Latest news with #jazz
CTV News
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
The cat's meow, Edmonton Jazz Festival wraps up this weekend
A band performs outdoors as part of the Edmonton Jazz Festival on June 27, 2025. (Cam Wiebe/CTV News Edmonton) The Edmonton Jazz Festival is wrapping up nine days of sultry songs and riffs this weekend. Organizers hope to promote jazz music with more than 150 musicians and shows at nine venues including La Cité francophone, Yardbird Suite and the Winspear Centre. The last headliner of the festival is Stargazers, a progressive rock band from Brooklyn, which has a show at the Starlite Room on Friday night. Edmonton-based band, Pure Octane, will open the show. It's the pairing of local talent with international artists that organizers hope will draw more people to jazz music. 'It helps not only to bring out folks to see locally, but also these bands that you may not have heard of but you get to experience,' Joshua Semchuk with the Edmonton Jazz Festival told CTV News Edmonton at La Cité francophone on Friday. He said the acoustics at the patio outside Café Bicyclette are 'amazing' as a live band performed for a crowd enjoying the warm weather and some food with the music. Edmonton Jazz Festival (Cam Wiebe/CTV News Edmonton) People enjoy some live music at La Cite francophone. A band performs outdoors as part of the Edmonton Jazz Festival on June 27, 2025. (Cam Wiebe/CTV News Edmonton) All-local musicians are playing at La Cité francophone, with three bands set to play on Saturday afternoon. Spiral Flamenco, Brett Hansen's Confluence, and Audrey Ochoa on trombone are scheduled on the outdoor stage starting at noon. 'If you want to sit, go to Yardbird Suite,' Semchuk said, promoting shows at another venue too. '(It has) two shows with the fabulous Lorraine Desmarais Trio. She's got to be one of Canada's best jazz pianists,' he said, adding that shows will be at 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Friday. Marquis Hill, a trumpeter from Chicago, will perform at Yardbird Suite on Saturday night. Kepler, a trio from Paris, will close out the venue on Sunday night. Semchuk said a family-friendly jazz show will take place at the Winspear Centre on the last day of the festival. 'It's the second iteration of the Edmonton Jazz Orchestra meets the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra,' he said. 'They're doing jazz Broadway songs for the entire family.' The show will start at 2 p.m. on Sunday and it will feature songs from Disney to classic jazz songs from Porgy and Bess. The Edmonton Jazz Festival has been running for 20 years. Information about tickets and the full show schedule can be found online. With files from CTV News Edmonton's Cam Wiebe
New York Times
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Jack Kleinsinger, Impresario Behind a Marathon Jazz Series, Dies at 88
Jack Kleinsinger, a lawyer by day who in his evening hours indulged his passion for music by creating and running Highlights in Jazz, one of New York's longest-running concert series, for which he arranged and hosted more than 300 shows over a 50-year run, died on June 11 at his home in Manhattan. He was 88. His cousin, Elizabeth Elliot, said the cause was complications of a fall. Mr. Kleinsinger spent 30 years as a government lawyer, first for New York City and then, from 1970 to 1991, as an assistant attorney general for the State of New York. But his real life began after he punched out every afternoon. Seven times a year, he presented Highlights in Jazz, a roaming concert series that featured some of the country's best musicians playing alongside a host of promising young artists. Beginning in 1973, at a time when interest in jazz was at its ebb and nightclubs were shutting down, Mr. Kleinsinger nonetheless drew packed crowds. His shows often sold out; any tickets he didn't sell, he donated to performing-arts high schools around the city. He could count on a core audience of about 350, many of whom took pride in attending virtually every one of his shows. He built on that base with a mailing list of 5,000, which he curated by hand. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CTV News
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Montreal Jazz Fest: Free shows to take in as party kicks off
Esperanza Spalding performs during the second weekend of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on Saturday, May 3, 2025, at Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP) With the Montreal International Jazz Fest in full swing, it's easy to get overwhelmed by the wealth of musical options to choose from. The good news is you don't need to be wealthy to take it all in – there are dozens of free shows on tap for Montrealers and visitors to the city to enjoy. Here's are some of the highlights ( you can get the full program here): Friday, June 27 Swing Riot at Esplanade Tranquille (7 p.m.) Founded in 2012, Montreal Swing Riot brings together the swing and street dance communities to celebrate jazz through improvisation and personal expression. Blue Rodeo Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor of Blue Rodeo perform together at the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at Massey Hall in Toronto, on Saturday, September 28, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paige Taylor White (Paige Taylor White/The Canadian Press) Blue Rodeo at TD Stage (9:30 p.m.) Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame artists Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor lead the celebrated rock band Blue Rodeo as they take over the TD Stage. Saturday, June 28 Theon Cross at Pub Molson – Place Tranquille (8 p.m. and 10 p.m.) British tuba player and composer Theon Cross, known for his work with jazz band Sons of Kremet, performs at Pub Molson in Espace Tranquille. Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge at TD Stage (7:30 p.m.) Nineteen-year-old rock guitarist and songwriter Grace Bowers, whose talent is creating an industry buzz, will take over the main stage on Saturday evening. Elisapie, an Inuk singer-songwriter from Salluit, Nunavik, poses for a portrait in Toronto, Thursday, June 20, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young Elisapie, an Inuk singer-songwriter from Salluit, Nunavik, poses for a portrait in Toronto, Thursday, June 20, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young Elisapie at TD Stage (9:30 p.m.) Quebec's own Elisapie, whose 2023 album features Inuk covers of popular pop and rock songs, headlines the TD Stage. Sunday, June 29 PJ Morton at TD Stage (9:30 p.m.) Grammy Award-winning New Orleans native PJ Morton, who has worked with Maroon 5 and focuses on R&B and gospel in his solo work. Monday, June 30 Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews This March 14, 2012 file photo shows Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews performing at the half time of the New Orleans Hornets and Los Angles Lakers NBA basketball game in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Bill Haber) Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue at TD Stage (9:30 p.m.) If you haven't caught him at past jazz fest performances, now's your chance. The trombone player fuses musical styles like rock, pop, jazz, funk and hip hop, and will hit the main stage Monday night. Tuesday, July 1 Ayra Starr at TD Stage (9:30 p.m.) This Nigerian singer/songwriter promises to get the crowd moving with her Afrobeats style, incorporating other genres like R&B and Afro-pop. Wednesday, July 2 Men I Trust at TD Stage (9:30 p.m.) Quebec City's indie band Men I Trust will take the stage at the Montreal Jazz Fest before hitting up their hometown for the Festival d'été de Québec on July 4. Thursday, July 3 Beth McKenna at Pub Molson – Place Tranquille (6 p.m.) Montreal saxophone player Beth McKenna brings modern jazz to mainstream audiences with a mix of jazz traditions, improv – and lots of energy. Allison Russell Allison Russell accepts the award for best american roots performance for "Eve Was Black" during the 66th annual Grammy Awards, Feb. 4, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello) Allison Russell at TD Stage (9:30 p.m.) Born and raised in Montreal, Grammy-nominated Allison Russell has been making a splash with her smooth blend of Americana, folk, blues and soul, with elements of jazz and pop. Friday, July 4 Uplift514 Block Party at Esplanade Tranquille (5 p.m.) Come on out and party with Uplift514 Block Party, who will dance it out with an energizing blend of styles like dancehall, hip-hop and freestyle. Monsieur Periné at TD Stage (9:30 p.m.) Colombia-based outfit Monsieur Periné brings in jazz, swing and Latin styles to their Afro-Colombian mix. Expect a global feel at this multilingual show. Saturday, July 5 Fulu Miziki Kolektiv at Rio Tinto Stage (8 p.m.) Promising to be a show like no other, eco-friendly Afro-futuristic punk band Fulu Miziki Kolektiv call their musical style Twerkanda, and their music and instruments are made entirely from recycled and assembled materials. Esperanza Spalding Esperanza Spalding arrives at the 67th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) (Jordan Strauss/Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) Esperanza Spalding at TD Stage (9:30 p.m.) Bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding will grace the TD Stage Saturday night. One of the bestselling contemporary jazz artists in the world, the five-time Grammy Award winner promises to mesmerize crowds.
The Guardian
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Louis Moholo-Moholo obituary
The inspirational jazz drummer and bandleader Louis Moholo-Moholo, who has died aged 85, made music with fellow South African exiles that brought enthralling new sounds to the world beyond their troubled homeland in the 1960s. Over six decades in music, he performed with some of the most creative musicians in the jazz of his time. He was as compelling to watch as to hear – cracking out explosive accents with a force that could lift him off his stool, or stroking delicate cymbal patterns like wind rustling in trees. In 1963, in Cape Town, he joined the pianist Chris McGregor, the trumpeter Mongezi Feza, saxists Dudu Pukwana and Nikele Moyake, and the bassist Johnny Dyani to form what would become the famous mixed-race jazz sextet the Blue Notes. Repressive South African life after the murderous apartheid government crackdown of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre had become ever more intolerable. McGregor, who was white, would sometimes have to play drums behind a curtain to fool the police if he was sharing a stage with black partners, or even on occasion disguise his skin colour with boot polish, and Moholo-Moholo and his friends were often arrested. Their breakout came in 1964 when the band was invited to the Antibes jazz festival at Juan-les-Pins, France, then played the Afrikaner Cafe in Zurich (to which the South African émigré Abdullah Ibrahim had recommended them) before moving to London, and to gigging at Ronnie Scott's Club. An entranced early witness to the South Africans in London in 1965 was the British singer-songwriter Robert Wyatt, who marvelled in the Guardian in 2003 at the memory of exultant horn sounds and driving rhythms like 'a living volcano. And right inside, such pretty tunes.' Word of their unique music soon spread. The American free-jazz trombone virtuoso Roswell Rudd hired Moholo-Moholo to play on his 1965 recording debut. In the following year, the saxophonist Steve Lacy took Moholo-Moholo and Dyani on tour through the UK, Italy and South America. In 1967, McGregor formed an incandescent international big band of South Africans and Europeans called Brotherhood of Breath – Duke Ellingtonesque harmonies, African marabi and kwela dance forms, bebop and freebop gleefully mixed. In 1968, the Blue Notes released the album Very Urgent, a small-band burnup illuminating how vividly African roots and American/European inspirations had entwined. The 1970s mainstream record industry, not usually attuned to edgy jazz, woke up – with RCA recording Brotherhood of Breath on its Neon imprint, and Polydor Records releasing Very Urgent. In the 1970s, Moholo-Moholo played in Pukwana's carefree Afro-rock groups Assagai and Spear, and formed a world-class improv rapport with the South African bassist Harry Miller and the British alto saxophonist Mike Osborne at the Peanuts Club in east London – unique but overlooked gigs captured on the Ogun label's recordings Border Crossing (1974) and All Night Long (1975). Moholo-Moholo worked with Miller's avant-jazz-to-African Isipingo group, performed with the saxist Elton Dean's Ninesense, a horn-packed band that sounded much bigger than it was, and developed a lasting connection with the virtuoso pianist Keith Tippett. He also led his own ventures including Spirits Rejoice (1978), a South African/British group including Tippett, the saxophonist Evan Parker and the trumpeter Kenny Wheeler. The acclaimed eponymous 1988 release by his band Viva La Black celebrated African and Caribbean links to UK jazz with a lineup including the expat South Africans Sean Bergin (saxes) and Thebe Lipere (percussion) and the imaginative UK/Caribbean saxophonist Steve Williamson. Through the 1980s, Moholo-Moholo recorded his improvised piano/drums duos with Tippett (1980), Schweizer (1986) and Taylor (1988), and played in various impromptu cross-genre bands but by 1990, he had become the only surviving member of the original Blue Notes. His partners' short lives affected him profoundly, but 1990 also saw Nelson Mandela released from a South African prison after 27 years. It was the right time for the launch of the 25-piece Dedication Orchestra, an A-list ensemble whose objectives were to cherish the South Africans' huge musical contribution – to make their musical legacy available for future generations, and to establish a bursary at Cape Town University for young African musicians to study jazz. In 1993 Viva La Black toured South Africa on a British Council sponsorship, to fervently excited crowds. The gigs unveiled the country's first official black/white group. Louis Moholo (who adopted the surname of Moholo-Moholo after his return to South Africa in 2005) was born in Cape Town, to Dorah, a caterer, and Christian, a driver, whose family had migrated from Lesotho via the Orange Free State's diamond mines to Langa township. Langa was the oldest Cape Town suburb, built to house displaced Africans into more easily policed communities under the country's infamous Pass Laws. There was no formal music-schooling, so African children learned from neighbourhood elders and each other, and in the young Louis' case, his father's radio – through which he became fascinated by the jazz of the 1940s and 50s. Early guides for him were percussionists in local Scouts' bands, Langa's eminent drummer Phaks Joya, and, on the radio, Louis Armstrong's virtuoso sideman Big Sid Catlett. As a teenager, Moholo-Moholo joined the township's Young Rhythm Chordettes group which included the rising young bebop saxist Danayi Dlova. By 1962, at 22, he was good enough to play in the Cape Town saxophonist Ronnie Beer's acclaimed Swinging City Six, and he tied with South Africa's popular bandleader Early Mabuza (a one-time collaborator with the former Abdullah Ibrahim, Dollar Brand) for the best drummer award at Johannesburg's Cold Castle jazz festival. The connections Moholo-Moholo made there were life-changing. Moholo-Moholo and his wife Mpumi moved back to Cape Town in 2005, their return warmly welcomed by admirers across the generations. He played again in his homeland, but he often returned to work in the UK, notably leading Four Blokes (a characteristically offhand name for a superb band with the saxophonist Jason Yarde, the pianist Alexander Hawkins and the bassist John Edwards) and Five Blokes, augmented by the reeds star Shabaka Hutchings. Mpumi died from Covid in 2021, and her death and Moholo-Moholo's declining health eventually silenced his playing, though his home remained an open house for anyone who wanted to drop by and talk music, life and politics. He is survived by his niece, Sizwe. Louis Tebogo Moholo-Moholo, jazz drummer and bandleader, born 10 March 1940; died 13 June 2025
New York Times
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
An Unearthed Joni Mitchell Jazz Demo, and 11 More New Songs
Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week's most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs. Joni Mitchell, 'Be Cool' The first preview of 'Joni's Jazz,' an archival collection of Joni Mitchell's collaborations with jazz musicians, is this 1980 demo of 'Be Cool,' a song that featured Wayne Shorter on saxophone when it was released in 1982 on 'Wild Things Run Fast.' This version — two guitars, drums and a click track — doesn't have all its lyrics yet. It doesn't need them. Instead, Mitchell flaunts some bold, sure-footed scat-singing. The groove and the attitude — '50-50 fire and ice' — were already fully formed. Sarah McLachlan, 'Better Broken' Sarah McLachlan ponders giving a second chance to a fraught, long-ago relationship in 'Better Broken,' her first new song since 2016 and the title track of a coming album. It's in vintage McLachlan style: a stately piano ballad with a melody that climbs gradually and holds some aching notes. She knows the possible rationalizations, envisioning 'a jagged edge worn smooth by time'; she also, it seems, knows better. Caroline Polachek, 'On the Beach' It was probably inevitable that Caroline Polachek — whose pop pushes toward the posthuman without losing physical connection — would fulfill a videogame commission. With the hyperpop producer Danny L Harle, she created 'On the Beach' for Hideo Kojima's game Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. She sings about Sanzu — the Japanese analog of the river Styx, dividing life and death — in a slow march with a melody that leaps to superhuman, computer-tuned peaks and valleys. She still sounds awe-struck. Us3, 'Resist the Rat Race' In the 1990s and early 2000s, the British group Us3, led by Geoff Wilkinson, backed rappers with jazz grooves, mixing samples — primarily vintage Blue Note jazz tracks — with performances. Now Us3 has returned as Wilkinson's instrumental band, still merging loops, beats and live musicians — now with arrangements for 18 brasses and reeds. A low-slung piano vamp and programmed trap drums run throughout 'Resist the Rat Race,' topped by tootling synthesizer melodies and dense horn-section outbursts worthy of Gil Evans and Henry Mancini. It's a swaggering alliance of human and machine. Camilo, 'Maldito ChatGPT' Artificial intelligence matchmaking fails completely in Camilo's 'Maldito ChatGPT' ('Damned ChatGPT'). When he tells ChatGPT the attributes of his ideal partner, the system insists he's chosen the wrong person, sabotaging his confidence. 'I make a list of everything I've always dreamed of / And it looks nothing like the person next to me,' he sings. The track feels transparent, with a steady, subdued beat and skeletal piano chords. But as with an A.I. interface, there's a lot going on under the surface: percussion, vocals, pizzicato strings, echoes. True to chatbot conventions, the A.I. ends its response with a question; Camilo can barely sputter an incredulous reply. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
