The heyday of Johnny Colón’s venerable East Harlem Jazz School…
The News Review:
- The heyday of Johnny Colón’s venerable East Harlem Jazz School…
- Fashionable party nightlife in Shanghai
- Jazz Supplement Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
- From Joni Mitchell to Angelique Kidjo: Global urban music that swings
- Free at Last page 1 – Music – Village Voice – Village Voice
- A Trio of Jazz Americana
The heyday of Johnny Colón’s venerable East Harlem Jazz School…
Village Voice – May 29, 2007
Rumor was that George had lost his previous company Tico to rival Morris Levy on a bet and was determined to make his new Latin imprint even hotter. Established Latin acts like Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri initially frowned upon the fusion of r&b jazz and Latin preferred by younger players like Colón at the time despite early breakthrough fusions like Mongo Santamaria’s “Watermelon Man” and Pete Rodriguez’s “I Like It Like That. ” But the youth market already grooving to rock and soul were ready to hear new hybrids and Colón who was influenced as much by the Moonglows Horace Silver and Cal Tjader as by the infectious Charanga trend then challenging the Latin Boogaloo movement was always more adventurous and idiosyncratic than his peers. Convinced by Johnny’s club performances that the public would go for his bold fresh sound Goldner put all his street muscle behind the single. ” ‘Boogaloo Blues’ had a controversial lyric” Johnny admits now over dinner at an easygoing bar & grill on East 79th Street… But his band lost important gigs and radio support as a result. He recorded five more albums first at Cotique and then at Fania’s request. But by the early ’70s Johnny was convinced that teaching music and playing noncommercial community gigs were better ways to serve his muse. Although he didn’t incorporate his nonprofit East Harlem Music School until 1972 he’d already been giving free music lessons out of his mother’s apartment for almost a decade. Expanding this initiative into a rented workspace with phones a staff and a sign over the door was to prove his life’s calling. Johnny an avid multi-instrumentalist who mastered the guitar by age 8 (and bass piano trombone and the human voice before he left high school) still gigged with his band but he poured everything he made into running his school. Music theory and instrumental instruction remained completely free for many years until some of his official funding sources demanded the school charge something if only to remain eligible for various grants.
Fashionable party nightlife in Shanghai
chinadaily.com.cn – May 29, 2007
However elderly Shanghainese appreciate the elegant flavor of old-style balls more especially in Bak Lok Moon (Paramount). “Bak Lok Moon once heralded the beginning of nightlife in Shanghai” said Huang. “When I was young I often went there to dance and listen to Jazz music. It was the center of fashion in Shanghai. Though it is not popular as it used to be Bak Lok Moon is still a good place of entertainment for people of my generation.
Jazz Supplement Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
Village Voice – May 29, 2007
bama’s Black Widow (18) Thanks to Bush and bama the National Security Agency now knows more about you My Brother the Slumlord (16) Going public is something Amy Neustein never could resist NYPD Seeks an Air Monitor Crackdown for New Yorkers (11) A city councilman and the cops don’t want you to have that Geiger counter without their permission Let’s Avoid Neil Young’s Next Record The old stuff enthralls but the new stuff terrorizes at MSG Sonny Rollins Rules the Third Annual Voice Jazz Critics Poll Finally the change we need n the Method Behind Beyoncé’s Multiple-Personality Madness The importance of being Sasha Fierce 2008 Voice Jazz Poll Winners How the Music Industry Died: Steve Knopper’s Appetite for Self-Destruction A Rolling Stone reporter charts the doomed path from Thriller to Internet-based horror Hiromi Uehara and I swap iPods. We both own black 80-gigs. She is partial to Zappa King Crimson techno and jazz classics from Miles Davis to her mentor Ahmad Jamal. I’m an indie rock guy heavy on guitar and harmonies. But there is some crossover. ddly enough her iPod contains four songs by Billy Joel.
From Joni Mitchell to Angelique Kidjo: Global urban music that swings
International Herald Tribune – May 29, 2007
That's just a fancy way of saying that they all swing in their way. A TRIBUTE T JNI MITCHELL (Nonesuch): Joni Mitchell's songs are so confessional and her renditions of them so personal that they would seem to be pretty much un-coverable. But they are also universal and poetic and they open up to interpretation with surprising grace. When Prince sings in “A Case of You” about drawing a map of Canada “with your face sketched on it twice” he also sounds as though he is “prepared to bleed.
Free at Last page 1 – Music – Village Voice – Village Voice
Village Voice – May 29, 2007
“I’ve been a huge part of his universe a universe that we have together. The synergy has been really good for both of us. But when you look at the John Coltrane group they did all that music in a four- to five-year period. I just don’t know if a small jazz group is meant to be together [for 17 years]— obviously there are no rules in this universe but on a certain level maybe it is time for everybody to move on. ” The undeniable merits of 21st-century albums like BalladWare (recorded in 1999 released in 2006) Freedom Suite and the strings-augmented Threads notwithstanding it’s easy to argue the quartet peaked with their two Columbia releases 1999′s Go See the World and 2000′s Surrendered and the attendant flurry of pretty much universally favorable press. “Despite the fact that people like Gary Giddins and Francis Davis were really into that band the mainstream of jazz fans never got into it” says Shipp. “The people that would go out and see the Wayne Shorter quartet which I think our quartet is infinitely superior to would not come out to hear the David S.
A Trio of Jazz Americana
New York Sun – May 29, 2007
” At this point Mr. Hendricks pauses turns squarely to the crowd with a deadpan look and says “Man! Stephen Foster was a real drag!”Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. Scholars of both classical and popular music have little use for American music produced any time during the 19th century other than Foster (182664) not one composer of that era is considered relevant today in say the way that the music of Brahms or Gilbert and Sullivan are still very much with us. Little is said or done with American music before the emergence of Scott Joplin John Philip Sousa and Charles Ives near the turn of the last century. Foster is generally regarded as an icon of the musically (and politically and racially) backward and sentimental dreck that came out of the Civil War era. This is what Americans had to contend with until the great innovators of the 20th century brought the nation’s music to dominate the world stage from the jazz age onward. However three recently released CDs make the point that the early days of American pop the time between the Civil War and World War I were a rich and fertile period and contain much for contemporary musicians (not to mention historians) to reexamine redigest and otherwise chew on… Little is said or done with American music before the emergence of Scott Joplin John Philip Sousa and Charles Ives near the turn of the last century. Foster is generally regarded as an icon of the musically (and politically and racially) backward and sentimental dreck that came out of the Civil War era. This is what Americans had to contend with until the great innovators of the 20th century brought the nation’s music to dominate the world stage from the jazz age onward. However three recently released CDs make the point that the early days of American pop the time between the Civil War and World War I were a rich and fertile period and contain much for contemporary musicians (not to mention historians) to reexamine redigest and otherwise chew on. It’s also pertinent that not one of these new albums Jeff Newell’s New Trad ctet: “Brownstone” (Blujazz); Andy Biskin Quartet: “Early American: The Melodies of Stephen Foster” (Strudelmedia) and Dan Levinson and His Canary Cottage Dance rchestra: “Steppin’ Around” (Stomp ff) is any kind of recreation. Rather all three are a reimagining of the raw materials that later went into the creation of jazz and American pop.