Date: October 8, 2017
Venue: Galway Jazz Festival (Ireland)
Review by Fiona Mactaggart (Photograph by sus)
An award for ‘friendliest festival’ might well go to the Galway Jazz Festival, this 4-day long event utilizing an eclectic range of venues and heaving with musical treasures. Tonight the venue is an up-market restaurant, the musical fare a veritable aural banquet offered by the new trio of pianist-extraordinaire, Simon Nabatov.
Artist: Amy Denio
Title: The Big Embrace
Label: Spoot Music
Genre: folk rock/world/contemporary/field recordings/jazz; and improvised music
CD Review by Dawoud Kringle
Amy Denio is an interesting musician. Based in Seattle, WA, she is known internationally as a record producer, composer, improviser, singer and multi-instrumentalist (voice, alto saxophone, clarinet, accordion, acoustic and electric guitars, electric bass, and theremin). Denio co-founded The Tiptons Sax Quartet and Drums, recorded with Bosnian metal/punk/folk group Kultur Shock, recorded and toured with Austrian trio Die Resonanz Stanonczi, and co-founded Ama Trio with Correo Aereo. She toured as a solo artist, and has collaborated and recorded with Matt Cameron, Bill Frisell, Chris Cutler, Guy Klucevsek, Pauline Oliveros, Tarik Abouzied, Francisco Lopez, Danny Barnes, the Relache Ensemble, Faust, Fred Frith, Hoppy Kamiyama, KMFDM, Il Parto delle Nuvole Pesanti, Ronin, and Chuck D’s Fine Arts Militia (as part of the Experience Music Project in Seattle). Denio scored two animated films by Thomas Edward: Pangaea’s Brood, and Synchrony in Estrus. She also scored Jamie Hook‘s feature film The Naked Proof. She also produced the soundtrack for choreographer Pat Graney‘s piece Girl Gods, and the soundtrack to choreographer David Dorfman’s piece Sky Down. She’d earned many awards and fellowships, and recently became a member of Musicians for Musicians (MF).
Venue: Black Gate Club at the Galway Jazz Festival (Eire)
Date: October 5th, 2017
Review by Fiona Mactaggart
The subdued lighting of the basement venue is well suited to this thoughtful and measured set, the small space only intensifying the calming effect of the delicate and beautiful melodies traced by pianist Tuomas A Turunen over a web spun by drummer and band leader, Emil Brandqvist.
Text By Dawoud Kringle
On Monday, November 27th, 2017, the musical world celebrated the 75th birthday of one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, Jimi Hendrix.
To say that Hendrix was innovative is a gross understatement. In the short three and a half years of his career in the limelight, before he tragically left this world, Hendrix’ accomplishments are staggering.
Text by Dawoud Kringle and Photos by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
On Monday, November 20th MFM hosted an experimental gathering. MFM founder Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi, and jazz legend Billy Harper organized a jazz musician meeting at Yeoryia Studios in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Billy Harper was, of course, the keynote speaker.
The meeting was not well attended. Many of the over two dozen musicians who were personally invited by Saadat had the good manners to personally inform him that they could not attend (among them were Joe Lovano, Ron Carter, Randy Brecker, and Ray Blue). It is a regrettable thing, because some relevant and fascinating issues were brought up for discussion.
One of these was the question many musicians ask: is jazz dead? The answer is a decisive and intractable “No.” but there are difficulties that jazz must overcome. The struggles of jazz musicians – and all music professionals – have been beset by an ever changing set of circumstances and factors on the business and technological realities of the music business- all of which affects the public zeitgeist regarding jazz. Harper pointed out that every 10 years somebody propagates that jazz is dead as a way to get some attention for jazz music. There is truth to this; and perhaps serves to kick jazz musicians and audiences out of their complacency. Some people, musicians included, have a tendency to treat jazz as a “museum music:” i.e. they freeze it into a classical form, and resist its natural and organic nature to evolve. There is also they tendency of the corporatocracy to deliberately resist the prosperity and vibrancy of jazz. The reason for this is simple; the “dumbing down” of the audiences generates greater profits over a shorter period of time. The recent developments in computer based music technology facilitate these phenomenons – and also facilitate the opposition to the degeneration of musical and artistic sublimity and meaning.
