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It is again an honor to have made the Rising Star Trombone list in the 2012 DownBeat Critics Poll. These polls can sometimes be awkward, and just downright silly at other times, but I must treat any list that puts my name in such good company as an honor.
From June 11 through June 19, there was quite a bit of improvised music with visiting musicians happening in New Orleans. Tim Daisy played 3 shows in New Orleans and one in Lafayette, each with a different combination of musicians.
On Monday June 11, we played at The Big Top in New Orleans, as a trio with Tim on drums, Justin Peake on sampler, and me on my trombone/computer/sci-fi instrument rig. There are video of excerpts of that show here: http://jeffalbert.com/tim-daisy-jeff-albert-justin-peake/.
My computer/trombone/etc rig
Tim also played at Open Ears with dave Cappello, Ray Moore, and myself; at the AllWays Lounge with Brad Walker and Helen Gillet; and at Cité des Art in Lafayette with Josef Butts, and myself. Audio documentation of some of these gigs may appear at some point.
On Friday, Tim got schooled at Wii tennis by my daughters.
On Monday June 18, Rob Cambre, of Anxious Sounds, put together a show of ad hoc improvisations at the AllWays Lounge featuring Joe McPhee and the members of The Thing with some local musicians, including Will Thompson, Rob Cambre, Donald Miller, and me. It was a lot of fun, and Rob did a great job of grouping musicians in a way that made for a good show.
The set list for Monday June 18.
On Tuesday June 19, The Thing and Joe McPhee performed on the Open Ears Music Series. It was the last gig of the tour, and they brought it hard. It was a fabulous close to a busy but musically rewarding 9 days.
l to r: Paal Nilsson-Love (behind cymbal), Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten, Mats Gustafsson, & Joe McPhee
I was working on a paper, and ending up (re)discovering this video. It is the documentation of one of my two public performances on conch shell. The piece is Concerto Grosso by Stephen David Beck, who plays shofar in the video. Enjoy!
I offer the following without further comment.
Some of you are probably familiar with the NYC based organization called Search and Restore. It is run by a tireless man named Adam Schatz. Well, Adam is bringing his ever-excited craziness to New Orleans via a three night festival in New Orleans on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Jazz Fest.
Search And Restore: New Orleans is a 3 day festival (April 30th-May 2) celebrating the incredible new jazz musicians, creative composers and improvisers operating in New Orleans today, organized by Adam Schatz (founder of Search & Restore), Justin Peake (founder of the Merged series @ the Dragon’s Den) and Jeff Albert (founder of the Open Ears series @ the Blue Nile)
There is a Kickstarter campaign in place. I know I am always curious about how the Kickstarter money will be used. Your donations will help us guarantee a fair fee for every musician performing in the festival, with equal pay going to every artist in an effort to truly value the work. This financial security will allow us to go above and beyond with promoting the event, so that we can expose bigger and newer audiences to this vital community, and we hope you will be a part of it too!
Please pledge at the $600 level. It is the only way my wife will let me have my favorite summer hair style…
This past Friday, offBeat Magazine had their annual Best of the Beat Awards show. George Porter Jr. was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award. George invited many of the old & current Runnin’ Pardners to play that night, and like every gig with George, it was great. His daughter Katrina also put together an all star tribute band that did a couple of tunes. I am thankful that I got to play in that group as well, and thankful that someone from offBeat had a camera.
Horn section (l to r): Brian Graber, Khris Royal, Tracy Griffin, Mark Mullins, Jeff Albert. Front row (l to r): Art Neville, Dr. John, Cyril Neville, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, David Berard, Stanton Moore, Papa Mali, & Brint Anderson (out of picture to the right).
Here are some behind the scenes pics from my Instigation Quartet recording session on November 21, 2011. The musicians involved were Kidd Jordan, Hamid Drake, Joshua Abrams, and me. Zack Smith took the pictures.
I should have info about the release of the music some time soon(-ish).
Like much of the day, I was talking, and Kidd was practicing. Or maybe he was just trying to drown out my talking.
When he wasn’t practicing, he was laughing, or making us laugh.
Here we are with Wesley Fontenot, our fabulous recording engineer, checking out some playback.
Co-producer Benjamin Lyons and Hamid in (I’m sure rather deep) discussion.
We did actually record some music too. There are more action photos here.
The October 2011 issue of Jazz Times has a couple of articles that (at least in part) deal with the issue of gender diversity, or lack thereof, in the jazz sphere. Nate Chinen‘s column addresses the lack of female jazz critics. In writing about why this lack of female jazz critics should bother us, he says, “You should care because our discourse lacks an illuminating perspective.” The issue also includes David R. Adler‘s piece entitled “Understanding Nicholas Payton.” Talking about the all female reed section in his TSO, Nick says that he is “…trying to develop a band that is more inclusive of different types of energies. Also, I think the feminine energy brings a different sensibility to the group, and it balances out the yang energy, which is cool.”
I agree strongly with these sentiments, not because I have two daughters and want them to feel comfortable becoming critics or musicians or whatever else they might like to become (although that is also true), but because as Nate and Nick each point out, the feminine perspective is different and important and good.
Last year I took part in a group called New Generation that was organized by Georg Graewe. We did two nights of shows in Dortmund, Germany. There were 12 of us in the group, although we broke down into smaller units as part of each show, and 7 of the 12 of us were women. It was the first time that I can recall I had ever been in the sexual minority in a musical situation. I have been in the racial minority in many musical situations, but never had I been in a group with fewer men than women. It was great. The energy was absolutely different than had the group been all men, and different in a positive way. It is hard to be specific about how the musical and social vibes were different, but they definitely were, and I think all of our musical, and critical, experiences would be well served to have a better balance of masculine and feminine energy.
Enrico Sartori (alto clarinet), Domenico Caliri (guitar), Silvia Bolognesi (bass), Simone Padovani (percussion), Marcello Benetti (drums) & Jeff Albert (trombone)
This was recorded at UDIN&JAZZ 2011 XXI EDIZIONE on
Monday, June 20, 2011 in Cervignano del Friuli, Italy
Wow, two posts in row pointing out friends who are asking for money. I guess such is the world in which we live. The truth of the matter is that the old system of media/entertainment/art/whatever is dying. It no longer does any sort of good job at producing interesting and fulfilling material. The job of producing good stuff has fallen to the artists themselves, and other people who are personally vested in quality. That is why we have artists making and funding their own records now, and that is why some of our best music journalism is done by independent bloggers and podcasters.
This stuff has to be paid for in one way or another. With artists making CDs, the answer is fairly easy: buy their CDs. Jason Crane, who produces the fabulous music interview podcast called The Jazz Session, has adopted a somewhat public radio style way of trying to make his show economically feasible. He is seeking members, people who will make an ongoing commitment to financially support the show. We do these things (produce podcasts, run music series, etc) because we love to do them, but it does cost money to make them happen. Sometimes we can subsidize it from our personal lives, and sometimes we have to ask the people who enjoy this work to step up and help pay for it.
I love Jason’s show. I listen to it regularly and have learned a lot from the interviews. Jason has a wide ranging aesthetic and does a great job of giving exposure and forum to artists whose work falls left of the mainstream. I am a member.
I would recommend that you go to the website and listen to a show or two. There is a long list of artists from which to choose. I particularly enjoyed the Ken Filiano and David Weiss interviews. If you like what you hear and feel it deserves your support, you can join here: http://thejazzsession.com/join/
The show needs about 15 more members by the end of Thursday August 11 for it to continue.