GA Russell

Disc One of the Elegy box.

Etienne Charles Debuts As a Big Band Leader With "Creole Orchestra," Arriving June 14 on Culture Shock Records Album Features 13 Tunes Arranged for 22-Piece Big Band, Featuring Acclaimed Vocalist Rene Marie & Other Special Guests Spring & Summer Itinerary Includes 3-Night Stand at Dizzy's, NYC, June 14-16   April 8, 2024 Etienne Charles presents himself to the jazz world as an accomplished large-ensemble arranger with Creole Orchestra, set for a June 14 release on his own Culture Shock imprint. The album is the premiere of the titular band, 22 musicians strong and specializing in executing the Trinbagonian trumpeter’s elaborate charts. Long hailed for his work as a trumpeter, composer, and improviser, as well as for his deep knowledge of rhythms from his native Trinidad & Tobago and around the Eastern Caribbean, Charles has mostly worked with small combos over his nearly 20-year career. He had written only a few pieces for large ensemble when vocalist Rene Marie tasked him with arranging for a full set of big band tunes to take on the road. That was “baptism by fire,” Charles recalls. “Okay, now I’m a big band writer.” And, as Creole Orchestra makes clear, he is a shrewd and inventive one. It’s not just anyone who can orchestrate both the classic swing anthem “Stompin’ at the Savoy” and Bell Biv Devoe’s new jack swing hit “Poison” with equal flair and crispness. Those are just two of the many dimensions Charles explores on the album. Marie herself is a featured guest, taking the vocal spotlight for four of the 13 tracks—including “I Wanna Be Evil,” Eartha Kitt’s theme song that was the centerpiece of Marie and Charles’s first collaboration (her 2013 album of the same name), as well as the jazz standard “Centerpiece” and two of her own originals. Rapper Brandon Rose and turntablist DJ Logic appear together on “Poison,” connecting Charles’s arrangement with the song’s hip-hop roots. The ensemble and its various soloists put in exemplary work as well. Lead trumpeter Jumaane Smith and trombonist Michael Dease both give standout performances on Monty Alexander’s reggae-spiced “Think Twice”; bassist Ben Williams wows with his soulful improv on the hard-swinging “Night Train”; while Charles, alto saxophonist Godwin Louis, and pianist Sullivan Fortner illuminate the leader’s calypso “Douens.” The real stars of Creole Orchestra, of course, are Charles’s sterling charts. “In many musical situations the Arranger has become the ghost,” he writes in the album notes. “One of the first working on a project and many times the last to be recognized.” No more. Etienne Charles was born July 24, 1983 in Port-of-Spain, the capital city of the island nation of Trinidad & Tobago. Carrying the torch of Caribbean musical traditions in all their eclectic facets is, itself, a family tradition for the Charleses. Etienne’s father, Francis, was both a member of the Trinidadian steel band Phase II Pan Groove and the owner of a colossal record collection, and Etienne thus grew up soaking in music. He learned to play trumpet as a boy, and by high school he, too, was a member of Phase II Pan Groove. But jazz had gotten Etienne’s attention, and he moved to the United States in 2002 to matriculate at Florida State University—where he found his way to the celebrated pianist and educator Marcus Roberts, who became his mentor. He quickly gained not only a mastery of the jazz tradition, but the recognition to prove it. Charles placed second at the 2005 International Trumpet Guild Jazz Competition in Bangkok, Thailand, then took first place a year later at the U.S. National Trumpet Competition in Fairfax, Virginia. He was also awarded a full scholarship to The Juilliard School of Music, where he earned both a master’s degree and an entrée into the cutthroat New York jazz scene. Charles not only survived but thrived in that scene, recording and performing with artists ranging from Maria Schneider to Wynton Marsalis to Rene Marie. He also made a striking impression as a leader, injecting his encyclopedic knowledge of Caribbean music and rhythms into an improvised jazz context. He recorded his debut album Culture Shock in 2006 and followed it with nine more, of which Creole Orchestra is the latest. Etienne Charles will be appearing at Berklee College of Music, Boston, 4/11; California State University East Bay, Hayward, 4/12; Wortham Center, Houston, 4/19 (world premiere of "Earth Tones"); Omaha (NE) Performing Arts, 4/26; The Townhouse, Los Angeles, CA, 5/2; Mt. Hood Jazz Festival, Portland, OR, 5/4; Le Taquin, Toulouse, France, 5/11-15; Spoleto Festival, Charleston, SC (w/ Terri Lyne Carrington New Standards), 5/26; SFJAZZ Center, San Francisco (w/ Rene Marie), 6/10; Dizzy’s, NYC, 6/14-16; Fête de la Musique, North Beach Bandshell, Miami Beach, FL, 6/21; Caramoor Festival, Katonah, NY (w/ Rene Marie), 7/18; Carlyle Room, Washington, DC, 7/26; Riverside Center for the Arts, Fredericksburg, VA, 7/27; JAS Cafe, Aspen, CO, 8/10; Missy Lane’s Assembly Room, Durham, NC, 10/11-12. Photography: Luigi Creese (top), Jason Henry Bandcamp: https://etiennecharles.bandcamp.com/music   EPK: Etienne Charles | Creole Orchestra  Etienne Charles Web Site  

Iconic American Jazz Drummer Dies Of Leukemia (msn.com)

Stephen Strasburg’s retirement officially listed by MLB (msn.com)

Everyone is entirely credible. But these guys are not as interesting people as the players from The Glory of Their Times. Maybe the guys from a hundred years ago were country.

Two brothers wake up one morning and decided they were mature and needed to show it. So they decided to cuss in front of their parents. The older brother told the younger to use the word “damn” and he’d use “hell”. They go downstairs for breakfast and mom asks the younger what he would like. “I guess I’ll have some damn Toasties,” he says. Mom whales into him and then grounds him for a week. She then turns to the older son and says “Now what do you want, Smarty?” The older brother looks at the younger, still smarting and decrying his week-long punishment. He looks at his mom then looks back again at his brother and says: “Well, I sure as hell don’t want any Toasties!”

I Called Him Morgan is currently at its best price, $11.49 prime. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07616S9Q7

How climate change is hitting vulnerable Indonesian trans sex workers | The Independent

Pat Zachry has died at 71. RIP. Former MLB All-Star Pitcher Pat Zachry Dead At 71 (msn.com)

Don't know why, but I have always in my mind divided his music into pre-Song for My Father and post-Song for My Father. I would really enjoy a box of his 1964-1969 albums.

Spotify is raising prices. Spotify Is Raising Prices Again. Audiobooks to Blame, Report Says (gizmodo.com)

I guess times are changing. 58% of the voters rejected a proposal to build new stadiums for the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals. https://apnews.com/article/chiefs-royals-kansas-city-stadiums-e9605296b85e91699441e4ba10e83212

Murdoch Mysteries

DoorDash adds drone delivery to its menu (msn.com)

Happy Easter, everybody!

14 runs in one inning, last done in 1900. Diamondbacks Shatter Modern-Day MLB Record on Opening Day (msn.com)

Ken, I'd like to hear that! I'll look forward to seeing the link.

Only 11% of US revenues is from physical sales. (1) RIAA (@RIAA) / X (twitter.com)

A.C. Leonard will retire, it looks like. https://3downnation.com/2024/03/18/a-c-leonard-hints-at-retirement-in-cryptic-social-media-post/ ***** The Redblacks will be celebrating their tenth anniversary this year. https://3downnation.com/2024/03/18/ottawa-redblacks-to-host-key-alumni-unveil-new-uniform-during-tenth-anniversary-season/ ***** Jason Shivers will be Edmonton's defensive coordinator this year. https://www.cfl.ca/2024/03/18/elks-announce-coaching-staff-bring-back-jason-shivers/ https://3downnation.com/2024/03/18/official-edmonton-elks-hire-jason-shivers-as-defensive-coordinator-finalize-coaching-staff/ https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/edmonton-elks-add-jason-shivers-four-others-to-coaching-staff-1.2091844 ***** Calvin McCarty will be Hamilton's running backs coach this year. https://3downnation.com/2024/03/19/hamilton-tiger-cats-hire-calvin-mccarty-as-running-backs-coach/ ***** The Elks will celebrate their 75th anniversary this year with, inter alia, their largest alumni reunion ever. https://3downnation.com/2024/03/25/edmonton-elks-to-host-teams-largest-ever-alumni-gathering-to-celebrate-75th-anniversary/ ***** (Maybe I already posted in the past, but I didn't realize that) Naaman Roosevelt is now a coach with Hamilton. https://www.cfl.ca/2024/03/24/naaman-roosevelt-micd-up-at-the-cfl-combine/ ***** That catches us up with the headlines, except... I'll plan to start looking at the free agent signings next time.

Raymond Chandler was a friend of Erle Stanley Gardner's. A year ago, I read a collection of Chandler's correspondence. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008TSROHM/ In one letter, he said that he had just finished a story by some new guy named A.A. Fair. He said that he enjoyed the book, but that Fair's writing was a complete ripoff of Gardner's style and plot devices!

Bobby Broom Serves Up a Platter of Spicy Organ Jazz with "Jamalot," Set for May 24 Release By Steele Records Guitarist's New Album Features Eight Jazz & Pop Standards As Played Live by His Organi-Sation, With Organist Ben Paterson & Drummer Kobie Watkins, Between 2014 & 2019   March 25, 2024 Acclaimed guitarist Bobby Broom makes a welcome return to one of his longtime favorite formats—the jazz organ trio—with Jamalot, a live album and the second by his Organi-Sation, to be released May 24 on Steele Records. While the trio (which also features organist Ben Paterson and drummer Kobie Watkins) debuted on record with 2018’s Soul Fingers, they have been a working band for much longer; the new release features performances going back 10 years. Actually, Broom’s infatuation with the Hammond organ goes back to his youth. It first bore professional fruit in his twenties, when he joined the band of the legendary Charles Earland. A decade later, in the 1990s, he founded the Deep Blue Organ Trio, which continued working into the 2010s. “I thought after the Deep Blue Organ Trio that I would never feel anything quite like that in terms of chemistry,” Broom says. “And boy was I wrong. It was really incredible to me how much this new group jelled, and the level of music that we were able to play.” Even a cursory listen to Jamalot’s eight familiar jazz and pop tunes is enough to confirm the rapport he describes. The opener, Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” offers up a reservoir of groove so rich it might take even Wonder by surprise. If anything, that’s even more true of the Kurt Weill standard “Speak Low”: Already simmering from the start, the band quickly escalates to a frenetic boil. When they slow things down on “Tennessee Waltz,” the result is a smooth current of soul that the listener can ride blissfully across the song. Even one of the most well-worn staples of the organ repertoire, “House of the Rising Sun,” unearths new, funky realms for the musicians to explore. And explore they do. As irresistible as their grooving interplay is, it’s rivaled by the exciting improvisations the three musicians unleash. Broom drenches The Beatles’ “Long and Winding Road” in the mud of the Mississippi Delta; Paterson discovers a heretofore unknown gospel stratum in Eric Clapton’s “Layla”; and Watkins threatens to turn “The Jitterbug Waltz” into a wild frenzy of rhythm and ecstasy. On Jamalot, Broom’s long-enduring love for the organ combo is palpable—and, better still, contagious. Bobby Broom was born January 18, 1961, in New York City. From as early as he can recall, he loved music: just music, style and label notwithstanding. But in his early teen years, the Herbie Hancock and Grover Washington records he heard on the radio had put a new kind of hook into him; the deejays called them “jazz.” By the time he was 16, Broom was attending New York’s prestigious High School of Music and Art and gigging with pianist Al Haig; at 21, he was touring with Sonny Rollins. By that time, Broom had also signed with GRP Records and recorded 1981’s Clean Sweep, which (along with 1984’s Livin’ for the Beat) was a crossover jazz success. But rather than settle into a comfortable career in the emerging genre of “smooth jazz,” Broom took the road less traveled: He left the New York scene behind and established himself in Chicago. In the 1990s Broom formed the Deep Blue Organ Trio and recorded two quartet records before deciding to make a guitar-bass-drums trio his primary outlet. He solidified a lineup with bassist Dennis Carroll and drummer Kobie Watkins with 2006’s Song and Dance. But a chance to go on tour in 2014 with Steely Dan, coupled with the passionate advocacy of his then-drummer Makaya McCraven, brought Broom back to the soulful Hammond organ sound he loved. Thus it was that the Organi-Sation was born, with Broom enlisting noted organist Ben Paterson (r.) and Watkins (l.) to develop the band’s joyful sound. After four intensive years, that sound was finally documented on 2018’s Soul Fingers. The live compilation Jamalot, however, demonstrates that the trio’s empathy and deep pocket were present from the very start. Photography: Tom Chadwick (Bobby), Todd Winters (group) Bandcamp: https://bobbybroom.bandcamp.com/    EPK: Bobby Broom Organi-Sation Live | Jamalot  Bobby Broom Web Site  

Orioles owner Peter Angelos has passed away at age 94 (msn.com)