Jazz News
(aus dem Jazzinstitut Darmstadt)

9 - 22 September 2021 | Ausgabe 17/2021 (English)

We read the morning paper for you!                                     

Dear jazz friends,

The Jazzinstitut's JazzNews keeps you up-to-date with news of the jazz world, which we collect, summarize, and issue via e-mail about once a week. This service can also be accessed on our website (www.jazzinstitut.de), where it is updated on a daily basis.

If you need bibliographies of the musicians named in our JazzNews, please click on our website’s Jazz Index page. This is a bibliographical reference to jazz-related books, magazines, journals and other sources that you can access without charge. If you don't find the name(s) you’re looking for, feel free to e-mail us! We will send you Jazz Index digests of articles about musicians as they make the news.

Now, have fun reading about the jazz week that was!

... brief news ...

Jim Farber watches a new documentary, "Fire Music" about the initial resentment and lasting influence of free jazz (The Guardian). --- Michael Corcoran recalls a court date trombonist Jack Teagarden faced in 1921 as witness of a shooting in San Antonio, and then recounts some of Teagarden's biography (San Antonio Express-News).

Holger Crump talks to German trumpeter Peter Protschka about combining his music career and his pedagogical tasks as director of a municipal music school in Bergisch-Gladbach (In-GL). --- Jan Paersch talks to Wolff Reichert, the owner of Hamburg's Birdland about programming during the pandemic, about the club's history, as well as about being a drummer in a rockabilly band (die tageszeitung).

Steve Krakow remembers bassist and violinist Johnny Frigo (Chicago Reader). --- The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada, renamed its community school to Oscar Peterson School of Music (The Toronto Star). --- Giovanni Russonello talks to trumpeter Adam O'Farrill about the different influences on his music, yet that he tries "to prove that you're coming from somewhere", about his quartet Stranger Days and its new release "Visions of Your Other", and he talks to both saxophonist Anna Webber and to Arturo O'Farrill, the trumpeter's father and a major force in the world of Afro-Latin music (New York Times).

Ethan Iverson shares a transcription of saxophonist George Coleman's solo on "By George", recorded in 1968 with Elvin Jones (Do the Math). --- Lucy Wallis talks to British saxophonist Tony Kofi about how a serious work accident at age 16 made him buy a saxophone and become a musician (BBC).

Jake Wunsch talks to saxophonist JD Allen about his regular warm-up and practice routines, about the secret of storytelling on one's instrument, and collects some exercise suggestions from Allen who emphasizes that "practicing means I eat" (News from the Shed). --- Jake Wunsch also talks to trombonist Jacob Garchik (News from the Shed).

Jason Burke reports about a book revealing how Louis Armstrong "unwittingly became party to secret cold war maneuvers by the US in Africa" (The Guardian). --- Stephen Saito talks to filmmaker Penny Lane about a documentary she made about smooth jazz pioneer Kenny G, about the saxophonist's success in China, as well as about how her film also is about "deep and problematic snobbery and elitism" (The Moveable Feast). Meanwhile, Brian Welk reports about an interview Kenny G did with journalist Sharon Waxman about a widely-quoted criticism he received years ago by guitarist Pat Metheny (The Wrap).

Sebastian Scotney talks to Thai guitarist Ti (Sirabhorn) Muntarbhorn who studied at Berklee School of Music in Boston in the 1970s, having Pat Metheny as one of her teachers, who eventually named the tune "Sirabhorn" after her (London Jazz News). --- Jeremy Reynolds reports about the thriving jazz scene in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). --- Peter Helman (Stereogum) and Brenna Ehrlich (Rolling Stone) report about German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann's reaction after talk show host Jimmy Fallon mocked his 1969 album "Nipples".

Dirk Riße reports about the Offene Jazz-Haus-Schule Köln, a major educational project in Cologne, Germany, that might be in danger as the city has not listed its previous funding in the budget plans for 2022 (Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger). --- David Lindquist celebrates pianist Erroll Garner 100 years after his birth (Forbes). --- Mark Swed listens to Anthony Davis' composition "Restless Mourning", performed in a tribute concert to the victims of 9/11 in Santa Monica, California (Los Angeles Times), while Zacharyx Woolfe reports about Anthony Davis' opera "X" which will come to the Metropolitan Opera in 2023 (New York Times).

Bruce DeMara talks to Canadian pianist Jim Clayton (The Toronto Star). --- Florian Bissig talks to trombonist Ed Partyka, the new musical director of the Zurich Jazz Orchestra (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). --- Beth E. Concepción talks to pianist Joe Alterman (Reporter Newspapers). --- Andrew Gilbert talks to drummer Bernard 'Pretty' Purdie (Berkeleyside). --- Marc Myers talks to pianist Renee Rosnes (JazzWax). --- Christopher Jones reports about the reopening of Blues Alley, the legendary Club in Georgetown, D.C. (The Georgetowner). --- This year's Albert Mangelsdorff Award goes to Japanese-German pianist Aki Takase (Deutsche Jazzunion). --- Paul de Barros tells the story of John Coltrane's live recording from Seattle, 1965, which survived thanks to two local saxophonists (Seattle Times).

Federal elections will take place 26 September in Germany, and the Deutsche Jazzunion has contacted five of the six parties currently sitting in the parliament, asking them about their ideas when it comes to arts funding in general, minimum wages for musicians, the plans for a House of Jazz in Berlin, fair licensing fees for artists, supporting tours to other countries, as well as plans to strengthen gender equality and diversity in the different fields of the German jazz scene (Deutsche Jazzunion).

Obituaries

We learned of the passing of the promoter, radio host and jazz expert Phil Schaap at the age of 70 (New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, JazzWax), the musicologist Thomas Owens at the age of 83 (Neptune Society), the pianist and singer Vivian Lord at the age of 91 (New York Times), the singer Ruth Olay at the age of 97 (The Hollywood Reporter, The Desert Sun), the pianist and festival promoter George Wein at the age of 95 (New York Times, New Orleans Times-Picayune, JazzWax, NPR, Süddeutsche Zeitung), the drummer Tino Contreras at the age of 97 (Mexico News Daily), the saxophonist David DePalma at the age of 62 (Patch), the violinist Elektra Kurtis (The Strad), the percussionist Ralph Irizarry at the age of 67 (New York Times), the bassist George Mraz at the age of 77 (The Strad), the percussionist Doc Gibbs at the age of 73 (WRTI), the tubaist Bennie Pete at the age of 45 (New York Times), the Cuban bandleader Adalberto Álvarez at the age of 72 (New York Times), the German clarinetist Norbert Hanf, as well as the saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc at the age of 75 (Artforum).

From the World of Jazz Research 

Call for Papers: Toots Thielemans (1922-2016). A Century of Music across Europe and America
The above mentioned conference will be held from 9 to 11 May 2022 at the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) in Brussels. KBR holds the Toots Thielemans collection. The call for papers reads:  We welcome all research into the various aspects of Toots Thielemans, his life, work, reception, and the multicultural contexts in which they took place. We encourage multidisciplinary approaches and a diversity of perspectives, including papers from musicians, producers, or anyone having worked with him. We also encourage papers proposing musical analysis of Thielemans’s works (compositions and improvisations) anchored in their cultural context, and papers using archival materials, either from the Toots Thielemans fund and other funds at KBR and the MIM, or from any other relevant institution. More: https://www.kbr.be/en/agenda/toots-colloquium/

Last Week at the Jazzinstitut

17^th Darmstadt Jazzforum
One more week to go and it's Darmstadt Jazzforum again, for the 17^th time. Since 1989 the Jazzinstitut brings together scholars, journalists, musicians and fans every other year for a conference plus concerts around specific topics. This year the conference (from 30 September through 2 October 2021) will ask, "How open is jazz?" and discuss aesthetic, social and intersectional aspects of the current jazz scene (especially in Germany / Europe). Our website links to a short survey of the three day event, but also to abstracts of the papers and the subjects of the three panel discussions. There will be music as well: saxophonist Luise Volkmann will receive the Kathrin Preis award 1 October at Bessunger Knabenschule and perform with her new 10-piece LEONEsauvage ensemble which was formed in Darmstadt this April. And from 4 September the Jazzinstitut's own gallery will show an exhibition of posters created by Swiss graphic designer and concert promoter Niklaus Troxler, who will himself be present during the conference and talk about the connection between his art and his musical experiences. You can attend all of this in person or online. If you want to be present in person we need a formal registration (participation is free). We would be happy to see you!

Reading in Cologne
Wolfram Knauer will be reading from his book "Play yourself, man! Die Geschichte des Jazz in Deutschland" at Michael Horbach Stiftung in Cologne, Germany, this Friday (24 September). Between the short chapters, saxophonist Sebastian Gille will perform and musically respond to the stories told. The event is part of the two festivals "Music in den Häusern der Stadt" and "Literatur in den Häusern der Stadt" which joint forces this year to celebrate both music and the written word in private houses, offices, lofts, gardens and rooftop spaces (Kunstsalon).

Current opening hours of the Jazzinstitut
The Jazzinstitut is open to the public by appointment. Research slots will be given out with exact time slots for one visitor at a time. At the same time we continue our offer for research help by phone, e-mail or video-call. If you would like to schedule a video call, please send an e-mail to make an appointment and give us an idea what you want to talk about. We will then reply with a link for a Webex video session for your meeting.

(We will be closed during the Darmstadt Jazzforum from 29 September through 1 October.)