(aus dem Jazzinstitut Darmstadt)
18 August – 7 September 2022 | Ausgabe 16/2022 (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 ...

Daniel Hilton talks to British trumpeter Yazz Ahmed about advice for new listeners to jazz (listen to as much jazz as possible), about advice for women in Jazz (be quite thick-skinned), about people who want to start playing jazz (join a 'blow band', a rehearsal band), as well as about her latest album "Polyhymnia" (Varsity). --- Lauren Fox talks to pianist Lynne Arriale about her latest album that is inspired by healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, about her (rather sudden) decision to switch from classical piano to jazz when she was 25, about jazz as a universal musical language, as well as about her approach to teaching (Spinnaker).

Sarah Bricker Hunt talks to drummer Allison Miller about what changed when she decided speak up as a lesbian feminist nine years ago and about how she thinks that by embracing her queerness she might have helped other "young queer and trans artists feel safe to be their whole selves" (Pride Source). --- Roland Spiegel pays tribute to German saxophonist, educator and festival promoter Joe Viera who has been active on the Munich jazz scene since the early 1950s, founded the Jazzwoche Burghausen in 1970, has given innumerable workshops, and turned 90  on 4 September (BR Klassik). Oliver Hochkeppel pays tribute to Joe Viera as well (Süddeutsche Zeitung).

Giovanni Russonello talks to pianist Ahmad Jamal about the release of live recordings from the mid-to-late 1960s that will be out in November, and he talks to fellow-pianist Jason Moran about what made Jamal's music iconic. Russonello talks with Jamal about his musical upbringing in Pittsburgh, about his first business venture importing greeting cards from Africa to the United States, about other jobs as club promoter and record label executive, and he talks to producer Zev Feldman about Jamal's involvement in the archival release (New York Times). --- John Lynch reports about singer Deborah Gilmore from San Luis Obispo in California who talks about how near the start of her stretch of homelessness she started to organize community events and reconnect with singing, about how she survived on the streets by "panhandling and working to promote her music career, calling herself an 'entrepreneur homeless person'", as well as about how music helped her to survive and not give up (The Tribune).

Andrew Gilbert reports about the California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley, California, that celebrates its 25^th anniversary these days (San Francisco Chronicle). --- Catherine Hoffman tells the story of the Charlie Parker Memorial Foundation Music School in Kansas City, founded in 1971, supported by stars like Dizzy Gillespie, Mary Lou Williams, Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald, and still providing music education for inner city kids (Flatland KC).

Nicky Schrire talks to singers Jane Monheit (London Jazz News) and Tutu Puoane (London Jazz News) about balancing motherhood and a jazz career. --- Steve Krakow talks to bassist Richard Davis about his long career in music (Chicago Reader). --- Keith Spera talks to New Orleans clarinetist Charlie Gabriel (New Orleans Times-Picayune).

Valerie Russ reports about a lawsuit about ownership of a house in Philadelphia known as the Coltrane House because John Coltrane lived here between 1952 and 1958 (Philadelphia Inquirer). --- T.J. English remembers the life of pianist Harry Whitaker (Village Voice). --- Knut Benzner visits the Lippmann+Rau jazz and blues archive in Eisenach, Germany (Deutschlandfunk Kultur).

Michael J. West talks to pianist Orrin Evans about being artist-in-residence at the DC Jazz Festival (Washington Post). --- Doug MacCash reports about Perseverance Hall in New Orleans, a historic building that collapsed after heavy rain (New Orleans Times-Picayune). --- Jens Wehn remembers the Jazzfest Karlsruhe, Germany, that took place between 1978 and 1998 and has will be revived for a one-day occurrence (Badische Neueste Nachrichten).

Oliver Hochkeppel introduces the young German saxophonist Moritz Stahl (Süddeutsche Zeitung). --- Charles Rees talks to saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi about his colleague, the late Steve Grossman (London Jazz News).

Obituaries

We learned of the passing of German clarinetist Rolf Kühn at age 92 (Die Zeit, FAZ, BR Klassik), organist Joey DeFrancesco at age 51 (New York Times, BR Klassik), cellist Abdul Wadud at age 75 (New York Times, Do the Math), Swiss drummer Fredy Studer at age 74 (Berner Zeitung, SRF), German publicist Walter Lachenmann at age 85 (Münchner Merkur), critic Michael Bourne at age 75 (WBGO, Down Beat), trumpeter Jaimie Branch at age 39 (Pitchfork, NPR, The Guardian, Washington Post, New York Times, 48 Hills), trumpeter Don Miller at age 53 (Naples Daily News), pianist Butch Thompson at age 78 (Minneapolis Star-Tribune), guitarist Monette Sudler at age 70 (WHYY), Vietnamese-Belgian singer Bébé Suong at age 89 (RTBF), producer Creed Taylor at age 93 (New York Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung, NPR, JazzWax, The Guardian), drummer Billy Kaye at age 89 (Allegro), Indigenous Australian guitarist and vocalist Archie Roach at age 66 (New York Times), saxophonist Gilbert Mirande from the French Antilles at age 67 (France Antilles Martinique), as well as pianist Warren Bernhardt at age 83 (WBGO).

From the World of Jazz Research

Playback with Lewis Porter
US musicologist and pianist Lewis Porter has started a new blog in which he plans to publish "never-published research on everyone from Jelly Roll Morton through Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and beyond". The first post contains a never-before heard audio interview with Charlie Parker from 1954 (Playback with Lewis Porter).

Last Week at the Jazzinstitut

Roots | Heimat. Diversity in Jazz
At the 17^th Darmstadt Jazzforum conference in October 2021 (Roots | Heimat) we talked about diversity and how it is (or is not) reflected in today's jazz scene, specifically in Germany. Now the papers and discussions have been documented in a book as volume 17 of our Darmstadt Studies in Jazz Research. As the back cover says: "Jazz is a symbol of diversity - at least that's what one might think when looking at the history of African-American music. But do we, especially in Europe, pay enough respect to this idea? Isn't our adoration of the great jazz heroes mere lip service when, while this music is all about freedom and individuality, women participants in the jazz scene are still rare, not to mention BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color)? Hasn't jazz in Germany long since become an established high culture, made and heard only by an academic minority? And if so, how satisfied are we with the status quo, or what might be measures to change it?" The book contains papers and panel discussions by and with Reza Askari, Vincent Bababoutilabo, Sophie Emilie Beha, Frieder Blume, Jean-Paul Bourelly, Sylvia Freydank, Ádám Havas, Therese Hueber, Peter Kemper, Harald Kisiedu, Sanni Lötzsch, Anna-Lise Malmros, Gabriele Maurer, Stephan Meinberg, Ella O'Brien-Coker, Constanze Schliebs, Philipp Schmickl, Simin Tander, Philipp Teriete, Nico Thom Joana Tischkau, Niklaus Troxler, Luise Volkmann, Timo Vollbrecht, Kornelia Vossebein, and Jo Wespel (Wolke Verlag).

The Future of Jazz
Traditionally the publication of our conference proceedings sets in motion the planning for the next conference in the fall 2023 which will focus on "the future of jazz". We will let you know more details, together with a call for papers, within the next couple of weeks.

Slak! + Appaloosa
On 21 August the Jazzinstitut was backdrop to a another event: the opening of "SLAK!" an exhibition of music comics by Frankfurt-based graphic designer Holger Klein (Darmstädter Echo). The exhibition will remain open until the end of November (Slak!). Right after the opening the crowd enjoyed an outdoor-concert by Appaloosa, a young band from Nürnberg that we had invited for our current short residency series. Their four-day residency focused on the music as well as about the idea and practicability of sustainability when touring or organizing concerts (Darmstädter Echo).

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.