March 3rd 2008
By Lyn Horton
What does the jazz writer know about the creative experience? That is the first question that the writer must ask himself when attempting to write about music that is fashioned spontaneously, intuitively, from the heart, from the gut, from the spirit, from living…the struggles, the hardships, the joys and the love.
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February 29th 2008
The move-to borough’s expanding scene: on a Saturday night the “creative music community” has a choice of alluring concerts.
Has it happened — Brooklyn become the center of the avant world?
February 12th 2008
The scene has been enacted countless times in coffee shops and dorm rooms: Folks sitting around and listening to or, maybe, just reading Joni Mitchell lyrics, digging for biographical facts, mulling over meanings, exclaiming “ooh” or “ahh” at an unexpected image drawn with words. But in May 2007, these were no college students on study break, no latte-sipping dilettantes kicking back, dissecting Mitchell’s work. This was Herbie Hancock reading aloud the lyrics of “Court and Spark.” And that was Wayne Shorter clapping his hands as he let out a deep sigh of recognition. It was the prelude to a session at Hollywood’s Ocean Way Recording studio for Hancock’s new album, River: The Joni Letters (Verve), which turned out to be not so much a tribute to Mitchell as an investment by a master musician in the power of exalted lyrics.
January 6th 2008
New Orleans — Three distinct groups lined up on St. Peter Street, just off Bourbon Street, one recent Sunday evening. The first awaited tall cocktails called “Hurricanes” at Pat O’Brien’s bar. The second had signed up for a “ghost tour” through the French Quarter. The third sought passage through the iron gates at 726, better known as Preservation Hall. Once inside, that last group sat in a dusty room on benches and narrow floor cushions, sans food or beverages, seeking to drink in only traditional jazz and to commune with a singularly haunted spot.
November 18th 2007
UMass Amherst, MA
Nov. 18, 2007
Crossover music may carry a listener to a destination where one kind of music is embellished by the accoutrements of another. But, how often does it happen that two musics are performed within ethics that define their breadth and similarity? And the exchange goes in both directions?
These questions were answered in a relentlessly musical two hour performance at UMass Amherst of The Dakshina Ensemble, a collaborative effort between Rudresh Mahanthappa, alto saxophonist, and Kadri Kopalnath, Indian classical music figure, also an alto player. This was the first concert for the annual Magic Triangle Series, now in its eighteenth year.
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