Matty Bannond reported on a live concert by Luxembourgish trio Reis/Demuth/Wiltgen for Jazz Journal magazine in April. He also reviewed new albums by Wolves & Mirrors and Julieta Eugenio for the Free Jazz Collective.
Larry Blumenfeld wants to share his column from The Nation about the return of the New Orleans Jazz Festival, which he says is more about cultural policy than music, and this one about Wadada Leo Smith, from the latest issue of Chamber Music, a publication he heartily endorses.
Jane Ira Bloom, winner of the 2022 JJA Jazz Award for Soprano Saxophonist of the Year, released her second duo project See Our Way, featuring 13 improvised duet tracks with longtime collaborator bassist Mark Helias on Bandcamp on Friday, April 1. This album follows Bloom & Helias’s critically acclaimed 2020 release Some Kind of Tomorrow.
Jose Dos Santos reports that “the most important issue for my jazz work in the past months was the nomination in Cubadisco 2022 (the Cuban Grammy award) of my notes for the album Los Herederos celebrating the 80th birthday of pianist Chucho Valdés.”
Doug Hall recently completed an interview-based profile of New England Conservatory’s Jazz Studies Artist in Residency program for WICN public radio. He interviewed director of jazz studies Ken Schaphorst, guest artistic resident Anna Webber, and two current NEC students. In addition, he posted a long-form piece for WICN profiling jazz legend Charles Mingus. He finally went out for a show, taking in a performance by Sons of Kemet at The Sinclair performance venue in Cambridge, Ma.
Howard Mandel wrote of the post-covid resurgence of 86-year-old American roots pianist Erwin Helfer for DownBeat, also reviewing Julieta Eugenio’s Jump and Candid reissues (favorites by Otis Spann and Mingus w/Dolphy/Curson/Richmond). He wrote “Jazz Here Before Armstrong” with Kent Richmond for the Jazz Institute of Chicago’s JazzGram, participated in a 7VirtualJazzClub international public Zoom event and a bi-lingual Zoom honoring JJA member Mirian Arbalejo with member Fiona Ross, organized by Chickjuarez Producciones. Mandel worked on Jazz Heroes followup with board member Susan Brink, on the ballot and tabulations with Laurence Donohue-Greene, on website rollout (big thanks to JJA webdesigner Melanie Nañez) and promotion of the 2022 JJA Jazz Awards (thanks to member Sue Auclair, also Janis Wilkins for the new logo), and submitted grant applications for funding of summer ’22 JJA projects.
Rick Mitchell launched, with co-producer Jeffrey Siegel and an active JJA committee, The Buzz: The Jazz Journalists Association Podcast. Its first three episodes have included JJA president Howard Mandel introducing the organization, board member Susan Brink talking about Jazz Heroes, critic Neil Tesser (also a board member) and member Mark Ruffin, SiriusXM “Real Jazz” host, discussing the Awards winners. Rick maintains his own program, Jazz in the New Millennium, produced from KBOO, syndicated nationally to some dozen U.S. cities by the African American Public Radio Consortium.
Rob Shepherd interviewed Michael Leonhart on his latest Orchestra album, ‘The Normyn Suites.’ He also interviewed saxophonist Stuart Bogie on his new recording, ‘The Prophets in the City.’ Both interviews are available at PostGenre. Rob also profiled Harold McMillan for the JJA’s 2022 Jazz Heroes campaign.
Scott Thompson is going strong as publicist for artists including Heidi Martin with an All-Star band, Andrea Brachfeld & Infinity (w/ Bill O’Connell & friends), ARC Trio (Jimmy Haslip) the John Daversa Big Band, L.A. vocalist Sylvia Brooks, Vienna-based songwriter and singer Katherine Kostoff (w/ Gil Goldstein), Nikos Chatzitsakos Tiny Big Band, the Saturn Quartet and Anthony Gonzalez, who (launches Nine-PM Records).
Michael J. West profiled Dupont Brass for the Washington Post, also reviewing a concert by Buster Williams and spotlighting record producer Zev Feldman for the paper.
