Newport Jazz Festival photo gallery is posted

My 2015 Newport Jazz Festival primary photo gallery has been posted at JazzTimes.com. Take a stroll through it and enjoy. Here's a direct link. Here's a link to more images of New Orleans-related musicians at Newport posted by Offbeat.

Jazz Times.com has posted excerpts from my new book, “Jazz in the Key of Light,” that spotlight nine of its 80 featured musicians.

The coffee-table-style book is drawing five-star reviews. 

Here is a sampling:

• “Just want to let you know I'm getting a late piano start today and it's YOUR FAULT! I got your book, and I decided to read it this morning instead catching up on the latest health and terrorist crises in our world. What a treat your book is! I'm not sure if I've seen something like this before, and I have a lot of books. Great photos with insightful words. Very cool!" – pianist-composer Lisa Hilton
• “Some non-musician/non-musical friends, who were here on a visit, began looking at the book on my coffee table. The format interested them enough to ask intelligent questions about jazz. There is obviously a wealth of enjoyment for the jazz enthusiast, but I saw that the book can both intrigue and draw-in the beginner. You've got a winner here!” – singer-guitarist Tony Boffa 
• “This book is going to be a collector's item. It is beautiful and thoughtful, marrying masterful photographs with telling quotes from each profiled musician. Author Ken Franckling has harvested decades of his work to capture the vitality and spirit of the jazz world for anyone who loves this type of music (and how can you not?).” – reader Michael Blumstein (posted on Amazon)

Profiling jazz bassist Buster Williams

Buster Williams, Newport 1988

The March issue of Hot House magazine is out. Its features include my profile of bassist Buster Williams, who brings his quartet Something More into Manhattan’s Smoke jazz club at the end of the month. This extraordinary musician has worked with a very long list of jazz giants over the past 55 years. (Her went on the road with saxophonist Sonny Stitt at age 17). 

He talked extensively about the fine art of making jazz, which he described as “living in the realm of danger.” Not all of his perspective fit into the profile’s word limit. So here is a bit more to savor: 

Dave Glasser on carrying forward the grand traditions in jazz

New York-based Hot House magazine has published my profile of alto saxophonist Dave Glasser in its December issue. The bebopper who is keen on making sure new generations of players understand and appreciate the rich tradition of jazz as their musical voices evolve.

Jazz spotlight on Claudio Roditi

Hot House magazine has published my profile of trumpeter Claudio Roditi in its November issue. Chatting with this multi-faceted musician earlier this month was a wonderful chance to catch up on each other’s doings, having been out of touch over the past decade.  

 

Blending musical fire with deep feeling and precise articulation, two-time Grammy nominee Roditi has been a mainstay on the New York jazz scene for more than 35 years. He is spending a lot of time composing new music, teaching workshops and getting acquainted with his latest brass acquisition – a piccolo trumpet, which joins his arsenal of flugelhorn and rotary-valve trumpet..

Piano jazz: The full Monty

I had an extended conversation a couple of weeks ago with pianist Monty Alexander when preparing a profile for the May issue of Hot House, which is now posted online. Among the topics we covered:  the enduring popularity among some listeners (myself included) of his classic live trio recording, Montreux Alexander (MPS), from Switzerland’s 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival. I consider it one of the very best live trio recordings. It happened during a three-year tour with bassist John Clayton and drummer Jeff Hamilton, who had been classmates a couple of years earlier at Indiana University.

Benny Green pursues magical moments

Hot House has published my profile of pianist Benny Green in its February issue in conjunction with his Jazz Standard performance in Manhattan in late February, as well as his role in the 40-city Monterey Jazz Festival 55th Anniversary tour across the United States.



One of the many nuggets gleaned in our hour-long conversation this month: his view of what’s inside the music that a performer presents to his or her audience:

Ellis Marsalis on music





Ellis Marsalis

The November issue of Hot House is out. It includes my profile of pianist Ellis Marsalis, patriarch of today's first family of jazz. Marsalis, whose work is rooted in the styles of his native New Orleans, chooses his notes with great care. That focus is essential to his subtle and relaxed sense of swing. He is at the Blue Note in New York November 8-11 with his quartet. Three days later he turns 78.



The value of the ingredients that shape jazz

Musicians and listeners alike draw many positives from jazz beyond the immediate listening experience. It can be a healer, a soother, a creative outlet, a common meeting ground.

It's core ingredients also can have an impact on other disciplines, including business. A brief read  from Time magazine this week distills those essentials quite nicely.

Ron Carter

 



The August issue of Hot House magazine is online and includes my profile of bassist Ron Carter (page 31). He's one of the most prolifically recorded musicians in jazz history. He'll be at Birdland with his Great Big Band for a six-night run that begins August 28. He's fresh off a European tour with his trio featuring guitarist Russell Malone and pianist Donald Vega.

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.

Mabern moments

I had a fascinating conversation with Harold Mabern last weekend in conjunction with the pianist's appearance at the Jazz Standard in mid-January as part of the George Coleman quartet. He's been a regular in Coleman's band for more than 30 years - and they went to high school together in Memphis. Mabern's comments will be a feature profile in HotHouse magazine's January issue. I will post a link when the article is available online.

Suffice it to say, Mabern had much to say - too much, in fact, for the space allotted. One interesting gem: his 9-year-old granddaughter, Maya, who lives in California but will be in metropolitan New York for the holidays, has been a voracious student of the piano since about 3. I wonder where she gets that from? If she has a question about something piano-related, she call's now and then, and Harold will put his own phone on speakerphone, and walk her through the challenge. And something I find most unusual for any 9-year-old today. Mabern said his granddaughter is into stride and boogie-woogie.

Mabern, 73, also seems to be a fixture in former student Eric Alexander's regular band... and is prominent in Eric's new CD, Revival of the Fittest, on High Note. The CD has been in heavy rotation on my player over the past four days. It too goes full circle, with the opening track being George Coleman's tune "Revival."