Kevin Whitehead on jazz pianist Earl Hines:

Earl Hines might have focused on a career as dazzling pianist, like Art Tatum. But after working in various orchestras, Hines itched to lead one of his own. He opened at Chicago’s Grand Terrace ballroom in time for New Year’s 1929. Jazz’s center of gravity was shifting to New York, but the Grand Terrace would be his home base till 1940. Al Capone invited him not to leave.

Image via semioticapocalypse:

Dennis Stock. Earl Hines (piano) Jimmy Archey (trombone) Francis Joseph (cornet) Earl Watkins (drummer), San Francisco, California, 1958

Kevin Whitehead reviews two new albums from jazz clarinetist Ben Goldberg:

Goldberg’s harmonization of Bob Dylan’s loose version of the country tune “Satisfied Mind” comes out like a 19th century field holler in modern dress. Old and new often get mixed up in Goldberg’s music; the clarinetist first made his name playing avant-garde klezmer, as if that traditional style had never stopped evolving. His new album, “Subatomic Particle Homesick Blues”, was inspired by the stately counterpoint in Bach’s chorales.

Cover art by Molly Barker by courtesy of Ben Goldberg

Good morning! We have a review on the show today of two albums from jazz clarinetist Ben Goldberg — Subatomic Particle Homesick Blues and Unfold Ordinary Mind. His life partner and artistic collaborator, Molly Barker, did the cover art for both albums (and many others). Goldberg wrote an essay about the first time he encountered Barker and her work: It just after Barker had graduated from college and many years before they fell in love. Molly had just begun a series of handmade books, one of which was called Secret Language and opened with the image above.

Goldberg writes:

How, I asked myself, did Molly know to open Secret Language, her deep meditation on loss and grief, with the offhand “Hey remember that squirrel –”? It was more perfect than perfect, and gave me a feeling of “I wish I had written that,” combined with “I could have written that” – if I was tuned into my reality as plainly as this person is to hers. Plainspoken, direct, open-hearted without being self-consciously naïve – Molly’s books contained qualities that I wanted to bring to my music.

Image by Molly Barker courtesy of Ben Goldberg

Jazz Clarinetist Anat Cohen tells Terry Gross about her love of Louis Armstrong and about being introduced to jazz by playing the music of New Orleans:

It was so new to me because, you know, that’s not what you hear normally on the radio in Israel. So I just fell in love with the way it felt, … playing with everybody, everybody playing together, counter lines, trombone is playing melody, the other trumpet and clarinet playing lines behind it. Then, you get up and play a solo for 32 bars and that’s it: Nothing is too exhausting, nothing is too long. It’s just beautiful feeling. Everybody’s smiling, everybody’s happy. The music of New Orleans has this joy.

Above, Cohen playing her version of “La Vie En Rose,” a tribute to Armstrong.

Jazz clarinetist Anat Cohen tells Terry Gross how the singing style of cantors influenced her playing:

Cantors have an influence on anybody that listens, that is there. Because here is someone that is speaking out of their hearts and using one single melody and all they do is express it in the most heartfelt way and as a jazz musician or as any musician of course it would have an influence, I mean that’s what I try to do when I play music , when I play any music, when I play a cadence at the end of a song you want to take one note and make it meaningful and if you hear a cantor and they’re doing it right, you’re going to be so moved.

Kevin Whitehead on the album Grant Green, The Holy Barbarian, St. Louis, 1959:

“Grant Green, The Holy Barbarian, St. Louis, 1959” could be the name of a quality stage play, perhaps based on the actual circumstances of the recording. One musician on the way up, another past his moment in the limelight, and one more who had his chance but never quite made it, all convene on Christmas night, part of their week-long stand at a beatnik hangout replete with chess players hunched over the board and a local artist painting portraits. The emcee chats loudly near the stage, then grabs the mike to spout what sounds like a send-up of beatnik poetry.

A Peek Inside Rapper’s Brains Shows Roots of Improvisation

Some rappers have an impressive ability to make up lyrics on the fly, in a style known as freestyle rap.

These performers have a lot in common with jazz musicians, it turns out.

Scientists have found artists in both genres are using their brains in similar ways when they improvise.

A group of jazz pianists had their heads examined in a 2008 PLOS One study, which subjected the musicians to functional magnetic resonance imaging scans. These scans highlight areas of brain activity.

The warmer orange colors show parts of the brain most active during improvisational rap. The blue regions are most active when rappers performed a memorized piece.

— via Shots, Health News from NPR

Here’s to you, Charlie Parker!  In honor of his birthday, check out this documentary about the jazz legend.

(Source:nprmusic)

Via Fresh Air’s jazz critic Kevin Whitehead: There have been a few groundbreaking harpists in jazz and improvised music, from Dorothy Ashby to Zeena Parkins. Now they’re joined by Edmar Castañeda, who plays both classical harp and the smaller, more portable Colombian folk model.

Jenny Scheinman’s quartet represents a specific breed of contemporary players, raised on and used to playing all kinds of music; they don’t worry much about what genre they’re working in. With their broad frames of reference, they can take the music wherever they want, by design or in the moment.

Happy 70th Birthday Han Bennink!

(via Kickin’ It With Han Bennink : A Blog Supreme : NPR)

Meet Han Bennink, the jazz drummer who makes music out of anything: “”What is music, anyway? It’s just like organized sound. And what’s organized? Who decides that?”

Tomorrow:Jazz drummer Han Bennink takes over our studio (pictured above in shaky video taken by yours truly) and drums on every object he can find.

(Source: youtube.com)

From a new series, Kevin Whitehead reviews a pair of ’60s LPs from the distinctive trumpeter Clark Terry.

Forgotten Gems From The Dave Brubeck Quartet