DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Wayne Shorter
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-03 | by ( Marcus J. Moore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

This month we feature Wayne Shorter, the iconoclastic composer and tenor saxophonist whose work with Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Weather Report and through his own solo discography has influenced generations of like-minded visionaries to push the boundaries of jazz. As a member of the quintet, Shorter once said, “it wasn’t the bish-bash, sock-’em-dead routine we had with Blakey, with every solo a climax. “All of us wrote some songs, I wrote a couple of things myself, but the main writer: Wayne,” Hancock told me over the phone recently. But most of the things we recorded were written by Wayne.” The quintet broke up in 1968; Shorter worked with Davis until 1970. In recent years, even though they’d been collaborators for several decades, Hancock and Shorter became best friends.

Persons: Wayne Shorter, Art Blakey, Miles Davis, it’s, Miles, Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams —, Davis “, ”, Ian Carr, Blakey, ” Shorter, Wayne, ” Hancock, ‘, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Davis, Joe Zawinul, Hancock, they’d

☆ 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Don Cherry
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-06 | by ( Marcus J. Moore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Of all the musicians we’ve featured in this series, Don Cherry might be the most adventurous. Though with Cherry, there was a sense that he didn’t want to shift the genre as a whole. Cherry grew up in a musical family; his grandmother played piano for silent films, and his mother played piano at home. Though Cherry earned favor as a member of Coleman’s band and a featured player on the albums “Something Else!!! Then, on the 1985 album “Home Boy (Sister Out),” Cherry turned his attention to Paris.

Persons: we’ve, Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Cherry, Coleman, Coleman’s, ”, NPR’s Terry Gross, Leonard Bernstein, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, “ Brown Rice, ” Cherry Organizations: Plantation, Atlantic Records, ” Locations: Tulsa, Okla, Los Angeles, Sweden, Paris

☆ Kahil El’Zabar, Spiritual Jazz’s Dapper Bandleader, Keeps Pushing Ahead
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-05 | by ( Marcus J. Moore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Upon first glance, you might not think Kahil El’Zabar, 70, is a spiritual jazz musician. That’s not to say avant-jazz guys can’t be chic, but rarely do they look this dapper. In 1974, he founded the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble as a quartet blurring the edges of traditional jazz, Afrocentric rhythms and cosmic expanse. Much like the Pyramids, the Ohio-based band that wore African finery and played polyrhythmic arrangements lifted from the continent, El’Zabar’s group wasn’t fully appreciated by American listeners. The quartet came at a time when jazz musicians started blending their sounds with stadium-sized funk and rock, and psychedelic African jazz was considered a bridge too far.

Persons: That’s, “, ”, ‘, I’m, El’Zabar Organizations: Moxy Locations: Williamsburg , Brooklyn, ’, Ohio

☆ Five Minutes That Will Make You Love Thelonious Monk
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-01 | by ( Marcus J. Moore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

I was just smiling and thinking about being at Zinc Bar in the West Village, talking to someone special. It’s become a beautiful mainstay in my vault of “deeper cuts” and I often head over to the “Thelonious Alone in San Francisco” album to listen to it. Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Andrew Winistorfer, writer and reissue producer“Ugly Beauty”Listening to Thelonious Monk sometimes feels like listening to Monk listening to Monk; he spent much of his recorded output reworking, rerecording and recontextualizing his masterwork compositions like “Ruby, My Dear” and “Crepuscule With Nellie” across multiple albums. The Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall is otherworldly. In contemporary music, I compare Dilla to Monk because of his placement of samples, challenging our idea of rhythm and hesitation.

Persons: Arooj Aftab, It’s, Andrew Winistorfer, Monk, Crepuscule, Nellie ”, Charlie Rouse, Monk’s, it’s, ”, ◆ King Britt, John Coltrane, Charlie Rouse’s, Dilla Organizations: YouTube, Carnegie Hall Locations: West, San Francisco, Japan

☆ Armand Hammer Keeps a Foot in the Past, but Its Eyes on the Future
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-26 | by ( Marcus J. Moore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

New York is filled with signs advertising cash in exchange for diabetic test strips. The whole thing is absurd to the rappers Billy Woods and Elucid of Armand Hammer. Over the past few years, the prolific Woods has become one of rap’s most popular indie voices. Elucid, a poet, producer and M.C., has been turning out sonically challenging work that can best be classified as art-rap. Their music harks back to the mid-1990s era of New York rap, when the topics were bleak and the beats were sullen.

Persons: Billy Woods, Armand Hammer, “ It’s, ” Elucid, “ ‘, Woods, “, ”, Thom Yorke, Elucid Locations: York, cavatelli, Queens, New York

☆ 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Max Roach
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Marcus J. Moore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Joseph Patel, producer of ‘Summer of Soul’Max Roach, “Drums Unlimited”I discovered and fell in love with jazz while in college. From this study, I could put my finger on the records, musicians and lineups at the forefront of change in the genre — and at every step of the way, there was Max Roach. On “Freedom Day,” Max’s drum playing represents a heart dealing with the emotions of becoming a free human being. Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Brandi Waller-Pace, musician, educator and scholar-activistClifford Brown and Max Roach, “Joy Spring”Few drummers have reached the level of innovation and influence Max Roach did throughout his long and prolific career. “Joy Spring,” recorded with the legendary and tragically short-lived Clifford Brown and Max Roach Quintet, is a jazz classic and a personal favorite.

Persons: “, ”, Abstrutions ”, Stanley Cowell’s, ◆ Joseph Patel, ’ Max Roach, Max Roach, Roach, Abbey Lincoln, ◆ Nicole Sweeney, Lincoln’s, Max, Booker Little, ◆ Brandi Waller, Clifford Brown, Kenny Clarke, Roach’s, Harold Land’s, I’m, ◆ Elena Bergeron, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Mingus, Ellington Organizations: YouTube, Calif, Harlem Cultural, Pace Locations: Davis, Harlem

☆ Five Minutes That Will Make You Love Avant-Garde Jazz
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-05 | by ( Marcus J. Moore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Lately The New York Times has asked jazz musicians, writers and scholars to share the favorites that would make a friend fall in love with Herbie Hancock, New Orleans jazz, Sun Ra or Mary Lou Williams. Now we’re putting the spotlight on avant-garde jazz, a challenging subgenre born out of the desire to do something that wasn’t as prescribed as bebop or post-bop, a sound carried by the fire of spontaneity by players who weren’t considered to be in the upper echelon of jazz. The definition of avant-garde jazz has been a point of contention since its inception. Perhaps its biggest public advocate was the saxophonist and bandleader John Coltrane, who took an interest in free jazz — a subset of avant-garde jazz — in the mid-1960s and pushed for the saxophonists Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders to release their music on the mainstream label Impulse! Today, the rules for what is and what isn’t avant-garde are still being written.

Persons: Herbie Hancock, Sun Ra, Mary Lou Williams, weren’t, Amiri Baraka —, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, ◆ ◆ ◆ Ana Roxanne, “ Longview, Barre Phillips, John Surman, I’ve Organizations: New York Times, Association for, Advancement of Creative Musicians, Area Locations: Herbie Hancock , New Orleans, “ Longview ”, France, Longview, ”

☆ Horace Tapscott Was a Force in L.A. Jazz. A New Set May Expand His Reach.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( Marcus J. Moore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Along the way, noted musicians and vocalists like Nate Morgan, Kamau Daaood, Adele Sebastian and Phil Ranelin played in the band. Trible came across Tapscott in the late 1980s as a singer in another group who wanted to work with the Arkestra. Six decades since Tapscott formed the band, Session said the group’s mission hasn’t changed, and he vowed to continue pushing forward. I want to get back to how Horace did shows at prisons and high schools and colleges for free,” he said. “We could sell out Carnegie Hall and then come home and do the same set for 50, 60 cats.

Persons: Tapscott, Nate Morgan, Kamau Daaood, Adele Sebastian, Phil Ranelin, Trible, “, ‘, ” Trible, Horace, Michael Session, Azar Lawrence, ”, Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, “ It’s, We’re, Thundercat, Kamasi Washington, Terrace Martin —, Kendrick Lamar, hasn’t Organizations: Carnegie Hall Locations: Tapscott, Little Africa, Brooklyn

☆ Aja Monet, a Musical Poet of Love
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Marcus J. Moore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A crowd that included musicians and actors filled the Gagosian Gallery on Madison Avenue earlier this spring to hear the poet and community organizer Aja Monet speak about the subtleties of Black love, joy and uncertainty. But for Monet, there was only one celebrity in the room: Bonnie Phillips, her former college adviser, who sat rapt in the front row. “I remember her suggesting what schools to go to and it wasn’t Harvard, you know what I mean?” Monet said in a recent video interview from her home in California. Recalling her high school years in New York, Monet said she asked a lot of questions in class but didn’t have the best grades: “I think I was way more just opinionated and outspoken.”She remains both on her debut album, “When the Poems Do What They Do,” a fluid mix of jazz and poetry out Friday that evokes the spirit of 1990s spoken-word scenes. Featuring a who’s who of instrumentalists she’s known over the years — Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah on trumpet, Samora Pinderhughes on piano, Elena Pinderhughes on flute, Weedie Braimah on djembe and Marcus Gilmore on drums — the LP is a nuanced exploration of Blackness.

Persons: Aja Monet, Monet, Bonnie Phillips, ” Monet, she’s, Xian aTunde Adjuah, Samora Pinderhughes, Elena Pinderhughes, Weedie, Marcus Gilmore Organizations: Madison, Harvard Locations: California, New York, djembe

☆ Cisco Swank ‘Is Black Music. All of It.’
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Marcus J. Moore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“He’s sitting right in the center of a lot of points,” said the noted trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire in a telephone interview. He is Black music. (He returned to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, from the Berklee College of Music, where he studied piano performance and contemporary writing and production when the pandemic took hold.) “I try to smile through it,” Haye raps with an exhausted tone. While growing up in Flatbush, he was exposed to all of this music by his mother, Adriane, who directed the youth choir at Emmanuel, and his father, Frank, who was the director of music there.

Persons: “ He’s, ”, Ambrose Akinmusire, It’s, ” Haye, “, ’, Haye, bro, I’m, — Beethoven, Bach, Kirk Franklin, Richard Smallwood, Adriane, Emmanuel, Frank Organizations: Berklee College of Music Locations: bro, ” “, Heights , Brooklyn, Haye, Flatbush

☆ Kassa Overall Knows Artists Feel Pressure. His New Album Explores It.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Marcus J. Moore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On a cloudy afternoon, the drummer Kassa Overall strolled past his first New York City apartment, a second-floor room in a Fort Greene brownstone. He had moved to Brooklyn after graduating from Oberlin in 2006 to play in the local jazz scene while improving his chops as a beatmaker. Overall flew back to his native Seattle and wondered what was next. “I went from being a touring musician and always having extra income to barely having enough,” he said over lunch, opening up about his hard times without any apprehension. “I felt like I wasn’t as successful as it felt like I was on the internet.”

☆ 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Herbie Hancock
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Marcus J. Moore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Now, we’re turning to Herbie Hancock, the groundbreaking pianist and composer who emerged in jazz as something of a prodigy. His career took off after the trumpeter Donald Byrd asked Hancock to play in his quintet. By the early ’70s, Hancock had all but abandoned jazz for funk and ambient textures, and released challenging music that didn’t fit one box in particular. In 1973, he released his biggest album, “Head Hunters,” a propulsive funk odyssey that went platinum and led to Hancock playing to huge crowds. Below, we asked 11 musicians, writers and critics to share their favorite Hancock songs.

Search resuls for: "Marcus J. Moore"

12 mentions found