AccuJazz News: Roll-Out Continues With "Modern West Coast"

I'll be honest: there's a lot less music playing on this new Region channel than the last one, but there's still a lot. The thing about "West Coast Jazz" is that the term doesn't have an exclusively regional connotation, but a stylistic one, too. It's not uncommon for musicians to describe a song as having a "West Coast Jazz" feel. It's interesting that the music coming from California in the 1950s was so distinct that the region became synonymous with a sound. That's certainly not the case with today's West Coast jazz. Today's West Coast jazz offerings display a great deal of diversity, and very little of it conjures the classic cool jazz sound of Chet Baker or Chico Hamilton.

AccuJazz has long had a Cool Jazz channel. It used to be called "West & Cool," but I changed it to "Cool Jazz" for the relaunch of the site earlier this year in anticipation of the region channel at hand. The purpose of this channel is to give a broader view of the music from that part of the country, including lots of newer music from people like Charlie Haden, Nels Cline, Scott Amendola, John Clayton and Jenny Scheinman. And don't worry, I've included some of the classic West Coast stuff by folks like Art Pepper and Gerry Mulligan, too.

Go ahead and listen to the channel, and let me know what you think! FYI: the icon for the channel you see is a photo from outside the historic Lighthouse Cafe in Hermosa Beach. It was a hub of the West Coast scene in its '50s heyday, but it looks like they don't offer up much jazz anymore. I guess the image isn't totally apropos for a "Modern" west coast channel, then, but that's OK. Personal note: my family used to vacation in Hermosa Beach when I was younger, and I remember walking by the Lighthouse many times, long before I knew that I should care about its rich history.

Now Playing on AccuJazz - 7/23

It's been about a month since the last one, not bad, but still enough time to amass a huge quantity of new music. And already since this update went through to our server there have been new additions that will just have to wait 'til next time to be heard. Next update will include lots of stuff from veteran Avant-Garde label ESP Disk, who so generously offers up their back catalog to radio and press entities. Look forward to ESP releases by Ornette Coleman, Paul Bley, Steve Lacy, Sun Ra, Fred Anderson and many more.

Those CD's are for next time, though. Let's focus on the here and now: these are the 62(!) CDs newly playing on the many channels of AccuJazz as of Tuesday morning, 7/21. In the spirit of inclusion-over-exclusion, I've included older releases that just made their way to AccuJazz as well as all of the new releases. The older releases (some of them almost new enough to be called new releases) are at the bottom of the post.


This update would not be possible without the help of the folks who work so hard on behalf of the artists they represent and help me enjoy my job by offering so much great music: super-publicist Matt Merewitz, of Fully Altered Media, hooked me up with a lot of great music including some Vijay Iyer discs and some much-desired CDs from Chicago-centric label 482 Music. Delmark records came through with some good stuff to beef up our upcoming Chicago Jazz Fest 2009 channel, and Nate Snell of 18th & Vine Records sent along a big package of their excellent modern straight-ahead offerings, including the new one by master drummer Louis Hayes.

There are a couple of new Franz Jackson discs thanks to the late, great saxophonist's daughter, Michelle Jewell, contacting me personally as part of her quest to make sure her dad gets his just due. Read more about him on his website if you're in the dark.

As before, I've included information about which channels the discs are playing on and I've provided links to purchase each album though Amazon. I've also given the much-coveted double star (**) to my favorite releases of the batch. I still haven't had a chance to listen to every single disc very deeply, so I'm certain that there are CDs worthy of the stars that just haven't had enough time to make their impressions on me. I've also included label info this time around.

New Releases:

Steve Kuhn - Mostly Coltrane (ECM)
Piano Jazz, New School, Modern Mainstream, New York

Jeremy Davenport - We'll Dance 'Til Dawn (Basin Street)
Straight Ahead, Vocal Jazz, New Orleans, Trumpet Jazz

Kevin Hays Trio - You've Got a Friend (Jazz Eyes)
Piano, New School, Modern Mainstream, New York, Composers: Monk, Composers: Bird and Diz


**Kurt Elling - Dedicated to You (Concord)**
Vocal Jazz, New School, Modern Mainstream, Live Jazz, Chicago, Third Stream

Ralph Bowen - Dedicated (Posi-Tone)
Saxophone Jazz, New School, Modern Mainstream, New York

Towner Galaher - Courageous Hearts (Self-Released)
New School, Modern Mainstream, New York, Give the Drummers Some


Stanley Clarke Trio - Jazz in the Garden (Heads Up)
New School, Modern Mainstream, Covering All the Bassists, Nothin' But the Blues

Avery Sharpe - Autumn Moonlight (Jknm)
Straight Ahead, New School, Modern Mainstream, Covering all the Bassists, Nothin' but the Blues


Louis Hayes - The Time Keeper (18th and Vine)
Straight Ahead, New School, Modern Mainstream, Give the Drummers Some

Jackie Allen - Starry Night (Avant Bass)
Vocal Jazz, Live Jazz, Chicago, Third Stream

Greta Matassa - I Wanna Be Loved (Resonance)
Vocal Jazz, Modern West Coast, Women of Jazz

Lauren Sevian - Blueprint (Inner Circle)
Straight Ahead, Saxophone Jazz, New School, Modern Mainstream, Emerging Voices, New York, Women of Jazz

**Paul Giallorenzo - Get in to Go Out (482 Music)**
New School, Cutting Edge, Emerging Voices, Chicago, Avant-Garde Jazz


Tom Lellis - Skylark (Adventure Music)
Vocal Jazz, Modern Mainstream, Third Stream

**Vijay Iyer - Historicity (ACT Music) (not yet available for purchase)**
Piano Jazz, New School, Cutting Edge, Emerging Voices, New York


Akiko Tsuruga - Oriental Express (18th and Vine)
Straight Ahead, New School, Modern Mainstream, Emerging Voices, New York, Organ Jazz, Groove Jazz, Women of Jazz


**The Story - The Story (Self-Released)**
New School, Cutting Edge, Modern Mainstream, Emerging Voices, New York

**James Falzone's Klang - Tea Music (Allos Documents)**
New School, Cutting Edge, Emerging Voices, Chicago, Avant-Garde Jazz

Joe Morris - Wildlife (AUM Fidelity)
New School, New York, Avant-Garde Jazz


Kevin Tkacz Trio - It's Not What You Think (Piece of Work of Art)
New School, Cutting Edge, Emerging Voices, New York, Avant-Garde Jazz, Covering All the Bassists

**Rudder - Matorning (Nineteen-Eight Records)**
New School, Cutting Edge, New York, Jazz Fusion, Groove Jazz


Resonance Big Band - Tribute to Oscar Peterson (Resonance)
Straight Ahead, Piano Jazz, Modern Mainstream, Modern West Coast, Big Band


James Carney - Ways & Means (Songlines)
Piano Jazz, New School, Cutting Edge, Modern West Coast, Avant-Garde Jazz


Melissa Morgan - Until I Met You (Telarc)
Straight Ahead, Vocal Jazz, Emerging Voices, Modern West Coast, Women of Jazz


Sean Nowell - The Seeker (Posi-Tone)
Saxophone Jazz, New School, Modern Mainstream, Emerging Voices, New York

Daniel Santiago - Metropole (Adventure Music)
Guitar Jazz, New School, Cutting Edge, Modern Mainstream


**John Hebert - Byzantine Monkey (Firehouse 12)**
New School, Cutting Edge, New York, Avant-Garde Jazz, Covering All the Bassists

Bobby Selvaggio - Modern Times (Arabesque)
Saxophone Jazz, New School, Modern Jazz


Trey Wright - Thinking Out Loud (Blue Canoe)
Guitar Jazz, New School, Cutting Edge, Modern Mainstream

**Darwin Noguera - The Gardener (Chicago Sessions)**
Latin Jazz, New School, Modern Mainstream, Emerging Voices, Chicago


Carl Maguire's Floriculture - Sided Silver Solid (Firehouse 12)
New School, Cutting Edge, New York, Avant-Garde Jazz


Hristo Vitchev - Song for Messambria (First Orbit Sounds Music)
Latin Jazz, New School, Modern Mainstream, Emerging Voices, Modern West Coast


Art Pepper - Essential Standards (OJC)
Straight Ahead, Saxophone Jazz, Everybody's Boppin', Cool Jazz

Antonio Valdetaro - Leticia (Tratore Music)
Latin Jazz

Irene & Her Latin Jazz Band - A Song of You (Self-Released)
Vocal Jazz, Latin Jazz

Sunna Gunnlaugs - Songs From Iceland (Sunny Sky)
Piano Jazz, New School, Modern Mainstream, Europe, Women of Jazz

Cai Marle-Garcia - Mr. Ears (Self-Released)
New School, Emerging Voices, Europe, Covering All the Bassists, Jazz Fusion

Nat Birchall - Akhenaten (Gondwana)
Saxophone Jazz, New School, Europe

Older Releases (But New to AccuJazz!):


**Vijay Iyer - Tragicomic (Sunny Side)**
Piano Jazz, New School, Cutting Edge, Emerging Voices, New York

Richie Cole and the Alto Madness Orchestra - Rise's Rose Garden (Jazz Excursion)
Straight Ahead, Saxophone Jazz, Everybody's Boppin', Chicago, Big Band

Reuben Wilson, Bernard Purdie and Grant Green, Jr. - Godfathers of Groove (18th and Vine)
Guitar Jazz, Modern Mainstream, Organ Jazz, Nothin' but the Blues, Groove Jazz


Mike Reed's Loose Assembly - The Speed of Change (482 Music)
New School, Cutting Edge, Emerging Voices, Chicago, Avant-Garde Jazz, Give the Drummers Some


Sonny Fortune - You and the Night and the Music (18th and Vine)
Straight Ahead, Saxophone Jazz, New School, Modern Mainstream

Art Hodes - Up in Volly's Room (Delmark)
Piano Jazz, Old School, Nothin' But the Blues, Decade: '70s

**Muhal Richard Abrams - Things to Come From Those Now Gone (Delmark)**
New School, Chicago, Avant-Garde Jazz, Decade: '70s


Yves Francois - Blues for Hawk (Delmark)
Old School, Chicago, Trumpet Jazz, Nothin' But the Blues

Eric Vloeimans - Bitches and Fairy Tales (Challenge)
New School, Modern Mainstream, Europe, Trumpet Jazz

Jason Adasiewicz - Rolldown (482 Music)
New School, Emerging Voices, Chicago, Avant-Garde Jazz, Good Vibes

Eric Alexander - Mode for Mabes (Delmark)
Straight Ahead, Saxophone Jazz, Everybody's Boppin', Modern Mainstream, Chicago

Harris Eisenstadt - The Soul and Gone (482 Music)
New School, Emerging Voices, Avant-Garde Jazz


Franz Jackson - A Night at Red Arrow (Pinnacle)
Saxophone Jazz, Old School, Chicago

**Mike Reed's People, Places and Things - Proliferation (482 Music)**
New School, Cutting Edge, Emerging Voices, Chicago, Avant-Garde Jazz, Give the Drummers Some

Dave Rempis' Percussion Quartet - Hunter Gatherers (482 Music)
New School, Emerging Voices, Chicago, Avant-Garde Jazz

Fred Anderson - Timeless (Delmark)
New School, Chicago, Avant-Garde Jazz


Vijay Iyer - Reimagining (Savoy Jazz)
Piano Jazz, New School, Cutting Edge, Emerging Voices, New York


Roscoe Mitchell - In Walked Buckner (Delmark)
Chicago, Avant-Garde Jazz


Jay T. Vonada - Jammin' (Self-Released)
Straight Ahead, Emerging Voices, Trombone Jazz


Archie Shepp with Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio - Conversations (Delmark)
Saxophone Jazz, New School, Chicago

Franz Jackson - I is What I is (Pinnacle)
Saxophone Jazz, Old School, Chicago

Lin Halliday - Where or When (Delmark)
Straight Ahead, Saxophone Jazz, Chicago

Bob Seeley & Bob Baldori - Boogie Stomp! (Spirit Records)
Piano Jazz, Old School, Nothin' But the Blues


Sunna Gunnlaugs - Mindful (Sunny Sky)
Piano Jazz, New School, Modern Mainstream, Europe, Women of Jazz

AccuJazz News: Roll-Out Continues With "Nothin' But the Blues"

This week's new channel is a unique one: the common element among its hundreds of songs is not a style, decade, region, instrument, age range (Emerging Voices), gender (Women of Jazz), or inclusion in a famous photo (A Great Day in Harlem), but a chord progression. Not just any chord progression, but the end-all-be-all of jazz chord progressions: the 12-bar blues.

Granted, not every "jazz" version of a blues song has the exact same chord progression, but the basic underlying structure is the same, and it's amazing how much variation there is to be heard in the hundreds of tunes playing on our channel. There's early New Orleans jazz (King Oliver's "West End Blues," for instance), fiery bebop (Bird's "Au Privave," "Bloomdido" or "Relaxin' at the Camarillo") and all sorts of post-bop blues compositions, like Wayne Shorter's enduring "Footprints," George Russell's "Stratusphunk," and any number of more modern and adventurous blues-based creations from musicians like Brad Mehldau, Anat Cohen, Conrad Herwig, Dave Holland, Jason Moran and John Scofield.

The aforementioned Stratusphunk is not actually playing on our channel (yet) but was introduced to me via Twitter by the extremely talented composer/band leader Darcy James Argue and I found a great video of the harmonically adventurous George Russell tune on youtube.

Please let me know what your favorite blues heads are, and I'll try to make sure we're playing them. Mine are: Blue 7 (Sonny Rollins), Turnaround (Ornette Coleman), Blues In Blueprint (Duke Ellington), Bolivar Blues (Thelonious Monk), Footprints (Wayne Shorter), All Blues (Miles Davis), Isotope (Joe Henderson), Misterioso (Monk, again) and Sandu (Clifford Brown). Check out the channel right now and listen for these and literally hundreds more.

More Good News:

On the heels of yesterday's good jazz news post, I came across another good news story happening right here in Chicago. A non-profit organization called Urban Aspirations has been putting on weekly jam sessions at a southside restaurant called Sikia, and they're presenting a fundraiser concert Wednesday to raise money for another year of sessions. The concert will feature young trumpet phenom Corey Wilkes [pictured] (whose Cries From tha Ghetto is currently spinning on many AccuJazz channels) and local legend, pianist Ken Chaney.

The more I read about these jam sessions, the more intrigued I am and the more I want them to keep going on. Read this blog post and this news report about the last session and you'll get an idea of how big an impact this sort of thing can have in local kids' lives. There really are zero opportunities for young south side musicians to go jam, so this place is offering an essential service that will could very well launch some potentially important careers. If you want to attend Wednesday's fundraiser, hurry up and buy tickets here now, because tickets are only on sale through tomorrow, July 10.

Jazz World News: Why Don't They Ever Tell Us About the Good News?

I don't do a whole lot of blogging that isn't directly related to AccuJazz programming development, but this morning I feel so buoyed by a couple of good news stories that I wanted to let you all know about it.

The first bit of good news hit very close to home for me and my colleagues in the AccuRadio office: my boss, AccuRadio CEO Kurt Hanson, helped broker a deal yesterday between webcasters and royalty distributor SoundExchange that has ended the death knells for Internet radio. Read Kurt's own analysis here, where he writes, "Finally, for the first time ever, Internet radio stations have a royalty deal that is reasonably viable and extends for a reasonably-long period of time." Also read the New York Times report here (which uses a picture of Pandora CEO Tim Westergren instead of Kurt, who was more integral to the deal -- I guess Westergren has more star power).

For the last couple of years, webcasters like AccuRadio (which, if you haven't inferred by now, is the daddy of AccuJazz) have been worried that the current royalty rates would simply drive them out of business, effectively putting an end to Internet radio as a medium. Read this 2007 interview with Westergren where he decries the old rates and expresses fears of Pandora's demise.

With the new royalty rates, every one agrees that Internet radio as a business will be much more viable. This is good news for me, you, and the musicians playing on Internet radio.

The second bit of good news that brightened my spirits today is another about-face of a prominent bad news story: George Wein's Newport Jazz Fest got a sponsor, and he'll even be able to stage a New York Jazz Festival next summer. In case you didn't know, electronics manufacturer JVC sponsored the Newport and New York jazz festivals for decades and pulled its sponsorship this year, resulting in a fest-less New York this summer. So, there still will be no major jazz fest in NY this summer, but Newport 2009 will be financially viable and the NY fest will rise like a Phoenix next summer, all thanks to a new medical products company called CareFusion, who announced that they will be sponsoring a number of jazz festivals in coming years. Read the AP Report here, NYT here, and check out a video newscast on the announcement by NY1 here.

What strikes me about this deal is how quickly and unexpectedly it occurred -- just a few days ago Wein was in retirement, content to lose dough at Newport and stay out of the major festival game for a while, and now he has some brand new company that doesn't even market to the general public, pouring millions into an "International Jazz Festival Series." I'm kind of baffled by this -- what does CareFusion stand to gain? Their clients are doctors and purchasers at well-funded hospitals. They also list this year's Chicago Jazz Festival as a CareFusion-sponsored event, but I can't find any more info on this. Last I knew, U.S. Cellular was still the charter sponsor. At any rate, if you're a doctor and in a position to purchase CareFusion products, I encourage you to do so.

While this strikes me as good news, there are some who will likely be disappointed that Wein is being handed back the reins. For my part, I'm happy to see jazz musicians getting work and large amounts of people enjoying it. While there is still plenty of bad news for jazz lovers (see here, here, here), hopefully these two stories will lift your spirits a bit, like they did mine.

P.S. For all things Good News, you could always check out the Good News Blog. I don't think they have anything up about the jazz fests or the royalty deal though.

AccuJazz News: Roll-Out Continues With "Decade: '80s"

It's new channel time again, and we're adding another channel to the "Jazz by Decade" category: the '80s. When I say "'80s Jazz," it probably doesn't summon a strong characteristic sound or image in your mind the way, say, "'50s Jazz" does. Like everything else towards the end of the last century, jazz was becoming more and more diverse and splintered in its aesthetic. While the '50s saw some great steps forward for the music, people undoubtedly think of classic hard bop when associating the decade with a particular sound. With the '60s, it's likely the post bop of Miles and Trane's classic small groups, and with the '70s, it's probably the fusion supergroups led by Miles alumni like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul and John McLaughlin.

The '80s saw the rise of the so-called "young lions," led by the brothers Marsalis -- young jazz musicians who took to straight-ahead bop instead of the prevailing experimental styles of the '70s. While the young lions got a lot of attention in the '80s, they were by no means the only show in town. Veterans of the avant-garde and fusion scenes like Jack DeJohnette, Paul Motian, The World Saxophone Quartet, Weather Report, and Pat Metheny were pushing forward with new music.

Whether or not you have any vivid sonic image of what "'80s Jazz" sounds like, check out the new channel. You might be surprised how much you like it.