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Lazaro Vega

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Posts posted by Lazaro Vega

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    Please join #JazzFromBlueLake today as we feature Organissimo, the celebrated jazz organ combo from Michigan who marked their 20th anniversary playing together recently, and whose keyboardist, Jim Alfredson, was just recognized with a lifetime award from the Jazz Alliance of Mid-Michigan. Organissimo appeared live on #BlueLakePublicRadio with saxophonist Arno Marsh and another time with trombonist Paul Brewer. You’ll hear those performances and more by clicking the #JazzFromBlueLake links at www.bluelake.org/ondemand today.

  2. Sweet. Talk about second acts!

    March 8, 2005 Grimes and Marshall Allen brought their "Spaceship on the Highway" by Blue Lake Public Radio's studios here at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in the Manistee National Forest and improvised/interviewed for an hour on the air. Allen played a shiny new alto, clarinet and EWI while Grimes was content with Olive Oil, his green lacquered bass William Parker bequeathed for the comeback. All improvisations.

    November 29, 2006 Henry and Margret returned with brass man Roy Campbell (trumpet, flugelhorn, pocket trumpet) for an hour of improvisation and conversation, this time including an unforgettable reading of Ayler's "Universal Indians."

    Some time in 2010 Grimes dropped by one last time with his "Renaissance Man Tour" which featured his first public violin playing since he put down the instrument years ago, as well as solo bass improvisations and poetry reading. 

    Great, great moments. So generous with his music. 

  3. Friday is the 100th anniversary of drummer/bandleader Art Blakey's birth (yes, his recordings are featured on Friday night's Jazz From Blue Lake, 10 p.m. - 3 a.m. over 88.9 and 90.3 FM, streaming live from www.bluelake.org/listen). Then, on the 27th, Detroiter Sean Dobbins joins guitarist Joshua Breakstone and bassist Marion Hayden for their tribute to Art Blakey at LaFontsee Galleries in the Underground Concert Series produced by www.adventuremusic.org. Drum on!

  4. James Carter chimes in? Man, his debut on Blue Note recorded live at Newport was our on-air funder premium so my boss suggested I get him saying a few words about Blue Lake that we could use on the air. Two hours later! Man, what a conversation! His memory is astonishing. The Blue Lake part is up under "Interviews" at www.bluelake.org/ondemand. 

    This last year the concert series I'm "curating" in Grand Rapids, MI, featured Detroit/Aretha drummer Gayelynn McKinney with saxophonist Dave McMurray (who's "In A Sentimental Mood" was in that tough tenor mold), and their keyboardist Gerard Gibbs (University of Michigan grad) played Herbie Hancock's "Butterfly" during sound check at the most perfect tempo. When he wasn't in gig mode and just playing with feel, damn man -- nothing to show off there but pure time. He's on James new one playing organ. The album is Django melodies, but, you know, "Melodie Au Crepuscule" gets a Bill Withers "Use Me" background. I really don't care because it all comes out James in the end, and at his best, when he's lit, it's the whole story. He and Scott Robinson are saxophone nerds to the tenth power, and fountains of insight. Robinson's coming to GR this year to play duets with Chicago drummer Jack Mouse, free duets. Click the link?! Jazz Spam: www.adventuremusic.org 

    Looking forward to the Tough Tenors. Do you have those sides they recorded at Minton's?

  5. His rhythmic approach on the head to "Like Sonny" is very different, more staccato, than on previous versions I've heard, or when he quotes at length while on tour with Miles in 1960. The title piece is a variation on "Out of This World" which he played the shit out of on that earlier Impulse album and digs in quickly here. It's interesting to hear him at this stage, with "A Love Supreme" and "Crescent" surrounding it, playing his own material from earlier. Nice long bass intro to "Traneing In," though it sounds like Elvin had to put down a smoke to get into tempo with everyone when it was time for the ensemble to enter. 

     

  6. Eleanor is 16 now and going to Homecoming this weekend. The recent concert by Roscoe and The Art Ensemble for their 50th Anniversary at The Chicago Jazz Festival found the ensemble expanded to include a string section, two contemporary classical operatic voices, 3 basses, 4 or 5 percussionists, two trumpets and trombone, a poet/electronics person, all in the service of expanding the stylistic reach of the music in the same organic, amoeba-like flow that the best of the AEC is known for, except...it was planned. Very well planned and well rehearsed and executed with a level of professionalism that did not interfere with the music's spontaneity and spirit. I mean, it was wider than anything I'd ever heard. It seemed a logical extension of the AEC's early promise of "anything is possible" and found a way to expand their methodology to reach that; and brings to mind what Bowie said about the music being "young." 

  7. Sunday, April 28th at 3 p.m. please join the Adventure Music team for our finale concert of the 2018-19 season as we welcome Detroit born baritone saxophonist and bass clarinetist Alex Harding and his Organ Nation to LaFontsee Galleries, 833 Lake Drive SE, Grand Rapids. With Jim Alfredson on B-3 organ and Djallo Djakate on drums, Alex Harding and Organ Nation is the first organ concert presented in The Underground Concert Series.

     

    According to Sunnyside Records, “Harding got to into music early as a child in Detroit. His ever supportive parents allowed him a drum kit, drumming becoming a passion that he pursued until he heard saxophone great Grover Washington, Jr., which led him to switch to tenor sax. In a twist of fate, Northwestern High School band director Ernest Rogers assigned Harding to the baritone sax chair when James Carter joined the band. It took a little time for Harding to grow attached to the horn and he continued his study with Motown baritone saxophone player, Beans Bows.

     

    “Having moved to New York City in 1993, Harding became a regular on the local jazz scene, including stints in ensembles with this heroes Hamiet Bluiett and Julius Hemphill.”

     

    In the 2018 Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll, Alexander Harding was given the “Rising Star” award in the Baritone Saxophone category. For more on Alex Harding, please see http://www.alexharding.net/html/about.php .

     

    Our previously scheduled guest, J.D. Allen, is not be available for this concert.

     

    For tickets to the Underground Concert Series presented by Adventure Music at LaFontsee Galleries, 833 Lake Drive SE, Grand Rapids, see www.adventuremusic.org. For directions to the venue (616) 451 – 9820. LaFontsee Galleries are wheelchair accessible.

     

  8. Sunday, March 31st at 3 p.m. Chicago saxophonist and bass clarinetist Geof Bradfield returns to The Underground Series with his “Yes and…music for nine improvisers” featuring a roll call of top Chicago and New York jazz musicians in a new multi-movement work which Howard Reich described in the Chicago Tribune as “…music [that] finds continuity in the tonal glow of the ensemble playing, the subtlety of instrumental voicing, and the harmonic sophistication of everything these musicians have to offer.”

     

    The Chicago composer/woodwind virtuoso/bandleader Geof Bradfield’s “Yes, and…Music For Nine Improvisers” features Nick Mazzarella: alto saxophone; Western Michigan University graduate John Wojciechowski: flutes and tenor saxophone; Russ Johnson and Tito Carrillo: trumpets; Joel Adams: trombone; Clark Sommers: bass; Scott Hesse: guitar and the great Dana Hall: drums, cymbals, and percussion. See www.delmark.com for their recording.

     

    For tickets to the Underground Concert Series presented by Adventure Music at LaFontsee Galleries, 833 Lake Drive SE, Grand Rapids, see www.adventuremusic.org. For directions to the venue (616) 451 – 9820. LaFontsee Galleries are wheelchair accessible.

     

  9. For the 96th anniversary of Dexter Gordon’s birth his widow, Maxine Gordon, gave a reading and discussion of her new book “Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon” at Mills College in Oakland, CA. Blue Lake Public Radio celebrated by featuring the innovative tenor saxophonist’s recordings in the first part of the hour on Jazz From Blue Lake with Lazaro Vega, 10 p.m. – 3 a.m. last night. You can find that program under Daily Shows then click Jazz From Blue Lake here: www.bluelake.org/ondemand

    Dexter Gordon.jpg

  10. Sunday, February 24th at 3 p.m. the renowned jazz musician and multi-genre drummer GayeLynn McKinney of Detroit brings her family’s legacy of music education to Grand Rapids behind the release of her new album “McKinFolk, The New Begining” (Detroit Music Factory). Aretha Franklin’s drummer since 2016, and leader of the Grammy nominated all female jazz group Straight Ahead, McKinney is the daughter of renowned jazz educator and pianist Harold McKinney. This Grand Rapids area concert follows saxophonist Dave McMurray’s 2018 debut album on the fabled Blue Note Record label, as well as Gayelynn McKinney’s new album featuring Geri Allen and James Carter. For Black History Month this concert includes a band with first call Detroit jazz musicians Allen Dennard on trumpet, Ibrahim Jones on bass and Gerrard Gibbs on piano.  For tickets to the Underground Concert Series presented by Adventure Music at LaFontsee Galleries, 833 Lake Drive SE, Grand Rapids, see www.adventuremusic.org. For directions to the venue (616) 451 – 9820. LaFontsee Galleries are wheelchair accessible.

     

     

     

    Blue Lake Public Radio's conversation with GayeLynn McKinney is now available under "Interviews" from http://www.bluelake.org/ondemand

     

    And check out this article/review on Dave McMurray. http://downbeat.com/news/detail/mcmurray-was?fbclid=IwAR0Mm2m0nb6BjUg1Gnyh4adTOBJllXf843SBnIJjk56KE3RD0B_wWxpk7oc

     

     

     

     

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