The News Review:
- Jazz Virtuoso Dazzled on Piano
- Sheiks sound re-created in ‘Great Debaters’
- LST TRACKS : Good CDs We verlooked Last Year
- Teachers champion value of music education
- James Brown’s legacy remains in limbo
- A down year still yields plenty of power and exhilaration for…
- The Year of the Woman
Jazz Virtuoso Dazzled on Piano
Washington Post – Dec 25, 2007
As a soloist he was sometimes criticized for following too closely in the “rococo” tradition of Tatum who died in 1956. Peterson showed far more subtlety as an accompanist to such singers as Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday as well as such horn players as Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie said Ira Gitler a jazz historian and producer. Gitler added that Peterson’s blues swing and bop were unfailingly tasteful and elegant which made him far more accessible to mass audiences than such avant-garde innovators as Gillespie or saxophonist John Coltrane. Peterson first gained widespread notice in the Unites States during a 1949 Carnegie Hall performance and he subsequently toured in the early 1950s with impresario Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series. Through recent years Peterson continued a schedule of international concert and club dates even after a stroke in 1993 cost him full use of his left hand. “I hate to sound egotistical but I’m not an apprehensive person” he said soon after his recovery as he began making the jazz album “Side by Side” with classical violinist Itzhak Perlman. “I usually have some indication I more than likely can pull it off or I wouldn’t have gone believe me… “scar Emmanuel Peterson was born Aug. 15 1925 in Montreal to parents from the West Indies. His father a railroad porter and amateur organist pushed music on his five children beating them if they did not play well and criticizing them mercilessly even when they did. Peterson recalled that after he started to establish himself his father once brought home a Tatum recording and said “You think you’re so great. Why don’t you put it on?”"So I did” Peterson said. “And of course I was just about flattened.
Sheiks sound re-created in ‘Great Debaters’
commercialappeal.com (subscription) – Dec 25, 2007
ther homegrown performers on "The Great Debaters" include vocalists Susan Marshall and Jackie Johnson drummer Harry Peel and guitarist Teenie Hodges who joined Hart for an acoustic rendition of "Step It Up & Go" then reunited with his family group the Hi Rhythm Section for the electrified "We Shall Not Be Moved. ""I play all kinds of music but blues was first" says the versatile Hodges most famous for his work with Al Green and more recently Cat Power. "Working with (Hart) was amazing — the way we played married so well. "Memphis gospel choir Billy Rivers and the Angelic Voices of Faith performed on three tunes "We Shall Not Be Moved" "Two Wings" and "Up Above My Head. "Michael Dodson manager and director of the non-denominational choir describes the experience as "totally surreal. ""We’ve got six recordings under our belt so this type of work isn’t foreign to us but how many people get to work with Denzel Washington and prah Winfrey?" he asks.
LST TRACKS : Good CDs We verlooked Last Year
Washington Post – Dec 25, 2007
The album first released by London’s BBE Records was remastered and rereleased by Epic this year allowing Smith to share her four-octave range and multiform style with a wider audience. While Smith’s voice possesses a richness and depth usually associated with soul “For Lovers Dreamers & Me” doesn’t quite fit that category. The disc jumps between pop rock traditional R&B blues and a jumble of other music styles and Smith always manages to tweak her distinct instrument just enough to fit whatever genre she’s working in. “Dream” begins as a sweet R&B expression of a desire for romance but ends with wild vamping and Smith sounding a bit more desperate to find love. “Desert Song” is indie pop-leaning and Smith nails that particular style of wistful vocals minus the depressive edge. n the dub-influenced “Do I” Smith plays well with trippy sound effects. And over the laid-back funk groove of “Fake Is the New Real” she laments that we’re “living in phony times” and subtly positions herself as the antidote to the music business artifice.
Teachers champion value of music education
Daily Mail – Charleston – Dec 25, 2007
"But we can be the most creative. You can always win that battle. Look at American music forms: jazz bluegrass rock-and-roll rhythm and blues hip-hop gospel'' he said. Those music forms were created by the underclass the same folks Houston said "we are testing to death. '' WASHINGTN – Seventh-grader Jessica Dodson walked into class and yanked Eric Clapton from the wall – the guitar not the guitarist. Classmate Corey Cook already had Carlos Santana cradled in his lap plucking out E-minor C and G chords. "n the C chord I'm hearing some funky sounds'' teacher Darlene Dawson said after her 17 students at Metz Middle School in Manassas Va.
James Brown’s legacy remains in limbo
nline Athens – nline Athens (subscription) – Dec 25, 2007
“It’s a disgrace what has occurred” said attorney Buddy Dallas the entertainer’s longtime adviser. Dallas quit as an estate trustee last month then retracted his resignation alleging that an Aiken County judge intimidated him into it. Brown arranged for the proceeds from his music empire – including song royalties – to roll into two trust funds after his death one to educate poor children in Georgia and South Carolina another to pay college tuition for his grandchildren. “A man can be no more altruistic than was James Brown” Dallas said. “Do I think his legacy will be forgotten? nly if his wishes are not allowed to be carried out. But the Godfather of Soul left another legacy that can never be diminished his admirers say no matter what happens to his estate or his progeny. It’s a legacy that’s bound to grow in coming years with the releases of books films DVDs and tribute CDs… “I just think it goes into black culture” he said. “It’s still under-acknowledged in this country as being the gigantic contributor to Americana that it is. Therefore when it’s the blues people end up talking about Elvis or the Rolling Stones but it had to come from somewhere. Growing up in the 1960s on Long Island Chuck D – real name Carlton Ridenhour – said Brown was as much a presence in his life as a close relative playing on the turntable or performing on the television set. In the late 1970s while mainstream America was enamored with the Bee Gees and the Studio 54 disco scene black artists immersed in Brown’s beats started the movement that became hip hop. “I mean break-dancing starts off with ‘Get n the Good Foot’ ” Chuck D said. “And the holy trinity of hip hop you know – talkin’ about Afrika Bambaataa Cool Herc Grandmaster Flash – their foundations are rooted in James Brown.
A down year still yields plenty of power and exhilaration for…
Village Voice – Dec 25, 2007
And Ware’s pianist for over 15 years Matthew Shipp offered Piano Vortex his first acoustic trio album in a long while and his first studio disc period with a bassist other than William Parker present (Joe Morris held things down quite ably). Former ’60s firebrand Jacques Coursil returned with his second comeback disc Clameurs a study for solo trumpet and synth strings plus highly political spoken-word texts by Frantz Fanon and others. The track titles on ther Dimensions in Music’s double disc Live at the Sunset occasionally overdosed on politics—”Blues for Baghdad” “New Millennium Chaos (The Bush Reign of Terror)”—but the breathtaking hard-swinging interplay between trumpeter Roy Campbell saxophonist Daniel Carter bassist Parker and Hamid Drake on drums was the selling point. f course the reissue of the year was Miles Davis’s Complete “n the Corner” Sessions but nobody should ignore Andrew Hill’s churning furious Compulsion or Noah Howard’s legendary too-long-gone The Black Ark both of which reappeared this year. As did Borbetomagus’s Live in Allentown a masterpiece of rip-roaring free-skree-plus-electronics that I couldn’t vote for in the poll because an encomium I published in The Wire was borrowed by the band for the liner notes… Former ’60s firebrand Jacques Coursil returned with his second comeback disc Clameurs a study for solo trumpet and synth strings plus highly political spoken-word texts by Frantz Fanon and others. The track titles on ther Dimensions in Music’s double disc Live at the Sunset occasionally overdosed on politics—”Blues for Baghdad” “New Millennium Chaos (The Bush Reign of Terror)”—but the breathtaking hard-swinging interplay between trumpeter Roy Campbell saxophonist Daniel Carter bassist Parker and Hamid Drake on drums was the selling point. f course the reissue of the year was Miles Davis’s Complete “n the Corner” Sessions but nobody should ignore Andrew Hill’s churning furious Compulsion or Noah Howard’s legendary too-long-gone The Black Ark both of which reappeared this year. As did Borbetomagus’s Live in Allentown a masterpiece of rip-roaring free-skree-plus-electronics that I couldn’t vote for in the poll because an encomium I published in The Wire was borrowed by the band for the liner notes.
The Year of the Woman
Village Voice – Dec 25, 2007
Matthew Shipp Piano Vortex (Thirsty Ear). Falling into a blues groove at precisely those moments bass and drums refuse to makes this at once the pianist’s freest trio effort and his most bracingly straight-ahead. Joshua Redman Back East (Nonesuch). The year’s best Sonny Rollins in absentia in the same way my #3 is the best rnette or Dylan with Redman trying pianoless trio on for size and finding it a perfect fit… Lyricism with an air of mystery by a young transplanted Israeli pianist with piping help from outcat clarinetist Perry Robinson. Harry Allen & Joe Cohn Music From “Guys and Dolls” (Arbors). The kind of Broadway-meets-jazz album they don’t make anymore—though few sparkled like this even when they did. The tenor saxophonist and guitarist exploit every opportunity for counterpoint implicit in Frank Loesser’s great score though the vocals by Eddie Erickson and Rebecca Kilgore are the real treat. Rara Avis: Steve Lacy & Roswell Rudd Early and Late (Cuneiform); Frank Foster Well Water (Piadrum).