Jazz News
(aus dem Jazzinstitut Darmstadt)

24 June – 7 July 2021 | Ausgabe 13/2021 (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 ... 

Ueli Bernays talks to guitarist Julian Lage about wanting to talk rather than sing on his instrument, about studying recordings by intellectual idols like Angela Davis and James Baldwin, about the improvisational process of conversation, about his stylistic flexibility within the jazz idiom, as well as about his latest album "Squint" and how playing makes him "nicer, more sensitive, happier" (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). --- Rüdiger Heinze talks to German vibraphonist Wolfgang Lackerschmid about his latest album "Summer Changes", about reissues of earlier recordings he had done with Chet Baker, as well as about his new position on the board of GEMA, the German performance rights organization (Augsburger Allgemeine).

A new study documents the gender imbalance in the arts in Switzerland, showing that in rock/pop and jazz only 9 resp. 12 percent of all Swiss musicians on stage are women (SRF). --- Ted Gioia remembers how in 1973 the label Columbia abandoned many of its major jazz artists (Culture Notes of an Honest Broker).

Birgit Kaltenböck talks to Austrian pianist and singer Sabrina Hank about dealing with the pandemic, about current plans and projects, as well as about jazz being a multi-dimensional music that only works if one is completely in the here and now (Salzburger Nachrichten). --- Ljubisa Tosic talks to Austrian bassist Lukas Kranzelbinder about Shake Stew and what connects the musicians in the band, about the newest band member, saxophonist Astrid Wiesinger, as well as about winning the Deutscher Jazzpreis (German Jazz Award) and missing a similar award in Austria (Der Standard).

Stuart Derdeyn talks to drummer Hamid Drake about his duo with fellow percussionist Michael Zerang, about his first goal in music having been to play trombone, about being considered an elder statesman of jazz today, about the importance of groove in his playing, no matter what stylistic context, as well as about studying percussion traditions from all around the world (Vancouver Sun). --- Andrew Gilbert talks to bassist Charnett Moffett about his collaboration with his wife, singer-songwriter Jana Herzen, about memories of his father, drummer Charles Moffett, and regularly visiting San Francisco's Keystone Korner as a kid, about performing with the Moffett Family Band as an 8-year-old, about having to turn down an offer from Art Blakey at age 15 to stay in school, as well as about the many bassists who came before him and left their mark in his playing (The Oaklandside).

Carolyn McClair talks to saxophonist Donald Harrison about being an "Afro-New Orleans cultural participant" who knows "the secrets that go all the way back to Africa, and how they were used in jazz, and I'm probably the only jazz musician who knows that", about a recent project using John Coltrane's composition "Countdown" as a starting point, as well as about mentoring young musicians both from the worlds of jazz and hiphop (The Patch). --- Reinhard Köchl talks to pianist Vijay Iyer about the political dimensions both of his latest album "Uneasy" and of music in general (Die Zeit).

Kate Hutchinson talks to pianist and composer John Carroll Kirby about his latest album "Septet", about the lively jazz scene in Los Angeles, about his favorite jazz album, "Money Jungle", as well as about seeing himself as a genreless musician, centered around his instrument and where it fits into different scenarios (The Guardian). --- Andrian Kreye reads/views/listens to "Jazzed", a new magazine/streaming platform and talks to its chief editor Götz Bühler about future plans (Süddeutsche Zeitung).

Hua Hsu retells the story of Herman Blount who was beamed to Saturn sometime in the 1930s where aliens shared knowledge with him, equations which they instructed him to eventually impart to the world for transcending human reality. Blount, of course, became first Le Sony'r Ra, then Sun Ra in 1952 where he circulated broadsheets with titles like "The Bible Was Not Written for Negroes!!!!!!!", then he formed a band with which he "sketched an 'Astro-Black mythology' that aligned ancient Egyptian history with a future human exodus 'beyond the stars'" (The New Yorker). Nou Dadoun remembers hearing the Arkestra in 1978 (Coastal Jazz).

Dave Sumner looks at the jazz scene of St. Petersburg, Russia (Daily Bandcamp). --- Ulrich Steinmetzger talks to German saxophonist Johannes Enders and listens to his latest duo album with pianist Rainer Böhm, "Kokoro" (Leipziger Volkszeitung). --- Kate Hutchinson discovers British trumpeter Emma-Jean Thackray (The Guardian). --- Sharon Edwards remembers violinist, guitarist and vocalist Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown (New Orleans Times-Picayune). --- Philippe Reichen talks to Mathieu Jaton, the artistic director of the Montreux Jazz Festival (Der Bund). --- Rob Thomas talks to pianist Johannes Wallmann (The Capital Times).

Obituaries

We learned of the passing of the Hungarian singer Gábor Winand at the age of 57 (Index), the trumpeter Jon Hassell at the age of 84 (The Guardian, New York Times, BR Klassik), the pianist Burton Greene at the age of 84 (WBGO), the drummer Jack Warner at the age of 78 (Newport Daily News), the Namibian singer Raymond Pande (The Namibian), the Irish bassist Rick Laird at the age of 80 (Music Fest News, Guitar), the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen at the age of 82 (Deutschlandfunk, NPR, New York Times, Washington Post, Süddeutsche Zeitung), the pianist and composer Frederic Rzewski at the age of 83 (Gramophone, New York Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung), the singer Bill Ramsey at the age of 90 (Der Standard, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung), as well as the Canadian saxophonist and singer Sheila Cooper at the age of 60 (info from her family).

Last Week at the Jazzinstitut 

Louis Armstrong
Wolfram Knauer's new biography of Louis Armstrong is in the stores in time for Satchmo's double anniversary, 50 years after his death, 120 years after his birth (Reclam). A playlist of recordings discussed in the book can be downloaded on the publisher's website or directly here. So far, the book has already been reviewed by Bert Noglik (Deutschlandfunk), Ulrich Stock (Die Zeit), Roland Spiegel (BR Klassik), and Jörg Heyd (WDR5). Reinhard Köchl talked to the author (Augsburger Allgemeine).

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.

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