Music Features

The talk of the town

Live jazz to die for

By JON GARELICK | September 13, 2006

BASS-IC: The Christian McBride Situation play the BeanTown Jazz Festival September 29.

With the Boston Globe Jazz & Blues Festival defunct and no other significant local jazz fest in sight, the BEANTOWN JAZZ FESTIVAL (September 28–October 1) has been stepping up to fill the void. Created by community activist Darryl Settles (proprietor of Bob’s Southern Bistro, formerly Bob the Chef’s) in 2000 as a one-day free South End block party, it’s now being produced by Berklee College of Music and has expanded to three days, with panel discussions. The musical performances begin Friday night at the Berklee Performance Center with the touring “THE STORY OF IMPULSE RECORDS,” a septet led by former John Coltrane Quartet pianist and Impulse mainstay MCCOY TYNER with saxophonist DAVE LIEBMAN, trumpeter WALLACE RONEY, trombonist STEVE TURRE, alto-saxophonist DONALD HARRISON, bassist CHARNETT MOFFETT, and drummer ERIC KAMU GRAVATT.

The Saturday free event (noon–7 pm on Columbus Avenue between Mass Ave and Burke Street) is a heady mix of local talents and international stars on three stages: tenor-saxist MIKE TUCKER, vocalist ELLEN O’BRIEN, alto-sax monster KENNY GARRETT, bassist CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE and his “Christian McBride Situation” with Oliver Lake and DJ Logic, singer CARMEN LUNDY and “The New Songbook Artists,” guitarist LIONEL LOUEKE, pianist OMAR SOSA, saxophonist Antonio Jackson, reggae guys HOT LIKE FIRE, and the soul-jazz UNWRAPPED ALL-STARS featuring Dennis Nelson. A stage sponsored by the local Marsalis Music label will feature former Miles Davis Quintet drummer JIMMY COBB with saxophonist JAVON JACKSON, trombonist DELFEAYO MARSALIS with a Berklee student group, guitarist/vocalist DOUG WAMBLE, and drummer MICHAEL CARVIN’s Quintet. The festival concludes Sunday with a paid-admission gospel brunch featuring KENDRICK OLIVER AND THE NEW LIFE JAZZ ORCHESTRA with special guest vocalist KEVIN MAHOGANY at the Westin Copley Place hotel (10 Huntington Ave) at 11 am. For tickets to the Friday and Sunday shows, visit www.ticketmaster.com or call 617.931.2000. For information on panel discussions and other events, visit www.beantownjazz.org or call 617.267.2203.

Meanwhile, there’s still plenty going on in the clubs. The Regattabar (Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett St, Cambridge; 617.395.7757) brings in bad-boy piano trio the BAD PLUS (September 22-23), Kenyan pianist/soul singer SHU (September 26), piano wunderkind MATT SAVAGE (September 27), keyboardist/songwriter/producer AL KOOPER with his Berklee bred Funky Faculty (September 28), Boston vocalist RON GILL and his tribute to Stephen Wonder (October 4), guitarist BEN MONDER with a trio (October 5), Parisian cabaret singer ANNIE ROYER (October 6), exciting young saxophonist ERIC ALEXANDER (October 7-8), the BOSTON HORNS with guest SAM KININGER (October 12), KURT ROSENWINKEL with his Toninho Horta Project (October 13-14), Polish trumpeter TOMASZ STANKO and his quartet (October 19), trumpeter SEAN JONES following his Mack Avenue release Roots (October 24), alt-jazz-guy trumpeter SKERIK with his Syncopated Taint Septet (October 25), the DAVE HOLLAND QUINTET (October 26-27), soul-jazz guitarist MELVIN SPARKS (October 31), pianist PIERRE HUREL (November 1), jazz-funk saxist KARL DENSON with his KD3 trio (November 2), pan-American singer-songwriter MARTA GÓMEZ (November 3), Boston Latin jazz-folk band SOL Y CANTO (November 4), singer DOMINIQUE EADE celebrating a new duo CD with pianist JED WILSON (November 14), and blues duo NICOLE NELSON/DWIGHT RITCHER (November 17).

1 | 2 | next >

Related: Spring leaves, Nights on the town, Close readings, More

Spring leaves
The provocative tripleheader bill “What Is Jazz?” was originally put together by the ropeadope label for a showcase of its roster at Tonic in New York: the Christian McBride Band , the Charlie Hunter Trio , and DJ Logic and Bobby Previte .
Nights on the town
By now, the bossa nova of Antonio Carlos Jobim has been completely ingrained in the language of jazz and pop.
Close readings
The JCA has been at it since 1985, a collective of musicians who are primarily composers rather than players, in need of an outlet to hear their pieces.
Trane, Joyce Dee Dee, Sco, and more
The official kickoff to the season begins with the week of activities celebrating the 30th anniversary of the John Coltrane Memorial Concert.
Beverly Sills, 1929–2007
Beverly Sills, the most loved American opera singer of her generation, died this past week from inoperable lung cancer at 78.
N.W.A.
Twenty years later, Straight Outta Compton holds up better than most of the East Coast albums released around the same time.
Forever 29
With its tradition of blues and jam bands, Allston’s Harpers Ferry isn’t the first place you’d expect one of Boston’s most promising hip-hop artists to celebrate his birthday.
Big business
Now that the music biz has licked its wounds from a nasty 2005, things are finally starting to heat up, and an indie-heavy winter is giving way to a more major spring.
Gnarls Barkley + Hercules and Love Affair
To the cynic, the scene milling around in front of the sold-out Wilbur could merely have been proof of the power of a hit single.
2. Chris Brown
Seems like yesterday that Chris Brown was just another cute, precocious R&B comer with an unfortunate overbite and an uncanny knack for mimicking Michael Jackson’s choreography. Now this little punk is allegedly imitating Ike Turner’s worst traits — and bringing new meaning to the phrase “hit record.” And while the US is trying to exit painful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, morons like Chris Brown are starting international incidents — Rihanna is the cultural ambassador of Barbados. Thanks for opening another front for us in the Caribbean, asshole.
Rear-view mirror
After a few days of Indian Summer to remind us of the summer we nearly didn't have, it's timely to shed some warm light on albums released recently that didn't get their proper due.
Less

Topics: Music Features , Entertainment, Music, Bebop, More

Comments

Add a Comment

view all

[ 11/21 ] Sara Tavares @ Berklee Performance Center

[ 11/21 ] Mystic Chorale @ Tremont Temple Baptist Church

[ 11/21 ] Terence Martin + Danielle Miraglia @ Old Ship Coffeehouse

[ 11/21 ] Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra @ Emmanuel Church

[ 11/21 ] Enter the Haggis @ Center for Arts In Natick

More Information

060915_fall_side

Fall Arts Preview 2006

ARTICLES BY JON GARELICK

MIXED MEDIA | November 18, 2009
Film noir has been a running theme in composer/pianist Ran Blake's work since the beginning of his career — his very first album, The Newest Sound Around (RCA, 1962), with singer Jeanne Lee, began with David Raskin's theme to Otto Preminger's Laura .

LIVE AND ON RECORD | November 04, 2009
To call Darius Jones’s music avant-garde seems almost beside the point. In its way, it’s older than old — it’s ancient.

HENRY THREADGILL ZOOID | THIS BRINGS US TO, VOLUME 1 | October 28, 2009
Henry Threadgill has been reinventing his language — and by extension the jazz language — for at least 30 years, beginning with the trio Air in the 1970s.

SLOW HAND | October 21, 2009
In his Village Voice review of Jeremy Udden’s Plainville (Fresh Sound New Talent), Jim Macnie recalled how a friend of his tried to file it as “jazz for Wilco fans.” As Macnie explained, that’s not the whole story with Udden or Plainville , but it’s not a bad starting point.

DAFNIS PRIETO SI O SI QUARTET | LIVE AT JAZZ STANDARD NYC | October 14, 2009
Prieto is one of the supermen drummers of contemporary jazz — Cuban-born, fluent in all idioms, a multitude of patterns flowing through him and into his hands and feet at any given point.

See all articles by: JON GARELICK

Most Viewed

Most Emailed

WE'RE KILLING THE OCEANS
I meet world-renowned undersea photojournalist Brian Skerry at Legal Seafoods, across from the New England Aquarium, where he's the explorer in residence. He orders a chicken Caesar salad.

REVIEW: THE BLIND SIDE
It’s tough for any self-respecting critic to refrain from joyously tackling a Sandra Bullock movie — so it’s a good thing The Blind Side isn’t one.

REVISITING THE GREATEST HARVARD-YALE GAME
It takes some doing to make Harvard look like an underdog in anything. But Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29 — Kevin Rafferty's 2008 movie (out now on DVD) and new book (released this past month) about the famous football rivalry — does just that.

INTERVIEW: GABOUREY SIDIBE
"While reading the book, I realized that I knew this girl in so many different people. Not just girls but boys, and not just black people but white and Asian and Indian."

REVIEW: PLANET 51
The opening for the latest animated kids’ fantasy is promising — but it’s for another movie.

WE'RE KILLING THE OCEANS
I meet world-renowned undersea photojournalist Brian Skerry at Legal Seafoods, across from the New England Aquarium, where he's the explorer in residence. He orders a chicken Caesar salad.

REVISITING THE GREATEST HARVARD-YALE GAME
It takes some doing to make Harvard look like an underdog in anything. But Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29 — Kevin Rafferty's 2008 movie (out now on DVD) and new book (released this past month) about the famous football rivalry — does just that.

TAXING CATHOLICS
Should the Roman Catholic Church, and the various subsidiary groups and organizations that exist under its umbrella and operate at its direction, be entitled to state- and federal-tax exemptions?

GROUP EFFORT
If you're inclined to play punk rock, chances are you've got a self-esteem problem. It's not an æsthetic that attracts the well-adjusted. Exhibit A: Mark Lind. As bassist and frontman of the Ducky Boys, he's opened for Rancid, U.S. Bombs, and Flogging Molly.