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 ...
Matt (Harold Henry) Mattox, memorialized 1
MATT (Harold Henry) MATTOX b. Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, August 18, 1921 d. Perpignan, France, February 18, 2013 “I’ve never classified myself as a jazz teacher, I prefer to talk about ‘free-style dancing,’ which means I have a choice of movement for any piece of music,” said Mattox in a 1993 interview. To prepare for his ...
Groovin’ with Grusin & his huge jazz orchestra 1
Nov
7
2012
The 67-piece Symphonic Jazz Orchestra, the only ensemble of its kind in the country, will celebrate its tenth anniversary with a special concert featuring Academy and Grammy Award winning composer, arranger and pianist, Dave Grusin this Friday evening. Grusin has composed for such films as Fabulous Baker Boys, Havana, On Golden Pond, Tootsie, Milagro Beanfield ...
Wayne Shorter blows his own horn at L.A. Jazz Society tribute
At a swank do at the Universal Hilton Hotel Sunday evening, the Los Angeles Jazz Society, for the past 29 years the labor of love of Flip Manne (she’s the surviving widow of drummer Shelly Manne), honored saxophonist Wayne Shorter as its 2012 Jazz Tribute Honoree. Movie maven Leonard Maltin, also a jazz lover, smoothly ...