The art of the duo personified

The jazz duo is the ultimate musical challenge. With just two musicians on stage, there is no coasting allowed. You're either doubling on the melody, listening intently to anticipate how to respond to the other player's solo, comping behind him -- or all of the above.

Dick Hyman, Diego Figueiredo

That fine art was in the spotlight at the 42nd edition of the Sarasota Jazz Festival on Friday, March 17 in the hands of pianist Dick Hyman and Brazilian guitarist Diego Figueiredo. 

Their musical conversation belied their half-century age gap. NEA Jazz Master Hyman turned 96 last week. Figueiredo, a rising star on his instrument, is just 42.

It was a call-and-response set from the get-go as they explored a wide range of Brazilian and Cuban material, with a few American standards sprinkled in for good measure. At every turn, they found common ground through the music itself.

Diego Figueiredo

"The Color of Brazil" and "So Danca Samba" led to a playful take on "All The Things You Are," with Figueiredo filling behind Hyman's lead. Whether he is popping off blistering solos or comping, the Brazilian draws on his wonderful combination of finger pick-style jazz and classical guitar techniques, sometimes adding a bit of body English for emphasis.

After digging in to Antonio Carlos Jobim's bossa nova classic "Wave," the festival's new musical director, Terell Stafford, joined them on flugelhorn for an extended exploration of Jobim's "Triste." 

Then came a solo tune apiece by the two co-stars. Hyman uncorked a teasing-at-times, bouncy and bright version of "Cherokee" that included a clever Stride piano segment. Figueiredo used his solo space to explore "Tico-Tico No Fubá," one of the high-energy Brazilian features in his repertoire. Zequinha de Abreu wrote this Brazilian choro in 1917. 

Dick Hyman

Because it happened to be St. Patrick's Day, Hyman included "Danny Boy" in the program. This gentler moment was a chance to catch one's breath before the fiery closer. Together, they roared through Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona's Latin classic "Malaguena."

Hyman, a prolific pianist, organist, composer, arranger, bandleader, composer of film scores and orchestral works in a career dating to the late 1940s, is a master of the keyboard. He mixes sparking delicacy with uptempo fluidity, exploring multiple styles with ease.

Dick Hyman, Diego Figueiredo

He played the first Sarasota Jazz Festival back in 1981 and has been the event's most frequent performer. At first a snowbird, he has lived in nearby Venice full-time for more than 25 years. At 96 and not wanting to travel extensively anymore, this may have been one of his last significant performances. But you never know.

This year's festival, produced by the Jazz Club of Sarasota, was held under the Circus Arts Conservatory's Big Top at Nathan Benderson Park. 

The festival's other headliners included singers Kurt Elling (with guitarist Charlie Hunter), and Lizz Wright, pianist Christian Sands, bassist Marcus Miller, reed player Paquito D'Rivera, B-3 player Tony Monaco, tenor saxophonist Houston Person and the more-contemporary Allen Carmen Project with Gumbi Ortiz.

Dick Hyman, Diego Figueiredo, Terell Stafford

A third postcard from Newport

Here are more favorites from the 2022 edition of the  Newport Jazz Festival, held July 29-31 at Fort Adams State Park. This was my 41st consecutive trip to historic Newport to cover the  jazz festival. The streak started when producer George Wein brought the event back to Rhode Island in 1981 after a 10-year hiatus.

This year's festival brought a new addition: a small venue called the Foundation Stage near  the edge of the expansive Fort Stage lawn. It featured a variety of bands that played briefly during some of the main stage set changes. They included Sunday's mid-afternoon trio performance featuring trumpeter Michael Dudley. The Cincinnati native was a 2022 winner of an ASCAP Foundation Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award. He performed with drummer Eliza Salem and guitarist Robert Papacica. Dudley teaches in the jazz department at SUNY Potsdam.

Jazzmeia Horn

Theon Cross

Dan Wilson

Christian McBride

Christian McBride, Mike Stern, Brandee Younger

Turtle Island String Quartet (w/Terence Blanchard's band)

Shabaka Hutchings

Randy Brecker

 

 

Vijay Iyer

Hiromi

Marilyn Crispell

 

Lewis Nash

Anat Cohen

Celisse

The Michael Dudley Trio

Neal Caine

Michael Dudley

Eliza Salem, Michael Dudley, Robert Papacica

Sarasota Jazz Festival hits 40 - under the stars

It took an extra two years to get there, thanks to the pandemic. The Jazz Club of Sarasota's long-running jazz festival held its 40^th evening concert series March 16-19 with a wide range of talent – and a new venue.

The bulk of the festival was moved from indoor venues in and near downtown Sarasota to Nathan Benderson Park, right next to the facility's world-class rowing facility – where collegiate sprint rowing teams sometimes could be seen slicing through the water in training sessions.

With a full moon in view as the evenings progressed, the 2022 festival carried a most-appropriate theme: “Swinging under the stars.” (Wednesday night's opener featuring Houston Person & Friends, and John Pizzarelli & Catherine Russell, was moved indoors to Riverview Performing Arts Center because of a rainy weather forecast).

Russell Malone

The scheduling gods enabled me to attend the final two evenings – and the music was splendid.

Another postcard from Newport

Terri Lyne Carrington

Sharing more images from my 2021 Newport Jazz Festival assignments, July 30-August 1.

Gerald Clayton

Charles Lloyd, Harish Raghavan, Marvin Sewell

Joel Ross

Sasha Berliner

The Vibes Summit

Postcard from Newport

Now that another Newport Jazz Festival is in the books, the 67th anniversary edition and 57th actual festival to be precise, I wanted to share more imagery from the July 30-August 1 weekend. Here are some favorite images. More to follow.

Bam Bam Rodriguez

Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah

Kamasi Washington

Kamasi Washington

Robert Glasper

Newport beckons (updated)

Nothing tells me more that the pandemic’s extended jazz pause is over than the arrival later this month of the 2021 edition of the Newport Jazz Festival. There was none in 2020, a tough year for musicians and live-music fans alike across North America and around the globe.

Virtually all festivals and in-person concerts were cancelled after mid-March, giving rise to a steady output of streamed performances from venues (with audiences), or in a lot of cases, from musicians’ living rooms, stoops, driveways, or socially distanced spaces in public parks.

But Newport is back, albeit with health protocols in place, and only 60 percent capacity allowed at Fort Adams State Park overlooking Newport Harbor and the graceful span of the Sen. Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge in the distance. The attendance limit means the fort can accommodate 6,000 jazz fans, compared to years when 10,000 was a sellout. And there will be just two stages compared to the four in a normal festival year.

The winding road back to jazz normalcy (updated Aug 17)

The journey back to jazz festivals performed to live audiences has many different approaches. No matter which on-ramp you choose, normalcy, as we know it after the extended pandemic pause, appears to be a year away.

Let’s look at some of the ways that festivals organizations, working with government health officials, are bringing their events back this season. Most have reduced capacity, fewer stages, fewer artists, and shorter hours than in the past. Social distancing and other good-health protocols are the norm in most cases.

2020: The Year in Jazz

All About Jazz has just posted my comprehensive annual look back at the past year in the jazz world.  

In short: The COVID-19 pandemic put the jazz world in a tailspin, just like the world at large, in 2020. And there is plenty of uncertainty going into the new year about what “new normal: might emerge from the darkness. International Jazz Day, like so many other things, became a online virtual event this time around.

Pianist Keith Jarrett disclosed that he might never perform in public again because of lingering health issues. The National Endowment for the Arts welcomed four new NEA Jazz Masters and said farewell to nine others who were among the many industry-associated musicians and figures passing away during the year.

But there was much, much more, in a year like we've never seen before. 

With some 20/20 hindsight, there's a lot more to learn about or refresh your memory right here.

Remember this date - 66 years ago in jazz history

Yes, it has been 66 years.

On July 17, 1954, something happened in Newport, Rhode Island that made an indelible mark on jazz history - and in the scope of popular music presentation as we know it today.

Before Woodstock, before Coachella, before Monterey, there was Newport.

The first Newport Jazz Festival, actually dubbed the American Jazz Festival that inaugural year, was held July 17 and 18, 1954 at historic Newport Casino, a stately tennis venue now known as the International Tennis Hall of Fame, along toney Bellevue Avenue.

A temporary bandshell, covered in thick cardboard, was erected on a berm overlook the tennis courts. As Burt Goldblatt recalled in his book, Newport Jazz Festival, The Illustrated History, the music kicked off at 9:18 that Saturday night when guitarist Eddie Condon's Dixieland band dug into the trad jazz classic "Musktat Ramble."

Newport Jazz Festival, 1954*

Other featured performers that inaugural weekend included singers Lee Wiley, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday; the Modern Jazz Quartet; and bands led by trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, saxophonists Lee Konitz, Gil Melle and Gerry Mulligan, guitarist Johnny Smith, and pianists Oscar Peterson, George Shearing and Lennie Tristano. It closed with an explosive set by drummer Gene Krupa's trio. A few jam sessions and all-star mixing and matchings were thrown in for good measure. 

The festival that first year was estimated to have drawn a combined weekend crowd of 13,000.

Newport was the granddaddy of outdoor American music festivals that were quick to follow.

And all because Newport socialite Elaine Lorillard and her tobacco-heir husband, Louis, wanted to do something to enliven the stodgy summer scene. They hired George Wein, who wan Boston's Storyville jazz club, to produce the event.

Wein, now 94, is still at it. He oversees the Newport Festivals Foundation, a nonprofit that he and other forward thinkers created a few years ago to keep the Newport Jazz Festival and Newport Folk Festival alive well into the future. 

Like so many other events near and far, the 2020 edition of the Newport Jazz Festival was shelved because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The many fans and supporters - and the musicians themselves, are waiting to see how the "new normal" will affect this large-scale outdoor gathering going forward. As a relative latecomer, I've been attending the Newport Jazz Festival annually since 1981, the year Wein brought the storied event back to Newport after a nine-year absence. 

Some history on that 1972-1980 absence: 
Gate crashers and bear-swilling rowdies not content to listen from the hillside, stormed Festival Field on Saturday July 3, 1971. bring that year's event to a premature end. Ironically, Dionne Warwicke was on stage singing "what the World Needs Now Is Love" when the fences came crashing down. Wein took his concept to New York City. 

The festival returned to Newport in 1981 as the city's movers and shakers realized times had changed - and the event could be held at a more controlled setting, Fort Adams State Park, located on a peninsula across Newport Harbor from the downtown business district.
  
      *photo courtesy of Newport Festivals Foundation archives.

The Satchmo Award legacy continues

The 40^th annual Sarasota Jazz Festival scrapped all of its main-stage concerts earlier this month because of pandemic concerns, but managed to continue a tradition that began in 1987. That tradition is the presentation of the annual Satchmo Award, which the Jazz Club of Sarasota gives to a distinguished person in the jazz community in recognition of “unique and enduring contributions to the living history of jazz.” In other words: sort of a lifetime achievement award.

Rachel Dombers*

This year’s honor was given to Rachel Domber and her late husband, Mat, who founder Clearwater-based Arbors Records. Since they began the label in 1989, they have produced more than 400 recordings. They began with a focus on traditional and classic jazz, but broadened the Arbors scope to include more contemporary and swing players, including a variety of today’s rising stars.

The presentation usually is part of the festival’s Saturday night main stage event. This year, the recognition came at a Thursday, March 12 reception that had been planned to precede that night’s just-canceled concert.  

Jazz club president Ed Linehan praised the Dombers for their impact on jazz. “Through their efforts, Arbors has produced hundreds of albums since 1989, representing many classic styles of Jazz. The Arbors catalog reads like a Who’s Who of American jazz of the last half century, including recordings by our own Dick Hyman - an NEA Jazz Master - and (clarinetist and current festival musical director) Ken Peplowski.”

Newport Jazz Festival's 65th anniversary edition is in the books

The granddaddy of all jazz festivals - held in Newport starting in 1954 - hit another milestone this past weekend (August 2-4). Over three days, plus a Friday evening downtown concert, the Newport Jazz Festival celebrated its 65th anniversary with a wide array of musicians from the jazz spectrum and beyond. Alto saxophonist Gary Bartz made his first Newport appearances at this year's event.

My annual photo-pit marathon, briskly ambling between four stages, wound up Sunday evening, as I documented and captured moments from most of the 58 bands that performed over the three day weekend. JazzTimes has posted a wide array of those images taken by yours truly and three other assigned photographers (Marek Lazarski, Alan Nahigian and Joseph Allen) as part of its comprehensive coverage.

As some of you know, this was my 39th annual trek to Newport, starting in 1981 when founding producer George Wein brought the festival back to Newport after a 10-year hiatus.

Sheila Jordan

In addition to the photo pit adventures, which made it impossible to hear more than a song or two of most performances, it also provided a few opportunities for some backstage portraiture. One happy subject was Sheila Jordan, who appeared as special guest with The Royal Bopsters vocal quartet. "I may be old, but I'm not dead yet," she told the crowd.

Brandon Goldberg

At age 90, she wasn't the oldest performer. That honor went to saxophonist Marshall Allen, who at 95 still leads the Sun Ra Arkestra. The youngest performer at Newport this year was pianist Brandon Goldberg, 13, who led a trio with bassist Luques Curtis and drummer Mark Whitfield Jr. on the festival's Storyville Stage.

Perhaps the most poignant event happened the night before the festival opening. 

Wein performed at a free Quad Stage concert* at Fort Adams State Park that was dubbed One More Once. Wein, who turns 94 in October, performed with bassist Christian McBride, who is now in his third year as the jazz festival's artistic director. They were joined after a few numbers by an unadvertised guest: trumpeter Jon Faddis.

Before performing “What is This Thing Called Love?,” Wein tipped his hat to the many jazz festival executives who have been so vital to its past and are bringing it well into the future. 

Wein, McBride, Faddis

“We’ve been here 65 years, and I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved,” he said. “I want to dedicate this program to the generations that have made the festival what it is and the new

generation that’s taking it over and will be bringing us more festivals for many years to come.” He singled out longtime associates Bob Jones and Darlene Chan, and the Newport Jazz Festival/Folk Festival executive director Jay Sweet.

 At one point, Wein suggested Faddis and McBride do a duet. As they explored Miles Davis's “All Blues," Wein, 93, listened at his piano, savoring their music like a proud papa.

McBride joined the Newport Jazz Assembly for several numbers before his duo collaboration with Wein. The septet has performed for students at 65 public elementary and middle schools in Massachusetts and Rhode Island over the past two years. The ensemble is sponsored by the Newport Festivals Foundation.

I'll post more Newport Jazz Festival images as time permits.

The Newport Jazz Festival is sponsored by Natixis Investment Managers.

*The event was part of BridgeFest, a series of Monday-through Thursday local music events to "bridge" the days between the Newport Folk Festival and the Newport Jazz Festival.