Make Music LA at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw with Barbara Morrison

Ojai Music Festival and 2017 Music Director Vijay Iyer Announce the 71st Festival Program
June 8-11, 2017

Vijay Iyer is joined by a community of artistic collaborators, including returning Ojai family members 2015 Music Director Steven Schick, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Carnatic vocalist Aruna Sairam, flutist Claire Chase, and composer/percussionist Tyshawn Sorey 

 Iyer introduces Ojai to master musicians from various backgrounds and communities: Brentano Quartet; violinist Jennifer Koh; vocalist/composer Jen Shyu; Vijay Iyer Trio; Vijay Iyer Sextet; Tyshawn Sorey Double Trio; tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain; saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa; trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith; and The Trio featuring Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis, and Roscoe Mitchell

 

 

Highlights of the 2017 Festival include the world premiere of Vijay Iyer’s Violin Concerto, written for and performed by Jennifer Koh; the American premiere of Iyer’s Emergence for trio and ensemble; RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holiwith music by Iyer and film by Prashant Bhargava; the West Coast premiere of the opera Afterword by George Lewis; and Yet Unheard (world premiere of chamber version) by Courtney Bryan

Cal Performances’ Ojai at Berkeley is slated for June 15-17, 2017 following the Ojai Music Festival

 

(November 16, 2016– Ojai, California) – The Ojai Music Festival, June 8-11, 2017, with Music Director Vijay Iyer celebrates diverse communities of music, artists, and collaborations in a weekend of stimulation and reflection.

 

Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris stated, “Vijay Iyer is usually described as a composer, a pianist, an improviser, a collaborator, and a teacher. What really distinguishes him, however, is not just what he does but who he is and what he stands for. Vijay believes a life in the arts is a life of service in imagining, building, and enacting community that transcends heritage, nation, and creed. The 2017 Festival reflects these beliefs in the range of collaborators joining us – from Carnatic vocalist Aruna Sairam to percussionist/composer Tyshawn Sorey, to the virtuosic ensemble ICE, to trumpet legend Wadada Leo Smith; in the breadth of roles Vijay will play – from composer, to performer, to collaborator, to intellectual guide; and in the historical and social perspectives represented by the music and artists – from how so much of the Festival’s foundation is based on the groundbreaking Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM), to young composer Courtney Bryan’s powerful tribute to Sandra Bland, a vivid testimony to music’s ability to bring communities together in healing.”

 

Vijay Iyer commented, “When I was invited to take on the role of Music Director for the 2017 Ojai Music Festival, it was a shocking but validating proposition. As an artist, I like to insert myself into situations where some might not necessarily imagine I belong. I have many different affinities musically, and also very real associations across different musical communities, generations, geographic locations, and traditions that speak to me and through me. Our 2017 Festival feels like a good opportunity to update the idea of what music is today. I know the hallowed history of this Festival and I’ve seen different versions of what it can be. I’m just glad that Tom Morris invited me to intervene, and to bring my people with me. I’m going to learn so much over those few days in June, and I believe everyone there will discover a great deal – not just about music, but about themselves.” 

Watch Vijay Iyer Discuss the 2017 Festival

Much of the four-day Festival programming revolves around the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), an organization founded in Chicago in 1965 by a group of African-American experimentalists. Musicians of the AACM were not only committed to an adventurous synthesis of music making strategies – contemporary and ancient, familiar and faraway – but their very being was framed out of the Civil Rights struggles of that era. The New York Times, on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of the AACM a year ago said, “The AACM has been one of the country’s great engines of experimental art, producing work with an irreducible breadth of scope and style.”  Some of the original founding AACM members, including Wadada Leo Smith, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Roscoe Mitchell will be featured 2017 Ojai artists, as will composer/trombonist George Lewis, whose book A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music tells the definitive history of the AACM. Lewis’ opera Afterword, which is receiving its West Coast premiere, is based on the history of the organization.

The 2017 Festival begins on Thursday, June 8 showcasing the talents of Vijay Iyer.
The program features two recent works by Mr. Iyer, the American premiere of Emergence, performed by ICE and the Vijay Iyer Trio conducted by Steven Schick; and the world premiere of his Violin Concerto, a co-commission by the Ojai Music Festival, Cal Performances in Berkeley, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Violin Concerto was composed for and will be performed by violinist Jennifer Koh.

 

The evening closes with a duo comprising Mr. Iyer and the celebrated trumpet player and a founder of the AACM, Wadada Leo Smith. Described by Mr. Iyer as his “hero, friend, and teacher,” Mr. Smith collaborates with the pianist on music that is “spellbinding and traverses musical identities.” 
The two-part Friday afternoon concert on June 9 features flutist Claire Chase performing a selection from her recent Density 2036 project, a 22-year program conceived by Ms. Chase in 2014 to commission an entirely new body of repertory for solo flute each year until the 100th anniversary of Edgard Varèse groundbreaking 1936 flute solo. Following Density 2036 will be a rare performance by Tyshawn Sorey’s Double Trio in a program called “The Inner Spectrum of Variables.” Mr. Sorey made his Ojai debut last year composing music for and performing in the Josephine Baker Portrait. 

 

Friday evening’s concert features the West Coast premiere of George Lewis’ opera Afterword, for a small ensemble and three singers, performed by ICE with soprano Joelle Lamarre, contralto Gwendolyn Brown, and tenor JuIian Otis, all of whom sang in the 2016 American premiere of the work in Chicago, and with Steven Schick conducting. A 2002 MacArthur Fellow, George Lewis is a composer, theorist, musicologist, and virtuoso trombonist with an endowed chair at Columbia University. His A Will to Adorn was performed during the 2015 Ojai Music Festival. Mr. Lewis is the author of A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music, a prizewinning, comprehensive cultural history of this influential organization and its members.
The opera Afterword draws from the book’s own afterword, consisting of transcribed dialogues and testimonials about the AACM’s founding in 1965.Afterword will be semi-staged and directed by Sean Griffin.

Saturday afternoon’s two-part concert on June 10 begins with a program by the Brentano Quartet. In addition to performing the entire two-century range of standard quartet repertoire, the Brentano Quartet has a strong interest in both old and new music. The concert features music by György Kurtág and Mozart, as well as Vijay Iyer’s Mozart Effects, written for the quartet. Following this will be Conduction® led by Tyshawn Sorey, who is widely considered to be among the most important young artists at the intersection between composed and improvised music. Conduction®, is a gestural language invented by the acclaimed cornetist and composer Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris. As defined by the composer, “Conduction® is the practice of conveying and interpreting a lexicon of directives to construct or modify sonic arrangement or composition; a structure-content exchange between composer/conductor and instrumentalists that provides the immediate possibility of initiating or altering harmony, melody, rhythm, tempo, progression, articulation, phrasing, or form through the manipulation of pitch, dynamics (volume/intensity/density), timbre, duration, silence, and organization in real-time. Conduction® is a 60-minute piece of new music for an ensemble of 20 players being composed in real time – none of the performers nor conductor have a note of music in front of them.”

The Saturday evening centerpiece is RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi, commissioned five years ago by Carolina Performing Arts at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to celebrate the centennial of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps. RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi is a vivid and mesmerizing multimedia collaboration by Mr. Iyer and filmmaker Prashant Bhargava (who passed away in 2015 at the age of 42), exploring another sort of rite of spring, the Hindu festival of Holi, famous for its revelry of color in celebration of the love between the divine Krishna and Radha. In northern India, Mr. Bhargava filmed ravishing hi-definition images of an eight-day Holi festival, later editing the footage into a finished 37-minute film with Stravinsky’s Sacremusical structure as the basis for its film structure. Mr. Iyer composed a new score as the musical complement to Mr. Bhargava’s visual ballet, drawing at times on the rhythms and chants of the Holi festival. The result is one of Mr. Iyer’s warmest, most colorful creations to date, as rich melodically as it is texturally. The work is for an ensemble of 13 players that will be performed by ICE and conducted by Steven Schick, who will accompany the projected film live on the Libbey Bowl stage. The first half of the concert will be the West Coast premiere of a new version of Le Sacre du printemps arranged by composer Cliff Colnot for the same instrumental forces.

 

The final day of the Festival on Sunday, June 11 is a mini-festival of improvisation. It begins in the early morning with a free concert of living legends that will be one of the historical highlights at Ojai – The Trio featuring octogenarian pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis on trombone and laptop, and Roscoe Mitchell on assorted woodwinds. Mr. Abrams and Mr. Mitchell were among the founders of the AACM. The afternoon concert presents Vijay Iyer and his close collaborator for more than twenty years, the award-winning saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, joining forces with two living giants of Indian classical music: celebrated Carnatic vocalist Aruna Sairam and tabla maestro and world music pioneer Zakir Hussain. This day realizes one of Vijay Iyer’s dreams for the 2017 Festival, to create a new musical fabric with these remarkable artists together in Ojai. The Festival closes with Vijay Iyer and his all-star sextet including bassist Stephan Crump, Tyshawn Sorey on drums, alto saxophonist Steve Lehman, Graham Haynes on cornet and flugelhorn, and tenor saxophonist Mark Shim, an ensemble The New York Times has said, “addresses original music with a gripping sense of purpose.”

In addition to the main concert lineup there will be two Daybreak concerts both starting at 9am at Zalk Theatre at Besant Hill School in the upper Ojai for Ojai Music Festival members. On Friday, June 9 the performance features Jen Shyu, experimental vocalist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer, and Fulbright scholar, who will perform her own work, Solo Rites: Seven Breaths. Saturday, June 10 features Nicole Mitchell, flutist, composer, bandleader, and educator. Ms. Mitchell’s music celebrates African American culture while reaching across genres and integrating new ideas with moments in the legacy of jazz, gospel, experimentalism, pop, and African percussion. She formerly served as the first woman president of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).

Free Community Concerts

Ojai continues to build on its commitment to reach an ever-broader audience, and the 2017 Festival offers two free Late Night concerts in the Libbey Bowl, in addition to the Sunday morning concert. Friday evening at 10:30pm features a recital by Jennifer Koh, entitled “Bach and Beyond” in which Ms. Koh will perform works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Missy Mazzoli, Luciano Berio, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Saturday night at 10:30pm brings Vijay Iyer together with the Brentano Quartet to perform his Time, Place, Action. The Brentano Quartet opens the concert with selections from Bach’s Art of the Fugue, and the concert closes with the American premiere of a new version of Yet Unheard by the versatile composer and pianist Courtney Bryan. Written for chorus, orchestra, and the vocalist Helga Davis, Yet Unheard sets a new text by poet Sharan Strange memorializing Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old African American woman who died in police custody in Waller County, Texas, on July 13, 2015. Her death was classified as a suicide, though protests dispute the cause of death and allege racial violence. Focusing on bridging the sacred and the secular, Ms. Bryan’s recent compositions explore human emotions through sound, confronting the challenge of notating the feeling of improvisation.

 

Ojai Talks

The 2017 Festival begins with Ojai Talks hosted by Ara Guzelimian, former Festival Artistic Director and current Dean and Provost of The Juilliard School. On Thursday June 8 the first part session topic is “The Art of Improvisation” with Vijay Iyer. The second part of the Talks features a panel to discuss “Music as Community” with Mr. Iyer and other prominent guests. On Friday evening, June 9 the Ojai Talks will be held prior to the 8pm concert of George Lewis’ Afterword on the Libbey Bowl stage. The session will feature a discussion on the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians(AACM) with special guests. Additional details will be announced at a later date.

 

Ojai at Berkeley

Marking the seventh year of artistic partnership, Ojai at Berkeley celebrates the dynamic nature of the Ojai Music Festival and of Cal Performances. As two distinct communities, Ojai and Berkeley are both known for intrepid artistic discovery, spirited intellect, and enduring engagement in the arts. Inaugurated in 2011, Ojai at Berkeley is a joint force that enables co-commissions and co-productions and allows artists to achieve more than could be imagined by each organization separately. Ojai at Berkeley follows the 2017 Ojai Music Festival and will take place from June 15-17 in Berkeley, CA. For more information visit CalPerformances.org.

Vijay Iyer, Music Director

Composer-pianist Vijay Iyer is the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at Harvard University. He was named Downbeat Magazine’s Jazz Artist of the Year for 2012, 2015, and 2016, and he received a 2016 US Artists Fellowship, 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, a 2012 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, and a 2011 Grammy nomination. He has released twenty-one albums, including A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke (ECM, 2016) in duo with legendary composer-trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, named “Best New Music” by Pitchfork; Break Stuff (ECM, 2015) with the Vijay Iyer Trio, winner of the German Record Critics’ Award for Album of the Year; the live score to the film RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi (ECM, 2014) by filmmaker Prashant Bhargava; and Holding it Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project (Pi Recordings, 2013), his third politically searing collaboration with poet-performer Mike Ladd, named Album of the Year in the Los Angeles Times.

 

Mr. Iyer’s compositions have been commissioned and premiered by Bang on a Can All-Stars, The Silk Road Ensemble, Ethel, Brentano Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, Imani Winds, American Composers Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra Leopoldinum, Matt Haimowitz, and Jennifer Koh. Mr. Iyer serves as Director of the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music.

 

Thomas W. Morris, Artistic Director

Thomas W. Morris was appointed Artistic Director of the Ojai Music Festival starting with the 2004 Festival. Morris is recognized as one of the most innovative leaders in the orchestra industry and served as the long-time chief executive of both The Cleveland Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He is currently active nationally and internationally as a consultant, lecturer, teacher, and writer. As Artistic Director, Morris is responsible for artistic planning and each year appoints a music director with whom he collaborates on shaping the Festival’s programming. During his decade-long tenure, audiences have increased and the scope of the Festival has expanded, most recently to include a collaborative partnership, Ojai at Berkeley, with Cal Performances at UC Berkeley. Morris was a founding director of Spring for Music at New York’s Carnegie Hall and served as the project’s artistic director. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Interlochen Center for the Arts. He is also an accomplished percussionist.

 

About the Ojai Music Festival

From its founding in 1947, the Ojai Music Festival has created a place for groundbreaking musical experiences, bringing together innovative artists and curious audiences in an intimate, idyllic setting 80 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The Festival presents broad-ranging programs in unusual ways with an eclectic mix of rarely performed music, refreshing juxtapositions of musical styles, and works by today’s composers. The four-day festival is an immersive experience with concerts, free community events, symposia, and gatherings. Considered a highlight of the international music summer season, Ojai has remained a leader in the classical music landscape for seven decades.

Through its unique structure of the Artistic Director appointing an annual Music Director, Ojai has presented a “who’s who” of music including Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, Olivier Messiaen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kent Nagano, Pierre Boulez, John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, David Robertson, Eighth Blackbird, George Benjamin, Dawn Upshaw, Leif Ove Andsnes, Mark Morris, Jeremy Denk, Steven Schick, and Peter Sellars.

The Festival, which enters its 71^st year in 2017, is a nonprofit organization based in Ojai, California. The Board Chairman is David Nygren and President is Jamie Bennett.

 

Remote Access to the Ojai Music Festival

The Ojai Music Festival continues to draw thousands of curious and engaged music enthusiasts from across the country. As tickets remain in high demand, Ojai includes free access to the Festival experience through live and archived video streaming at OjaiFestival.org. Festival concert archives can also be heard on media partner Q2 Music’s website at WQXR.org.

Series Passes for 2017 Ojai Music Festival

2017 Festival series passes are available and may be purchased online at OjaiFestival.org or by calling (805) 646-2053. 2017 Ojai Music Festival series passes range from $140 to $860 for reserved seating and lawn series passes start at $60. Single concert tickets will be available in spring 2017.

 

Directions to Ojai and Libbey Bowl, as well as information about lodging, concierge services for visitors, and other Ojai activities, are available on the Festival website. Follow Festival updates at OjaiFestival.org, Facebook (Facebook.com/ojaifestival), and Twitter (@ojaifestivals).

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2017 FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

THURSDAY JUNE 8, 2017

2:00-5:00pm Ojai Valley Community Church

OJAI TALKS

Part I: The Art of Improvisation with Vijay Iyer and Ara Guzelimian

Part II: Music as Community with guest panelists moderated by Ara Guzelimian
8:00-10:00pm Libbey Bowl

EVENING CONCERT
VIJAY IYER  Emergence  (American premiere)

Vijay Iyer, piano

Stephan Crump, bass

Tyshawn Sorey, drums

ICE

Steven Schick, conductor
VIJAY IYER Violin Concerto (World premiere)

Commissioned by the Ojai Music Festival, Cal Performances at UC Berkeley, and Boston Symphony Orchestra

Jennifer Koh, violin

ICE

Steven Schick, conductor
Duo

Vijay Iyer, piano

Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet

Friday, June 9, 2017

FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2017

 

9:00-10:00am Zalk Theatre, Besant Hill School (Ojai Member event)

DAYBREAK CONCERT

 

JEN SHYU Solo Rites: Seven Breaths

Jen Shyu, performer/composer
1:00-3:30pm Libbey Bowl

AFTERNOON CONCERT
PART I

Density 2036: music by Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorey and others

Claire Chase, flute
PART II

Tyshawn Sorey Double Trio:

The Inner Spectrum of Variables

Tyshawn Sorey, drums

Cory Smythe, piano

Chern Hwei Fung, violin

Kyle Armbrust, viola

Rubin Kodheli, cello

Chris Tordini, bass

 

7:00-7:45pm Libbey Bowl

OJAI TALKS

The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM): Ongoing Impact with guest panelists moderated by Ara Guzelimian
8:00-10:00pm Libbey Bowl

EVENING CONCERT

 

GEORGE LEWIS Afterword (West Coast premiere)

Joelle Lamarre, soprano

Gwendolyn Brown, contralto

Julian Otis, tenor

ICE

Steven Schick, conductor

Sean Griffin, director

 

10:30-11:30pm Libbey Bowl

FREE LATE NIGHT

Bach & Beyond

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Partita in D Minor

MISSY MAZZOLI Dissolve, O My Heart

LUCIANO BERIO Sequenza for solo violin

ESA-PEKKA SALONEN Lachen Verlernt for solo violin

Jennifer Koh, violin

 

Saturday June 10, 2017

9:00-10:00am Zalk Theatre, Besant Hill School (Ojai Member event)

DAYBREAK CONCERT

 

Nicole Mitchell, flute
ICE

 

1:00-3:30pm Libbey Bowl

AFTERNOON CONCERT

 

PART I

VIJAY IYER Mozart Effects

GYÖRGY KURTAG Moments Musicaux

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Quartet in Eb Major, K. 428

Brentano Quartet

 

PART II

Conduction®

TYSHAWN SOREY Autoschediasms for Creative Chamber Orchestra

ICE

Tyshawn Sorey, leader

 

8:00-10:00pm Libbey Bowl

EVENING CONCERT

 

IGOR STRAVINSKY Le sacre du printemps

(arrangement by Cliff Colnot)

 

VIJAY IYER RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi

A Film by Prashant Bhargava

 

Vijay Iyer, piano

Tyshawn Sorey, drums

ICE

Steven Schick, conductor

 

10:30-11:30pm Libbey Bowl

FREE LATE NIGHT

 

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Art of the Fugue excerpts
Brentano Quartet
VIJAY IYER Time, Place, Action

Brentano Quartet

Vijay Iyer, piano
COURTNEY BRYAN Yet Unheard (WORLD PREMIERE of chamber version)

Text by Sharan Strange

Helga Davis, soprano

Joelle Lamarre, soprano

tba, contralto

Julian Otis, tenor

ICE

Steven Schick, conductor

 

Sunday June 11, 2017

 

9:00-10:00am Ojai Art Center

FREE COMMUNITY CONCERT

 

The Trio featuring

Muhal Richard Abrams, piano

Roscoe Mitchell, winds

George Lewis, trombone and electronics

 

1:00-3:00pm Libbey Bowl

AFTERNOON CONCERT

 

Zakir Hussain, tabla

Vijay Iyer, piano

Rudresh Mahanthappa, saxophone

Aruna Sairam, singer

 

5:30-7:30pm Libbey Bowl

CLOSING CONCERT

 

VIJAY IYER SEXTET

Vijay Iyer, piano

Stephan Crump, bass

Tyshawn Sorey, drums

Steve Lehman, alto saxophone

Graham Haynes, cornet and flugelhorn

Mark Shim, tenor saxophone

 

 

Artists and programs subject to change.

Visit OjaiFestival.org for the latest updates.

 

 

 

 

GINA GUTIERREZ
Director of Marketing and Communications
P: 805 646 2094 ext 104
F: 805 646 6037

OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL
PO Box 185 Ojai CA 93024
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Sign up for the Festival enews for updates and offers: OjaiFestival.org/contact

 

Click, Listen and Enjoy

Profiling Artists from 3 Great Record Companies

Biophilia Records

Mack Avenue Records

Orenda Records

PI Recordings

Plus a Miles 91st Birthday Medley to close the show

89.9 FM KCRW.com

The music is so potent and it is and ever learning and growing process. So many artists are presenting fabulous works of art and the popular media just keeps playing the same old thing. Radio is a place to entice you to hearing and learning new music that you might enjoy! I learned about music back in the day from labels like Blue Note, Impulse, Riverside and the likes so, this Saturday I will be presenting several artists from these labels along with my regular eclectic programming.

Saturday Morning May 27th 

from 3AM to 6AM

On the edge of the music, balancing between the “was” and the “will be” of sound is where you can always find me doing my absolute best to provide you with an intelligent, thought provoking, artistic, creative endeavor in sound. Jazz is the most confusing word in music and therefore it’s hard to explain in mere words. All we ask, as the purveyors of this music called Jazz is that you…

Click for Video

1. Come to the music openly
2. Hear all the notes
3. Allow yourself to feel the vibration
4. Do NOT allow mediocre mainstream media to dictate you taste
5. Seek, explore and settle on nothing less than extraordinary
6. Let love and intent of the sound guide you to new destinations within yourself
7. And most of all Enjoy!

It is not often that you have an opportunity to hear and enjoy pure, unadulterated JAZZ creativity coming through the airwaves here in Los Angeles.

There are but a few heroes that grace the airwaves on a consistent basis. Bo Leibowitz with “Strictly Jazz” and Mark Maxwell with “Rise” are the only two truly providing a great service for Los Angeles. I am honored to work with and sub for both of them whenever the occasion permits.

Friday Night / Saturday Morning

“The Wee Hours”

  May 27th

3am – 6am KCRW.ORG

The Jazzcat sitting in for Bo Leibowitz spinning a menagerie of sonic brilliance and whippin’ up magic with lot of great music by the cats you know and some you don’t!

Bring your enthusiasm for sound and your blank canvas to listen to the colors of jazz unfold, blossom and enlighten! Come on you nocturnals, weather its wine or a cup of java, stay up and let’s jam together!

 

May 27th

Friday Night /Saturday  Morning

3AM to 6am Pacific Standard Time

3 Hours of Progressive, Eclectic Jazz for you dome!

The Light is ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hello Beautiful Jazz People!

The Jazzcat on KCRW for 2 More Saturdays!!!!!

click KCRW logo and enjoy show for Sat May 20th!!

89.9 FM KCRW.com

Saturday Morning May 20th and 27th 

from 3AM to 6AM

On the edge of the music, balancing between the “was” and the “will be” of sound is where you can always find me doing my absolute best to provide you with an intelligent, thought provoking, artistic, creative endeavor in sound. Jazz is the most confusing word in music and therefore it’s hard to explain in mere words. All we ask, as the purveyors of this music called Jazz is that you…

Click for Video

1. Come to the music openly
2. Hear all the notes
3. Allow yourself to feel the vibration
4. Do NOT allow mediocre mainstream media to dictate you taste
5. Seek, explore and settle on nothing less than extraordinary
6. Let love and intent of the sound guide you to new destinations within yourself
7. And most of all Enjoy!

It is not often that you have an opportunity to hear and enjoy pure, unadulterated JAZZ creativity coming through the airwaves here in Los Angeles.

There are but a few heroes that grace the airwaves on a consistent basis. Bo Leibowitz with “Strictly Jazz” and Mark Maxwell with “Rise” are the only two truly providing a great service for Los Angeles. I am honored to work with and sub for both of them whenever the occasion permits.

Friday Night / Saturday Morning

“The Wee Hours”

 May 20th &  May 27th

3am – 6am KCRW.ORG

The Jazzcat sitting in for Bo Leibowitz spinning a menagerie of sonic brilliance and whippin’ up magic with lot of great music by the cats you know and some you don’t!

Bring your enthusiasm for sound and your blank canvas to listen to the colors of jazz unfold, blossom and enlighten! Come on you nocturnals, weather its wine or a cup of java, stay up and let’s jam together!

 

May 20th and 27th

Friday Night /Saturday  Morning

3AM to 6am Pacific Standard Time

3 Hours of Progressive, Eclectic Jazz for you dome!

The Light is ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  

Come on by and get your music on! The Jazzcat will be spinning 3 hours of…

JAZZ Supersonic Sounds!!!!

on the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza Bridge. Enjoy the experience of live jazz music along with a display of premier episodes of “The Jazz Creative” and other jazz media sponsored by the AllMusicTelevision Digital Network!

Saturday April 15th

1pm – 4pm

A casual set of eclectic jazz music with some premier jazz musicians dropping by to say hello and share their latest projects!!

Ryan “Papa” Porter

Josef Leimberg

Daniel Rosenboom

 

 

 

 

 

Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA is proud to present guitar explorer Nels Cline, best known as the lead guitarist in the rock band Wilco, in the live West Coast debut of Music from Lovers, plus instrumental trio Big Lazy at Royce Hall. Tickets ($29–$59) for Saturday, April 8 at 8 p.m. are currently on sale at cap.ucla.edu, via Ticketmaster and at the UCLA Central Ticket Office at 310.825.2101.

Cline will perform wide-ranging material from his expansive new Blue Note double-album, Lovers, backed by a 17-piece band comprised of some of his most gifted collaborators, including conductor-trumpeter Michael Leonhart, guitarist Julian Lage and trumpeter Steven Bernstein.

NELS CLINE – electric guitar GLEN BERGER – C, alto & bass flutes, oboe, English horn, alto sax, Bb clarinet STEVEN BERNSTEIN – trumpet ALEX CLINE – drums DAN CLUCAS – trumpet MICHAEL DESSEN – trombone BRAD DUTZ – vibraphone, marimba, percussion JEFF GAUTHIER – violin BEN GOLDBERG – contra-alto clarinet, Bb clarinet VINNY GOLIA – woodwinds DEVIN HOFF – bass  YUKA C HONDA – celeste, synth JULIAN LAGE – electric & acoustic guitar, Dobro MICHAEL LEONHART – conductor, trumpet, flugelhorn ZEENA PARKINS – harp MAGGIE PARKINS – cello SARA SCHOENBECK – bassoon GAVIN TEMPLETON – Bb clarinet

Inspired by the likes of Bill Evans, Jim Hall, Gil Evans, Johnny Mandel, Henry Mancini and others, Lovers features Cline performing originals, standards and covering Sonic Youth, Arto Lindsay and others with a large ensemble. “I have been dreaming about, planning, and re-working my rather obsessive idea of this record for well over 25 years, and it was always going to be called Lovers,” says Cline. “It is meant to be as personal in its sound and in its song selection as it is universal in its endeavor to assay or map the parameters of ‘mood’ as it once pertained, and currently pertains, to the peculiar and powerful connection between sound/song and intimacy/romance. In this, I hope Lovers offers something of an update of the ‘mood music’ idea and ideal, while celebrating and challenging our iconic notion of romance.”

Cline was named by Rolling Stone as one of 20 “new guitar gods” and among the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.” His recording and performing career — spanning jazz, rock, punk and experimental genres — is well into its fourth decade. Cline has led various groups of his own, most consistently the avant-garde ensemble the Nels Cline Singers, and appeared as a guest or feature player on more than 200 albums. In addition, for the last dozen years, he’s been a full-time member of the acclaimed rock band Wilco.

The evening opens with Big Lazy, hailed by the New Yorker as “the elegantly gritty instrumental trio led by the extraordinary guitarist Stephen Ulrich.” Simultaneously noir and pastoral, gothic and modern, Big Lazy conjures images of everything from big sky country to seedy back rooms. With sparse instrumentation — electric guitar, acoustic bass and drums — the trio creates richly evocative soundscapes with a distinctly narrative quality and an undeniable sense of place. The band is back supporting a new album, Don’t Cross Myrtle, after a hiatus of several years while leader Stephen Ulrich spent time as the composer for the HBO series Bored to Death and most recently the film Art and Craft.

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets for Saturday, April 8 at 8 p.m. are currently on sale at cap.ucla.edu, all Ticketmaster outlets, by phone at 310.825.2101 or in person at the UCLA Central Ticket Office on campus. $15 UCLA Student tickets and $25 UCLA Faculty and Staff tickets are available while supplies last.

 

Tickets: Admission ranges from $29-$59; UCLA Students $15; UCLA Faculty & Staff $25.  Tickets can be purchased online at cap.ucla.edu, via Ticketmaster, by phone at 310.825.2101 or in person at the UCLA Central Ticket Office. On the day of the show, the box office at Royce Hall opens one hour prior to the event start time.