Posts Tagged ‘Jazz’

Satisfy your curiosity over what jazz is in 2009 and have a read of the results of prolific jazz blogger Peter Bacon’s recent poll on what this music is called “jazz”.

http://thejazzbreakfast.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/jazz-is-still-the-word-oh-yes/

Have your say and comment below.

From thejazzbreakfast

The voting on this site is over, and the 11% who feel jazz is no longer the right word to describe the wide diversity of the music you sometimes find in that section in the record shop (OK, online!) have been soundly trounced by the 66% who feel there is nothing wrong with the word jazz. And I reckon the Paul Simon fans (”I can call you Betty and you can call me Al”) who came in second at 23% would probably lean in the jazz direction had there been second place voting rules.

Kevin Le Gendre summed it up perfectly in the liner notes to his new compilation Now’s The Time II – and you can read them in my review here.

I quite understand the point Stuart Nicholson was making in a recent Observer review of new discs by Acoustic Ladyland and Troyka. He alluded to Ladyland main man Pete Wareham’s wariness of the label because it ends up keeping his music away from a rock crowd, which is the one Wareham feels is its natural audience (I am making assumptions here and am happy to be put right if this is not the case).

And I understand that survival and one’s own career need to come first. But, taking the bigger view, both Nicholson and Wareham would be better served, I reckon, showing some allegiance to the history and faith in the concept of jazz, surely? That is what has inspired them to get to where they have got to today. And if they feel that is not where their natural audience now resides, surely it’s time to bring their audience into the house of jazz, not leave it.

It was the same story with Soweto Kinch and his frustration at not having his CDs in the hip-hop racks. But, a vague awareness of the coverage Kinch has received over the years (no accurate research or survey here) would suggest that most of the coverage he gets is in the jazz media. It’s difficult enough being a musician. There’s no need to add to the anguish by rejecting the followers you do have in order to go after ones you might not get, or certainly not in great enough numbers. Babies and bathwater seem to apply.

I don’t think Ornette Coleman is particularly embarrassed about being referred to as a jazz musician, is he? I’m not sure that John Zorn is, and I don’t think Derek Bailey was either. And that jazz can encompass Peter Brotzmann and Frank Sinatra is, to my mind, cause for celebration, not alarm. Surely to make whatever music is in your heart and mind and then add jazz to it as a label of convenience is to say all the right things about it? About its freedom, about its honesty, about its sincerity, about its dedication to tackling the most important and difficult challenges in music – that of spontaneous composition.

Jazz has always been a broad church – let’s just keep throwing its doors wide open and inviting everyone in.

I caught a very odd discussion of the worth of jazz on Radio 5 at 12.30 am this morning.  This was part of Richard Bacon’s 10pm to 1am show and it went on for a good 40 mins with a few interruptions for news and sport.  They had a journalist in – didn’t get his name – whose basic point was that jazz is worthless, completely fails to engage audiences and isn’t worth the time of day.  Simon Cooke from Ronnie Scott’s was there to defend jazz and he did a reasonable job.  But the discussion was a bit desultory because it is simply ridiculous to talk about jazz as if it is a single entity.  Do we discuss whether classical music or rock is worthwhile?   It all seemed a massive series of generalisations and, sure, some jazz is not worth listening to and fails to engage its audience, but that is true of every genre of music.  There was a some discussion of the demise of Ronnie Scott’s Birmingham, but someone rang up to say how he had heard some marvellous music there one night, and the room had been totally silent and totally taken up in the music.  I’m afraid I don’t remember too many nights like that, as Ronnies Birmingham tended to be a noisy, non-listening venue!

Eventually the critic of jazz admitted that he did like one piece of ‘jazz’ he had heard and it turned out to be Louis Armstrong doing one of his Hello Dolly type songs!! Aaagh!

Tony

The Birmingham Jazz team are thrilled to announce that Bobby Previte and his Dialed In project featuring VJ Benton C-Bainbridge will be performing at this year’s Supersonic Festival curated and organised by award winning live arts organisation Capsule. This partnership event marks the first of a series of collaborations with Capsule who are known for their unique programming vision which includes presenting live metal through to free jazz.

Supersonic Festival is a 2 day Festival held at The Custard Factory complex, this year taking place on the 24th – 26th July.

For more information on Supersonic please click on:
http://www.capsule.org.uk/supersonic/2009/page/supersonic-2009

Dialed In
VJ vs Drummer

Bobby Previte maverick and electrifying drum style has won him accolades and respect from the rock and jazz world and this unique project joins him with Visual Jockey Benton-C Bainbridge creating a live improvised audio visual experience. A prolific performer New Yorker Previte has played concert venues such a Lincoln Center and the New York EMPAC . Previte triggers every sound with live- no loops, no laptops and no overdubbing. VJ Benton-C  paints with light, spilling off the screen and onto the performers. Using obsolete and forgotten technology scavenged from the tech dump, Benton-C warps video into strange shapes not seen since Electric Company, while Previte whips sonic fragments into powerful songs.

This eclectic project will have you mesmerised and their performance at Supersonic 2009 will be the only UK date.

“Previte’s records often sound like soundtracks to an imaginary movie, with a multiplicity of characters, an enigmatic story line, and no particular axe to grind.” — The Penguin Guide
“Fantastic video images by Benton-C Bainbridge depicted suspended human figures, floating abstract patterns, looming godlike figures and flickering city buildings.” — NY Times

www.bobbyprevite.com

www.birminghamjazz.co.uk

Family Concert
Saturday 25th April

The CBSO Centre
Berkeley Street ,B1 2LF

Continuing our Education programme, this afternoon presents the results of the latest Birmingham Jazz Creatives Futures project. Young musicians from all sorts of musicial backgrounds have been exploring the possibilities of jazz and imporvisation and here is their chance to perform in a supportive and family orientated environment. All are welcome. Performances will include smaller and larger ensembles and the Birmingham Jazz Youth Group.

http://www.myspace.com/birminghamjazzyouth
http://www.birminghamjazz.co.uk

Tickets are £5.00 and available on the door or at :

http://www.thsh.co.uk/view/birmingham-jazz-family-concert

or 0121 767 4050

Courtney Pine’s Jazz Warrior Afropeans played Town Hall Birmingham last thursday. Click here to read the 3 Star review from jazz writer Peter Bacon at The Birmingham Post.

Two recent events have brought home to me what a varied and attractive jazz scene we have here in Birmingham.  The first was a very positive review by John Fordham in The Guardian of John Randall’s album Insomnia on Clark Tracey’s Tentoten label; you can read it on: www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jan/02/jazz2.  John Randall is a drummer and composer who graduated from the jazz course at Birmingham Conservatoire and is rapidly gaining a good reputation as a bandleader; he has, for example just won the Peter Whittingham Award for jazz composition.  The band originally was very much a Conservatoire band and the concept of the album is typical of the many excellent bands and players emerging from that course.  What is immediately striking is how the influence of the many New York bands who have passed through Birmingham and Cheltenham is apparent and how the edgy style of the compositions and the rapid move between composition and improvisation is something that characterises the best bands to graduate in the last two years.  Dan Nicholls Quartet is another good example.

But at the Friday Rush Hour Blues session we heard another wonderful band that has no links at all to the Conservatoire and one that is typical of the more longstanding scene in the city.  This was Chris ‘Beebe’ Aldridge’s Quintet with all star Birmingham lineup with Chris on saxophones, Bryan Corbett on trumpet, Levi French on keyboards, Roger Inniss on electric bass and Neil Bullock on drums.  The band played in a very hip and really well played modern mainstream style with strong solos from all concerned and every number was cheered by the audience.  There is no doubt that the funky mix of jazz and a bit of soul is what works best at RHB and it is a style that has a strong appeal to the largely non-specialist audience that attends RHB in such large numbers.  These players and others such as Chris Bowden, Pete Harris, Ben Markland Edgar Macias, Tom Hill, Ray Butcher and many others have made their base in Birmingham or the surrounding area and are the equal of any in London.

It is wonderful to have these two scenes, the longstanding one and the newer Conservatoire one existing side by side in the city.  The only downside is that there is relatively little mixing of the two scenes

Tony

Have a look at the link to an interesting article found by Peter Bacon which was in The Economist over Christmas.The article looks at the human attraction to music and questions the relative attractiveness of creators of music.

Click here to have a look on Peter’s blog The Jazz Breakfast or at the original article.

Please let us know if the claims are true!

From thejazzbreakfast blog:

Musicians are more attractive - discuss

January 6, 2009 ·

Which is exactly what an article in the Christmas edition of the Economist magazine concerned itself with.

Not my usual news kiosk journal of choice, I must admit, but the headline “Why we love music” proved irresistible.

The article concerns the various theories of why man makes music. One is that it is, in Shakespeare’s words, the “food of love”; another that it is a means of binding people together and therefore developed as a societal strength and a stronger quality in the Darwinian sense; and a third that it is a cross between an accident and an invention.

View full article

We had a few technical problems with the website over the last couple of days but we’re back up and running now. We’ve got loads of great gigs coming up this week:

Wednesday 26th: John Randall Band @ The Rainbow
Friday 28th: Portico Quartet @ The Hare & Hounds
Friday 28th: Rush Hour Blues – Sara Colman
Saturday 29th: Stan Sulzmann 60th Birthday Celebration with The Heritage Orchestra @ The CBSO Centre

See you there!

Chris

We’ve just added a new page to our website which includes some of the other jazz gigs happening in and around Birmingham. If you think we’ve missed any out, or you’ve got a gig which you’d like to be added to the page then just let us know (chris@birminghamjazz.co.uk). Hopefully you’ll help us to make this a fairly comprehensive guide to what’s happening in our fair city.

Link: http://www.birminghamjazz.co.uk/othergigs.htm

Chris

“Who goes for a walk in the middle of breakfast, and who discovered the food of the early morning gods was a walnut and banana waffle? ”

New page on Peter Bacon’s blog in which musicians and other jazz industry types share with you their favourite breakfast, or the best breakfast they’ve ever eaten, or maybe even a recipe…

http://thejazzbreakfast.wordpress.com/