A life well-lived, and then some....

Someone's impact on others is a more meaningful measure of a life well-lived than the number of years they spend on the planet. That notion was reinforced today when we received word that Dan Miller died unexpectedly yesterday (Friday, August 19). He was just 53.

Dan was passionate about a lot of things - auto racing and other sports, fine food, and his family. Most of us knew him best through his many contributions to the world of jazz. He was a high-octane trumpeter, blessed with a bright, soulful sound that graced the ranks of many a band through the years.   

His sudden passing came just a few days after he and his sweetheart, Judi Woods, returned from their regular 12-day vacation trip to New Orleans. On this visit, he caught up with many longtime musical friends and former band mates, and sat in one night at Preservation Hall.

The Chicago-area native worked with Maynard Ferguson, Harry Connick Jr., the Wynton Marsalis-led Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Tom Jones, Woody Herman, Lionel Hampton and others. It seemed he could do it all - and do it well. He was as passionate about teaching as he was about performing, maybe even more so. 

Dan was a fixture on the New York jazz scene until 2004 when he began spending part of the year in Southwest Florida. He moved here permanently about a dozen years ago, quickly making an indelible impact on the region's music scene - as a performer, educator and mentor.

In addition to leading or co-leading groups, frequently with NBC Saturday Night Live Band alumnus Lew Del Gatto, Dan was on the Jazz Studies faculty at the University of Central Florida and also taught privately. He traveled the country frequently as a guest clinician at high school and college jazz programs. He was a Yamaha Performing Artist and Clinician for more than 30 years.

He taught late pianist Barry Harris's principles of jazz improvisation to students of all instruments. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of jazz players and their recordings - not just the trumpeters whose work he studied in analytic detail. He shared that knowledge freely - and eagerly.

He started and directed the Naples Philharmonic Youth Jazz Orchestra, and led a Naples-based community big band concert series on Sunday afternoons during the snowbird season.

Here's what Wynton Marsalis shared today on Facebook about what he termed his "inexpressible grief" over Dan's death:

“Dan was the essence of our music: soulful, original, virtuosic and consistent. He was a great great educator and even better student. Most importantly, he was deeply engaged with humanity and how it could best be expressed in our interactions with each other, and through the trumpet. Big sound, big spirit, his sudden passing is shocking and a wake up call for us all to savor every moment down this road. Rest In Peace.”

If you want to read more about Dan's impact on jazz here, there and seemingly everywhere, here is an appreciation of his work that I wrote last September.

Looking Ahead: Southwest Florida jazz preview

The area jazz scene is heating up for its winter-spring season when most of the snowbirds are back in Florida. Here’s a preview of some of the more interesting jazz events in the Sarasota to Naples territory from now through February. 

Looking Ahead: Southwest Florida jazz preview [Oct. 14 updated]

The snowbirds won’t be back in Florida in full force until January, but the earlybirds have begun trickling in. That’s another way of saying the concert seasons by southwest Florida jazz presenters are starting to ramp up.

I plan to do these previews quarterly for events in the Sarasota to Naples territory, with a few major items from the Tampa-St. Pete area now and then.

NEA Jazz Masters to continue

As five more musicians formally receive their NEA Jazz Masters awards in New York tonight in the 30th such annual presentation, comes word that this will NOT be the final class of inductees.

It turns out the death of the program, as announced last spring, was premature. In short, Congress wouldn't let it go away. Howard Mandel has some of the detail here in his fine blog.

Congrats to this year's inductees, Jack DeJohnette, Von Freeman, Charlie Haden, Sheila Jordan and JimmyOwens, who is receiving the 2012 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy. The event is at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Hall.

A new NEA Jazz Master talks

I had a long conversation with trumpeter Jimmy Owens in preparation for a feature in the January issue of Hot House, which is just out. He had far more to talk about than there was space for in the profile. He’s getting the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy at the NEA Jazz Masters event January 10 at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall.

It is very well deserved. Owens’ involvement as an advocate regarding the rights of jazz artists led to the founding of the Jazz Musician's Emergency Fund, a Jazz Foundation of America program that helps individual musicians with medical, financial and housing assistance. He is also actively involved in issues related to pension benefits for jazz artists. Earlier, he co-founded The Collective Black Artists Inc., which kept 18 musicians working - touring up and down the East Coast and as far west as Chicago and Detroit. He also taught a business course on things that made a difference economically and control-wise for their lives.

Speaking off health issues, here’s what he also has to say about the current health of the jazz recording industry:

“There are no real jazz record companies and the majors call a few artists ‘jazz’ now and then,” Owens told me. “Artists are now saying, ‘I’m not going to wait any more. I’ll make my own.’ Now we have some really great self-produced recordings, and some pieces of shit. It is relatively inexpensive to make your own CD and press 500 or 1,000 copies. Sometimes they are really good, sometimes they are mediocre, and sometimes they are really bad. This is the state of the record industry and jazz. It’s not a very good state that we’re in today.”

Some would argue that the points he makes extend far beyond jazz.

The value of partnerships

Two announcements this week underscored the importance of partnerships in building or sustaining the jazz audience - and keeping the music fresh. That approach - including the role of corporate sponsorship - is something vital in the arts. George Wein was a pioneer in this area for jazz and, indeed, the performing arts, when he developed naming rights opportunities for sponsors at his jazz festivals in the early 1970s. So it is not surprising that Wein figures in one of the newest developments.

In brief:

· The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has awarded a $50,000, 29-month Arts Program grant to the Newport Festivals Foundation, Inc. support presentations by DDCF grantees at the Newport Jazz Festival® from 2011 to 2013. The source of the funding is not a surprise here since the late Doris Duke was a regular, low-key Newport Jazz Festival attendee from the 1950s into the early 1990s.

It is interesting that this announcement came after the first round of support. Composer / drummer / bandleader John Hollenbeck and saxophonist Miguel Zenón debuted new works or arrangements, commissioned by this grant, at the 2011 NewportJazz Festival presented by Natixis Global Asset Management. PercussionistDafnis Prieto has been commissioned to write a new piece for his sextet to debut at the 2012 Newport Jazz Festival, which is set for next August 3 to 5. (Read more here)

· Jazz at Lincoln Center revealed plans to expand abroad, creating a new jazz club in Doha, Qatar, and four other cities as part of an unusual partnership with the St. Regis luxury hotel chain. The new club is scheduled to open in Qatar’s capital city next April. J@LC has been sending its musicians abroad on tour for years, but this is the first time the NY-based nonprofit has established a permanent subsidiary abroad.

The 120-seat club in Doha will be modeled after the Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola that is part of the Lincoln Center complex on Columbus Circle in Manhattan. J@LC Executive Director Adrian Ellis said the agreement with St. Regis Hotels and Resorts includes opening four more clubs in new hotels being built around the world over the next five years, though deals on specific sites have yet to be negotiated. (Read more here)

April showers us with jazz appreciation

Just as we emerge from the winter doldrums, there’s a lot of jazz appreciation going on throughout April.

In 2001, The Smithsonian launched Jazz Appreciation Month, which has grown to include celebrations in all 50 states and 40 countries that the music as a living treasure. It is designed to spotlight the music and, one would hope, extend the depth of that appreciation to casual listeners, and introduce it to fresh ears that have been tuned elsewhere. It is a movement that has a lot of variations and offshoots.

Last June while meeting here in Rhode Island, the U.S Conference of Mayors proclaimed April 9 as Jazz Day. Jazz at Lincoln Center is using that day for its inaugural A Taste of Jazz event in Manhattan, which will feature music and food at the Time Warner Center to celebrate the cuisine of some of the country's greatest jazz cities, including New Orleans. The musical set and discussion that night will feature a septet led by saxophonist Walter Blanding.

Oh, but there is much more here and there. As they say in the TV genre, check local listings.

From April 23 to May 2, the nonprofit JazzBoston is celebrating Jazz Week with 230 events at more than 80 venues to celebrate the special role the Boston jazz scene plays as incubator and stage for a lot of creative musicians. Only in greater Boston, it seems, can a “week” have 10 days. But that 10-day period, Made in Boston, Played in Boston, will include a lot of great programming, including rare films, jazz dance, and children’s events. Here is the schedule.

But wait, there’s more

SIRIUS XM Radio is paying tribute to the rich history of jazz with a lot of Jazz Appreciation Month programming. Its Real Jazz channel, SIRIUS channel 72 and XM channel 70, kicked off the month on April 1 with bassist Christian McBride hosting a three-hour JAM preview, and to introduce the debut of his SIRIUS XM show, The Lowdown: Conversations with Christian, which premiered yesterday and will air every Saturday at 1 p.m. ET on Real Jazz.

Also on April 9 - Jazz Appreciation Day - on Sirius, Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis will unveil the 2010-2011 season of Jazz at Lincoln Center at 3 p.m. ET on RealJazz, and Nancy Sinatra will present a special edition of Nancy For Frank, showcasing the jazz side of American Songbook legend and her father, Frank Sinatra, on April 9 at 3 p.m. ET on Siriusly Sinatra, SIRIUS channel 75 and XM channel 73. There is much more to discover on the Sirius channels. (For more information, visit http://www.sirius.com/ or http://www.xmradio.com/.)

Jazz Day, Jazz Week, Jazz Appreciation Month. (The latter may have the only acronym I can tolerate.) All of this is admirable. It also begs the question - How much of this is just preaching to the choir? Some of us would argue that in our in our hearts, in our psyches, in our ears, and in the venues to which we go... every day is jazz day. And that’s just the listeners. It certainly is true for the musicians, at least as a goal.

If the April spotlight in some way brings more serious listeners to the music - and more opportunities for musicians to play jazz - these initiatives are doing what their creators and supporters are seeking.

England swings – JALC style…

Just as New York City’s attention will be focused on a bubbling array of jazz choices in late June with return of a George Wein-produced jazz festival in the Big Apple (the CareFusion Jazz Festival, running June 17 to 26), the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra has teamed up for an interesting out-of-town residency. Out-of-country, off-continent even. Across the pond.

JALC, with artistic director/trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and special guests, is off to the U.K. for a residency at London’s Barbican Centre, home of the London Symphony. In fact it is jazz jewel in the arts center’s first International Residency Series.

A series of three main JALC concerts (June 17, 18 and 20) will be augmented by a creative learning program, in local schools and at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama with workshops, master classes and professional development, as well as performances in several East London partner venues. They also include a swing dance evening at Stoke Newington Town Hall, jam sessions at the Vortex in Dalston, and a special family concert at Hackney Empire.

The three main Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra concerts will tell the story the story of the American jazz orchestra, celebrating 80 years of great big band music, from Jelly Roll Morton to the present day, curated by Marsalis. There’s also a June 19 “Big Band Britannia: Inspirations and Collaborations” at Barbican Hall that will celebrate eight decades of British big band music through a specially assembled big band led by trumpeter Guy Barker. It will include a tribute to mighty British big band jazz figure, the late Sir John Dankworth. The next afternoon, Marsalis and the JALC will present an English version of their popular Jazz for Young People matinee concerts, and an “Essentially Ellington UK” workshop for youth big bands.

During the week, there will also be a Midsummer Night's Swing series at several venues plus nightly after-hours jam sessions blending British and JALC jazz talent at East London jazz venues including the Vortex Jazz Club, the Hackney Empire Review Bar and others.

Schedule details may be found at www.barbican.org.uk.

Reminders of the future of jazz

For those naysayers and/or moldy figs who say, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, that jazz is dead, don’t buy it. The music isn’t even on life support, given the attention and interest it receives from music educators and their serious students at college, high school and lower levels.

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington” competition each May draws perhaps the most fanfare. But it certainly holds no monopoly.

Consider last weekend’s Charles Mingus High School Competition at the Manhattan School of Music, where schools from New England dominated the winner’s circle.

Among Mingus’s compositions performed were “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” “Fables of Faubus,” “Better Get Hit in Your Soul,” “Jelly Roll” and “Ecclusiastics.”

Competition co-founder Sue Mingus, the bassist’s widow and musical champion, said: “For years, Mingus’s music was thought to be too difficult to perform, and today, the spirit and vitality that was heard by all of the young musicians playing Mingus’s music was really thrilling.”

The winning ensembles included:

• Best Big Band – Regular High School: The Rivers Big Band, The Rivers School; Weston, Massachusetts (Philippe Crettienne, director).
• Best Big Band – Specialized School: Academy Big Band, Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts; Hartford, Connecticut (Douglas Maher, director).
• Mingus Spirit Award: Rio Americano Combo, Rio Americano High School, Sacramento, California. (Maxwell Kiesner, director).
• Best Combo – Regular High School: Foxborough High School Jazz Quintet, Foxborough, Massachusetts (Stephen C. Massey, director).
• Best Combo – Specialized High School: Manasia Improv Ensemble, Manhattan School of Music Precollege (Jeremy Manasia, director).
  

Congratulations to these winners, as well as the winners of best arranger, and outstanding and section categories from this nationwide competition.

Berklee Festival is right around the corner
It is also good to note that in less than a month – March 13 – Boston’s Berklee College of Music will host its 42nd annual High School Jazz Festival, with 200 bands and 3,000 musicians expected to compete for $175,000 in partial scholarships to Berklee’s Five-Week Summer Performance Program.

The Hynes Convention Center event will also feature free clinics by trombonist and producer Delfeayo Marsalis, drummer Peter Erskine and trumpeter Eric Miyashiro, as well as performances by the Crescent Super Band, an internationally touring all-star high school ensemble from Utah, Berklee's Concert Jazz Orchestra, Global Jazz Institute, City Music, Salsa, and P-Funk ensembles. New this year is Band Slam, a non-competing category for students who play non-jazz styles, ranging from hip-hop to bluegrass.

For more information, visit: http://www.berklee.edu/events/hsjazzfest

Geaux Saints, with a trumpeter’s fanfare

Once in a while, jazz and popular culture conveniently cross paths. And how fitting that it was on the sporting world’s biggest stage last weekend with the NFL’s Super Bowl XLIV festivities.

CBS’s pre-game broadcast leading up to the New Orleans Saints' gritty, stunning - and most welcome - win over the Colts included Wynton Marsalis’s music-and-spoken word tribute to The Big Easy, and the Saints organization's perseverence through 43 years of suffering before this season.

He did a masterful job of putting the spirit of his beloved city in perspective. And today… it was live-streamed out to the jazz world and other Marsalis followers after an online conversation with the trumpeter/bandleader/Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director on Ustream.

“Down on the Bayou where the mighty Mississippi kisses Lake Pontchartrain and spills into the Gulf of Mexico. There sits that jewel of the Southland. What the French lost to the British who gave it to the Spanish who lost it back to the French who sold it to America for…. Well, some folks say Jefferson conned Napoleon in a card game and won it for some jambalaya and a chicory coffee….” Read more about the ‘haints and the Saints’

here on Wynton's Web site.

Yes, the musical sage captured it perfectly… a unique city in America, a city of struggles, a team of struggles - and pride and perseverance.

Sunday’s improbable victory signaled more - and shined a spotlight back on a city that, with a new mayor-elect ready to take office, that does and will continue to persevere - and someday flourish again post-Katrina. Its spirit is undeniable and unstoppable.

The music hasn’t lost a beat… as it provides the essential rhythm. So how fitting that Mardi Gras began nine days early this year. How uplifting for New Orleans, its team, its residents and its longtime admirers and visitors.

A mouse, a museum and music

The three M’s headlined above are the prime ingredients in an exhibition that’s making its only North American appearance through March 14 in New Orleans.

The Walt Disney Animation Research Library and New Orleans Museum of Art teamed up on "Dreams Come True: Art of the Classic Fairy Tales from the Walt Disney Studio." The Crescent City is the ideal location for the exhibition. It coincides with the release of Disney's animated feature, "The Princess and the Frog," which is set in New Orleans during the 1920s Jazz Age.

Jazz at Lincoln Center is involved in the project by adding a live music series, a professional training session and donating Jazz for Young People curriculum sets, thanks to The Brian J. Ratner Philanthropic Fund.

The exhibit showcases original artwork from legendary Disney animated films including "Snow White," "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast" and celebrates Disney's connections with jazz and the Crescent City.

New Orleans native and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra member Victor Goines is programming a live-music series at NOMA featuring New Orleans-based musicians. The performances, free to the public, began today with Don Vappie and The Creole Jazz Serenaders. The music series runs through March 14.

Jazz at Lincoln Center will also hold a workshop at NOMA for New Orleans area music teachers and educators to learn how to introduce jazz in their classrooms. JALC will distribute a number of its Jazz for Young People curriculum to various New Orleans schools.

In addition, children and parents who visit the exhibition will receive a copy of the "The Princess and the Frog" Curriculum, created in partnership by Disney, Scholastic and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

For more information on "Dreams Come True: Art of the Classic Fairy Tales from the Walt Disney Studio," go to the museum's Web site.

Interesting developments at J@LC

Remember the halcyon days when to be considered a university, you had to have six or seven accredited colleges as well as graduate and professional divisions? In our society’s more recent cavalier and clever language-mashing, it seems anything goes.

It started with Hamburger University, then Dunkin’ Donuts University and probably thousands’ more corporate training initiatives that persist today with the university adjunct. And, of course, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s “Swing University.”

Grammar cop semantics barb aside as I jump back into blogging after two weeks in the sun, the JALC program is a great jazz education option for adults seeking a greater appreciation or understanding of the music we treasure so much. The program’s Winter 2010 session opens with a free January 5 open house at Irene Diamond Educational Center at Rose Hall in JALC’s Manhattan digs.

Available winter classes focus on Mary Lou Williams (taught by her spiritual guide and later manager, Father Peter O’Brien); drums and the workings of the jazz rhythm section (taught by Lewis Nash); bebop (taught by JALC trombonist Vincent Gardner); and Jazz 101 and Jazz 201 history courses (taught by the indefatigable broadcaster, archivist and jazz historian Phil Schaap).

Details are at JALC’s Web site, www.jalc.org/swingu. Courses from $125 to $200. Single class tickets, from $30-40, are available for cash purchase at the door on the evening of the class. To enroll, visit the site or call 212.258.9786,

Of great note this week is JALC’s announcement, covered in depth in Monday’s New York Times, that the institution is broadening its programming to underscore the close relationship between jazz and popular song. Singer-pianist Michael Feinstein has signed on as director of JALC’s new popular music series. He will create three programs and a family event for the spring of 2011. Stephen Holden has it covered in depth. Read on – about the importance and the many nuances.