Lazaro Vega

Begin forwarded message: Yusef Lateef Book Release Party Morton Books Inc. invites you to honor a national and world wide treasure: Yusef Lateef, and hold a public signing of his new book, "The Gentle Giant" - the Autobiography of Yusef Lateef. http://www.robmorton.com/ The innovative "Jazz + Bossa Nova group" led by Paul Abler will be performing. Yashmin Charnet-Abler-vocal Paul Abler-guitar Allen Farnham-piano Sean Smith-bass Leonard King-drums Ze Mauricio-percussion Time: Friday, January 26th 5:30PM -8PM Location: Gibson/Baldwin Showroom 421 West 54th Street New York, NY IMPORTANT! RSVP by January 20th - space is limited. bossanovamusic@comcast.net or call (973) 324 9274

Mexicains Sans Frontieres 120 S Division Ave #226 Grand Rapids MI 49503 tel 616 706-7963 Mexicains Sans Frontieres welcomes Chicago's Herculaneum to Grand Rapids Feb 11 at 8:pm Herculaneum is Nick Broste (trombone), Greg Danek (bass), David McDonnell (alto saxophone and clarinet), Patrick Newberry (trumpet), and Dylan Ryan (drum and vibraphone), a conglomeration of players who have collectively performed with a wide variety of players who have collectively performed with a wide variety of other Chicago-based jazz, improvised music and experimental rock bands. The Chicago Reader's Peter Margasak writes that the band has "arrived at a surprisingly agile and elegant sound" adding "the musicians are equally inventive as writer's arrangers and improvisers, and they make excellent use of tight, varied horn charts to both propel and provide counterpoint to whever's soloing." Orange Blossom is the band's second recording. 10$ and 8$ for music students. for more information visit www.herculaneumsound.com or www.myspace.com/mexicainssansfrontieres

January 17, 2007 The Jazz Datebook: Mondays from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. The What Not Inn features a jam session open to musicians and vocalists and featuring local, regional and international jazz musicians as a “house” band. No cover charge. www.whatnotinn.com. The What Not Inn is located at M89 and the Blue Star Highway, 2405 68th Street, Fennville, MI. (269) 543-3341. Every Tuesday and Friday there’s jazz in Ada during the dinner hour (6 to 9 p.m.), with trumpeter/vocalist/entertainer Sweet Willie Singleton at the Thornapple Daily Grill, 445 Ada Drive, Ada, MI. (616) 676-1233. www.thegilmorecollection.com/Thornapple/thornapple.html Wednesdays from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sweet Willie Singleton plays trumpet, sings and entertains at Bite Piano Bar and Restaurant, 151 Ottawa Avenue, in the Waters Building, downtown Grand Rapids. Wednesdays, 7:00 to 10:00 p.m., Rick Reuther sings at Notos Italian Restaurant, 6600 28th St. SE., Grand Rapids. Rick Reuther with drummer Cherie Lynn and pianist Tom Hagen. See http://www.notosoldworld.com/ or www.rickreuthersings.com Thursdays from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Sweet Willie Singleton is heard at Gill’s Blue Crab Lounge in The B.O.B., 20 Monroe Ave. N.W., Grand Rapids. Every Thursday at 8 p.m. ‘Til Midnight in Holland features live jazz in the dining room. Thursday, January 18th Blue Coast Quartet; Thursday, January 25th Michael Holmes; February Events: Friday, February 2nd, Full Count in the deli at 9p.m.; Thursday, February 22nd, Micheal Doyle's Evidence, hard bop, Latin and modal jazz. ‘Till Midnight, 171 East 24th Street, Holland. For more information, (616) 392 – 6883 or www.tillmidnight.biz . Thursdays from 7 to 11 p.m. Restaurant Toulouse, 246 Culver Street, Saugatuck, features live jazz. (269) 857 – 1561. Fridays and Saturdays from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. live local jazz at The Grand Seafood and Oyster Bar, 24 Washington St., Grand Haven. Live local jazz or blues guitarists on Wednesday evenings from 8 to 11 p.m. (616) 844- 5055. Friday evenings live jazz at Two Tonys Taverna Grille, 711 E. Savidge, Spring Lake, 616-844-0888. Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Pumpernickles, 202 Butler St., Saugatuck, pianist Jim Cooper plays music of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Roger and Lorenz Hart. Wednesday, January 17 from 7 to 9:30 p.m. The 21 piece Beltline Big Band presents a big band dance at The Peninsular Club (Ottawa and Fountain Street, downtown Grand Rapids). Tickets $7 at the door. (616) 459 – 3261. www.beltlinebigband.com. Fridays jazz and other music at The Grand Rapids Art Museum, Lyon and Division, downtown Grand Rapids. www.gramonline.org for more information. Music heard Fridays from 6:15-8:15 p.m.: January 19, Dave Colee Trio with Ginny Dusseau; January 26, The Wonderland Jazz Ensemble. Thursday, January 18th, Dr. John Hair’s New Connections is heard live from the studios of Blue Lake Public Radio as we continue the series Live From Blue Lake. Trombonist and educator Dr. John Hair (former owner of Dr. J’s Jazz Coffee House) is described by The Grand Rapids Press as, "One of West Michigan’s preeminent jazz trombonists, arrangers and band leaders [who] kicks out stellar original compositions dedicated to family members and friends." For more information see: http://cdbaby.com/cd/drjohnhair. This performance live from our studios is part of a five concert series underwritten by Mack Avenue Records, “The Road To Great Music,” at www.mackavenue.com . The series is supported by the Holland Area Arts Council and is a program of the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs. All shows at 10 p.m. Feburary 8th, Trio Con Brio with pianist Phil DeGregg, bassist Paul Keller and drummer Tim Froncek; March 21st The Western Jazz Quartet from Western Michigan Unviersity in Kalamazoo; April 9th, trumpeter Sweet Willie Singleton’s Quintet with special guest drummer Ronnie Gardiner. Please tell a friend to listen live via www.bluelake.org ! Friday, Saturday, Sunday, January 19th, 20th, and 21st The Side Street Strutters join Associate Conductor John Varineau and the Grand Rapids Symphony for a series of concerts dedicated to the music of early jazz giants Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Artmstrong, Fats Waller and Duke Ellington. Evoking, especially, the spirit of New Orleans jazz, The State Street Strutters are a main attraction at Disneyland in California. Their concerts are shows with comedy routines, dance, costumes and audience participation. Tickets are $26 to $36. Information from (616) 454-9451 ext. 4 or from www.grsymphony.org. Saturday, January 20th at 6 p.m. the Fred Knapp Trio performs during a Jazz Vespers service at First United Methodist Church, 227 East Fulton (just East of Jefferson) downtown Grand Rapids. Phone (616) 451-2879 or see www.grandrapidsfumc.org. For a full schedule of jazz drummer Fred Knapp’s playing, www.fredknappmusic.com . Saturday, January 20th at 7 p.m. the electic jazz duo from Chicago of vocalist Typhanie Monique and guitarist Neal Alger perform two sets at The Saugatuck Center for the Arts, 400 Culver Street, Saugatuck. $15 tickets available through (269) 857 – 2399 or www.sc4a.org. See http://www.tymoneal.com/main.html for more information about the musicians. Monday, January 22nd The Grand Rapids Jazz Orchestra from 7:30 to 9:30 at the Kopper Top Guest House, “Where the Big Bands Play,” 638 Stocking N.W., Grand Rapids. $5 at the door. Big band jazz on the 4th Monday of the month. Tuesday, January 23rd at 7:30 p.m. The Truth in Jazz Orchestra wails at the West Side Inn, Beidler St., Muskegon. The sixteen piece big band led by bassist/bass trombonist Dave Collee features a swinging book and regular guests such as drummer Tim Froncek and trumpeter Dan Jacobs (see: http://www.danjacobsmusic.com/home.html ) . The band is reportedly working on a debut CD. Saturday, February 3rd at 8 p.m. the cuban jazz combo Tumbao Bravo with conguero Alberto Nacif and saxophonist Paul VornHagen appear a The Creole Gallery, 1218 Turner Street, Lansing, MI 48906. (517) 487 – 9549 or www.creolegallery.com . Thursday, February 8, 2007, The David Sanborn Group at Forest Hills Fine Arts Center, 600 Forest Hill Avenue SE, Grand Rapids. (616) 493-8966 or www.fhfineartscenter.com/Performances.html . Saturday, February 10th at 8 p.m. pianist Johnny O’Neil, who played the role of Art Tatum in the Oscar-winning film “Ray” starring Jamie Fox, and was recently inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame, appears at The C Creole Gallery, 1218 Turner Street, Lansing, MI 48906. (517) 487 – 9549 or www.creolegallery.com . Sunday, February 11th at 7 p.m. in The B.O.B. Grand Rapids native Danny Heines returns from his home for the last 17 in the San Fransisco Bay area to present a solo guitar concert. Raised in a jazz household, Danny Heines’ own music encompasses Eastern Europe and Africa. His most recent CD, “What Worlds They Bring” reached number one on the syndicated radio program “Echoes” and number four on the NAV national airplay chart. Tickets are $12.95 in advance and $14.95 at the door. Available through Star Tickets Plus from (616) 222-4000. For more information see www.dannyheines.com or conact Carolyn Heines at (616) 774 – 4136. Sunday, February 11th at 8 p.m. Herculaneum, five young Chicago musicians playing creative music -- Patrick Newberry, trumpet; Nick Broste, trombone; David McDonnell, alto saxophone/clarinet; Greg Danek, bass; and Dylan Ryan drums/vibraphone/piano -- at Mexicains Sans Frontieres, 120 South Division Ave. #226, Grand Rapids, MI 49506, (616) 706-7963. $10 at the door. Herculaneum’s debut CD, “Orange Blossom” was broadcast during “Out On Blue Lake.” See www.herculaneumsound.com or www.482music.com Tuesday, February 13th at 8 p.m. Brazilian jazz vocalist Luciana Souza with pianist Edward Simon present a tribute to the Poetry of Pablo Neruda at Wellspring Theater, the Epic Center, Kalamazoo. The Chilean poet who won the 1971 Nobel Prize for literature, Pablo Neruda’s poetry is set to music based on Catalan composer Federico Mompou’s “Songs and Dances.” The 2004 recording of this work was rated the Wall Street Journal’s top ten. Tickets are $20 with discounts for students and seniors. The Epic Center Box Office, (800) 228-9858. This concert is a presentation of Fontana Chamber Arts, (269) 382- 7774, www.fontanachamberarts.org. Wednesday, February 14, 2007 at 8:00 p.m. The Luciana Souza Quintet at the Dalton Center Recital Hall, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo. In collaboration with Education For the Arts (EFA). Her ensemble for this concert, The New Bossa Nova, includes Edward Simon, piano; Antonio Sanchez, drums; Scott Colley, bass and Romero Lubambo, guitar. The concert features works by modern American songwriters presented in an aesthetic setting inspired by the late 1950’s early 1960’s Brazilian Bossa Nova. Three-time Grammy nominee Luciana Souza hails from São Paulo, Brazil, where she grew up in a family of musicians. She currently teaches at Manhattan School of Music, in New York. Ms. Souza has participated in more than thirty recordings lead by jazz greats such as Danilo Perez (on two Grammy-nominated albums), George Garzone, Kenny Wheeler, Steve Kuhn, John Patitucci, and Maria Schneider, among others. In 2005, Luciana was awarded Female Jazz Singer of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association. Adult tickets are $30 with student and group discounts available. For tickets, 269-382-7774 or on-line at www.fontanachamberarts.org . Saturday, February 17 at 6 p.m. a Jazz Vespers Service featuring music by trombonist Paul Brewer with pianist/vocalist Robin Connell's Jazz Quartet, poetry readings by Stelle Slootmaker, and painting by T’Alyne. This local “happening” featuring Grand Rapids artists is part of the 34th annual Celebration of the Arts at First United Methodist Church, 227 East Fulton Street (downtown Grand Rapids). For more information call (616) 451-2879 or visit www.grandrapidsfumc.org Free will offering for a charitable cause. Friday, March 30th, 2007 at 8:00 p.m. Pianist Kenny Barron’s Trio featuring Stefon Harris, marimbist, vibraphonist & composer at the Dalton Center Recital Hall, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo. Kenny Barron’s unmatched ability to mesmerize audiences with his elegant playing, sensitive melodies and infectious rhythms is what inspired The Los Angeles Times to name him “one of the top jazz pianists in the world” and Jazz Weekly to call him “the most lyrical piano player of our time.” Rounding out the trio are drummer Ben Riley and Bassist Ray Drummond. Tickets from www.fontanachamberarts.org or 269-382-7774.

Up for this Thursday, Dr. John Hair's New Connections at 10 p.m.

Brecker playing "Oleo."

Dave Liebmann on the passing of Brecker, Coltrane.... Begin forwarded text: the funeral was beyond words-randy was incredible--they cremate mike tomorrow--public memorial sometime in the future these are my thoughts that i would like to share with people who will understand what i am saying PASSINGS: MIKE and ALICE I write this a few hours after Mike's funeral, Monday Jan 15. It was as you could imagine quite moving and quite sad. He leaves a wife, two teenage children, a sister and brother Randy, who took his greatest solo today when he spoke so honestly about Mike at the funeral. I know these guys for forty years. One of his last records was with Joe Lovano and myself in Saxophone Summit with his tune as the title track appropriately titled “Gathering of Spirits.” As well his last official gig was with that band at Birdland in March 2004. We were particularly close in the early days. Mike took over my first loft when I moved on and stayed there ten years with the same piano and continuing the same research and practice vibe. He and I were close mainly as a consequence of our love and respect for John Coltrane’s music. But more important than the music was the message that Trane left to all of us concerning humility, humanity and honesty. Music after all is in the final analysis just sound without emotion or feeling until the artist possesses the notes so the listener, if they care to and put the effort in, feels something. To move the listener, you have to bring something to the music that is inside you. Michael had plenty inside him and through music, he found a way to let people know what he was thinking and feeling. Besides inspiring so many saxophonists to pursue this deep musical tradition that we all love and respect, he personally helped many people involved in addictive behavior to find and cure themselves. And even at the end, he realized that though he wanted his disease to stay quiet, by asking for blood donors he was helping to save others, which is exactly what has happened. This is the essence of selflessness. As Randy said in his eulogy, the passing of Alice Coltrane within the same twenty four hour period is significant on several levels, specifically in relation to Mike because of the Coltrane connection. It was the late Trane period that we (meaning Michael, Steve Grossman, Bob Berg, Randy, myself and others) were hooked on and tried to emulate in the early days. The fact that these two passings occurred during the IAJE convention in New York and became common knowledge in the last few hours of the weekend was in some ways fortuitous since such a large part of the community was by circumstance together. The last person I saw as I was leaving the hotel was Roy Haynes. His final thought to me was exactly that, meaning this is the time for the community to pull together and keep the faith. We will do our best Sergeant Haynes.

That concert in Ann Arbor was such as personal event, the whole family there to celebrate their father's birthday and featuring special guest Roy Haynes...Glad to have heard Alice Coltrane live that one time. Searching for words....The musical mysticism she draped herself in, the deep Eastern vibe of her solos, was clearer live. That night Ravi kept most of his solos short and encouraged her to really play at length.....Sorry to hear this news.

Clem, You're absolutely right. The above wasn't real, just the myth of "I better not blow this gig" surfacing again in a fantasy. LV

Was pasteing together a program of jazz recordings based on the list of Grammy nominees (to air this Saturday morning) when in the Latin Jazz catagory there's Dafnis Prieto's release "Absolute Quintet" featuring Henry Threadgill, playing alto, on "Afrotango." Nice. Prieto drums, Jason Lindner, keys, Christian Howes, violin (he'll play live on Blue Lake Feburary 2nd), Dana Leong, cello and special guest Henry Threadgill. Hope they get a Grammy. www.zohomusic.com

Consumption is the play, so if this musician personifies the musical result as hip hop took its plunge from street music to mindless assembly line pop drivel in the late 90s/early 2000s is he a reason or just the poop from the machine? Caving into the smell of all that money and with the attention of televisoin, retail, eat all, assuming influence BECAUSE of, as a REWARD for, the down turn in, what?, honesty? "We shall ask thine imagination be kept in this purse," holds the mighty Tie while indicating an empty Royal Crown blue flannel bag with gold draw string, script and brick a brack, the bag which graduates from whiskey image warmer to keeping golf balls from rolling around the trunk of the car. It starts beating like a heart the moment imagination is placed inside. And you hold it and look at it gently pumping under your fist, other hand up and waving goodbye to the trunk of a car rolling into the gated community from which these ideas about music and control through The Bag arose, were born amid the annoyance of work intruding on home life, not the artist's inseperatble life and work, the power flesh battery he holds in his hand but now in a bag just out of reach. So he sings what he hears coming in not going out. Change down the stair well, hundreds of flights jingling and rolling with money that sounds like her laugh, Daisy.

Who's Wu Tang's Muhal? Ever see this? http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/runs_house/series.jhtml

From Margaret Davis: Thanks, Lazaro, and happy New Ears! There's some kind of cosmic convergence going on here, because check this out, same time, different station!: * Wednesday, January 1Oth, 'O7: Henry Grimes's Spaceship on the Highway, w/ Marshall Allen, Andrew Lamb, & Avreeayl Ra (filmed in concert by Joe Chonto in Philadelphia on December 8th, 'O6) will be featured on "Some Real Music"; tune in at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Time Warner Cable channel 57, RCN Cable channel 85, & worldwide on the Web at www.mnn.org (Windows Media Player required). Also, * Saturday, January 2Oth: Henry Grimes's Spaceship on the Highway, w/ Marshall Allen, Andrew Lamb, & Avreeayl Ra, showcase concert for the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (also open to the public) at the Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard St. betw. Broadway & Church St., New York City, main space, 8 p.m. (total of 18 groups playing in three concert spaces between 6 p.m. & 1 a.m.), 212-219-3OO6, 212-219-3132, www.knittingfactory.com, full schedule at www.winterjazzfest.com/2007/artspresentersjan20.html, tickets from www.ticketweb.com/user/?region=nyc&query=detail&event=705372 ; and then various other things large & small before and afterwards, but primarily: * Friday & Saturday, March 9th & 1Oth, 'O7, 8 p.m: Cecil Taylor AHA3 trio w/ Henry Grimes & Pheeroan akLaff; John Zorn w/ Dave Douglas, Greg Cohen, & Joey Baron (Masada), at the Rose Theatre, Lincoln Center, Broadway at 6Oth St., 212-546-2656, www.lincolncenter.org, www.jalc.org/concerts/details.asp?EventID=952. Tickets at $127.5O, $1O7.5O, $82.5O, $57.5O, $37.5O are available at the Web site, at the Rose Hall box office at 6Oth St. and Broadway, or from CenterCharge, 212-721-65OO. and one more very exciting thing: * Henry Grimes & Rashied Ali, combined live duo concerts, WKCR broadcast, WKCR Webcast, and recording sessions at Columbia University, mid-March or so, details to follow. end quoted text

Late night after the Grimes/Campbell I'm leaning toward airing the Cecil/Roach, Braxton/Roach recordings....

You're welcome pepsi! Thank Nessa, too, for instilling a deeper appreciation of Klook in yours truely. Mike Hennesey's book made pulling that together that much easier.

11 p.m. in Chicago.....

Blue Lake Public Radio will re-broadcast the live from our studios performance of bassist/violinist Henry Grimes and trumpeter Roy Campbell tonight at midnight eastern time (same as New York) during "Out On Blue Lake." "Jazz From Blue Lake" begins at 10 p.m. and this evening's featured artist is drummer Max Roach (Monday was Baby Dodds, last night Kenny Clarke, tonight Roach, Thursday drummer/bandleader Art Blakey, and Friday night Jay McShann). Blue Lake by the numbers: 40,000 listeners weekly. 2,500 on average every quarter hour. 1.8 share in metro Grand Rapids, MI. Average time spent listening to the station per day: 7.8 hours. www.bluelake.org

This article can be found on the web at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070122/chang -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Moving On Up by JEFF CHANG [from the January 22, 2007 issue] In 1982, the year hip-hop began to make it seem like the '60s might finally be over, oversized radios were pumping the utopian futurism of Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" and the urban neorealism of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's "The Message." Downtown darling Jean-Michel Basquiat, known on the New York streets as SAMO, painted a memorial to Charlie Parker that read: most young kings get thier head cut off. The current owner of that painting is a relatively new player in the art-world bull market named Shawn Carter, known around the world as Jay-Z. Ten years ago, Jay-Z made his debut with the critically acclaimed album Reasonable Doubt, a portrait of a Bedford-Stuyvesant drug dealer on the verge of his biggest break. Impossibly cool on the surface, his hustler persona was unmistakably desperate at the core. The album was powerfully encapsulated by one of its track titles--a credo that doubled as a refrain, as simple as it was haunting: "Can I live?" The question seemed particularly timely. Within a year of Reasonable Doubt's release, two rap kings met bloody ends: Tupac Shakur was murdered in Las Vegas, and Shakur's rival and Jay-Z's close friend The Notorious B.I.G. was gunned down in Los Angeles. But hip-hop's restless competitive ethos abhors a vacuum at the top, so Jay-Z stepped up and seized the rap crown. During his reign, he underwent a transformation from street hustler to high-end brand name, helping found what advertisers now call the "urban aspirational" market. Three years ago, having reached what he thought was the limit of his rap powers, he retired on top, like Michael Jordan after his Jazz-killing jumper, with a fine, revealing record, The Black Album. He was burying his rap persona, or at least he said he was. In the summer of 2005, Carter's 18-year-old nephew was killed in an auto accident, driving the Chrysler 300 that had been a graduation present. Who can say how much death has figured in Jay-Z's rise and return? Perhaps living means never quitting. In 2004 he was named CEO of rap's most storied label, Def Jam, the same one he helped rebuild as a hungry artist. (The deal included the chance to repossess his master recordings, a rare contractual clause rife with racial symbolism.) A tastemaker nonpareil, he started wearing button-downs and Evisu jeans, and urbanwear felt the shock waves. When, having learned of Roederer Cristal's distaste for its urban customers, he stopped drinking the $200 bottles of champagne, thousands joined his boycott. He is the most famous co-owner of the New Jersey Nets and has supported a controversial proposal to move the team to his beloved Brooklyn, a project that has already unleashed rampant real estate speculation. It wasn't much of a retirement. Before long he was guest-starring on countless recordings and launching high-profile shows and tours. Not even a growing beef with disaffected Roc-A-Fella rapper Cam'ron and his crewmate Jim Jones could slow Jay-Z's hustle. His hobnobbing with champagniers in France or with Gwyneth and Chris in London, as well as requisite outings with his glamorous girlfriend Beyoncé Knowles, became gossip-column fodder. As Brooklyn's answer to Bono, he held court with Kofi Annan and Nelson Mandela and traveled to Tanzania and Nigeria to shoot an MTV documentary on the global water crisis. He could have rested on such clout. But he decided he wasn't ready not to risk his neck anymore. In November he roared out of rap retirement with Kingdom Come. The record is strangely disengaged and absolutely disposable. But its release has occasioned a dazzling display of brand leveraging. In a photo spread for a fawning GQ Man of the Year cover story, Jay-Z threw up a Black Power fist while dressed in a Club Monaco cardigan, a Purple Label button-down and his own Rocawear sweats. The man who used to show off a Che Guevara shirt, his ice chain covering the red star on that famous beret, had repackaged hip-hop's rebellion into a symbol of the postmulticulturalist good life. As Budweiser Select's "co-brand director," he appeared in a commercial with NASCAR drivers Danica Patrick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. to announce Kingdom Come's release date during Monday Night Football and the National League championship series. (By comparison, former mentor Sean "P. Diddy" Combs launched his new album with a Burger King-sponsored video on YouTube.) On an HP commercial, Jay-Z outlined a typical executive day with his usual bravado, commenting on an online chess move he had just made: "This game is over. I wonder if he knows." Jay-Z himself fueled the engines of this monopoly mediascape. When the album leaked onto the Internet, he countered with free previews of Kingdom Come on 220 Clear Channel stations. Then he got in the charter jet for a twenty-four-hour, seven-city tour blitz. Captured online and on TV almost in real time, this act of twenty-first-century omnipresence seemed to spin his hilarious evangelical-baiting, God-complex nickname, J-Hova, into something else. The world was his witness. On November 28, near the end of another year of plunging record sales, Jay-Z made good on his claim to being "hip-hop's savior." Kingdom Come became his ninth No. 1 album, tying him with the Rolling Stones in chart toppers and making him the most successful rapper of all time. Its first-week sales of 680,000 copies made it one of the biggest pop blockbusters of the year. By any measure, Jay-Z has accomplished his goal: He is the black face of the new establishment. But wasn't hip-hop supposed to be the new counterculture? It certainly felt that way in the late 1970s and early '80s, when the movement was led by politically abandoned youths of color like DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash. The culture's first institution, Bambaataa's Universal Zulu Nation, was inspired by black radical ideologies and presented itself partly as an alternative to gang warfare. While pundits dismissed the culture as a youth fad, the ecstatic encounter between hip-hop's adherents and downtown's avant-garde in the morning of Reagan's America produced genuine excitement. Young hip-hop heads found open doors to formerly exclusive circles. White urban hipsters saw poor youths of color as bleeding-edge prophets of social rebellion and aesthetic iconoclasm, raw voices of truth and freedom. (Such ferment had not been felt since John Sinclair and the White Panthers were inspired by free jazz and the Black Panthers to talk dope, rock and roll, and fucking in the streets.) Of course, first-generation rappers had always been more likely to talk champagne, caviar and bubble baths--to drop brand names rather than reality raps. In 1982, while "The Message" captivated downtowners, uptown DJs were snapping the records over their knees and throwing them away. Many hip-hop heads didn't have any romanticized notions about living close to the edge. In the mid-'80s, hip-hop's first crossover fired the imaginations of kids from Coxsackie to Cairo. As they grew older, many of them came to believe that diversity could triumph over American monoculturalism. By the end of the decade, they were moving both musically and politically with confidence and urgency, determined to blast away rock orthodoxy and racism with word, sound and style. Then they won. Unlike Parker and his fellow beboppers, who often felt like exiles in their own country, hip-hop entrepreneurs like Russell Simmons, Combs and, later, Carter rode a wave of demand and brought hip-hop into the mainstream. When rock counterculture became the dominant pop culture, most musicians or managers didn't become brand stars. But in the postindustrial economy, Simmons, Combs and Carter embodied--in the clothes they wore, the consumer goods they endorsed, even the political causes they championed--a hip-hop lifestyle. Simmons and Combs grew up in black inner-ring suburbs enamored with the style of the kids from the other side of the tracks, but Carter was one of those kids. He came from the Marcy Houses, the projects in Bedford-Stuyvesant once overtaken by drug gangs. As Jay-Z, he wrote songs about cocaine, but these were not tales of rock-star high times, à la J.J. Cale and Eric Clapton. They were often harrowing stories of wise-beyond-their-years teen dealers who had to "learn to live with regrets." He and fellow New York rappers Nas and The Notorious B.I.G. borrowed from West Coast "gangsta rap" the figure of the hustler, but they focused on the low end of the hierarchy, on the kid who could be found "grinding" on the corner day to day--always restless, always endangered, hoping to outwit cops, murderous rivals and turncoat allies to rise above the scrum. Release came in classically American displays of conspicuous consumption--bawdy, garish, often sexist--the line connecting music-video bling to Tony Soprano's bada-bing. By the time Jay-Z released Reasonable Doubt in 1996, President Clinton had been elected to a second term, and his promises of post-LA riot change had given way to legislation that brought massive prison growth, the "end of welfare as we know it," the rise of workfare and corporate globalization. It's no coincidence that "Politics as Usual," the title of one track, was New York City slang for the drug game. On "Where I'm From," off In My Lifetime (1997), he rapped, "Government? Fuck government. Niggas politic themselves." Jay-Z met the economic expansion of the 1990s--unleashed by corporate consolidation and free-market globalization--by making his pop slicker, dabbling in world-pop sounds and creating bigger, more seductive fantasies of success. (About this time, a group of rappers from the housing projects of New Orleans called the Cash Money Millionaires introduced the word "bling" into the lexicon.) Yet he also used civil rights imagery to buttress his self-mythology. No longer claiming to represent merely the Marcy Houses but also "the seat where Rosa Parks sat, where Malcolm X was shot, where Martin Luther was popped," he even called himself "the soul of Mumia." With these comparisons, Jay-Z not only flattered hip-hop's sense of itself as an insurgent culture but claimed--with typical braggadocio--a place for himself alongside icons of the black freedom struggle. Clearly there was much more behind the game face he was showing. Corporate media's massive economies of scale favor a drastically limited scope of rap archetypes that, not coincidentally, traffic primarily in stereotypes of black sexuality and criminality. Labels make fewer signings, so there are fewer "types" to represent. Furthermore, those signings tend to fill old boxes: the party girl in furs and stiletto heels, the gunslinger at odds with rivals and cops, the crack dealer on the corner. Jay-Z admitted as much on The Black Album, a record that led one of his shrewdest observers, Elizabeth Mendez Berry, to call him a "confidence artist." But he claimed simply to be giving the people what they wanted: "I've dumbed down for my audience and doubled my dollars," he said on "Moment of Clarity." "They criticize me for it, yet they all yell, 'Holla!'" So Kingdom Come finds Jay-Z struggling to figure out, as he asked on The Black Album, what more he can say. Gone are the drug dealer stories. The hustler is no longer on the corner. In a dedication to his old jailed friends, beautifully sung by John Legend, called "Do U Wanna Ride?" the mention of coke is product placement for the cola, not just the illegal product cut and cooked with baking soda. On the record's emotional set piece, "Lost One," Jay-Z's trademark flow fails him, and he stumbles badly. When he disses and dissects his former Roc-A-Fella partners in the first verse, he rides the rhythm easily. But over the next two verses--about problems in his relationship with Beyoncé and about his deceased nephew--he sounds tongue-tied. It's a clue that this restless hustler is no good at endings. Jay-Z sounds most comfortable rapping over bombastic tracks by Just Blaze, a young New Jersey producer with a gift for taking familiar beats and classic hip-hop breaks and flipping them into arena-sized anthems. But hip-hop's most artistically expressive tension comes from the underdog's striving to become top dog. As a cocky teen, Def Jam's first star, LL Cool J, once said, "Even when I'm bragging, I'm being sincere." But CEO Jay-Z is now a 37-year-old, straining for relevance with a new refrain, "30 is the new 20." Heard over a bench-warmer beat by the 41-year-old Dr. Dre on "30 Something," it's the least convincing line he's ever uttered. When he boasts about collecting passport stamps, working stock portfolios and buying Birkin bags for Beyoncé, he is no longer endearing. The man who once apotheosized "urban aspiration" is beyond reach. If Jay-Z's art is no longer influential, his influence on the art is more pervasive than ever. His bold signings at Def Jam--from teen idol Rihanna to lyrical hero Ghostface Killah to sophisticated soulster Ne-Yo--might prove that the hip-hop market encompasses a wider demographic than anyone else in the industry imagines. And as Jay-Z has moved from the corner to the boardroom, a significant group of new generation artists--including his Def Jam signings Rick Ross and Young Jeezy--continue to mine the territory he opened with Reasonable Doubt, a genre many now refer to as "crack rap." The second-biggest hip-hop release this year was by Atlanta's T.I., a former drug dealer turned movie idol who has reworked Jay-Z's late-'90s mix of crack and bling into platinum status. One of the most acclaimed releases this winter was by a Virginia-based pair of ex-dealers called the Clipse, whose 2002 hit "Grindin'" ushered in crack rap's return. Unlike the business metaphors ("Rap Game/Crack Game" was one of Jay-Z's most popular songs) and Scarface-like heights and depths of the crack rap of the '90s bubble economy, most narratives now start with kitchen-scale claustrophobia. Lyrics fuss over the details of "the work"-- the drop, the baking, the setup, the sale, the re-up--because everything after that is idleness and fear and justification. Backed by sci-fi textures, the Clipse offer dystopian futurism like writer Richard Morgan, while Young Jeezy's lushly orchestrated tracks infuse its tiny world with romantic grandeur. It's the sound of lowered expectations straining to be shockingly new, or simply noble. Crack rap's resurgence is not a case of, to use a rap cliché, "street journalism." In many cities, heroin tops have supplanted crack rocks as the scourge of choice. And although there has been an alarming rise in urban gun homicides across the country, some evidence suggests that the numbers do not signal a repeat of the '80s drug wars. Hip-hop journalist Kris Ex has written that crack rap is now primarily a matter of "style and design." This music, which is being pushed by global corporate conglomerates, sells a myth of street life that makes crack production a metaphor for the new economy. Amid war, post-Katrina unrest and, especially, expanding joblessness, the small-time hustlers of crack rap provide a strange kind of comfort. In a "free-agent nation" where fortysomethings routinely find themselves pink-slip obsolescent and twentysomethings are encouraged to prepare themselves for an insecure occupational future by becoming their own brands, perhaps crack rappers--whose desire for the good life is matched by the insecure certainty of the kitchen-and-corner struggle--have become the new countercultural heroes. Of course, this counterculture too comes with its illusions. Kris Ex reminds us of "the thirteen-year-old spotter caught up in a turf war, the five-year-old girl that takes a stray bullet.... Every real crack rock that is sold, is sold to a real person." The tragedies of crack rap are the stories never told, the fallen bodies never counted. When Basquiat died, his friend Keith Haring painted a memorial featuring a pyramid-shaped heap of tumbled crowns, a graveyard of kings. For now, Jay-Z has avoided this fate. But if he can't be trusted when he says that "30 is the new 20," it may be because we know his neck will still be well protected when he turns 40 in a few years.

You're going to love having two of them. Before our girls were born we raised two black labs, a boy and a girl from the same litter. I kidded my wife they were "rare black elephant labs." Indeed. The boy grew to 115 lbs and the girl to 110 lbs. My big buddy died last February at age 9 of pancreatic cancer (buried him the yard). This week we spent a boat load of money on Dinah, who turned 10 on New Year's, for a persistent cough she's had for a few months. Went through a variety of treatments until, with the last x-ray, her lungs were 50 per cent worse than they were in September. So they knocked her out and put a cathater (sp) down her throat, washed out her lungs with saline, and pulled out some good samples they sent off to the lab. That was last Thursday. The results came back today. Thankfully she does not have chronic pulmunary blockage or cancer or a chronic breathing problem, which would have been a death sentance ( a year and then heart failure) but an aspirated e-coli infection. Once in a lifetime thing. So, after paying $148 for a two week blasto blamo anti-biotic program we are underway with getting her back to feeling better. Great dogs. Dinah caught a deer once. The buddy had the nose, though: he was a great tracker, especially rabbits and squirrels. Love love love walking them out in the woods off the leash, which is available in a number of areas near the house. And they were very good with the children when they arrived. Congrats on having two puppies. They'll love it, too.

Hey D, Yanni is a gateway musician, certainly more evolved in musical presentation than a lot of popular music transmitted via the electronic media, but if you dig a little bit you might find who inspired him, his presentations and the virtuosity of his side people. Bringing up Ellington's Second Sacred Concert was an absurdity, yet it is large scale, big band with choir, solo voices, dancers, and a "big picture" topic. If you enjoy the lyricism of Yanni's music, you'll be devestated by Ellington's saxophonist Johnny Hodges playing "Heaven," for instance. Yanni's emotionalism might seem a little too obvious or superficial or make pretend or merely "nice" after you've spent some time with Duke, or Beethoven. Or not. In any case, just read some of the other posts and you're doing great for a 14 year old boy. Most guys your age are into sports or collecting baseball cards, not jazz music.

Beethoven is a more effective composer than Yanni.

I like Duke Ellington's Second Sacred Concert more than Yanni.

Yanni is a boy.

Medjuck, That's the way it is set up. When I click the link it opens another page where the music loads instead of loading to the desk top. When I click that page to save to desk top it isn't a download but a page holder on the desk top. So when you put that page holder in Itunes and close the link to the web page there's nothing there. At Jason Moran's site, for instance, I can open it with the option key and it down loads to the desk top but not from this site with the Coltrane music....? I'll write the site and see what they say. LV

Thanks Jazzbo, tried that, which is usually how it works, but still no luck....

Where zat?