KUSP Features

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The One explores James Brown's innovative career and his background in a segregated south.

By Jeff Dayton-Johnson

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Ten Freedom Summers. Image courtesy of allaboutjazz.com

By Jeff Dayton-Johnson

Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith is among the most adventurous players in jazz, having worked with musicians ranging from Anthony Braxton to John Zorn. At 70, he seems to be only now hitting his stride. Ten Freedom Summers is his new composition cycle dedicated to the history of the Civil Rights movement. Spread over four and a half hours, featuring a jazz quintet and a chamber music ensemble, it’s tough, challenging work. The suite traces milestones of the movement — culminating in the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Memphis “I Have Been to the Mountaintop” speech, delivered on the eve on his assassination in April 1968 — and situates them in broad historic and thematic contexts.

KUSP’s Jeff Dayton-Johnson says there are few precedents for this work in jazz, in terms of ambition and creativity.

Some links:

Read Jeff Dayton-Johnson’s review for  allaboutjazz.com 

Wadada Leo Smith talking about the music (video)

NPR story with video on MLK’s April 1968 “Mountaintop” speech, the climax of Smith’s suite, and referenced in my review

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The reissue of Straight Life highlights early fusion solos. Image: allaboutjazz.com

By Jeff Dayton-Johnson

Last year’s reissue of Freddie Hubbard’s 1970 CTI label disc gives Hubbard, George Benson, Herbie Hancock and Joe Henderson room to demonstrate their virtuosity.  The original session took place at a time when much of jazz was showing the influence of Miles Davis’  Bitches Brew. This is no exception, but its lengthy improvisations often venture outside he mainstream.

Read Jeff Dayton-Johnson’s article at AllAboutJazz.com

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By Jeff Dayton-Johnson

Source: allaboutjazz.com

French jazz pianist Guillaume de Chassy leads a piano-clarinet-bass trio through a series of intimate, introspective adaptations of compositions by Poulenc, Prokofiev, Schubert and Shostakovich (among others) on a new record entitled Silences. From jazz, the trio borrows improvisation and empathy; from classical, the language and grammar of the compositions. Jazz and classical music are often combined, but not always happily. KUSP’s Jeff Dayton-Johnson says Silences, in its understated way, is an innovative marriage of the two musical traditions. The icing on the cake: a lush reading of the theme song to the 1945 film Adieu chérie.
Jeff Dayton-Johnson’s review of Silences at allaboutjazz.com
Jeff Dayton-Johnson’s 2007 interview with Guillaume de Chassy

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By Jeff Dayton-Johnson

Photo: Gérard Tissier

Jazz musicians have long been drawn to Moroccan music for inspiration. Three new releases illustrate that this musical cross-pollination is alive and well. Pianist Randy Weston ran a nightclub in Morocco in the late 1960s. His 1972 release Blue Moses, issued for the first time in the US on CD, adapts Moroccan themes to a big band that features trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and saxophonist Grover Washington Jr.

The Boston collective Club d’Elf, meanwhile, whose members include jazz pianist John Medeski and oud player Braham Frigbane, introduce a heavy dose of psychedelia in the mix on their Electric Moroccoland, and even feature a Maghrebi version of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” sung by Hassan Hakmoun.

Finally, oud master Majid Bekkas, who has frequently collaborated with jazz players, brings us Mabrouk, a marvel of small-group improvisation.
Moroccan and jazz musics mesh so well because both are already syntheses of so many styles. Jazz brought together African and European practices in New Orleans; Moroccan music, meanwhile, mixes Arabic, Berber and sub-Saharan traditions.
Read Jeff Dayton-Johnson’s review of Majid Bekkas’s Mabrou at allaboutjazz.com.

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 By Jeff Dayton-Johnson 

San Francisco’s Keystone Korner hosted performances by Miles Davis, Bill Evans and other renowned jazz musicians.  Keystone Korner operated in the 1970s and 80 in San Francisco’s North Beach. Photographer Kathy Sloane says her own art came of age in the club.

All photos by and courtesy of Kathy Sloane.

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Review by Jeff Dayton Johnson (Listen to review above)

If you scroll down the list of Grammy Nominations, you’ll find a track entitled “Falling Men” from the album “Shut Up and Dance,” written by John Hollenbeck and nominated as best instrumental composition.

Courtesy of Annabelle Tiaffay /ONJ

The album is by France’s national jazz orchestra, or, Orchestre National de Jazz. The ‘ONJ’ was created by the French Ministry of Culture in 1986 and is led currently by Director Daniel Yvinec.

KUSP’s Jeff Dayton-Johnson says it’s tight, propulsive work. You can also read his article at: allaboutjazz.com.

Listen to the track “Falling Men” here.