pleasure of working with Jimmy and Dena on a bunch of “@Home” features for Jazz Times a few years ago (Ray Drummond, Andy Bey, Ben Allison, Fred Hersch, Reggie Workman, Dr. Billy Taylor, more). Personally and professionally,
Les Paul: a postscript
Howard Mandel sparked a back-and-forth about Les Paul on Facebook that had Claire Daly recalling one of Paul’s favorite gags: He’d sing “Happy Birthday” to some lucky audience member, and on the final “You!”, he’d give that person the finger. Which reminded me: Two years prior to my JVC Jazz Festival piece, I covered Les’s 88th birthday celebration at the
On Les Paul
In 2005 I wrote an appreciation of Les Paul for the JVC Jazz Festival booklet. I had an opportunity to interview Paul backstage at the Iridium, and also to play phone tag with an old guitar hero of mine, Journey’s Neal Schon (we never did hook up). On the occasion of Paul’s passing, I offer the article text below. —
On Mike Lorenz
In the current Philadelphia Weekly: Mike Lorenz QuartetSun., Aug. 16, 8:30pm. $5. Gojjo, 4540 Baltimore Ave. 215.238.1236 www.scifiphilly.com Guitarist Mike Lorenz operates out of the Lehigh Valley and mixes it up regularly in Philly, bringing a focused and fluent vocabulary to music of original construction. Working within the melodically edgy orbit of such role models as Ben Monder and Kurt
Jazz and the young
Better late than never, I’m linking to Patrick J’s two responses to Terry Teachout’s dire forecast in The Wall Street Journal on the health of the jazz audience. I’ll just recap and elaborate what I wrote in Patrick’s comments section: Big duh, Mr. Teachout. We all know the jazz audience will never rival the arena rock audience. As John Seabrook’s