Author: mitchmuse

Global communicator, Journalism, Entrepreneur, Web editor, Blogger, Freelance writer, Jazz enthusiast

Pianist Geri Allen shares a collection of music on new CD “A Child is Born”

Post author By mitchmuse
Post date October 12, 2011

Despite its time-honored traditions and universally familiar iconography, Christmas remains a holiday celebrated by each family and even each individual in their own personal style. Pianist/composer Geri Allen offers her own interpretation with A Child Is Born, a collection of traditional and original Christmas music that is profound and exuberant, solemn and joyous, spiritual and intimate.

Allen’s third release for Motéma Music is a solo sequel to her critically acclaimed solo debut, 2010’s Flying Toward the Sound. Where that release paid tribute to three of her creative inspirations – Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and Cecil Taylor – A Child Is Born honors equally meaningful but perhaps even more deeply entrenched influences: family and spirituality. She refers to the album as “a joyous Christmas celebration and remembrance of a childhood where love was always unconditional.”

Geri Allen

This holiday offering finds Allen at a particularly celebratory time of life. Her tandem 2010 releases on Motéma, the solo, Flying Toward the Sound, and the quartet, Timeline Live, have shown her to be at the top of her game, gaining unanimous acclaim internationally and jostling with each other for space on numerous year-end top ten lists. A 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship helped Allen facilitate her debut solo project on Motéma; and Timeline Live, which features the startlingly talented Maurice Chestnut on ‘tap-percussion,’ has been selling out houses world wide and garnered a career first for Allen: an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Jazz Album, alongside Herbie Hancock, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Wynton Marsalis, and Bobby McFerrin. National respect for Allen as a virtuosic, innovative performer, composer, and educator (she is currently an Associate Professor of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation at the University of Michigan) is undeniable, as evidenced by two powerful recent honors of 2011. She was invited to perform in honor of the historic Dr. Martin Luther King Monument Unveiling this August in Washington D.C.

A Child Is Born is dedicated to Allen’s family, in particular to her father, Mount Allen, Jr. and mother, Barbara Jean Allen.

“I am privileged and blessed to have grown up as the child of Barbara Jean and Mount Vernell Allen, Jr.,” she says in a recent news release. “I know God loved me because He gave them to my brother Mount and I. Memories of many loving Christmases with family remain as affirmations of the beauty of life and God’s never-ending love. Today, I share these timeless melodies and personal remembrances with my own children.”

Canada Conde Nast Traveler Long Beach Lodge Resort publications resorts travel

Condé Nast Traveler names Long Beach Lodge one of Canada’s Best Resorts

Post author By mitchmuse
Post date October 12, 2011

Long Beach Lodge Resort

With more than 270,000 votes tallied and 10,000 resorts, destinations, airlines and cruises reviewed, the results for the 24th annual Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards are finally in. And named in the top three for Canada’s Best Resort is Vancouver Island’s own Long Beach Lodge Resort.

The awards, held last night, Oct. 10, in New York City, gave the highest achievement to King Pacific Lodge, a resort located on Princess Royal Island, British Columbia, that starts about $1,583 per night, with Emerald Lake Lodge, also located in BC, earning second place. In fact, it was a great night for British Columbia, whose resorts filled the top five positions.

“There are great quality resorts in this part of the world so it is very exciting to us that the Readers have acknowledged Long Beach Lodge Resort in the top three,” said Perry Schmunk, general manager, Long Beach Lodge Resort in a news release. “We pride ourselves to be in this top three grouping delivering a great resort experience and, at the same time, offering it with great value with rates starting from $169 per night.”

Long Beach Lodge Resort is located in Cox Bay, located just 7 km south of Tofino in an area known for world-class surfing and storm watching. The property includes eight-acres of beachfront property, 41 lodge rooms and 20 cottages, a full-service dining room and lounge called The Great Room, a fitness facility called the Riptide Centre, a Surf Club Centre (new in April 2012) and an outdoor, covered barbeque area.

For more information about Long Beach Lodge Resort, visit www.longbeachlodgeresort.com. To learn more about the annual Conde Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards, visit www.concierge.com/tools/travelawards/readerschoice.

Biophilia Records contemporary jazz Cuba Fabian Almazan iTunes jazz music releases United States

Cuban pianist/composer Fabian Almazan releases his debut album “Personalities”

Post author By mitchmuse
Post date October 11, 2011

Fabian Almazan‘s debut, Personalities (Biophilia Records), reveals his penchant for musical storytelling with well-crafted originals and well-chosen covers. Born in Cuba, raised in Miami and based in New York City, the pianist and composer, 27, has apprenticed with Terence Blanchard and is a recent fellow of the Sundance Film Composer’s Lab.
iTunes has announced they will feature the track “The Vicarious Life” from Personalities as a weekly iTunes Discovery Download. This is remarkable not only because this is Almazan’s debut recording, but because it is very rare for instrumental jazz to be given such a wide platform.
Almazan’s trio is comprised of bassist Linda Oh and drummer Henry Cole, both Manhattan School of Music classmates.
“They are both very open-minded musicians with a fearless ability to turn on a dime if the music takes a different direction,” Almazan says in a news release. “Needless to say, they have profound command over their respective instruments.” The trio is augmented by a string quartet featuring violinists Meg Okura and Megan Gould, violist Karen Waltuch and cellist Noah Hoffeld.
True to the album title, the music is about people that have impacted Almazan’s life so far. The inspirations for his compositions range from tributes to his grandmothers and mother (“Grandmother Song,” “Una Foto”), overheard conversations about atheism (“Sin Alma”), stage parents at adolescent piano recitals (“The Vicarious Life”) and socio-economic reflections (“H.U.Gs”). About the latter, a tune that finds Almazan unravelling lines on Fender Rhodes, he says, “‘H.U.Gs’ stands for Historically Under-represented Groups. As I understand the acronym, it is used in scientific papers that deal with the environmental conditions in lower socio-economic communities. I wanted to write something that would embody the struggle that generations of abused and manipulated people have had to overcome to achieve equality.”
The evocative narratives on Personalities reflect Almazan’s self-described “international citizen” worldview, as well as his work as a film composer. His relationship to music can be summed up thusly: “I have learned that music has an uncomplicated purpose, which is to make you feel something. There are an endless amount of options on how to achieve that simple purpose.”

DVD gospel music releases Shekinah Glory Ministry United States

New Shekinah Glory Ministry film debuts at No. 4 on Billboard Chart

Post author By mitchmuse
Post date October 11, 2011

Shekinah Glory Ministry

According to a news release, the RIAA certified platinum-selling praise-and-worship ensemble, Shekinah Glory Ministry’s (SGM) new concert film “Refreshed by Fire” has debuted at No. 4 on Nielsen Soundscan’s Top Christian Music Videos chart and No. 11 on the Top Music video charts, sandwiched between a new Jimi Hendrix DVD and Beyonce’s “I Am the World” video. The much-anticipated concert film is a companion to last year’s No. 1 live double CD, “Refreshed by Fire.” Filmmaker Joel Kapity recorded the elaborate concert before a SRO crowd of 3,000 at Shekinah Glory Ministry’s Chicago area home church, Valley Kingdom Ministries International.
With divine pomp and circumstance, the reel showcases emotion-packed singing from a variety of virtuoso vocalists covering rock-edged music and dance rhythms to quiet melodies, dramatic stage lighting, colorful banners and the synchronized praise dancing that have made the ensemble’s programs a fan favorite for the last decade. One particular highlight is the nearly 15 minute “The Minstrel’s Release” segment that showcases a lone dancer telling a story of a Biblical battle through her gestures as a guitarist’s strings illuminate the tale while a graphic artist paints a picture of the victor on the spot that is revealed at the end of the suite to rousing applause from the congregation.
The DVD is rounded out with behind-the-scenes footage and commentary on the ministry’s evolution that helps explain what has led to Shekinah Glory Ministry’s top ten hits such as “Praise is What I Do” and “Yes.”

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BLAC Inc. recognition dinner to feature actress and international speaker

Post author By mitchmuse
Post date October 11, 2011

Jacqueline Ann Shaw-Ross

Among the honored guests at Black Liberated Arts Center, Inc.’s 17th annual Recognition and Benefit Dinner with Silent Auction are actress Jacqueline Ann Shaw-Ross and internationally renowned speaker Zora Brown. The event will be 6 p.m. Oct. 22, 2011, at the Petroleum Club in Oklahoma City, OK.

Other honorees are Susan Bumgarner, Robin Dorner, Greg Eskridge, Rosetta Funches, Jordan Janelle Harris, The Links, Inc., Beverly Story and Sandra Thompson.

According to a recent news release, Jacqueline Ann Shaw-Ross, a native Oklahoman, began entertaining at an early age. At age 14, she won the state title of Hal Jackson’s Talented Teen International and made her first trip to Hollywood, Calif., to compete in the national talent pageant. After returning, she started performing in theatrical plays and musicals at John Marshall High School. Her talents led to an offer for a full theatrical scholarship at the University of Central Oklahoma.

While at UCO, she appeared in “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “No Snakes in this Grass.”
Jacqueline continued acting in local commercials and won the title of Miss Oklahoma Petite through JoAnn Fullerton’s Modeling Agency. She became the first Miss Black UCO. Today, an award is given out to the most photogenic contestant called “The Jackie Shaw Award.”

After earning a bachelors’ degree in oral communications, she was a broadcast news anchor at KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City for two years before moving to Hollywood, where she landed her first starring role in the critically acclaimed Disney film, “The Ernest Green Story,” a historical film which told the story of the “Little Rock 9” filmed in Arkansas. The film is often seen on television during Black History Month. Shaw-Ross worked with notables in the acting field including Morris Chestnut, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, CCH Pounder and others.

Shaw-Ross has appeared in guest starring roles on ABC’s “Family Matters” and NBC’s “California Dreams.” She is married to Shavar Ross, a veteran actor and former child star who is best known for his role as Dudley, Gary Coleman’s best friend on the 1980s hit television show “Diff’rent Strokes.” She and her husband are now film producers.

Zora Brown is an outspoken advocate for minority and women’s health issues, presenting at both national and international forums. She was a featured speaker at both the 1992 and 2004 Republican National Conventions. She has served as consultant to the U. S. Conference of Mayors since 1996. Zora was appointed by President George H. W. Bush to the National Cancer Advisory Board and the National Cancer Institute. Her experience includes administrative assistant at the White House and an assistant in the national affairs office of Ford Motor Co. She serves on numerous boards nationally and internationally.

She is founder of Rise, Sister, Rise, a breast cancer support group model for African American women. Zora founded Cancer Awareness Program Services (CAPS) and the Breast Cancer Resource Committee (BCRC). Under her leadership, BCRC is responsible for the television broadcast production “Life: Rising Above Breast Cancer.” She is co-author of a book with Dr. Harold Freeman. She co-produced a CD-ROM utilizing the breast cancer risk assessment tool set to original jazz. Brown has appeared on the networks and CNN and other media as an expert on women’s health.

Brown is the recipient of numerous awards including the Magic Johnson Foundation, Gift of Life Award, the 1992 Susan G. Komen Foundation’s Community Service Award, 2001 Spelman College Community Service Award, and the 1996 Howard University Cancer Center Community Service Award. Brown, along with Oprah Winfrey, was named one of the 1997 ten Women’s Health Heroes. She received a special citation in the Congressional Record in 1995. Brown is special assistant for Health and Minority Initiatives at INTEGRIS Health in Oklahoma City.

The elegant evening of honor and fine dining at the Petroleum Club will include stellar auction items including Art Quilts by Lola Jenkins, Uniquely Designed BLAC Inc. Limited Edition Jewelry for men and women by Naifeh Jewelry, a weekend golf outing in Scottsdale, Ariz., with reception hosted by Horace Stevenson in his 6,600-square-foot home with swimming pool surrounded by 79 orange trees and includes hotel and airfare, VISA gift cards, drawings and a $17 auction table to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the event. For more information, call (405) 524-3800.

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43rd Voll-Damm Barcelona International Jazz Festival starts Sunday, Oct. 16, 2011

Post author By mitchmuse
Post date October 7, 2011

Announced in a recent news release, the 43rd Voll-Damm Barcelona International Jazz Festival is set to commence Sunday, Oct. 16 through Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. The month and a half-long celebration will feature performances by Maria Schneider Orchestra, Vijay Iyer Trio, Rudresh Mahanthappa Samdhi, Eliane Elias Brazilian Quartet, Randy Weston and hisAfrican Rhythms Trio, Michel Camilo ‘Mano a Mano’ with Giovanni Hidalgo and Charles Flores, Madeleine Peyroux, Buena Vista Social Club with Omara Portuondo, Pat Metheny with Larry Grenadier and Bill Stewart, Dave Holland with Flamenco guitar legend Pepe Habichuela, Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau, Michael Janisch-Aruan Ortiz Quintet with Greg Osby and Raynald Colom, and Ken Vandermark’s Made to Break.

This 40-day marathon has something for everyone with more than 60 concerts and artists not just from Italy, which will be featured in a festival within a festival from Nov. 7-14, but also Luísa Sobral from Portugal, Marcin Wasilewski from Poland, The Pepper Pots from Catalonia and 16-year-old sensation Andrea Motis from Barcelona, as well as Paolo Conte, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jaques Morelenbaum, Tigran Hamasyan Trio and a concert with the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, a big band comprised of members who range in age from seven to 19, with special guests Jesse Davis, Terrell Stafford and Wycliffe Gordon, among others.

Umbria Jazz and Barcelona International Jazz have formed a new partnership titled in Italian Umbria Jazz Barcelona. These two respected festivals feel it is important to support musical culture and one of the most exciting jazz scenes in Europe. Italy is a big country with many influences and a vibrant and lively jazz scene. The festival will present world caliber Italian Jazz performers in a week-long celebration from Nov. 7-14, 2011. Featured are Danilo Rea with Flavio Boltro, Gabriele Mirabassi Trio, Giovanni Guidi andGianluca Petrella, Enrico Rava Tribe, Omar Sosa with Paolo Fresu, and Stefano Bollani.

Spain hosted their first professional jazz festival in 1966, it began with a concert at the historic Palau de la Música in Barcelona featuring pianist Dave Brubeck with his classical quartet. Despite surviving the turbulent times of the Franco dictatorship, the festival ceased operations in 1977 and 1980, which ironically were the first years of a democratic Spain. Since the late ’80s, the festival has been organized by The Project, a year-round presenting organization whose efforts reach upwards of 300,000 people annually. The Project was founded in 1988 by producer Tito Ramoneda, who today serves as the organization’s president. In 2011, the festival celebrates its 43rd edition with around 400 musicians, again making the Barcelona Jazz Festival one of the largest and most ambitious jazz festivals in Europe. For more information, go to http://www.barcelonajazzfestival.com/ or http://barcelonajazzfestival.blogspot.com/

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Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra kicks off 10th anniversary season

Post author By mitchmuse
Post date October 6, 2011

The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra Photo credit: John Abbott

The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra (ALJO) kicks off its landmark 10th anniversary season with the program, “Andy & Jerry’s: A Tribute to the González Brothers.” The event is at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14 and Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011, at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street in New York. Tickets are $50/$40/$30 for members; $40/$32/$24 for students and seniors, and $15 for children.

The ALJO will pay tribute to Andy and Jerry González, founders of the pioneering, Bronx-born Fort Apache Band and arguably the most important siblings in Latin jazz. The orchestra will cast the brothers in a retrospective of their greatest moments and will premiere O’Farrill’s Ft. Apache Concerto.

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Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet to release “Apparent Distance” on November 8

Post author By mitchmuse
Post date October 5, 2011

Firehouse 12 Records will release on Nov. 8, 2011, Apparent Distance, the third recording from the Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet. The group’s current personnel features the leader/composer on cornet, Jim Hobbs on alto saxophone, Bill Lowe on bass trombone and tuba, Mary Halvorson on guitar, Ken Filiano on bass, and Tomas Fujiwara on drums.

The album is made up of a four-part suite, commissioned through a 2010 New Jazz Works grant from Chamber Music America and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Via a news release, Bynum says: “In Apparent Distance, my goal is not just to blur the lines between composition and improvisation (a long-time pursuit), but to try to upend the listeners’ expectations in other ways: circular melodies without beginnings or ends, disguised unisons and non-repetitive vamps, transitions that are simultaneously jarring and organic. Most importantly, I want to spotlight the striking individuality and virtuosity of all the players, albeit in a context where the needs of the ensemble reign supreme – a concerto for sextet, if you will.”

Since the composition’s premiere in August 2010, the sextet has performed the work on tour and at the Saalfelden Jazz Festival (Austria), the Banlieues Bleues Festival (France), and the Crosscurrents Festival (New York).

The Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet has been Bynum’s primary working ensemble for the past five years, releasing two previous albums and performing throughout the world.

In addition to his sextet, Bynum leads the chamber ensemble SpiderMonkey Strings and the little big band Positive Catastrophe, works with such collective ensembles as the Tomas Fujiwara/Taylor Ho Bynum Duo, The Thirteenth Assembly, Book of Three, and The Convergence Quartet, and performs with such artists as Jason Kao Hwang, Myra Melford, Joe Morris, and Tyshawn Sorey. Bynum’s ongoing association with Anthony Braxton is recognized as one of the most fruitful partnerships of that iconic composer’s long career, and his work with Bill Dixon produced some of the departed trumpet innovator’s late masterpieces. In addition, he is the vice president of Dave Douglas’s Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT Music), a founding partner of Firehouse 12 Records, and the president of Braxton’s Tri-Centric Foundation.

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Saxophonist/composer Rudresh Mahanthappa releases “Samdhi”

Post author By mitchmuse
Post date September 30, 2011

The Sanskrit word for twilight is “Samdhi,” which now serves as the aptly-chosen title for saxophonist/composer Rudresh Mahanthappa’s latest ensemble, a fluid melding of jazz, electronic and Indian music.

“Samdhi” also refers to a period between two ages, as one dawns and another passes. Without presuming to know the future, it may not be too much of a stretch to say that Samdhi marks a similar transition in Mahanthappa’s creative life. While it draws on elements and experiments from Mahanthappa’s earlier work, it also marks his initial forays into rich new avenues to explore – particularly in the use of electronics. The ensemble began life in 2008 as the result of a Guggenheim fellowship, which allowed Mahanthappa to dedicate an entire year to a single project.

“This helped me realize a plan of following a few specific ideas,” he says in a news release. “I was interested in how I could transfer the Indian music to my saxophone, particularly this special ornamentation which forms the main feature of the melodies of Indian music. Technically this took me to new territories but, at the same time, I also wanted to understand the music functionally and rhythmically.”

This is not the first time the Indian-American saxophonist has explored the intersection of the music that most influenced him – jazz with the music of his cultural heritage. Those experiments have taken many fruitful forms throughout his career, most notably on his critically-lauded 2008 CD Kinsmen with his Dakshina ensemble, featuring Carnatic saxophonist Kadri Gopalnath, voted one of the year’s best albums by more than twenty newspapers, magazines and broadcasters (including The New York Times and the BBC).

Samdhi is an even deeper exploration of some of the areas first mined for Kinsmen, and also grew partly out of a trip Manhathappa took to an immersive Carnatic music festival in Chennai, India.

“I went for two and a half weeks and totally geeked out,” Mahanthappa recalls. “I went into it with a crash course mentality, trying to see as much as I could and then work on it for the years to come. The idea was to integrate all of that into a new piece that wasn’t so blatantly ‘Indian.’ I decided to put it in a whole new context – an electronic context.”

The line-up with which Mahanthappa approached this idea is accordingly versatile and expansive: New Yorker David Gilmore is one of the few guitarists who possesses the technical skills and stylistic scope to master such an endeavor. Damion Reid is one of the best in the league of young American drummers who combine immense power and speed with a lush tonal palette. Toronto bassist Rich Brown – who Mahanthappa considers “one of the best in the world” – no stranger to such multi-cultural hybrids as a member of a Canadian Indo-jazz band.

The least familiar member to jazz audiences is “Anand” Anantha Krishnan on the South Indian mridangam drum. “He is the grandson of Palgat Raghu, one of the greatest South Indian percussionists of all time, and he exhibited this inherited talent very early on. He really grew up in two places – India and the USA – and has worked with all kinds of music. His access to Western as well as Eastern music is the bridge which we are crossing with Samdhi,” says Mahanthappa.

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Parry Adams releases debut EP “Puzzle Piece”

Post author By mitchmuse
Post date September 30, 2011

Parry Adams

Parry Adams is certainly making herself known on the indie scene with her debut EP, Puzzle Piece. Her unrelenting melodies, complemented by soulful piano, chipper guitar arrangements, and honest lyrics showcase the ordinary in an extraordinary light. With raw honesty, Adams won’t always tell you what you want to hear, but you’ll want to hear the sincerity pulsing throughout her music.
“‘Puzzle Piece’ is a reflection of where I stand,” says Adams in a news release. “There is nothing holding me back, and the big picture is coming together.”
The Pittsburgh native stays true to her Welsh roots with musical theatre training, allowing her to transition easily between a soft soprano and a power belter. For new fans who may not be enamored with her rich voice, prepare to be floored by her guitar and piano skills, which are also showcased on the album.