News of Past Guests, Spring 2019 Edition

Spring can really hang you up the most.  But let's not dwell on that.  Instead, let's get right to it, shall we?  In no particular order:

A belated discovery: last summer, saxophonist Michael Blake wrote a brilliant profile/appreciation of tubaist extraordinaire Marcus Rojas (Dave Douglas's Brass Ecstasy) for All About Jazz.

In other tenor sax news: Noah Preminger has a new album, After Life, with Jason Palmer, Kim Cass, Max Light, and Rudy Royston; you can order it here.  While you're at it, go to CD Baby and check out trumpeter Palmer's new double-CD, Rhyme and Reason. (Listen to a track on Soundcloud, first, if you like:)



At CD Baby you can also find Preminger's Chopin Project CD, part of his "Dead Composers Society" project, co-led with drummer Rob Garcia.  And by the way: there's a profile of Preminger, "Perpetual Motion Machine," by Dan Ouellette in the April issue of DownBeat.

There's also a new one from multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson (Ryan Keberle and Catharsis), Tenormore, with Helen Sung, Martin Wind, and Dennis Mackrel.  It's available here.



Keberle's Catharsis itself (with Robinson, Camila Meza, Jorge Roeder, and Eric Doob) will see the release The Hope I Hold on June 28.  Read all about it at Greenleaf Records (and read an interview with Keberle at Jazz Speaks).

And tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana just unveiled her Visions:



Meanwhile, you can listen to drummer Bill Stewart's latest, Band Menu, with Walter Smith III and Larry Grenadier, on Soundcloud before purchasing it at CD Baby (where you can also find also saxophonist Miguel Zenón's Grammy-nominated Yo Soy La Tradición, featuring the Spektral Quartet).

Guitarist Joel Harrison assembled an all-star crew of RJA veterans (including David Binney, Uri Caine, Chris Tordini, Stephan Crump, Brian Blade, and Allison Miller, with guest spots by Nels Cline and Theo Bleckmann, among others) for Angel Band, the third volume of his "Free Country" series, featuring jazz-inflected arrangements of classic country tunes. Buy it from Joel; watch a promo video here.

Trumpeter Ralph Alessi has reconvened his quintet This Against That for his third outing on ECM, Imaginary Friends.  (Fly Trio bassist Larry Grenadier, meanwhile, has done a solo session for ECM entitled The Gleaners.)

Trumpeter Dave Douglas, meanwhile, has three new releases on his Greenleaf label: Brazen Heart: Live at Jazz Standard (capturing a five-night run with his most recent quintet), UPLIFT: Twelve Pieces for Positive Action in 2018 (with frequent partner Joe Lovano and the twin guitars of Julian Lage and Mary Halvorson), and Devotion, a trio record with Uri Caine and Andrew Cyrille.

Antonio Sanchez and Migration's Lines in the Sand, says jazz writer Brian Morton, "makes its strong point" about xenophobia and immigration "without surrendering even a fraction of its musicality." Hear more in this NPR story:




Bassist Linda May Han Oh talks to Burning Ambulance about many things, including her latest album, Aventurine:



And finally (in the "new releases" department, anyway):

• Anat Cohen Tentet, Triple Helix
• Joe Martin (Anat Cohen), Étoilée (interview with Jazz Speaks | profile by Ken Micallef in Jazz Times)
• Tom Harrell, Infinity (review by Kevin Whitehead on NPR's Fresh Air)
• Chris Potter, Circuits (feature story in DownBeat | Jazz Times | EPK on YouTube)
• Craig Taborn (Michael Formanek) and Vijay Iyer, The Transitory Poems (short feature in DownBeat)

Shall we talk awards? The Jazz Times Critics Picks put albums by a bunch of RJA vets in its Top 10 albums of 2018: Ambrose Akinmusire (Origami Harvest, #2), Myra Melford's Snowy Egret (The Other Side of Air, #3), Cecile McLorin Salvant (The Window, #5), Ron Miles (with Joshua Redman, Scott Colley, and Brian Blade in Still Dreaming, #6), and Miguel Zenón (Yo Soy La Tradicion, #10).  More recently, the Jazz Journalists Association recognized Linda May Han Oh as Up and Coming Musician of the Year and Bassist of the Year, Cecile McLorin Salvant as Female Vocalist of the Year, Scott Robinson as Multi-Reeds Player of the Year and Player of the Year of Instruments Rare in Jazz, Miguel Zenon as Alto Saxophonist of the Year, Chris Potter as Tenor Saxophonist of the Year, Anat Cohen as Clarinetist of the Year, and Brian Blade as Traps Drummer of the Year.

That same issue of Jazz Times (February 2019) had a long-overdue profile of Myra Melford by Matthew Kassel, "Both Sides Now."

Speak of the devil: Melford herself penned a remembrance of the late Cecil Taylor--and vocalist Rene Marie pays tribute to Aretha Franklin--in the March issue of Jazz Times.

In addition to being an important composer and bandleader, Melford is of course an integral component of Allison Miller's Boom Tic Boom--and Miller, who is "blowing up" these days, almost deserves a section of this post all her own.  To begin with, here's a great mid-career profile by Suzanne Lorge in the February issue of DownBeat, "Allison Miller's Life of Contradictions."  Of course Boom Tic Boom's latest, Glitter Wolf, has been out for a few months now, but Miller is just as busy these days with a new band co-led by BTB member Jenny Scheinman, Parlour Games, whose debut is set for release on Royal Potato Family in June.  (You can listen to a teaser track when you hit that pre-order link.)

News of Past Guests, May-June 2015 Edition

Remember that terrific new Dafnis Prieto Sextet album we told you about? The New York Times' Ben Ratliff likes it a lot, as does Kevin Whitehead, who reviewed it on NPR's Fresh Air:

Several days later, Anat Cohen's cover of the Flying Lotus tune "Putty Boy Strut" wound up on NPR Music's "Songs We Love" feature.

And then, to complete the NPR-RJA Trifecta, who should show up on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert but big-shot pianist Vijay Iyer and his trio:

(Iyer also appeared on NPR's Jazz Night in America, in a set broadcast from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Some guys get all the good gigs!)

Brand-New Releases Dept.: David Berkman returns to his old label Palmetto with a sextet that includes bassist Linda Oh and drummer Brian Blade, performing his first studio collection of new originals in over a decade. It's called Old Friends and New Friends. Listen to one track here and another below:

Drummer Antonio Sanchez returns with a double-album of trio music, Three Times Three, and his trio-mates include pianist Brad Mehldau, guitarist John Scofield, saxophonist Joe Lovano, and bassists Matt Brewer, Christian McBride, and John Patitucci.  Liner notes and track samples at the CamJazz label website; cover story in the July issue of DownBeat; and (okay--I guess this makes it the NPR quad-fecta) All Things Considered story right here:

And our old friend Scott Amendola brings out a recording of his orchestral work Fade to Orange, commissioned by the Oakland Symphony, built around his trio (with Trevor Dunn and Nels Cline) and performed back in 2010.  You can order it at Scott's online store.  Here's the EPK:

And finally (for now), a slew of upcoming albums.  First, John Hollenbeck's sequel to Songs I Like a Lot, entitled--pay close attention now--Songs We Like a Lot:

Canada Day vibraphonist Chris Dingman's The Subliminal and the Sublime:

And Dave Douglas's foray into electronica, High Risk (there's also a video EPK):

Then, a trio of albums on the British label Whirlwind. Here's the title track from the debut album by guitarist Matthew Stevens (Linda Oh's Sun Pictures):

Pianist Ivo Neame (Phronesis) has a new one called Strata:

And Joel Harrison's Spirit House went into Fantasy Studios in Berkeley just days after they visited Arcata back in April 2013. Here's a sample of the results:

News of Past Guests, Spring Supplement

Too many things going on for one (March) blog post, it being the season of renewal and rebirth and all.

First: our old friend Myra Melford is only the latest RJA alum to be asked to program a week's worth of shows at John Zorn's performance space The Stone, a tiny venue of outsize prestige on Manhattan's Lower East Side.  Call it a mid-career retrospective: duets with Allison Miller, Ben Goldberg, and Marty Ehrlich.  Reunions of her 90s Trio, her Crush Quartet, The Same River, Twice (her quintet with Dave Douglas), and the Be Bread Sextet. And a release party for her newest CD, whose name, like the group that plays on it, is "Snowy Egret" (Ron Miles, cornet; Liberty Ellman, guitar; Stomu Takeishi, bass guitar; and Ted Poor sitting in for Tyshawn Sorey on drums).  Man, we wish we could be there!  Consolation: two tracks from the new album--"The Strawberry" and "Language"--are streaming at Fully Altered Media.

Next RJA vets at The Stone, by the way: weeklong residencies by Scott Amendola and Ben Goldberg in April.

Speaking of Ben Goldberg: he, too, has a new album out--a recording of Orphic Machine, a song cycle commissioned several years ago by Chamber Music America and the Jewish Music Festival. The players include lots of old friends, starting with...Myra Melford and Ron Miles, plus David Breskin, Greg Cohen, Nels Cline, Carla Kihlstedt, Ches Smith, Rob Sudduth, and Kenny Wollesen.  Check out "Line of Less Than Ten" and "Care," also courtesy of Fully Altered Media. Here's a video on the making the album:



And here's "Care" performed live at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley in 2012:


(Details: Ben Goldberg's Orphic Machine "Care" from Black Parrot Productions on Vimeo)

And speaking of publicists and streaming: the set by Dafnis Prieto's Sextet (say that three times fast!) at the Zinc Bar may be the best thing we heard at this year's WinterJazzFest in New York. Thanks to Two for the Show Media, you can preview the group's new album, Triangles and Circles, in its entirety:



Other new albums: saxophonist Tony Malaby (Ralph Alessi's This Against That, Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth) has a new one, Scorpion Eater, with a new quartet, Tubacello. (Sitting in the quartet's drum chair: John Hollenbeck.) Kevin Whitehead reviewed it for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross:



(If you're a Spotify sort of person, you can preview the whole album at Clean Feed's website.) Also: saxophonist Donny McCaslin has a new one, Fast Future, with an old quartet--or at least the same one that played on his last album, the superfunked-up Casting for Gravity. Hear the title track and order the album at Greenleaf Music's Bandcamp Store, and hear Donny talk about making it with Dave Douglas on the Noise from the Deep podcast.

Finally (for now): Anat Cohen, whose new album we told you about last time, appears on NPR's Jazz Night in America with her band Choro Aventuroso on Wednesday, April 1 (no foolin'!).  And Uri Caine was at New York's newest jazz club, Mezzrow, recently, playing a duet with bassist Mark Helias. The club, started by Small's impresario Spike Willner, specializes in piano-bass duos. Here's the evidence (thanks to Karen for the tip!):

News of Past Guests, March 2015

It's been awhile.  So without any further ado:

Antonio Sanchez's arresting score for the Oscar-winning Birdman was disqualified--on an ill-conceived technicality--from consideration for a well-deserved award.  Still, you can buy a copy of the score for yourself and appreciate it all you like.



In better news: the results of the 2014 Expanded Jazz Times Critics Poll came out in the March 2015 issue, and who should we find at the top of the list?  Best New Artist: Melissa Aldana.  Artist of the Year: Miguel Zenón.  Farther down: Best trumpeter: Ambrose Akinmusire.  Tenor Sax: Mark Turner.  Alto Sax: Miguel Zenón again.  Clarinet: Anat Cohen.  Violin: Regina Carter.  Drums: Brian Blade (Joel Harrison).  Female Vocalist: Cécile McLorin Salvant.  Podcast: A Noise From the Deep with Dave Douglas.  We'll try not to break our arms patting our own backs--but you gotta admit, we do know how to pick 'em.

And elsewhere:

Joel Harrison, who organized the Alt Guitar Summit in New York in February, speaks with guitar god Nels Cline on the latest episode of his podcast, Say What You Mean.

Also in February, René Marie was Michael Feinstein's guest on NPR's Song Travels, performing duets with Michael and talking about Eartha Kitt.

On March 4, Anat Cohen performed on NPR's Jazz Night in America with her group Choro Aventuroso, which plays the improvisatory Afro-Brazilian instrumental music known as "choro." You can stream that program by following the link above, and you can order the band's new album, Luminosa, at the Anzic Records Bandcamp store (and preview three tracks from the album right here):



And speaking of new albums, trumpeter Eddie Henderson (The Cookers) and The Vijay Iyer Trio both have new releases.  (The New York Times says Iyer's album, Break Stuff, "confirms his stature in jazz's contemporary vanguard, along with the dynamic excellence of his working trio.") The new incarnation of Harris Eisenstadt's "Golden State" features Trio M's Mark Dresser and Humboldt's own Michael Moore on Golden State II (you can stream two tracks and download one at the Songlines Records website.) Dafnis Prieto's Sextet--who played maybe the most exciting set we heard at this year's WinterJazzFest in New York--has some terrific new tunes on Triangles and Circles. And guitarist Rez Abbasi, the subject of a feature in the March issue of DownBeat, has a fantastic new record with his Acoustic Quartet. With a nod to the late, great Bill Dixon, he entitled it Intents and Purposes. It's available from all the usual suspects: iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, etc.--and, if you're an audiophile, at HD download sites like Pro Studio Masters and Qobuz. Here's the Video EPK:



Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth just released Epicenter on the always hip Clean Feed label.  The title track and two others are available for streaming:





Finally, to our great shame, we never got around to plugging what was probably our favorite album of 2014, Michael Blake's brilliant, swinging tribute to Hawk & Prez, Tiddy Boom:

News of Past Guests, December Edition

Happy, Happy.  (You know: holidays.)

Notice anything funny about the sky last night? Ben Allison's new album, The Stars Look Very Different Today (with Steve Cardenas, guitar; Brandon Seabrook, guitar and banjo; and Allison Miller, drums), is out today, and you can buy it and stream it on Ben's website.  The band played live on WNYC's Soundcheck last Tuesday, November 26th (player embedded below), and they were featured on NPR's All Things Considered on December 1st.  "Audacious sci-fi jazz," the Denver Post calls this music.

Elsewhere on the airwaves: saxophonist Noah Preminger was in the studios of Newark's WBGO a few weeks ago, playing and promoting his latest album, Haymaker, on The Checkout.  You can hear the show by clicking that link just a few words back, and you can hear the entire album at the Palmetto Records website.  Anat Cohen (see last month's post) came to the same studio a few weeks later with her brothers Avishai and Yuval to perform live selections from their new album Tightrope.

We've already told you about René Marie's new stunner--it will almost certainly top our "Best of 2013" list--but you should go back/scroll down and have a look-n-listen for yourself if you missed our previous post. René lights up the cover of the December issue of Jazz Times, and if history is any guide, that cover story should be available on the JT website in a few weeks.

Every month, WBGO and NPR Music team up to broadcast/podcast Live at the Village Vanguard. Several past RJA guests have been featured on the program since it started up a few years back (if you check out our artist web pages, you've probably heard some of those performances already), and coming up on December 10th at 5:30 Pacific Time, it's drummer extraordinaire Brian Blade, who came to the Arcata Playhouse last spring as part of Joel Harrison's Spirit House, and who will appear on LATVV with his long-running Fellowship Band.  As you can well imagine, the show has an awesome archive.

The Grammy nominations are out, and while cats in the jazz world often complain that the people who make those nominations don't know much about jazz, this year, at least, they got one thing right, nominating Donny McCaslin in the "Best Improvised Solo" category for his burning solo on "Stadium Jazz," from his latest album Casting for Gravity. 

News of Past Guests, November Edition

If we'd been keeping up with WBGO's excellent program, The Checkout (one of the places we go regularly to, um, check out what's new in contemporary jazz), we'd have known when we last posted that Ralph Alessi had been featured on the September 25th episode, talking about his new album, Baida, and about illustrious bandleaders with whom he's worked as a sideman. Listen to the segment by following the link above.  And while you're there, why not subscribe to The Checkout's podcast?


Phronesis appeared at Finland's Pori Jazz Festival last summer, and YLE Radio 1 has just posted an audio stream of their 59-minute set.  Listen to it right here until November 21.

Drummers Ches Smith (Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth) and Gerald Cleaver (Michael Formanek Quartet) are both profiled in the November issue of Jazz Times, which typically puts much of the content from its print edition online after a lag of several weeks. The Jazz Times website is also a good place to go for archived articles and breaking news, like this report of Vijay Iyer's imminent ECM debut and the debut performance of Myra Melford's "Language of Dreams," commissioned by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and featuring her new group "Snowy Egret."

Speaking of online content: Dave Douglas's "Listening Test" (from Jazz Times' October issue) has just gone live. Dave shows off his good ears and his broad knowledge of jazz history.

Remember that René Marie Eartha Kitt tribute we told you about last month, I Wanna Be Evil?  It's out, and we're pretty sure it's her best album yet.  (RJA bump? She penned the liner notes just days after her date at the Graves.)  You can find a couple of short video teasers for the album on YouTube, along with this full-length performance of "I'd Rather Be Burned As a Witch," the scorcher that opens the album (as always, we recommend changing the video quality to 1020 HD and watching in full-screen mode):

René talks about making the album on the November 12th edition of Jeffrey Siegel's "Straight No Chaser" podcast (don't be thrown by the two-minute silence after the theme music).  And speaking of podcasts, here's something we didn't mention earlier: this past summer, René did a 19-episode podcast for Jazz Times where she talked frankly and off the cuff about music and...well, all kinds of stuff with Lee Mergner. It's a lot of fun, and you can download every 'cast for free at the iTunes store.

The 3 Cohens--Anat, Avishai, and Yuval--have a new album out on the Anzic label called Tightrope.  You can download it at Anzic's Bandcamp store.  Pianist Fred Hersch joins the Cohen on several tracks, including this one:

Anat is also the guest on the latest edition (November 8) of NPR's Piano Jazz.

[Added November 14th:] Trumpeter Tom Harrell's new album on High Note is called Colors of a Dream. Regular members of his quintet are joined by also saxophonist Jaleel Shaw and second bassist Esperanza Spalding, who adds some airy Portuguese vocals to Harrell's classic "Sail Away":

Multi-reedist Marty Ehrlich, meanwhile, has a new album of works for jazz orchestra called A Trumpet in the Morning.  Members of his "Large Ensemble" include several other RJA visitors: pianist Uri Caine and bassist Drew Gress (Uri Caine Trio), trumpeter Ron Horton (Ben Allison's Man Size Safe), and drummer Matt Wilson.

And speaking of Ben Allison: Ben will be performing with his new quartet (which comprises Steve Cardenas, guitar; Brandon Seabrook, guitar and banjo; and Allison Miller, drums) on WNYC's Soundcheck on Tuesday, November 26th, in support of the band's new album, The Stars Look Very Different Today, due out December 3d (and available in digital format on iTunes and Amazon now).  In the meantime, the Soundcheck blog is streaming a track from the album, "D.A.V.E. (Digital Awareness Vector Emulator)":

Anat Cohen with Several Members of the RJA

This one is gonna be great

Our last show of 2008 is a great one! We're proud to present the Anat
Cohen Quartet on Tuesday, December 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.


The Israeli-born clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen is one of the most
heralded young jazz musicians today. The Jazz Journalists Association
named Anat Cohen its "Up and Coming Musician of the Year" for 2007, and
since then her profile has only grown: more awards from DownBeat and the
JJA; headlining gigs at the Village Vanguard; feature stories in Jazz
Times, DownBeat and on NPR; and a star turn at this year's Monterey Jazz
Festival. Live performances by her quartet have reviewers gushing. "Sheer
musicality is their guiding force," says Jazz Times; "they just see no
reason not to have a hell of a grand time playing." Here's a sampling of
her other recent press:


"Yes, she is the real deal."—The New York Times


"Cohen makes it seem easy, mixing a gift for melody and an improvisational
fluidity that has few peers today."—DownBeat Magazine


"Cohen has emerged as one of the brightest, most original young
instrumentalists in jazz...[she] has expanded the vocabulary of jazz with
a distinctive accent of her own."—The Washington Post


"She alludes to the mystical in a merry way."—The Village Voice


An accomplished bandleader and prolific composer, conversant in modern and
traditional jazz, classical music, Brazilian choro, Argentine tango, and a
wide range of Afro-Cuban styles, Anat Cohen has established herself as one
of the primary voices of her generation on clarinet and soprano and tenor
saxophones.


Her quartet includes another Israeli-born musician, Gilad Hekselman on
guitar, along with the Americans Joe Martin on bass (here last year with
David Berkman) and Daniel Freedman on drums.


For more about Cohen and to hear streaming audio of her music, go to
http://redwoodjazzalliance.org/cohen.html




--
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artists to Humboldt County. http://redwoodjazzalliance.org/underwrtg.htm



The Redwood Jazz Alliance is a non-profit organization dedicated to jazz
performance and education by visiting artists in Humboldt County. For more
information about us, please visit our web site at
www.redwoodjazzalliance.org