News of Past Guests, Summer 2017 Edition

As usual, RJA alumni are well represented in DownBeat's annual International Critics Poll, a survey of 155 prominent jazz writers from around the world. Rudresh Mahanthappa topped the alto saxophone column (Miguel Zenón was second) and Anat Cohen, the clarinet, while breakout singer Cécile McLorin Salvant was the runaway winner of the Female Vocalist category. Noah Preminger was named Rising Star tenor saxophonist; and Fred Hersch, Nels Cline, and Matt Wilson all had albums among the year's top 10 (#3, 5, and 8, respectively).

Speaking of Matt Wilson: the new album from his "Honey and Salt" project, Music Inspired by the Poetry of Carl Sandburg, gets a five-star review from DownBeat's Jim Macnie. (His colleague John Murph calls it a "stunning, melodically enriched, jazz-inflected avant-country album.")

Here's a promotional video:

and a preview track:

Meanwhile, Ambrose Akinmusire, who finished close behind Wadada Leo Smith as the critics' choice for trumpeter of the year, has a new double-live album, A Rift in Decorum, on Blue Note:



As it happens, Akinmusire is the subject of a cover story in the September issue of DownBeat, which also contains a feature story on Wilson, who leads off the 2017-18 RJA season on September 12. (That same issue also spotlights Fred Hersch, who releases his 11th solo album, Open Book, and publishes a memoir, Good Things Happen Slowly: A Life in and Out of Jazz, in September; and David Berkman's co-led New York Standards Quartet. The August issue of Jazziz, meanwhile, sports a feature on Ryan Keberle, who returns with his band Catharsis to round out the upcoming RJA season in April 2018.)

Also in September, Cécile McLorin Salvant (see above) will  have a 2-CD set, Dreams and Daggers, which you can pre-order--and preview--from her label, Mack Avenue. At the end of August, Vijay Iyer brings out Far from Over, a sextet date, on ECM. (Kevin Whitehead reviewed it on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, while Iyer discussed the album with Scott Simon on Weekend Edition Saturday.) And in October, Iyer's former collaborator Rudresh Mahanthappa releases a new album, Agrima, with his trio "Indo-Pak Coalition" (featuring Rez Abbasi and Dan Weiss):



Two other records quietly appeared earlier this summer: Omer Avital and Avi Avital's (no relation) Avital Meets Avital, on Deutsche Grammophon, and guitarist Joel Harrison's The Other River, on Whirlwind Recordings.

Finally, drummer Tyshawn Sorey, part of Myra Melford's "Snowy Egret" project, was the subject of an appreciative profile by Alex Ross in The New Yorker and another by Giovanni Russonello in The New York Times.

News of Past Guests, Summer 2014 Edition

New albums:

Eclectic, prolific, endlessly creative guitarist-composer Joel Harrison has a new disc, Mother Stump, with covers of tunes by Luther Vandross, Paul Motian, and Leonard Cohen, among others. You can nab the album at Cuneiform Records' Bandcamp site. And you can stream Harrison's cover of the traditional gospel blues "John the Revelator" right here:

Some people are putting David Binney's new one on Criss Cross, Anacapa, among the restless alto saxophonist's all-time best.  Brad Farberman, for instance, in a profile of Binney, "The Long Haul," in the June issue of Jazz Times.

When we saw pianist Fred Hersch in New York in January, he hinted that he might be naming his upcoming trio album on Palmetto after a certain city by the bay in Humboldt County. Looks like we have to settle for one tune. (We'll take it! See Track 6: "a regal, bracing straight-eighths piece [that] took its name from a Northern California [town] famed for its beautiful giant redwoods," as Peter Hum described it.) In the end, Fred entitled the album Floating, and it hit the streets (and the online stores) in mid-July. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviewed the album on NPR's Fresh Air, Scott Simon interviewed Fred for a feature story on Weekend Edition, and you can buy the album from Palmetto Records.

Old friends & collaborators, trumpeter Dave Douglas and keyboardist Uri Caine, issued an album of duets, Present Joys, inspired by the tradition of "shape-note" singing, on July 22.  You can hear a preview at Radio France's France Musique site or at the Greenleaf Music store.

Finally: saxophonist Michael Blake stopped by WBGO's The Checkout a few weeks ago with his trio "World Time Zone" (Ben Allison, bass and Ferenc Nemeth, drums) to play music from his latest project: music inspired by sax legends Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young.  Also on The Checkout of late: Tom Harrell's chamber-jazz project "Colors of a Dream," recorded live at the 2014 Montreal Jazz Festival. Harrell also has a new album, Trip, out on HighNote, with Mark Turner, Ugonna Okegwo, and Adam Cruz.

And speaking of Turner: on September 9th, the highly regarded tenor saxophonist (and member of the trio FLY) releases his debut as a leader on ECM, Lathe of Heaven, with a quartet featuring trumpeter Avishai Cohen and two other RJA alumni, Joe Martin (bass) and Marcus Gilmore (drums).



(Kevin Whitehead reviews the album on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross.) A week later, it's the latest release from Kenny Werner, Coalition, with a band that includes Lionel Loueke and Miguel Zenon (who, coincidentally, are two-thirds of the trio on Mark Turner's FLY-mate Jeff Ballard's latest album...)

And in other news...

Not all of them are people, but of the "80 Coolest Things in Jazz Today" (according to DownBeat magazine--it's their 80th anniversary, see?), Humboldt County has experienced nearly 10% of them--viz., Ambrose Akinmusire, Vijay Iyer, Dave Douglas, Han Bennink, Instant Composers Pool, Fred Hersch, and Tony Malaby--under the auspices of the RJA.  Read all about it in the July issue.

RJA guests are also well represented in this year's DownBeat Critics Poll, whose results will be published in the August issue. Rising--make that skyrocketing--star vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, whom we will co-host with Center Arts in September in a special pre-season show--fairly cleaned up in the poll:


Other RJA-veteran category-toppers:

• Ambrose Akinmusire, Trumpet
• Joe Lovano, Tenor Sax
• Anat Cohen, Clarinet
• Vijay Iyer, Piano
• Regina Carter, Violin
• Wayne Escoffery, Rising Star Tenor Sax
• Rudy Royston, Rising Star Drums
• Matt Moran, Rising Star Vibes
• Ben Allison, Rising Star Composer

Last: looking for a way to pass the time on a lazy late summer afternoon? Play "Drum Fill Friday" with Quizmaster Matt Wilson, courtesy of NPR's All Songs Considered.