CHINA: The Shanghai Jazz Festival 2011

Jazz festival presents international, domestic acts

The Shanghai Jazz Festival at the BMW Master Hall will begin on Oct 15 in Shanghai, and end on Oct 23.

The festival, which has a seven-year history, has become the third biggest Jazz festival in Asia. At this year's festival, Erik Truffaz, Kenny Garrett, Take 6, McCoy Tyner, and John Pizzarelli will perform.
Other foreign Jazz musicians include: Roy Ayers, Tower of Power, Jojo Mayer, Jazzanova Live, Chris Potter, and Jose James. More than 100 Chinese bands will also take part.

China Daily

Lee Konitz, Dave Liebman & Richie Beirach - KnowingLee (OutNote 2011)

Beware, this trio resembles no other. To start with, the format is quite out of the ordinary; two saxophones and a piano. There is indeed nothing these three musicians enjoy more than freedom and risk taking. Lee Konitz, the elder (1927), alto saxophonist (and here equally splendid at the soprano) recently honored by the Charles Cros Academy « for his entire career »; and two almost contemporaries, Dave Liebman (1945) soprano and tenor saxophonist and Richie Beirach (1947) piano. The “younger” players show respect. They composed « Knowing Lee », the title track of the album. Al three share the same values of rigor and spontaneity, exactly as one of their spiritual masters, Lennie Tristano, used to teach. It is not by chance that they named the two compositions written with six hands « Trinity » and  « Don’t tell me what key ». In other words, you can follow this adventure blindfolded. You know where you are going. This coming together in a studio in the spring of 2010 can somehow be considered the natural culmination of their artistic career.  Richie Beirach was for instance already accompanying Konitz at the end of the Sixties before joining Liebman – with Eddie Gomez, bass, and Billy Hart, percussion – to form the Quest group, outstanding specialists in collective improvisation. These small bands, where each interpreter has his own space, have always had the favor of our three friends. Here they thoroughly enjoy themselves. In one instance the two saxophonists even challenge one another – amiably of course but without the piano – on the same instrument (the soprano) in « Alone together », one of the highlights of the album. During all of this divine hour, Lee, Dave and Richie gain altitude. On the summits, as everyone knows, the air is rarer … and purer.
OutNote

Israeli Piano Prodigy Takes Jazz World by Storm

Teenager Debuts in New York at Vanguard With Ravi Coltrane

At the improbably tender age of 15, Tel Aviv pianist Gadi Lehavi can play jazz with the kind of subtlety that would be remarkable at any age. Home-schooled since the eighth grade, he now feels the pull of New York, where his artistic peers are most plentiful and his musical development would probably be most rapid.

But for the moment, he is playing it by ear. While he is certain to raise his profile with a New York visit that will include a coveted six-night engagement at the Village Vanguard with Grammy-nominated saxophonist Ravi Coltrane (son of jazz legend John Coltrane), he is leaving his options open in Israel, whose jazz scene is rich in opportunity for study and performance.
“I’m young, and I love my parents, and they won’t be so happy if I leave,” he told the Forward. “But I really wish I could.”
Since at least the 1990s, Israelis have been making their mark in jazz. As Israeli schools have expanded their jazz studies programs and become increasingly connected with the global jazz scene, the trickle of first-rate players coming out of Israel — trumpeter Avishai Cohen, bassist Omer Avital and pianist Omer Klein, to name a few — has become a steady stream. But even among those players, Lehavi’s extraordinary precocity sets him apart.

“He’s from another planet,” said saxophonist David Liebman, recipient of the 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master award.
“These days we are inundated with whiz kids,” said Liebman. As founder and artistic director of the International Association of Schools of Jazz and artist in residence at the Manhattan School of Music, Liebman interacts widely with young musicians. “We get amazingly blasé when a new 16- or 18-year-old kid is killing or burning or happening, because we see it a lot. This guy even goes beyond that.”
Lehavi has been turning heads since at least the age of 13, when he joined Liebman for a duo performance of “Autumn Leaves” at the association’s 2010 meeting in The Hague. The performance, which has been viewed more than 22,000 times on YouTube, displays such sensitive touch, fresh ideas and exceptional listening skills that experts have been at a loss to explain it.
“He’s completely off the scale,” said Leon Segal, a Tel Aviv-based psychologist. An important figure in Israeli jazz education since the 1980s, Segal helped secure early support for the Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in Ramat Hasharon. Rimon, which offers college-level courses, is a founding member of Liebman’s association, a network of schools in some 40 countries.
Although prodigies often begin formal study as early as possible, Lehavi, whose parents said he was experimenting at the keyboard before his first birthday, started to take lessons at the relatively advanced age of nine. Yamli Lehavi, his mother, wrote in an e-mail to the Forward that she and her husband wanted to allow him to “develop his hearing naturally” and not to “interfere with his spirit.”
Today, Gadi Lehavi’s feelings about formal classroom work at a dedicated music school are mixed. After depending on his ear for so long, he said, “really getting into the paper stuff in terms of theory is a good balance.” On the other hand, earning a degree at this point isn’t his main goal. “It’s the actual knowledge that you gain.”
When classes start at Rimon on October 30, Lehavi will have a place among the 600 students if he wants one, said Avikam Kimelman, the school’s general and academic director. Kimelman named 13 other students — saxophonists, pianists, guitarists and bassists — who hold “the promise to become the next thing in jazz.” But most are in their 20s, he said, while Lehavi enrolled at Rimon at 14.
Lehavi has taken advantage of other school opportunities. He said that a five-week summer program at the Berklee College of Music in Boston in 2009 led to his meeting pianist Joanne Brackeen, who introduced him to Coltrane, who in turn invited him to his Brooklyn home. Extended jam sessions there helped forge the bond that resulted in the Village Vanguard engagement, which will start on September 20.
Despite — or, possibly, because of — the outsized interest he attracts, Lehavi acknowledges occasional doubts about his gift should he move out of his comfort zone. “Maybe it’s really shallow,” he said, “like the cream at the top of the cake: It’s so wonderful, but if you try to get a piece of the cake, there’s nothing there. I’m really trying to fill the holes in case I get into something different and I crash.”
Wary of the possible hazards, his parents have not allowed him to become an object of curiosity. While they have agreed to quick tours with a trio playing reimagined standards and a few originals — last year, he went to Finland, Estonia and Lithuania; last month, to Russia — he has until now spent most of his time in Israel.
During the last school year, he played in a band at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance led by saxophonist Eli Degibri, 33, a standout from an earlier generation of Israeli jazz musicians. Degibri has recruited Lehavi for a new quartet, which will open the International Exposure for Jazz and World Music, a four-day showcase for 26 Israeli acts. The group will appear on November 16 at Yellow Submarine in Jerusalem.
Degibri recounted his years as a wunderkind in Israel, attending the venerable Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts before moving to America, where he enrolled at Berklee and the Thelonius Monk Institute. Over the past dozen years, he has made his name working with former Miles Davis bandmates such as pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Al Foster. Still, he said, he is not operating on Lehavi’s “amazing, even genius” level.
“I’m imagining Herbie Hancock and I’m imagining Gadi — two giants,” he said. “Obviously, we can’t say that Gadi is a major force in jazz because he’s not yet known. But I think he will be.”
Gadi Lehavi will be performing at the Village Vanguard in New York, September 20–25.


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Eric Legnini - The Vox (Discograph 2011)

The Vox, nouvel album d’Eric Legnini : Chansons soul pop (avec la sublime voix de Krystle Warren), explosions de cuivres afro-beat, pépites jazz-funk dans la pure tradition du trio... Un album charnière, pluriel. 

Le chef d’oeuvre d’Eric Legnini.

Ce disque constitue un incontestable tournant dans la carrière de celui dont on savait les talents multiples, aussi bien pianiste, arrangeur, compositeur que producteur. Avec The Vox, Eric Legnini porte ces quatre casquettes et délivre un album essentiel dans sa discographie, véritable aboutissement. 

S’il continue d’explorer la voie du trio avec ses compositions soul-funk, Legnini ouvre la voie du jazz vocal, en conviant la chanteuse noire américaine Krystle Warren sur la moitié des titres : la pop folk se mélange à la soul et les chansons s’envolent avec douceur. Mais le groove implacable du pianiste percute aussi l’afrobeat de Fela, avec explosions cuivrées et guitares saturées ou rend hommage au funk torride des Meters. 

Un album dans la pure tradition seventies, à la production léchée et moderne, mixé par les doigts magiques de l'américain Husky Höskulds (Yaël Naïm). 

Eric Legnini on MySpace

Czech Republic: Jeff Ballard Trio feat. Miguel Zenon, Lionel Loueke

Tue 6 September
10 pm - Jeff Ballard Trio feat. Miguel Zenon, Lionel Loueke 
@ Jazz Dock in Prague

Trio of one of the contemporary world's most famous drummers which is known mainly from Brad Mehldau Trio, Fly Trio and cooperation with Kurt Rosenwinkel, Chick Corea or Joshua Redman. Cooproducers of sparkling music of this project are guitarist Lionel Loueke and alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón. Do not miss this unique opportunity to see the stars of the world jazz at Jazz Dock stage (dr,g,as)! Admission 450 CZK, jun/sen 360 CZK.

HUNGARY: Forty bands at forty-year-old Jazz Days festival in Debrecen

web site

Forty international and Hungarian bands, 186 musicians will play jazz this weekend at the Jazz Days festival celebrating its 40th anniversary in Debrecen (E) this year.

The four-day event, which is Hungary's oldest jazz festival held each year, will start with a Jazz Marathon of groups from the Visegrad Four countries of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland an Slovakia on Thursday, the organisers told MTI.

In a highlight event also on Thursday American jazz saxophonist Chris Potter will appear on stage in a joint concert with the Budapest Jazz Orchestra.

The festival will also feature prominent Hungarian jazz pianist Bela Lakatos Szakcsi and young trumpet talent Gabor Subicz, a native of Debrecen.

On the event's sidelines a photo exhibition on the festival's past 40 years will be organised

caboodle.hu

The Heavyweights Brass Band - Don't Bring Me Down (2011)

The Heavyweights Brass Band are jazz, soul, funk, reggae and wailing horns served on a bed of hard-hitting drum grooves with a side order of the tunes that make you step.


Young Toronto collective THE HEAVYWEIGHTS BRASS BAND will come out swinging at this summer’s jazz festivals, culminating in a bare-knuckle knockout of a debut CD release concert at Toronto’s Harbourfront mainstage Friday, Sept 2nd.

Not since 1980s band The Shuffle Demons has there been such a fresh and fun take on jazz. Not your standard jazz fare, the band’s repertoire delivers a diverse range of music with a punch that makes jazz accessible for everyone.

The gloves are off when it comes to their choice and interpretation of songs. They range from funk, soul, R&B, and traditional New Orleans jazz to tasteful retro throwbacks (including War and Michael Jackson) to artistes du jour Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. Add some Latin/world music influences and outstanding original compositions and you have a unique, energetic mix that never fails to get folks moving and shaking.

The 13-track Don’t Bring Me Down was recorded at CBC’s studio 211 with engineer Dennis Patterson (Mariah Carey, Deborah Cox) and mixes by the great John “Beetle” Bailey (Molly Johnson, Harry Manx) at “The Drive Shed” studio. The album includes Cuban sonero/rapper Ogguere and soul/rock vocal powerhouse Saidah Baba Talibah.

The 20-ish professional musicians assembled in 2009. Since then the current configuration – Chris Butcher (trombone), Paul Metcalfe (saxophones), Jon Challoner (trumpet), Rob Teehan (sousaphone) and Lowell Whitty (drums) – of the sometimes parading/marching band has gained a strong following. Members of the band have already earned individual national recognition, including a Western Canadian Music Award, a Galaxie Rising Star Award, and a JUNO award.
The band has already garnered rave reviews and has been very visible this summer at Toronto’s TD Jazz (Canada Day) and Beaches festivals.

WEBSITES: www.heavyweightsbrassband.com YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/user/heavyweightsbrass
Publicity: SPEAK Music www.speak-music.com Beverly Kreller bev@speak-music.com 416-922-3620

"A stellar group of musicians... you will be knocked out by their infectious rhythms." ~ Moreen Murray (Jazz.FM91)
“Aside from their cordless instruments that harken back to a New Orleans of yesteryear, what’s all the fuss about? Drumroll, please. It’s the repertoire they arrange, from Lady Gaga and Beyoncé to Michael Jackson and Justin Bieber. GASP!” ~ The WholeNote
“Very exciting and inspiring. Not at all predictable, and great musicianship happening here!” ~ Alex Cuba
“The writing is top notch... this is take no prisoners funky groove music at its best with plenty to keep the ears happy while the butt shakes!” ~ Richard Underhill
CD Baby