Sunday, February 15, 2009

Next Up: Uri Caine

And a reader writes:


Saw the dude @ a sparsely attended Sunday a.m. concert @ the Brecon Jazz Fest (6 yrs ago?) - he was trippin' as they say - played nonstop for 75 minutes, all over the keyboard - once or twice (if memory serves me) even off the keyboard . . . In mid-air. Intense, a little mad, but also lyrical & a genius!

Enjoy - wish I were there.


Myron Tuman

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Go Home

Our first show of 2009 is coming right up and it's a good one. We're proud to present GO HOME, a new quartet featuring Ben Goldberg, Ron Miles, Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendola, on Monday, February 9 at 8 pm in the Kate Buchanan Room on the HSU campus.


Tickets are $15 general admission and $10 for students and seniors and are on sale now online at http://www.redwoodjazzalliance.org/tickets.htm and at Peoples Records and the Works in Arcata and Eureka.


GO HOME has its origins in a recording project put together by Ben in April 2008. Charlie, Scott, and Ben came up together in the vibrant Bay Area music scene of the 1990s and had been talking for a few years about recording together. They saw an opportunity when Scott and Ben would be at the Jazz Standard in New York for a week. When they learned that Ron would also be in town playing with Bill Frisell, they added him to the band. Working with Ben’s compositions, GO HOME brings together Charlie and Scott’s rootsy, hard-driving grooves and the astute, lyrical interplay of Ron and Ben. Spacious melody and an incisive feel combine to create a unique and compelling sound.


Many of you remember Ben and Scott from their Fall 2007 RJA concert with the trio Plays Monk. Charlie Hunter is a Humboldt County favorite from his many appearances here in the '90s before he left the Bay Area for even greater fame and fortune in New York. He's noted for playing custom-made seven and eight-string guitars, on which he simultaneously plays bass lines, rhythm guitar, and solos. Ron Miles is probably best-known for his frequent collaborations with Bill Frisell, and he's also worked with such disparate performers as Don Byron, the Duke Ellington Orchestra and Ginger Baker.


For more about Go Home and all of the guys in the band, go to http://redwoodjazzalliance.org/cohen.html. You'll also find streaming audio of their music there.


We'll see you on February 9th!

The Redwood Jazz Alliance

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Short Bio of Ben Goldberg

Clarinetist and composer Ben Goldberg grew up in Denver, Colorado, and received degrees from the University of California and Mills College. He was a pupil of the eminent clarinetist Rosario Mazzeo, and studied with both Steve Lacy and Joe Lovano.
In a March 2007 article in the San Francisco Bay Area magazine The Monthly, (http://www.themonthly.com/up-front-03-07.html), Andrew Gilbert heralded Ben Goldberg as “a dauntless musical explorer who has played a central role in the Bay Area’s improvised music scene for more than two decades.

Following his muse wherever it leads him has taken Goldberg on a circuitous musical journey, from Jewish roots music, blues and bebop to avant-garde jazz and chamber improvisation. Along the way, he himself has profoundly influenced some of the region’s most creative musicians…..It’s difficult to overstate Goldberg’s impact on the California music scene, though he has often flown under the mainstream radar, ridiculously undetected by major clubs, festivals and the jazz press. Over the past year or so, however, he’s been impossible to ignore, as a series of collaborations have put him smack-dab in the center of several of the scene’s most fertile musical ensembles.”


In addition to leading his own groups such as the Ben Goldberg Quintet, Mr. Goldberg performs with the New Klezmer Trio, Tin Hat, plays monk, the Graham Connah Group; and John Schott’s Typical Orchestra. He has received two NEA grants: one in 1993 for performance of the music of Andrew Hill, Bobby Bradford, Steve Lacy, Herbie Nichols, and Thelonious Monk; and another in 1996 for a concert series of his own compositions.