Thursday, January 16, 2003

The New Jazz Thing Live! Tonight 6-9 pm PT, Jazz 88, KSDS San Diego 88.3 FM

It's all in the blog. Other than how it all comes out and what kller jazz we blow tonight!!

If you've got something to say about tonight's show, use the ment[]k below.

Much Love....I'm rushed...look at the time...VO
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Snowboarding Record Attempt Ends In Tragidy

ABCNews: Stranded at 18,000 Feet: An Alaska Tragedy

"Griber yelled out to Sanders, but when he got no response, he realized the other climber must have fallen, too. He began to understand the situation facing him. He was alone at nearly 18,000 feet, and the temperature was -5 degrees Fahrenheit and falling with the fading sun. Much of the equipment he would need to get off the mountain alive — including the team's satellite phone — had disappeared in the backpacks of his two teammates. "I'm on the face by myself, and it's an enormous place to be," he remembers thinking."

Woa. What a story. And the rescue sounds like it was totally hairy too. Thanks for the link Jeff!
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Bill Russo RIP - Great Jazz Composer, Arranger, Player Passes at Age 74

NYTimes: William Russo, Composer and a Leader in Jazz Repertory, Dies at 74

"During the period of Kenton's 40-piece Innovations orchestra, Mr. Russo served as trombonist, composer and arranger in the band from 1950 to 1954 and wrote pieces for the band that freely oscillated between jazz and classical idioms, using polytonality and complex, multipart structure."

Bill Russo, courtesy of Paul Cacia

In other words, he was probing those boundaries or edges where Jazz and Classical music meet. The work was both complex and fully listenable. I've sent email to Terry Vosbein, whose killer writings on Russo are inspiring and informative about this artist. Maybe we'll get an impromptu celebration of Russo on tonight's show.

[Later...] Terry will be coming on at 6:40 to talk about Bill.

Terry Vosbein, the YoungerTerry Vosbein teaches music composition and jazz studies at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. He has composed works for orchestra, wind ensemble, various chamber ensembles and choir. And his compositions have been performed all over the world. He has been awarded residencies in Paris and a fellowship at Oxford, where he wrote "A Prayer For Piece", his reaction to the events of September 11, 2001 and a piece which has now been performed around the world. He has been an active Jazz bassist and arranger for the past 25 years, working with the Glenn Miller Orchestra and the Atlanta Pops, among others.

And I think he's aging rather gracefully!!

And the dude can lay down some heavy Jazz poetry, excepted here...

spontaneity and discipline...coming together in the pens of Jelly Roll and Duke and Monk and Mingus...what magical ink must they have used to fashion such voodoo mystical magical everlasting sounds

 

jazz...from then till now...flowing from the horns and creating swirls of sounds that never leave us long after the axe is packed and the cats are gone...gone cats blowing for us...blowing for themselves...sharing an inner journey...spontaneity and discipline...discipline and spontaneity...long may they blow

[Later...] Here's the interview wrap-up with links to MP3 streams and downloads for your listening pleasure!
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Terri Lyne Carrington Talks of Spirituality and Jazz On The New Jazz Thing Live

UPDATE: Terri Lyne has had to bow out at the last minute. Damn! We totally want to follow up on the spirituality Thing! Stay tuned.

Terri Lyne Carrington will be talking about spiritual things on The New Jazz Thing Live tonight around 8:20 pm PT (live from a Los Angeles Gig with Herbie Hancock, no less). She recently moderated a panel at the IAJE 2003 conference titled "Jazz Is A Spirit: Exploring the Spiritual Process of Jazz Artists". We are always trying to understand the inspiration behind Jazz artists (and artists of all disciplines) and the art they create. How can we all live an improvised life guided, all or in part, by the spirit inside of us all?

Terri Lyne Carrington - Drummer For Life - courtesy of Yamaha MusicTerri Lyne Carrington started playing drums at age 7 and by age 11 had received a full scholorship to the Berklee College of Music. Early on, she was playing with Jazz Masters such as Dizzy Gillespie, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Oscar Peterson, and Joe Williams and she recorded the album "TLC and Friends" with Kenny Barron, Buster Williams, George Coleman, and her father Sonny Carrington by the age of 17. She has recently focused on writing and producing artists such as Diane Reeves, who received a Grammy Nomination for the Terri-produced "That Day". She's currently touring with Herbie Hancock, who she'll be playing with tonight in Los Angeles (right after the interview). From her most recent release, "Jazz Is A Spirit", here are some words to get us ready to talk...

"Jazz is a spirit. Perpetual moments of pure creativity, jazz is abandonment within boundaries, the logical undoing of what you think it's supposed to be. Jazz is collective storytelling expressing the history and experience of a people. Jazz means no category, allowing for continuous progression. Jazz is a spirit. Can you hear it?"

In the Summer 2K1 issue of Yamaha's All Access, Terri breaks it down this way...

"In the end I share the philosophy of Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter when they talk about not playing music anymore, but just playing life. What you play is no different from who you are. You're not thinking about the technical aspects of music. The person who needs to have everything broken down into technical, analytical formats is exactly the one who isn't playing life. It's a matter of not separating yourself from your art. It's a matter of just being."

Should be a great time!
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Howard Mandel Speaks Of Learning Jazz and The Jazz Apprenticeship System

Howard Mandel, will be joining me this evening on The New Jazz Thing Live in the 7:00 pm PT hour. We will discuss how Jazz musicians are getting trained these days and how this is a change from the traditional model of young musicians developing under the tuteledge of one or more Jazz Masters.

Howard Mandel on The New Jazz Thing

Howard Mandel just recently filled in for Don Lucoff on an IAJE panel, "Is The Apprenticeship System in Jazz Being Dismantled?", one of the many promising offerings on the agenda at the recent IAJE 2003 conference that wrapped up last Saturday. Members of the panel included Dr. Billy Taylor, Don Braden, Dr. Herb Wong, and others. Howard has written for DownBeat, Jazz Times, Swing Journal magazines, among others, and wrote Future Jazz, which looks to be a totally promising read (and listen, there's a companion CD) itself (will have to shoot for one of those autographed editions...hehe). Howard is also the president of the Jazz Journalist Association and editor of it's website at http://JazzHouse.org, so he's right up our alley technically too!

In Howard's words, we get a taste for some of the ground they covered on the panel and what we'd like to just scratch the surface of tonight,

Howard Mandel: Hot Water

"What we talked about was essentially mentorship in jazz -- from Billy Taylor discussing how Art Tatum took him around and besides teaching him about music taugght him about life, to Don Braden's discussions of Betty Carter's educational initiative and tough mother on-the-job training, to Dr. Herb Wong's discussion of jazz teaching in school systems as "subversive activity that must be continued," to Ralph J. Peterson's stories about Art Blakey's "academy" and how he's trying to keep that tradition going with his students and bandmembers."

Should be a great discussion and add some insight to how the musicians we learn about and love become the musicians they are. And isn't Howard's art cool?!

[Later...] Follow this link to listen to our interview online.
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