The News Review:
- Dion the Wanderer Back in ‘Blue’
- Telluride Blues & Brews Festival Returns with Keb Mo’ &…
- ‘World Music’ Celebrates 20 Years
- Miller finds lasting legacy with radio-friendly tunes
- The heyday of Johnny Colón’s venerable East Harlem Jazz School…
Dion the Wanderer Back in ‘Blue’
NPR – May 29, 2007
The acoustic CD Bronx in Blue has Dion exploring the blues music he heard during his youth. In the late 1950s Dion and his band the Belmonts topped the pop charts with hits like “I Wonder Why” and “A Teenager In Love” which earned the singer teen-idol status. Dion split amicably with the band in 1960 and continued to write Top 10 hits — “Runaround Sue” “The Wanderer” — until the British Invasion changed popular tastes. Now in his 60s Dion continues to produce write and sing new material under his iconic single first name (he was born Dion DiMucci). He lives in Boca Raton Fla.
Telluride Blues & Brews Festival Returns with Keb Mo’ &…
Glide Magazine – May 29, 2007
ne of the most scenic music festivals in the country the event takes place in Telluride Colo. a resort town in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. The festival is a three-day celebration of music and microbrews held in Telluride Town Park. By day it’s all about live blues rock gospel and soul performances; microbrews; a wide variety of food and craft vendors children’s activities and more – all on festival grounds. By night the festival flows into the town of Telluride with late night juke joints and after-hours jams. Single day tickets go on sale June 1 at 9 a.
‘World Music’ Celebrates 20 Years
Voice of America – May 29, 2007
Reporting for VA from London Tendai Maphosa reports world music also includes modern cutting edge pop music styles from various regions of the world. Twenty years ago a group of British record company executives got together in London and coined the term “world music” to describe music other than mainstream western pop. They were frustrated by the fact that a growing number of people interested in music “from out there” as some describe it could not find it because record stores did not know how to file and categorize it. The editor of fRoots magazine Ian Anderson told VA that World Music was and still is no more than a bin in a record shop… Yusuf Mahmoud who promotes a festival of traditional Zanzibari music and Hildegard Kiel who runs a music school on the island are trying to revive interest in Zanzibari traditional music which was falling out of favor as people preferred western music. “The term 'world music' seems to be something which is kind of understood perhaps in different ways by the foreign visitors to the island particularly from Europe and also maybe North America but for Tanzanian people I can honestly say the term 'world music' means nothing” Mahmoud said. Mahmoud and Kiel were also among those given awards by the BBC's Radio 3 as was the late Malian king of the desert blues Ali Farka Toure who won two Grammies before he died of cancer in 2006.
Miller finds lasting legacy with radio-friendly tunes
Malaysia Star – May 29, 2007
Raised in Dallas by a pathologist father and a mother who enjoyed singing jazz Miller was surrounded by music early on. Electric guitar pioneer Les Paul (“How High the Moon”) was his godfather and mentored him. He’d find initial fame in San Francisco’s fertile psychedelic scene in the `60s playing blues-rock. (Boz Scaggs was originally a member of the Steve Miller Band and Paul McCartney was a guest on the 1969 track My Dark Hour. Miller returned the favour on a couple cuts for McCartney’s 1997 CD Flaming Pie). But Miller would find a lasting legacy shifting his music into more radio-friendly fare… (Boz Scaggs was originally a member of the Steve Miller Band and Paul McCartney was a guest on the 1969 track My Dark Hour. Miller returned the favour on a couple cuts for McCartney’s 1997 CD Flaming Pie). But Miller would find a lasting legacy shifting his music into more radio-friendly fare. (Fly Like an Eagle was recently reissued for its 30th anniversary with a striking 5. 1 Surround Sound mix. Unfortunately the first 125000 copies had to be recalled and destroyed when Miller noticed his copy had a sync problem between audio and video he says.
The heyday of Johnny Colón’s venerable East Harlem Jazz School…
villagevoice.com – May 29, 2007
Celebrating the Tentative Dawn of a Brave New Era with Fucked Up It’s morning in America and midnight in Bushwick Antony Hegarty Transformer Fresh from a disco smash an NYC original evolves anew The creeping commercial disillusionment that caused East Harlem bandleader Johnny Colón to stop recording in the early ’70s may have been the best thing to ever happen to music education in New York City. Rumor was that George had lost his previous company Tico to rival Morris Levy on a bet and was determined to make his new Latin imprint even hotter. Established Latin acts like Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri initially frowned upon the fusion of r&b jazz and Latin preferred by younger players like Colón at the time despite early breakthrough fusions like Mongo Santamaria’s “Watermelon Man” and Pete Rodriguez’s “I Like It Like That. ” But the youth market already grooving to rock and soul were ready to hear new hybrids and Colón who was influenced as much by the Moonglows Horace Silver and Cal Tjader as by the infectious Charanga trend then challenging the Latin Boogaloo movement was always more adventurous and idiosyncratic than his peers. Convinced by Johnny’s club performances that the public would go for his bold fresh sound Goldner put all his street muscle behind the single… But his band lost important gigs and radio support as a result. He recorded five more albums first at Cotique and then at Fania’s request. But by the early ’70s Johnny was convinced that teaching music and playing noncommercial community gigs were better ways to serve his muse. Although he didn’t incorporate his nonprofit East Harlem Music School until 1972 he’d already been giving free music lessons out of his mother’s apartment for almost a decade. Expanding this initiative into a rented workspace with phones a staff and a sign over the door was to prove his life’s calling. Johnny an avid multi-instrumentalist who mastered the guitar by age 8 (and bass piano trombone and the human voice before he left high school) still gigged with his band but he poured everything he made into running his school. Music theory and instrumental instruction remained completely free for many years until some of his official funding sources demanded the school charge something if only to remain eligible for various grants.