Jazz@Rochester

Live Shots: Jeremy Pelt jammin at Moe's

At Moe's with the East End guys ...

 

Live Shots: Johnny O'Neal & Jeremy Pelt at Exodus to Jazz

OK, I just made it for the end of the last set, but it was worth it... All Blues.

 

In addition to Pelt, O'Neal came with  Bassist Paul Sikivie, drummer Sharif Zeban, and one of his piano students Dillon Meek (who was playing when I came in, you should remember this guy's name as I'm sure we'll be seeing it and hearing him again). 

Live Shots: Rene Marie at Exodus to Jazz

The few of you who came out to hear René Marie at Exodus to Jazz were part of a wonderful night of music as her rich voice and beautifully written music fills the Lutheran Church of the Reformation (and a few eyes with tears...).

 

René Marie with Experiment in Truth—her fine trio with Kevin Bales, Piano; Kevin Hamilton; and Quentin Baxter—tearing up the house.

Live Shots: Kenny Garrett Quartet at Exodus To Jazz

Live in Hochstein Performance Hall kicking off the Exodus To Jazz season...

Johnny O'Neal wow'd the crowd with a tribute to Hank Jones....

D&C's "Jazz Stories" begin for the 2011 XRIJF

Every year one of the treats that comes out of the Democrat & Chronicle's ever-growing coverage of the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival is the series of photo essays by Will Yurman and the "Jazz Stories" videos. [Update: Will Yurman is no longer part of the project as he has left Rochester to begin a gig at Penn State). The first of those videos, by Annette Lein (who has taken on the "Jazz Stories" project), was just released (I think today), with a short profile of talented bassist-vocalist Katie Ernst, who just graduated from Eastman School of Music, will stop off for a gig at the XRIJF on June 16th before continuing on her journey (are you heading back to Chicago area, Katie?). I've had an opportunity to see Katie play (and sing) and those of you who go to her Max gig are in for a treat. Her enthusiasm for music is infectious.

These videos and all of the XRIJF-related articles in the Democrat & Chronicle can be found on their redesigned site.

Visualizing Rochester jazz ... a regular post

With so many ways of taking and sharing live video available, starting today, I'm starting a "regular" (admittedly, nothing has been much regular about my postings recently except for Wednesdays) post showcasing videos of performances of local jazz artists and groups or of artists/groups who have strong ties to the Rochester area. What better way than to bring you a video recently sent to me by NYC artist pianist Enoch Smith Jr., a Rochester native now living in New Jesey, Remembering Rochester:

While I have a lot of source material to work with, I'd appreciate being pointed to additional links, especially to performances from further back in Rochester's rich jazz history.

Jazz Around Town: Still digesting, but it's Wednesday and time for some jazz listings....

I'm playing catch-up at work and here at home, so still digesting my thoughts on the 9th Rochester International Jazz Festival. Look for a series of posts on it in the near future. In the meantime, here's the listings for live jazz in and around Rochester for the next seven days.  Now that the XRIJF is over, there are some other festivals nearby starting this weekend in Syracuse, Toronto and Saratoga.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

• Ted Nicolosi & Shared Genes @ Bistro 135, 6:30 pm
• Roof of the Night @ Little Theatre Cafe, 7:30 pm
• Mike Allen @ Lemoncello, 8:30 pm
• Filthy Funk All-Star Jam @ Lovin' Cup, 9:00 pm

Friday, June 25, 2010

• The Westview Project with Nick Brust @ Big Tree Inn, 46 Main St, Geneseo, 5:00 pm
• Ted Nicolosi & Shared Genes @ TC Hooligans-Webster, 5:30 pm
• Bobby Dibaudo Trio @ Bistro 135, 6:00 pm
• Ryan T Carey & El Rojo Jazz Band @ Thali of India, 7:00 pm
• Nostalgic Reunion @ Port of Pittsford Park, 7:00 pm
• Deborah Magone @ Little Theatre Cafe, 8:30 pm
• Fred Costello & Co. with Ted Losito @ Charlotte Harbor Fest, 8:30 pm
• The Moho Collective with Gary McNulty @ Boulder Coffee Co., 8:30 pm
• Shades of Grey @ Lemoncello, 9:30 pm

Saturday, June 26, 2010

• Footnote @ Rochester Harbor and Carousel Fest, Rochester NY, 6:00 pm
• Janet Beanman @ Bistro 135, 7:00 pm
• Ted Nicolosi & Shared Genes @ Jasmine's Asian Fusion, 7:30 pm
• Annie Wells @ Little Theatre Cafe, 8:30 pm
• Four on the Floor Quartet @ McArdle's, 1355 Fairport Rd Fairport, NY, 8:30 pm
• East End Jazz Boys @ Havana Moes, 9:30 pm
• Fred Costello & Co. with Ted Losito @ Charlotte Harbor Fest, 9:30 pm

Sunday, June 27, 2010

• Troup Street Jazz Jam Session @ Beale Street Cafe, 6:00 pm
• Bill Slater @ The Lodge at Woodcliff, 11:30 am
• Moondance @ Lovin' Cup, 7:00 pm
• Fred Costello & Co. with Ted Losito @ Charlotte Harbor Fest, 4:30 pm

Monday, June 28, 2010

• The White Hots @ Little Theatre Cafe, 7:30 pm
• Dave Rivello Jazz Ensemble @ Kilbourn Hall, Eastman School of Music, 7:30 pm

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

• Brad Batz @ Bistro 135, 6:30 pm
• Eastman Jazz Faculty Quartet @ Kilbourn Hall, Eastman School of Music, 7:30 pm

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

• Simon Fletcher Quartet @ Bistro 135, 6:00 pm
• Andy Stobie and the Greater Finger Lakes Jazz Orchestra @ Yates County Courthouse summer concert series, Penn Yan, NY, 6:30 pm
• Gilad Atzmon & Rich Siegel @ Billsboro Winery, 4760 W Lake Rd, Geneva, NY, 7:00 pm
• AMP @ Little Theatre Cafe, 7:30 pm
• Paul Hofmann @ Kilbourn Hall, Eastman School of Music, 7:30 pm
• Paradigm Shift @ Pomodoro's Grill & Wine Bar, 8:00 pm

Heads Up ... Look for these Jazz Gigs in the Future

• Bop Arts presents Paul Smoker Notet @ Bop Shop Atrium, 274 N. Goodman St, Rochester, 8:00 pm
• The Marcus Roberts Trio with RPO in "Red, White & Boom" @ CMAC, July 3, 7:30 pm
• Najee, Tom Browne, Roy Ayers, and Jimmie Highsmith Jr. in “Sax in the City” @ Riverside Festival Site, Gates, July 21, 5:00 pm, Music, 7:00 pm

We've compiled these listings from information obtained from the performing artists themselves and other sources. The aim is to give you a one stop place to find all your jazz in Rochester.The aim is to give you a one stop place to find all your jazz in Rochester. Only start times are listed, visit or call the venue for more details (the sites for many are in the right panel). Please forgive me for any discrepancies with reality and feel free to let me know what the problem is, and I'll get the corrections up on the site as soon as possible (click on the "Send an email to Jazz@Rochester" link). If you go out to hear a performance listed here, feel free to drop a comment to this post about how it went. I want to hear from you!

But wait ... there's more! Deadline extended on the Rochester Jazz Start contest

Perhaps since the original deadline was getting close and there were only about 17 entries and to give bands and artists some more time to add their videos into the mix, the folks at the Rochester Jazz Star contest have extended the deadline for submitting videos to May 14th.  There were 20 up there at the time I posted this.

I've been watching some of the videos and there is a wide variety of talent from around Rochester, including some folks you see around town (and in my listings) and others you may not have heard of ... yet.

The contest is brought to us by Rochester International Jazz Festival sponsor Xerox in conjunction with the festival.  You can read more about the contest in my earlier post "Jazz festival sponsor Xerox brings jazz 'Idol' to Rochester in Jazz Star contest)".

Riffing the Links: The return (again) of riffing off some jazz links

I'm always finding new links to put out there for you, but sometimes I just don't get them into a post. You can also find occasional links on Twitter and the Jazz@Rochester Facebook page, some of which may be repeated here, but not all. So here are a few more... I'll look at my feeds and find some more soon.

• At the Tritone Jazz Fantasy Camps, adult "jazz players and singers learn and play in a friendly, non-threatening environment, supported by a faculty of caring, professional jazz musician/educators and surrounded by kindred spirits" at a summer camp. There's one in the Rochester area July 25-30 at Nazareth College ... Jazz at Naz.
• If you want to know what's up on the Latin jazz scene, check out Chip Boaz's Latin Jazz Corner blog.
• TwitJazz.net was created recently to help build community among the growing numbers of folks from the jazz world—jazz fans, musicians, presenters, writers, and promoters (including yours truly)—who have established a presence on Twitter. The blog is being managed by a recent entry from D.C. @MaryamLovesJazz and veteran Pacific Northwest trombonist and jazz tweeter David Marriott (@RedRaspus) to help folks find more Twitter love for jazz. You can track and add to the conversations by using the hashtag #twitjazznet.
• My friends in the local group Margaret Explosion have been recording their live shows for quite awhile and have made some of those recordings and cuts from some of their CDs available online for streaming and download. If you caught their gigs at The Little or elsewhere you know they are a great group of musicians making some unique sounds.
• As I noted before, if you were unaware of it April is Jazz Appreciation Month, brought to you by the Smithsonian Institution. One of my jazz friends on Twitter has been doing some great things with it on her new blog Elements of Jazz.

If you have a jazz link to share with the Rochester jazz community and beyond, send me an email by clicking on the Send an email to Jazz@Rochester link in the left panel.

CD brings the power of the words of Frederick Douglass together with the beauty of jazz

Please shelter this sister from the house of bondage till five OClock this afternoon - She will then be sent on to the land of freedom. Yours Truly Fredk

These words scrawled by abolitionist Frederick Douglass on a note to give safe passage on the Underground Railroad to a slave moving north to Canada are among other powerful words, culled from Douglass's speeches and writings and combined with the music that sprang from the African-American experience, in the wonderful new CD A Sky With More Stars, set to music by Philadelphia-based jazz bassist/composer Tyrone Brown, who has performed and recorded with Grover Washington, Jr., Max Roach and Odean Pope. The CD sets spoken word passages of Douglass’s writings and speeches with music composed by Brown and violinist John Blake and performed by an ensemble that also includes Bill Meek on piano, Craig McIver on drums, Melissa Locati, Beth Dzwil, Ron Lipscomb and Germaine Ingram. Douglass’s words are spoken by Paul Burgett. The idea for the CD came from Richard Peek, director of the Rare Books and Special Collection at the Rush Rhees Library at the University of Rochester, which currently has a an exhibit on "Douglass in Rochester."

For more coverage of the CD, check out Jack Garner's January 22nd article CD combines power of Frederick Douglass, jazz ensemble in the D&C, Lee Mergner's article for JazzTimes.com Tyrone Brown Album Salutes Frederick Douglass, and Ron Netsky's review of the CD in City Newspaper. Additionally, Tom Hampson will play the entire CD on his radio show, Mostly Jazz, this weekend on WXXI AM1370 from 7:00 to 8:00 pm on Saturday, and repeating on WRUR FM88.5 from 8:00 to 9:00 PM on Sunday.

You can buy A Sky with No Stars from Amazon, directly from Tyrone Brown's publisher Dreambox Media, or from local record shops like the Bop Shop.

Seeing & hearing ... JazzCorner's JazzVision site let's you do both

Thought you might want to check out jazz site JazzCorner's JazzVision, which is the first videosharing site dedicated solely to jazz and blues videos for users to watch and even upload. Sign up is free if you want to join. Currently there are more than 1,200 videos, such as this one of the Dave Holland Quintet doing live at the 2002 Newport Jazz Festival with Robin Eubanks, Billy Kilson, Steve Nelson, Dave Holland, Chris Potter. You can search or browse by artist,instrument, groups, type of jazz, or even festivals (although RIJF hasn't uploaded any....).

Although not Friday, it's still time to take 5 (the Newport Edition)

The Newport Jazz Festival (and folk festival as well) seemed to be on their last legs recently, but legendary jazz promoter George Wein, stepped in with the health care products company CareFusion to save them. In honor of Newport, now George Wein's CareFusion Jazz Festival 55, which begins today in about 10 minutes, I'm going to give you five links related to this legendary festival. So...Take Five:

• While you check these out, why don't you listen to the festival itself? Like they did with the Newport Folk Festival last weekend, performances from Newport will be webcast live on National Public Radio website today from 11:45-2:00 pm and tomorrow from 12:00-6:00 pm.
• You can download a 12-track sampler of performers who will be playing Newport this weekend through NPR (and iTunes) as well here. These twelve tracks show the wide range of jazz artists that Wein is bringing together for Newport this year from Roy Haynes to the Vandermark 5, who appeared here Thursday night at the Bop Shop Atrium.
• Follow live coverage of the festival on Twitter by following NPR's @blogsupreme or the #newportjazz "hashtag" feed.
• Watch and listen to 10 minutes from Louis Armstrong's 1958 set at Newport.
• Back to NPR, where you'll find archives of the performances (including some that are not being broadcast, I think) if you can't catch them live. National Public Radio is really doing this up well. Perhaps we can interest them in the 2010 Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival?

So take five and explore. Let me know what you think in the comments ....There will be five more next week.

Before heading out to the Park Ave. Fest tomorrow ... why don't you Take Five?

Another weekend of festivals and summer (well, almost...) here in Rochester, but I have some more jazz links for you to check out:

• In case you hadn't heard, local jazzman Fred Costello, who has played the organ during Amerks hockey games for 32 seasons, was recently told his services would no longer be needed. On the bright side for Costello, as he noted in the D&C article on his departure, Costello will “be able to play more with my jazz band in local clubs this winter”.
• Back in June, NPR's weekly Take Five jazz sampler did a story on the evolution of the song Strange Fruit, a powerful protest against the lynchings of blacks and racism made famous by Billie Holiday who, with her pianist Sonny White, refashioned the poem and music of Abel Meeropol into Billie's deep cry of outrage that many of us know. Many have recorded this song. NPR's Take Five gives you five of them: Billie Holiday (of course), Nina Simone, Jeff Buckley, Rene Marie, and the Labor Camp Orchestra.
• On Jazz.com's The Dozens, jazz writer Ted Panken explores twelve essential Gil Evans tracks selected by his assistant from 1985 to his death and multiple-Grammy winning composer in her own right, Maria Schneider.
• There are a lot of good jazz blogs out there, so I'll keep pointing them out, especially those written by jazz writers with much more under their caps than the writer of this one—like Fred Kaplan's blog Jazz Messenger on the Stereophile site.
• Earlier this year three videos of a 1956 TV performance by the Dave Brubeck Quartet materialized showing the group after Brubeck became famous after a TIME magazine cover story but before Joe Morello and Eugene Wright replaced Joe Dodge and Norman Bates on drums and bass. Doug Ramsey, who has more than a passing acquaintance with Brubeck through his exploration of the life and music of Paul Desmond, links to these three videos and provides some context in O Rare Dave Brubeck on Rifftides.

So take five and explore. Let me know what you think in the comments ....There will be five more next week.

Inspire the development of more "Chops" around Rochester

One of the things that you discover during the Rochester International Jazz Festival is that many of the high school jazz ensembles around here have "chops" way beyond those that my high school group had back in the 70s. I'm always impressed by them both as groups and some of the individual players.

I was recently contacted about a new documentary film called Chops. The film is about one high school jazz band's experience at the Essentially Ellington high school jazz competition, following them from their hometown of Jacksonville, Florida to NYC to participate in the 11th annual competition at Lincoln Center. The film has been endorsed by Jazz at Lincoln Center where the competition and festival is held and was screened there, film festivals throughout the country. One cool aspect about this film is how its makers and distributors are promoting it (in addition to contacting jazz blogs, that is). As jazz festivals and publications are hurting in today's economy, the film's distributor has set Chops up to be a great fund raising tool for jazz-related organizations, distributing it through a screening approach that allows anyone who hosts a screening to keep 100% of the proceeds from a screening. You can view the trailer for Chops at its official website and check out their unique approach to the screenings. There is also a page on Facebook to get updates about the film.

XRIJF Opening Night, a video story by Annette Lein and other D&C multimedia

There's a lot going on out there in the coverage of this year's Rochester International Jazz Festival, so check it out. Here's a video montage from the opening night, brought to you by the Democrat & Chronicle:

Of course, the D&C is also doing the multimedia page they have had in the past on their site, including Wil Yurman's Jazz Tales where Yurman mixes great images of artists with short interviews (as of this writing, only Peter King is there, but there will be more each day). Anna Reguero and other D&C arts writers are posting about the jazz fest in the HerRochester Arts Blog.