Monthly Archives: July 2015

INTERVIEW: Sonny Rollins Reflects on His Life, Career, and Goals, Both Musical and Spiritual

Looking every inch a silver-maned patriarch of Biblical grandeur, Sonny Rollins, the 84-year-old genius of the jazz tenor saxophone, was especially elated last weekend to receive an honorary doctor of music degree from the University of Hartford at graduation ceremonies on its West Hartford campus.

Sure, the Grammy Award-winning Rollins probably already has a warehouse full of prestigious awards earned over his remarkable, nearly seven-decade career in which he has clearly established himself as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, most exultantly celebratory, thematic improviser in jazz history. Among Rollins’s countless coveted prizes is the Medal of Arts, the nation’s highest honor for artistic excellence, awarded to him personally by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House.

But this new UHart award, with its honorific title, Dr. Rollins, is not merely another personal honor. It is also, in Rollins’s heartfelt view, a way to celebrate the memory of his longtime close friend and fellow jazz great, Jackie McLean, who was 74 when he died at home in Hartford after a long illness in 2006. A renowned alto saxophonist and innovative educator, McLean, Rollins’s boyhood buddy from their early Harlem years, founded the widely-acclaimed jazz studies program at UHart’s Hartt School, now known as the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz.

Read the full article on WNPR
Sonny Rollins on TKA

FEATURE: Sonny Rollins: A Jazz Mind in Pursuit of Improvisational Heaven

Rollins doesn’t see the recognition as any kind of trophy or happy ending. It simply allows his work to go on. “I might get better jobs so I can continue my life and what I’m doing,” he says of receiving the Kennedy Center award. “Pursuing that musical thing that I’m looking for and, at the same time, representing this great music that is so much bigger than I am.”

It’s a pursuit that has no endpoint.

Read the full article on THE WASHINGTON POST
Sonny Rollins on TKA

REVIEW: Ravi Coltrane In Top Form

Saxophonist Ravi Coltrane has been maturing noticeably during recent years, and he reiterated that fact dramatically Thursday night at the Jazz Showcase. Playing with consistent seriousness of intent but also with plenty of fire, Coltrane led his quartet in a performance that had no throwaway moments, no nonchalant phrasings and scant moments of relaxation.

Read the full article on THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE 
Ravi Coltrane on TKA

INTERVIEW: Interview with the “Crown Prince”

Hailed as a “crown prince” in the world of jazz, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane has more than earned his place in the jazz pantheon since first coming on to the scene with his father’s former drummer Elvin Jones. From the start of his career, Coltrane has developed with maturity, eschewing familial notoriety as he waited until he was more than 30 years old before releasing his first album as a leader.

Read the full article on THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD
Ravi Coltrane on TKA

REVIEW: Pat Metheny Show Brings Music to Ears and Eyes

Jazz guitar and deep compositions are Pat Metheny’s bag. He’s been at it for decades, growing as a player and as a writer while bringing equally monstrous musicians along for the ride. When stage hands pulled away the cloth for the show’s second half, an array of items — bells, drums, an accordion, a xylophone, bottle organs — were housed in casings that gave the stage a steampunk jazz look. And they weren’t just for show.

Read the full article on THE ROANOKE TIMES
Pat Metheny on TKA 

FEATURE: Metheny Keeps on Innovating

Pat Metheny, one of the world’s leading jazz guitarists, has assembled a typically unusual band for his current tour. The five-man Unity Group could well be the only one on America’s summer concert circuit that peps up its performances with an orchestrion. The orchestration may not be to all tastes, but its use in these concerts is emblematic of Mr. Metheny’s fresh approach to contemporary jazz, which shows no signs of wilting after more than four decades.

Read the full article on THE ECONOMIST
Pat Metheny on TKA 

INTERVIEW: The Many Sides of Gary Hoey

Gary Hoey came onto the guitar scene like a Whirling Dervish. He was determined and focused on where he wanted to take his career. Almost a quarter of a century later, Hoey is still looking for new avenues to explore. Needless to say, Gary Hoey is man of many faces, but he always lets his guitar do the talking.

Read the full article on ILLINOIS ENTERTAINER
Gary Hoey on TKA 

REVIEW: Great Is An Understatement

To say Cécile McLorin Salvant was great in her Kilbourn Hall performance Sunday evening would be an understatement. She understood, inhabited, and delivered the Great American Songbook like no one else I’ve ever heard. In fact, you could say she excavated forgotten parts of it and struck gold. Her vocal range, from way down low to the register of angels was impressive but her emotional range was far wider. She packed more into one word than most singers put into a whole song.

Read the full article on DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE
Cecile McLorin Salvant on TKA