For some, jazz nights can be a sentimental journey

The South County Jazz Club's weekly jam session  has settled in nicely at its new home at the Ramada Inn in Venice FL. There's something of interest each week, either a new instrumental pairing, a fine synergy between musicians, or a tune not heard in a while.

On Tuesday, May 14, there was a bit of each of those ingredients, culminating when two singers took to the stage at the same time. That is unusual for these jams, where
the vocalists tend to get scattered throughout the three sets most weeks.

9th Wine & Jazz Festival schedule set

Gerald Albright

The main acts are nailed down for the ninth annual Punta Gorda Wine & Jazz Festival, which is scheduled February 20-22, 2014, with a main stage lineup of smooth jazz/instrumental pop saxophonists Mindi Abair, Richard Elliott and Gerald Albright, plus singer-guitarist Norman Brown.

Albright and Brown are the day’s closing act at Laishley Park along the picturesque Peace River / Charlotte Harbor waterfront. Punta Gorda Chamber of Commerce President John Wright says all four will perform together at the finale.

CDs of Note - Short Takes

Taking a closer look at new CDs from Lisa Hilton, Anthony Branker and George Shearing…  

JJA Jazz Awards announced in 28 categories.

The results are in – or at least those pertaining to musicianship. The Jazz Journalists Association today announced the winners in the 28 music categories of its 17^th annual Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards.

The big winners for 2013 included saxophonist Wayne Shorter, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and Ryan Truesdell. Saxophonist Sonny Rollins was named "Emeritus Jazz Artist – Beyond Voting," which means he’s won so many times in various categories (artist of the year, saxophonist  of the year, album of the year, etc.) that he is now exempt from the balloting.

Full details and all category winners are posted here.

Jazz under the banyan tree

The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota FL is an outstanding home to wide-ranging plant life, and is renowned for its collections of bromeliads and epiphytes. On Sunday, it was also the site of outstanding jazz by saxophonist Tom Ellison's band Hip Pocket featuring singer June Garber. The concert was part of a Sunday afternoon music series that The Selby presents in the shade of a giant banyan tree on its 13-acre property.

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.

The Colossus in the Catskills

Sonny Rollins

There’s an interesting reflection by jazz tenor saxophone titan Sonny Rollins in today’s Wall Street Journal that focuses on his move this year from bucolic Germantown across the Hudson River to Woodstock, an upstate New York town best known for its reputation as an artists' colony and being the namesake for the music festival held in nearby Bethel.

Creativity wasn’t the lure for Rollins, though it has been for many other jazz musicians who reside in the area.

Sunday mornings with George...

Sunday mornings, with few exceptions, are the time I dig out a George Mesterhazy CD and relish the depth and breadth of his talent as I savor the day’s first cup of java and catch up on email or peruse the morning paper. It’s been that way for the better part of the past year. I find it a terrific balm that soothes the loss of this close friend and masterful musician. He died in his sleep on April 12, 2012, a few days after his 59^th birthday.

I have many such CDs to choose from: George’s wonderful collaborations with Shirley Horn and Rebecca Parris, or more recently, Cat Conner, Lisa Lindsley, Gina Roché and Paula West, or, moving to the rock sphere, his work as a sideman (piano, B-3, Fender Rhodes and accordion) on Bob Lowery’s Mellencamp-esque 2000 CD Yellow Light.  

The one that draws me in most Sunday mornings is George’s trio session, One For My Baby, which he recorded in September 1999 at Peter Kontrimas’ Westwood MA studio with drummer Matt Gordy and bassist John Lockwood. It is exquisite. Each listening reveals new aspects in his playing and his personalization of nine jazz standards.

Straight-ahead jazz draws from an eclectic mix

Pianist Lenny Wilson's quintet went far beyond mining the usual jazz repertoire Friday when it concluded the South County Jazz Club's Venice (FL) Art Center concert series. You would expect a blend of tunes from the Great American Songbook, as well as jazz classics, but Wilson also threw in a bit of Chuck Mangione, a wild jazz romp through guitarist Mason Williams' 1968 hit "Classical Gas" (rarely heard today in any jazz setting), The Beatles hit "Can't Buy Me Love" and a solo-piano exploration of a "Les Miserables" medley (including "I Dreamed a Dream") with Dave Norman's fine drum work joining at the end.

2012 at Newport: NOW we’ve heard it all…

After baking in the sun and wandering between the three scattered stages at the Newport Jazz Festival for seven or eight hours, nearly all in the crowd call it a day during or right after the final set at Fort Adams State Park. It’s time to quench one’s thirst, grab a meal and a shower, and head home or to local lodging - and rest up for Sunday’s equally long schedule.

But that’s not the case for everyone. Some 250 fans and a  nearly a dozen musicians dusted off and cleaned up - perhaps changing to something less casual - and headed for Marble House. One of Newport’s storied mansions on stately Bellevue Avenue, it was built between 1888 and 1892 as one of the Vanderbilt family’s “summer cottages.”

On Saturday April 4, 2012, Marble House was something else: the site of a fundraising gala for the Newport Festivals Foundation, which produces the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals under the leadership of the festivals’ founding producer (and foundation chairman), George Wein. The gala raised more than $200,000 to help the nonprofit carry on the festival tradition well into the future.

The gala featured an array of musical combinations not heard at Fort Adams – or anywhere else for that matter. And the tapes were running. The Festivals Foundation has released that recording, called Newport Jazz Festival Gala!, on ArtistShare.

Jazz from Naples hits Port Charlotte

"Sir John" Jeffrey

Monday night was Naples Night at the Charlotte Cultural Center as the Charlotte County Jazz Society wound down its 2012-13 concert season in strong fashion. The double bill featured two small groups that made the 70-mile trek north from Naples.

Digging deep into the Great American Songbook

Marlene VerPlanck

Singer Marlene VerPlanck closed out the Glenridge Performing Arts Center portion of the South County Jazz Club's robust 2012-13 concert season last night with a thoughtful mining of the Great American Songbook.

For the most part, her concert at the cozy state-of-the-art Sarasota FL venue featured Songbook pages turned less frequently but just as worthy of illumination as the warhorses that everybody else puts on their short lists.

Welcome to Jazz April

Yes, this is Jazz Appreciation Month. It is also the month in which UNESCO's 2nd annual International Jazz Day takes place.

Some might argue that every day ought to be Jazz Day. I won't quibble with that ideal.

But a month in which we are asked to help raise the general public's jazz consciousness is a great thing.

There are many ways to get involved - without any great fanfare.

One value of the jazz jam session

André Roy

Jam sessions are great for a lot of things. One of my favorite values: the opportunity to hear musicians from near or far with whom one might not cross paths otherwise.
Over the past few months, I got a chance to hear Toronto guitarist André Roy at the South County Jazz Club's weekly jam, which has been held for the past year at Allegro Bistro in Venice FL.

Roy is a guitar modernist born of the rock era, and his beautiful guitar sound is infused with a rockish energy and intensity. Think John Scofield for comparisons.

Bud Leeds' jazz quartet in Venice

Bud Leeds

Clarinetist Bud Leeds peppered Friday's Venice Art Center concert for the South County Jazz Club with tunes that became brief two- and three-song medleys. It showed interesting connections between material that was either thematic or of similar structure.  For example: "Autumn Leaves" shifted to "Lullabye of the Leaves" and then "Softly as a Morning Sunrise."

But he had a different motive for the condensations.

Naples Jazz Orchestra with star firepower

 Byron Stripling and Doc Severinsen

Thousands jammed into Cambier Park in downtown Naples FL last night for what was the clear highlight of the Naples Jazz Orchestra's fourth season. The 16-piece big band's concert with two special guests - trumpeters Doc Severinsen and Byron Stripling - was also a high point since drummer Bob Stone organized the band four years ago.

CDs of Note - Short Takes

Taking a closer look at new CDs from Patricia Barber, the Ian Carey Quintet +1, the Clayton Brothers and Scott Hamilton….

Toe-tapping Dixieland - Florida style with a touch of Hawaii

Bob Leary and Davy Jones

Bob Leary's sextet, also known as The Moral Imbeciles (so he said), had toes a-tappin' Monday night throughout the Charlotte Cultural Center at the Charlotte County Jazz Society's Artists Series.

Classic Jazz with good humor

Johnny Varro

Pianist Johnny Varro's Swing 7 concert at the Glenridge Performing Arts Center in Sarasota FL last night had a bit of holiday weekend humor - compliments of the leader.

TSB spins a jazz gem

The Tierney Sutton Band

The Tierney Sutton Band opened a two-week mini-tour last night at Daniels Pavilion in Naples Fl. The show underscored the singer's mastery of taking familiar material and transforming it into something fresh and different.

Sutton’s band has been a musical family for more than 20 years, with finely honed collaborative arrangements and an intuitive spirit that enables them to shift gears in an instant when soloists offer new ideas.

 

My full review has been posted at jazztimes.com.

Sarasota Jazz Festival - Gates and Lamb in spotlight

Giacomo Gates

Connecticut-based bop/vocalese singer Giacomo Gates took the 33rd annual Sarasota Jazz Festival by storm last night, sharing the evening's spotlight with former Ellington bassist John Lamb.

Lamb was a strong part of the headliner's rhythm section - after receiving the Jazz Club of Sarasota's Satchmo Award for his outstanding contributions to jazz as a performer and educator. After getting off the road, he settled in St. Petersburg in 1967 and spent nearly 30 years teaching in the Pinellas County School System. He is still one of the area's most in-demand bass players.

Englewood jazz series concludes first season in fine form

Valerie Gillespie

The South County Jazz Club wound up the first season of its Englewood Art Center concert series with Friday afternoon's performance by Valerie Gillespie's trio. Gillespie is a Tampa Bay-area saxophonist who has also developed into a fine singer. When she's not singing or soloing, she also can't resist dancing to the groove set by her bandmates, in this case pianist Jeff Phillips and drummer Dave Rudolph.

Piano jazz x 2

Mac Chrupcala and Mike Renzi have been crossing paths longer than each cares to count.

Mike Renzi

They began working jazz clubs in the 1960s in Providence, RI - occasionally swapping favorite venue gigs. Chrupcala also spent most of his adult career teaching music in the Newport School System, while Renzi went on to great acclaim in New York City as musical director for "All My Children" and "Sesame Street" - and accompanist to a trove of great singers, including Mel Torme, Maureen McGovern and Jack Jones.



Mac Chrupcala

Both men now winter in Florida. They crossed paths again this afternoon at the Venice FL Art Center in a two-keyboard concert, with strong support from bassist Mark Neuenschwander and drummer Dave Pruyn.

The new jazz standard from Whitney James

Singer Whitney James came south from the St. Petersburg area Saturday for the South County Jazz Club's first concert at Lemon Bay Playhouse in Englewood FL - and it was a delight for a variety of reasons.

Whitney James

James doesn't really front the band. She's an integral part of the action - unlike the "chick singer" style of performance that we see far more frequently. And she avoids the tiredest tunes in the Great American Songbook. This is a good thing.

In walked Mike...

One of the cool things about a jam session is that you never know who may show up and enhance the proceedings - above and beyond the regulars. Such was the case last night at the South County Jazz Club's weekly jam at Allegro Bistro in Venice FL.


Goodman, Mainieri, Mancini, Hassan, Ellison

Mike Mainieri, a longtime fixture in jazz fusion and the New York and studio music scene, popped in - and ended up playing five tunes over the course of the three-hour jam. Between the two men, club fixture Jack Fanning’s vibes never had such an extensive workout at Allegro.

Big Band jazz at its finest

Bob Stone and Mark Pettey

Drummer Bob Stone brought The Naples Jazz Orchestra to Port Charlotte last night for the Charlotte County Jazz Society's best-attended concert of the 2012-13 season.

Stone led a big band in Chicago from 1976 to 1989. He's been living in Naples FL for 23 years - and his enthusiasm for big band excellence hasn't diminished.

8th annual Punta Gorda Wine & Jazz Festival

Hot music overcomes chilly weather


Sergio Mendes

This year's Punta Gorda Wine & Jazz Festival was noteworthy for its musical additions, its loyal, enthusiastic and expanding audience, and the degree to which the music made everyone grin and bear unusually chilly and windy weather, and a passing shower. [You can read my full review at JazzTimes.com.]

Jazz saxophonist comes full circle

Scott Hamilton (Blue Duchess photo)

Scott Hamilton, now a renowned jazz tenor saxophonist, was 15, playing harmonica and leading a blues band in his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island when he first met Duke Robillard.

It was in the late 1960s, a couple of years after guitarist Duke Robillard and pianist Al Copley founded the no-holds-barred, Chicago-style blues band Roomful of Blues - and nearly a decade before Roomful's first album release.

CDs of Note - Short Takes

Taking a closer look at new CDs from three contemporary jazz bands: Myriad3, Marbin and the Hristo Vitchev Quartet.

From Brazil to Ellington with a few stops in between

Nate Najar

Guitarist Nate Najar performed today at the South County Jazz Club's Englewood Arts Center series to the biggest crowd the venue has seen for jazz to date. There were 120 jazz fans in the center's main gallery. Additional folks were turned away due to space limitations.

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:

What a jazz herd

Reynolds, Lamb, Switzer, Hixon

When drummer Al Hixon gets a call to put together a concert band, he settles for nothing less than all-star musicians. Such was the case at Friday's South County Jazz Club matinee at the Venice Art Center.

The A Team scores big with jazz in Port Charlotte

Amanda Carr and Arnie Krakowsky

Massachusetts-based singer Amanda Carr and tenor saxophonist Arnie Krakowsky generally don't perform as a team outside New England, but their Charlotte County Jazz Society concert in Port Charlotte, FL last night demonstrated that they have what it takes to do so. And then some.

Trad jazz and more from Sayer & Co.

Cynthia Sayer's Hot Jazz Trio

Banjo ace Cynthia Sayer performed to a sellout crowd Saturday at the Glenridge Performing Arts Center in Sarasota with her Hot Jazz Trio, featuring bassist Don Mopsick and trombonist Bill Allred.

Metz-Parrott-Sportiello - jazz in Sarasota

Sportiello, Parrott, Metz

"Don't be fooled by the name of the band," drummer Eddie Metz Jr. said. "We're really just his monkeys."

Metz got a lot of laughs with that line at last night's Jazz Club of Sarasota concert by what was billed as the Eddie Metz Trio. In reality it was an artful trio of equals, teaming Metz with pianist Rossano Sportiello and bassist/singer Nicki Parrott. Each of them brings powerhouse strengths to the stage.

Jazz concert review – Randy Brecker

Trumpeter looks back four+ decades in Naples concert


Randy Brecker

Randy Brecker dug deep into his own songbook on January 17 in his second guest appearance with the Naples, Fl-based Philharmonic Jazz Orchestra. It was also a reunion of sorts with tenor saxophonist Lew Del Gatto (a 25-year veteran of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” Band), who Brecker has known for more than 30 years.

Newport Jazz Festival 2013 has a great talent mix

With the proliferation of artists and venues over the past three decades, competition for the entertainment dollar has gotten mighty fierce across the United States. Consumers have just so much to spend over the course of a season, and tend to make their choices early.

Newport Jazz Festival organizers rolled out their August lineup in April or May for many years. That’s no longer the case. The stellar lineup for the August 2 to 4 event is out today… and tickets go on sale on Thursday, January 17.

Keeping jazz tunes alive

Jim Wellen and Shelly Torman

Tenor saxophonist Jim Wellen's quintet took the South County Jazz Club on a refresher tour Friday through the some of the significant music written and/or recorded by some of the world's most powerful reed players.

OKeh’s revival is more than OK

Record labels come and go. In the case of one historic imprint, they come back with new purpose. And it is not the first time for OKeh Records.

The OKeh label, founded in 1918, had a reputation in its early years as the home of so-called ”race records.” Its 1920 hit, Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues,” is often credited as the first blues record. OKeh also released historic early recordings by Louis Armstrong, King Oliver and Duke Ellington in its heyday.

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.