April 2010

You are browsing the archive for April 2010.

Jazz Listings

A listing of jazz performances and events.

Classic Albums: Miles Davis – Bitches Brew (from ClashMusic.com)

“Miles didn’t just play instruments – he played people.”

Jazz had long stood at the forefront of groundbreaking music: pushing new ideas into popular culture, worshipping the beat, the rhythm, the groove which stood quite simply for the disenfranchised and the downtrodden.

Knowing His Trumpet (from the National Post)

By Juan Rodriguez, Canwest News Service

Miles Davis wrote in his scabrousautobiography about being invited to a White House dinner in 1987. An older woman asked the not-so-modest trumpeter what he’d done to merit being there. Davis shot back, “Well, I’ve changed music five or six times.” Drum roll, please …Davis was hailed as “The Picasso of Jazz,” a phrase that Nathalie Bondil, director of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, appropriated to explain the multimedia exhibition We Want Miles: Miles Davis vs. Jazz, which opens on Friday.

Miles Davis’ 84th Birthday – May 26, 2010 – Celebrated With Box Set, CD/DVD Releases, Website Redesign, Museum Exhibit, and More

Fifteen years and eight Grammy Awards after its launch in 1996, Columbia/Legacy’s critically acclaimed Miles Davis Series continues to honor the most prolific and influential figure in 20th century modern jazz. In celebration of Miles’ 84th birthday on May 26, 2010, the stage is set for a multi-tiered commemoration of the life and times, and the music and art, of Miles Davis.

Old-Time Jazz Swing, but Modern Metabolism

The Ear Regulars, a jazz group led by the trumpeter Jon-Erik Kellso and the guitarist Matt Munisteri, perform in an old drinking house in the South Village.

A Tokyo Start, but Most at Home on 125th Street

Tommy Tomita loves jazz and loves showing his countrymen the uptown sites where it’s performed.

Jazz Listings

Full reviews of recent jazz concerts: nytimes.com/music. This restaurant is rated 1 star. GERI ALLEN QUARTET (Friday through Sunday) Geri Allen’s pianism reflects a spectrum of blues and gospel tonalities, and she rarely settles for complacent facility. She recently released a rich new solo piano album, ”Flying Toward the Sound” (Motéma); here she leads a first-rate band with Ravi Coltrane on saxophones, Joe Sanders on bass and Jeff (Tain) Watts on drums. At 9 and 11 p.m., Village Vanguard, 1…

From Different Generations but on the Same Page

On Tuesday at the Jazz Standard, Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green found a common language.

A Mischievous Convergence of Past and Present Jazz

Jamire Williams’s band Erimaj brought jazz that was subtle, fresh and intuitive about funk to the Jazz Gallery on Friday.

Jazz Listings

Full reviews of recent jazz concerts: nytimes.com/music. ACT (Saturday) On a self-titled debut, released on the Brooklyn Jazz Underground label, this three-piece band pursues a style both hypnotic and rough-and-tumble, drawing freely from the saxophone-trio playbook but guarding its independence. The members of the group — the saxophonist Ben Wendel, the bassist Harish Raghavan and the drummer Nate Wood — are all members of Kneebody, a larger, hazier band, but one that upholds similar convict…