Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
A few links to pass on while we continue to roll out A Single Sky…
First, a great article by Neil Tesser in this month’s Jazziz spotlighting Nicole Mitchell with a short intro on Karyn’s Fresh Corner, one of my favorite places.
Jim Macnie’s Top 25 Records of the Decade? that includes DD’s Strange Liberation and 24 other heavy-hitting records.
Liner Notes Writer Extraordinaire Darcy James Argue was featured on NPR recently. I missed it, but it’s streaming here with extended words here.
And yet another awesome Han Bennink video via Peter Margasak’s blog…
Just because I know he won’t, I wanted to mention that Dave D finished a Toughman triathalon today. We’re talking a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride and a 13.1 mile run all in a row….and he shattered his time goal by over thirty minutes! To give you an idea of how long something like this takes: I got up this morning around the same time he started, had a leisurely breakfast, ran 8 miles, practiced for 2 hours, drove 1.5 hours to the finish and still had time to find a good spot to cheer him on. Now, if I can just figure out just how he managed to train for this in between Brass Ecstasy tours, organizing the next wave of the FONT festival, writing, practicing and planning for whatever is next, I think I’d be in good shape..literally! Kudos Dave….
Tonight Dave and the band wrap up their west coast trip with a set at the Angel City Jazz Festival.
If you have the day off you might want to head down early, the whole day is packed with great bands.
Sunday, September 6th 4:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.
4:00 p.m. Plays Monk (Ben Goldberg, Devin Hoff, Scott Amendola)
5:15 p.m. The Satoko Fujii Quartet
6:30 p.m. Jesse Sharps’ The Gathering with Dwight Trible
intermission
8:00 p.m. The Billy Childs Jazz-Chamber Ensemble
9:15 p.m. Larry Karush (solo piano)
9:50 p.m. Dave Douglas & Brass Ecstasy
Dave & Brass Ecstasy are starting a California run tonight at Yoshi’s Oakland. The guys had a couple weeks off, so they’re looking forward to diving back into the music. Hope to see you there!
Andrew Dubber at New Music Strategies has a great take on this graphic from Information is Beautiful.
While the multi-billion dollar recorded music industry has seen a steady decline in sales over the last decade, the industry as a whole may just be entering into “one of those golden ages for musical culture that seem to coincide with the skinny bits of that graph.”
At least 35,000 years ago, in the depths of the last ice age, the sound of music filled a cave in what is now southwestern Germany, the same place and time early Homo sapiens were also carving the oldest known examples of figurative art in the world.
Archaeologists reported Wednesday the discovery last fall of a bone flute and two fragments of ivory flutes that they said represent the earliest known flowering of music-making in Stone Age culture. They said the bone flute with five finger holes, found at Hohle Fels Cave in the hills west of Ulm, was “by far the most complete of the musical instruments so far recovered from the caves” in a region where pieces of other flutes have been turning up in recent years.
A fascinating development for human cultural understanding. However we did find a cosmicritic online, a Mr. E. Pleb Nista, who despite his “open ears” was unable to appreciate these ancient musical instruments. Everyone’s entitled to his or her opinion, we thought we’d share Mr. Nista’s, as it may be of interest. Greenleaf Music is truly grateful for all the feedback, positive and negative, online and off, for our releases.
Ornette Channelled Through Very Early Music
author: E. Pleb NistaA 35,000 year old stone flute emerged from jazz oblivion today, again showing its true colors, playing a solo reminiscent of early Ornette Coleman. Mr. Flute trotted out some typically elliptical phrasing and off beat post-bop-isms in a piece enigmatically titled “Solo.”
Over many, many years of playing the flute has been unable to shake these influences and, even in a context as radically different as this series of “cave concerts,” was limited by its inability to sound like anything other than the aforementioned Coleman. Popping out one brilliant composition after another, followed by predictably fascinating rearrangements of composers spanning the past 30 millennia, Flute never failed to dazzle with his Coleman-inspired ramblings.
Though a great performance, which also featured a generous helping of each of the flute’s five holes, this return to the ice age sounded reminiscent of so much of the music we’ve heard since the days when mastodons roamed the earth. The stone-age flute is clearly a master, but leaves us asking the question, When will the next jazz giant with something new to say finally emerge from the pack?
The flute, reached for comment, remained stoic. “Hey, man, at least he spelled my name right! Those Cro-Magnons were a drag!”
With the workshop wrapped up I tidied up the Live Updates page so it would read in chronological order, added an intro, and tied up a few loose ends about some of the workshops. It was a very good year, and I think a lot of musical bonds formed that will last a lifetime. To read through the chronology click here.
Now it’s on to the summer of Brass Ecstasy, opening next week at The Jazz Standard! Hope to see many of you out there. Thanks for all of your warm comments on the new record. We will be playing all that music as well as some new things…
This is reporting in real time on the 2009 Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music. There are other reportings at Andrew Oliver’s blog, Alison Chesley from the Old Town School of Music, and a few other locations. Information and application guidelines for the workshop (plus a history of the program) can be found at Banff Centre Jazz Program.
Visiting artists in 2009 were Dave Douglas (director), Joshua Redman, David Gilmore, Adam Benjamin, Matt Penman, Clarence Penn, Tony Malaby, Angelica Sanchez, Ron Samworth, Ben Street, Jerry Granelli, Joe Ferla, Edmar Castaneda, Don Byron, Nicole Mitchell, Hank Roberts, Marshall Gilkes, Dafnis Preito, Steve Bellamy.
This is great for a chill Sunday morning hang.
In Bb 2.0 is a YouTube generated, collaborative remix of user contributed video that I’ve been playing all morning.
Here’s how creator and producer Darren Solomon describes the project:
In Bb 2.0 is a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls.
The videos can be played simultaneously — the soundtracks will work together, and the mix can be adjusted with the individual volume sliders.
Participate! Create a video and send me the link! Here are some guidelines:
-Sing or play an instrument, in Bb major. Simple, floating textures work best, with no tempo or groove. Leave lots of silence between phrases.
-Record in a quiet environment, with as little background noise as possible.
-Wait about 5-10 seconds to start playing.
-Total length should be between 1-2 minutes.
-Thick chords or low instruments don’t work very well.
-Record at a low volume to match the other videos.
-You can listen to this mix on headphones while you record.
-After you upload to YouTube, play your video along with the other videos on this page to make sure the volume matches.Update: Wow! This got bigger than I imagined! I greatly appreciate every submission, and I will watch everything, though I may not be able to reply to each. Also, I am being selective, in order to maintain the feel of the project. Many, many thanks to all who have submitted!
Next February at Carnegie Hall, I’ll be leading a music workshop along with Uri Caine and Clarence Penn. Applications just opened up on Carnegie Hall’s web site. Once accepted, participants have their full way paid: travel, hotel, stipend, etc.
This is an opportunity for 12 to 14 composer/performers who will all be writing for each other and developing the works for a concert. The other members of my Quintet, Donny McCaslin and James Genus, will also be taking part in the workshops and concert.
You may have noticed, we have a new RSS feed icon and link on the top right of our blog page. Now you can add Greenleaf to your list of blog subscriptions and get updated when we have new posts. If you’re unfamiliar with RSS and how it works, New Music Strategies’ Andrew Dubber has a great article explaining the ins and outs.
