My Blog

Post Headerby Felix Contreras Victor Pantoja was known for his role in the band Azteca. (Gary Eisenberg) The Latin jazz community was hit with another loss after the death of Victor Pantoja. The percussionist died late last week after battling lung cancer for three years. He was known as "El Negrito" among his musical colleagues. And he collected many colleagues after 50 years in the music business. A product of Spanish Harlem, Victor Pantoja was a career sideman. And like all great sidemen and women, Pantoja made his living by making the people who hired him sound good. Not only did ...

Post Headerby Patrick Jarenwattananon Claiming a late pass, 'cause it's after St. Patrick's Day already. But this Boston Globe story on Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick and his father Pat Patrick, of the Sun Ra Arkestra, is worth your time (H/T Rifftides): The cultural legacy of Laurdine "Pat" Patrick, who died of leukemia in 1991, is like gold for music historians, said officials at the Berklee College of Music, who announced yesterday that they have received a vast collection of the musician's archives as a gift from his son, Governor Deval Patrick."It was a lot of stuff, and we weren't quite sure what ...

Post Headerby Patrick Jarenwattananon This got us proselytizers of The Wire real excited yesterday afternoon at the office: Trailer Yes, that's Clarke Peters and a trombone-playing Wendell Pierce (Lester and Bunk of The Wire, respectively). And John Goodman. And a cameo from Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint. For those who haven't heard, Treme is the story of post-Katrina New Orleans, centered around a neighborhood famous for housing musicians. Like that other David Simon HBO show we rave about, it'll likely aim to make a grand statement about American urban life, with incredible authenticity to local color. We can't wait. [HBO: 'Treme' Web site] » ...

Post Headerby Patrick Jarenwattananon Christian Scott, in the inner sanctum of Rudy Van Gelder. (Kiel Scott) Here's some new music by trumpeter Christian Scott. It's the single from his forthcoming album Yesterday You Said Tomorrow, and it's called "The Eraser": var so = new SWFObject("/player/media1/mediaplayer.swf", "mediaplayer1", "400", "20", "8", "#FFFFFF"); so.addParam("allowScriptAccess", "sameDomain"); so.addParam("allowfullscreen", "true"); so.addVariable("callback", "http://www.npr.org/player/media1/track.php?Log=1"); so.addVariable("logo", "http://media.npr.org/player/media1/npr_watermark.png"); so.addVariable("file", "http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/blog/2010/03/20100316_blog_eraser.mp3"); so.write("flashcontent20100316_blog_eraser"); "The Eraser," from Christian Scott, Yesterday You Said Tomorrow (Concord Jazz). Christian Scott, trumpet; Matthew Stevens, guitar; Milton Fletcher, piano; Kris Funn, bass; Jamire Williams, drums. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: recorded April 22-25, 2009. Purchase: Amazon.com / Amazon MP3 ...

Post Headerby Patrick Jarenwattananon This got us proselytizers of The Wire real excited yesterday afternoon at the office: Trailer Yes, that's Clarke Peters and a trombone-playing Wendell Pierce (Lester and Bunk of The Wire, respectively). And John Goodman. And a cameo from Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint. For those who haven't heard, Treme is the story of post-Katrina New Orleans, centered around a neighborhood famous for housing musicians. Like that other David Simon HBO show we rave about, it'll likely aim to make a grand statement about American urban life, with incredible authenticity to local color. We can't wait. [HBO: 'Treme' Web site] » ...

Post Headerby Patrick Jarenwattananon Christian Scott, in the inner sanctum of Rudy Van Gelder. (Kiel Scott) Here's some new music by trumpeter Christian Scott. It's the single from his forthcoming album Yesterday You Said Tomorrow, and it's called "The Eraser": var so = new SWFObject("/player/media1/mediaplayer.swf", "mediaplayer1", "400", "20", "8", "#FFFFFF"); so.addParam("allowScriptAccess", "sameDomain"); so.addParam("allowfullscreen", "true"); so.addVariable("callback", "http://www.npr.org/player/media1/track.php?Log=1"); so.addVariable("logo", "http://media.npr.org/player/media1/npr_watermark.png"); so.addVariable("file", "http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/blog/2010/03/20100316_blog_eraser.mp3"); so.write("flashcontent20100316_blog_eraser"); "The Eraser," from Christian Scott, Yesterday You Said Tomorrow (Concord Jazz). Christian Scott, trumpet; Matthew Stevens, guitar; Milton Fletcher, piano; Kris Funn, bass; Jamire Williams, drums. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: recorded April 22-25, 2009. Purchase: Amazon.com / Amazon MP3 ...

Post Headerby Patrick Jarenwattananon No fail whale here. (TwitJazz.net) From the jazz blogosphere to the jazz micro-blogosphere -- or perhaps the other way around. Enter Twitter Jazz Network, a group blog run by folks who are frequently talking about jazz on Twitter. It's the brainchild of @MaryamLovesJazz (Twitter, personal Web site); she's also behind the calendar at DC Jazz Shows (also at @DCJazzShows), one of which I think every city needs. Anyhow, the site just posted two substantive entries: one round robin of new jazz discoveries of 2010, and Twitter tips for jazz musicians. The site also keeps lists of ...

Post Headerby Patrick Jarenwattananon Some links that we didn't get to blogging about: --The Miles Davis biopic featuring, co-written by, and directed by Don Cheadle will be scored by Herbie Hancock, Paste reports. --Darcy James Argue lists his top five big band records of the last 10 years. It references this DownBeat piece where artists talk about their favorite big-band records of all time. --An interesting set of thoughts on the divide between Jazz Manouche (aka Django-style "Gypsy Jazz") and "Real Jazz," from the Montreal writer Jenn Hardy. --The Leipzig String Quartet's recent concert featuring saxophonist Steve Wilson and pianist Pete Malinverni was recorded ...

Post Headerby Lars Gotrich What's Your Limit is a new semi-regular feature on ABS on a subject near and dear to my heart: vinyl. Not only that, but cassettes, CD-Rs, 7" singles and any manner of free jazz/avant-improv pressed to minuscule amounts, turning well-meaning music nerds into a disgusting frenzy of Paypal-trigger-happy fiends and, later on, furious online-bidding warriors. It's not only a world I consume, but one that I participate in, so forgive me if once in a while, some artist I've released on my record label turns up here. But, rest assured, you won't see any of my label's ...

Post Headerby Felix Contreras Diana Krall is poised to land a major haul of Juno Awards. (Robert Maxwell) Last week the nominations for Canada's Juno Awards were announced. It reminded me: we don't pay enough attention to our jazz friends up north. One of the headlines is that jazz vocalist Diana Krall is a triple threat this year: Artist of the Year, Album of the Year (for her latest, Quiet Nights) and Vocal Jazz Album of the Year. It's cool to see a jazz artist nominated for Artist of the Year. You don't see that too often with the Grammys, if ...