Music
The Gig
My good friend Nate Chinen has launched a new blog — a replacement of sorts for his now-defunct Jazz Times column. Must-read stuff there already, including an introductory post and some behind-the-scenes musings on his recent NYT Grizzly Bear feature.
Use It
My dear friend Andee Hinds, guitarist/songwriter/performer extraordinaire and helmsman of Black Sugar Transmission, has just released a new EP called Use It, featuring Vernon Reid and other serious guests. BST played a killing show last night at Arlene’s Grocery to celebrate the EP. Here’s a video on the making of Use It, followed by my personal BST favorite, “Nine Butterflies,”
Sufism the answer?
Soon after watching “A Thousand and One Voices,” Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud’s absorbing if somewhat somber documentary on Sufi music, I came upon this Foreign Policy piece by Ali Eteraz, on Pakistan’s effort to promote Sufism as a counterweight to Talibanism. (Hat tip Adam LeBor.) Eteraz hates the idea: It signals an increase in the politicization of Islam in Pakistan — if
On Charles Fambrough
In the current Philadelphia Weekly: Charles FambroughSat., June 13, 7 & 10:30pm. $25 ($20 advance). Philadelphia Clef Club, 738 S. Broad St. 215.893.9912 www.clefclub.org Search for bassist Charles Fambrough on YouTube and you’ll find him with Art Blakey in 1982, holding it down behind Wynton and Branford Marsalis, both fresh-faced and in their early 20s. Fambrough’s deep, bone-shaking tone helped
“Fern bar”
Chris Rich at Brilliant Corners hails the left-of-center Vision Festival and revels in the collapse of Jazz Times, JVC Jazz Festival, IAJE, lamenting “the Middle Mind mediocrity of NPR fern bar jazz.” To me, this sort of self-righteous, us-versus-them, marginalized-and-proud-of-it blather is as suffocating as any hegemonic corporate jazz I’ve come across. I mean, NPR has stepped up its jazz
Vision panel, etc.
I’m on a panel at the Vision Festival this Friday, 5 p.m. Details here. The topic is art and politics. My fellow panelists are William Parker, Roy Campbell, Marc Ribot, Jason Gross, Amir Bey and Kidd Jordan. Moderated by journalist Nathalie Mattheiem. In addition, I’m playing an acoustic duo gig with my good friend Jon Dascal on July 9. Venue:
New York @ Night: June 2009
This month in All About Jazz-New York, reviews of Brad Mehldau’s trio at the Vanguard and Ray Drummond’s duos project at Tribeca PAC. Pianist Bill Mays, one of the Drummond participants, recently shared some video of himself with the late bassist Red Mitchell in the early ’80s. Absolutely captures the feeling of the old Bradley’s, as did Drummond’s show. (More
“Thank you, Brooklyn”
That’s what Youssou N’Dour said near the start of his BAM show on June 6, following a screening of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s moving N’Dour documentary, I Bring What I Love. Billed as a one-hour set, it went on longer thanks to the unstoppable energy in the house. There was a brief window of time where one could hear N’Dour but not