The Ventura Music Festival began in 1992 as an annual event under the direction of Dr. Burns Taft. Fuctioning as both an event and a non-profit organization, it was originally called the Venture Chamber Music Festival until 2003 when a new director took the lead and started introducing more eclectic artists from a broader palate of listening tastes.
It'd be hard to disagree that this year's presidential election was full of some innovative, creative and down-right genius ideas at getting people to pay attention. From the bottom to the top, everyone was encouraged to participate through mini-rallies, phone trees, social-networking websites and instant-relay message boards.
One of the most powerful techniques for getting out candidate's messages and getting the ear of the public was the use of music, music videos and the artists as spokesperson, and the Obama camp definitely owned this tactic. Read more »
When it comes to jazz festivals that last only one day — or, in this case, only 10 hours — it’s hard to beat the NYC Winter Jazzfest for ambition or star power.
The 2009 edition of this one-night bash, as in past years, is timed to coincide with the annual Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference. The conference, which draws presenters, promoters, talent buyers, educators, and musicians from around the word, runs from Jan. 9-13 in Manhattan. The Jazzfest, designed as a showcase for underexposed (if not necessarily unknown) jazz and experimental musicians, runs from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. on the night of Jan. 10.
Since it began in 2005, the festival has been held at the Knitting Factory in TriBeCa. The Knitting Factory is moving to Brooklyn, but the festival is not following. Rather, it is moving from TriBeCa a few blocks north to Greenwich Village and expanding from one venue to three, all within easy walking distance: Le Poisson Rouge (the site of the old Village Gate, once one of the city’s top jazz rooms), Kenny’s Castaways and Sullivan Hall.
Wayne Shorter, Rubén Blades, and the Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés will be among the performers at the sixth annual Panama Jazz Festival, which begins Jan. 12 and continues through Jan. 17.
The presence of Shorter’s remarkable quartet on the Panama bill is hardly surprising, since the pianist in that group is Danilo Pérez, a native of Panama who founded the festival and whose foundation coordinates its educational activities. Nonetheless, it has to be considered a coup for a festival, and a country, that don’t always get a lot of attention.
For its 2009 season, Jazz Aspen Snowmass will change its locations and change and lengthen the dates of its June Festival, while its Labor Day Festival will be shortened by a day to compensate for the new resources being directed to the June Festival.
The venue change sees the festival's major artists playing in the Benedict Music Tent in Aspen's West End, which was borrowed from the classical Aspen Music Festival when Snowmass's June Festival launched in 1991. The festival has taken place at the Rio Grande Park in Aspen every previous summer going back to 2002.
Also, while it has usually spanned an extended weekend, the festival will expand its run-time from four days to seven, with concerts taking place on June 18-20 and June 25-28. Read more »
Seventieth anniversaries are not usually considered a big deal — at least not compared to 75th or 50th ones — but if the folks at Blue Note Records want to treat the label’s 70th as a big deal, who’s going to complain?
There’s an additional hook to the Blue Note celebrations planned for next year: Not only is 2009 the 70th anniversary of the label’s founding by Alfred Lion; it is also the 25th anniversary of its rebirth as an active label under the direction of Bruce Lundvall, who has been in charge ever since. Considering that Blue Note remains a powerful force in the jazz record business at a time when the jazz record business isn’t exactly thriving (even if the label has been cheating a little bit in recent years by signing non-jazz artists like Al Green and Van Morrison), now seems as good a time as any for Blue Note to pay tribute to itself. Read more »
Alaska has of course been much in the news lately. But until recently, none of that news had anything to do with jazz.
That has changed. While the rest of the country was focusing on the state’s maverick governor and criminal-defendant senator, Alaska Airlines made itself a player in the jazz world by virtue of a surprising act of heroism: pledging $50,000, this year and next, to keep the Portland (Oregon) Jazz Festival going. In early September, just a few weeks before the airline stepped in to save the day, the festival had announced that it was “ceasing operations, ending a five-year span of presenting a world-class jazz festival each February in Portland.
Now it’s back to business as usual for the Portland Jazz Festival, which has just announced its 2009 lineup. And next year the festival, to run from Feb. 13-22, will have not just a sponsor (more than one, actually: the event’s new full name is the cumbersome “Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air Portland Jazz Festival Presented by The Oregonian A&E”) but an enticing theme as well — Blue Note Records, which will be celebrating its 70th anniversary.
The good news is that there will be a four-day festival in New York this month devoted to the music of Thelonious Monk. The less than entirely good news is that it’s being presented by Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Lincoln Center’s jazz operation, under the unquestionably ambitious artistic direction of Wynton Marsalis, has been controversial from the beginning. As much praise as it has garnered for raising the music’s profile and treating it with the respect it deserves, it has attracted an equal amount of criticism for hewing to an overly conservative agenda. Still, while Jazz at Lincoln Center’s focus on the old at the expense of the new has been a legitimate source of carping, I have never heard anyone suggest that its devotion to major figures like Monk and Duke Ellington is a mistake. The issue is how that devotion is expressed. Read more »
As if they don’t have enough on their plate already, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will be artists in residence at next year’s Monterey Jazz Festival.
The orchestra will be a featured attraction at the festival in September, but the gig is primarily educational in nature: Members will work with student musicians in clinics and one-on-one sessions at both the Next Generation Festival in April and the Monterey Summer Jazz Camp. Marsalis is of course the marquee name, but according to the festival three other members of the orchestra — saxophonists Sherman Irby and Joe Temperley and trumpeter Sean Jones — will be doing the bulk of the educational work.
The artist-in-residence program is one of the key components of the Monterey Jazz Festival’s educational operation, which has grown exponentially since its modest beginning in 1970. The Festival now invests almost a million dollars a year annually in jazz education through a variety of programs.
The Monterey Jazz Festival has begun accepting applications from student musicians and vocalists for its fifth annual Next Generation Festival, to take place from April 3-5, 2009.
Applications are being accepted through Jan. 23 from middle school, high school, conglomerate, and college big bands; high school combos and vocal jazz ensembles; and college vocal jazz ensembles. Application is free.
A total of nine ensembles will win cash awards and be invited to perform at the Monterey Jazz Festival in September. The event also includes a high school composition competition, with the winning composer receiving cash and the winning composition to be performed at the big festival.
In addition, auditions will also be held for chair positions in the Monterey Jazz Festival’s Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, which tours every year and is a featured ensemble at the festival. More information, and application forms, can be found at montereyjazzfestival.org.
