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Marc Cary has gained a reputation as one of the most creative pianists of our time, a bandleader with musical interests that encompass jazz, go-go, hip-hop, electronic music, Indian classical music and more. But Cary is also an incisive and sought-after accompanist, a fact famously borne out by his 12-year tenure (beginning in 1994) with the great vocalist, songwriter and jazz icon Abbey Lincoln.
For the Love of Abbey (Motema Music), Cary’s first solo piano recording, is the most personal and heartfelt of tributes, shedding light on Lincoln’s remarkable body of work and honoring her extraordinary gift for melody and song craft.
“Abbey’s compositions are worthy of an instrumental approach because they’re so rich and lend themselves to be interpreted as instrumentals,” says Cary in a news release.
Cary’s tenure with Lincoln was longer than that of any other pianist. And Cary was following in the footsteps of the very best: Mal Waldron, Hank Jones, Wynton Kelly and Kenny Barron, among others.
“I try not to freak myself out by saying, ‘Wow, now I’m the one,'” Cary reflects. “It made me feel good but it didn’t influence me in any way, because Abbey wanted something new, something in the moment.”
Even when paring down to solo piano on For the Love of Abbey, Cary makes music of great orchestrational variety and depth. Still, he heeds the wisdom of Lincoln herself, who would often admonish him with the words: “It’s a simple song.” As Cary says, “With Abbey I had to play differently than I did. It changed my whole perspective. I learned how to deconstruct myself.”
Asked for the single most valuable lesson he got from Abbey Lincoln, Cary responds: “Learning how to shed things you don’t need, and claim what is yours.”
Justin Time Records is proud to release vocalist Alex Pangman‘s new album, Have a Little Fun (available tomorrow, June 11). The album features legendary guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, and is Pangman’s second release for the Canadian music label.
Have a Little Fun finds the young Toronto chanteuse on a baker’s dozen of swing era standards and originals penned in the same vintage style. Along with Pizzarelli, a seven-decade veteran who’s played with Les Paul, Benny Goodman, and Stephane Grappelli, Pangman is joined by her long-running band, The Alleycats.
Since her teens, Pangman has earned a devoted following in her native Canada, garnering three National Jazz Award nominations, twice as “Jazz Vocalist of the Year” and once for “Best Original Song,” and she has performed three showcases at the renowned Festival International de Jazz de Montréal.
The carefree attitude expressed in the title has been earned in part through Pangman’s lifelong struggle with lung disease, which culminated in a successful double lung transplant in 2008. “I was born with lung disease so I’ve always had that perspective,” she says in a recent news release, “but it’s been freshly reinvigorated. Life is precious, and if you sit around with your gut in a twist, it’s really not worth it.”
Have a Little Fun came together quickly, when Pangman learned that Pizzarelli would be performing in her hometown of Toronto. Despite a half-century’s difference in their ages, the two quickly bonded over their shared love of 1930s song. “He’s in his eighties and I’m in my thirties,” Pangman says, “but we quickly became friends because we both love these melodies and these songs. That lineage is what binds us together.”
Pangman has been christened “Canada’s Sweetheart of Swing,” a title threatened when her cystic fibrosis began to compromise her ability to sing. A donor was fortuitously located, and she came back from her double lung transplant with her 2011 disc 33.
Since the surgery, Pangman says, Have a Little Fun has taken hold as “my mantra in life. You can have a million smackers and a fancy car, but if you’re not having any fun, what’s the point? You’re not here forever, so try to enjoy yourself.”
Mark Temple, chairman of the 2013 Charlie Christian International Music Festival, announced via a recent news release the updated schedule of events that will take place during the weekend of the festival in Oklahoma City. The “Feel Deep Deuce Brunch” scheduled at Urban Roots, 322 NE 2nd St. in Oklahoma City, from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. is on schedule for Saturday, June 8. There will not be an admission charge. The music will be provided by “Miss Muffy and Friends” and Deep Deuce stories with author Anita Arnold.
Other events at the Bricktown Ballpark are being re-scheduled for a later date because of complications arising from the recent tornadoes and flooding.
“While Saturday and Sunday may look like perfect days, the recent and continued rains have inhibited our ability to properly stage and produce the concerts. The public will be notified of the re-schedule of these programs,” Temple said. “Expectations are that the concerts will likely be scheduled later this year or early fall, most likely,” he concluded. Ticket buyers can get refunds by going to outlets where they purchased or they may hold on to their tickets which will be honored at the re-scheduled events.
This year’s Charlie Christian International Music Festival in Oklahoma City is attracting a contingent of people from the Lone Star state who have started their own celebrations of legendary guitarist Charlie Christian in Texas.
“We welcome everybody from near and far to join us in this history laden event,” festival chairman Mark Temple said in a news release. “We want them to know that not everything big happens in Texas. There are big things happening right here in Oklahoma City. For the first time, we have four headliners for our event – Joe McBride, Najee, All Funk Radio Show, and Kirk Whalum and so much more.”
The 2013 festival is the beginning of a launch to the 100th anniversary of Christian in 2016.
“We invite the community to join us in making this one of the biggestand best events, yet,” Temple said. “We are pleased that the last two days of the festival will be held at the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark, site of the first Frederick A. Douglass High School established in 1896. In fact, the site will be special to these out of town guests because the murals on the walls of the ballpark showcase Charlie Christian, Calvary Baptist Church where his funeral was held, the Aldridge Theater where Charlie’s picture hung on the walls for years and so much more of the Deep Deuce History.”
Other special guests expected at the festival are remaining members of Charlie Christian’s family. Freddy Jenkins, a cousin to Christian, will travel from Arizona with his family to attend the event. Oklahoma Sen. Connie Johnson will present a proclamation at the Ralph Ellison program, and state Rep. Anastasia Pittman will open the festival at the ballpark.
To add to the festive occasion, Anita Arnold, executive director of Black Liberated Arts Center, said that as a bonus to the first 500 two-day ticket holders on Friday night, there will be free parking next to the ballpark at the red parking lot on the east side of Joe Carter Avenue. The festival will feature three events that are free to the public.
The festival schedule can be found at here, and tickets can be purchased online or in community outlets. Proceeds from the festival benefit will benefit BLAC, Inc. (Black Liberated Arts Center), a local not-for-profit organization known for presenting and producing educational arts programs and preserving African American history in Oklahoma City.
According to a recent news release, Cuban pianist Harold López-Nussa will make his U.S. debut with five engagements from June 12-21, 2013. The tour, booked by Ted Kurland Associates, will include performances in Santa Cruz, Calif., (Kuumbwa Jazz Center, June 12), San Francisco (SFJAZZ Center, June 13-16), New York (Jazz Standard, June 18), Baltimore (An die Musik, June 19) and Cambridge, Mass. (Regattabar, June 21). Following his U.S. tour, Harold will perform at the Montreal Jazz Festival on July 1. The pianist will perform in duo with his brother, drummer Ruy Adrian López-Nussa. Additionally, Harold is set to release a new album this fall, titled New Day (JazzVillage).
In December 2010, Harold came onto the radar of prestigious booking agent, Ted Kurland (Ted Kurland Associates), who considers Harold to be one of the best young talents coming out of Cuba. The following year, the pianist was one of the featured artists on Ninety Miles, a project that came together after Wynton Marsalis & Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra conducted a five-day residency in Havana, working and performing with students. The album was released on Concord Picante and also featured Stefon Harris, David Sánchez and Christian Scott. Soon after, Harold released his sophomore album, titled El Pais de las Maravillas (JazzVillage).
It’s not simply his abundant virtuosity that has made Christian McBridethe most in-demand bassist of his generation. McBride consistently combines his deft musicianship with an innate ability to communicate his enthusiasm to an audience-a warm showmanship that transforms his own passion into infectious joy. It comes across whether he’s leading his own bands; sharing the stage with jazz legends like Sonny Rollins, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock or Pat Metheny; accompanying pop giants like James Brown, Sting or The Roots; or collaborating with classical masters like Kathleen Battle, Edgar Meyer or the Shanghai Quartet.
Any time that McBride steps into the studio or onto a stage he plays what could be called “people music,” but it’s a particularly apt title for the second release by his hard-swinging acoustic quintet Inside Straight. Four years after Kind of Brown, the band’s acclaimed debut album, People Music(available on Mack Avenue Records) delivers a more road-tested, “lived-in” Inside Straight, able to dig deep while projecting that ebullient vigor that has become McBride’s trademark.
“People Music is my personal mantra as a musician,” McBride says of the title in a recent news release. “Sometimes jazz musicians can get too caught up in their own heads; they get so serious and so caught up in their creativity that they’re not bringing the people in. So I figure the best way to communicate is to let the people navigate where you should go.”
For Inside Straight, that inclusiveness extends to the name of the band itself, famously the result of a contest that generated more than 3,000 submissions from fans. But more importantly, as is evident throughout eight original tunes on People Music, that means balancing intense interplay with an exuberant personal expression that speaks directly to the listener.
“When you pull the people in, you can go anywhere as long as they feel like they’re a part of the ride,” McBride says. “That’s why Cannonball Adderley was always my hero-he always exemplified high artistry, but no matter how esoteric or abstract it could get, he still related to people. And I’ve always felt that this band plays ‘people music’.”
People Music features two slightly different incarnations of Inside Straight. Six of the album’s eight tracks feature the core lineup of McBride, saxophonist Steve Wilson, vibraphonist Warren Wolf, pianist Peter Martin and drummer Carl Allen. The other two tracks substitute pianist Christian Sands and drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr., who have performed extensively with the band when Martin’s touring schedule with Dianne Reeves or Allen’s duties as Artistic Director of Jazz Studies at Juilliard keep them away from the bandstand. Sands and Owens also comprise McBride’s new trio, which will make its recording debut later this year.
McBride contributes half of the repertoire for the album, but felt it was important to also feature pieces written by the other band members, all of whom are accomplished composers in their own rights.
Pianist and composer Luke Celenza speaks about the music on his independently released debut album, Back & Forth, with a clarity and equanimity that defies his young age. He recently turned 21 years old, and it has already been almost 10 years since he was accepted into the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) Pre-College Jazz Division. Additionally, Grammy and two-time Latin Grammy winner Dominican pianist and composer, Michel Camilo was a friend of the family and a key influence in his development.
Such credentials might spark a young musician to intently compose complex music. However on Back & Forth, the 12 original compositions, including two three-song suite-like pieces, often sound deceptively simple — and for a good reason.
“When I write a song,” Celenza said in a news release, “I’m thinking about a groove, what sounds good and feels good — and I’m thinking about the form. I’m thinking about pop songs. I’m trying to be lyrical and melodic. And most of it is in 4/4 [time] whether that’s ‘River Rhodes’ which has more of a backbeat thing or ‘For Charles’ (Charles Flores, bassist), which is straight ahead.” Regardless of the conceptual notions or musical structures binding the music, Celenza’s interest is to connect his band with his audience. In turn, much of the music was written with the idea of having Joshua Crumbly on bass, Jimmy Macbride on drums and Lucas Pino on saxophones.
Meanwhile, family friend Michel Camilo remained close throughout, offering advice and passing on to Celenza his own experiences as an artist and professional musician. “Michel was my dad’s patient for 20 years. They knew each other even before me, since the early 80s,” he recalls. “My dad has been a fan of Michel forever, Michel and Sandra (Camilo’s wife) are great family friends, we would have dinner parties and he would play and I’d sit right next to him on the piano bench. That was my introduction to jazz.”
“It has been so inspiring and refreshing to see how a promising young talent like Luke thrives and succeeds by seriously committing to develop his improvisational and composing skills while studying and researching the jazz tradition,” Camilo says. So while he was never formally Celenza’s teacher, “over the years we had sessions where we discussed subjects like texture, nuance, touch, groove, timing, piano technique, correct posture, telling your story and structural compositional writing,” Camilo recalls. “Luke brings to the table a fresh sound and an uncommon restrained maturity in his music.”
For Celenza, the secret is hidden in plain sight. “Jazz was once the pop music of the day,” he says. “If the pop music of today is in no way improvisatory, then that’s the missing element and something I want to bring back. Good music is good music, I have no qualms about doing something simple and repeating it. If it sounds good and feels good, then it is good.”
Saxophonist Miguel Zenón has long been occupied with finding common musical threads in the North American jazz tradition and the music of the African diaspora in the Caribbean and Latin America, and his newest project, Oye!!! Live in Puerto Rico, is his latest triumph in this quest.
Taking a break from recording with his usual quartet, Zenón’s own Miel Music is releasing a live recording with The Rhythm Collective, a group that first came together in 2003 to participate in the Jazz Ambassadors Program, sponsored at the time by the U.S. State Department and The Kennedy Center.
“We made that trip about ten years ago and got the opportunity to tour several countries in West Africa for about a month and a half,” said Zenón in a news release. “All the music on this album was either developed during that trip or inspired by the experience.” The Rhythm Collective is comprised of Tony Escapa on drums, Aldemar Valentín on bass, and Reinaldo de Jesús on percussion; all of them native Puerto Ricans and some of the most coveted musicians in their respective fields. Recorded in 2011 at Taller Cé, a short-lived performance space in San Juan, the album is a riveting, dynamic shift from much of Zenón’s previous work.
“I’ve always enjoyed the sound of the chord-less jazz trio, but I wanted to do something different with it and incorporate Caribbean and Puerto Rican music,” said Zenón. “The idea for this band was to focus more on the rhythmic aspects of the music. There are no chordal instruments used, in other words no pianos or guitars stating the harmony. This makes the music a bit more open harmonically, giving more importance to single melodic lines. But at the end of the day, the drums and the percussion are what drive these tunes.”
The palpable energy that emerges from the recording represents Zenón’s quest to bring greater jazz awareness to Puerto Rico. After winning the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (also known as the “genius grant”) in 2008, Zenón has sponsored a series of concerts, which he calls Caravana Cultural (or Cultural Caravan) in small rural towns around the island designed to educate audiences about the music of jazz greats such as John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. The stated goals of Caravana Cultural can be read on Zenón’s website (along with recent concert lineups and videos of past performances throughout Puerto Rico). Although the Rhythm Collective concerts were not part of that series, the shows captured here at Taller Cé were recorded in part with funding from the MacArthur Fellowship.
Rather than the hard-driving intensity of Zenón’s work with his regular quartet, the Rhythm Collective is sparer in approach, more about creating an atmospheric space where rhythmic pulses created by different members of the group could connect.
Oye!!! Live in Puerto Rico fulfills the listener’s desire for a new spin on a familiar rhythmic tradition, from a loftier, improvisational perspective. As a live performance, the recording contains the energy created by the interaction with the audience, raised on Afro-Caribbean dance music, but yearning to break free to a new space.
“In this band, we all happen to be Puerto Rican and grew up around this kind of music,” said Zenón. “Even though what we’re doing here is centered around a rhythm thing, the experimental part was second nature to us. We are all already interested in fusions between material that could be considered edgy, so it was fairly easy for us to push things a little bit; just to see how far we could take the combination of all these elements while still feeling comfortable within our individual musical personalities.”
Female singers who manage to stir a whole genre are seldom found. Diana Krall and Norah Jones are such outstanding talents who gave vocal jazz a whole new colour, and Korean singer Youn Sun Nah has been equally phenomenal. In the last few years, she has conquered the music world with her albums Voyage (2009) and Same Girl (2010) released on ACT Music.
Within two years, Nah had received her fourth “Korean Music Award,” the BMW World Jazz Award and the ECHO Jazz Award for best international female singer whilst in France, her second home, Same Girl was the best-selling jazz album of the year in 2011, Nah received the “Prix Mimi Perrin du Jazz Vocal” as female vocalist of the year, the leading magazine “Jazzman” awarded her with “Choc de l’annee 2012” as artist of the year and she was granted the title of nobility “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the culture secretary, putting her in the prominent company of such stars as David Bowie, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Dustin Hoffman.
What is the secret of her remarkable success? Her new album Lento (available on June 11) gives an explanation by combining Nah’s unique qualities. One of them is the blending of different cultural and musical sources, in a respectful yet unconventional manner. Besides jazz and related styles, she draws on chanson, pop and folk music, and in addition to compositions by herself and her band members, there is the extremely light version of the Korean folk song “Arirang” as well as “Hurt” by the alternative rock band Nine Inch Nails, and Stan Jones’ “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” a classic country song made famous by Johnny Cash.
For the first time Nah also calls upon European classical music: Alexander Scriabin’s “Prelude op. 16 No. 4 in E minor” with its tempo indication “Lento” was a source of inspiration for the album’s title, and it also sets up an intimate, atmospheric and harmonious musical world. Nah unfolds her expressive power especially in the peaceful and slow-paced moments – on the fragile chanson “Full Circle,” with heartbreaking grievance on “Lament” or artistic unison singing on “Momento Magico.”
On her new album, Glass Song, Moscow-born pianist/composer Yelena Eckemoff celebrates the season of renewal that ushers winter into spring with a mesmerizing set of crystalline beauty, available on L & H Production. In crafting this, the latest expression of her gorgeously delicate blend of classical intricacy and jazz invention, Eckemoff brings together two of modern music’s greatest improvisers for the first time: bassist Arild Andersen and drummer Peter Erskine.
Eckemoff herself is no stranger to rebirth. Classically trained, she has successfully transitioned into a strikingly assured jazz composer; raised in the Soviet Union, she fled her repressive homeland and has lived in the United States for the past two decades. Her evocations on spring’s rejuvenating thaw vividly illustrate her life experiences, as she hints in her liner notes.
“The same way as spring is always certain to replace even the most severe winter,” she writes, “hope is eternally present in the least favorable situations and in all circumstances of life.”
Eckemoff frequently turns to images of nature when composing, from the wintry landscapes of Cold Sun to the serene breezes of Grass Catching the Wind. But as she explains, the seasons suggest the constant change and evolution in life, which is even more important to her music. “I get inspired by nature a lot, because everything comes from nature,” she says in a news release. “But the observation of nature isn’t really my priority. I’ve had very, very rich experiences in my life, and the music I write expresses those feelings.”
Glass Song conjures images of sun glinting off of ice and frost melting away from windowpanes. It is also quite literal on the title track, which begins with the sound of Eckemoff playing water-filled glasses. But those concepts are equally present in the airy chill that opens the first track, “Melting Ice,” or in the shimmering rhythms of “Dripping Icicles.”
The trio that Eckemoff has assembled to help realize these reflective visions is composed of two of jazz’s most creative minds – who remarkably had not worked together prior to this recording. The legendary Erskine played with Weather Report and Steps Ahead in the early years of a career that has now spanned four decades and includes recordings and performances with everyone from Steely Dan to John Abercrombie, Joni Mitchell to Gary Burton and Pat Metheny. Norwegian bassist, Andersen, has an equally impressive resume, encompassing a six-year stint in the Jan Garbarek Quartet and more than a dozen albums as a leader for ECM.
Erskine had worked with Eckemoff on two earlier CDs, but the pianist had been searching for an opportunity to work with Andersen for a number of years, and Glass Song provided the perfect collection of material. “I was really excited about having the opportunity to put together those two giants for the first time,” Eckemoff says.
The combination works spectacularly, three distinctive voices seeming to breathe as one. The sensitivity of Erskine and Andersen serves Eckemoff’s fragile compositions with an airy but sure touch. The lush serenity of the leader’s piano is matched by the singing caress of Andersen’s bass and the hushed precision of Erskine’s percussion. The trio shares a deep intimacy while remaining attuned to the spaciousness of the pieces, all captured in the wondrously lush sound of the recording.
Eckemoff herself began playing piano at the age of four, studying first with her mother Olga, a professional pianist, then at the prestigious Gnessins Academy of Music and the Moscow State Conservatory. Despite the repressive atmosphere in the Soviet Union at the time, she began to explore rock and jazz music with other like-minded musicians. “Everything from the west was prohibited at that time,” she recalls, “and jazz was one of those things. But there was a jazz studio formed by some activists who were also professional musicians and we studied traditional jazz. I used jazz principles in my composing, which put me on a different path from other musicians.”
Eckemoff stepped away from her life as a concert pianist for several years to concentrate on raising her children. She finally left the Soviet Union with her husband, momentarily leaving her three children behind. “That was the hardest thing I ever did,” she says, “but we had the drive to leave Russia. It was a very hard and scary thing to do, but it worked out and we never regretted it. It ended up helping me in my musical development because I had much deeper spiritual experiences because of it.”
That sense of spiritual comes vividly to life in pieces like the sun-dappled “Sunny Day in the Woods” or the tender, evanescent “Sweet Dreams.” While the titles are accurate depictions, they’re almost unnecessary given the illustrative, purely emotional music itself. Once resettled in the States, Eckemoff returned to recording, taking advantage of modern recording techniques. Since then she has been stunningly prolific, first with classically oriented recordings and then with her reinvention as an elegant jazz musician in the past several years.
“Some people dance, some people sing, some people write,” Eckemoff explains. “When I feel something, I compose. It’s almost like I can’t stop it. My head is always filled with music. If I couldn’t write music I think I would just explode. Life is sometimes sad, but I find escape in writing music. I’m happy because I can do it.”
Marc Cary has gained a reputation as one of the most creative pianists of our time, a bandleader with musical interests that encompass jazz, go-go, hip-hop, electronic music, Indian classical music and more. But Cary is also an incisive and sought-after accompanist, a fact famously borne out by his 12-year tenure (beginning in 1994) with the great vocalist, songwriter and jazz icon Abbey Lincoln.
