Monthly Archives: July 2012

Concert review: Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan: The Voice

Date: July 22, 2012
Venue: house concert in the Upper West Side

Next show: August 1, at 8pm. Details here.

Review by Dawoud Kringle and photos by Marcus Simpson

Indian classical music is based essentially on vocal music. It is a widely held belief among the genre’s masters that without an understanding of vocal music, one cannot ever properly perform a raga. Arabic music, African, and some jazz (such as Dexter Gordon, who refused to play a song unless he knew the lyrics) all hold this to be true. So, when one is listening to a raga sung by a master, one is assured one is getting the real thing.

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Concert review and thoughts about Jazz: Michel Camilo keeps Jazzzzzzzzzz alivvvvvvvvve!!!

Venue: Highline Ballroom (NY)
Date: June 27, 2012.

Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Is jazz “really” dead? In 1975, when an angry, bitter and maybe exaggerating Miles Davis declared “Jazz is dead (it’s) the music of a museum,” I felt the same — especially when Fusion jazz and later Smooth jazz became very popular and very commercial, thus changing jazz into elevator and background music. Jazz became music that was “easy” to listen to and very accessible. Bored of that kind of music my interest went to American free jazz and to international jazz, such as European, Asian, African and Latin jazz.

As a jazz lover, I can say that this music has become stagnant, especially over the last twenty years. There’s no shortage of talented musicians out there, but jazz in America has gone decades without producing an artist capable of reinventing the genre the way Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, my mentor Ornette Coleman and many others did.

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Music listings – 7/30 through 8/5

1. JC Sanford

Date: Monday, July 30, 2012
Time: 9pm-11:30pm
Venue: Tea Lounge (837 Union St., bet. 6th & 7th Aves., Park Slope, Brooklyn)
Ticket: $5
Genre: Jazz

Trombonist/composer/conductor JC Sanford is a musician of rare breadth, deeply rooted in the traditions of Jazz and Classical music, yet constantly pushing at their boundaries. His collaboration with fellow composer David Schumacher and their jazz orchestra Sound Assembly yielded the CD Edge of the Mind, which received many accolades including CD Baby’s Top 10 Jazz Records of 2009. JC also conducts the twice-Grammy-nominated John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, the Alan Ferber Nonet with Strings, and the Alice Coltrane Orchestra featuring Ravi Coltrane and Jack DeJohnette. His large ensemble compositions push the limits of what is “expected” in a specific musical setting without totally abandoning the tradition of the genre, sounding adventurouswhile remaining “accessible.” This iteration of his ever-evolving ensemble features his unique blend of modern jazz and chamber music, employing several colors rarely seen in the traditional “big band” instrumentation including orchestral strings, vibraphone, F horn, double-reeds, and accordion.

2. VOXIFY: THE FAY VICTOR ENSEMBLE

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Yayoi Kusama (Japan) Retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art (NY): a not to miss show!!!!

Venue: Whitney Museum of American Art  (945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, New York NY 10021, mailto: info@whitney.org /(212) 570-3600)
Date: from July 12 – September 30, 2012
Hours: WEDNESDAYS 11am–6pm, THURSDAYS 11am–6pm, FRIDAYS 1pm–9pm, SATURDAYS 11am–6pm and SUNDAYS 11am–6 pm
General admission: $18

 

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Special women around us: punk music achieves an uproar in Russia – Pussy Riot are still in custody in Moscow!!!

Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Three young Russian female punk musicians, members of  a Russian feminist punk-rock collective the Pussy Riot, were arrested March 6 after a performance on the altar of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, February 21, 2012. Two weeks before March’s presidential vote, in which they asked Mother Mary to deliver Russia from Putin’s third presidential term. Maria Alyokhina (24), Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (23) and Yekaterina Samutsevich (29) performed a punk public prayer  and an anti-Putin song  “The Virgin, Putin banish.” They are accused by the authorities  of “hooliganism.” The three women were totally aware of their action and knew that public protests carried serious risks in Russia.

The lyrics (taken from the video below)

The virgin, Devo, Putin banish
Putin banish, Putin banish

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