"Old favorites like Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter and Ahmad Jamal have brought new offerings, as have younger, more irreverent musicians like Matt Wilson and Dave Douglas, to say nothing of a reissue box set to die for, the long out-of-print work of Grachan Moncur III. Is there a “Kind of Blue” in the bunch? Not quite, but 2003 is beginning to look like a vintage year. There’s still more to come..."

There is so much New stuff in, and more importantly BLENDING, so many different genres of Jazz. And I thing I see an off shoot of this Jazz-wide trend in the number of Jazz releases from local San Diego musicians. Buddy Blue's "Sordid Lives", San Diego State University Jazz Ensemble "Where's My Hasenpfeffer?", Peter Sprague's "Sombra", Tim McMahon (sp?) "Illuminations", and others. There is a continuously refreshed New section of the Jazz 88 library from which I pull the music for The New Jazz Thing Live. It's an exciting time in Jazz.

And it sounds like Jazz Journalists are excited, including our friend Howard Mandel, to see mainstream print coverage of Jazz at all with this Newsweek article. Some other interesting things have sprung from the JJA BBS in recent days, so we'll have to start checking in their more often. And checking in with Howard...wonder what he's up to this Thursday around show time...um...
9:00:41 AM    comment []  Google It!  

"If I make something clear to myself, hopefully it makes things clear for others, in an act of love."

If I can do anything in my power to be involved in Border Voices, maybe as the radio-voice for the project, I will from today onward. I feel it's that important and fun. I'd like to start by having some of the winners on The New Jazz Thing Live show this coming Thursday. I'm now off make that happen. And the above quote expresses the inspiration well.

Gloria Foster clearly and beautifully states something that relates directly to weblogging, IMHO. Weblogging is the act of making something clear to yourself (the weblogger) by writing about it. In a very spontaneous, immediate, and public way. Spontaneous in a discussion sort of way enabled by easy to use publishing tools. Immediate in the timeliness of frequent updates (and use of day / time stamps on posts), a hallmark of weblog publishing. Public in that it's available to the world you care about (either Internet world or your own workgroup / community world. And it's gotta be about Love because we all know we're not doing it because it pay's well (as Jill jokes in the article).

There is lots more to say about the importance of words, especially expressive words in poetry and other creative formats. Let's committ to saying more of those Things here at TNJT!

As for the real reason for the Saturday Morning post...

The SCLL Tee Ballers get back into the swing of things with their first game in 2 weeks and picnic festivities following. Then maybe off to the Navaho Springfest where our fine Canyon Rim Children Center (CRCC) has an activities booth (we'll be missing the fun parade this year). I now wish I had the day free to spend at the Border Voice Poetry Fair at SDSU today. I'd like to get to Asylum Theatres "The Tender Trap" this last weekend of their existence (good luck Lee), sitter depending. I'm sure there are Sunday events I'm not remembering, so it will be a full on. On-line wise, there's also plenty to do, including a bit of spiffing up at the Playboy Jazz Festival Weblog, posting the Press Conference Pictures there, fixing the look of each posting (like not double, headline bold, comment, permalink, etc,), more PBJF news, etc. A Bluetooth headset for listening and speaking to the computer wirelessly, hopefully for recording audio bits, like live interviews at the festival, and being able to playback, edit, and post...Live from the festival. Or any event.

I also need to write down some ideas about getting Jazz appreciation into the schools in the same way Border Voices does poetry, or Art Corps does visual arts. With a definite audio element. Or multi-media element. Maybe the 'fun' or the projects are putting together simple-to-complex multi-media expressions of Jazz. Or being Jazzy. Living the Improvised Life.
8:05:16 AM    comment []  Google It!  

Interesting and down right close to home,

" The team of Iraqi technocrats was selected by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz but is officially employed by a defense contractor, SAIC, the officials said. The team is headed by Emad Dhia, an engineer who left Iraq 21 years ago and who will become the top Iraqi adviser to General Garner. As head of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, General Garner is functioning as Iraq's civil administrator."

I don't think I'll be seeing these folks in the cafeteria.
2:09:32 AM    comment []  Google It!  

http://blog.columbiarecords.com/thebadplus/gigs.html

What is Columbia Records doing with blogs? What's the grand scheme? Beyond hosting the very un-blog-like TBP Gigs page. Here's what Google says. Looks like John Mayer (or buddy "Scotty") is doing something more blog-like with his Road Journal page. Oh...and here's a somewhat related but not all so musical RSS Feed for these Columbia blog efforts. Let's subscribe and see what's there. [Later...oops] And then let's write someone and find out (if anyone reads the Contact page email).

How's this for a scheme:

Can you imagine what it would be like to be involved in a blogging effort / evangelism at a record company like Columbia?! That would be something of a dream job to talk to artists and their support folks about how an artist / band blog, which can easily be updated by the artist / band themselves, would be such a killer addition to any artists existing web site. That's the beauty of a blog: it would be the most updated page on a site, but can totally and easily be intergrated into a site the band already has. Replace all those infrequently updated 'Journal' pages on artist sites with Blogs.

And the evangelist would most definitely have his own blog, aggregating what the labels artists are blogging about on their sites and helping the process along. Hootie Hoo!!

[Later...] Radio UserLand's News Aggregator can't read their RSS Feed. It's saying "Can't evaluate the expression because the name "title" hasn't been defined." Drag and bummer. Maybe an RSS expert can help fix this?
11:43:53 AM    comment []  Google It!  

Hear it (MP3, 1.6MB) as it was Jazz Blogged on TNJT Live, April 24, 2003.

"The Bad Plus is just as rhythmically centered as MMW [Medesky, Martin, and Wood] are but the music as represented on These Are The Vistas steers back toward traditional jazz elements. If anything, the Bad Plus make better use of their heavy rhythm-section orientation - as a band of three rhythm-section instruments should - because, rather than relying on constantly propelling forward, the group will break down for solos to further develop the melodic elements of their pieces."

I thought the tune I picked for the show (and to go with Tom's blogage), "1972 Bronze Medalist", illustrated the 'heavy rhythm-section orientation' that Tom mentioned and also the broken down and reworked solo style of the band. BTW, "These Are The Vistas" has gotten lots of play on Jazz 88 (including last night's play on TNJT Live previewed in the above 'Hear It' link which inspired another play a couple hours later on Creative Music with Miff Mole.

The Bad Plus website has lots of linkage to audio ways to get a fix on these boys. And they've got samples from "TATV" in various formats on their Releases page. And it says on their Gigs page that they are going to be on the West Coast, as close as LA, at the end of May. It would be so cool to get them a venue in San Diego to play on that swing (if they have time)...maybe Dizzy's or some other not-already-booked venue?

BTW, on the web tip, TBP should lose the whole framed navigation of their site because you don't know what page you are on when you start navigating from the home page. And it makes it hard for everyday users to send their friends a link to that page. And it makes me have to do a right-click on the Releases link to get the actual page URL, which is how I linked to it in the paragraph above. Try going to their home page and click the Releases link near the top...your Location box will still say that you are at the Home Page. It's a small nit, especially for dudes who have much more important musical Things to be exploring!
11:21:10 AM    comment []  Google It!  

We talked about the different styles of Latin Jazz, which is the main theme of The Salsa Never Ends, her new disc. We also got into her early influences in classical (dad), to mainstream Jazz, and the on to Latin. I learned that Salsa music came from Big Band Jazz...I always thought Salsa was an older musical form. We also got to have her talk about a couple of tunes from the new disc that we played during the interview (but I've left out the tunes from the interview for fear of copyright or some other chilling enfringement...would be nice to leave in).

Susie will be kicking off the first Community Event springing from the 25th Annual Playboy Jazz Festival next Saturday, May 4, 2003 with a Free concert at the Beverly Hills Civic Center (Susie's got good details). We talked about the show, what folks can expect to hear (lots of stuff from the great new disc), and other things that Susie's got coming up (like her next disc and summer evening concerts by the pool at the Whittier Hilton...with 400-500 partyers a night to boot). She was great!

On with the interview. It's in two parts and you can listen to it either via MP3 streaming or MP3 download. If you're going to listen to it on your Inet connected computer, try out the Low FI MP3 Stream. The quality is good and using it allows more folks to listen to the interviews with the available bandwidth. But please, if you so desire, use the Hi Fi MP3 stream for best streaming quality. If you're going mobile, then take the MP3 Downloads with you to the far edges of your digital world!

2003.04.24 - Susie Hansen Interview - Part 1

Did they previously have a problem doing it both Day and Night? Are there some technical issues with doing it Day? or Night? Who cares?! Just some fun questions to ask while we contemplate cruising the rockin-with-killer-music Hollywood Bowl on Saturday, June 14, 2003 (memories). Ah ha...let's see if Nina can get us the folks that are doing the big screens at th fest...that would be an interesting interview! Hey, if it makes this killer festival happen with something New, we want to know about it.

That's kind of my thought behind having Darlene Chan (scroll down to the cool article on Darlene) on the show to see how she (with George Wein) puts together the musical talent for the PBJF. Nina's working that too. And she's working on her own interview with me, too (right Nina?). What does PR for PBJF do? What are the goals for a show like this one? To just get me to interview everyone? To sell more tickets (how many are left?)?

AND, my main girl Nina is working on Boz Scaggs for a chat on TNJT Live. It would be totally cool to talk Jazz with Boz and play tunes from the new Jazz standards disc, "But Beautiful". I took it as a measure of Boz's committment to the music and the tunes that his Home Page is THE page for the New disc. I also liked this quote from the new site,

"I thought it might be interesting to rework some of my songs with a more progressive treatment. Things opened up so nicely in rehearsal, I suggested we do a standard. We did the show, we liked it, the audience liked it, and that’s where it all began."

So an interesting angle on things would be if Boz had something audio-wise of those 'so nicely' opened up Things (we are TNJT, BTW) to share with us. Does he mean 'my songs' like 'Lido' or 'Lowdown'? Wouldn't it be too cool to hear those old Boz favorites done up in a New, Jazzy style?! And hear them in the context of the new stuff on "But Beautiful"? We play them, talk about how those things led to the New Things, and play those New Things.

I'd also like to how this feels to him? Does it feel different to be doing these standards in front of folks instead of his glory-day-tunes? Ya know, it's gotta be strange doing songs like "What's New" at exposing tempos and volume as opposed to his well-known groovers. I'm interested to know how he sees the new disc fit in with the rest of career. Is he just trying this on, or has these kind of tunes and treatments been in his closet for awhile, just waiting to be brought out.

And so we'll dedicate a few audio thingees to Boz to show our own committment. The New Home Page is cool, except you have to click on each of the samples to hear them. Not now: the Boz Scaggs But Beautiful Audio Sample Playlist (.m3u playing .wma, works in WinAmp, WinMediaPlayer). Listen in uninterupted sampleness (question: where's an alternate take or something else complete, Boz?). And to go back to 2001 for some current context, here's the Boz Scaggs Dig Audio Sample Playlist (.m3u playing .asx, only WinMediaPlayer can play .asx, I guess)...all of the samples from his last one, Dig (beware of auto-starting-looping-page-sample, ugh). And we'll go to VO's Boz roots with the very era-appropropriate Slow Dancer/Silk Degrees/Down Two Then Left box set, with it's own 'play sample clips' link (to more WinMedia stuff). Kind of nice to have some links to click on and hear a little more than just a taste of tuneage...like 5 or 10 tastes...at least). Hope you enjoy! I am right at this very moment and the New stuff sounds great.

And by the looks...I mean sound...of it, we'd like to have an in-studio chat with Daniela Mercury.

I'm also working on having Lizz Wright, James Moody (with Poncho, please), and others from the line-up on the show in the weeks leading up to the main event. OK, some real business to do.

Just a hopin' and a prayin'...VO
1:45:47 AM    comment []  Google It!  

[Later...] The Susie Hansen Interview from the show has been published in MP3 formats.

Jeff and Evan came by the studio tonight, after boys day at the park. And Evan rapped to San Diego (and the world via webcast) about his love for TNJT. Here's the MP3 to prove it. And the picture...

Can you tell I'm rushed! Use the Comment[] below to talk back.
5:10:38 PM    comment []  Google It!  

We'll be talking about her new album, The Salsa Never Ends. I'm really interested to hear who she feels like are the fathers of her style of Latin Jazz, including if there were any Jazz Violinists that had any Latin leanings. Hispanic Magazine (.com) has this to say,

"“Masterpiece” is also an apt description of the latest salsa-accented Latin jazz treat from violinist Susie Hansen on The Salsa Never Ends. Often it’s the spirit of Cuban charanga and vintage salsa that she taps, as on the title tune, while elsewhere she mixes it up with tracks like the merengue fueled “Blues con Fuego” and the romantic bolero “La pregunta,” which allows her elegant classical technique to surface."

We'll also be previewing her upcoming performance kicking off the 25th Annual Playboy Jazz Festival Community Events season. She's the featured artist, along with "the most recorded Jazz accordianist" Frank Morocco, next Sunday, May 4, 2003, with a free concert at the Beverly Hills Civic Center. How's that for some linkage!

Come back later and we'll get the audio archive of the interview up.
5:07:27 PM    comment []  Google It!  

Which sent me searching for (and finding buried in the email archive) a couple of similarly cool counting clocks / screensavers, for which I now post the links so I will never lose them again...

http://yugop.com/ver3/stuff/03/fla.html

http://www.lares.dti.ne.jp/~yugo/storage/monocrafts_ver3/29/bclock.html
(You can get this one as a screensaver.)

And that http://yugop.com site (follow the 'old' links) is something you could lose yourself in for awhile (if you can figure out how to navigate around it).
1:54:59 PM    comment []  Google It!  

I'm trying to complete the long late task of getting Virtual PC Windows XP on the new G4 Wireless talking (I got it running last night...hoo ray) wirelessly to this here Win2K old faithful machine and to the greater world of the INet. And talking to work, to boot (where it is supposed to really come handying seeing that's my current work desktop). But the first task was to boot Win2K and get my personal broadcasting network (hehe...Radio UserLand) up...before retreating to the upper reaches of Casa Chaos to finish the VPPXPWIN2KINET chore. Maybe then I can play. Maybe write some use cases. Or provide linkage Honorarium linkage to Nina Simone audio on NPR and Honorarium Bloggage by Blogcritics. On NPR Morning Edition, I heard the Ashley Kahn piece and thought it was pretty good. Love "Mississippi Goddamn". Wonder if Ashley'd like to do a little more stretched out piece with 2 or 3 tunes...and a couple of questions from this lowly TNJT reporter. I've never been able to find his email address though. Again I get distracted.

One more...on the Blogcritics front, I'm so psyched to see the most killer Music: Jazz postings coming out of there, especially tasting looking and hopefully dedicated-post worthy bits on Bill Frisell and this gaunlet throw down climax by Tom Johnson on The Bad Plus,

"It is too easy to replicate the past when it has become the institution that jazz has become. To break free and incorporate new elements, or even to simplify . . . that is the heart of jazz. If jazz is about being experimental, is it really jazz anymore when you don't?"

Amen! Can't wait to read them in their entirety. And isn't Tom Johnson that killer ex-lead singer and founder of the Doobie Brothers. Love your early stuff man...you country road rock and roll! "Steamer Lane Breakdown" blaring out the car windows into the dead-of-night warm wind heading to Hualapi Hilltop for the hike to the Indian village and beyond. Oh...that's Tom Johnston (but he's got some Johnson in him too). Our Tom Johnson is a thoughtful Jazz reviewer, with some willy musical tricks (and CDs) up his sleave and hopefully soon to be revealed,

"A review to me tells me the story of the album that I bought. I review something if I feel like it spoke something special to me or set in motion a particular thought process. It's unpredictable. Some albums, for one unknown-to-me reason or another, spark something. Once set in motion I follow through. So I know that in coming days there will be a review of Dave Douglas's amazing new album Freak In and John Zorn's second (of ten) tributes to his amazing Jewish-Jazz group, Masada (the recently released two-disc set Voices In The Wilderness with contributions from everyone who apparently has ever said "hi" to Zorn - including Mike Patton, Medeski Martin & Wood, Steve Bernstein, Tin Hat Trio, Zony Mash, and about a million other groups I've never heard of, but am very intrigued by due to their contributions.)"

Yo Tom, rock on! Be assured that blog-timely Jazz reviews, posted to the Blogcritics RSS Feed will get in front of my news aggregatin' face. And material for TNJT Live will be surfaced. And other connections (besides Tom Johnston), like how I spent New Years Eve 2003 listening to Tom Griesgraber play his Chapman Stick and how I have best of friends living in Chandler, AZ. Tom, where's your RSS Feed?

One more distraction...I wonder if John Malkovich would tell us, on the show this Thursday, why Nina was his choice for such an important role in his directorial debut "The Dancer Upstairs",

"He begins the film with a dark and expansive landscape accompanied by the soulful words of Nina Simone's "Who Knows Where the Time Goes." The haunting atmosphere, initiated early on, creates an unhurried pace that supports, but does not intrude upon or dictate, the rest of the film." (Tufts Daily)

(How do you get in touch with John Malkovich when he doesn't have a website?)

Or why Andrew Serwer, editor-at-large at Fortune, today included a Nina RIP blue-note in his Streetlife column. What impact was so great to warrant a nod in Andrew's business column? Nina definitely was of the street, poundin' the pavement with a message. God Damn!

Back to the technical issues (at this late hour totally dimming in any humor it gave at the time...superceded by most jazzy detours above)...

So as I'm watching Win2K reboot, I open up G4 to see if it's connected and if so, find try to connect somewhere to read something, can't just breathe for a second...must consume information. I open the new Mac browser, Safari (I'm using it and IEsomething), and it's still got Apple.com as the default home page (just noticed...that page looks different for a Mac user than a Win user...curious). I notice the little AOL Instant Messenger dude in a top navigation bar and not having had any luck using my AOL account with iChat (the Mac Chat client), I follow that and onto to an AIM download, install, and sign-on. Same problem. But a more prominent nudge...the one I needed...to the Forget Password page...which leads to an email...and to the AIM password...not the same as my AOL password...oh...because my AIM account was a Netscape AIM account originally and doesn't use the same password. How wierd. Anyway, it led to AIM successful sign-on. Back in the chat game.

Which led back over to iChat. Remember, on the same G4 machine. And to instant population of that with my AIM Buddy List. And to chating with Teri and Dave and subjecting them to a round-robin login-disconnection loop as I switched between chat clients on the G4 and Win2K, as machines booted up and automatically logged on and other such stuff. Well before chat looping again, I did get a chance to share the Blogcritics Radio latest treat Shannon Campbell with her in a favorite TNJT chat ploy, the audio link,

"OutlawV: Want to listen to something? OutlawV: http://www.blogcritics.com/mp3s/andromeda.php?q=p&p=%2FShannonCampbell
OutlawV: That was the tunes. Here's the info: http://www.blogcritics.com/mp3s/andromeda.php?q=f&f=%2FShannonCampbell
OutlawV: I'm switching again...something new...sort of..."

I could tell I had taken the leap-chat a bit far when closely followed by her signoff message, she sent "A lot of technical issues tonight." Yep. And now a lot of time issues. Blogidiction.

I guess it's time to give someone else a chance to solo. Wasn't it Miles that told 'Trane that to stop soloing, you "just take the horn out of your mouth". Take the keyboard out of my mouth. Wait.

Keep improvising...VO

P.S. The downfall tonight (and the glory) was turning on the Personal Broadcasting Network. Night Night.
11:39:04 PM    comment []  Google It!  

"This will give us incentive to do more jazz, which I love. Please check us out. i will link to what you guys are dong on our site. Thanks, EO"

And I see that Eric's already at it, linking Friday to one of the still young, but possibly all-time Jazz criticisms, by Pat Methany on Kenny G. And doing his critic-best to show a balanced approach...hehe...

"I would add that Kenny G blows chunks, and anyone who voluntarily listens to his insipid instrumental pop bilge should be forced to live in an elevator."

God save the critics! Long live the Blogcritics!!

BTW, the Blogcritics meeting, arranged by Doc apparently, isn't the first. I blogged about them just recently, which I can't find right now, and their Blogcritic Radio which turned me on to some far out Things when it opened a month or so ago. I'm checking out their latest MP3 audio gems from Shannon Cambell.

Now, do the Blogcritics have an RSS feed of the postings to their site? To quote Bob The Builder, "Yes They Do!" I'm now subscribed and will report back on other New Things site. Also, I owe some insight into my own Kenny G. collection...from the light-hearted funky days with Jeff Lorber. More and linkage later. The Easter Bunny calls.
9:27:56 AM    comment []  Google It!  

It's a concept that continues to take adjustment for me. As I said yesterday (down in the "Referrers" section). Maybe I'd been in a "quantity over quality" mindset since the advent of websites. Wanting to be able to answer that "How many hits to your page today" question instead of the "Who did you talk to today" question. Weblogging stresses the conversations not the broadcasts. But it sure doesn't hurt when you can get a little broadcasted!

I track Referrers to http://TheNewJazzThing.com and The Live Show at http://KSDS-FM.org/NewJazzThing using Technorati, a cool web service mentioned in our chat with Doc Thursday. With this very-'rati'-ish tool, you can see what weblogs are linking to my sites and what they are saying. It's called a Link Cosmos at Technorati. Check these out