Lazaro Vega

Clem, you mean Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker?

I'm digging the rave ups on this new one: "Jack Baker" and "Black Elk Speaks." (Jack Baker, the actor?). Of the more mellow, rubato soprano balladisms, not so much, though the tune dedicated to their road manager is cool. Having heard Bran play Henry Purcell's "O, Solitude" (on tenor) live, quoting "Gloomy Sunday," alluding to his version on "Eternal," it's clear his classical chops are up. Musically the recording is documenting how well the group plays as a group, that evolution. It hit me on initial casual listening how this band is either up or down, there's not much mid-tempo swing or bounce going on -- it's rubato or full on head long post Coltrane. Haven't spent enough time with it to say if that's accurate, but a first impression. By the way A.B. Spellman's notes, and his notes for Delfayo's new one featuring Elvin Jones, are very, very good. He sticks to the music at hand and enlightens it.

Hi Cliff, Big Red Peaches was a "commission," if you will, for a commercial. I think they also did one called "Grape Escape" for them. The company naming itself "Odwalla" to the best of my knowledge came from the company's founder appreciating the Art Ensemble.

CN: Review in the new Signal to Noise. With a cover story on George Lewis, Muhal Richard Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell. Just read it: great review. The insight into Ornette having retained some of Prime Time's methods for the ensemble and how Ornette basically just blows over the curtain of sound is right on the money. In fact, the last part of that sentance is exactly what Nessa said immediately after hearing the band in Ann Arbor.

"Hunger" is timely with the mainstreaming of organic food (see www.thenation.com for their "Food" issue). Barber drew a great crowd to Grand Rapids several years ago and performed enthusiastically. She mentioned enjoying the sound of the room. P.B. can come back in her stocking feet any time she wants to. Dug Grazyna Auguscik's version of Barber's "Almost Blue" on Auguscik's "The Light" CD. Arranged for voice, guitar, bass and cello. There's a mess of jazz singers in Chicago if that's your flave.

Just ordered a copy on line for cheap. Anyone check this out? CHET BAKER - AS THOUGH I HAD WINGS $16.98 Chet Baker - musician, junkie, and progenitor of West Coast cool jazz - has always been an aloof mystery and a tortured saint. Until now. In these memoirs divided into 13 chapters, discovered after his mysterious death in 1988, Chet Baker's real voice can finally be heard as he writes of his life as a musician with stories of romances, drugs and prison interspersed along the way. Baker's original handwritten draft is shown along with the typeset version. Hardcover. 118 pages.

Aggie87, the bassist was from L.A. and looked like one of the dudes in Z.Z. Top: real long white hair, long, long Gandolf beard, and bald on top. Leeland Sklar? Solid session player. Left out funk, another element of the music. 2 1/2 hour concert and just all around great. Sat in front of the stage. Francine Reed is still with him (20 years down the road) and sounding great.

Lyle Lovett's large band last night at Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids. Four singers, four horns (tenor, alto, trumpet, trombone), electric guitar, mandolin doubling guitar and voice, cello, electric bass, percussion, drums and Lyle. Great show -- they opened the band portion with "Topsy" by Basie. There was no one kind of music but a melange of his influences: blues, gospel, Texas shit kicking music, bluegrass, and Lyle's version of rock n roll. His lead black singer from Atlanta did "Put A Little Sugar In My Bowl" and Ida Cox's 1924 "Wild Women Don't Get the Blues." Great show. Tight, well paced. My wife took me.

Organissimo. Drummer Tim Froncek. Hometown heroes.

How did it go?

A couple of years ago, or maybe more, WBEZ stopped producing the live national broadcast of the Chicago Jazz Festival and made available to NPR stations 13 one hour programs culled from the jazz fest performances and interviews. The immediacy of the live broadcast, it's ability to unite the jazz community and the country in a end of summer ritual, was more appealing to me as a jazz director. Needless to say what was a Labor Day weekend special for years and years, able to pre-empt all programming on Blue Lake except "A Prarie Home Companion," went away when they broke it up into a post produced series. Many of our listeners were dissappointed the live broadcast was kaput, and I'm sorry to say they were in the national minority according to the radio professionals who carried the day.

Chuck is on vacation this week, but mentioned he might try to get into Chicago this Friday especially to see Roscoe at Hot House.

Up for tonight.

Posted at the Jazz Fest web site August 27, 2006 Jazz Fest starts in just four days with a ticketed performance at Symphony Center. But if you just can't wait (or don't want to pay for a seat), you can get a taste of what's to come at 5 p.m. on Thursday with a free discussion and performance at the Chicago Cultural Center's Preston Bradley Hall. Larry Kart, former Chicago Tribune jazz critic and author of Jazz In Search Of Itself, will join this year’s Chicago Jazz Festival Artist-in-Residence Lee Konitz in a discussion of Konitz’s long and fabled career. Konitz will follow the discussion with a rare solo saxophone performance. Born in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood in 1927, Konitz has performed with an almost endless list of jazz greats, including Stan Kenton, Lennie Tristano, Warne Marsh, and Miles Davis. He is famous for his fearless improvisatory attitude and individual style of playing the alto saxophone. Konitz will also appear at the Chicago Jazz Festival on Saturday afternoon (Jazz on Jackson stage) leading a group of Workshop musicians, and on Sunday evening (Petrillo Bandshell) fronting his New Nonet.

The AARAWAK PRODUCTION COMPANY AND the VELVET LOUNGE PRESENT Douglas R. Ewart and Inventions "Sounds of Hope, Sounds of Progress" Dee Alexander, Vocals and Percussion Mwata Bowden, Reeds and Percussion Edward Wilkerson, Jr., Reeds and Percussion LaRoy Wallace McMillan, Reeds and Percussion Dushun Mosley, Drums Lester Lashley, Bass and Percussion Douglas R. Ewart, Winds, Percussion and Voice and Special Guests 9:00 P.M. Friday 1st September 2006 Admission $15.00 At Velvet Lounge 67 East 22nd St. (Cermak) Chicago IL 60616 312-791-9050

Nice read, great breadth. Maupin's work with the Go:Organic Orchestra a few years ago alerted me to his contemporary activity.

See, this whole equation between celebrity and artistic value....celebrity is a fickle, unfair bitch, while artistic value establishes timeless standards....Well, they're building McDonald's all over the world, so those sandwiches must be good for you....Yes, it's the People Magazine era, but don't ask people in the arts to just throw up the arms and give in to that shit. If "playing the game is so noble" then why doesn't Wynton understand that is exactly what the fusion era jazz musicians were doing? You want to play for huge crowds, get on a Fillmore extravaganza. That's where the money was and musicians went for it. Same game, different era. That said, it was astounding to see the crowds he drew for his sextet in Europe featured in clips on his web site. Looked like a European football match replete with banners.

If this is posted elsewhere I'll hit the delete. Venerable Jazz Showcase losing its lease, founder says Howard Reich August 28 2006 The Jazz Showcase -- Chicago's most celebrated and long-running jazz club--is losing its lease, Showcase founder Joe Segal said Sunday night. The club, which for a decade has featured some of the world's biggest jazz stars in tony quarters at 59 W. Grand Ave., must leave by Jan. 1, Segal said. "We don't know where we're going or what's going to happen yet," said Segal, who has been presenting jazz in Chicago at various locations since 1947. "I'm pretty tired of moving," added Segal, 80. Segal was not certain what would happen to the room after he moves. His landlord could not be reached for comment late Sunday. Before arriving in March 1996 at the current location, the Jazz Showcase had flourished for 14 years in the Blackstone Hotel, at 636 S. Michigan. The impresario lost that room when new owners took over the building. The Jazz Showcase, believed to be the country's second-oldest continuously running jazz club after the Village Vanguard in New York, in earlier incarnations presented touring artists on North Rush Street, North Lincoln Avenue, in the Loop and on the South Side. Virtually everyone significant in jazz has played for Segal during the past 59 years, from bebop icon Charlie Parker to contemporary masters such as Roy Hargrove. In recent years, Segal's son Wayne has been a major player in running the Grand Avenue location and in programming Joe's Bebop Cafe and Jazz Emporium, an affiliated room on Navy Pier. Where will the Jazz Showcase resurface? "I'm not sure yet," Segal said. "We've heard that the South Loop is hot."

I don't know...in the spring of 2001 The Roscoe Mitchell Quintet with Fred Anderson came to Grand Rapids and drew 250 or more. The following month violinist Johnny Frigo came to the same venue, playing far tamer, tune oriented music, and drew the same size crowd (numbers-wise, that is, because they didn't look at all a like -- Frigo's people were much older, while Roscoe's crowd was completely mixed in age and race, the true jazz audience).

Larry, that is enlightening. The market has shrunk, not expanded, as a result of this activity, which is reflective of all of America. As George Lewis said, It's the Walmartization of jazz.

Not only that, you're assured an audience. Wynton will fill the hall. The arts in America is more about that today than any aesthetic consideration.

"People with money don't care about 'cutting edge' etc...they want safe stuff, whether it be music, dance etc...Just the way it is." That's not true, even in Grand Rapids, Michigan (www.uica.org or http://www.meijergardens.org/). In New York City? Wasn't always that way. Takes more work, but usually there's a package to be sold, and within that package are various levels of artistic presentation, not just a monolithic version of the arts. So the Art Institute of Chicago fundraises on the condition that they only exhibit landscapes and portraits? Come on. And what about the Guggenheim as just one example?

Titles have been hard to come by -- good thing there are a few mentioned in this review. Wrote Denardo a few times requesting the titles of the music played in Ann Arbor but to no avail. I bet the New York writer had access to O.C. and asked after the concert. I'm looking forward to the CD. With as much concertizing and touring this band has done the CD is a snapshot of something bigger. Can't imagine the sound with his two classic bassists. Do you hear the bass player's current "assignments" (mostly pizzicato for one, arco the other) as directly related to the earlier band?

The Respect Sextet presents powerful solo improvisations amid a unique blend of improvised and composed ensemble styles live on Blue Lake Public Radio this Wednesday, August 30th at 10 p.m. edt. The jazz performance streams live from www.bluelake.org and broadcasts regionally over WBLV FM 90.3 / WBLU FM 88.9, Grand Rapids. For information please write radio@bluelake.org. Exciting, one of a kind music and interviews on the electric medium it was meant for: radio. The Rochester based Respect Sextet’s trip to Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in the Manistee National Forest is to promote their public concert Saturday, September 2nd at Space vs. Time, 470 Market Ave SW (Between Wealthy and Godfrey) Grand Rapids at 8:30 p.m. $8. Contact Space vs Time by phone: 616-901-9717, or e-mail: yoroc111@aol.com. These Michigan performances are part of a larger tour, details of which are found at www.respectsextet.com. From their web site: Formed in 2001, the Respect Sextet is a powerhouse ensemble dedicated to performing a variety of improvisational musics, including free improvisations, original compositions, free jazz classics, Bulgarian tunes, text pieces, jazz standards, and game pieces. Seemingly disparate strands are held together by Respect's explosive energy, outstanding musicianship, and rare telepathy, honed by two years of weekly performances at a Rochester coffeehouse. The feeling that at any moment anything can happen and an overarching joie de vivre pervade Respect performances. The group comprises Josh Rutner (reeds, radio), Eli Asher (trumpet), James Hirschfeld (trombone), Malcolm Kirby (bass), Ted Poor (drums) and Red Wierenga (piano, accordion). After releasing two limited-edition (now-sold-out) CD-Rs, (respect.) and (respectacle.), and a mini-CD-R, (respookt.), Respect made its official studio debut with “The Full Respect,” released to rave reviews in August, 2003. Cadence Magazine called it "an impressive debut" and about it NewMusicBox.org said: Throwing this disc into your CD player feels like walking into a really great party, a room full of beautiful, laughing people. And like a good party, by the end of the record, you are left pleasantly dizzy and exhausted. The Full Respect was also named #3 Jazz CD of the Year by WGMC, and music from the CD was featured in the short film Who's Your Daddy?, an official selection at Sundance 2004. Coming on the heels of this success, in January, 2005, Respect released “Respect In You,” a free-wheeling live recording featuring guest bassist Matt Clohesy. Nate Dorward wrote in Cadence Magazine, “Respect In You is one of this year’s outstanding new discs, providing more food for thought and pure enjoyment than just about anything I’ve heard lately.” The Respect Sextet, through its eclecticism, its devotion to improvisation, its predilection towards swing, and its use of toys and "little instruments," has drawn comparisons both to New Dutch Swing and to the AACM. Indeed, many dialectics are at work (or play) in Respect's music, in which the serious, heady, and intellectual mingles with the light, comic, and absurd, where compositions alternate with improvisations, and where tight ensemble work coexists with loose, empathic interplay. Please join the Respect Sextet with host Lazaro Vega and engineer Steve Albert, Wednesday, August 30th at 10 p.m. edt over www.bluelake.org .

Yes -- there's a boot of that band which I haven't heard. I'm very much looking forward to the new release. LOVED the band in Ann Arbor. It's enough to be a new Ornette album. That's all I need to hear.