JJA Members Updates: February 2012

Here are the most recent publications and other work reported by the extremely active members of the Jazz Journalists Association. We never sleep!

David R. Adler will present a paper on late ’20s big bands during the 2012 EMP Pop Conference (March 22-25 in New York). He’ll focus on Chicago and Harlem bandleaders featured on the CD Hot House Stomp, by Brian Carpenter’s Ghost Train Orchestra. David also wrote liner notes for saxophonist Dayna Stephens’s new Criss Cross release, Today Is Tomorrow. He reviewed the Paul Motian Black Saint/Soul Note boxed set for Stereophile, and is currently writing about bassist Eddie Gomez for JazzTimes.

Gregg Akkerman, a new member of the JJA, has completed the first-ever biography of singer Johnny Hartman and submitted it to Scarecrow Press for editing and publication. The book is scheduled for a June release as part of Scarecrow’s Studies in Jazz series. Information is available at www.johnnyhartmanbook.com.

Bridget Arnwine‘s latest contributions to examiner.com include coverage of the 2012 NEA Jazz Masters Ceremony and an as yet to be published interview with music and culture writer, Stanley Crouch.

Phil Ballman is pleased to be a new member of the Jazz Journalists Association. He’s putting the finishing touches on the New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music’s 25th Anniversary Legacy Concert, which will take place on April 25th at Tishman Auditorium, and getting ready for the start of the Spring 2012 ‘Jazz Presents’ series he curates, which kicks off on February 15th featuring guitarist Vic Juris. On February 10th, he welcomes Dr. Chico Hamilton, Faculty Emeritus, back to the New School for Jazz with a special appearance at the ‘Eyes of the Masters’ master class / lecture series.

Jane Ira Bloom performs at the International Society of Improvising Musicians Conference at Shea Auditorium, William Patterson College in Wayne New Jersey on Saturday, Feb 18. At 11:00am she plays duo with pianist Bob Gluck and at 1:00pm will perform music from her recent Wingwalker CD with long-time collaborators pianist Dawn Clement, bassist Dean Johnson, and drummer Tom Rainey.

Shaun Brady wrote the cover story on Vijay Iyer for the January/February issue of JazzTimes and profiled Orrin Evans and his involvement in the BAM movement in a January cover story for the Philadelphia Citypaper.

Suzanne Cloud will be profiling Philadelphia singer Denise King and her new CD No Tricks with French pianist Olivier Hutman on Crystal Records in her Philly Jazz Journal blog at JazzTimes.com. The project was nominated last year for the Academie due Jazz Award and King will be embarking on a spring tour in Europe at the end of February.

Michele Drayton interviewed Philip Nostrand, a member of the team from the Community Law Clinic at Rutgers School of Law – Newark, which helped Frank Foster begin the process of reclaiming the copyright to his composition, “Shiny Stockings.” She also is on the committee of jazz DJs from WHPK 88.5 FM Chicago organizing a Black History Month celebration Feb. 25 at the International House on the University of Chicago campus.

Yvonne Ervin, JJA Vice President, was appointed editor of Hot House, where she has been a contributing writer since 2000. Her feature on Cedar Walton appeared in the magazine’s December issue.  She also recently accepted a position at her alma matter, the University of Arizona, where she received her BA in journalism. She is Director of Development for Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry.

Pamela Espeland will begin work in February on a series of hour-long radio programs titled “A Beautiful Noise.” The series will feature improvising musicians from Minnesota in conversation and live performance. It will air on jazz radio station KBEM (88.5 fm in Minneapolis-St. Paul, jazz88fm.com) later this year.

David Evanier‘s biography All the Things You Are: The Life of Tony Bennett has been published by John Wiley and Sons. It placed runner-up for best jazz book in the readers’ poll of JazzTimes and in its forthcoming critics’ poll (to be published in March).  The book has been reviewed favorably in Commentary, the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Jazz Times, and many other publications. Hofstra University sponsored an event in honor of the book in October. The panelists included Will Friedwald, Len Triola and David. Singers included Sarah Partridge, Eric Comstock, Lynn DiMenna,  and Sean Sullivan.

Andrew Gilbert is profiling Satoko Fujii and Tim Berne’s Snakeoil for the Boston Globe, the Eddie Palmieri/Brian Lynch Quartet and Chucho Valdes for the San Jose Mercury News, and reviewing the Musical Art Quintet’s debut CD Nuevo Chamber for California Report, a weekly radio magazine produced out of San Francisco’s KQED.

Steve Griggs wrote a feature on Seattle’s new venue, the Royal Room, and reviewed Kurt Ambruster’s new book on Seattle’s music history, Before Seattle Rocked.

James Hale is a contributor to a new music web site being launched by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in February.

Marcia Hillman has a feature article on Rene Marie in the February issue of The NYC Jazz Record and has just completed writing the liner notes for “Cedar Walton Presents Piero Odorici” to be released on the Savant Record label.

Patrick Hinely shot recording sessions in Brooklyn for Matthias Winckelmann’s ENJA label with Florian Weber, Thomas Morgan, Dan Weiss, and Lionel Loueke. On the way back via the F train, he ran into Bill Frisell, en route to a gig at the Village Vanguard. Big town, small world. One of Hinely’s photographs was chosen as the cover picture for the first issue of the new online reincarnation of Cadence magazine, and it is also one of four images featured inside with brief anecdotes about the circumstances surrounding their creation.

Willard Jenkins has embarked on a research project on the historic legacy of jazz radio and its significant deejays and personalities.  Any JJA members who have airchecks or memories they’d like to share of influential jazz deejays they’ve encountered, please contact him at willard@openskyjazz.com. Also,  he says, “in The Independent Ear  we’ve begun an honest dialogue on the age old questions of the black audience for jazz music.  Please weigh in with your thoughts.”

Matthew Kassel reviewed John Zorn’s Christmas album, A Dreamer’s Christmas, for the Jewish Daily Forward, and a Joel Frahm CD, Live at Smalls for The New York City Jazz Record. He interviewed Chucho Valdés for the Princeton Echo. He also recently moved to New York from New Jersey to write for the lifestyle section of Business Insider. He is living in Long Island City and plans to see a lot of jazz in the months (he hopes years) to come.

Robin Lloyd contributed to the Groove Notes blog a tribute to Clark Terry and his autobiography;  a preview of the movie A Drummer’s Dream; and a review of the film Treme Life.

Howard Mandel produced the JJA’s mini-conference at the APAP and Chamber Music America conventions in early January (with the invaluable assistance of Jo Ann Kawell, Yvonne Ervin, Susan Brink, several other JJA members and panelists drawn from throughout the music worlds, not just jazz). Besides blogging about the NEA Jazz Masters events, the roots jazz of Etta James and Johnny Otis, and Greg Lewis’s “Organ Monk” trio, he wrote about Winter Jazzfest for CityArts-New York and launched his spring semester class “The Arts:Jazz” at New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Howard will be on Emilie Pons’ panel “Music Writing” with JJA’rs James Hale, Michelle Mercer (and academic colleague Alan Stanbridge) at the Association  of Writers and Writing Programs conference in Chicago, Feb. 29 – March 3.

Matt Marshall was selected as a 2012 Creative Workforce Fellow in Literature. The Creative Workforce Fellowship is a program of the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture, made possible by the generous support of Cuyahoga County, Ohio citizens through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

Steve Monroe featured Blues Alley owner Harry Schnipper in the January Jazz Avenues column for MD/DC edition of Capital Community News in Washington, D.C. Monroe also tweeted  (@jazzavenues) on saxophonist Tedd Baker, sax legend Buck Hill, Cloudburst — the new Lambert, Hendricks and Ross tribute vocal group, Benito Gonzalez, Chris Byars and Freddie Redd at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, and Jimmy Cobb’s 84th Birthday Celebration at Bohemian Caverns, and wrote blogs on several performers.

Roberta Piket will be back in Europe performing with some of her favorite musicians between February 19 and March 3rd. The tour will take her to Luxembourg, Germany and Spain. She recently recorded her first solo piano CD.

Doug Ramsey‘s January Wall Street Journal column about Jan Lundgren traces the Swedish pianist’s conversion from championship tennis to jazz . It also tells of a stunning Lundgren trio album that he, Chuck Berghofer and Joe LaBarbera didn’t know had been recorded.

Jim Rice‘s  show, “Caught In The Act,” closed in January after a 3-month run at The Falcon, a world music venue in Marlboro NY. He is teaming with The Falcon’s publicist, Fern Frankie, to form a company to completely  design and package albums. In January he shot Elizabeth and The Catapult, Alexis P. Suter, Akie Bermis and Aabaraki, Moses Patrou, Chris Cubetta and the Liars Club, Sketchy Black Dog, Margaret McDuffie Trio, Myles Mancuso, Ed Palermo Big Band, Don Byron Quartet, Emilio Solla and the Tango Jazz Insiders.

Michal Shapiro was especially busy this month, covering APAP for her videoblog on the Huffington Post.  It was an inspiring event and she is still sorting through hours of footage.  She also appeared on a panel for the Jazz Journalists Association there entitled “Media for Audience Development.”  She is also currently working on an edit about the David Rubenstein Atrium and a segment of Mino Cinelu’s November concert at the French Institute.

Arnold Jay Smith is developing his blog,  Jazz Insights, which was the title of his former course at the New School (1979-2005).  It is still very much a W.I.P. (work-in-progress).  AJay is into his 12th year as Adjunct Professor of Jazz History at New Jersey City University, where his classes are oversubscribed. Last semester he and colleague Prof. Richard Lowenthal began a series of guest lecturers w/drummer & historian Kenny Washington. Vocalese artiste Jon Hendricks has expressed interest in the new series pending his own teaching schedule at the University of Toledo (OH).

Daniel Smith was recently voted winner of the 33rd Annual Jazz Station Poll in the category of Miscellaneous Instruments in Jazz. Cadence will be featuring Daniel in an interview on his career as the only bassoon soloist in both jazz and classical music. The interview will appear in audio on the Internet as well as in print. ‘Brazilian Jazz Concerto for Bassoon and Chamber Orchestra’, being composed and dedicated to Daniel Smith by Brazilian- American composer Joao MacDowell, is moving forward. Excerpts from this three movement concerto can be heard soon on Daniel Smith’s website.

Ron Sweetman devoted five programs of his weekly jazz radio show “In A Mellow Tone” in January and February to Black History Month, with programs on Benny Golson [January 25], Black artists who contributed to the Canadian Jazz Scene [February 8], the pioneers of the New Orleans clarinet style [February 15], Coleman Hawkins [February 22] and black boppers recording for the Jazzcraft label [February 29].

Use our JJA Member Directories to find  JJA members qualified to contribute to your  publication or production or to assist you with your jazz-related project.  The directories can be searched by name,  area of expertise and geographic location.

If you are a JJA Member and want your update to be included in next month’s roundup, send it to membernews@jazzjournalists.org by March 1, 2012.

If you aren’t a JJA Member yet, consider joining us. Membership is open to both Professional Journalists (writers, bloggers, photographers, videographers, web producers and others who cover jazz) and  Industry Associates (musicians, educators, presenters, promoters and others who work in the industry and support our work.)