Author: TKA

NEW ALBUM: Hear the Radiant Title Track From New Charles Lloyd Quartet Album

Nate Chinen for 88.3 WBGO –

Saxophonist and flutist Charles Lloyd has led some rather spectacular bands over the years — from his heralded late-1960s quartet to the Marvels, his current group with guitarist Bill Frisell. Passin’ Thru, due out on Blue Note on July 14, captures the unique intensity of the Charles Lloyd New Quartet, a decade-long proposition with Jason Moran on piano, Reuben Rogers on bass and Eric Harland on drums.

This album was recorded on tour, almost entirely in Santa Fe, New Mexico last July. There are a few recent compositions, including a searching piece called “Part 5, Ruminations” and the self-explanatory “Nu Blues.” But the album also reaches into the past, extracting new sounds and ideas from some of Lloyd’s classic calling cards, like “Dream Weaver,” “Tagore,” and the title track, “Passin’ Thru.”

This new “Passin’ Thru” begins with a dramatic open-form bass solo by Rogers, before kicking into its revved-up Caribbean beat. Lloyd plays the melody on tenor, in sync with Moran’s piano, and each artist takes a rangy, live-wire solo, punctuated by drum fills. (You’ll hear Moran calling out exhortations as he jabbers at the keys.)

Lloyd, who recently turned 79, is a spiritual seeker who tends to frame his musical output as part of a larger calling. He’s a 2015 NEA Jazz Master who can still give the impression of a restless soul: The New Quartet isn’t the sort of ensemble that a jazz elder would convene for the purpose of coasting. Passin’ Thru presents glowing evidence of the band’s flashpoint agility and rubbery cohesion, both natural extensions of Lloyd’s aesthetic instinct.

Read the full article at WBGO

Charles Lloyd on TKA

VIDEO: Ravi Coltrane Performs for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts

Suraya Mohamed for NPR MUSIC –

Yes, Ravi Coltrane is the son of the John Coltrane, one of the most famous and important jazz saxophonists and composers of all time. He’s also the son of multi-instrumentalist, composer and spiritual leader Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda. (In fact, all members of the band here are performing artists in their own right and come from artistically rich families; drummer E.J. Strickland is the brother of saxophonist Marcus Strickland; Adam Rogers parents performed on Broadway and Yunior Terry is Yosvany Terri’s brother, both heirs to Cuban music royalty.) But pedigree is not what makes him (or them) special. It’s the ability to draw on ideology and theory from the past and give already-great music the room to transform. As Coltrane told NPR back in 2013:

As improvisers, that’s really our goal — not just to state the themes that people wrote. In the course of time, night after night you search for better ways to present the music.

 

Not only did Coltrane and his band offer new interpretations from his repertoire, but varied the rhythmic presentations of the numbers, too. The first song in the set, “Cobbs Hill,” was written by Coltrane’s good friend and colleague Ralph Alessi. Beginning with Yunior Terry’s funky and deliberate bass line, further enhanced by intentional drum rolls the 2/4 time signature, two beats per measure, captures a march-like proclamation.

The second song is Coltrane’s own composition, “Three For Thee”, a fan favorite from the 1998 Moving Pictures album; the original recording included Ralph Alessi on trumpet. Only 32 years old when that record was released, it could be taken as a sign of things to come: Ravi Coltrane, an old soul in a young body, mature and capable of creating work so robust and important. Almost 20 years later, hearing that music again here, even better, is affirming and a testament to Coltrane’s ever-evolving artistic journey. And E.J. Strickland’s opening drum intro couldn’t be more spunky; he teases the audience into the groove with effortless, intentional punctuations.

This performance is likely to be a historical footnote in the book of great jazz moments. The quartet demonstrates its marvelous technical capabilities and keen musicianship, and their imaginative interpretations suggest strength and resolve, a fluid embodiment of question and answer, push and pull, and rising action followed by hypnagogic culmination.

In Movement is available now. (iTunes) (Amazon)


Set List

  • “Cobbs Hill”
  • “In Three For Thee”
  • “Phrygia”

 

Watch the performance at NPR Music

Ravi Coltrane on TKA

Rest In Peace Sonny Knight

via Secret Stash Records

BELOVED SOUL SINGER, SONNY KNIGHT, PASSES AT 69 YEARS OF AGE

 

(Minneapolis, MN: Secret Stash Records; June 17, 2017) – It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our dear friend, Sonny Knight, at age 69. In March 2017, it was announced that Sonny Knight and The Lakers would suspend their tour schedule for Sonny to focus all of his energy on cancer treatment and recovery. At that time Sonny stated, “I’m canceling my shows because I want to give them the best that I’ve got.” Since the band’s 2013 introduction to the Minnesota scene, and soon after the world at large, Sonny gave just that: his best to his band members and to the music-loving crowds who attended their shows across the globe.Second and third chances often aren’t happenstance but instead made. After a short stint in the mid-‘60s recording singles as Little Sonny Knight and then as a member of funk group Haze in the ‘70s, Sonny traded in his microphone for a stick shift and a breeze as a full-time truck driver who traveled the United States. Much of this was after an honorable few years in the US Army serving the country he loved.

With those experiences in tow, he entered back into the music business in 2014 as a solo artist with a renewed vigor in the studio and on stage. From heartfelt ballads to upbeat dance numbers, Knight captivated audiences the world over with his backing band, The Lakers.

Sonny leaves a legacy of entertainment and a joy for life that won’t soon be forgotten by his family, friends, band, and fans. Upon the release of I’m Still Here, his debut album with the Lakers, Sonny opined, “Sometimes I wonder, why me? Why are all these great things happening now? All I can say is thanks. These are dreams that I had forgotten. Only now that they are starting to come true do I remember that I had them at all.”

Many thanks to all of Sonny’s fans for their support throughout the years. You meant more to him than you’ll ever know.

KUDOS: Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn to Host 2017 IBMA Awards

John Lawless for BLUEGRASS TODAY:

The International Bluegrass Music Association has announced that husband/wife banjo duo Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn will serve as hosts for the 28th annual International Bluegrass Music Awards, to be held September 28 in Raleigh, NC.

This gala awards presentation serves each year as the grand finale of the organization’s World Of Bluegrass convention, which brings together bluegrass lovers and players from all over the world. Professional members of the IBMA, made up of artists, songwriters, record labels, event producers, educators, and media folks, vote for the top entertainers in multiple categories with the winners announced and trophies distributed at the show.

 

Like most award shows you will have seen, there are also live stage performances from the top names in bluegrass, leading to IBMA Executive Director Paul Schiminger describing it as the biggest night in bluegrass.

“The annual IBMA Awards Show is truly the biggest night in bluegrass music. The unforgettable moments, the unique and incredible performances, and the overwhelming feeling of community, make this a must-attend event for both bluegrass professionals and fans. And, having Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn as hosts will send this one way over the top. I can’t wait!”

For 2017 they are taking the theme of the Bluegrass Songbook, celebrating the shared canon of music that has defined the style for the past 70 years.

Read more at Bluegrass Today

Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn on TKA

KUDOS: Pat Metheny named 2018 NEA Jazz Master

(WASHINGTON, DC) – PAT METHENY, Joanne Brackeen, Dianne Reeves, and Todd Barkan now join the ranks of the nation’s highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters. The 2018 NEA Jazz Master recipients were announced this evening at a DC Jazz Festival concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, where Metheny also performed. The NEA Jazz Masters are receiving this honor for their lifetime achievements and exceptional contributions to the advancement of jazz. Each will receive a $25,000 award and be honored at a tribute concert on Monday, April 16, 2018, in Washington, DC.

“The NEA Jazz Masters represent the very pinnacle of talent, creativity, innovation, and vision,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “We look forward to celebrating these four new Jazz Masters and their many contributions to jazz.”

Read the full article on NEA

Pat Metheny on TKA

FEATURE: The New Yorker Celebrates Cécile McLorin Salvant’s “Timeless Jazz”

Fred Kaplan for THE NEW YORKER – 

On a Thursday evening a few months ago, a long line snaked along Seventh Avenue, outside the Village Vanguard, a cramped basement night club in Greenwich Village that jazz fans regard as a temple. The eight-thirty set was sold out, as were the ten-thirty set and nearly all the other shows that week. The people descending the club’s narrow steps had come to hear a twenty-seven-year-old singer named Cécile McLorin Salvant.

In its sixty years as a jazz club, the Vanguard has headlined few women and fewer singers of either gender. But Salvant, virtually unknown two years earlier, had built an avid following, winning a Grammy and several awards from critics, who praised her singing as “singularly arresting” and “artistry of the highest class.”

She and her trio—a pianist, a bassist, and a drummer, all men in their early thirties—emerged from the dressing lounge and took their places on a lit-up stage: the men in sharp suits, Salvant wearing a gold-colored Issey Miyake dress, enormous pink-framed glasses, and a wide, easy smile. She nodded to the crowd and took a few glances at the walls, which were crammed with photographs of jazz icons who had played there: Sonny Rollins cradling a tenor saxophone, Dexter Gordon gazing through a cloud of cigarette smoke, Charlie Haden plucking a bass with back-bent intensity. This was the first time Salvant had been booked at the club—for jazz musicians, a sign that they’d made it and a test of whether they’d go much farther. She seemed very happy to be there.

The set opened with Irving Berlin’s “Let’s Face the Music and Dance,” and it was clear right away that the hype was justified. She sang with perfect intonation, elastic rhythm, an operatic range from thick lows to silky highs. She had emotional range, too, inhabiting different personas in the course of a song, sometimes even a phrase—delivering the lyrics in a faithful spirit while also commenting on them, mining them for unexpected drama and wit. Throughout the set, she ventured from the standard repertoire into off-the-beaten-path stuff like Bessie Smith’s “Sam Jones Blues,” a funny, rowdy rebuke to a misbehaving husband, and “Somehow I Never Could Believe,” a song from “Street Scene,” an obscure opera by Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes. She unfolded Weill’s tune, over ten minutes, as the saga of an entire life: a child’s promise of bright days ahead, a love that blossoms and fades, babies who wrap “a ring around a rosy” and then move away. When she sang, “It looks like something awful happens / in the kitchens / where women wash their dishes,” her plaintive phrasing transformed a description of domestic obligation into genuine tragedy. A hush washed over the room.

Wynton Marsalis, who has twice hired Salvant to tour with his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, told me, “You get a singer like this once in a generation or two.” Salvant might not have reached this peak just yet, he said. But, he added, “could Michael Jordan do all he would do in his third year? No, but you could tell what he was going to do. Cécile’s the same way.”

Read the full article on The New Yorker

Cécile McLorin Salvant on TKA

VIDEO: Billboard Premieres John Pizzarelli’s Celebration of Sinatra and Jobim in ‘Baubles, Bangles and Beads’

Judy Cantor-Navas for BILLBOARD:

“In one of the classiest acts in musical history, Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim came together to record the 1967 album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. Fifty years later, John Pizzarelli is celebrating that summit of romance and swing with his upcoming album, Sinatra & Jobim @ 50.

Daniel Jobim, the grandson of the great Brazilian bossa nova composer, joins Pizzarelli in duet on this summer night’s dream of an album.

Sinatra & Jobim @ 50 is due July 28 on Concord Jazz. Pizzarelli and his band have already started a summer tour. The prolific guitarist and singer, who has toasted both Sinatra and Jobim on previous albums, is already on a North American tour that will have the band playing on starry nights through September, with Jobim, Brazilian drummer Duduka Fonseca and pianist Helio Alves as featured guests.

Today, exclusively on Billboard, watch Pizzarelli and his line-up of black-tie musicians perform the bossa version of ‘Baubles, Bangles and Beads.'”

Check out the video below!

John Pizzarelli on TKA

VIDEO: The Dustbowl Revival Preview New Album with “Honey I Love You – feat. Keb’ Mo”

 

 

On June 16th,  The Dustbowl Revival will release their new, self-titled album and we are thrilled to showcase the music video for the first single, “Honey I Love You” which features the expert stylings of Keb’ Mo. Discussing the recording process, Liz Beebe (lead singer, ukulele, washboard) had this to say:

 

 

“Honey I Love You’ took a new shape when we were in the studio rehearsing for this album. In working with Ted Hutt (our producer), we changed the groove and made it a lot more soulful, both in feel and execution. The change took my performance of the track to another level, allowing me to present a deeper emotional response. Zach’s an exceptional songwriter and the song has always been great to sing, but the band’s collaboration on the track really kicked it up a notch for me. Between Keb’ Mo’s guitar playing on this track and the changes we made internally, it makes it an exciting introduction to our new album!”

Check out the music video below!

The Dustbowl Revival on TKA

 

IN MEMORIUM: James Cotton, 81

TKA is saddened to recognize the passing of our friend and client James “Mr. Superharp” Cotton, world renowned harmonica player and iconic bluesman. Throughout his career, Cotton regaled the blues world with his powerful mastery of the harmonica, the dynamic energy of his live performances, and his distinguished presence as a commanding band leader. He collaborated with such luminaries as Muddy Waters, Steve Miller, and Dr. John, and shared the stage with the likes of Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, and B.B. King. As NPR says, “Conjure up a list of all-time great blues harmonica players, and high up on it you’ll see the name James Cotton.”

Cotton passed away on March 16, 2017 in Austin, TX. Cotton is survived by his wife Jacklyn Hairston Cotton, daughters Teresa Hampton of Seattle, Washington and Marshall Ann Cotton of Peoria, Illinois and son James Patrick Cotton of Chicago, Illinois, as well as numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A statement from Jacklyn Cotton can be found below.

Statement from Jacklyn Cotton, James Cotton’s wife:

“Dear Friends and Fans of James Cotton,

Many of you have been contacting me about when James’ funeral is to be held. We are still in the process of making the arrangements. I’ll let you know as soon as the date is firm. Thank you for your kindness and your notes of sympathy. Cotton loved you all. The outpouring of condolences affirms that you all loved him too.

Jacklyn Cotton”