Here are two bits of news for you: This Friday and Saturday (June 11th/12th) there’s an international jazz festival on in Seoul. There are free shows in the park. Not sure if there are pay concerts also — I wish David Sanchez would have a giant 3 hour gig but I doubt it. Maybe at some other venue, while he’s here? Seems like a shame to come just for 6 songs, no matter how extended the improvisations might be. I just found out about this on Marmot’s , need to look into it more. A jazz fan among my students …
Tag: jazz
Satchmo Blows Up The World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War by Penny Marie von Eschen
This is a book I bought to have some background on the use of jazz as part of Cold War-era promotion of America abroad, primarily for research on a longer work I was (and still am) considering writing set in the world of “Lester Young and the Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues.” Interestingly, during the Cold War (from the 1950s through the 1970s) jazz music and jazz musicians were used by the American government in the same way circuses were used by the USSR, as part of what we now so often call a “hearts and minds” campaign carried out throughout the …
“Jazz? Yes Please… As Long as There’s No Actual Jazz or Colored Folks!”
UPDATE (17 April 2010): I feel I ought to clarify one thing, but if I put it here, it won’t make sense, so I’m adding it to the end of the post. ORIGINAL POST: There’s isn’t quite a sign up at the Incheon Airport saying that, but there might as well be. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but I was talking with a student I know about this. He was scrambling for a topic to do with Korea reception of Western popular culture (past and present) and I asked him who the most famous American rapper is in Korea. Who is it? …
Pop Top 40…
One of the big jazz films for me, when I was a teenager and getting into the stuff, was Spike Lee’s Mo’ Better Blues. I know, I know… the integration of the music into the film is shaky at points, as some have pointed out. I don’t remember it being quite shaky as that guy claimed, but there were things I kind of raised an eyebrow at back in the day — though also a lot of things I thought it got kind of right. After all, the film had style, and it imagined a world where jazz was cool, …
Hiromi & FOTC
Music of the day, suddenly accessible as I reordered tags and crap on my iPod. It really sucks that everything is so dependent on tagging and so on — my cheaper-but-non-haptic MP3 Player is at least bright enough to pay attention to folder structures. Anyway, listen up: [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/ggL_2hk9DyI” width=”425″ height=”344″ allowfullscreen=”true” fvars=”fs=1″ /] It’s a bit, I don’t know… I don’t have a word for what I’m thinking. I used to life very “out” music, stuff that was atonal, free, wild; this music isn’t like that. But it’s really damned good for what it is, just the same, and …
Black Hole Jazz
I’m not referring to any jazz/SF thing at the moment — though I like that title, maybe it could work in another context — but rather to Brad Mehldau Trio’s rendition of Black Hole Sun on their album Brad Mehldau Trio Live. I don’t know why I’m amazed it can be done: plenty of old jazz standards were cheesy Broadway showtunes. Still, I guess the shocker is that someone, post-Wynton Marsalis jazz-fascism-era, is actually daring to do it, and doing it well. The following aren’t the album version, as far as I can tell, but they give you some idea: …
Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future
The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians has long used that line to describe their music: “Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future” and their membership has, over the years, included people who I’d say deserve that appelation: music I hope is remembered, is fundamental to the interesting things that come in the future of innovative, intelligent music. But for the latter half of the phrase, “ancient to the future,” it’s always brought to mind Steve Coleman’s music. Coleman is a badass alto saxophonist, as you can see in this clip: … and with his various groups over the …
Hollyday?
UPDATE: Hollyday apparently is still out there. He’s been teaching school for a while now, but (according to articles more recent that the one I linked, but which I can’t find now) he is apparently thinking of recording again, maybe making a comeback of sorts, though not on the scale of his original, brief career as a professional performer… There are a few updates out there, if you search for them. ORIGINAL POST: Surely I’m not the only person who remembers this guy? Well, Christopher Hollyday now apparently works as a band teacher but still gigs occasionally. (He was always …
Pedal Up
Rahsaan Roland Kirk, 1975. Damn!
Joe Sample & Randy Crawford
Quite a while ago, Lime discovered that the Seoul Jazz Festival was happening (I blogged about it here) and asked me what show I’d like to see. IF you look at the program, you’ll see that it’s dominated by Japanese jazz fusion and Pat Metheny (whose music I despise), so the sensible choice was to see whatever else didn’t fit that category. She ordered the tickets, and that was that. Well, the other night, the day finally arrived, so we went and saw Joe Sample and Randy Crawford, who were accompanied by Joe Sample’s son Nicklas Sample on bass and …