Music

My review of William Parker’s Curtis Mayfield project at the Painted Bride, in today’s Inquirer.

My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in All About Jazz-New York, May 2008: Jon Balke, Book of Velocities (ECM) Rob Brown Ensemble, Crown Trunk Root Funk (Aum Fidelity) John Ellis, Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow (Hyena) Fieldwork, Door (Pi Recordings) Shot x Shot, Let Nature Square (High Two) Will Vinson, Promises (19/8)

I have some CD reviews in the May 2008 Jazz Times:  Brian Blade Fellowship, Season of Changes (Verve) Andrew Rathbun, Affairs of State (SteepleChase) Uri Caine, The Classical Variations (Winter & Winter) The Quincy Jones ABC/Mercury Big Band Jazz Sessions (Mosaic)

I’m back from a few days in Florida with an unreliable web connection, so I’m just getting the news about the passing of Jimmy Giuffre. Darcy has the best blog roundup, of course. Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it, but one of the least discussed items in the Giuffre/Bley/Swallow catalog is Fly Away Little Bird, recorded in 1992

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In case you missed the last one… Marilyn Mazur & Jan Garbarek, Elixir (ECM) Scott Robinson, Forever Lasting: The Compositions of Thad Jones (Arbors) John Tchicai/Jonas Muller/Nikolaj Munch-Hansen/Kresten Osgood, Coltrane in Spring (ILK) Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin, Holon (ECM) Vijay Iyer, Tragicomic (Sunnyside) Dave Douglas’s Keystone, Moonshine (Greenleaf)

My review of the Terence Blanchard-Spike Lee retrospective at the Kimmel Center, in today’s Inquirer.

Having attended my share of annual IAJE conferences, and having published Willard Jenkins’s critical account of the Toronto confab in the latest issue of Jazz Notes, I’m obliged to note that the 2009 Seattle conference has been canceled. The IAJE is in a state of financial collapse and its recently canned director, Bill McFarlin, has turned out to be the

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My profile of saxophonist/flutist Elliott Levin, the front-page feature in the Magazine section of today’s Inquirer.