Pianist Dick Hyman, a many-colored chameleon
It takes an exceptional chameleon to be able to master every piano style of consequence in jazz history. There have been some good comprehensive players; the late Dr. Billy Taylor comes to mind. But it takes an extraordinary artist to be able to accurately interpret the work of great pianists in their own respective vernaculars, ...
Brando’s bead on jazz in “The Wild One” @ L.A. Jazz Institute festival
We so enjoyed the opening-night concert of “Jazz Themes from Hollywood: West Coast Jazz at the Movies,” a four-day festival sponsored by the LA Jazz Institute now going on in a big subterranean ballroom at the LAX Marriott hotel. The concert paid tribute to the film music of Shorty Rogers and Leith Stevens, alternately composers ...
Cool Hollywood jazz feted in festival
Jazz has been such an integral component to American motion picture soundtracks for so long, we sometimes forget it wasn’t always so. Try to think of modern motion picture soundtracks without jazz and it’s, well, unthinkable. Don Ellis’s vibrant, taut music to “The French Connection,” Johnny Mandel’s poignant songs like ”The Shadow of Your Smile” ...
Life achievement award for jazzman Hubert Laws
Oct
8
2013
In the photo, famed jazz and classical music flutist and saxophonist Hubert Laws, who will be presented with the Los Angeles Jazz Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the Society’s 30th Anniversary Jazz Tribute Awards Dinner and Concert on October 27. Laws, a graduate of the Julliard School and a forty-year jazz professional, an NEA jazz ...
Herb Alpert, son of Los Angeles, honored with National Medal of Arts
Jul
8
2013
On July 10, 2013, President Barack Obama will recognize Herb Alpert for lifetime contribution to the arts with one of the 12 Medal of Arts bestowed annually by the White House. Herb Alpert is a music legend, as a performing artist in both jazz and popular realms, and as an industry producer. He is an ...
Awakened by the blast of two mighty big bands 1
Jun
24
2013
There’s a resurgence of big-band jazz and that’s a good thing. We enjoyed two recent forays into the reemergence of this distinctly American art form. On Saturday June 1, Grammy-nominated Kim Richmond Concert Jazz Orchestra blasted the rafters off Upstairs at Vitello’s, the chic second-floor jazz outlet in Studio City. The occasion was the celebration ...
Capitol Records “Hollywood Jazz” mural celebrated
May
2
2013
“Hollywood Jazz – 1945-1972,” a jazz mural, image posted above, commissioned by the Los Angeles Jazz Society, deteriorated since its unveiling on October 27, 1990. But great news — it has just been beautifully restored by Capitol Records. Artists featured in the mural include Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Charlie Parker, Tito Puente, Miles Davis, ...
Review: Kenny Barron hits the hoops for Da Camera Society concert
It was a jazz concert in an unlikely locale. Pianist Kenny Barron, whose teammates have included Roy Haynes, Lee Morgan, James Moody, Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson, and Yusef Lateef, unleashed a magical solo piano recital in a boy’s gym. It was the refurbished indoor basketball court of the 28th Street YMCA Building — a glorious ...
Los Angeles jazz history evoked in Kenny Barron concert
I’m super excited to attend a concert by a jazz giant, pianist Kenny Barron, at the historic Dunbar Hotel on Central Avenue in L.A. The event is being staged by the Da Camera Society’s “Music in Historic Places” run by the Society since 1980 – a series of concerts matching world-class ensembles with historically and ...
Ornette Coleman via Shirley Clarke via Ross Lipman
arts·meme friend Ross Lipman, a primo art-film restorationist, clues us into a very cool screening of a documentary directed by the feminist filmmaker Shirley Clarke (Lipman is an expert and advocate of her work) next weekend at the Billy Wilder Theater. It’s “Ornette: Made in America,” to be screened in the mid-stream days of UCLA ...