Looking Ahead: Southwest Florida 2014-15 jazz season approaches

Here’s a preview of some of the more interesting jazz events in the Sarasota to Naples territory. The 2014-15 concert season hits full steam in October.

CDs of Note – Short Takes

Taking a closer look at CDs by The Cookers, Theo Croker, Laura Dubin and Rotem Sivan ….

Another jazz postcard from Newport

As George Wein said in 1954: "A little rain can't stop us"

Even in fine weather, the logistics are mind-boggling. Three stages running simultaneously, with jazz to savor set by set or as a smorgasbord. Forty-three different acts over three afternoons at Fort Adams State Park, and two evening sets at historic Newport Casino, better known today as the International Tennis Hall of Fame. 
The fans turned out despite heavy rain on Saturday, August 2 and intermittent drizzle on Sunday. This was the 60th anniversary edition of producer George Wein's first festival - and the sea of colorful umbrellas, ponchos and rain suits added to the ambience. The mud, not so much.

Stepping up mightily

Joe Lovano

The jazz community has a proud tradition of jumping in to help out a great cause, particularly when it involves one of their own. They’re doing it again this weekend in northern New Jersey.  

Blue Note Records Chairman Emeritus Bruce Lundvall, the man who revived Blue Note as a powerful jazz label in 1984, has organized an all-star concert called the Sunrise Senior Living Jazz Festival. It is being held the afternoon and evening of Sunday, August 24, at Brighton Gardens of Saddle River.

Jazz postcard from Newport

Here is some more color, memories if you will, from the 60th anniversary edition of the Newport Jazz Festival, August 1-3. This was my 33rd festival in 34 years, covering for various employers and freelance assignments.

Jonathan Batiste and Stay Human

CDs of Note - Short Takes

Taking a closer look at CDs by Dee Alexander, Joe Beck, and the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble…

Love and reverence for a jazz tradition

The 60^th anniversary edition of the Newport Jazz Festival turned into a weekend of love and reverence toward its founding producer, George Wein. He started the event in 1954 with backers Elaine and Louis Lorillard, a high society couple who wanted to liven up the summer social season.

More than a dozen jazz festival producers from venues across the U.S. and around the globe were on hand last weekend. Many of them introducing bands of the three festival stages at Fort Adams State Park, all of them thanking Wein either publicly or privately for starting the jazz festival tradition in which they are all now involved so deeply.

Wein’s current operation, The Newport Festivals Foundation (nonprofit successor to his long-running Festival Productions Inc.), is one of 16 or so members of the International Jazz Festivals Organization. Its members work together to develop synergies and to keep an eye on emerging talent the world over. They meet four times a year, with the U.S. meeting usually taking place in New York in September. This year, they adjusted their schedules to meet in Newport in August.

Newport Jazz Festival @ 60: lots of rain, great musical moments, loyal fans [updated]

The Newport Jazz Festival, grandaddy of outdoor music festivals all over the world, marked its 60th anniversary over the weekend in grand, loving and soggy fashion. 

The August 1-3 event was quite the extravaganza, keeping we writers and photographers racing from stage to stage to stage in pursuit of its strong lineups and great music. There were top-flight bands no matter your style preference, and none disappointed.

CDs of Note - Short Takes

Taking a closer look at CDs by the Larry Goldings-Peter Bernstein-Bill Stewart trio, and singers Sherie Julianne and Lisa Thorson ….

Farewell, Charlie...

Charlie Haden and Hank Jones, 
Montreal 2008

It's been a rainy day here in Florida, and such weather gave me a grand opportunity to revisit some of my favorite music by bassist, bandleader and NEA Jazz Master Charlie Haden, who left us last week at age 76 after a prolonged illness.

My clear favorites among the extensive Haden discography include two of his duet projects (Steal Away with pianist Hank Jones and Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories) with guitarist Pat Metheny), any of his eight recordings by the film noir-inspired Quartet West (but particularly Haunted Heart, released in 1992), and 2005's Not in Our Name by the Liberation Music Orchestra that he co-led with pianist Carla Bley.

Newport beckons

The 60th anniversary edition* of the Newport Jazz Festival is fast approaching. My bags and gear aren’t packed yet, but I’m preparing for my 33rd Newport festival in 34 years. (Since the festival returned to the City By The Sea in 1981, I only missed 1983 due to a fellowship commitment in Michigan.)

CDs of Note - Short Takes

Taking a closer look at CDs by Jeff Colella and Putter Smith, Miles Davis, John Intrator and Sébastien Felix, and the Christine Jensen Jazz Orchestra….

Looking Ahead: Southwest Florida jazz in the summer

The snowbird concert season for jazz may be over in the Sarasota to Naples territory, but there’s still jazz to be found. Most of it is in the form of regular gigs at restaurants that offer jazz multiple times a week.

 They include J.D.’s in Port Charlotte (after its vacation week hiatus ends July 8), The Orange House in Punta Gorda, The Roadhouse in Ft. Myers, The Haye Loft upstairs at Euphemia Hay on Longboat Key, and a most-welcome new kid on the block. 

Jazz Profile: "The Nurturer"

Marcus Belgrave 

Hot House has just published my profile of Marcus Belgrave, the trumpet great who has called Detroit home for more than 50 years, and mentored an amazing array of jazz talents who have come out of the Motor City. 

In the July issue of the magazine, he also talks about the nurturing he received from Clifford Brown, when they were adolescents in a community band in Delaware, and his first road boss – Ray Charles, as well as his take on the fine art of jazz soloing. You can read it here. Belgrave and his band appear July 22-24 at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola.

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.

CDs of Note - Short Takes

Taking a closer look at CDs by five pianists: Francy Boland, George Cables, Ellen Rowe, Jamie Saft and Omar Sosa.…

And the winners are….

The Jazz Journalists’ Association presented the media portion of its 18th annual Jazz Awards this week at the Blue Note in New York. The full list of winners is detailed at JJAJazzAwards.org (scroll down).

• Three musicians won crossover honors. Pianist Ethan Iverson was honored for the year’s best blog for Do The Math. Vibes player Gary Burton won Best Book of the Year category for his autobiography, Learning To Listen: The Jazz Journey of Gary Burton (Berklee Press). Singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, the host of the NPR series Jazz Set, received the JJA's Willis Conover-Marian McPartland Award for Broadcasting. (Burton also won musical honors, announced in April, as Mallet Player of the Year).
• Veteran author, editor, educator and radio show host W. Royal Stokes received JJA’s Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism Award.
• Freelance writer Nate Chinen won the Helen Oakley Dance-Robert Palmer Award for Writing in 2013.

  

  Benny Golson, by Antonio Porcar Cano

• Spanish photographer Antonio Porcar Cano was honored for the competition’s Photo of the Year for his wonderful image of saxophonist Benny Golson, taken last July  26 at the  Festival Internacional de Jazz de Peñíscola.
• Videographer John Moultrie won the Best Short Form Jazz News Video category for "Gary Bartz Talks About Drug Use Among Jazz Greats."

Two perennial winners, JazzTimes magazine and AllAboutJazz.com, won again in their respective categories, Best Print Periodical and Best Jazz Website.

A lively jazz afternoon captured for posterity [updated 10-7-2014]

Mike Markaverich

(Note: Ernie Williford, a fine bassist and singer beloved in SW Florida for his soulful  version of "Georgia on My Mind), passed away on October 6, 2014. RIP) 

What do you get when you record before a live audience? In the very best instances - spirited music with no false starts, no retakes and no clams (bad notes). 

Such was the case Tuesday afternoon, June 10 when pianist and singer Mike Markaverich recorded his trio with bassist Ernie Williford and drummer Johnny Moore in the presence of about 50 of their fans at the Venice Art Center.

Jazzy numbers

Much focus will be given this summer to this August’s arrival of the 60th anniversary edition of the Newport Jazz Festival (not the 60th festival mind you, just the fact that it’s been 60 years since the very first festival was held in Newport back in 1954). As mentioned in prior postings, this will be the 50th edition of the George Wein-produced festival to be held in Newport.

But there is another very admirable anniversary taking place 12 days earlier on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Jazz in July opens its 30th anniversary run (July 21-31) at the 92nd Street Y. 

Mingus, Mingus and more Mingus

Kevin Mauldin

The Naples Philharmonic Jazz Orchestra  dug deeply into the music of bassist and composer Charles Mingus in a concert Wednesday night at Artis Naples' Daniels Pavilion. It underscored his imprint on jazz as a bassist, composer and social commentator.

The concert included a wide range of ambitious Mingus works, even touching on his early days as an emerging jazz figure in Los Angeles in the late 1940s. The NPJO, actually a sextet, featured bassist Kevin Mauldin for this evening. The band also includes tenor saxophonist Lew Del Gatto, trumpeter Dan Miller, pianist Jerry Stawski, drummer Mike Harvey and violinist Glenn Basham.

CDs of Note - Short Takes

Taking a closer look at new CDs by Eric Alexander, Lori Carsillo, Mike Longo, and Gene Ludwig and Pat Martino.…

A solid night of jazz, enhanced by two Bostonians

Dean, Bowlby, Evans, Delaney

Pianist Joe Delaney's Wednesday night trio gig at Brew Babies in Cape Coral FL had some added firepower on May 7 when two very fine Boston-area musicians sat in. Delaney invited saxophonist Bob Bowlby to join the merriment, since he was in the Tampa area to visit his daughter. And trumpeter Trent Austin was in town visiting family. Fortunately, he brought his horn when dining at the restaurant with his parents.

Once again, the jazz is at the Sunday brunch

The Punta Gorda (FL) Chamber of Commerce has announced the dates and the lineup for the10th annual Punta Gorda Wine & Jazz Festival at Laishley Park, on the shore of the picturesque Peace River where it flows into Charlotte Harbor.

Sad to say, there is no jazz on the main stage for the main event on Saturday, February 21, 2015. The three acts are all from the smooth jazz (instrumental pop) genre.) They are saxophonists Mindi Abair (back for the seventh consecutive year) and Dave Koz, and guitarist-singer Nick Colionne, who sounds to me like a young, smooth George Benson without the latter's strong jazz chops.

For true jazz at the festival, we must once again turn to the Jazz Brunch at the nearby Isles Yacht Club on Sunday, February 22. Brunch producer Brian Presley has not yet announced the lineup of local mainstream jazz talent, but it is always a fine mix of Southwest Florida musicians. Presley's firm, Presley Beane Financial Services, sponsors the brunch. Presley has had minimal success through the years in getting jazz onto the main stage. I have no doubt he'll keep trying.

Aside from 2013, which included Sergio Mendes' band and a local mainstream jazz quintet, this festival keeps missing opportunities to share with its devoted main stage audience a richer, deeper, broader musical palette encompassing a variety of jazz genres. And that is a pity. It could be so much more.

Local jazz gets a mighty fine bonus

Jazz fans at JD's Bistro & Grill in Port Charlotte expecting to hear drummer Patricia Dean's fine trio got an added bonus Thursday night. Jacksonville-based singer Lisa Kelly and trumpeter J.B. Scott sat in during the second and third sets.

Dean, Kelly, Trefethen, Scott, Phillips

The husband-and-wife educators at the University of North Florida  were in the area for two days of guest teaching at the Harrison School of the Arts in Lakeland. Jeff Phillips, a versatile and highly talented pianist who teaches jazz at the magnet high school, is Dean's regular pianist for her weekly JD's gig. He brought Kelly and Scott with him since they had a free evening.

CDs of Note - Short Takes

Taking a closer look at new CDs by Alan Broadbent, Lisa Hilton, Pat Metheny and Dick Titterington….

Jazz's creme de la creme, 2014-style

Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, Newport 2013

The Jazz Journalists Association's 18th annual Jazz Awards winners list is headlined by pianist Herbie Hancock and saxophonist Wayne Shorter.

Hancock is being honored for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz. In addition to being a busy composer and performer, he's the driving force behind UNESCO's International Jazz Day, chairs the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz and gave this year's six-part prestigious Norton Lectures series at Harvard.

 

Shorter was named Musician of the Year and his 2013 recording, Without A Net (Blue Note) was voted Record of the Year. 

Cecile McLorin Salvant was named Up and Coming Artist of the Year and Female Singer of the Year. Here is a link to the winners in all 32 categories of musical excellence.

Award winners in the JJA's Journalism and Media categories will be announced June 11 at the annual JJA Jazz Awards party in the Big Apple.

A swinging evening for jazz clarinet and more

Allan Vaché
 

Clarinetist Allan Vaché's mainstream jazz quintet closed out the Charlotte County Jazz Society's 2013-14 concert series Monday night at the Charlotte County Cultural Center with a swinging evening of Tin Pan Alley and jazz standards.

The repertoire ranged from Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and Bob Haggart to the Benny Goodman songbook, with one brief foray to Brazil for Antonio Carlos Jobim's lovely bossa nova "Look to the Sky."

Hip jazz for hip listeners

Giacomo Gates

Singer Giacomo Gates' wide-ranging musicality, humor and swing were on full display Saturday night at JD’s Bistro & Grille as he opened the Port Charlotte FL venue’s Jazz Masters series of special jazz events.

Gates fit the bill perfectly with his approach to jazz, including his instrument-like scatting and use of vocalese. The latter technique, popularized by Eddie Jefferson, Jon Hendricks and Oscar Brown Jr., puts lyrics to classic instrumental jazz solos that enable a singer like Gates to present a jazz standard with new dimensions.

The art of the jazz duo - playing alone together

Howard Alden

Guitarist Howard Alden and pianist Lenore Raphael blended their considerable talents Friday night in a South County Jazz Club concert that concluded its 2013-14 season segment at the Glenridge Performing Arts Center in Sarasota.

The New York-based players dug deeply into Great American Songbook standards, and a gritty take on Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia On My Mind," before concluding their 90-minute performance with a Raphael original. The latter was her Oscar Peterson tribute, "Blues for O.P."

CDs of Note - Short Takes

This vocals edition takes a closer look at new CDs by Barb Jungr, Stacey Kent and Susanna Smith….

A night of Valiant jazz

Valery Ponomarev

Russian-born, New York-based trumpeter Valery Ponomarev and Florida saxophonist Valerie Gillespie teamed their talents Friday for the first time, and loved every minute of it. The occasion was a Jazz Club of Sarasota evening concert at Holley Hall, which drew a small but enthusiastic audience.

Young jazz trumpet phenom steals the show

Pianist and singer Danny Sinoff is the resident jazz cat in the hat two nights a week at JD's Bistro & Grille in Port Charlotte, but Friday night he had to share the distinction and step back a bit from the spotlight. Thirteen-year-old trumpet phenom Geoff Gallante sat in with Sinoff's trio for two sets and showed the enthusiastic crowd - and his fellow musicians - that he is  the real deal.

Looking Ahead: Southwest Florida jazz preview

Giacomo Gates

Here’s a preview of some of the more interesting jazz events in the Sarasota to Naples territory from now through mid-June, as the concert season winds down. 

Happy jazz still going strong

Jim Cullum

The Jim Cullum Jazz Band drew nearly a full house at the Glenridge Performing Arts Center in Sarasota on Saturday night at a South County Jazz Club concert showing traditional jazz and the hunger for it are alive and well.

Cullum's father, a clarinetist, formed what originally was called the Happy Jazz Band in the early 1960s. The cornetist took it over in the 1970s after his father's death. The Cullum band is now in its 50th year and has been broadcasting its Riverwalk Jazz series on public radio for 25 years.

The art of the jazz trio

Morgan, Lamb, Chrupcala

The fine art of the jazz trio at its best was on full display this afternoon at the Venice (FL) Art Center. Except when it was the fine art of the jazz quartet.

Pianist Mac Chrupcala, who is based in Newport RI most of the year but snowbirds in Southwest Florida, performed with a powerhouse trio, featuring John Lamb on bass and Dave Morgan on drums. He also brought a special guest who sat in at the end of the first set and most of the second set.

Jazz that swings mightily




Lisa Kelly and JB Scott

Singer Lisa Kelly and trumpeter JB Scott's first appearance at the Charlotte County Jazz Society's concert series tonight was a dandy, ensuring that the Jacksonville-based couple will be back sooner rather than later in the CCJS rotation.

Building the future for jazz, one student ticket at a time

George Wein

George Wein remembers an evening back in the early 1940s when, as a high school student, he got a chance to hear Duke Ellington live for the first time. It was at Roseland State Ballroom in Boston, and he was in high school. Wein says memories of that night likely planted the seed for his career as a jazz pianist, club owner and festival producer.

Guitar trio digs into jazz and blues

Andre Roy

Toronto-based guitarist Andre Roy, who winters in southwest Florida. closed out the Englewood Art Center portion of the South County Jazz Club's 2013-14 season this afternoon with a terrific trio concert.

The matinee performance marked first-time concert appearances by three contemporary players: Roy, bassist Billy Pillucere and drummer James Varnado. What a tight performance in their first gig together. It also was Roy's first U.S. concert appearance.

International Jazz Day preview

The United Nations is truly putting the stamp on jazz, several dozen of them in fact, when the third annual International Jazz Day rolls around on Wednesday, April 30. UNESCO and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz are sponsoring International Jazz Day, which will have Osaka, Japan as its host city for major, all-star events.

Coinciding with International Jazz Day, the United Nations Postal Administration will issue three mini-sheets of a dozen jazz-related postage stamps, a first-day-of-issue envelope and a souvenir card. The items were designed in a cohesive collage format by UNPA Art Director Sergio Baradat. Here’s a preview of those materials. The stamps will be issued in U.S. dollars, Swiss francs and Euros. For more information, visit UNStamps.org.

Alexis Cole at Sarasota Jazz Festival (updated)

Alexis Cole and Eric Alexander

New York-based singer Alexis Cole's quintet, featuring tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, performed Friday night at the 34th annual Sarasota Jazz Festival.

Cole's band also included pianist John di Martino, bassist David Finck and drummer Kenny Washington. Here's a link to my concert review for JazzTimes.com.