NPR’s Fresh Air: A Look at Earl Hines and our New Box Set
It’s always nice to have the Fresh Air crew examine one of our sets. In this edition, Kevin Whitehead looks at the Earl Hines set, while focusing in on recordings Hines made as soloist and as the leader of some distinct big bands.
-Scott Wenzel
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Wadada Leo Smith to Perform Epic emTen Freedom Summers/em in New York
Composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith is readying his epic work, Ten Freedom Summers, named one of the three Pulitzer Prize finalists this year, for live performance in New York in the coming week. The entire work will be performed over three consecutive evenings, starting May 1, at Roulette in Brooklyn. (For info on the performances, go here.) In this article in the Chicago Tribune, Howard Reich ponders the significance of the work, both for the Pulitzer Prize process and for American music.
-Nick Moy
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Saxophone Taxonomy 101
Leave it to the Harvard Crimson to publish this treatise by staff writer Kevin Sun on jazz saxophone lineage, starting with Sidney Bechet and extending, at least at this point in history, to Steve Lehman and Walter Smith III. This exercise in tracing the musical genealogy of jazz saxophonists can be intriguing and even provocative, although obviously neither simple nor beyond dispute. I suspect that somewhere around Harvard Yard (wonder if Bird have felt at home in this Yard) there’s meat for a dissertation here. Luckily for today’s students, Miles Davis won’t be available to sit in on the dissertation defense.
-Nick Moy
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Art Blakey Photograph By Herman Leonard
Blakey in action was a thing to behold. I saw him perhaps a hundred times over 30 years and he threw himself into every performance with everything he had. At the first Mt. Fuji Blue Note Festival, after a jam session, I asked tenor saxophonist Ralph Bowen what it was like playing with Art. He said simply, “It’s like being chased by a team of wild horses.”
(A Herman Leonard photograph available at www.morrisonhotelgallery.com)
-Michael Cuscuna
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Bobby McFerrin Speaks
Bobby McFerrin is much more than just vocal. In this interview with John Lewis of the Guardian, McFerrin’s singular vantage point and experience lead to fresh perspectives on the way music has been organized, and will be organized in the years ahead. Thanks to Peter Blasevick for pointing to this story.
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Did Taxes Change the Course of Jazz History?
As many of us wave our tax dollars goodbye in our annual mid-April ritual, NPR’s Patrick Jarenwattananon speculates on the role taxes might have played in the history of jazz. Did entertainment taxes suppress big band jazz and foster the popularity of listening to be-bop? A provocative notion, in retrospect; we wonder what Dizzy Gillespie would have thought.
-Nick Moy
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Freddie Hubbard Interview
This is a thoughtful and, as always, candid interview with Freddie Hubbard. Although his trumpet playing was equal parts beauty and bravura, his conversations were always guileless and completely honest.
-Michael Cuscuna
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Gennett Days: Hot Jazz From The Heartland
Our good friend David Brent Johnson is host of a new radio series dedicated to the history of Indiana’s rich jazz heritage. The four part series, “Jazz Crossroads Of America” is an extension of his regular program “Night Lites” which streams live and heard over WFIU, Indiana University’s radio station. The first of this series is “Gennett Days: Hot Jazz From The Heartland” and delves into the early days of Indiana jazz. A musical highlight: a rare broadcast with Hoagy Carmichael and Bunny Berigan performing “Washboard Blues”.
-Scott Wenzel
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Read MoreArt Blakey All-Star Big Band with Woody Shaw
Oh, man, it’s great seeing this. This is from the second Mt. Fuji Blue Note Jazz Festival. Every time we had Art Blakey at the festival, I’d assemble a big band around him to close the three-day festival. Looking at Art, swinging like hell, connecting with the musicians and with the audience — what an amazing man. Woody Shaw is in magnificent form here. That’s Bobby Watson taking the alto breaks, and, of course, Herbie Hancock on piano, He and Woody are locked in on this. Cool to see young musicians in and among veterans like Grachan Moncur and James Spaulding.
-Michael Cuscuna
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Twenty-Two Jazz Trumpeters
I could stare at this picture all day: twenty-two jazz trumpet players, photographed by Herb Snitzer. From Ehsan Khoshbakht’s post in Take the A Train, where you can see the legend of the (trumpet) legends.
-Nick Moy
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