AAJ: So did the improvising change when you were playing with Osby, or DJ Logic?
CH: Yeah, well, it did earlier—but as Bobby and I have played together, our thing as a unit has become so strong that they kind of had to get in where they fit in. And most people do. Anyone playing with you is going to change where your direction is. But I just think we’ve got such a continuity with what we’re doing that most people come in and fill in the blanks. And sometimes we leave a lot of blanks to be filled.
AAJ: So this is live music and at the same time, the CDs have some weird, unnatural ambiences. It’s a totally studio-effected sound at times.
CH: Bobby is really the one who did all the editing on that stuff. And he did all the mixing. I particularly like the record we did with Logic because Scott Harding did a great job mixing it. He’s really a killing engineer.
AAJ: When you finish one of these records, is there very much unused material left over?
CH: Hours. We could make lots of different records of this. If we really wanted to be cool, and everyone in the world had Pro Tools, we could just put it up on the internet and everyone could make their own record out of it.
AAJ: So the upcoming and final Groundtruther installment is called Altitude, and now we know DJ Olive is the third member for this one. Is this recorded yet?
CH: Not yet, but very soon.
AAJ: Let’s talk about your main gig, the Charlie Hunter Trio, which now consists of Derrek Phillips on drums and John Ellis on tenor, bass clarinet and flute.
CH: And actually Wurlitzer and melodica now.
AAJ: Oh, I had no idea.
CH: Yeah, we recorded a record down in New Orleans last April. And it’s pretty smashing! It’s a real departure for us. It’ll be out on Ropeadope in January.
AAJ: John’s recorded debut with you was the Songs From the Analog Playground CD.
CH: Yes, we’ve been together for a long time, going on five years now.
AAJ: Derrek joined around the time of the quintet album, Right Now Move.
CH: Yeah, about three years ago now.
AAJ: Tell me how you got acquainted with these two.
CH: Well, John—it all goes back to New Orleans today, everything.
AAJ: Well, it would.
CH: Stanton Moore introduced us. John lived in New Orleans for a long time and he moved up to Brooklyn. I needed a horn player so I went to hear him and said, “oh, you sound great: here’s a gig.” It worked out real nice. So we’ve been hookin’ it up ever since; we’ve been through quite a few different groups together. Then Derrek—he’s about ten or eleven years younger than I am, and I knew him when he was a kid out in the Bay Area. He moved out here and I thought, “wow, he’s ready to roll.” He’s just been killing ever since. Every time we play together, he’s got more scary stuff happening than he did the time before.
AAJ: I think that guy is tailor-made for your band.
CH: Yeah, we have a really nice thing.
AAJ: It’s got to be nice that John Ellis is a good composer as well as a horn player. That means with you, there are two writers in the band now.
CH: Exactly. Derrek is coming along; he’s started writing. But John’s a great writer and a lot of times John and I—well, maybe I’ll have an “A” section and he’ll have a “B” section, or his “B” section will actually become the “A” section, or whatever. We’ll just mash stuff together to make tunes.
AAJ: I like the Charlie Hunter Trio. I think your music works well in a trio setting. I like the spaciousness of the sound the three of you get; there’s always air in there, even if someone is playing a lot. Is that spaciousness the reason you choose to work in a trio nowadays?
CH: It’s funny, because I had a quintet, which I really loved doing because it was just so fun to be behind such a powerhouse. And I just ended up losing tons of money. I had a great time, but I just couldn’t do it. Bush-onomics made me get back to the trio again. But the silver lining got bigger and bigger all the time and I realized that this really is my most natural milieu to function in.
When we first did it, we were like, “oh my god, what happened to all our sound? Where’s everything?” And then as we played more and more as a trio, it became more and more of a situation where we realized we really knew how to use the fourth member of the group—that space. The thing about the trio is that it’s the biggest sound you can have with the smallest unit. So you can really stop on a dime and take it in directions that you just can’t with an extra person.
AAJ: You guys actually work that “stop-on-a-dime” thing—on a song like “One For the Kelpers” there are those built-in start/stops in the groove.
CH: Right, exactly. And our whole thing is based on having the rhythmic thing—like everything I do, really. But we’ll try to do decelerandos, accelerandos. Some of the accelerandos are my fault and they’re not supposed to be there; they just happen that way [laughing].
AAJ: Yes, every beginning musician is very skilled at accelerando, whether he knows it or not.
CH: Exactly. But we try to do those kinds of things that take whatever the music gives to a bigger space.
AAJ: Well, before I learned that John was now playing more instruments than I had thought, I was going to say just how happy I am that he plays bass clarinet and flute in addition to tenor. I love the tune “Darkly,” which is a flute feature for him.
CH: Oh yeah, he played great on that!
AAJ: There’s something about flute over rhythmic music that is classic.
CH: Yes, it brings the Middle Eastern thing to mind.
AAJ: I also love your comping over John’s playing. At times he even comps over you, which is considerably more difficult.
CH: Oh, that I like. That’s my favorite thing.
Re: Кто слушает джаз? Автор:pempeДата: 02.10.05 10:25:15
AAJ: There was nothing market-driven or contrived about what they were writing or playing.
CH: Because they defined the market. What they did, just by force of the power of what they were doing, defined the market. The market didn’t define the music; the music defined the market.
AAJ: I wonder if we’ve gone way too far the other way.
CH: Oh, we’re all the way the other direction.
AAJ: Musician as content provider.
CH: I don’t know; “content” is going a little far! There’s so little there. I do dig the White Stripes. I like the record they have out now.
AAJ: They’re great, yeah. Let’s talk about your work with Bobby Previte, who’s become a great collaborator of yours.
CH: Yeah! Teacher, really.
AAJ: I think you worked with him first on the Come In Red Dog, This Is Tango Leader CD. Now you and he have done two albums of a projected trilogy as Groundtruther, which is a duo with a rotating third member. Before we start discussing the actual records, tell me how you and Previte started working together.
CH: He just called me up. Skerik is a mutual friend of ours. So he called me and we just hung out, jammed a little bit. So we were like, “yeah, let’s play some,” and it has just evolved since then.
AAJ: Okay, the two of you did Come In Red Dog, This Is Tango Leader; that’s the two of you in the studio. What made you both then decide to do this Groundtruther project with a rotating third member?
CH: That was kind of our modus operandi. We’d been playing lots of gigs at the Knitting Factory at the Old Office. And we’d have a third-person guest; we’d play four nights and each night we’d have a different guest. We’ve had [soprano saxophonist] Jane Ira Bloom, [tenorman/multiinstrumentalist] Peter Apfelbaum, [trombonist] Ray Anderson, [tenor player] Seamus Blake, [keyboardist] Uri Caine, [trumpeter] Steven Bernstein, [altoist] Oliver Lake—and of course, [alto player] Greg Osby, who we play with a lot now. And [turntablist] DJ Logic, who also we play with a lot. [Osby is the third player besides Hunter and Previte on the first Groundtruther CD, 2004’s Latitude, and Logic is the guest on this year’s Groundtruther album, Longitude.] We’ve almost morphed into a quasi-band unit, because we have played with a guy called DJ Olive lately a whole lot, and he’s the guy we’re going to be doing the last installment of the trilogy with.
AAJ: So the Groundtruther CDs are pretty much live in the studio, right?
CH: Everything we do is live, yeah. And it’s all improvised. The idea behind it is that we’re just trying to improvise songs, really. Tunes. We’re trying to come up with a tune until it reaches its fruition within the stream of things, and then it’ll morph into another tune. Or one of us will stop, and someone else will start something. So it’s basically just on-the-spot tunewriting.
AAJ: So you’re playing your eight-string on this stuff, obviously. Bobby is playing a regular kit and also electronic drums?
CH: Exactly. He’s got a regular kit and then he’s got these pads that trigger samples that he’s made. And that’s really great, because, you know, Bobby’s quite a composer. Basically, if it’s a duo, it’s just the two of us there composing. Perhaps I’ll put in a little melodic fragment. Then he’ll put in a melodic fragment and maybe they’ll work together. Maybe they won’t be quite in tune and that makes it more exciting. It’s just a way of trying to get to a third thing that’s not particular to any quote-unquote genre. It’s been great for me; it’s really opened me up and gotten me to use that part of my imagination. It’s very scary in a lot of ways, and just as exciting.
AAJ: It’s funny you mention genre. If I’m picking through the material on the CDs, I can say this song sounds like this kind of music, and this other one sounds like that kind. “Tropic of Cancer” sounds kind of like King Crimson, say. But it’s really about how you can play any way you want.
CH: Yeah, it’s more like playing what you think is appropriate for the moment. It’s not about trying to force any particular style within the parameters—and the parameters we play in are pretty large! Ultimately, at the end of it, it’s just trying to get into that space where you feel like you’re hitting the right thing and you’re making music. And it feels intuitive rather than being counterintuitive. Now, when we first started, I would be playing something good and then feel like I wasn’t doing the right thing and launch into some idiotic cliché. Luckily for me, Bobby was patient [laughing]. But it’s a way of exercising that completely improvisational aspect of who you are. It’s been great for me because it’s really informed everything else I do in a really cool way.
AAJ: I don’t want to belabor the point of it all being live, but I have to ask. Is everything I hear happening in real time? For example, “Horse Latitudes South” on Latitude has these different sections and I thought it was an edit piece.
CH: Yes. Well, here’s the thing. Everything we did, we did live—and then Bobby took it home and chopped it up and edited it. Which is pretty much what they did with every jazz record you’ve ever heard [laughing].
Re: Кто слушает джаз? Автор:pempeДата: 02.10.05 10:17:25
AAJ: I like how at certain times on the record he becomes not just the horn player, but the horn section. There aren’t many overdubs, but there are parts where he’s a whole overdubbed section.
CH: Yeah, and the reason we did that was because after we had made the record, a few of those tunes that didn’t have any of the sax stuff on them—we felt like, well, these are lines that are rhythmic lines. They’re not really dealing with the melodic narrative, so to speak; they’re not standing on their own in a way that if the saxophone was a guitar or a piano, they would. So we figured, let’s section up that stuff—not to make it bigger sounding, but to make it sound like less of a non sequitur.
AAJ: “The Dream” is a remarkable-sounding tune. I think it’s just your guitar, vibes, and Skerik’s sax. It’s got this steamy, close ambience.
CH: Well, I’ve been working with [drummer] Bobby Previte a lot. He’s turned me on to a lot of the minimalist composers. I was just joking around with the guys, because we were doing all of this heavy stuff, so I said, “well, let’s just do a quick little Steve Reich piece or a Philip Glass kind of piece.” So that was it, basically, lots of very simple parts intertwining to make one thing where, again, there’s no melody dominating.
And essentially, that’s the idea behind this whole record. It really is a rhythmically focused, minimalist piece where there’s no melody that’s predominating—the music that happens occurs with the mixture of all the rhythmic parts. And the way the music keeps your attention, if it does, is just in the small changes that are done in the course of what appears to be a completely repetitive groove. That’s the overarching concept.
AAJ: Fortunately, I find that stuff totally absorbing, so the album really works for me. And I think Garage à Trois really sounds like itself—meaning I don’t think there’s another group out there now that sounds like it. But songs like “Needles” and “Antoine” really do make me think of one person, and that’s James Brown. Skerik’s got some Maceo Parker in his playing in “Antoine” and Stanton’s as powerful as Clyde Stubblefield, which is a huge compliment. But it’s the overall locked grooves that make me think of James Brown and the way his songs were also sort of modularly composed of a couple of rhythmic parts. Anything to this comparison?
CH: Oh, definitely. I’ve studied that music pretty intensely. Really intensely, actually. But that kind of falls in line; when you think about it, James Brown was a funk minimalist. All of those parts create a sum that’s larger than than the individual parts.
AAJ: And a lot of them were just written by James in his head on a bus between gigs and then they pulled over at some studio and just tracked them.
CH: Yeah, but a lot of it was also written by [trombonist] Fred Wesley. He wrote a lot of that stuff, and I had the good fortune to be on the road with him for a three-week tour that was educational—to say the least.
AAJ: Outre Mer sounds pretty different from the first Garage album, Emphasizer. That one sounds more psychedelic, less polyrhythmic. Do you think this new one differs much from the first?
CH: Oh, vastly. We didn’t have any concept when we went in to do that record. We weren’t even sure we really wanted to do a record. But we would play every year at [New Orleans] Jazz Fest with that group, once a year—and then it got kind of popular with what I guess people would call the jamband crowd.
AAJ: Where you’ve always had something of a following.
CH: A little bit. You know, I’m happy to have it because I think that with a lot of that music, they’re valiantly trying to improvise and trying to be rhythmic—but they just don’t have the background or the vocabulary yet to do it. Most of those kinds of jambands just aren’t ready yet to approach that music. But they try! And I think it’s really a serendipitous thing, because their fans are also not really evolved yet in their musical journey to really be able to get more than what those guys are doing. So it’s kind of a cool thing.
But then the people who have evolved beyond that are thinking, “wait a minute, I really want to hear some music that is improvisational and has a rhythmic thing that goes beyond this”—and that’s where people like us who have been trained as musicians our whole lives come in. So I think that we got a huge audience from that, and we just had to put a record out. So we did that Emphasizer record, but for the next record, I was very adamant. I’ve been making records for a long time, and I always try to go in with some type of an overarching concept as to whatever the record is. Not so much that it kills the music, but enough so that there’s a statement made.
AAJ: Well, a record kind of needs a meaning.
CH: Exactly. And especially those of us who are in our late thirties, early forties, who kind of grew up with records—where you would go to the record store and you would see something and go, “oh, what is this? Hmm, Back in Black.” I remember buying a vinyl copy of Are You Experienced? and being, like, wow! And whatever the record was—the Beatles, Marvin Gaye—they all had a concept.
AAJ: And the record covers—back in the day, you couldn’t hear anything in the record store. You had to buy it to find out how it sounded. And that was kind of cool. Especially when I brought home, say, Houses of the Holy and it sounded exotically cool, just like the record cover. They knew how to package that stuff.
CH: But the thing that’s so beautiful is that I don’t think they were thinking about packaging. They were just living it. All those guys back then. And it’s the same thing with Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Louis Armstong, Billie Holiday, Jimi Hendrix, Roy Acuff, Hank Williams—they were just living it. That’s why it sounds so good and it resonates, because that was just the reality. They were just simply living it. Which is not to say they weren’t intellectual giants, because they were, but they also were just in it and living in the time.
Re: Кто слушает джаз? Автор:pempeДата: 02.10.05 10:12:43
Eight-string guitarist Charlie Hunter has stunned audiences for years with his virtuosic ability to play simultaneous bass and guitar lines, sounding at times more like a Hammond organist than a guitarist. The Hammond sound’s just one of Hunter’s trademark tones, however, and his technical prowess shouldn’t stand in the way of appreciating his considerable talents as a composer and bandleader. Whether playing in a quartet, quintet, trio, duo or solo format (he’s done plenty of recording and gigging in all these configurations), Hunter’s groove-based jazz/rock hybrid is immediately recognizable, and has produced some classic albums.
I spoke with Hunter in the very early days of the New Orleans catastrophe; his management and many musical associates are based there. Fortunately, all had gotten out of the city and were accounted for. We spoke about Hunter’s collaborative band Garage à Trois and its excellent new CD, his experimental Groundtruther collaborations with Bobby Previte, the Charlie Hunter Trio, his take on the jamband scene, his thoughts on comping, his much-vaunted bass/guitar technique, and more.
All About Jazz: Let’s start by talking about Garage à Trois, the group you’re in with drummer Stanton Moore, vibes player Mike Dillon and saxophonist Skerik. I want to start with Garage since the band’s soundtrack to the as yet unreleased film by Claus Tontine, Outre Mer, is your newest CD. Did the film inform this music? Were you tailoring the tunes to individual scenes?
Charlie Hunter: You know, I really don’t have any idea because I never met the guy. It’s all Skerik. Basically, Stanton and Mike and Skerik and I got together and Stanton and I worked out a lot of grooves in the studio. That was our idea, just to put these grooves together—get “A” sections and “B” sections and just kind of build the music that way. And as far as [Tontine] went, I don’t really know—I’ve never met him, I don’t really have any contact with him. I was just down in New Orleans for the week that we recorded it. I wish I could tell you something; I do so much stuff that I’m totally ignorant as to what the thing is even about! [laughing]
AAJ: Well, that really just means that you made a Garage à Trois record. I love the way this band plays together; it’s not at all about accompanying solos. It’s a quartet where every member is sort of a part of the rhythm section.
CH: Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. That’s the exact concept behind the music: to take that kind of, I guess whatever you want to call it, jazz sensibility—but not have it be about solos. I mean, in the course of an evening, people will take a solo here and there, but generally it’s all about the rhythm of that music. Dealing with the rhythm with everything. That’s essentially at least my concept of what that group is.
AAJ: It’s all interlocked parts. For example, the title cut to the album, “Outre Mer,” is an incredibly polyrhythmic song. It’s all stacked rhythms. I notice there are no individual credits on this CD. Are these all group compositions?
CH: Pretty much, yeah. Stanton and I would start with the germ of an idea: I would write some parts, Stanton would have a rhythm part—and then Mike would decide, “okay, this would be a good tune to put tabla on.” Or conga, or vibes, or marimba. And then Skerik would add stuff over the top of that.
AAJ: So when I hear extra percussion parts, like on “The Machine”—which is my favorite song on the album, just a polyrhythmic behemoth—when I hear any percussion besides Stanton’s kit, that’s all Mike?
CH: Yeah, that’s all Mike. There was very little overdubbing on this record, actually. Other than some horn stuff Skerik did, and a few percussion overdubs Mike did—most of it is live.
AAJ: It’s got a very good recorded sound.
CH: Well, that’s Mike Napolitano. He’s a great engineer.
AAJ: It feels strange to speak of your playing as if it’s two instruments, but essentially, that’s what you do, and your basslines and Stanton’s drums go together very well. How did you two get together?
CH: We have the same manager, and years ago, we played a little bit when his band Galactic came through the Bay Area when I still lived there. And then he called me to do a record date eight or nine years ago. And we’ve been playing ever since.
AAJ: His playing on “The Dwarf” is particularly astonishing; he does these amazing snare rolls—it’s like Art Blakey on steroids.
CH: That’s the New Orleans second line; that’s his forté.
AAJ: Skerik’s a pretty unique saxophonist and I especially like his smoky, short breaks on “Etienne.” Tell me what you like about playing with him.
CH: For one thing, when you’re playing live, he’s the guy you want in front of the band. He’s indefatiguable; he just goes to this place where he can kind of do no wrong as your frontman. You know what I mean? You just feel like you want to work really hard to make sure that he’s safe to do whatever he wants. I’m almost more entertained by what he does than the audience is—and that’s not even from a musical standpoint. From a musical standpoint, what’s great about him is that most saxophone players—especially in my age group, people in our late thirties—are really interested in the whole tenor tradition and really, really immerse themselves in that. Which I think is great.
AAJ: That’s the jazz thing.
CH: That’s the jazz thing. And it can be a great thing and that is the identity of the tenor saxophone. Yet what I like about Skerik is that he’s immersed himself in that, but to the same degree he’s also immersed himself really deeply in punk rock and heavy metal. He spent a lot of time in London where he played with these zoukous guys from Zaire. So he’s really into that music and into lots of production stuff, and all that stuff just comes across in what he does. His use of electronics, all the analog processing stuff he does with his horn—in that department, I think he’s kind of the benchmark for everyone else that plays saxophone.
AAJ: It’s funny that you speak of him as a frontman, because even though this is a music of collective parts, if anyone is playing a front melody, it is usually him.
CH: Right. But the thing about the saxophone is that it’s like our version of the operatic tenor. The second you play one note on it, it’s just this incredible clarion call: “wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” It’s very hard for a horn like that to be in the rhythm section. And he does a really great job of being in the rhythm section as a horn player.
Re: Каверы битловских песен Автор:pempeДата: 01.10.05 12:09:06
Track Listing: I Feel Fine; Paperback Writer; Rain; Michelle; Yes It Is; Please Please Me; Things We Said Today; From Me To You; A Hard day's Night; Ticket To Ride; Yellow Submarine.
Personnel: Len Clarke: drums; Ron Forbes: vibraphone; Mike McNaught: piano; Brian Moore: bass.
Re: Каверы битловских песен Автор:pempeДата: 01.10.05 12:06:59
Take a New Look at the Beatles London Jazz Four | Harkit Records
This Brit quartet made the songs of the Fab Four their own, taking a lot of risk in reinterpreting many timeless classics but also approaching lesser-known Lennon-McCartney tunes (sadly, there are no Harrison compositions on the album). The result is a collection of songs on this disc (originally released in 1967) that sound almost if they were completely new. For instance, “I Feel Fine” receives a Bach-like harpsichord riff that repeats itself throughout the track, the rest of the instruments basically improvising around the song’s original melody.
John Lennon’s Dylan-esque “Rain” gives a lot of space for vibes player Ron Forbes and pianist Mike McNaught alternately to showcase their visions on each song. Gone is the song’s original dark feel, which is replaced by a slow, peaceful one. The early tune “Yes It Is” is barely recognizable, featuring percussion, finger cymbals, and a triangle as backdrop for the piano, which sounds as if McNaught’s fingers had a hard time moving over the keys, giving an otherwise simple song an eerie, almost ghostly feel.
The quartet swings through “Please Please Me” and “Things We Said Today,” but the latter has more of a Latin jazz sound with some Afro undertones. “A Hard Day’s Night” turns out to be one of the best tracks on the CD. The song morphs into a jazz waltz, which is an interesting development. Also pay close attention to the playfulness and simplicity of the musicians’ take on “Yellow Submarine.”
Re: Эротические обложки альбомов - Erotic cover art Автор:pempeДата: 01.10.05 09:27:12
You Bring Me Joy Hedvig Hanson and Andre Maaker | Emarcy
There's some beautiful music on this new release by Estonian jazz singer Hedvig Hanson and guitarist Andre Maaker. Sultry vocals combine with warm acoustic guitar to create soothing sounds that are soulful and even therapeutic.
Hanson, an acclaimed vocalist, has garnered awards and notoriety in Europe. You Bring Me Joy , her second international release, conveys the mysticism of her homeland yet also is filled with modernistic enticements. Her voice is alluring, rich, and unpretentious, revealing world-class influences from American soul music divas such as Anita Baker and Whitney Houston.
The beautiful lyricism of Hanson’s voice is supported by impressive musicianship from her counterpart. Maaker provides smooth playing with hues of Latin, classical, and folk music. His opening notes on “Tuning” are marked with clarity and a cool precision, adding to Hanson’s supple voice, which segues into “Nii Orn On Oo,” where Hanson sings lyrics sung in her native tongue. The two artists weave an intricate mutual pattern as they communicate with interesting melodies and arrangements.
The twelve selections have a global appeal that fits into various styles, from the interesting remake of the classic “I’m Glad I’ve Got You” to the instrumental piece “A Little Moon,” featuring wonderful fretboard work by Maaker. On the solitude of “Bona's Lullaby,” his guitar is captivating as Hanson provides chorus-like voices. The centerpiece, “You Bring Me Joy,” a popular hit by singer Anita Baker in the '80s, is both romantic and jazzy as Hanson and Maaker add their own unique arranging and performance touches.
There’s some light Brazilian swing action on “Terra Incognita” as guitar and voice trade lines. Hanson not only can sing with some of the best, but she also scats like Ella Fitzgerald on “When Morning Comes,” accompanied by guest trumpeter Nikita Grushev. There’s much to enjoy here, and comparisons can be easily be made to other current vocalist/instrumental recordings; but this release clearly stands on its own. Just listen and you’ll hear why.
Visit Hedvig Hanson on the web.
Re: Кто слушает джаз? Автор:pempeДата: 01.10.05 08:24:27
Saxophonist Steve Marcus dead at 66 NEW HOPE, Pa. (AP) - Steve Marcus, a jazz saxophonist who recorded and toured with Stan Kenton, Herbie Mann and Buddy Rich, died Sunday. He was 66. Marcus died in his sleep at his home in New Hope, family members said. He was a pioneer of the jazz fusion movement of the late 1960s, a musical movement that combined elements of rock 'n' roll and jazz. Marcus had been touring lately with the quintet “Steve Smith and Buddy's Buddies,” a tribute band to the music of Buddy Rich, said fellow saxophonist Andy Fusco, a member of the group. Several of Marcus' recordings have been recently reissued, including “The Count's Rock Band,” and “Tomorrow Never Knows,” which garnered five stars from Down Beat when it was released, Fusco said.
-- Associated Press
Re: Джаз-рок вообще, и The Mahavishnu Orchestra в частности. Автор:pempeДата: 29.09.05 22:29:49
В начале 90-ых годов вышли два диска под общей рубрикой MARK VARNEY PROJECT: "Truth in shreding" и "Centrifugal Funk". Стиль фьюжин с металическим оттенком. В первом гитарные партии играют Frank Gambale и Allan Holdsworthб во втором Frank Gambale, Shawn Lane и Brett Garsed.
Re: О Rolling Stones замолвим слово Автор:pempeДата: 29.09.05 22:07:12
16 сентября одному из величайших музыкантов современности исполнилось 80 лет. Райли Б. Кинг более известный как Би Би Кинг стал за 60 лет своей творческой деятельности оставил глубокий след в сердцах нескольких поколений. Как заявил сам Кинг американскому изданию USA Today он даже не думает о том, чтобы завершать свою карьеру. К его юбилею выходит новая пластинка с символическим названием "80", вслед за которой его ждут еще несколько туров по США.
По признанию Кинга он "родился и вырос совсем в другой Америке, в Америке, где черные и белые жили отдельно". Вспоминая свою молодость, обладатель 14 премий Грэмми, отметил, что "на юге США, где он вырос, жизнь черного парня стоила очень немного, но белых, отрицавших расовые предрассудки, тоже было достаточно", сообщает сайт Newsru.com .
Отец 15 детей, дед 30 внуков и 7 правнуков, Кинг родился 15 сентября 1925 года в селении Итта Бена, недалеко от Индианолы. Этот город расположен в дельте реки Миссисипи, родине дельта-блюза. Будучи сыном испольщика, уже в раннем детстве он начал работать на хлопковых плантациях, он также рубил лес и даже водил грузовики.
К 16 годам Райли уже бегло играл на гитаре, особенно налегая на блюз, и неплохо пел, давая импровизированные уличные концерты. В 20 лет он покинул плантации и отправился в Мемфис, где и началась карьера великого блюзмена. За свою творческую жизнь он дал более 7000 концертов, в некоторые периоды он играл 300 в год. А такие композиции как "Thrill is gone", "How Blue Can You Get", "Everyday I Have the Blues" навсегда стали классикой блюза.
Blues.Ru
Re: О Rolling Stones замолвим слово Автор:pempeДата: 28.09.05 22:17:48
145th Street Deluxe Blues Band Nominated For 'Best Blues Album' 2005
145th Street’s self-produced debut CD, 145th Street - Deluxe Blues Band, has been nominated for 'Best Blues Album' 2005 by the San Diego Music Awards. The CD has been recognized as a true Blues gem.
San Diego, CA (PRWEB) September 5, 2005 -- 145th Street’s self-produced debut CD, 145th Street - Deluxe Blues Band, has been nominated for “Best Blues Album” 2005 by the San Diego Music Awards. The CD has been recognized as a true Blues gem.
The San Diego North County Times says: “This electric blues-rock quintet is so steeped in the blues they practically drip the music. The music of 145th Street Deluxe Blues Band is solid, joyful Blues.”
Kenora Daily Miner and News says: “145th Street’s new CD is music designed to get any juke joint jumping and your mojo working overdrive.”
Joe Walsh, legendary guitar player for The James Gang and The Eagles, after hearing the CD, said “I enjoyed your album. Pretty damn good. When can I see your band play?”
The 2005 San Diego Music Awards will take place at Humphrey’s by the Bay in San Diego on Monday, September 12 beginning at 6:30 p.m.
145th Street is a contemporary, high-powered, rocking blues band. The five members contribute many years of professional musical experience to this CD. Every tune is played with conviction, passion, taste, and enthusiasm. 145th Street’s approach to the blues is current, hard-driving, and edgy which satisfy any music lover’s desire for something fresh and distinct. The CD is being distributed at 145th Street’s venues and on the internet at www.CDBaby.com and www.145street.com.
Re: Кто слушает джаз? Автор:pempeДата: 27.09.05 23:38:48
An important new book on the state of jazz today by Stuart Nicholson, published in New York on 4th October by Routledge.
Is Jazz Dead?(Or Has It Moved to a New Address) examines the state of jazz at the turn of the 21st century, a period when the music's past had begun to shape the present as never before. In this thought-provoking study, Nicholson offers an analysis of the American jazz scene and discusses the complex reasons which individually might not have had much impact on the music, but taken together have helped create today's renascent climate.
Central to the book is a study of the impact of globalization/glocalization on jazz, an area of discourse that has so far largely eluded serious study. Today, glocal musicians outside the USA are creating new and exciting music that reflects their local identity, music that is now starting to be heard and acclaimed in the United States. Nicholson points to these developments as being the next major evolutionary trend in jazz and as evidence of this he illustrates how the search for local identity in music has previously and significantly occurred in both classical music and popular culture.
This important study asks whether with American jazz's preoccupation with its past has come a failure to acknowledge the music had become so big it has finally outgrown its country of birth, and that its stewardship was no longer an exclusive American preserve. He raises the hitherto unimagined possibility of the vanguard of jazz, its cutting edge, now no longer resting in its country of origin but in the glocalized jazz communities of Europe.
Nicholson also explores the cultural tensions that surrounded Ken Burns' version of jazz history, serialised in an influential 10-part television documentary Jazz (2001), in the context of trumpeter Wynton Marsalis's music and the Jazz at Lincoln Center project. Other key chapters examine the effects of jazz education, the rise of the "jazzy" singers and thoughts on the nature and direction of jazz of the future.
One key chapter posits the question of whether an art form as important and vital as jazz should be left largely to market forces to decide its destiny, opening up a vital debate on the funding of jazz in America. Nicholson asks whether this could achieved by governmental and municipal funds as happens in Europe, where its effects have contributed to creating a thriving jazz scene where most professional American jazz musicians, according to the New York Times, now derive the majority of their income stream.
This book is bound to be controversial among jazz's purists and ideologues but will be welcomed by others as a celebration of the new renewal of the music within the global jazz community. In looking at developments outside the United States, Is Jazz Dead? (Or Has It Moved to a New Address) will undoubtedly prompt discussion on how the music should be preserved within its borders, asking the question on all jazz fan's minds: Can jazz survive as a living medium? And, if so, how?
About the author: Stuart Nicholson is an award-winning author of several best-selling books on jazz that have been translated into several languages, including Reminiscing in Tempo: A Portrait of Duke Ellington (Northeastern U Press), Jazz-Rock: A History (Schirmer Books), Billie Holiday: A Biography (Northeastern U Press), Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography (Charles Scribners' Sons) and Jazz: The 1980s Resurgence (Da Capo). His biographies of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald both received "Notable Book of the Year" awards from The New York Times Review of Books. He writes regularly for leading US and European newspapers and jazz journals.