It’s the bassist’s role in jazz to know the time and place; to anchor a band rhythmically and guide it through a song. The young bassists Pedro Giraudo and Ben Williams are quite adept at all that, but when they lead their own bands, they have an even broader sense of time and place.
Check out the set list, see a photo album of the performances, and listen to complete audio recordings on NPR’s A Blog Supreme.
The Checkout: Live from 92YTribeca is curated by Joshua Jackson, host of WBGO’s hour-long music magazine The Checkout. Next up in the series is Eric Harland and Eric Harland on August 9.
WBGO Plus Dan Tepfer And Lee Konitz Equals Amazing
Browsing the web for some audio recordings of Lee Konitz (job-related research!), we found the above undated, amazing photo of Lee with Miles Davis, Bud Powell and Art Blakey at Birdland. Photo by Marcel Fleiss.
Lee Konitz is the elder-statesman on our first WBGO show, The Checkout: Live at 92YTribeca, with composer and pianist Dan Tepfer, on June 22. The Checkout: Live at 92YTribeca is a new series created by Joshua Jackson, host of WBGO’s hour-long music magazine The Checkout.
Songs with the longest possible shelf life are built around catchy melodies and universal themes; often, they’re malleable enough to resonate in many genres. Alan Hampton furnishes one such song with the bittersweet “Change Your Mind.”
Video interview with Melvin Sparks featuring his performance at 92YTribeca in January 2011
Jazz great Melvin Sparks passed away March 13. From The New York Times obituary:
Melvin Sparks, a guitarist whose brightly sinewy style made him an in-demand session player during the soul-jazz boom of the late 1960s and early ’70s, a touchstone during the acid-jazz trend of the ’90s and a wise elder on the jam-band scene of the last decade, died on March 13 at his home in Mount Vernon, N.Y. He was 64.
If you want a hint, we can tell you the first word in the event name rhymes with a city in North Carolina and the event is taking place at 92YTribeca this weekend. Leave your guess in the comments! The answer can be found below by highlighting or clicking the space in between the brackets.
Bachata music originated in the poor countryside of the Dominican Republic. A Dominican friend once told us, “it’s is like your folk music,” referring to American Folk. And Joan Soriano, El Duque de la Bachata, is one of its rising stars. “Soriano’s brand of bachata is a bit rootsier than what you might hear in a New York bodega,” WNYC wrote, “perhaps because he has played with many godfathers of the genre.” His debut album, El Duque De La Bachata, made a number of “Best of” lists last year and NPR said Soriano is so charismatic, he “threatened to upstage the stars he accompanied.”
Soriano is also the subject of Adam Taub’s documentary, El Duque. One of 15 children, Soriano left school and the farming life behind to pursue his passion, playing Bachata. The documentary highlights his dramatic rise to fame. On Thursday February 17, 92YTribeca will screen this extraordinary film, followed by a concert with Soriano and his exceptional band.
Below, watch video of Soriano performing acoustically at home.
Glass Ghost first got everyone’s attention with their “sublime” song, “Like a Diamond,” heard in the video above. You can download an mp3 of the song on Stereogum and read an interview with the band on Free Williamsburg. Glass Ghost are bringing their “interesting and provocative” music to 92YTribeca tonight along with Chris Garneau and Hospitality.
Myra will be at 92YTribeca on January 29 for an evening of transcendent acoustic jazz, world folk, chamber music and blues with Brandon Ross and Stomu Takeishi. Get your tickets here. Video of Myra Melford piano solo below…
UPDATED: Jason Moran Presents 713 → 212 - Houstonians in NYC
Video clip from In My Mind, a feature length documentary of Jason Moran & The Big Bandwagon’s take on Thelonious Monk’s Town Hall recording.
UPDATE: This just in: The groundbreaking jazz pianist-composer Jason Moran, a 2010 MacArthur Fellow (aka “Genius Award” winner), has landed atopThe Village Voice‘s Fifth Annual Jazz Critics’ Poll for his album, Ten. Not only that, Moran was featured in three other albums that made the top ten, “a fete unprecedented in this poll’s short history,” wrote the Voice. Talk about acclaimed.
In two weeks, Moran is gathering some of the hottest players currently in New York City by way of Houston for two unforgettable nights of music at 92YTribeca on January 14 and 15.
Songwriters featured include Bryan Michael Cox, Leron Thomas, Alan Hampton and Josh Mease. Also appearing are Michael Carvin, Chris Dave, Robert Glasper, Lisa Harris, Eric Harland, Billy Harper, Nicole Hurst, Mark Kelley, Corey King, Brandon Lee, Jason Moran, Mike Moreno, Kendrick Scott, Burniss Earl Travis, Marcos Varela and Jamire Williams.
Non Stop Bhangra, May 2007 at Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco
Each year, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference brings together more than 3,600 arts professionals from 49 states in the U.S. and 27 countries, making it the largest performing arts industry event. 92YTribeca is hosting two showcase this year.
The first, on January 7, will see Non Stop Bhangra (seen in video above), Very Be Careful, Razia, International Body Music, Sanda Weigl and a Surprise Special Guest; read more here. The second showcase, on January 8 will presented Bio Ritmo, CSC Funk Band, Cheick Hamala Diabate, Debo Band, Slavic Soul Party and DJ E’s E; read more here.
Screengrab from Little Wings (left) and Feist duet of “Look at What the Light Did Now”
Hipster Runoff and Pitchfork are talking about Look at What the Light Did Now, the new documentary that looks at Feist’s Grammy nominated album The Reminder and her subsequent tour, featuring definitive concert performances and uncommonly candid interviews. This Saturday, November 13, watch a special preview screening of the film at 92YTribeca for the film’s NYC premiere. Director Anthony Seck will be on hand for a post-screening Q&A.
Upcoming Events at 92YTribeca Film:Cool It (Nov 10); Channel 101: NY Monthly Screening (Nov 10); The Fence (Nov 11); Coffee: Between Reality and Imagination (Nov 12).
For one reason or another—dorkiness, Oregonianism, spiritual daintiness—I find myself, at age 33, functionally hip-hop illiterate. Aside from a feverish adolescent fling with my brother’s MC Hammer tape, I have spent almost zero percent of my life voluntarily listening to rap music. Part of this is genetic: As the child of folk-singing hippies, I have ear canals specially angled to detect and enjoy warbly guitar ballads. (Simon and Garfunkel reunite every day to play nine-hour private concerts in the coffeehouse of my mind.) I have never, to my knowledge, heard a song by 2Pac, Nas, Lil’ Kim, Lil Wayne, KRS-One, DMX, Kanye West, Cam’ron, 50 Cent, or the Wu-Tang Clan. Until last week, I thought Mobb Deep and Mos Def were the same thing. (It turns out they are very different.)
Normally I don’t mind being out of the pop-cultural loop—I’ve even learned, over the years, to wear my ignorance with a certain musty old-man pride. Given, however, that I am a professional studier of words, my hip-hop blind spot has come to seem indefensible: I am clueless about one of the culture’s most vital fronts of verbal artistry. It would be like an art critic who’s never seen a comic book, or a choreographer who’s never heard of Michael Jackson.
This is why I’m so evangelically excited about The Anthology of Rap, Yale University Press’s monumental new collection of rap lyrics. It feels like it was published, exclusively for me, by the vanity press of my own subconscious. It’s an English major’s hip-hop bible, an impossible fusion of street cred and book learning. The anthology spans the entire 30-year history of the genre, from Afrika Bambaataa to Young Jeezy.
If you’re like Sam—or if you already know E-40, the man who popularized the suffix -izzle, and Twista, onetime holder of the Guinness record for world’s fastest MC—you don’t want to miss the book party reading at 92YTribeca featuring editors Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois with a line-up of writers, musicians, poets and academics including Imani Perry, LaTasha Diggs, Immortal Technique, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Adam Mansbach, Touré, Dream Hampton and Grandmaster Caz on November 17.
Yes, he did. His name is Peder Losnegård, and performs under the name LidoLido. (check out his Myspace). The song in question is called Writemode, and has not yet been released, though Lido told us a video is coming soon.
He was at 92YTribeca yesterday for Import/Export, the Internation Hip Hop CMJ showcase presented by Digiwaxx, The Bloom Effect, Miz Metro & CMJ Present.
By the way, the lyric in question? “Don’t even say my name right like Beyonce. Can’t be I’m me, coz they a product of a team. All hands on deck, Thierry Henry.”
Tonight at 92YTribeca, we have a special CMJ show with Brooklyn’s soulful singer/songwriter Maya Azucena, who will perform a night of duets with Chris Rob, Big Brooklyn Red, Honey LaRochelle, Jahstix, Hasan Salaam and Mark Shine.
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