Michelle Simms-Burton for DC Metro Theater Arts – The East Coast has the Newport and DC jazz festivals. The Midwest claims the world’s largest free jazz extravaganza, the Detroit Jazz Festival. The South showcases jazz and R&B talent at the New Orleans Jazz Festival. The jazz at sea festivals occur each January. But the West Coast has the acclaimed Monterey Jazz Festival celebrating its sixty-second year this September.

If you ever wanted to attend the Monterey Jazz Festival but for logistical reasons you haven’t, try enjoying some of its finest musicians with the Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour, presented by Washington Performing Arts at the Music Center at Strathmore on March 21.

Led by musical director, pianist, and composer Christian Sands, the sextet will include three-time Grammy-winning vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant; trumpeter Bria Skonberg; tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, who is the 2013 winner of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition; Yasushi Nakamura on bass; and Jamison Ross on drums. Sands and Nakamura recorded together on Sands’ latest album, “Facing Dragons.”

Sands promises attending the concert will be “a whole lot of fun,” with the sextet performing some jazz standards as well as compositions by him. In an egalitarian and inclusive fashion, each band member will also present a piece of their choosing.

The makeup of the sextet reflects Monterey Jazz Festival’s efforts to address the criticism levied at “the jazz world and beyond […] for a lack of women instrumentalists being represented on the stages of major festivals and clubs,” according to its website. The band includes three innovative and world-class female musicians.

As music director of Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour, Sands’ job is to get “everyone’s vision on the same page. Everyone is from the same tree, but we are different branches. My job is to put it all together.” Melding the talent of accomplished and keen musicians may not be the easiest of tasks. However, all of the musicians, according to Sands, have previously played together in “various configurations, but this is the first time we are hitting the grind and presenting the show together.” This sextet previously performed together at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 2018.

Read full article on DC Metro Theater Arts

Christian Sands on TKA

Cécile McLorin Salvant on TKA

Melissa Aldana on TKA

South Carolina-based ensemble Ranky Tanky hits The Artist’s Lounge on TODAY to perform a new single titled “Freedom” from their upcoming album Good Time.

The critically acclaimed outfit hailing from Charleston, SC — comprised of Quiana Parler (vocals), Charlton Singleton (trumpet, vocals), Clay Ross (guitar, vocals), Kevin Hamilton (bass) and Quentin Baxter (drums, percussion) – appeared on NBC’s TODAY show performing their new single “Freedom.” “The idea of ‘Freedom’ is at the heart of the American identity, and particularly for the Gullah people who are descendants of enslaved African-Americans,” states the band as a collective. “Freedom is a universal anthem. This song holds a universal truth, yet undoubtedly represents something different to every individual that hears it. We believe everyone in the world deserves the freedom to live in equality and prosperity.” Resilience Music Alliance is proud to announce the band’s sophomore album Good Time for release in Fall of 2019 – with the lead single “Freedom” available digitally for pre-order Friday, March 15.

Ranky Tanky released their eponymous debut on Oct. 20th, 2017. By December of that year, the group had been been profiled on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross and their album soared to the #1 position on the Billboard, iTunes, and Amazon Jazz Charts.

Watch full performance on TODAY

Ranky Tanky on TKA

Peter Facini for The New York Times – A friend gave Bob Parent a tip: be at the Open Door on West 3rd Street on Sunday.

Mr. Parent, a photographer with a knack for showing up at the right time and place, didn’t need much encouragement. He arrived at the jazz club early in the evening of Sept. 13, 1953. It was unseasonably cool for late summer. The New York Times front page detailed the marriage of Senator John F. Kennedy and the glamorous Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, R.I. The Brooklyn Dodgers had just clinched the pennant in Milwaukee.

The show that night was billed as the Thelonious Monk Trio. Monk, 35, was already a prolific composer and piano innovator, yet it would take a decade for his brilliance to be fully appreciated by mainstream America. The trio was rounded out by Charles Mingus, 31, on standup bass and the youngster Roy Haynes, a 28-year-old hotshot drummer everyone called “Snap Crackle.”

The Open Door was a dark little joint that Mr. Haynes would later characterize as “a dump.” The jazz historian Dan Morgenstern was slightly more generous in his description: “It was a strange place but had great music.” There was an out-of-tune piano in the front room that was presided over on most nights by a woman known as Broadway Rose. She sang popular songs of the day.

Mr. Parent set up in the back room where the bands played. Then 30 years old, he had been making good side money shooting photos for magazines like Downbeat and Life; record companies sometimes bought his pictures for album covers. “Bobby was a terrific guy,” Mr. Morgenstern recalled. “He had a job at the United Nations doing press stuff. He was always around.”

There was nothing about the Open Door to signal that magic was about to happen or that jazz history was about to be made. The place was half-empty, and Sunday was a dark night at many of the big nightclubs in New York City. Bob Reisner, a part-time jazz critic for The Village Voice, was also a promoter, and he booked minor clubs. Reisner knew he could get great musicians on Sunday, even at a second-rate venue like the Open Door.

With Monk, Mingus and Haynes, he had certainly booked a top-shelf trio, reason enough to make the trip downtown. The word on the street that afternoon — and what a savvy Bob Parent already knew — was that there was a good chance Charlie Parker would sit in with the trio.

Parker, the saxophone bebop pioneer, still only 33, had been trying to shake off a bad stretch in his tumultuous career. For reasons unclear, possibly drug- related, Parker had his cabaret license pulled. Without that card he was not allowed to perform in New York clubs where alcohol was served. This ban forced him on the road for some time. Now he was back in the city and living in a rowhouse in Alphabet City with his longtime girlfriend Chan Richardson and their three children. He was eager to get his card back.

Monk was also working without his cabaret card. It would be four more years before he was able to recover his. The cabaret laws were a biased and punitive system that capriciously caused financial suffering for scores of musicians. Any police officer in the city could pull a musician’s card, and there was little they could do about it. On this night, Parker and Monk were taking a chance.

There are no known audio recordings of this gig. The only record of the occurrence of this particular quartet was captured by Bob Parent’s Pressman Speed Graphic camera. Mr. Parent developed a signature technique that allowed him to work without flashbulbs, which performers found distracting. It gave his work a dark and intimate feel.

One photo from the Open Door that night has since become a jazz icon. It shows Parker standing out front, wearing a light suit, two-toned loafers, his arms thrust forward, blowing what appears to be his famous King brass alto saxophone. To Parker’s left is Monk on upright piano, microphone slung over the instrument. Two drinking glasses and a dinner plate perched on top. At Monk’s right is Mingus, slouched over his bass. Along the back wall is Mr. Haynes, his eyes fixed on his bandmates, himself under the gaze of the two mysterious mermaids painted on the wall behind him.

It has since been called by many “the greatest photo in jazz.”

Bob Parent died in 1987, and his photo archive is curated by his nephew Dale Parent. “We refer to it as ‘the Photo,” said Dale. “It’s a monument to his craft and we take great pride in its appreciation.”

Charlie Parker’s stepdaughter Kim, who is now 75, has a copy of the picture that she keeps in her home in Pennsylvania. “I am thankful for all the photos,” Ms. Parker said. “I live with the ghosts.” For her, the photo is priceless. “I’m looking at it now,” she said when reached on the phone. “Roy Haynes had a crush on me at one point,” she recalled. “Monk was my favorite, loved Monk. I wish I was there that night.”

Mr. Haynes is now 93, the only living member of the quartet that night. He still has memories of that performance. “It was beautiful, man,” he said recently. “I was at a very young age. So I was enjoying it. Playing with great people. “

Read full article on the New York Times

Roy Haynes on TKA

Catherine Russell’s “Alone Together” Radio Highlights This Week:

Debuts #9 JazzWeek!! Highest Debut / Most Added / Biggest Gainer

#1 Most Added JazzWeek w/+43 Out Of The Box Reports!

#1 Increased Airplay JazzWeek w/+196 Spins!!

Tied For #1 Most Added NACC College Jazz!

Debuts #6 NACC College Jazz Top-30!!

Matt Micucci for Jazziz Magazine – Alone Together is vocalist Catherine Russell’s seventh album as a leader. It is a search for truth that draws on the celebrated composers and lyricists of the Great American Songbook and the songwriters of the swing and blues eras. In fact, the 13 timeless songs on her new outing ask timeless questions. This is true of Irving Berlin’s contemplative “How Deep is the Ocean,” Russell’s philosophical reading of the popular swing era hit “You Can’t Pull the Wool Over My Eyes,” and Louis Jordan’s fun blues tunes “Early in the Morning” and “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby,” among others. Alone Together features the core musicians of Russell’s touring band, including guitar virtuoso and musical director Matt Munisteri, pianist Mark Shane, bassist Tal Ronen and drummer Mark McLean.

One of these songs is “You Can’t Pull the Wool Over My Eyes,” a big band hit from the mid-’30s, popularized by such acts as Benny Goodman and His Orchestra. “Honesty is a good thing, and that is what the tune is about,” says Russell, “and you can’t fool me.” Watch the premiere of the video for the song via the player below:

The album’s title track is arguably the most famous composition by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz. First introduced in the Broadway musical Flying Colors in 1932, it is a song full of hope that if everyone sticks together, we can overcome whatever is in front of us. Artie Shaw became the first jazz musician to record it in 1939, and since then, it has become a jazz standard.

Catherine Russell on TKA

Read Full Album Review on Jazziz 

Read Full Review of You Can’t Pull Wool Over My Eyes Premier On Jazziz

Alone Together on Dot Time Records

Hank Shteamer for Rolling Stone – These days, you hear a lot of talk about so-called spiritual jazz, a Sixties and Seventies subgenre that resonates strongly in the work of contemporary standouts like Kamasi Washington and Nubya Garcia. Along with John and Alice Coltrane, one of the patron saints of the unofficial movement is saxophonist Pharoah Sanders.

In 1969, Sanders released “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” a 30-minute track that summed up the spiritual-jazz aesthetic with its blend of blissed-out, meditative vamping and fiery abstraction — as well as some ecstatic yodeling from vocalist Leon Thomas. Now, a little more than 50 years after the track came out on the album Karma, Sanders has reprised it in collaboration with organist Joey DeFrancesco. “Creator” is one of a handful of tracks on keyboardist’s uplifting new album, In the Key of the Universe, that features Sanders. DeFrancesco might be better known for his work in earthier jazz styles — he also teamed up with Van Morrison for 2018’s fun, bluesy You’re Driving Me Crazy — but he sounds right at home here.

Like the original, the new “Creator” starts off with a stirring free-form intro. Sanders’ still-luminous tenor floats over DeFrancesco’s lush, churchy textures, as veteran drummer Billy Hart adds rumbling tom-toms, and percussionist Sammy Figueroa blends in shakers and chimes. Then bassist Troy Roberts comes in with the track’s signature four-note vamp, and Sanders begins a relaxed yet powerful solo.

Later, the saxophonist comes in on vocals, reprising Thomas’ memorable chant while slightly tweaking the original lyrics: “The creator has a master plan/Peace and happiness to all the land.” He never launches into a full yodel, but he does do a bit of scatting near the end.

While the original epic contrasted its warm, melodic opening with a gritty improv blowout later on, this modest 11-minute version remains smooth and groovy pretty much all the way through. A half-century later, it still sounds like the ultimate hippie-jazz anthem — incense in musical form.

Read full article on Rolling Stone

Joey DeFrancesco on TKA

Pharoah Sanders on TKA

Jim Macnie for Downbeat Magazine – Pop-centric music sites make room for reviews of ancient Impulse! reissues, Kamasi Washington reignites the concept of soul-groove expressionism as both prayer book and political manifesto, and writers measure the breadth, value and impact of “cosmic” improv in pieces that dot the internet. The fire music that certain maestros conjured during the late ’60s is enjoying a heyday, and its trickle-down is having a bit more reach than even its most ardent supporters might have imagined.

A couple years ago, I wouldn’t have bet that a Pharoah Sanders and Joey DeFrancesco collab was in the cards, but In The Key Of The Universe, finds the 47-year-old organ virtuoso and 78-year-old reed magician celebrating “The Creator Has A Master Plan,” the half-century-old song of praise that was the centerpiece of Sanders’ earthshaking album Karma.

Though there’s plenty of bounce and swing in play throughout the 10-track program, DeFrancesco’s self-professed embrace of spiritual jazz employs the kind of contemplative aura that gave so many of yesteryear’s exploratory efforts their personality. Functionally, it can come from the use of dreamy long tones and pensive phrasings. At several points here, a simmering heat, rather than a roiling squall, shapes the record’s temperament. A bit less predictable than previous groove-fueled DeFrancesco discs, In The Key Of The Universe is marked by a strain of passion that prioritizes grace. Even the emotions that Sanders reveals during “And So It Is” are refined, their gravitas bolstered by a fierce rendering of lines, not a tempest of multiphonics. With veteran drummer Billy Hart – who was part of the original “Creator” recording in 1969 – contouring the action, there’s an exquisite flow to the entire program.

To some degree, this aesthetic shift could be spotted in the cool fervor of “Life Every Voice And Sing” and “A Change Is Gonna Come” from DeFrancesco’s 2017 album, Project Freedom. That’s where the thoughtful impact of Troy Roberts came into play. The saxophonist has a key role here, as well, bringing eloquence to his nuanced solos on “Vibrations In Blue” and “A Path Through The Noise,” and tastefully echoing Trane when bolstering the music’s searching quality. There’s a sobriety to his work, identifiable even on the boppish ditty “It Swung Wide Open,” where DeFrancesco returns to the kind of barn-burning romp that earned him his rep.

When Sanders and Roberts’ horn blow side by side on the title track (which sounds like it could be pinched from McCoy Tyner’s songbook), the air gets thick. And the bookend solos of the elder’s pithy excursion, and the keyboardist’s curt stroll, are a sweet intergenerational trade reminding listeners that improv can be a place where various roads converge, and everyone benefits from the exchange.

Joey DeFrancesco on TKA

Read full article on Downbeat

In The Key Of The Universe on Mack Avenue Records

Rising American jazz pianist, Christian Sands, has been nominated in the “Outstanding Jazz Album” category for his 2018 release Facing Dragons on Mack Avenue Records at the 50th Annual NAACP Image Awards. Winners will be announced March 30, 2019 from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, CA.

See full list of nominees here

Christian Sands on TKA

Michael Bourne for WBGO – Catherine Russell is one of the most Herculean singers I know. She sings all across the musical spectrum, but she’s especially full of blues and swing. 

She blew the roof off Mohonk last month, in a Blues Jam and in a Singers Jam. Cat and Roseanna Vitro singing together at the climax of the Singers Jam was seismic.

Her new album, Alone Together, comes out March 1, but she previewed the album with me on Singers Unlimited, with pianist Mark Shane. Heart-lifting ballads: “Shake Down The Stars” and “How Deep Is The Ocean?” Classic swingers: “Errand Girl for Rhythm” and “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby?” And feisty songs like only Cat sings best: “You’re Not The Only Oyster in the Stew”; “He May Be Your Dog But He’s Wearing My Collar.”

Listen to full preview on WBGO

Catherine Russell on TKA

The Recording Academy announced the winners for the 61st annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, February 10th, 2019 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA. Among them was the sensational vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant for Best Jazz Vocal Album for her 2018 Mack Avenue Records release, The Window. This is her third consecutive Grammy Award win in this category (previous wins include 2015 for For One To Love and in 2017 for Dreams and Daggers).

Find a complete list of Grammy Winners here

Cécile McLorin Salvant on TKA

SONY Music Masterworks – With over 2 million albums sold, a Grammy nomination and international recognition as one of the most successful and prolific jazz vocalist of her time, Stacey Kent stands strong among the artists that don’t have much left to prove.

She surprises us once more with her brand new album, I Know I Dream. Recorded inside the famous Angel Studios in London with an orchestra of around 60 musicians, this is her first orchestral album in a career that spans two decades and more than 15 albums. Stacey thought a long time about making such a record, but was waiting for the right time, as she states: “I’m very patient. This was something I knew I needed to do one day or another, but I didn’t want to make it at any cost or rush it in any way”. So when Sony and OKeh asked her about making an album with a big orchestra, she felt this was the moment: “It’s not every day that you get a call about a project with 58 musicians! Nowadays everyone tries to be reasonable but Sony had a real artistic vision”.

Meticulously produced by Tommy Lawrence and Stacey’s longtime collaborator (and husband!) Jim Tomlinson, the songs are arranged in a way that they are transporting the listeners instead of the size of the orchestra, which brings harmony and depth to the record and to the stories it tells. The most important thing for Stacey Kent was “to keep our sensibility and, at the center of everything, our sense of intimacy”. I Know I Dream revisits in fact the quintessence of her repertoire and soul with three songs in French (Juliette Greco’s Les Amours Perdues, originally written by Serge Gainsbourg, Nino Ferrer’s La Rua Madureira and Léo Ferré’s Avec le temps), four new compositions and five covers of Brazilian timeless classics including, for example, Carlos Jobim’s Photograph. I Know I Dream is a majestic and smooth delight, both panoramic and intimate at the same time: a self-portrait with a big orchestra, like a confidence whispered with 58 accomplices.

I Know I Dream is available everywhere now. 

Stacey Kent on TKA