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
Sunday, February 15, 2009
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
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.
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.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Go Home, on February 9th
Next up: "Go Home"
Ben Goldberg, Ron Miles, Charlie Hunter, and Scott Amendola
Monday, February 9, 2009 (8 p.m.) | Kate Buchanan Room, HSU
Guitar virtuoso Charlie Hunter comes “home” for a reunion with some old Bay Area mates—drummer Scott Amendola (T.J. Kirk, Nels Cline Singers) and clarinetist Ben Goldberg (Tin Hat Trio, New Klezmer Trio)—in a brand-new quartet rounded out by the sublime cornetist Ron Miles, a frequent collaborator of guitarist Bill Frisell. Together they lay down rootsy, hard-driving grooves and dynamic interplay, perfectly structured by Goldberg’s lyrical compositions.
Ben Goldberg, Ron Miles, Charlie Hunter, and Scott Amendola
Monday, February 9, 2009 (8 p.m.) | Kate Buchanan Room, HSU
Guitar virtuoso Charlie Hunter comes “home” for a reunion with some old Bay Area mates—drummer Scott Amendola (T.J. Kirk, Nels Cline Singers) and clarinetist Ben Goldberg (Tin Hat Trio, New Klezmer Trio)—in a brand-new quartet rounded out by the sublime cornetist Ron Miles, a frequent collaborator of guitarist Bill Frisell. Together they lay down rootsy, hard-driving grooves and dynamic interplay, perfectly structured by Goldberg’s lyrical compositions.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Martin Luther King Jr on Jazz
Trent Austin sent this to the Trumpet Players International list yesterday. I have yet to "check my sources" on it, but I have no reason to doubt its provenance.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Opening Address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz
Festival, WPFW News (Washington), [23 August 2002]
God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures
with the capacity to create—and from this capacity has flowed the sweet
songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment
and many different situations.
Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and
if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest
realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new
hope or sense of triumph.
This is triumphant music.
Modern jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more
complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning,
the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which
flow through his instrument.
It is no wonder that so much of the search for identity among American
Negroes was championed by Jazz musicians. Long before the modern essayists
and scholars wrote of racial identity as a problem for a multiracial world,
musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring
within their souls.
Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from
this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began
to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.
And now, Jazz is exported to the world. For in the particular struggle of
the Negro in America there is something akin to the universal struggle of
modern man. Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody
needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy.
Everybody longs for faith.
In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping
stone towards all of these.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Opening Address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz
Festival, WPFW News (Washington), [23 August 2002]
God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures
with the capacity to create—and from this capacity has flowed the sweet
songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment
and many different situations.
Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and
if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest
realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new
hope or sense of triumph.
This is triumphant music.
Modern jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more
complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning,
the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which
flow through his instrument.
It is no wonder that so much of the search for identity among American
Negroes was championed by Jazz musicians. Long before the modern essayists
and scholars wrote of racial identity as a problem for a multiracial world,
musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring
within their souls.
Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from
this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began
to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.
And now, Jazz is exported to the world. For in the particular struggle of
the Negro in America there is something akin to the universal struggle of
modern man. Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody
needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy.
Everybody longs for faith.
In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping
stone towards all of these.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Darcy James Argue's Tribute to Freddie Hubbard
For the most comprehensive round up of tributes and peons to the late great Freddie Hubbard, see Darcy James Argue's blog.
While you're there, why not take the opportunity to vote early and often for Lindsay Beyerstein, who is in the running for Best Individual Blog in the Weblog 08 awards.
She is apparently the partner of one of the band members and takes fantastic photos of Argue's "steampunk" big band, Secret Society. She is also the owner-operator of one of the longest running and best blogs out there, Majikthese.
While you're there, why not take the opportunity to vote early and often for Lindsay Beyerstein, who is in the running for Best Individual Blog in the Weblog 08 awards.
She is apparently the partner of one of the band members and takes fantastic photos of Argue's "steampunk" big band, Secret Society. She is also the owner-operator of one of the longest running and best blogs out there, Majikthese.
Friday, December 26, 2008
This is not Jazz
This is Trinidad, CA, on Christmas day (yesterday). High surf advisory, highest in years.
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