Shuggie Otis, Past and Present
On the occasion of the re-release of his influential 1974 album Inspiration Information, with tons of subsequent, previously unreleased music on a second disc, Shuggie Otis is making a comeback and has been touring recently. (For more on his comeback, see this New York Times article.) The son of Johnny Otis and son-in-law of former employer Gerald Wilson, Shuggie Otis remains a killer guitarist and innovative songwriter. Give this release a first listen on this NPR site.
-Michael Cuscuna
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Sun Ra’s Pathways through the 1970s
Sun Ra, by his attestation, may not have been of this world, but he was most certainly in this world during the 1970s; and like others who inhabited the space commonly associated with jazz during those times, his pathways grazed musical trends of the day. This NPR feature, by Jeff Golick and Jeff Jackson of Destination: OUT, points to five recordings documenting Sun Ra’s travels during that period.
-Nick Moy
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Vijay Iyer and his New Work on the Hindu Spring Festival
As Vijay Iyer’s April 27 Carnegie Hall headline debut approaches, Iyer’s work, particularly the premiere of his new multimedia work Radhe Radhe, Rites of Holi (the spring festival of colors) during this year’s observance of Holi, has caught the attention of the Hindustan Times. Here’s Anirudh Bhattacharyyaa’s take from Mumbai on Iyer, his work and what he has accomplished. (Photo: Jimmy Katz)
-Nick Moy
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Read More1938 Benny Goodman Carnegie Hall Concert
This is a very well done video-montage compiled of newsreel footage, still photographs and other memorabilia of the famous 1938 Benny Goodman Carnegie Hall Concert. All of this was gathered together by Jon Hancock who has, in fact, recently written a book on this concert for the ages.
-Scott Wenzel
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Louis Armstrong Unissued Recording to be Unveiled
JazzTimes announces a gathering on April 30 (International Jazz Day) at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens, heralding the discovery of a previously unknown performance of Louis Armstrong’s “West End Blues.” Unfortunately, it’s not an alternate take of the June 28, 1928 masterpiece recorded for OKeh, considered one of the most significant jazz performances ever put to wax, but fortunately, it’s still Armstrong, it’s still the “West End Blues” and it’s the last surviving presentation of this piece by Louis, recorded while he was in concert at Feedomland (a defunct park in the Bronx) back in 1961. Dan Morgenstern, who was there on that day, will be a guest speaker reminiscing about the event.
-Scott Wenzel
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Earl Hines On NPR
One of our most current releases, Classic Earl Hines Sessions 1928-1945, gets the Fresh Air treatment over NPR stations hosted by Kevin Whitehead. He captures the essence of this set zeroing in on Earl’s solo work as well as discussing the diversities of each of the big bands.
-Michael Cuscuna
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Paul Bley Blindfold Test
This highly extended blindfold test with Ted Panken finds Paul Bley in irascible, riotous form. It is by no means unusual to find musicians challenging the limitations of the “blindfold test” format; here, Bley prods Panken, the tester, to give him something challenging to listen to and digest — not so different, after all, from what intelligent and perceptive listeners to the art form should demand.
-Nick Moy
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Wayne Shorter and Joe Lovano: A Provocative Conversation
This recent conversation by two masters bridges the generation gap for tenor saxophonists and for Blue Note artists. Wayne Shorter and Joe Lovano converse about what means the most to them: music and the human condition.
-Michael Cuscuna
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Maria Schneider Records Her New Orchestral Songs with Dawn Upshaw
Composer and leader Maria Schneider covers new creative terrain in her latest project, a set of orchestral songs she wrote and recorded with the great singer and new music proponent Dawn Upshaw. Schneider and Upshaw talk about their collaboration, and the new ground they each explored, in this interview with Leonard Lopate.
-Nick Moy
(Photo, L-R: Dawn Upshaw, Maria Schneider. Credit: Jimmy and Dena Katz)
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LaMonte Young and his Masterpiece
New music composer LaMonte Young, routinely named in the company of Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Terry Riley as one of the fathers of American minimalism, may have outdone them all in terms of sheer scope, demand for concentration, and potential for profound revelation in his six-hour plus masterpiece The Well Tuned Piano. Tom Service offers this encouraging and helpful guide to what he calls “one of the great achievements of 20th-century music.” (Also, read about how the paths of Young and Eric Dolphy crossed.)
-Nick Moy
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