(aus dem Jazzinstitut Darmstadt)
22 September – 5 October 2022 | Ausgabe 18/2022 (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 ...

On the occasion of his 60^th birthday, Ulrich Habersetzer talks to Christian Muthspiel about having put down the trombone in November 2019 after a duo concert with Steve Swallow to focus on his other artistic activities as composer and conductor (BR Klassik). --- Isabel Herzfeld hears a performance of Charles Mingus' "Epitaph" in Berlin (Tagesspiegel).

Phil Freeman talks to drummer Terri Lyne Carrington about a book she edited with compositions by female jazz musicians, about encouraging her own students to write because that helps develop one's own voice, about some of the pieces on her latest album, "New Standards", based on the book, about her own approach to free music as a drummer, about the influence of funk more than rock in her music, about her collaborations with saxophonist Wayne Shorter, about the effect of her work at Berklee and elsewhere to adjust the gender balance in jazz, as well as about her own idea of what it would look like if gender equity were a non-issue in jazz (Stereogum). Juana Summers (NPR) and Larry Blumenfeld (Tidal) talk to Terri Lyne Carrington as well. --- Wolfgang Sandner remembers pianist Don Preston on the occasion of his 90^th birthday (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).

Nic North reports about British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis who uses Keith Jarrett's 1975 Köln Concert as an example of how to deal with hardships or crises (The Jewish Chronicle). --- Ashley Winters talks to saxophonist Victor Goines about his involvement with the Jazz St. Louis club and initiative and his plans for a lively jazz scene in St. Louis being built on his experiences working alongside Wynton Marsalis at Jazz at Lincoln Center (St. Louis American).

Hank Shteamer talks to 22-year-old saxophonist Zoh Amba about her interest in Hindu philosophy and her passion for free jazz, about her childhood in Kingsport, Tennessee, and being initiated to jazz by a recording (video?) of Charlie Parker, about studying in San Francisco but her allegiance to free jazz putting her at odds with her teachers, about studying with fellow saxophonist David Murray and becoming part of the New York scene, as well as about the connections between her two main interests, religion and music (New York Times). --- Norbert Krampf hears the Japanese-German pianist Aki Takase in concert with her new Japanic band (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).

Lewis Porter speculates on why Jelly Roll Morton claimed to be older than he actually was (Playback with Lewis Porter). Porter also speculates about influences on Eric Dolphy's style other that Charlie Parker, especially pointing out Willie Smith and Rudy Williams (Playback with Lewis Porter). And Porter compares the beginning of a Buster Keaton short film from 1923 with the beginning of "Jammin' the Blues", Gijon Mili's acclaimed film from 1944, focusing on the camera view of both Keaton's and Lester Young's hat in the opening sequence (Playback with Lewis Porter). Continuing his close listening to Miles Davis, Lewis Porter also focuses on Miles' habit of "leaning over and 'hugging' his piano players from the shoulders in order to show them chord voicings", exemplifying his findings with photos (Gil Coggins, Horace Silver, Red Garland, Bill Evans), an interview clip (Chick Corea) as well as one sound bite (John Lewis) (Playback with Lewis Porter).

Nicky Schrire continues her series about "Mothers in Jazz" with interviews with German saxophonist Nicole Johänntgen (London Jazz News), vocalist Janis Siegel (London Jazz News), Chilean vocalist Claudia Acuña (London Jazz News), and Swedish trombonist Karin Hammar (London Jazz News). --- Tim Nelson remembers Oscar Pettiford's centennial and the bassist's roots in Minneapolis (Sahan Journal). --- Ethan Iverson examines a book containing scores and lead sheets by Canadian trumpeter and composer Kenny Wheeler (Doing the Math).

John Edward Hasse celebrates the centennial of the arrival of jazz in Russia at a time when "the music's meaning of freedom and individuality is more important than ever" (Wall Street Journal). --- Cody Keenan, who served as a speechwriter under US President Barack Obama, remembers the suggestion of his boss to listen to John Coltrane for flow and to Miles Davis for the use of silence (Esquire).

In an extensive feature, Brett Martin talks to Ben Jaffe, tuba player, bassist and owner of New Orleans' Preservation Hall about the legacy of the club founded 60 years ago by his parents, about asking himself about privilege and representation in the arts and feeling "increasingly uncomfortable with his role as the face of Preservation Hall" as a white person. Martin tells the story of the historic venue that Allan and Sandra Jaffe opened in 1961, and he examines the ensuing success of the club from a 2022 viewpoint ("this reads like an inescapable example of what we now call white saviorship"). Jaffe points out how when he took over the club in 1993 he realized that Preservation Hall was more of a museum, lacking connection to the "living stream of New Orleans culture", and he reacts to criticism both about representation and pay (New York Times). --- A new study defines the key component of swing in jazz (Nature), and Nikk Ogasa (Science News), Evrim Yazgin (Cosmos) and Fiona Jackson (Daily Mail) explain it for the lay readers.

Giovanni Russonello asks ten experts about their favorite recording when it comes to convincing others of the merits of bebop. Jon Faddis recommends "Dizzy Atmosphere" (Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie); Camille Thurman "Just Friends" (Parker); Gary Giddins "Cherokee" (Bud Powell); Natalie Weiner "You're Driving Me Crazy" (Betty Carter); Sean Jones "Evidence" (Thelonious Monk); Charles McPherson "Shaw 'Nuff" (Parker/Gillespie); Marcus J. Moore "Space Track" (Freddie Hubbard); Kenny Barron "Celia" (Powell); Melissa Aldana "April in Paris" (Parker), and Giovanni Russonello himself "Good Bait" (Miles Davis/Tadd Dameron) (New York Times). --- Michel Schultheiss reports about the club Bird's Eye in Basel, Switzerland, that finds itself in a potential copyright lawsuit with its founder, bassist Stephan Kurmann, about the club's logo (Telebasel).

Obituaries

We learned of the passing of saxophonist Pharoah Sanders at age 81 (New York Times, The Guardian (1), The Guardian (2), NPR, Los Angeles Times, Vulture, NZZ, FAZ, BR Klassik), promoter and Charles Mingus' widow Sue Mingus at age 92 (Charles Mingus, New York Times), record collector and roots historian Joe Bussard at age 86 (NPR), bassist Kelly Sill at age 70 (The Strad), drummer and jazz scholar Maurice Martinez at age 88 (New Orleans Times-Picayune), trumpeter Charlie DeVore at age 89 (Star-Tribune), Hungarian pianist and composer Béla Szakcsi Lakatos at age 79 (Budapester Zeitung), journalist Arnold Jay Smith at age 83 (Facebook), baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber at age 80 (JazzWax), drummer Anton Fier at age 66 (New York Times), as well as trumpeter Ted Butterman at age 87 (Jazz Lives, Dignity Memorial).

From the World of Jazz Research

Columbia University Center for Jazz Studies
Kevin Fellezs has been named new director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University. Eva Glasberg talks to Fellezs about his plans for the center, among them a symposium he organizes in mid-October called "Fusion: Remixing Jazz, Rethinking Genre in the 21^st Century", a focus on Asian American and Latin American contributions to jazz, and the cataloguing of a recently received collection of 15,000 LPs. Fellezs talks about his own approach to musicology, about having Angela Davis as an academic advisor, and about his current research focus (Columbia University). Fellezs follows the Center's founder Robert O'Meally, George E. Lewis, and John Szwed as director of the Center for Jazz Research. The Jazzinstitut Darmstadt has close ties to the center ever since Wolfram Knauer was invited as their Louis Armstrong Professor of Jazz Studies in 2008.

Last Week at the Jazzinstitut

(New) books we read
Among the books on our desk the last couple of weeks were "Steve Lacy (unfinished)", edited by Guillaume Tarche; and "Made in Germany. Mein Leben für die Musik", by Klaus Doldinger (see the Jazzinstitut's book review page).

Kathrin Preis: ... and the winner is ...
The 2023 Kathrin Award goes to bassist Robert Lucaciu from Leipzig. Lucaciu was and is involved in numerous musical projects, but apart from music he also critically deals with his environment, with political and patriarchal structures, always questioning his own position in them. During his residency in Darmstadt, he plans to explore political issues together with his band "Fallen Crooner", using humor and irony, issues such as toxic masculinity, heteronormativity or everyday racism, He also plans to meet with a cultural scientist to discuss what role humor and irony can play in the self-perception of social reality. The jury particularly emphasized how much Lucaciu lives the project idea he proposed, in his musical activities as well as in own his social commitment. Lucaciu's Darmstadt residency will be taking place from 15-20 May 2023; on the evening of 20 May 2023 he will officially receive the award during a concert with his band "Fallen Crooner" (Kathrin-Preis).

Destination Unknown: The Future of Jazz
We are proceeding with developing ideas about our next Darmstadt Jazzforum conference to be held 28-30 September 2023. Inspired by Hartmut Geerken's Sun Ra Archive which we took over last year, we have selected a Sun Ra title to illustrate both the uncertainness and the daring nature of the music we are dealing with and titled the conference: "Destination Unknown. The Future of Jazz".

A Call for Papers can be found on our website (Destination Unknown) and we just started a corresponding blog that tries to outline some of our own thoughts on the subject.

First Blog entries:

(1) The devil you (don't) know
(2) Soothsaying
(3) If you have visions
(4) infinite vastness.

If you want to be part of the conference as an active or passive participant, let us know. If you have any ideas for a paper or a panel, write to us. If you want to know what happened at the Jazzforum conference over the years, browse the website of our publisher (Wolke Verlag, Jazz).

Letters from the Past
With the help of several of our volunteers as well as a new intern, we are currently digitizing correspondence from different sources: letters from and to the Hot Club Frankfurt in the late 1940s; letters from and to the Deutsche Jazz Föderation in the early to mid 1950s; letters from the early to mid-1960s by jazz legends such as Doc Cheatham, Rudy Powell, Detlev Lais, Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky and others to jazz historian Gerhard Conrad; material documenting the work of German poet and critic Wilhelm Liefland. The HCF letters document a jazz scene of musicians and enthusiasts who try to stay up-to-date with current developments in the USA and maintain a lively club and concert life in Frankfurt at the same time. The DJF letters contain information about the economic situation of jazz clubs in the 1950s and about the continuous struggle with fiscal authorities about classifying jazz concerts as "entertainment" or "art", with respective tax consequences. The Conrad letters tell about the life and worries of musicians at a time when jazz had seemingly lost its popular appeal. They also give us a glimpse into the thoughts of one of the most important East German musicians (Petrowsky) when he was still evolving stylistically. And the Liefland material documents a shift in writing about jazz in Germany in the 1970s, seeing the music as part of a broader cultural and social discourse. All of this material at the moment can only be viewed at the Jazzinstitut's archive in person.

Current opening hours of the Jazzinstitut
The Jazzinstitut is open to the public by appointment. We also offer 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.