Latest news with #BlueNote
Forbes
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Why Everyone In Music Is Watching Blue Note's New Hollywood Club
Kamasi Washington is on the lineup for Blue Note's Hollywood location. He's doing an 11-night stint that stretches from September into October. (Photo by Dave Simpson/WireImage) WireImage When Blue Note throws a club launch, it really goes all out. The storied Greenwich Village jazz institution is now a global brand and the latest listening spot is coming to Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles this summer. The grand opening for Blue Note Los Angeles is set for August 14, with tickets on sale today for shows running into early 2026. Full disclosure: I'm going to be first in line for a lot of these shows. Housed in the complex that was once home to Arclight Hollywood, the space will open with a back-to-back weekend stand by Grammy-winner Robert Glasper. This after construction delays tied to January's Hollywood fires pushed the club's debut back. The extra time seems to have only sharpened the lineup. August continues with rising R&B singer Alex Isley (Aug 16-17), saxophone futurist Terrace Martin with Kenyon Dixon (Aug 19-20), and a four-night run from Ravi Coltrane (Aug 28-31). In September, bassist-composer Esperanza Spalding (Sept 2-7), alto titan Kenny Garrett (Sept 11-14) and Atlanta rap philosopher Killer Mike (Sept 19-21) warm up the house for tenor powerhouse Kamasi Washington, who takes over for 11 dates straddling September and October. Throw in genre-jumpers like Charlie Puth (Oct 16-19), Branford Marsalis (Oct 21-22) and Andra Day (Nov 28-30) and you begin to understand why Blue Note's director of programming, Alex Kurland, once told me, 'We're less in the business of just booking gigs and presenting shows than in creating moments and creating memories and creating happenings.' It's definitely happening, people! Charlie Puth takes over Blue Note Los Angeles on October 17 (Photo byfor dcp) Getty Images for dcp As a jazz, blues and R&B fan, I love what Blue Note is bringing to the music scene, and the music industry is watching. The Hollywood outpost stays faithful to the original New York blueprint, with two sets nightly at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., table service throughout, and a booking philosophy that pairs legends with left-field collaborators. The main Hollywood showroom seats 200, while an adjoining 'B-Side' room adds another 100 spots—small enough for intimate moments but big enough to keep the bar booming. Los Angeles hasn't exactly lacked for jazz rooms. There's The Baked Potato, Catalina, Sam First and a revived Lighthouse that keep the scene percolating. But Blue Note definitely brings a fresh and vital appeal with with tour-routing gravity. A-list artists who once ignored L.A. or treated it as a one-night stop between San Francisco and who-knows-where now have a week-long home base. And since Blue Note is part of a worldwide network (Napa, Tokyo, Milan, Rio, Shanghai, et al.), fans are bound to get next-level performances by musicians looking to stretch their welcome with Blue Note tour bookers. A Calendar Designed to Dazzle Growing a jazz and blues-first brand in 2025 might sound counterintuitive but it's working. Club residencies (I'm so sorry I missed PJ Morton's recent stint in NYC) and Blue Note's Napa festival typically sell out fast. There's much to love about the full lineup for Los Angeles (Emily King! Esperanza Spalding! Branford Marsalis! Charlie Puth!) announced this week: August 14-15—Robert Glasper August 16-17—Alex Isley August 18—The Philharmonik August 19-20—Terrace Martin with Special Guest Kenyon Dixon August 21-22—Robert Glasper August 23-24—Emily King August 25—Mayer Hawthorne August 26-27—BJ The Chicago Kid August 28-31—Ravi Coltrane September 2-7—Esperanza Spalding September 8—Isaiah Collier September 9-10—Braxton Cook September 11-14—Kenny Garrett September 15—Fantastic Negrito September 16—Dominique Fils-Aimé September 17-18—GoldLink September 19-21—Killer Mike September 22-24—Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah September 25—Brasstracks September 26—The Soul Rebels & Special Guest September 27—The Soul Rebels & Special Guest September 28—The Soul Rebels & Special Guest Too $hort September 29—Samora Pinderhughes September 30-October 5—Kamasi Washington October 6—Arin Ray October 7-12—Kamasi Washington October 13—Lady Blackbird Residency October 14-15—Kiefer October 16-19—Charlie Puth October 20—Slum Village October 21-22—Branford Marsalis Quartet October 23—Aja Monet October 24-26—Sid Sriram October 27—Amaro Freitas October 28-November 2—1500 or Nothin' & Friends November 4-5—Ghost-Note November 6-9—Tank and The Bangas November 10—Emily Bear & Friends November 11-16—Chris Dave / Marcus King / Cory Henry / DJ Ginyard November 17—Julius Rodriguez November 18-19—Keyon Harrold November 20-21—Cimafunk November 22-23—Goapele November 24-25—James Francies / Joel Ross / Blaque Dynamite November 28-30—Andra Day December 1—Lady Blackbird Residency December 2-3—Adam Blackstone December 4—Gallant December 5-7—Derrick Hodge December 8—James Fauntleroy December 9-10—Theo Croker December 11—Ben Folds December 12-14—The Free Nationals December 15—Charles Lloyd Quartet December 16-21—Robert Glasper January 9-11—José James January 26—Lady Blackbird Residency March 23—Lady Blackbird Residency Blue Note Los Angeles is located at 6372 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.
Los Angeles Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Blue Note LA reveals opening calendar of acts including Robert Glasper, Charlie Puth and Killer Mike
The iconic New York jazz club Blue Note announced Tuesday the opening slate of shows for its long-awaited Los Angeles location, which includes Robert Glasper, Charlie Puth and Killer Mike. After delays caused by construction and permitting in the wake of L.A.'s January fires, the venue will open its doors in mid-August with local favorite Robert Glasper christening the new venue Aug. 14 and 15. Located in Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard and Ivar Avenue, the celebrated jazz institution is rolling out a roster of A-list artists in jazz and other genres. Following Glasper's two opening shows, Grammy nominee Alex Isley will headline Aug. 16 and 17. The first month is particularly stacked, as the team behind the Blue Note is taking the responsibility of introducing the ethos and the way they do shows to an L.A. audience very seriously. Like the New York Blue Note location (the brand has clubs around the world, including in Napa, Tokyo and Honolulu), artists will be doing two shows a night. Both Blue Note Entertainment President Steven Bensusan and Director of Programming/Talent Buyer Alex Kurland have emphasized that the L.A. location will reflect a local vibe, including in the acts they book. Among the first run of shows will be a heavy slate of local artists, including Terrace Martin with guest Kenyon Dixon Aug. 19 and 20, Braxton Cook Sept. 9 and 10, Kamasi Washington Sept. 30 to Oct. 5 and Oct. 7 to 12, Keyon Harrold Nov. 18 and 19 and many more. The rest of the released schedule, which runs into 2026, features a stellar array of jazz luminaries such as Branford Marsalis Oct. 21 and 22, Esperanza Spalding Sept. 2 to 7, Ravi Coltrane Aug. 28 to 31, Kenny Garrett Sept. 11 to 14, Cimafunk Nov. 20 and 21, and a Lady Blackbird residency multiple dates. Also sticking to the Blue Note ethos, there is a healthy dose of musicians from a variety of genres, such as Charlie Puth Oct. 16 to 19, Andra Day Nov. 28 to 30, Killer Mike Sept. 19 to 21, Slum Village Oct. 20, Ben Folds Dec. 11, Mayer Hawthorne Aug. 25 and more.
Business Journals
6 days ago
- Sport
- Business Journals
St. Louis Blues unveil new jerseys, redesigned Blue Note and new secondary logos
The St. Louis Blues will sport a new look in the upcoming season, unveiling Tuesday new jerseys, changes to its Blue Note logo and newly created secondary logos.
Forbes
6 days ago
- Sport
- Forbes
St. Louis Blues Unveil New Uniforms As Part Of 2025 Brand Evolution
St. Louis Blues defenseman Colton Parayko models his team's redesigned home jersey. (Photo by Scott ... More Rovak/St. Louis Blues) For the first time since 1997, the NHL's St. Louis Blues are changing up their look. They've gone back to the future, with new primary uniforms that feature a color palette inspired by the club's original jerseys from 1967. The team's iconic Blue Note logo has also undergone a subtle transformation, and the club is introducing some new marks inspired by its home city. 'The St. Louis Blues are a very tradition-based organization,' said Steve Chapman, the team's executive vice president and chief revenue and marketing officer. 'We have a very close-knit relationship with the city, with our fans and with our alumni, so one thing we were trying to accomplish was to was to honor our history and honor the heritage, but to do it in a way so that we can focus on moving forward — focus on this new era of Blues hockey.' The St. Louis Blues pose for a team photo prior to practice for the 2017 Bridgestone NHL Winter ... More Classic at Busch Stadium on January 1, 2017 in St Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/NHLI via Getty Images) The brand evolution project began in 2021, inspired by fans' head-over-heels reactions to the team's first-ever Winter Classic jerseys, from the 2017 event held at Busch Stadium. The popularity of the look led to the team adopting the style for its recent heritage jerseys, and it came out on top of a bracket-style fan poll earlier this year. Now, it becomes the team's everyday look. Jordan Kyrou celebrates a goal at the 2022 NHL Winter Classic at Target Field in Minneapolis, ... More Minnesota.(Photo by Nick Wosika/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) The new away jerseys were inspired by the team's 2022 Winter Classic look, but the cream base has been replaced by a sharp white. 'It absolutely pops,' Chapman said. Two elements of the new design have been hiding in plain site since last New Year's Eve. St. Louis Blues defenseman Colton Parayko handles the puck at the NHL Winter Classic on Dec. 31, ... More 2024 (Photo by Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) When the Blues took to the ice at Wrigley Field for their 6-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks, their latest Winter Classic jerseys included the redesigned Blue Note on the left shoulder, and a new STL mark on the helmet. The new Note has a slightly different shape, thicker keylines and simplifies the design to just blue and yellow, with beige removed. The interlocking STL mark has been a long time coming. Developed in conjunction with Mississippi-based RARE Design, it draws inspiration from a treble clef, paying homage to the musical roots of the city of St. Louis and the Blues' history. 'When you live in a city that has the St. Louis Cardinals and their iconic STL, it's hard to find something that either doesn't remind you of that or just comes off as, for lack of a better word, a little boring,' said Chapman. 'What was great about our work with RARE, the company that we worked with on these designs — I don't think they had any hockey background, but what they did have a background in is understanding the Mississippi Delta blues, which is largely what our team is named for. When they put that musical element into it, it was kind of amazing. Their first rendition, we were like, 'Wow, that's it. They've got it.'' New merchandise highlights the St. Louis Blues' new team marks — the redesigned Blue Note, STL, ... More Fleur and River Music. Two other new marks are also being introduced: a Fleur-de-lis design inspired by the flag of St. Louis and infused with a treble clef and note head, and the River Music mark which combines a trumpet with the city's iconic Gateway Arch. The team's new wordmark and Blues font also draw inspiration from the region's rich musical history. Rather than a re-brand, the team is calling its new designs a brand evolution. And there's still a place for the royal blue designs that have been the primary uniforms since 1997. 'It really was about honoring our history, and there's so much history that's within the current Note,' Chapman said. 'That's what we won the Stanley Cup in (in 2019). So this isn't taking everything and wiping the board clean and starting over with something. It's really evolving into our next step, our next phase.' The design process has been in the works since 2021, but the launch comes at an opportune time. After inking new coach Jim Montgomery to a five-year contract when he was hired last November, the Blues rode a strong second half into their first playoff spot in three years. Alexander Steen is also set to take over from Doug Armstrong as the team's new general manager in 2026. Jerseys won't be available for sale until the fall, but the new design is expected to make its first appearance at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles this Friday, where the Blues currently hold the 19th selection in the first round of the 2025 NHL Draft. 'Whoever our No. 1 draft pick ends up being, that's a pretty cool thing — to be the first official player to don it in that fashion,' said Chapman. 'The draft is always a little bit symbolic of transitioning from one season to the next, so I think this will be a really fun moment for us.' A selection of new St. Louis Blues shirts, hats, hoodies and other apparel and novelties are now available for purchase online and at the STL Authentics team store at Enterprise Center.
Winnipeg Free Press
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Winnipeg's late, great musical haunt Blue Note Café came alive in the dead of night
It's been said if you remember the 1960s, you weren't really there. Ditto the Blue Note Café, a late-night live music venue that existed in Winnipeg for almost two decades, originally on Main Street at what is presently Blue Note Park and later on Portage Avenue, near Arlington Street. Curtis Riddell is the former owner of 'the Note,' which became as famous for its cinnamon coffee and exterior neon sign as for the A-list clientele it tended to attract. Since last fall, the 69-year-old grandfather of two has been chronicling his involvement there, via an entertaining Facebook page titled Vague Recollections of the Blue Note Café, 'vague' being the key word. You see, even though Riddell commonly rubbed shoulders with the likes of Neil Young and Dan Aykroyd — but two of the many heavyweights who dropped by his establishment at one time or another, either to perform on the always-open stage or to soak in the atmosphere — his specific memories of the nocturnal space that also helped launch the careers of homegrown acts such as Mark Reeves, Scott Nolan and Walle Larson have become somewhat blurry over time. 'Heck, I can't even remember why we decided to call it the Blue Note in the first place,' he laughs, seated in his second-floor apartment in Altona, where he's been living since 2015. Somebody once questioned him whether the café, which remained open till 4 a.m., seven nights a week, was so-named for Blue Note Records, an American jazz label founded in 1939. His response: he had no idea there was such a thing. Nor was he aware there were already 'something like 55 Blue Notes' in various corners of the world when he settled on the moniker. Had that been the case, he might have gone with something else entirely, he comments while adjusting the collar of a black Blue Note Café T-shirt. 'What I do know for a fact is that we had our first lineup out the door a month or so after we started, and that it remained that way, pretty much, the rest of my time there.' Riddell was 27 years old when his late mother Helen purchased the Main Spot, a homey, 64-seat diner that first opened at 220 Main St. in 1939. It was the fourth or fifth restaurant she ran, he recalls, and because she considered staff to be a needless expense, she was a one-person show, handling all the serving, cooking and cleaning herself, Monday to Friday. Approximately four months into his mom's tenure at the Main Spot, Riddell approached her with a proposition. Since hers was a breakfast-and-lunch nook that closed for the day at 4 p.m., what if he assumed the reins four hours later under the Blue Note banner, and continued forth into the wee hours of the morning? 'At the time I wasn't doing anything of significance, mostly just gigging around in a series of bands,' says Riddell, a drummer who formed his first group, Riverside Oak, while attending Sturgeon Creek High School. 'I was also pretty naive, with no hospitality experience to speak of. Fairly early on a buddy of mine asked 'aren't you worried about this succeeding?' I was like, 'I'd never really considered that as a possibility.'' Riddell credits Frain Cory, a Free Press entertainment writer during the 1980s, for helping to put his fledgling venture on the map. On April 28, 1983, Cory wrote 'There's a village coffee house ambience to the Blue Note,' in his weekly After Dark column. 'Twelve dimly-lit, highback booths have visual access to a tiny seven-foot-square stage. Performers take the stage whenever and for however long the spirit moves them,' Cory continued, praising the five-week-old premises' 'unruffled atmosphere' and 'superior sounding stereo system,' the latter a gift to her son from Helen. By that summer, things were going so swimmingly there that Riddell's mom ceased with the Main Spot altogether, and it became simply the Blue Note. That made things much easier, Riddell says, especially on those occasions when guests chose to hang out well past closing time (Burton Cummings once performed Guess Who classics non-stop from 3 a.m. until 6:30 a.m.), which meant they would still be there, albeit bleary-eyed, when his mom showed up to start her day. As much as he enjoyed the 14 years he spent at the helm, Riddell admits to being ready for a change when he walked away from the Blue Note in 1997. (The café continued for a number of years under new ownership before shuttering altogether in the early 2000s.) He threw himself into a new career, working in the local film industry for almost 20 years, before his move to Altona. In August 2023, he attended a wake for George West that was held at Blue Note Park. (He was touched when Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club owner John Scoles reached out to him in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, to seek his permission to name an empty outdoor site two doors down from his business after the café.) In addition to being a longtime server at the Blue Note Café, West had also been a member of the Crash Test Dummies, back when they were the Blue Note's de facto house band, before the group became internationally known. It was during what was billed as George West Fest that he began to consider compartmentalizing his personal experiences at the Note, having concluded 'I wasn't getting any younger, so if not now, when?' He reached out to Ken Datzkiw, a buddy of his with a writing background who'd also worked and performed at the Blue Note. Following some back-and-forth, the pair devised a plan to share Riddell's yarns with the rest of the world. 'Initially he talked about a book, but I wasn't sure how long that might take, or if Curtis would pay attention long enough to see it through,' says Datzkiw with a chuckle, seated in the lobby of the Winnipeg hotel he's staying at, during a quick trip to the city from his home in Fort Frances, Ont. 'Finally I said, why don't we start it as a public Facebook page, and see where that takes us. So that's the route we chose when we created Vague Recollections… in the fall of 2024.' Datzkiw refers to the beginning entries as 'low-hanging fruit' — ones Riddell came up without much prodding. Those include the time when Riddell and his brother Mark, founder of the Spectrum Cabaret (now the Pyramid), shared a few drinks with Robert Plant, ex- of Led Zeppelin. Or the two consecutive evenings in August 1987 when David Bowie's backing musicians commandeered the stage for hours on end, while the English rocker was in town for the Glass Spider Tour. Or the night Edmonton Oilers star Mark Messier jokingly (?) arm-wrestled Riddell for a date with his then-wife. 'The first few (posts) came pretty easily and since then, it's been a matter of jogging our memory banks, trying to pin down when this or that happened, and who all was involved,' says Datzkiw, explaining he's responsible for editing Riddell's lengthy text messages. 'He gets me to clean things up, only he doesn't want it to be too clean. At the end of the day, these are his stories, right?' Back in Altona, Riddell says he tries to come up with a fresh yarn every week or so. To date, he's heard from people living across the country and points beyond, some of whom have suggested chestnuts of their own. Weekday Evenings Today's must-read stories and a roundup of the day's headlines, delivered every evening. 'That's been one of the best parts. They'll read something of mine, which reminds them of a night they were there, and they'll comment, wondering if I remember it that way, too,' Riddell says, adding the reason so many people — A-listers and Winnipeggers alike — regularly darkened the Blue Note's doors was rather straightforward: there was scarcely anywhere else to go after last call at the local watering holes. Riddell says a book still isn't out of the question. And as for future endeavours, he'd love to throw together a podcast of some sort, hopefully augmented with audio somebody may have recorded, all those years ago. 'That's a tough one because it's not like anybody had a smartphone back in the day. I guess it's like they say: what happened at the Blue Note, stayed at the Blue Note,' he says, running a hand through his grey coif. 'In the meantime, I'll keep trying to come up with new stories. Like when Axl Rose (of Guns N' Roses) showed up unannounced. Or when Rod Stewart sat in the back for three hours, listening to members of his band on stage. Or when (blues guitarist) Johnny Winter walked in, and everybody got out of their chairs to give him a standing ovation…' David Sanderson Dave Sanderson was born in Regina but please, don't hold that against him. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
