Sharing some thoughts - and visuals - on Chick Corea

Has there been a more dominant, restlessly creative jazz explorer over the past 50 years than Chick Corea? I think not.

Chick Corea, Newport, 1998

The Clearwater FL-based pianist, composer, bandleader and educator passed away last Tuesday, February 9, from a rare form of cancer that his family said had only been diagnosed very recently. He was 79. Check out his Facebook posting, which includes a parting message.

The sheer variety of his compositions and band projects still astounds me. After he left trumpeter Miles Davis's band in 1970s to forge his own musical path, Corea's journey took many winding twists and turns. He continued exploring the electronic frontiers of jazz fusion with Return to Forever, and later, his Elektrik Band. 

The fine art of solo jazz piano

Dick Hyman

Either as a snowbird or a full-time resident, pianist-composer-arranger Dick Hyman has lived 30 miles up the road in Venice for a few years longer than the Charlotte County Jazz Society has existed. 

The stars aligned on Monday, February 13, for Hyman to make his first CCJS appearance in Port Charlotte. It was long overdue. And it was also the first solo piano concert that the society has presented in its 27 seasons.

Jazz Appreciation Month is here

April is Jazz Appreciation Month, by proclamation of the Smithsonian, and that's no joke.

For the next 30 days, a lot of things will be happening across the US and around the world to celebrate this great art form that continues to thrive and grow - despite the sometimes overpowering hype and celebrity spotlight enjoyed by other forms of music appealing to mass audiences.

2015: Looking back at the Year in Jazz

Allaboutjazz.com has published my comprehensive look back at 2015's goings on in the jazz world. In short, it was a curious blend of ups and downs, with glimmers of optimism offset by its losses. 

Venues opened to great fanfare, but others closed for a variety of reasons. UNESCO’s International Jazz Day became firmly entrenched as the exclamation point on Jazz Appreciation Month activities in April. Daily arts journalism took a hit with music writers leaving significant newspapers. A prominent trumpeter found himself under FBI investigation for program funding in New Orleans. The jazz world said goodbye to lot of players and industry figures throughout the year, including five of its NEA Jazz Masters.

You can dig a bit deeper into this compilation from the link above.

Jazz has lost another true master - Phil Woods

Phil Woods

Word spread very quickly through the jazz community this afternoon that alto saxophonist and NEA Jazz Master (Class of 2007) Phil Woods passed away today. He was 83. 

RIP Clark Terry

Clark Terry

The jazz world lost Clark Terry yesterday at age 94 after more than a decade of declining health. He was a jazz giant whose legacy extends far beyond being a trumpet player. 

Terry was a true NEA Jazz Master, bandleader and educator. He worked as a sideman in both the Count Basie and Duke Ellington Orchestras at varying times. In the 1960s, he became the first black staff musician at NBC, playing for 12 years in The Tonight Show band. And he was a humorist, best known for his creative and hilarious "Mumbles" versions of scat singing. 

I remember another side of his humor, a moment in which he described what we might call his earliest encounter with "ear training." Educators use the term to refer to the way musicians - solely by hearing - learn to identify the pitches, intervals, melody, chords and rhythms that are part of music. Clark Terry was talking about something quite different as he described  growing up in the St. Louis music scene. 

We lost a jazz giant

The jazz world is mourning yesterday’s passing of composer, pianist and bandleader and NEA Jazz Master Horace Silver. He was truly one of the greats, helping create the hard bop genre in the 1960s and leaving as his legacy a wonderful trove of soulful, funky and catchy tunes. He was a Stan Getz sideman early in his career, co-founded  the Jazz Messengers with Art Blakey, and his own band was a wonderful talent springboard over the years.

His best-known composition, of course, was “Song For My Father,” which he penned in 1964 as a tribute to his dad. So it is rather ironic that Silver left us just a couple days after Father’s Day. But there were other great tunes as well – “The Preacher,” Tokyo Blues, “Filthy McNasty, “Doodlin’,” “Blowin’ The Blues Away” and “The Jody Grind.” The list goes on and on.

2012 - The Year in Jazz

The world of jazz officially went global in 2012, kicked the Grammy Awards in the shins, dealt with economic issues and Mother Nature, and found new ways to innovate in this social media and Internet-savvy age. That is the overview of my annual wrapup of significant goings on in the jazz world, and its continuing move of players to the celestial jazz band, which has been published by allaboutjazz.com.

The many losses in the jazz world ranged from pianist, composer and bandleader Dave Brubeck and composer Clare Fischer to drummer Pete “LaRoca” Sims, saxophonists Red Holloway, John Tchicai and David S. Ware, and singer Etta James. The list is frighteningly long again for 2012.

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.