After listening to the sounds tumble out of Miles Davis soul, one can’t help but wonder where someone gets the bravery to even so much as press a trumpet against his lips.

Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense by Ann Laura Stoler 314 pp. Princeton University Press. Paper, $22.95

“Universals appears to have two connotations. One is that of totality; in this sense, universal designates the whole world at all times. The other is one of generality: that which is applicable to a large number of instances.”[1]

“Common sense has its own necessity; it asserts its right with the weapon peculiarly suitable to it, namely, appeal to the ‘obviousness’ of its claim and considerations.”[2]

“There are many kinds of eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes—therefore there must be many kinds of ‘truths’ and consequently there can be no truth.”[3]

There are no absolutes, no guaranteed categories, no definitive markers, in essence no Truth. Conjecture erupts through momentary snippets of time, the seemingly insignificant recesses and grooves of innocuous objects (i.e. colonial missives and personal correspondence) and is constantly transformative, washing in and out of itself leaving remnants, what Pierre Bordieu referred to as “sedimented knowledge”[4]. As Wendy Brown states, convictions [i.e. Truth] “are, precisely, refusals to allow history and contingency to contour the existing dimensions and possibilities of political life”[5]. Convictions bred, born, and fed in the colonial conscious and unconscious mind are exactly what Ann Stoler attempts to challenge within Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense. Stoler wrangles with the process of colonial archiving in the 19^th century Netherlands Indies as one not filled with conviction and certitude but rather, constant uncertainty filled with gaps, of questioned credibility and rumor. Stoler maps (to reference Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of the ‘map’) out a colonial heritage through a genealogy, a genealogy that is “neither an ‘acquisition’ nor a ‘possession that grows and solidifies’ but [is] an ‘unstable assemblage of faults, fissures, and heterogeneous layers that threaten the fragile interior from within or from underneath”[6]. In the following few pages, I hope to accomplish four things: to discuss what I mean by genealogy and Stoler’s relationship to Foucault and Nietzsche in her book, where we find Foucault’s notion of the emergent history, how it is conceived as well as what work it does, to discuss Stoler’s choice of Frans Carl Valck as agent of colonial sentiment, and finally, offer a few questions that the work brought forth in light of genealogy, archival work, historical ethnographies and in reference to the formulation of my own work.

A man places the record “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis on the turntable, a woman screams at her child as the blouses and trousers flutter in the wind on the laundry line stretched taut between two crumbling brick walls, a car sounds its horn in the distance and a silently operating multitude of operations have brought us here, to this point, at this particular moment, through the “endlessly repeated play of dominations”[7]. Genealogy, as envisioned by Foucault and Nietzsche, destabilizes notions of origin, that fixed point from where a particular moment, person, or event has evolved. It cultivates details and takes notice of the accidents which accompany every beginning, plumbs and excavates the depths and awaits eruptions and emergents[8]. In short, it is cognizant of the utter complexities constantly at play in historicized or imagined moments of origin and thus, explodes any preconceived notions of Truth. Through this lens of constant inconsistency, Foucault states that, “every sentiment, particularly the most disinterested, has a history”[9]. And so it is, in a very real sense that Stoler takes head-on the notion that, “the mastery of reason, rationality, and the inflated claims made for Enlightenment principles have been at the political foundation of colonial regimes”[10]. Instead, she argues, things are a bit more complicated. Hesitation, anxiety, uncertainty, fear, confliction, and irrationality could often be found within the fissures of the Dutch colonial project in the Indies and she reveals such conflictual sentiments through ‘minor’ histories in the archives which attend to structures of feeling and force that in ‘major’ history might be otherwise displaced[11]. It is through focusing on such ‘minor’ histories that Stoler reinvigorates Foucault’s notion of the emergent, “the entry of forces…their eruption, the leap from the wings to center stage, each in its youthful strength”[12]. By focusing in on the entrance exams of the Indies civil service, the demonstrations at the Harmonie Club on May 22, 1848, the Inlandsche Kinderen (pauperized whites) and resulting state commissions of inquiry, the Mattray agricultural colony in France, Frans Carl Valck, and the Luhmann family murders, Stoler pushes up and through the façade of a unified, hegemonic colonial force and the emergent leaks forth from conflictual accounts of mistrust, rumor, love, pain—in short, sentiment. Stoler’s sense of the ‘sentiment’ is not opposed to political reason but act as modalities or tracers of it; as judgments, assessments and interpretations of the social and political world[13]. These sentiments reveal more than they conceal and beg us as readers to question the importance of the sidelined, the seemingly innocuous, or the mundane. This questioning, as Wendy Brown states in reference to Nietzsche, “produces an experience of vertigo, and the vertigo gives way to demand. The demand is not of a conventional political sort but rather seeks new knowledge—vertiginous knowledge”[14]. The archive, seen in this light and through the lens which Stoler fuses her work together through, is torn asunder and the infinite screams to be noticed between the interstices of words on archival documents, the space between photographed subjects and most importantly, within that which is not said. She focuses instead on archival form: “prose style, repetitive refrain, the arts of persuasion, affective strains that shape ‘rational’ response categories of confidentiality and classification, and genres of documentation”[15]. Knowledge is sought but never garnered and labeled as such and the interrogative replaces the declarative in much of Stoler’s work. Colonial sentiment is thus sought through an emergent history and it needs to be understood how she employs this within her work.

Stoler begins part one of her book (entitled “Colonial Archives and their Affective States”) writing against the “Weberian model of rationally-minded, bureaucratically drive states outfitted with a permanent and assured income to maintain them, buttressed by accredited knowledge and scientific legitimacy and backed by a monopoly on weaponed force”[16]. Although successful in doing so, how does she succeed and what does such a pursuit do?

Stoler posits the idea that the Dutch colonial authorities were most concerned with the distribution and states of sentiment, pertaining particularly to whether or not family, language, and homeland were at odds and whether they should—or could ever-be under the state’s control”[17]. As colonial authorities watched such ‘sentiment’, it was not, Stoler argues, through the sharp Cartesian lens of passion versus reason but rather existed and made decisions in large swaths of grayness[18]. Stoler then dives into the archives to explore the entrance exams for the Indies civil service and in doing so, illustrates clearly and succinctly the affective criteria set out by the state for advancement in education, inclusion in Dutch racial membership, claims to citizenship, and social entitlements[19]. But this is not to say that such affective criteria was consistent for it took the Dutch colonial authorities much work to uphold and standardize such criteria. Morality became a ‘manufactured consent’ in Chomsky’s terms that the colonial state treated as a business which was run, as Stoler states, on “affective judgments”[20]. Statecraft “was not opposed to the affective but to its mastery,” Stoler states and through such attempted mastery of the affective erupts what Bourdieu referred to as the habitus, “the product of history, [which] produces individual and collective practices, and hence history, in accordance with the schemes engendered by history”[21]. Such normalized matters of the state were in no way static but instead had to constantly be remade, reworked, re-stretched, and fit over an ever-changing landscape of sentiment and ‘the moral’, Pulling on such examples from the dusty archives such as the entrance exams, the Harmonie club, debates concerned with ‘mixed blood’ and poor white inhabitants and more does the work that Foucault speaks of when mentioning ‘eruptions’, that “hazardous play of dominations”, and shows us as readers how such attempted mastery of the affective reveals its successes and falterings within the wording and distribution of archived colonial communications[22]. Particularly to this point, the missive which Stoler surfaces from the annals of the events at the Harmonie Club in Batvia on May 22^nd, although seemingly innocuous, is exactly the type of ‘minor’ history that can be overlooked but when strung out from the wash of history, can speak volumes from the minor alterations made and more importantly, from that which is carefully avoided. This is effective history in every sense of the term; it “shortens its vision to those things nearest to it…it unearths the periods of decadence, and if it chances upon lofty epochs, it is with the suspicion of finding a barbarous and shameful confusion”[23]. The documents which Stoler pulls on are not mere dusty piles of parchment but instead are weapons wielded by the state for evidence, particularly in the Dutch colonial state’s attempt to create racial categories in the face of ‘mixed bloods’ and poor whites. The framing of archives in this way uses this bundle of seemingly inanimate objects and does work with them, outlining a blueprint of colonial distress which was given cumulative and historical weight, justified inaction, reduced allocations, and caused the state to abort policy[24]. In eking out the boundaries of racial categorization, people were categorized via state statistical analysis and commissions. Importantly, Stoler says, “characterizations of people and things not only lodge in the tenacious hold of words: they burrow into bodies and then re-emerge as resurrected knowledge, upholding oppositional positions as they take on new political forms”[25]. This is vitally important as it reveals the work of archives and the people that participated in their creations to be participants in organic knowledge-creation processes of becoming, receding, emerging and re-emerging, not static actors fixed to particular points in history but actors constantly operating in and through the archived past as well as the present. Frans Carl Valck is a prominent player within Stoler’s work and I wish to explore her choice of Valck before presenting a few questions the overall work prompted.

Frans Carl Valck, at one point Assistant Resident on Sumatra’s East Coast in 1876, is a ‘minor’ figure in the overall Dutch colonial history and through Valck, Stoler lays out the colonial “sensibilities of the everyday—to what pressed on their bodies; what they chose to communicate differently to kin, colleague and superior; what occupied their feelings; what slipped to the edges of their awareness, erupted, and then escaped their minds”[26]. Within Chapters 6 and 7, Valck is utilized as an object of colonial sentiment and in the latter part of Chapter 7, fleshed out with a familial history. Stoler, by her own accounts, writes against “charmed accounts” revealing “jagged analytic edges” and avoids coating “complex commitments in generic ideologies and “shared” imaginaries as if people had little work to do with them”[27]. Although not nearly in the schizophrenic form in which Deleuze and Guattari write A Thousand Plateaus, Stoler is employing the essence of the rhizome as “short term memory or antimemory”, something that “grows between, among other things”, “blow[s] apart strata, cut[s] roots, and make[s] new connections”, and “collective assemblages of enunciation”[28]. The rhizomatic direction as delineated by Deleuze and Guattari, tries to “overthrow ontology, do away with foundations, nullify endings and beginnings…Between things does not designate a localizable relation going from one thing to the other and back again, but a perpendicular direction…”[29]. Stoler, in affect, does overthrow the common usage of ontology or metaphysics, searching instead for the “ascribed being or essence of things…such ‘essences’ [being]…protean, not fixed, subject to reformulation again and again”[30]. Valck does this work, carrying the readers through the official missives about the Luhmann family murder which erupted with colonial fear, misunderstanding, apprehension and scapegoating, surfaces European planter’s atrocities, and shows rumor to often be treated as actionable fact. Valck’s eventual dishonorable discharge from the Dutch colonial apparatus reveals the man of flesh and blood, disappointed and angry with the colonial apparatus, longing for a real connection with his daughter, and attempting to bring together disparate distances in familial and empire relations. As Stoler states, we “are privy to lives in which the politics of empire bleeds into the texture of the personal and then, as if too present, is carefully washed out”[31]. The troubled account of Valck’s life pulls together empire of the external and internal if only for brief moments and allows glimpses into the ever-morphing essences of conflicted colonial existence.

A few questions arise when reading Stoler’s work, questions which are aimed at understanding choices rather than critiquing the work as a whole. Along the Archival Grain is of course an academic work but more so, it is a work of art and as such is imbued with choices, made at the time of writing, offering the reader a small slice of the overall picture which can never be conveyed. James Agee and Walker Evans, in writing their work Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, talk about how the meaning of a house or person is channeled through them as writers but that their meaning is much larger. As they state, it “is that he exists, in actual being, as you do and as I do, and as no character of the imagination can possibly exist. His great weight, mystery and dignity are in this fact”[32]. If we make a choice to bring a character from the annals of the archives to life, what responsibility does this carry with it to be as ‘true’ to his/her life as possible? Understandably, we often have documentation from which to pull their lives, stretch them out, unwind the lurid details but what of the deep interstices, the much that is left unsaid? At these moments, we begin to inevitably fictionalize and these people (at one time flesh and blood) become archival marionettes and although we may be honest puppeteers with wonderful intentions, we are nonetheless puppeteers. This is an interesting dilemma: to be caught between historical essence and fiction. The overriding question I suppose is, is it not all fiction and if it is and we are not beholden to Truth of any sort, does it matter if we pull from archives or imagination? The former is definitely more esteemed in circles of academia but I nonetheless wonder if imagination is not at play more often than many are willing to truly accept for the vertigo such a realization induces.

The second main question that arises after reading Stoler’s work is related to style. Stoler has a washing and re-washing of commonalities that runs throughout her work related to the concept of the historical, the play of the personal with the broader empire’s conflicted aspirations and sentiments, and the archive as a living and breathing entity. In its circular tempo, there is a linearity that employs dates, times and places but distorts them, allows new perspectives to bubble up and reworks traditional concepts of the colonial. Stoler’s work is a Picasso that we observe and recognize but are forced to deal with distortions that beg new questions, cause new realms of vision to erupt. I juxtapose this with Delueze and Guattari’s work, a work similar to a Magic Eye poster (pop-culture reference intentional) that is composed of multitudes of disparate colors and images but when stared at long enough, causes a coherent image or narrative to arise. In eking out colonial sentiment and ‘common sense’, what would happen is we were to employ a more Deleuzian/Guattarian approach? What would arise and what would be lost?

Stoler’s work is successful in the aims it is attempting to achieve. It is a piece in a long line of endless work to be done in distancing us from our knowledge, “unsettling what we think we know, defamiliarizing the familiar, [and] defamiliarizing us with ourselves”[33]. And this reader, although riddled with questions of responsibility towards the archive and style, looks forward to the next piece of the ever-assembling and dissembling puzzle.

[2] Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings: On the Essence of Truth (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1977), 118.

[3] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power (New York: Vintage, 1968), 252.

[4] Pierre Bordieu, Outline A Theory of Practice: Structures and the Habitus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 79.

[5] Wendy Brown, Politics Out of History (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press), 94.

[6] Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader: Nietzsche, Genealogy, History (New York: Pantheon Books), 82.

[7] Ibid., 85.

[8] Wendy Brown, Politics Out of History (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press), 101.

[9] Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader: Nietzsche, Genealogy, History (New York: Pantheon Books), 87.

[10] Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 58.

[11] Ibid., 7.

[12] Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader: Nietzsche, Genealogy, History (New York: Pantheon Books), 84.

[13] Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 40.

[14] Wendy Brown, Politics Out of History (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press), 98.

[15] Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 20.

[16] Ibid., 57.

[17] Ibid., 58.

[18] Ibid., 60.

[19] Ibid., 66.

[20] Ibid., 69.

[21] Pierre Bordieu, Outline A Theory of Practice: Structures and the Habitus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 82.

[22] Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader: Nietzsche, Genealogy, History (New York: Pantheon Books), 83.

[23] Ibid., 89.

[24] Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 139.

[25] Ibid., 175.

[26] Ibid., 249.

[27] Ibid., 252.

[28] Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 15-24.

[29] Ibid., 25.

[30] Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 4.

[31] Ibid., 278.

[32] James Agee and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001), 9.

[33] Wendy Brown, Politics Out of History (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press), 95.

I have never in my life hear a cd as moving and as touching as Miles Davis Kind of blue. This cd…this man is the reason why I love jazz so much. It makes you feel and just get lost in to moment even if things around you are kinda bad. This cd is a life saver for me in times of sadness and even in times of joy. You should really buy it. It’s so worth it.

Another review about Kind of Blue : Miles Davis

This was the first jazz album I ever bought over 40 years ago, and the it’s music still excites and challenges my mind and brings tears to my eyes because of the sheer passion and beauty it’s grooves possess. It remains one of my favorites albums of all time. Understated but never restrained, it’s still one of the few musical works I can still, after hundreds of listenings over the years, hear things new and relevant. If ever there was a timeless recording, this is it. “Kind of Blue” is an important work which demands to be in any library regardless of the listener’s background.

Finally! My vacation has begun and I’m back in the Green Mountain State. It truly is a wonderful thing. I love school and my friends and all of that fun stuff, but there’s something that is enjoyable about Vermont. It’s so sincere and lively. I have to say though, I could use a good snow storm right about now. Still, it is beautiful out there. Here’s a shot I grabbed of Mt. Mansfield on Friday once I got back home:

Mt. Mansfield | 12.18.09

• Mike Reed & Chicago Jazz: NPR story on a Jazz drummer doing some great things. He’s bringing back some classic Chicago Jazz along with doing some serious booking for the Pitchfork Music Festival. Gotta love them drummers!
• Haunting music for 5 pianos and no pianists: Incredibly cool story about composer Heiner Goebbles and his latest project in NYC. It’s part musical performance, part theatrical performance and part art installation.

Photo credit: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

• U.S. House Celebrates Kind of Blue: “The House voted Tuesday to honor the landmark [Miles Davis] album’s contribution to the genre.

• The MIDI marimba: I’m still not sure what I think about this. See for yourself…

Happy last day of Fall! Tomorrow will officially be the shortest day of the year. Let’s see how much we can get down throughout…

(Above: Modest Mouse’s concert at the Uptown Theater in March deserves an honorable mention.)

By Joel Francis

Stevie Wonder, Starlight Theater, June 27

One day after the shocking death of Michael Jackson, Motown legend Stevie Wonder took the stage before a packed Starlight Theater to both grieve and celebrate his old friend. Wonder’s songbook and the scarcity of his performances – he last played Kansas City in 1986 – already guaranteed a special evening. The timing made it historic. Keep reading….

Bela Fleck, Uptown Theater, April 2

Banjo legend Bela Fleck ditched his band the Flecktones for a half dozen African musicians he encountered on his musical adventure across the continent. The three-hour showcase not only exposed the audience to artists they likely wouldn’t have otherwise been able to experience, but brought the performers to the nooks and crannies of America. Keep reading ….

Sonny Rollins, Walton Arts Center (Fayetteville, Ark.), April 16

Saxophone legend Sonny Rollins marked his first performance in the state of Arkansas by reminiscing about radio host Bob Burns, aka the Arkansas Traveler and crowing about his idol, native son Louis Jordan. In between stories, Rollins and his four-piece band made transcendence standard with extended performances of chestnuts like “In A Sentimental Mood” and newer material. Keep reading ….

Leonard Cohen, Midland Theater, Nov. 9

Leonard Cohen knew that most of his biggest fans had never seen him in concert and that this tour would be their only chance to experience him in person. Accordingly, Cohen, 75, generously packed his three-hour concert with all his big numbers – “Hallelujah,” “Famous Blue Raincoat,” “Chelsea Hotel No. 2,” “Everybody Knows,” and about two dozen more – some album cuts and one new song.

Helping Cohen through this immaculate musical buffet was an impeccable six-piece band. Javier Mas’ performance on bandurria and 12-string acoustic guitar frequently stole the spotlight. His playing added new shades and textures to the songs and his solos were always breathtaking. Reed man Dino Soldo was also impressive on clarinet, sax, harmonica and other wind instruments. Three backing vocalists, including Cohen’s longtime collaborator Sharon Robinson, helped smooth the rough patches in Cohen’s gravely baritone.

The adoring, sold-out crowd marinated in every moment, cheering at choice lines and raining ovations on the surprisingly spry singer as he skipped and hopped joyously around the stage. Cohen may have been forced back on the road for financial reasons, but both he and his audience delighted in celebration.

Sly and Robbie, Folly Theater, June 6
Lee “Scratch” Perry, Beaumont Club, August 30

This summer was a great time to be a reggae fan in Kansas City. Jamaican visitors included two biological sons of Bob Marley, and several metaphorical ones, including Toots and the Maytals, the reconstituted Wailers and Matisyahu. Pioneers Sly and Robbie and Lee “Scratch” Perry were the season’s bookends.

Sly and Robbie, veterans of literally hundreds of reggae recordings, kicked off the unofficial summer of reggae with nearly two hours of rumbling riddims at the Folly Theater. Nearly three months later, the eccentric and prolific producer “Scratch” Perry kept a small Beaumont Club crowd waiting for hours, before finally appearing with a psychotropic set of Bob Marley numbers he produced and originals like “Roast Fish and Cornbread” and “Pum Pum.”

Keep reading:

-          Sly and Robbie
-          Lee “Scratch” Perry

Jimmy Cobb, Gem Theater, October 17

As the last living performer from Miles Davis’ landmark jazz recording, Jimmy Cobb left a crowded Gem Theater crowd feeling anything but kind of blue. The drummer and his five-piece So What Band celebrated the 50^th anniversary of “Kind of Blue” by playing all of its numbers, but treating the lauded original recordings more like an outline than a blueprint. When Cobb finally unleashed a drum solo more than an hour into the set, he was rewarded with the standing ovation he deserved. Keep reading ….

Pogues, Midland Theater, October 25

It took the renowned Irish acoustic punk band nearly three decades to reach Kansas City, and the groups notorious singer Shane McGowan wasn’t going to vacate the stage quickly. Alone onstage, the dying chords of “Fiesta” still ringing out, McGowan delivered a very inebriated, off-key version of “Kansas City.” A drink in each hand and cigarette dangling from his mouth, McGowan finally shuffled off to whoops and cheers.

The rest of the Pogues, recently reunited and sober (with one exception), have learned to live with these incidents. It’s probably safe to say a good portion of the crowd showed up because of them. Both the morbidly and musically curious had plenty of cause to be glad. After his only face plant of the evening, McGowan replied with aplomb “That’s why they call me Mr. Trips.” Overall, though, he was in good enough shape to deliver great versions of “If I Should Fall From Grace With God,” “Dirty Old Town” and “Bottle of Smoke.”

Despite suffering from a muddy mix, the rest of the band held up their end of the bargain, especially accordion player James Fearnley who ran and slid around the stage like Bruce Springsteen at the Super Bowl and tin whistle-ist Spider Stacy’s percussive beating of his head with a cookie sheet during “Fiesta.” The McGowan songbook was augmented by the traditional Irish numbers “Irish Rover” and “I’ll Tell Me Ma” and late-Pogues number “Tuesday Morning.” There were a few stones left unturned – “Fairytale of New York” was missed – but more than enough good moments to justify the wait.

Alice Cooper, Ameristar Casino, August 8

Alice Cooper’s theatrics aren’t as shocking as they were 30 years ago. What is shocking is how captivating and entertaining his stage show remains. Cooper’s adventures with the noose, guillotine, iron maiden, hypodermic needle, wheelchair, guns and swords mesmerized a fist-pumping, sold-out audience who sang along to every syllable of “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and nearly every other song in the set. Keep reading ….

Raphael Saadiq, Voodoo Lounge, March 13

While not officially tied to the 50^th Anniversary commemoration of Motown, Raphael Saadiq’s 75-minute concert in front of a pitifully small crowd at the Voodoo Lounge was an homage to old-school soul, complete with David Ruffin’s horned glasses, tight suits and choreographed dances. The best aspect, though, was that all the music was new and original material written by the former Tony! Toni! Tone! frontman, much of it drawn from his incredible album “The Way I See It.” Keep reading …

Keep Reading:

Top 10 Concerts of 2008

Click link for more:  Kind of Blue Commemorates its 50th Anniversary 

Miles Davis was at a musical climax in the 1950s and prepared the dreams that would become Kind of Blue for years. The first tune Flamenco Sketches was essentially a series of Flamenco- and North African-derived scales.

In no particular order…

John Coltrane Blue Train John Coltrane (1926-67), nacido en Carolina del Norte (EEUU) ha sido el músico el más denodadamente exploratorio en la historia de jazz. Como otros músicos como Bobby Timmons de niño recibe la influencia de la música religiosa por parte e sus abuelos, sacerdotes metodistas. Sus primeros instrumentos fueron el clarinete y el saxofón, a los 13 años. Tras el obligado servicio militar, en 1946 se une a la Big Band de Dizzy Gillespie (donde tocó el saxo alto antes de cambiarlo por el tenor), tocando también como músico de apoyo de saxofonistas como Johnny Hodges, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson y Earl Bostic unos años. Entonces recibió la llamada de Miles Davis en 1955, que buscaba savia nueva para solventar una mala etapa. En dos años grabaron algunos de los discos más significativos del músico de Illinois, lo que favoreció el crecimiento de Coltrane, pero su fijación por las drogas le obligan a pasar una cura de desintoxicación en 1956, obligándole a abandonar el quinteto de Davis.

En 1957 trabajó con Thelonious Monk, cosechando las primeras críticas de la prensa de donde Ira Gitler acuñó la definición “Sheets of sounds” (Capas de sonido) en la revista “Downbeat”, las síncopas y patrones rítmicos tienen un papel secundario frente a torrentes de notas, escalas, arpegios y figuras, a veces en forma de ráfagas y otras en largos fraseos.

En 1958 regresa con Miles Davis, y se junta con músicos excepcionales como el saxo alto Cannonbal Adderley y el batería Philly Joe Jones. Un año más tarde integra el sexteto que compuso las grabaciones de “Milestones” y “Kind of Blue” de Miles Davis. En esa época graba sus dos discos más influyentes, “Blue Train” y “Giant Steps” . Después Coltrane forma su primer grupo con el pianista McCoy Tyner, el batería Elvin Jones, y el bajista Jimmy Garrison, convirtiéndose en una de las orquestas míticas de la historia de jazz. A partir de los 60 se abre al flamenco, a la música africana, india, y graba varios discos para el sello Impulse, hasta llegar a otra de sus grabaciones más populares “A Love Supreme”, radicalizando su estilo en “Ascensión”, en rotundo camino hacia el Free Jazz. En 1967 John Coltrane muere en Long Island (Nueva York) de una afección hepática.

Undoubtedly one of the most influential line up’s in Jazz history gathered together to record the seminal album ‘Kind of Blue’ in 1959 at Columbia’s 30th Street studio in New York.

Miles Davis (Trumpet) – John Coltrane (Saxophone) – Julian Adderley (Saxophone) – Bill Evans (Piano) – Wynton Kelly (Piano) – Jimmy Cobb (Drums) – Paul Chambers (Bass)

Here’s some film footage of Miles Davis and John Coltrane performing ‘So What!’ in 1959.

"It's Gangsta because I'm on it!"

Music. It’s always been a part of me. Ever since I can remember I’ve loved it. Yeah I had my favorite artists growing up, but the best part was making my own. Thaz what made me love it. I’d carry notebooks with me wherever I went. Notebooks full of lyrics… I’d get in trouble cuz I’d be writing in school when I was supposed to be studying and in church when I was supposed to be listening… I remember arguing with my mom and sister who at the time gave that shit absolutely ZERO credit, “These notebooks are gonna make me famous and y’all rich one day!” They’d laugh at me and I’d storm off to my room and close the door. I’m about to write some more. They’ll see soon enough.

My room was all about music. My wall was filled with pix and posters of artists. It looked like the Hard Rock Cafe or something. A bunch of memorabilia from concerts and autograph signings that I had gone to over the years covered the walls. The center of everything was my dad’s 1976 Sansui Stereo system. It was old and outdated with the big ass silver knobs, but man that joint sounded GREAT! It had 4 floor speakers and if I turned it up, they could hear that shit all the way in Carver Park! At the bottom it had a slot for records… I mean real records. Vinyl. My dad and mom had some real good music and I had been trying to get this thing in my room for years. I had 45’s of all the old Motown stuff. Temps, Marvin, Supremes, you name it. Moms was big on Motown and had all the singles. Pops was serious about raggae and jazz. I had every Bob Marley and the Wailers album and a bunch of jazz greats like Coltrane, Bird Parker and Miles Davis… Miles Davis. Now this guy had an effect on me… It was this one particular album that I played particularly more than the others. Something about it I loved but I couldn’t really put my finger on it u know?  I’m a lyricists and there were no lyrics. I listened to his horn and understood it tho… So much so that I could hum the parts note for note. This album was a classic called “Kind of Blue”

Since those days as we all know I’ve been blessed to do this music thing for a living and everything has come full circle. When I went solo I set on a mission to make a different brand of R&B. I knew it’d prolly keep me outta mainstream radio and TV, but if I can’t watch/hear myself and feel good about what I’m doing then whats the use anyway? I went into my first album with just that mindset. I got a lotta fans today because of that decision. Against advice and all odds I did me and continued to do me until this day.

But now it’s just Electronic…

Out with the old and in with the new right? Fuck talent man! It’s 2009! Go buy a laptop and Frooty Loops and u are a certified producer! Buy the right sound program and u are now a singer! Even if u cant carry a note in a backpack YOU CAN STILL BE A STAR!!! LOL! I remember producing a joint on a certain artist that asked me “Are u sure that’s me?” after hearing all the pitch correction and editing that I had done. This thing has changed… What is my “Old School” ass gonna do about it? I learned this game from OG’s. Cameo, The Commodores, Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Kashif… Google these cats and you’ll see what I mean. These were the first people I worked with in this game. I remember Kashif showing me the first Pro Tools prototype when I was a kid. He said “TQ, this is gonna change music. Get it all while u can kid…” Boy was he right…

Cuz now it’s just Electronic…

Yes it is. Dance music, Techno, and Trance have invaded black music. There is a serious mesh going on around the world that I don’t think anyone saw coming. The club in LA sounds more and more like the club in London or Paris these days. It’s fresh and new and people are back to actually having fun in the club. Either everybody is coked completely out of their minds or DJ’s got their fingers on it… Either way I’m having a fuckin ball at the club right now. Check my Facebook page if u don’t believe me… LOL!

I’ve never been the man for club music… prolly cuz I never really tripped off being in there. Been hittin’ the club since I was 16 in LA so I’d pretty much seen and done it all. I’d rather focus on life in Music. U gotta have listeners for Life Music tho… Not just fans, but listeners. People ain’t really into listening these days for the most part. Maybe they don’t have the time. Maybe they have so much other shit going on that music is now used for straight up entertainment. No more therapy. People don’t wanna think. They just wanna move! Ok… I get it…

But…

Even if it’s Electronic… It’s gangsta because I’m on it.

Thaz right. I don’t change. I shoot from the hip. I only deal with the real… I will forever be a street poet. I will always tell u the truth about life as I see it. I’m not doing G funk but I’m not wearing skinny jeans and pink shirts either. I make music for the World and not for everybody. Put me in the rap section all u want… I’m a singer. Period. I represent Compton, California cuz thaz where I was raised. Sound familiar? I does cuz it is… It’s still me. Forever the oxymoron.

LOL!

There will be some things on my new album that u have never heard from me. From the production to the lyrical content, I’m definitely stretching further than I ever have on this one. From real life events to hustler anthems. Love songs and Hate songs too… Club joints and straight up nasty sex music. This album “Kind of Blue” has it all… And I’m putting as many as I can fit on a CD. You will get more songs on this album than u ever have and that’s a promise.

But for now it’s just Electronic… Literally. LOL!

My new single “Electronic” is about to smash the net TODAY.  All my DJ friends will have this record real soon so REQUEST IT AT THE CLUB! We got a hot remix by P-Rida featuring my man Tha Vill who rocked it, and another from Glasgow’s own Tigerstyle. A Funky House mix from DJ Mappa and a Sonny Ji version as only he can do it. Are u ready? Yeah? Well let’s make it official…

Check out the World Premiere of the video for the 1st Single from my forthcoming Album “Kind of Blue”…

This is Electronic. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keecMz3V6Jg

WESTSIDE4LIFE!

Jeremy Taylor masterfully covers the legend Miles Davis’s classic LP, “Kind of Blue”. He enlists a group of Jamaican Musicians and skillfully is able to manifest this great piece of work. However, weeks into the production Jeremy had passed away and  no one could have imagined this fine piece of work would ever see the light of day – Never say never. This album is a very special LP. Crafted by the late Jeremy Taylor, “Reggae Interpretation Of |Kind Of Blue” represents a master mind at work. What makes this LP memorable are the newly covers of the tracks: “Blue In Green” & “So What”. The grittiness, the raw strings, and the arrangements manage to pull you in again and again.

miles davis

di Aldo Bassi

Kind of Blue, è considerato la pietra miliare del jazz modale. I toni pacati, gli andamenti ritmici leggeri, le strutture ampie e le armonie dai cambi lenti, la moderazione delle scale modali, delineano il clima della nuova era, quella del jazz modale per come lo ha inteso Miles. Niente a che vedere, per quanto riguarda i toni pacati e la moderazione delle scale, con My Favorite Things anch’esso modale, ma suonato da Coltrane anni dopo.

L’improvvisazione di questo jazz consiste nella utilizzazione di modulazioni lente, che non fanno riferimento a progressioni armoniche come nel sistema tonale, hanno quindi strutture formate da pochissimi accordi, tenuti per più misure sui quali l’improvvisatore utilizza delle scale, dette anche modi, che sono diverse dalle scale maggiore e minore o bebop in uso prima. Si dà origine quindi ad una musica più dilatata, più “orizzontale”.

I modi più utilizzati sono ricavati partendo da ogni grado della scala maggiore. Ovviamente la stessa cosa è possibile farla utilizzando, come scala base, le scale minori armonica e melodica ascendente. L’improvvisazione modale si è andata nel tempo perfezionando attraverso la sperimentazione sui modi fatta dai musicisti jazz. Così, dalla stretta aderenza alle note del modo si è passati alla utilizzazione di note di abbellimento e di passaggio estranee, “verticalizzando” così anche il sistema modale.

Tutte queste forme di sperimentazione sui modi hanno portato l’improvvisazione jazz verso forme lessicali ed espressive più libere, sino ad essere completamente svincolate da qualsiasi struttura e forma con il free jazz.

STRUTTURE MODALI
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All’interno delle strutture modali si possono avere quattro tipi di modulazioni:

- tra modi che usano la stessa scala, per es. tra Re Dorico e Fa Lidio (Do Magg.);

- tra un tipo di modo allo stesso tipo in un altro tono, per es. tra Re Dorico e Mib Dorico;

- tra modi diversi sullo stesso tono, per es. tra Do Dorico e Do Frigio o Lidio;

- tra modi completamente diversi, per es. tra Do Dorico e Do# Misolidio.

Volendo prendere come brano di riferimento So What, la modulazione che lo riguarda è del tipo 2, ovvero tra un tipo di modo allo stesso tipo in un altro tono, tra Re Dorico e Mib Dorico, ed è improvvisa cioè senza preparazione.

La struttura di So What è molto semplice: A A B A di 8 misure ciascuna per un totale di 32 misure. Le A sono composte dall’accordo di Dm7 per tutte e otto le misure e la B è composta dall’accordo di Ebm7 per tutte e 8 le misure.

Facendo un’analisi dell’assolo di Miles in So What, si evince sin dalle prime note che Davis non ha nessuna intenzione di sorprendere con guizzi tecnici, come faceva il suo precursore Gillespie o il mitico, prematuramente scomparso, Clifford Brown. Bensì, egli usa quasi esclusivamente note cordali o dell’estensione dell’accordo fino ad utilizzare tutte le note del modo, con ritmi semplici composti da ottavi, quarti e minime. Una sorta di cool jazz più moderno. Ma la sua peculiarità, anche in questo caso, la troviamo nel genio del suo microcosmo, ovvero in uno stile che fonda le proprie radici nella sfumatura, nel “non suonato”, nell’effetto del mezzo pistone o nell’inflessione del labbro sulla nota, creando un forte “swing sottinteso”, molto diverso da quello dei suoi “colleghi predecessori”.

Davis, come dicevamo, si muove all’interno del modo, dando lezioni di classe ed eleganza, utilizzando di tanto in tanto note blu per ricordare la sua estrazione musicale. Altra nota che esula dal modo dorico è il Do# (la sensibile, che fa parte della scala minore melodica di re) che sia Davis che gli altri solisti usano un pò tutti.

Rispetto a Miles che sembra essere il più “integralista”, gli assoli di Coltrane e di Cannonball sono ricchi di scale che esulano dalla “costrizione” del modo creando sapientemente un contrasto decisivo con il leader.

Gli altri musicisti completano il quadro musicale con i loro accompagnamenti e i loro assoli pienamente a fuoco nel “nuovo” lessico jazzistico soprattutto il grande Bill Evans, che senza il suo grande apporto compositivo, non avrebbe avuto modo di esistere Kind of Blue.

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Due versioni di So What,  l’originale tratta dal disco stesso con Bill Evans al piano, la seconda tratta da un live dello stesso anno con Wynton Kelly al piano.

So What – Originale da Kind of Blue

So What – riedizione live aprile 1959

MORE LINKs
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>> Blog WordPress dedicato a Miles (English)

>> KIND OF BLUE TRIBUTE, auditorium 9.11.09

>> Aldo Bassi Tribute to Miles Davis (Concerto all’Alexanderplatz)

>> Aldo Bassi on Facebook

Bijna anderhalf uur stonden en zaten ze er, vier oude mannen en twee iets jongere saxofonisten. Ze spraken geen woord, lachten geen moment, maakten geen buiging of hoofdknikje naar het publiek. Ze waren in hun wereld, een plaat van vijftig jaar oud. Jimmy Cobb, de 80-jarige drummer, is de enige overlevende van het legendarische sextet dat in 1959 onder leiding van Miles Davis Kind of blue opnam. Hij toert dit jaar met deze mannen door de wereld om een tribute aan Davis te brengen en natuurlijk nog wat geld te verdienen, al was hij vroeger het af en toe zat om alleen maar aan die historische opname van 50 jaar terug herinnerd te worden, terwijl hij toch ook op het niet misselijke Giant steps van John Coltrane meedrumde. Onder anderen.

We verheugden ons er al op en op de vijfde rij van het Palau de la Música is het genot bij dit soort concerten nog groter. Je ziet geen poppetjes ver weg, die op videoschermen groot worden weergegeven opdat iedereen in een gigantisch stadion nog iets kan zien. Op de vijfde rij van het Palau zit je in een jazzclub en hoor je met stijgende emotie die klanken aan die jazzgeschiedenis schreven. Aan Wallace Roney de moeilijkste taak, op trompet Miles Davis in herinnering te roepen.

Ook zo mooi gisteravond: niemand met een cameraatje die foto’s of een video maakte; op YouTube heb ik dan ook slechts een oudere versie kunnen vinden van Roney in het meest aangrijpende nummer, de beklemmende tonen van Blue in green. Slikken, een traantje wegpinken bij een zacht voortglijdende trompet… Had het nog nooit meegemaakt.

Verplaats deze video naar de modernistische kitsch van het Palau, met Roney al een stuk dikker, slecht ter been en achter een grote zonnebril… En na die bijna anderhalf uur kwam er eindelijk een lach op het gezicht van de heren. Hun examen was geslaagd, ze konden elkaar voorstellen en aan de bises beginnen. Jimmy Cobb zei, ter afscheid, dat we elkaar de volgende keer in het hiernamaals zullen tegenkomen. Als daar ook van deze hemelse muziek klinkt, lijkt me dat helemaal niet erg.

Go and support blipfestival2009. Become a backer at kickstarter.com

8-30|11|2009
Kind of Blue Tribute
ROMA JAZZ FESTIVAL ‘09  – 33a ed. >> more info
JAZZ LABELS
Auditorium Parco della Musica
h. 21:00  da 15 a 20 €

Ho chiesto di presentare questo concerto ad un artista che conosce molto bene Miles Davis, soprattutto della sua musica. 

___________________________

di Aldo Bassi  www.aldobassi.it

Il 9 novembre 2009 alle 21,00 al Roma Jazz Festival, ci sarà un evento eccezionale. Un tributo a Kind of Blue (CBS, Columbia con varie ristampe) per il cinquantenario dell’ uscita del disco di jazz più venduto in assoluto, con di circa 10 milioni di copie.

A fare questo omaggio al grande Miles, saliranno sul palco della sala Sinopoli dell’Auditorium di Roma 6 musicisti di jazz tra i più apprezzati al mondo. Jimmy Cobb alla batteria, Wallace Roney alla tromba, Vincent Harring al sax alto, Javon Jackson al sax tenore,  Larry Willis al pianoforte ed infine Buster Williams al contrabbasso, che insieme hanno costituito la So What Band, per rievocare le atmosfere magiche dei 5 brani contenuti in Kind of Blue.

I brani incisi, So What, Freddie Freeloader, Blue in Green, All Blues, Flamenco Sketches furono attribuiti tutti a Davis, Blue in Green e Flamenco Sketches firmati insieme a Bill Evans. Milioni di persone hanno goduto di questo capolavoro, gioendo, piangendo, gemendo, sorridendo o provando tante altre emozioni al suono ipnotizzante di questo disco.

La formazione originale era di tutto rispetto: Julian “Cannonball” Adderly al sax contralto; John Coltrane al sax tenore; Wynton Kelly (solo su Freddie Freeloader) e Bill Evans al piano; Paul Chambers al contrabbasso; il sopracitato Jimmy Cobb alla batteria, e naturalmente Miles alla tromba.

 
wynton kelly                                      bill evans

Dice Jimmy Cobb, l’unico ancora in vita dei 5 musicisti che erano con Miles in quei giorni del ’59, che mentre registravano il disco non avrebbero mai immaginato di lasciare impressa sul vinile una musica che sarebbe stata considerata da molti il capolavoro assoluto del guru della tromba e del suo spettacolare sextet.

Tornando ai giorni nostri, i musicisti che ascolteremo al concerto del 9 novembre, non so se eseguiranno filologicamente tutto il disco, o se nel loro omaggio faranno degli riferimenti più o meno forti, ad ogni modo sapranno sicuramente cogliere in pieno il linguaggio del jazz di quegli anni. La Musica di Miles fa parte del loro bagaglio culturale e questo si avverte ancora di più nel suono altamente davisiano della tromba di Wallace Roney.

__________________________

Ma ora la questione si fa più complessa. Aldo Bassi, trombettista jazz, ci porta a conoscere da vicino questo tipo di jazz che trova il suo milestone proprio nell’opera Kind of Blue  >>> VIAGGIO NEL JAZZ MODALE di A.Bassi – online dal 10.11.09

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more

>> Aldo Bassi Tribute to Miles Davis (Concerto all’Alexanderplatz)

>> Blog WordPress dedicato a Miles (English)

>> Aldo Bassi on Facebook

Here’s a new video from westcoast RnB singer TQ for a song produced by London’s SMI crew (Streets Made Innovators), called “Don’t Stop”.  It’s up tempo/dance track and works great with TQ’s voice.  The song is going to be on TQ’s upcoming January 2010 album “Kind of Blue”.

8-30|11|2009
ROMA JAZZ FESTIVAL ‘09  – 33a ed.
JAZZ LABELS
Auditorium Parco della Musica
h. 21:00  da 10 €

Roma Jazz Festival 2009, rassegna giunta alla 33 edizione, sarà dedicata alle Jazz Labels, le case discografiche jazzs storiche e le nuove etichette, in virtù delle tante ricorrenze che proprio in questo 2009 ricordiamo. Primo fra tutti l’anniversario dei 50 anni dalla pubblicazione di Kind of  Blue il capolavoro di Miles Davis,  o come i 90 anni dalla prima incisione jazz in Italia.

Tutto questo verrà ricordato e festeggiato con un cartellone di artisti di fama internazionale che si alterneranno  per presentare le anteprime dei loso progetti.

Programma

Dom. 08/11/2009
Stefano Bollani Trio
Sala Santa Cecilia
h. 21:00 da 20 a 25 €

Lun. 09/11/2009
Kind of Blue Anniversary at 50
So What Band: J.Cobb, W.Roney, J.Jackson, V.Harring, L.Willis, B.Williams
Sala Sinopoli
h. 21:00 da 15 a 20 €

Mar. 10/11/2009
Javier Girotto & Aires Tango “10/15″
Sala Sinopoli
h. 21:00 15 €  >> evento su Facebook

Merc. 11/11/2009
Sonny Rollins Quintet
Sala Santa Cecilia
h. 21:00 da 40 a 80 €

Giov. 12/11/2009
Roberto Fonseca Quintet
in apertura Livio Minafra
Sala Petrassi
h. 21:00 15 €

Ven. 13/11/2009
Gabriele Mirabassi Trio, Cristina Zavalloni, Mario Brunello, Marco Zurzolo Band
Sala Petrassi
h. 21:00 15 €

Sab. 14/11/2009
Brad Mehldau Trio
Sala Sinopoli
h. 21:00 da 20 a 25 €

Dom. 15/11/2009
Diana Krall Trio
Quiet Nights World Tour 2009
Sala Sinopoli
h. 21:00 da 50 a 90 €

Lun. 16/11/2009
SOL6
Teatro Studio
h. 21:00 12€

Mar. 17/11/2009
Showcase di Jamie Cullum
Sala Sinopoli
h. 21:00 10 €

Mar. 17/11/2009
3Quietmen Stefano Battaglia – Downtown Trio
Teatro Studio
h. 21:00 15 €

Merc. 18/11/2009
Antonio Placer Trio
Atlantiterraneo
Teatro Studio
h. 21:00 12 €

Giov. 19/11/2009
Nicola Conte Combo, Luciano Cantone
Sala Sinopoli
h. 21:00 da 20 a 25 €

Ven. 20/11/2009
Alboran Trio
Teatro Studio
h. 21:00 € 12,00

Mar. 24/11/2009
Paolo Fresu, Uri Caine
with Alborada String Quartet
Sala Sinopoli
h. 21:00 da 20 a 25 €

Dom. 29/11/2009
David Murray Black Saint Quartet
Sala Sinopoli
h. 21:00 da 15 a 20 €

Lun. 30/11/2009
Richard Galliano “Solo”
Sala Sinopoli
h. 21:00 da 20 a 25 €

“Kind of blue” (1959) puede considerarse la obra maestra de Miles Davis y ahora vuelve a nuestra memoria gracias a su cincuenta aniversario. Por aquella época, el trompetista ya había entrado en la década de los 30 (por edad), pero nada hacía pensar que este sería el disco más vendido en la historia del jazz.

¿Qué tiene de especial este disco? ¿Dónde reside su belleza? Seguramente si Miles Davis leyera este post nos diría algo así como: “No tenemos tiempo para Kind Of Blue. Ahí está. Lo hice en un momento determinado, en el momento oportuno, el buen día y ya está. Se acabó, está grabado” (es una cita histórica).

Sin embargo, esta obra creó un arquetipo dentro del jazz. Está claro que no es la única obra que cabe recordar si indagamos dentro de este género, pero si se edita una edición especial por el aniversario y si desde distintas asociaciones se homenajea el disco por algo será.

Así el colegio mayor San Juan Evangelista con su XXVIII festival le dedica un homenaje, como la sexta edición del Festival de Jazz de Madrid que tendrá su particular recuerdo al disco el próximo 6 de noviembre. Todo quieren recordar esta magnífica obra del jazz.

Es cierto que el disco no es solo Miles Davis, ya que supo codearse con otros grandes de la época como John Coltrane (al saxo tenor), Cannonball Adderley (al saxo contraalto), Wynton Kelly (piano), Bill Evans (piano), Paul Chambers (contrabajista) y Jimmy Cobb (batería).

Una de las muchas cosas interesantes que puedes encontrar en el disco es, precisamente, la forma de grabarlo. Un enfoque conocido como “modal”, es decir, se improvisa sobre escalas y no sobre acordes, como era habitual hasta el momento.

De hecho, los músicos no tenían claro qué iban a grabar hasta el mismo instante en el que comenzó la grabación, experimentación y jazz en estado puro.

El Teatro Fernán Gómez y el Circo Price, entre otras salas serán sedes de las XXVI edición del Festival de Jazz de Madrid

24-10-2009 Ayto de Madrid La inauguración oficial del festival tendrá lugar el 4 de noviembre, en el Teatro Fernán Gómez con el concierto de Joe Lovano Nonet El Teatro Fernán González ofrecerá 12 conciertos de artistas como Jimmy Cobb, Richard Bona, Brad Mehldau, Chastang, Larry Willis, Polo Orti, o Cassandra Wilson, entre otros El Teatro Circo Price acogerá los conciertos de Kike Perdomo Quintet & Eric Marienthal y Marcus Miller (12 de noviembre), y Madeline Peyroux (13 de noviembre) Se integran en la programación el Festival de Jazz San Juan Evangelista con las actuaciones de Ron Carter, Dave Liebman, o Javi Colina, entre otros, y el Festival de Jazz de Ciudad Lineal con las de Kenny Barron, Nils Petter Molvaer y John Scofield El programa se completa con ‘Jazz con sabor a club’, con más de 200 conciertos en 15 salas, y el ciclo ‘Música & Cine’, que proyectará sus cintas en el Fernán Gómez, Instituto Francés, Centro Cultural Nicolás Salmerón y La boca del Lobo Joe Lovano Nonet El próximo 4 de noviembre comienza una nueva edición del Festival de Jazz de Madrid con un concierto inaugural a cargo del saxofonista Joe Lovano en el Teatro Fernán Gómez acompañado de ocho instrumentos más. El certamen madrileño, que celebra en esta ocasión su vigésimo sexta edición, está consolidado ya como referente fundamental de la oferta jazzística de la ciudad de Madrid. Este año cuenta con un total de 17 conciertos en su programa central que se desarrollarán en cuatro salas: el Teatro Fernán Gómez que absorbe la mayor parte del programa central con 12 conciertos; el Teatro Circo Price con dos conciertos; la Fundación Carlos de Amberes con un único concierto; y el Centro Cultural Nicolás Salmerón que acogerá dos recitales gratuitos. La delegada de Las Artes Alicia Moreno, junto al director del festival Javier Estrella y al director de Actividades Culturales de Las Artes, Manuel Lagos, ha dado cuenta de los detalles de este programa, en un acto que ha contado además con la actuación de la cantante Edith Salazar y de Zenet. El jazz vocal, llegará al Fernán Gómez de la mano de artistas como Richard Bona, Diane Schuur o Cassandra Wilson. Mientras que los recitales más instrumentales contarán con virtuosos como los guitarristas W. Muthspiel, S. Grigoryan y R. Towner; y los pianistas Brad Mehldau, Larry Willis, y Polo Ortí. En su escenario estarán también las nuevas promesas del jazz en una nueva edición de la Muestra de Grupos Jóvenes de la AMEMM, que tendrá lugar el 15 de noviembre. Otra de las grandes citas con el jazz tendrá lugar en el escenario de la plaza de Colón. Será el caso del concierto Kind of blue, un homenaje en el 50 aniversario de la famosa grabación de Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Wynton Kelly, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers y Jimmy Cobb, y que éste último recordará, el 6 de noviembre. La pista central del Teatro Circo Price acogerá dos de las grandes citas del festival. La primera vendrá de la mano de los virtuosos del saxofón los Kike Perdomo y Eric Marienthal. Ambos inaugurarán una “sesión doble” el 12 de noviembre, que se cerrará con el clarinetista y bajista Marcus Miller, que presentará su concierto Tutu revisited. Por su parte la voz y la guitarra acústica de Madeleine Peyroux, visitará el festival, el 13 de noviembre, con la presentación de su último trabajo, Bare bones. La Fundación Carlos de Amberes, repite, por segundo año consecutivo, como sede del festival, con el concierto del Roy Hargrove Quintet, el viernes 6 de noviembre. Completan el programa central los conciertos gratuitos de Patricia Kraus y Edith Salazar, los días 27 y 28 de noviembre, respectivamente, que tendrán lugar en el Centro Cultural Nicolás Salmerón. Más propuestas Un año más destaca la programación del colegio San Juan Evangelista y del Festival de Jazz de Ciudad Lineal. El primero contará con un total de siete conciertos en los que participarán entre otros Dave Liebman & Ellery Eskellin, Ron Carter, Dave Douglas, Tomasz Stanko, y, Raynald Colom, Jerry González y Javi Colina, entre otros artistas. Ciudad Lineal, por su parte, incluirá las actuaciones de Kenny Barron Trío, Nils Petter Molvaer y John Scofield. Con sabor a club Además las salas de música en vivo han querido sumarse de nuevo a las actividades del Festival de Jazz con una programación especial, de más de 200 conciertos que se desarrollará en un total de 15 salas. En clave de cine También se podrá disfrutar en esta vigésimo sexta edición del festival de la aproximación al jazz desde la mirada del cine. El programa Música y cine contará con un total de 15 películas. En esta ocasión el ciclo Música y cine se desarrollará en torno a tres programas fundamentales. La música de Jurgen Kneiper para Win Wenders, repasará a través de cuatro películas, la fructífera relación establecida entre estos dos artistas germanos. Por su parte el programa 1959-2009, 50 años de música en la Nouvelle Vague, recordará la trayectoria de tres compositores de cine de la época: Michel Legrand, Pierre Jansen y Antoine Duhamel. Para concluir el apartado de cine, el programa 20 años de Lets get lost, rendirá un homenaje al trompetista Chet Baker con la proyección de la película Lets get lost de Bruce Weber.

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