Chucho Valdés in the Great Jazz Colombian Alliance

With a concert by the 2011 Grammy award winner, Chucho Valdes, the “Circuito de Jazz de Colombia” will be launched in Bogotá, Colombia, on June 23, at 8:00 p.m, at the Jorge Eliecer Gaitán Theatre. This jazz Colombian alliance is a group of the most prestigious jazz festivals including Festival de Jazz de Cali Ajazzgo, Festival de Jazz de Barranquilla Barranquijazz, Festival de Jazz de Medellín Medejazz, Festival de Jazz del Teatro Libre de Bogotá [...]

Bill Cosby issues statement questioning NARAS

American comedian, TV producer, educator, and activist Bill Cosby has joined a roster of respected celebrities and musicians including Paul Simon, Esperanza Spalding, Herbie Hancock, Carlos Santana with wife Cindy Blackman, and John Carter Cash supporting musicians protesting the elimination of ethnic and instrumental Grammy Award categories, recently cut by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences [...]

Danilo Pérez – Providencia (Mack Avenue Records – 2010)

Danilo Pérez’s extraordinary album, Providencia is more than a delightful suite. It is a love story… a love story between a father and his daughters, between a native son and his country. Above all, it is a love story between an artist and his music. And this latter facet of the album means that conceptually, it transcends borders. The music bears out this thought: It is bold, global and almost galactic. It is always in motion as it traverses many continents [...]

The Paul Austerlitz Quartet – Live at The Stone

On Sunday March 29, Paul Austerlitz and his quartet transformed a performance space on New York’s Lower East Side into a house of worship. In a set that was short but sweet, the quartet showered the audience with a fusion of post-bebop, Afro-Dominican, Haitian and Nigerian rhythms, invocations, prayers and shades of Igor Stravinsky. The event took place at The Stone, a community based, not-for-profit performance space [...]

Latin Jazz Network Radio – Jukebox – June 2011 Playlist

Jukebox – June 2011 Playlist: Bye-Ya! The Latin Jazz Quintet featuring Brian Lynch, The John Santos Sextet, T. K. Blue, Jane Bunnett& Hilario Durán, Helio Alves, Henry Brun and the Latin Playerz, Jessie Marquez, Carlos Franzetti & Allison Brewster Fran, Roger Davidson & David Finck, Gonzalo Rubalcaba [...]

Jazz Standard Presents:

Best known for his decade–plus position in the Danilo Perez piano trio, Adam Cruz takes a creative giant step forward with the release of Milestone (Sunnyside Records), his debut album as leader. “I’ve invested a lot of time in practicing and studying, working at my relationship with the piano and developing a compositional voice,” says the 40–year old musician. “There’s a certain amount of growth and maturity that I have gone through [...]

Eliane Elias – Light My Fire

Since the mid-1980s, pianist/vocalist/composer Eliane Elias (pronounced eh-lee-AH-neh eh-LEE-ahs) has grafted various elements of jazz, pop, soul and other styles to her deep Brazilian roots to create a hybrid groove that exists comfortably on any hemisphere. Borrowing from an array of sources and singing in a variety of languages, Elias consistently forges a sound that appeals to listeners of every geographic locale and cultural persuasion [...]

The Ninety Miles Project

Critically acclaimed jazz musicians vibist Stefon Harris, saxophonist David Sánchez and trumpeter Christian Scott have collaborated to create a distinctly unique collection of songs, Ninety Miles. Recorded over the span of a week in Havana, Cuba, the US based trio recruited local Cuban musicians including pianists Rember Duharte and Harold López-Nussa to create the 9 song collection. The result is a true Cuban American musical collaboration [...]

TD Toronto JazzFest celebrates 25 Years

Welcome to Metro Square, the new Festival headquarters for this silver anniversary. In the heart of the Entertainment District (located at 55 John St., see map enclosed), the Square will host afternoon concerts, evening shows, Festival artisans and much, much more. The Entertainment District is a return to Festival roots, with the inaugural 1987 Festival located in this very neighborhood, 25 years ago. This is the first time the TD Toronto Jazz Festival [...]

Grammy Culture War – Artist Soul Speaks

May 22nd’s press conference at the Nuyorican Poets Café in NYC was energized by the presence of some of the world’s greatest musicians. Accusations of cultural genocide, ignorance, greed – and a plea to save the Grammy’s from itself – specifically, by recanting the recent action of the NARAS Board to eliminate 31 Grammy categories. The eliminated categories include not only Latin Jazz, Native American, Zydeco and Polka [...]