by Patrick Jarenwattananon
More links from this week:
- The director of the Barcelona Jazz Festival sits down with pianist Chucho Valdes to do a track-by-track interview of his new (and mad decent) album, Chucho's Steps.
- Nate Chinen on the "NEA's Jazz Masters Mistake."
- John Medeski (of Medeski, Martin and Wood) interviewed his 75-year-old mentor, Ran Blake, for the Boston Globe.
- The French-German television consortium Arte has recorded some, ahem, "SiCK" shows in recent months. Via Nextbop, here are some video embeds of the Yaron Herman trio, plus Robert Glasper's trio + Bilal, the Revive da Live collective and Roy Hargrove's quintet.
- You know where you can hear all of Dave Holland's forthcoming flamenco record with Pepe Habichuela? daveholland.com, that's where.
- Ethan Iverson hips us to this video portrait of pianist Masabumi "Poo" Kikuchi. A benefit show for his health care costs goes down Monday in New York.
- A New York Times classical critic had mixed feelings about Wynton Marsalis' "Swing Symphony," as performed by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra + New York Philharmonic. The jazz blog Lubricity wasn't there, but had thoughts after listening to the broadcast.
- This Montreal Gazette piece about Swiss jazz might be better without so much oversimplified sniping at the supposed arrogance of American jazz fans/writers at large. I mean, we're not 20/20, but talk to one of us before you you accuse, non?
- The Big City on the underappreciated legacy of Jaco Pastorius.
- Ronan Guilfoyle on the (possibly) changing legacy of Bill Evans.
- Neil Tesser writes on the Chicago connection of Rudresh Mahanthappa (39) and Bunky Green (75).
- The Portland Jazz Festival's theme for 2011: "Bridges & Boundaries: Jewish & African Americans Playing Jazz Together."
- Night Lights presents Space Age Jazz of the 1950s and '60s. This is a real thing that happened!
- Jim Macnie on the delightfully odd John McNeil/Bill McHenry quartet, and featuring the wit of one of jazz's great sardonicists.
- The late Sonny Sharrock is getting a street named after him in his hometown of Ossining, N.Y.
- Destination: Out has ... a new rare record download store! They're teaming up with FMP to reissue out-of-print goodies.
- JazzWax has a variety of new stuff up.
- The Jazz Session speaks with Geof Bradfield and Mary Halvorson.
- The Checkout this week features an Ornette Coleman interview, the Colin Stranahan quartet and Esperanza Spalding's iPod.
Links we previously mentioned:
- RIP Buddy Collette.
- RIP Max Salazar. Here's one of the few digitally preserved interviews with him.
- On the obsessive listening streak.
- A JazzTimes higher education symposium.
Elsewhere at NPR Music:
- On Martin Cohen, the best Latin music photographer you've never heard of.
- Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz this week airs its 1995 session with vocalist Helen Merrill.
- JazzSet this week re-airs its Blue Note 7 show.
- This week's Take Five list is called "Coffee Talk: Java-Inspired Jazz."
- Don't forget to tell us your first John Coltrane album!
