All That Jazz

I had a jazz interlude – unexpected and  intense – last week-end and all through the week. By pure chance – friend, the New York Times – I bumped into what seems to be one of New York’s best kept secrets, The Winter Jazz fest. In this city where a baguette is  offered at $5 and (half) a glass of (uncertain age) wine is priced at $12, a $35 two-days jazz extravaganza with concerts every hour  from 6pm to 2 am in 5 different venues, seems like a real bonus with no string attached! For me it started  on Friday at Le Poisson Rouge with Anat Cohen Quartet, a clarinet to remember

It continued at the Zinc Bar, a smaller venue where I was lucky enough to find a seat close to the stage, listening to The Source and Abdoulaye Diabaté, African Jazz with a Hip hop touch. It was already midnight and time to go home. The next day I was up for a treat starting at 6pm with Jacky Terrasson at Zinc Bar

Music makes us smile.Music makes us laugh. Music makes us cry. It makes us think. Music connects souls. Music is greatness, says the heir of Thelonious Monk

Then it was Andrew D’Angelo’s AGOGIC at Kenny’s Castaway.

The alto saxophonist played with Cuong Vu, trumpet, electronics, compositions / Luke Bergman, electric bass / Evan Woodle, drums, compositions. The Seattle based saxo player shared his life experience of a brain tumor operated two years ago ( “they cut half of my brain..”) and gave us his energy.

As I progress through the writing of my book about the brain tumor I realize that having a positive attitude can make a huge difference when it comes to healing. Whether that healing is from an illness or something which is not life-threatening” http://www.andrewdangelo.com/blog.php

Back to the Poisson Rouge with  Charlie Hunter, guitarist  Nels Cline’s Stained Radiance performing with /or for   Los Angeles painter Norton Wisdom.

Mr. Cline set up digital loops of electric guitar — edgeless and sludgy chords, spiky and screaming single notes — and Mr. Wisdom worked with brushes and paint on a large back-lighted screen. He made shock-headed monsters holding naked women, babies and animals, oil rigs and waves, mutating the images by wiping the screen with a sponge or making one figure grow out of another.” writes Ben Ratliff in the NYT.

Finally, Steve Coleman & the Five Elements. This one should never have ended…

Jazz is addictive. On Tuesday it was Bill Evans & Steve Lukather at the Blue note and Wednesday, the possessed: Marc Ribot in a January residency at Le Poisson Rouge with Henry Grimes, Mary Halvorson and Chad Taylor …

Will be there next year!

http://www.winterjazzfest.com/