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| The National Jazz Museum in Harlem October Events Starting on Saturday, October 4th, The National Jazz Museum in Harlem will open its new Children's Corner, dedicated to bringing the spirit of jazz directly to school-age children. The focus will be on the legacy of Afro-Cuban Jazz, and the legacy of Tito Puente, Machito, Bebo Valdes and other giants of the music. October 2014 Schedule A Fall Mandocopia -An International Harvest of Jazz Mandolin Including Guitar and Bass, with Tim Porter, Santi Debriano, Joe Selly We are happy to welcome mandolinist Tim Porter back for another series of informative and immensely enjoyable sessions focusing on the international aspects of jazz. Joined by guitarist Joe Selly and bassist Santi Debriano, Porter's program highlights the relationship between the mandolin and related instruments and compositions inspired by music found outside the U.S. written by composers such as Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Victor Feldman, Dizzy Gillespie, Cedar Walton, Sonny Rollins, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Pixinguinha, Louis Armstrong, Cole Porter, Chick Corea, and Charlie Parker. This series aims to break new ground with discussions and in some case never-before-performed renditions of tunes that use instrumentation culturally identified with the places for which they are named. Tunes have been selected that reflect the composer's sense of lands where mandolin or mandolin-like instruments, such as the oud, balalaika, and bouzouki, are part of the distinctive musical culture. Examples among the many selections to be performed include "Night in Tunisia" by Dizzy Gillespie, "Isfahan" by Billy Strayhorn, "Bolivia" by Cedar Walton, and "Noites Carioca" by Pixinguinha. Tuesday, September 30th, 7:00-8:30 pm Jazz For Curious Listeners Bebo's Greatest Student: Chucho Valdés Location: The National Jazz Museum in Harlem 104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C This session looks at the career of Bebo's son, Chucho Valdés, who is today one of the world's great pianists. Chucho began playing piano at about the age of three; he doesn't remember not playing it. He tagged along with Bebo everywhere, played four-handed piano with him at home, observed him at work, and subbed for him on gigs until Bebo left Cuba in 1960. Then the 18-year-old Chucho became his family's sole support, and in 1973, with the success of the tune "Bacalao Con Pan, " Chucho's band Irakere became famous in Cuba. Bebo and Chucho did not communicate for eighteen years, then reunited backstage at Carnegie Hall in 1978. Their relationship grew over subsequent decades into a close collaboration in Bebo's final years. Hosted by Ned Sublette: Ned Sublette is the author of several books, including Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo (Chicago Review Press), and is a musician whose recordings include Kiss You Down South (Postmambo). He is the founder of the Center for Postmambo Studies and co-founder of the public radio program Afropop Worldwide Hip Deep. Friday, October 3rd, 7:00pm Harlem in the Himalayas Anja Lechner & Francois Couturier - ECM CD Release Location: Rubin Museum of Art 150 W. 17th Street German cellist Anja Lechner and French pianist Francois Couturier unveil their new duo and celebrate the release of their ECM CD, Moderato Cantabile, a striking, unusual album produced by Manfred Eicher. Tuesday, October 7th, 7:00-8:30 pm Jazz For Curious Listeners Got The World on Eight Strings -Sittin' and Mandolin Musin' on Safe Havens, Warm Receptions, and the Cold War - Jazz as Diplomacy and Musicians as Refugees and Ambassadors Location: The National Jazz Museum in Harlem 104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C Hosted by Tim Porter with guitarist Joe Selly and bassist Santi Debriano Explores the cross border musical legacy begun during the early part of the twentieth century and typified by trailblazing American musicians and composers like James Reese Europe and Sydney Bechet who found great acceptance in Europe, and immigrants to the U.S. like the accomplished Russian mandolinist Dave Apollon who arrived in the United States in the 1920's. Reese, who fought with the 369th Infantry Regiment (the Harlem Hellfighters) in France during WW II and led a military band in France, was himself an accomplished mandolinist, and was the conductor of a widely acclaimed orchestra consisting in part of mandolinists in place of first and second violinists. Apollon became one of the foremost mandolinist for the better part of three decades performing in all styles including jazz. Multi-lateral international musical relationships accelerated throughout the twentieth century and were increasingly dominated by jazz over other forms of music, ultimately finding high level and official recognition in the 1950s with the start of the U.S. State Department's Jazz Ambassadors Tours. Jazz standards and some not often heard works reflecting the composers'sense or impressions of different lands will be discussed and performed. Tuesday, October 14th, 7:00 pm Jazz for Curious Listeners Near East Sweet -"A Thing"Meant Best When East Met West Location: The National Jazz Museum in Harlem 104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C Hosted by Tim Porter with guitarist Joe Selly and bassist Santi Debriano This segment will discuss and musically explore the distinctive sounds of the Near East as interpreted by Duke Ellington, Victor Feldman, John Coltrane, Horace Silver, and others, and as they might have been performed if done using lute-like instruments common to parts of the region, such as the oud. In 1931, Ellington composed "It Don't Mean a Thing"(If it Ain't Got That Thing), and later went on to record "The Far East Suite", where his and Billy Strayhorn's sense of swing can be said to have taken a new direction. We'll discuss and examine jazz works evoking India, Persia/Iran, and musically expand the notion of the East to include other parts of Eurasia. Tuesday, October 21st, 7:00-8:30 pm Jazz For Curious Listeners The French Connection and Jazz Without Borders Location: The National Jazz Museum in Harlem 104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C Hosted by Tim Porter with guitarist Joe Selly and bassist Santi Debriano Explores, among other things, the unique place in the world of jazz occupied by France, which, from the earliest days of jazz, has been home or host not only to jazz innovators and experimentalists like Sidney Bechet, who was in Paris during the 1920's and permanently relocated to France in the 1950's, and Django Reinhardt, who added a new dimension to jazz, but also to mandolin maker experimentalists like Lucien Gelas, who was designing and making some of the most innovative instruments in the 1920's, for which he received a Gold Medal at the Bordeaux Exhibition and a Gold Medal at the Brussels Exhibition in 1910 for his double top instruments, one of which, made in 1928, will be on display during the program. The mandolin was often used in traditional French music some of which, amounting to a kind of proto-jazz, laid the basis for what is sometimes called Gypsy jazz and is now a part of the jazz canon. Jazz standards and some not often heard works reflecting the composers'sense or impressions of Paris, and other prominent locales in Europe will be discussed and performed. Tuesday, October 28th, 7:00-8:30 pm Jazz For Curious Listeners "Spanish Tinge", The Reign in Spain, The Caribbean, and Way South of the Border Location: The National Jazz Museum in Harlem 104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C Hosted by Tim Porter with guitarist Joe Selly and bassist Santi Debriano Explores the jazz connection with Spain, particularly the Andalusian region with its diverse population of people, reflecting Moorish, Castilian, Sephardic, and Romani backgrounds, the early role of"Latin"elements in jazz, the development of distinctive Latin sounds in South America and the Caribbean, the mandolin's origins in the Mediterranean, its relationship to a group of instruments in North Africa, Southern Europe, and the Near East, and its distinctive role in the music that developed with Spanish influence in the Americas. Will discuss and perform works by Jobim, Cedar Walton, Pixinguinha, Sonny Rollins, and Charlie Parker, among others. The music of Andalusia, a veritable melting pot of music and cultures for centuries in Spain, is particularly important in identifying the roots of many components of the jazz cannon. For example, the bolero, heard in "Besame Mucho" is related to flamenco, whose origins are in Spain's Andlusian region. The Romani people sometimes called gypsies arrived in Europe from northern India more than a thousand years ago, and many settled in the Andalusian region, where they and others contributed to the development of flamenco and bolero. Current Exhibit Bebo Valdés: Giant of Cuban Music Pianist, arranger, bandleader, and composer Bebo Valdés had two splendid careers separated by more than thirty years of obscurity. Mambo, filin, batanga, descarga - he was a great innovator in Cuba music. For ten years he was music director of the famed Tropicana orchestra. His big band backed Cuba's greatest stars. He was the pianist on Nat "King" Cole's famed Havana recordings. Then everything changed. He left Cuba in 1960 and settled in Sweden. While his music was largely forgotten by the world, his son Chucho Valdés became a dominant musical figure in post-revolutionary Cuba, and one of the world's great pianists. Then, beginning in 1994, Bebo Valdés began a dramatic career resurgence via a brilliant series of concerts, recordings, and movies that brought his knowledge, skills, and inimitable style into the twenty-first century, making him a bigger star than every before and culminating in an electrifyin write your comments about the article :: © 2014 Jazz News :: home page |