JJA Member Updates: July 2013

Looking for proof that jazz is alive and well? You’ll find the most recent publications and other work reported by the extremely active members of the Jazz Journalists Association after the jump. We never sleep! If you are a JJA member and would like your recent activities included in the next installment of Member Updates, send a brief paragraph beginning with your name to membernews@jazzjournalists.org by August 3, 2013.

David R. Adler is writing a piece on trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson for JazzTimes. His interview with Nels Cline and Julian Lage, and his “Before & After” column with guitarist David Gilmore, appear in the August 2013 issue of the magazine. David will also write liner notes for saxophonist Dayna Stephens’ forthcoming Criss Cross release I’ll Take My Chances.

Gregg Akkerman attended the JJA awards ceremony in New York as a nominee for Jazz Book of the Year. He then had a book signing at Malaprops Books in Asheville, NC to mark the paperback release of The Last Balladeer: The Johnny Hartman Story before relocating to Southern California to begin his next book for Scarecrow Press.

Philip Booth  recently interviewed Kurt Elling and Christian McBride (Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour) for stories published in the Tampa Bay Times, and David Sanchez (Ninety Miles) for a piece in the Gainesville Sun. He covered the French Quarter Fest in New Orleans for DownBeat, and reviewed new CDs for DB, JazzTimes, Jazziz, and Relix. Booth, a bassist, played festivals and clubs with Acme Jazz Garage and Trio Vibe. He blogs at Between the Grooves.

Steven Cerra recently posted an extensive blog feature on the late guitarist, Tal Farlow; a YouTube playlist featuring 23 Jazz Guitarists; and an audio-only tribute to the late master stride pianist Johnny Guarnieri.

Sharonne Cohen contributed an artist profile of Montreal-based guitarist Gary Schwartz to Downbeat‘s Players section, focusing on his recent Ornette Coleman-inspired recording LETTINGO; reviewed Jaimeo Brown’s genre-bending, spiritually uplifting recording Transcendence, as well as D’Angelo’s recent concert in Montreal, for JazzTimes. She is currently covering the Montreal Jazz Festival, also for JazzTimes.

Renetta DeBlase was asked by jazz critic and writer John Goodman to read and then write a review about Mingus Speaks, a book published by the University of California Press last month and based on 24 hours of interviews with Charles Mingus from 1972-1974. Renetta will also attend Brian Charette’s performance at the Twins Jazz Club in Washington, DC, on July 11.

Tanya Ellerbee, jazz/neo-soul vocalist, performs at the weekly jazz jam featuring the Radam Schwartz Trio and hosted by Eugene Golson at Ideal Lounge located at Frelinghuysen Avenue, Newark, NJ. There is no cover charge; just great music, great food/spirits.

Ken Franckling profiled pianist/bandleader Monty Alexander for the May issue of Hot House. Ken was profiled in the May issue of Living on the Suncoast magazine. Its Q&A/photo layout focused on his jazz photography and writing since the late 1970s, and his immersion into the rather busy Southwest Florida jazz scene since his move from Rhode Island in late 2011.

Reuben Jackson continues to host “Friday Night Jazz With Reuben Jackson” on Vermont Public Radio. During Burlington, Vermont’s recent Discover Jazz Festival, Reuben posted festival inspired haiku on the Vermont Public Radio blog, and a photo or two.

Sanford Josephson – The July-August issue of Jersey Jazz magazine will include a feature by Sanford Josephson on the Celebration of the Music of Dave Brubeck, held in May at Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.

Robin Lloyd sponsored and hosted an “Introduction to Jazz” concert and clinic at Aki Kurose Middle School in Seattle, with a grant provided by the Jazz Education Network and the Herb Alpert Foundation. Robin was also honored to present vocalist Gregory Porter with his Jazz Journalists Association Award for Best Male Vocalist of the Year live on stage at Seattle’s Jazz Alley.

Rudy Lu photographed several performances for nippertown.com and/or albanyjazz.com, including Long and Lonesome in West Sand Lake, NY; pianist Lee Shaw’s birthday party in Albany, NY; a jam session hosted by Joe Barna in Saratoga Springs, NY; Michael Louis Smith First Black Nation CD Release in Albany; Bruce Barth/Steve Nelson Quartet in Schenectady, NY; Ravi Coltrane Quartet in Saratoga Springs; George Clinton with Funkadelic/Parliament; and Day One of the Freihofer Jazz Festival.

Howard Mandel‘s article on Karl Berger and the Creative Music Studio appeared in The Wire in June. He also spoke about Cecil Taylor for the BBC radio show Newshour, besides directing the 2013 JJA Jazz Awards and 17th annual Jazz Awards party in New York, for the second year at the Blue Note. Howard produced an NPR segment on Morton Subotnick’s iPad app Pitch Painter, and wrote liners for singer Erin McDougald’s Outside the Soiree.

Ralph Miriello interviewed flautist Nicole Mitchell for the August Downbeat; did a two-part interview with jazz singer Kathy Kosins for Notes on Jazz; reviewed Dave Douglas’s Quintet at the Firehouse 12 in New Haven, and of Marvin Stamm and Mike Holober at the Carnegie Room in Nyack for his blog and the Huffington Post; and reviewed Ethan Iverson and Lee Konitz’s latest CD.

Martin Mueller headed west to LA and San Francisco, visiting Peter Erskine and Bob Minzter at USC, talent HS programs at LACHSA and the Colburn school, David Sears at Jazz Grammy Foundation, the JazzSchool in Berkeley, and Stanford Jazz Festival featuring Herbie Hancock with new performance technology of 47 speakers in surround sound.  Trip continued with a pop music conference in St. Paul, MN and annual meeting of IASJ in Denmark.

Jennifer Odell completed a profile on Kermit Ruffins pegged to his new album and other projects, and reviewed a few new discs including “This Is It!,” Preservation Hall’s excellent new release of all-original material, for Downbeat. She’s currently working with John Swenson and the New Orleans JJA to plan an evening of readings of Louis Armstrong’s written work on Aug. 4, the last day of Satchmo Summerfest.

Ana Isabel Ordonez of Ruby. Flower Records is producing a tribute album to Sun Ra’s Immeasurable Equation with music/reading by Marshall Allen and Elliott Levin. She’s using her gifts on writing children books, featuring her own illustrations. Every book is inspired by real characters depicting the adventures of jungle animals that happily ended up in a musical forest where anything, everything is possible. Choreography work based on the books is an ongoing project.

John Pietaro, vibraphonist/percussionist, will be performing with his band The Red Microphone at the Metropolitan Club (7/13) and then in a trio with Maryanne DeProphetis, vocals, and Chris Forbes, piano, at I Beam (7/26). He will also be rehearsing with Harmolodic Monk, a duet with trumpeter Matt Lavelle, and preparing for the Dissident Arts Festival which occurs in August.

Peter Pullman will be at Harlem Book Fair, on 125th Street, on Saturday, July 20. He will be selling Wail: The Life of Bud Powell. Check out the website, then stop by the National Writers Union table at the fair and pick up a paperback copy of the book. Peter is now on Twitter (@PeterPullman) and will be posting there about other upcoming appearances.

Karl Stober is working on four interviews for Cadence Magazine with Molly Ringwald, George Benson, Lisa Hilton, and Jane Monheit. Two major projects concerning two books are in the research stage: One is on the influence of addiction, and what it has on creativity in music and the arts; the other is a pictorial history on jazz with famed photographer Veronique Vial.

Bert Vuijsje has won the Jazz Media Award 2013. He received this bi-yearly prize  during the Dutch Jazz Day, June 28,  in Rotterdam, for his jazz journalism and his work as president of the Dutch Jazz Archive. The archive was part of Music Center The Netherlands, but this organization lost all its government funding and ceased to exist on January 1, 2013.

Lars Westin of Stockholm, Sweden is currently hosting a weekly series  of  ten one-hour radio shows,  The Jazz Archive, focusing on material from the vaults of the Swedish public service radio, including concert material and recorded interviews with Eric Dolphy, Miles Davis and others.

Deanna Witkowski plays on July 6 with Vanderlei Pereira and Blindfold Test at Fat Cat; on July 27 with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus at Lincoln Center Out of Doors; and daily from July 29-August 2 at Bryant Park on the annual Piano in the Park series.

Member Updates are edited by Michael J. West with assistance from Tanya Ellerbee.

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