Esperanza Spalding

 Esperanza Spalding Took on Bieber, Now Takes on Jazz
The innovative bassist and winner of the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award for performing arts is taking jazz to a whole new place


By dream hampton
Smithsonian magazine, 
Esperanza Spalding, the 28-year-old bassist, composer and vocalist, is shushing her audience - many of whom have paid good money for the privilege. During the middle of her set at Chicago’s City Winery, a trendy restaurant and music venue, she holds the microphone close and admonishes: “Sssshh.” Her virtuoso bass playing and spellbinding vocals had the audience in the palm of her hand for the first half of her show. But an extended instrumental interlude showcasing her band has been marred by talking in the crowd. “I wanna hear them,” she tells her listeners, gesturing toward her 12-piece ensemble.

There’s nervous laughter from the audience. A woman near me indignantly objects that this is a supper club - but does so only in a whisper. The entire moment lasts no more than ten seconds. The audience immediately complies, obliging the performers with attentive silence.

In 2011, Spalding found herself onstage and on millions of television screens, collecting a Grammy Award in the Best New Artist category (and sending fans of pop post-teen sensation Justin Bieber, who lost out, into irate Twitter rants).

Her youth and beauty and progressive fashion-she accepted her Grammy in a deconstructed citron chiffon dress and a very intentional afro coaxed into a pompadour-were also an undeniable part of her appeal. Village Voice music critic Greg Tate calls Spalding the “sexiest and best thing to happen to jazz since Wynton.”

Her latest release at the time of the Grammy, Chamber Music Society, was actually her third album. She had already dazzled critics with her 2008 major-label debut, Esperanza, recorded when she was 23; it stayed on the Billboard jazz chart for 62 weeks, peaking at No. 3. In 2009, she performed twice at the White House and, at President Obama’s request, at the ceremony when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo that year. “I wanted to offer something important from our culture, from our music,” she says. “It seemed significant to play jazz there.” (She donated the dress she wore to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.)

Spalding went on to elicit praise for this year’s Radio Music Society, executed, according to Los Angeles Times music critic Chris Barton, “with disarming assurance.” The new album, wrote jazz critic Larry Blumenfeld in the Wall Street Journal, “celebrates sophisticated musical structures that ride accessible grooves.”

Her work is grounded in original compositions and performances moored artfully in jazz, but incorporating influences as varied as soul, Brazilian pop, funk, contemporary classical, blues and hip-hop. Spalding’s vocal compositions range from “Little Fly,” a William Blake poem set to music, to “Land of the Free,” based on the exoneration of Cornelius Dupree, recently released from prison after a wrongful conviction, and “Radio Song,” a paean to the serendipitous pleasure of discovering a song over the airwaves.

Legendary bass player Ron Carter, who collaborated with Miles Davis, helping him shift the music from bop to cool, says Spalding is “on the right track, she’s got a great voice and a great sound. I like the combination of her lyrics with the sound she gets from her bass. I can’t talk and play at the same time, let alone sing, so she’s a step ahead of me.” Electric bassist Meshell Ndegeocello-known for her own capacity to rap while she plays-is also impressed with the scope of Spalding’s gifts. “What makes her so phenomenal is she can speak so fluidly with her bass and her vocals.”

Spalding seems to have developed a healthy relationship with her still emerging fame. She’s often a tour headliner, as she is this evening in Chicago, where onstage she is radiant in a diaphanous ivory dress. In four-inch stilettos, she alternates between playing an electric bass and her mammoth upright bass. (Her website features a collection of dresses produced by designers concerned with creating sustainable couture.) “I feel like whenever I end up in some high-profile place like the Oscars or the Grammys, it’s a fluke,” she told me earlier that day. “I feel like I’m already there representing the underrepresented.” After answering typical red-carpet questions at those events about who she was wearing, she asked a friend to help her locate eco-friendly designers. “Since people are talking about fashion, I want them to also talk about the fact that there’s an alternative to sweatshops, synthetics and toxic dyes.”

Spalding is equally likely, however, to perform in a supporting role with someone like multi-instrumentalist Joe Lovano. She has given a great deal of thought to collaborative accomplishment. “There’s a cultural myth that’s rampant in the entertainment industry that minimizes collaboration, that overemphasizes soloists and stars and focuses on the individual,” Spalding says. “I don’t ever want to cater to that myth in our culture. Because, inevitably, there are people who aren’t written into history; you know, the teachers, all the teachers that Bird [Charlie Parker] studied with? The bands that he first started playing with? Aren’t they just as integral as his gift?”
                   Esperanza Spalding Endangered Species
Spalding considers collaboration to be a kind of learning lab, where musical ideas and life philosophy are explored. “When I play with Terri Lyne Carrington or Geri Allen or even Prince, yes, what we’re doing musically is one element of what we’ve come together to do, but 95 percent of it is hanging around and talking about everything from buying a house to leading a rehearsal. I learn so much every day from those kinds of interactions.” Inside the music, where instrumentalists are communicating new ideas in the moment, she insists, innovations are still part of the larger group’s exchange. “Particularly in any music that revolves around improvisation, the magic and the beauty of it is that every night something new and different happens. Because we’re inviting the question ‘What will we do tonight?’ ‘What will we do right now?’”

At the same time, Spalding acknowledges that the individual creative process also sustains her. How and when does inspiration strike? “Something new, a melodic idea, will come to you,” she says. “You wonder, ‘Wow, where’d that come from?’” That is the moment, she adds, when it’s important to “stop and take notice.”

She and her older brother grew up with their mother, a single parent, in Portland, Oregon. Spalding dropped out of her magnet school at age 16 because high school, she says, “wasn’t so much about learning, it was about social programming, which can be fun, if you aspire to reign over the social strata of the school.” Eventually she completed her GED. When she wasn’t losing herself in a book, she volunteered at environmental conservation organizations or homeless shelters. “I got that from my mom, she’s a conscientious person,” Spalding says. “She doesn’t like the talking part but the doing part, which I appreciate.” Her bass teacher at the time encouraged her to audition for a scholarship at Portland State University. Later, she moved cross-country to Berklee College of Music in Boston.

She still seems to be discovering who she is onstage as the main attraction. In the tradition of the best blues women, she’s comfortable telling stories as preludes to songs. These conversational moments likely serve to help her audience, who may or may not be well versed in jazz, connect to the music. Spalding and backup singer Chris Turner in- voke the name of slain Florida teen- ager Trayvon Martin as they introduce the song “Black Gold,” her meditation on the hopes and fears of African-American boys. Before performing “Land of the Free,” she alludes to Dupree, who was incarcerated for decades before being cleared by DNA evidence. “I’m not 30 years old yet, I can’t wrap my head around...30 years in prison for a crime I didn’t commit.” She announces that part of her merchandise sales will be donated to the Inno­cence Project, the organization dedicated to exonerating the wrongfully convicted.

It’s the music that Spalding thinks most about. “An idea announces itself and it seems like there’s something meaningful to be found by exploring that idea,” she says of the imaginative habits that underlie her creation of original material. “It’s a process of sitting down over days, or hours, months, sometimes years, and trying to coax that idea into its full state of beingness.”

In that same way, she hopes to push jazz into the future. “I’m searching for the most beautiful version of ideas that I receive, leaving the windows open for influences outside jazz,” Spalding says. Ultimately, she adds, she aspires to “create an invitation to explore the music for a larger cross-section of listeners.”
                     Esperanza Spalding "Crowned ; Kissed" - Jazz à Vienne 2012
         
       ESPERANZA SPALDING RADIO MUSIC SOCIETY - Hold on me

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Wynton Marsalis Christmas

               Wynton Christmas


                 Wynton Marsalis - O Christmas tree


                 Wynton Marsalis - Mary Had A Baby

           
                   Wynton Marsalis - Blue Christmas.
                   Wynton Marsalis Reads " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas"


                   Wynton Marsalis - Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let Crescent City Christmas Card 1989


                   Wynton Marsalis - We Three Kings Crescent City Christmas Card 1989

Legends Live at Montreux 1997

Miles Davis - The Man

         

           Miles Davis - So What

For nearly six decades, Miles Davis has embodied all that is cool – in his music (and most especially jazz), in his art, fashion, romance, and in his international, if not intergalactic, presence that looms strong as ever today.  2006 – The year in which Miles Davis was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame on March 13th – is a land­mark year, commemorating the 80th anniversary of his birth on May 26, 1926, and the 15th anniversary of his death on September 28, 1991.  In between those two markers is more than a half-century of brilliance – often exasperating, brutally honest with himself and to others, uncompromising in a way that transcended mere intuition.
                         Miles Davis The Miles Davis Story
                           
                             Miles Davis: Walkin'

There's an eternal battle nearly every underground artist fights. In theory, achieving mainstream cultural acceptance and ubiquity for the art you create without having to change a note of it should be a major victory. But the taste is often bittersweet. You can't help but wonder what you've lost in becoming successful. Think of that little emocore trio from Seattle who's second album went on to become one of the most significant albums (and best selling) of all time despite being every bit as abrasive and-let's say-grungy as their first. But no originally revolutionary musical movement has gone so completely from the home of rebels to the toast of high society as the “Great American Art Form” known as jazz.

Jazz was originally the respite of absurdly talented musicians not welcomed by the white establishment in traditional orchestras. By the mid-60's the variant of jazz which emphasized small combos and long solos known as bebop wasn't just accepted by the establishment. It was the establishment. Codified in the “Real Book” and the “Fake Book;” two enormous volumes of simplified sheet music for the entire collection of traditionally accepted jazz standards. What in classical music and traditional theatre they call “the Canon.”
I often wonder what the heroin addicted rebel genius Charlie Parker would have thought had he lived long enough to see doctorate programs in jazz composition and performance and major universities, with his own music held up as the golden ideal. Though Parker may have lived fast and died young, one of his frequent collaborators, and another of the great innovators of bebop, Miles Davis survived to see his cultural victory was a Pyrrhic one. Witnessing the utter co-option of his art form at the hands of the mainstream Davis drew a line in the sand in 1970 when he released the landmark Bitches Brew.
He had been moving away from bop at that point for a decade at least, but his previous recordings (even the heavily electric In A Silent Way from 1969) still maintained a tenuous connection to the past. In A Silent Way, despite it's electric and free jazz leanings even borrowed the Sonata Form from classical music. Bitches Brew was a complete break from all this. It was an ugly, confrontational, emotionally brutal, noisy mess of an album.

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion.
On October 7, 2008, his 1959 album Kind of Blue received its fourth platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipments of at least four million copies in the United States. Miles Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

 Davis was noted as "one of the key figures in the history of jazz". On December 15, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a symbolic resolution recognizing and commemorating the album Kind of Blue on its 50th anniversary, "honoring the masterpiece and reaffirming jazz as a national treasure.

Miles Dewey Davis was born on May 26, 1926, to an affluent African American family in Alton, Illinois. His father, Miles Henry Davis, was a dentist. In 1927 the family moved to East St. Louis, Illinois. They also owned a substantial ranch in northern Arkansas, where Davis learned to ride horses as a boy.

Davis' mother, Cleota Mae (Henry) Davis, wanted her son to learn the piano; she was a capable blues pianist but kept this fact hidden from her son. His musical studies began at 13, when his father gave him a trumpet and arranged lessons with local musician Elwood Buchanan. Davis later suggested that his father's instrument choice was made largely to irk his wife, who disliked the trumpet's sound. Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan stressed the importance of playing without vibrato; he was reported to have slapped Davis' knuckles every time he started using heavy vibrato.  Davis would carry his clear signature tone throughout his career. He once remarked on its importance to him, saying, "I prefer a round sound with no attitude in it, like a round voice with not too much tremolo and not too much bass. Just right in the middle. If I can’t get that sound I can’t play anything."

In the fall of 1944, following graduation from high school, Davis moved to New York City to study at the Juilliard School of Music.

Upon arriving in New York, he spent most of his first weeks in town trying to get in contact with Charlie Parker, despite being advised against doing so by several people he met during his quest, including saxophonist Coleman Hawkins.

Finally locating his idol, Davis became one of the cadre of musicians who held nightly jam sessions at two of Harlem's nightclubs, Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's. The group included many of the future leaders of the bebop revolution: young players such as Fats Navarro, Freddie Webster, and J. J. Johnson. Established musicians including Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke were also regular participants.

Davis dropped out of Juilliard, after asking permission from his father. In his autobiography, Davis criticized the Juilliard classes for centering too much on the classical European and "white" repertoire. However, he also acknowledged that, while greatly improving his trumpet playing technique, Juilliard helped give him a grounding in music theory that would prove valuable in later years.

Davis began playing professionally, performing in several 52nd Street clubs with Coleman Hawkins and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. In 1945, he entered a recording studio for the first time, as a member of Herbie Fields's group. This was the first of many recordings to which Davis contributed in this period, mostly as a sideman. He finally got the chance to record as a leader in 1946, with an occasional group called the Miles Davis Sextet plus Earl Coleman and Ann Hathaway—one of the rare occasions when Davis, by then a member of the groundbreaking Charlie Parker Quintet, can be heard accompanying singers. In these early years, recording sessions where Davis was the leader were the exception rather than the rule; his next date as leader would not come until 1947.

Around 1945, Dizzy Gillespie parted ways with Parker, and Davis was hired as Gillespie's replacement in his quintet, which also featured Max Roach on drums, Al Haig (replaced later by Sir Charles Thompson and Duke Jordan) on piano, and Curley Russell (later replaced by Tommy Potter and Leonard Gaskin) on bass.

Despite all the personal turmoil, the 1950–54 period was actually quite fruitful for Davis artistically. He made quite a number of recordings and had several collaborations with other important musicians. He got to know the music of Chicago pianist Ahmad Jamal, whose elegant approach and use of space influenced him deeply. He also definitively severed his stylistic ties with bebop.

In 1951, Davis met Bob Weinstock, the owner of Prestige Records, and signed a contract with the label. Between 1951 and 1954, he released many records on Prestige, with several different combos. While the personnel of the recordings varied, the lineup often featured Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey. Davis was particularly fond of Rollins and tried several times, in the years that preceded his meeting with John Coltrane, to recruit him for a regular group. He never succeeded, however, mostly because Rollins was prone to make himself unavailable for months at a time. In spite of the casual occasions that generated these recordings, their quality is almost always quite high, and they document the evolution of Davis' style and sound. During this time he began using the Harmon mute, held close to the microphone, in a way that grew to be his signature, and his phrasing, especially in ballads, became spacious, melodic, and relaxed. This sound was to become so characteristic that the use of the Harmon mute by any jazz trumpet player since immediately conjures up Miles Davis.
               Miles Davis - Flamenco Sketches


In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Davis recorded a series of albums with Gil Evans, often playing flugelhorn as well as trumpet. The first, Miles Ahead (1957), showcased his playing with a jazz big band and a horn section arranged by Evans. Songs included Dave Brubeck's "The Duke," as well as Léo Delibes's "The Maids of Cadiz," the first piece of European classical music Davis had recorded. Another distinctive feature of the album was the orchestral passages that Evans had devised as transitions between the different tracks, which were joined together with the innovative use of editing in the post-production phase, turning each side of the album into a seamless piece of music.

In 1958, Davis and Evans were back in the studio to record Porgy and Bess, an arrangement of pieces from George Gershwin's opera of the same name. The lineup included three members of the sextet: Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley. Davis called the album one of his favorites.

Sketches of Spain (1959–1960) featured songs by contemporary Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo and also Manuel de Falla, as well as Gil Evans originals with a Spanish flavor. Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall (1961) includes Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, along with other compositions recorded in concert with an orchestra under Evans' direction.

                Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain (Full Album) HD

Sessions with Davis and Evans in 1962 resulted in the album Quiet Nights, a short collection of bossa novas that was released against the wishes of both artists: Evans stated it was only half an album, and blamed the record company; Davis blamed producer Teo Macero, whom he didn't speak to for more than two years.  This was the last time Evans and Davis made a full album together; despite the professional separation, however, Davis noted later that "my best friend is Gil Evans."

MILES DAVIS IN HIS OWN WORDS

                                                                  
                                                                Miles 1


                Miles Davis In 1959 "Kind Of Blue"  
                  Nefertiti 1967


    Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams.
         Miles Davis - Around The Midnight (1967)
                Miles Davis - Tutu. Live in Stuttgart 1988.


                 Miles Davis Time After Time Montreux 1988

Miles Davis "Summertime" (1958)

Cannonball Adderley feat. Miles Davis " Autumn Leaves" (1958)

Cassandra Wilson Belly Of The Sun

Cassandra Wilson

                       Cassandra Wilson
By Nicole Nelson
Cassandra Wilson is often described as not only an accomplished jazz vocalist and composer but also as a lyricist, producer, musical director, guitarist and  pianist .  Born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1955, Cassandra Wilson has been singing and performing since she sang at her brother’s kindergarten graduation at the age of five. The youngest of three children, Wilson began playing the piano and guitar at the age of nine. Cassandra attributes her interest in music to her parents. Her mother, who is a retired elementary school teacher, and father, who is a bass guitarist, often sang to her as a small child. Her father introduced her to jazz .  Jazz was not a very popular form of music during the 1960’s, but Cassandra loved it so much that she wanted to share it with others . Wilson took lessons in classical piano for six years, before learning to play acoustic guitar. She enjoyed experimenting with the guitar, and the instrument soon became her favorite. Between the ages of eleven and fifteen, she wrote about twenty original songs

A former classmate, Dr. Phillip Nelson,  recalls a time when she shared her new found love for jazz with the entire student body at a Jackson's Powell Junior High School talent show. “You have to remember that at that time the only thing we listened to was R&B, and she got on stage with a guitar and played a type of music no one had really heard before.  It was much like a ballad, and although she didn’t get a lot of attention (there was a lot of talking going on), she didn’t get booed off stage either.  I was impressed by the courage she demonstrated to sing an alternative selection.  She sang well.  She had great stage presence, and although she didn’t play anything popular, she was good enough to have people stand there and listen to her, and that’s when I realized that  she had broader experiences, at least musically, than most people at that age.  She sang that song because she loved it, and she didn’t care if you liked that song or not, and I respected her for that” (Nelson).

When Cassandra was in the ninth grade, the schools were  desegregated in Mississippi.  Her ninth and tenth grade years  were difficult as Cassandra recalls but were better for the remainder of her high school years. Despite the racial tensions that were present at her new school setting, she eventually adjusted to her environment.  In the eleventh grade she got the leading role as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.  “ For all the negative aspects, experiencing things that were different from what I knew was also exciting,” says Cassandra in an interview for The Oxford American  in its 1997 music issue ( Woodworth 31).  Obtaining the star role in the high school musical was not the first time Cassandra stepped over the color lines and made a mark for herself and others. During her last years in high school, Wilson formed a musical group with two young men who were both white. “She had difficulty (with classmates)   because of the relationship she chose to have, but you had to respect the choice she made”(Horhn). Wilson saw her interracial music group as a growing period for her life as well as for others.  “Music was the way we (blacks and whites) came together.  We traded albums at school.  I  remember hearing James Taylor and then really getting into Joni Mitchell.  I turned some of my friends on to jazz they hadn’t heard before” (Woodworth 31).

After obtaining a degree from Jackson State University in mass communication, Wilson moved from Mississippi to New Orleans and worked as an assistant in Public Affairs at a local television station. In 1982, Wilson moved to New York.  She began recording widely in the 1980’s initially with Steve Coleman and Henry Threadgill’s New Air group. She became the main vocalist with their M/Base collection. During her first decade in New York, she released seven records on the JMT/Verve label while she also sang on other innovative projects for other singers (Woodworth 31).  By 1993 she had sung on ten albums produced by  JMT records with a wide variety of New York musicians, including Mulgrew Miller and Greg Osby (Carr 701).

Cassandra’s music has often been compared to artists like Betty Carter, Nina Simone, and Shirley Horn, whom she also considers to be some of her musical influences. Billy Holiday and Sarah Vaugh also influenced her (Murray C1).  Cassandra has come a long way from her high school music group and late night singing at local clubs.  Cassandra now concentrates more on the pure innovative production of her own music albums. If Cassandra Wilson’s intentions are to open people’s eyes to the broadness of her music through the messages in her songs,  then she is well on her way to achieving her goal. Wilson’s emotional range and tone variations impress many critics, audiences, and fellow musicians. Many critics write that she is one of the most promising musicians on the horizon (Myers E-1). She has  received many awards due to her sensual and soulful voice. In her own hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, she was selected to receive the 1997 Governor’s Award for excellence in the Arts.  Unfortunately, she was unable to accept this award due to her tour with Wynton Marsalis. Her tour,  entitled Blood on the Fields, was Grammy nominated for best vocal performance (Lucas). Wilson won the “best jazz vocalist” Grammy award for her album New Moon Daughter (Clevenger). Her album  New Moon Daughter has been described as one of her best albums, with vocals that carry sultry and  contralto undertones (Murray C1). Cassandra’s  album Blue Light Til’ Dawn  was so well done that it won her the Downbeat’s  “Singer of the Year” title for 1994 and 1995. In 1996, this album also won her the same honor in Down Beat’s Critic poll (Clevenger).She also has appeared on screen in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Junio.

Cassandra Wilson is not overly concerned 
with what other people think of her or how she performs.   She was named “most important and daring jazz vocalist” by Time magazine in 1996.  According to one writer for the internet website “Lush Lives,” Cassandra Wilson is one of the top jazz singers of the 1990’s.  The writer continues, "Blessed with a distinctive and flexible voice, she is not afraid to take chances (Yanow). Listeners can only wonder if Cassandra’s unique sense of singing is what attributes to her rising success.  “I’m interested in crossing boundaries,” explains Wilson, “to be able to operate in several worlds at once is the result of being open minded, whether in music or some other part of the experience.  I still believe that things have to fall apart before something new can emerge.  That’s true for everything, including music”(Woodworth 31).

Wilson expresses herself through her music. She has become well loved and admired  because of her ability not only to sell  her music,  but  herself in the process. Senator John Horhn states that the reason Cassandra has become so successful is because she makes the music her own. “That in turn is why people love her so much, because you feel what she is trying to tell you” (Horhn Interview). Wilson sings with the intent of getting a message to her listeners. She sings with her heart and so much of her soul that it seems as though  she is literally singing to you (Nelson interview). “ However much this life consumes me, however unbalanced things get, I always want to remember that when I look into someone else’s eyes I am seeing myself” (Woodworth 34). There is absolutely no doubt to that at the rate Cassandra is going, her contralto, sensual voice and down-to-earth personality will draw a lot of fans for a long time to come.

Since winning the Grammy award for her vocal stylings on New Moon Daughter in 1997,  the call of the Delta has been beckoning her.  She is currently working on a CD with 81-year-old Boogaloo Ames and his partner Eden Brent tentatively to be called Belly of the Sun.  (Note: Belly of the Sun was produced but without Ames or Brent--possibly due to the death of Ames. The CD was also to include Jackson musicians Jesse Robinson on guitar, Nellie McGinnis on bass, and Rhonda Richmond on guitar).

2009 UPDATE: Cassandra Wilson won a Grammy Award for her album Loverly in 2009 as well as the 2009 Mississippi Governor's Award for Artistic Excellence in Music.





Cassandra Wilson - Redemption Song

        
                     Cassandra Wilson - Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars (Corcovado)

Wilson was married to Anthony Wilson from 1981 to 1983. She has a son, Jeris, born in the late 1980s. She and her son lived in Harlem, New York, for awhile. In 2000, Wilson married actor Isaach de Bankolé, who directed her in the concert film Traveling Miles: Cassandra Wilson (2000).

Wilson  has won several awards for her music on her album named New Moon Daughter.  She was named female singer of the year in 1994 and 1995 in (DownBeat Reader’s Poll), and  her album was No.1 for Best Music of 1996 (Time Magazine,1993). Ebony selected her one of America’s fifteen most beautiful black women.  She has been on the cover of Essence  magazine. DownBeat Magazines selected her Female vocalist of the year for 1996. Esquire  named her one of the year's “Women we love” under the headlines “Diva of Desire.”  A New York Times critic has called the album “One of  the best albums of decade.”  Time Magazine says that she is the most accomplished jazz vocalist of her time.  Her album New Moon Daughter  on Blue Note Records is about different kinds of relationships and the cycles they go through. She was the first singer of her generation to win Jazz Vocalist of the year in 1993. The song “Blue Light  til Dawn" examines her roots in jazz music.  Her album New Moon Daughter won a Grammy award in 1997. However,  Wilson's musical interests range from jazz to popular music, rhythm and blues to folk, blues to rock.

The voice is more visual than audible; shaded, iridescent, tangible, substantial. It seems to flow effortlessly. Read any of the dozen or so biographies on Cassandra Wilson and you’ll discover some basics: born and reared in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s and 70s by musician and educator parents.

Classically trained on piano from age 6 until the age of 13, she also received further musical instruction as a clarinetist for the concert and marching bands of secondary school. During the 70s, she could be found performing Joni Mitchell songs behind an acoustic guitar, or singing with a blues band in Little Rock, Arkansas, in front of a large funk band in Jackson, or in the company of long-time friends in an all-girls ensemble. In the eighties, Cassandra moved to New Orleans where she performed with local luminaries Earl Turbinton and Ellis Marsalis. After a year, she relocated to East Orange, New Jersey where she made a decision to take her chances on the New York jazz scene. After a stint as the main vocalist with Steve Coleman’s M-Base Collective, Cassandra began recording on her own.

                    Cassandra Wilson You Don't Know What Love Is

Although her recording career has been somewhat erratic, Cassandra Wilson became one of the top jazz singers of the '90s, a vocalist blessed with a distinctive and flexible voice who is not afraid to take chances. She began playing piano and guitar when she was nine and was working as a vocalist by the mid-'70s, singing a wide variety of material. Following a year in New Orleans, Wilson moved to New York in 1982 and began working with Dave Holland and Abbey Lincoln. After meeting Steve Coleman, she became the main vocalist with the M-Base Collective. Although there was really no room for a singer in the overcrowded free funk ensembles, Wilson did as good a job of fitting in as was possible. She worked with New Air and recorded her first album as a leader in 1985. By her third record, a standards date, she was sounding quite a bit like Betty Carter. 

After a few more albums in which she mostly performed original and rather inferior material, Cassandra Wilson changed directions and performed an acoustic blues-oriented program for Blue Note called Blue Light 'Til Dawn. By going back in time, she had found herself, and Wilson has continued interpreting in fresh and creative ways vintage country blues and folk music up until the present day. During 1997 she toured as part of Wynton Marsalis' Blood on the Fields production. Traveling Miles, her tribute to Miles Davis, followed two years later. For 2002's Belly of the Sun, she drew on an array of roots musics -- blues, country, soul, rock -- to fashion a record that furthered her artistic career while still aligning well with trends in popular music. Glamoured, released in 2003, posed a different kind of challenge; half the material was composed by Wilson herself. Unwilling to stand still, Wilson gently explored sampling and other hip-hop techniques for 2006's Thunderbird. Wilson followed Loverly, another album of standards in 2008, and Silver Pony in 2010.  

                     Cassandra Wilson - Round Midnight - HQ

                     Cassandra Wilson - Subatomic Blues

                     Cassandra Wilson - Resurrection Blues (Tutu)

                     Cassandra Wilson at Chicago Jazz Festival 2011

Esperanza Spalding Best New Artist Grammy in 2011

                         Esperanza Spalding
                   Best New Artist Grammy in 2011

     Esperanza Spalding (born October 18, 1984) is an American multi-instrumentalist best known as a jazz bassist and singer, who draws upon many genres in her own compositions. Spalding grew up in the King neighborhood of Portland, Oregon,  a neighborhood she describes as "ghetto" and "pretty scary". Her mother raised her and her brother as a single parent.  Spalding has a diverse ethnic background. She notes, "My mom is Welsh, Hispanic, and Native American, and my father is black." She also has an interest in the music of other cultures, including that of Brazil,  commenting, "With Portuguese songs the phrasing of the melody is intrinsically linked with the language, and it’s beautiful". Her mother shares Spalding's interest in music, having nearly become a touring singer herself.  But while Spalding cites her mother as a powerful influence who encouraged her musical expansion, she attributes her inspiration for pursuing a life in music to watching classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma perform on an episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood when she was four.

     By the time Spalding was five, she had taught herself to play the violin and was playing with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon.  Spalding stayed with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon until she was fifteen and left as concertmaster.  Due to a lengthy illness when she was a child, Spalding spent much of her elementary school years being homeschooled, but also attended King Elementary School in Northeast Portland. During this time she also found the opportunity to pick up instruction in music by listening to her mother's college teacher instruct her mother in guitar.  According to Spalding, when she was about 8 her mother briefly studied jazz guitar in college; Spalding says, "Going with her to her class, I would sit under the piano. Then I would come home and I would be playing her stuff that her teacher had been playing."

      Spalding also played oboe and clarinet before discovering the bass in high school.  She is able to sing in English, Spanish and Portuguese.  Spalding had begun performing live in clubs in Portland, Oregon as a teenager,  securing her first gig at 15 in a blues club when she could only play one line on bass.  One of the seasoned musicians with which she played that first night invited her to join the band's rehearsals "so she could actually learn something", and her rehearsals soon grew into regular performances spanning almost a year.  According to Spalding, it was a chance for her to stretch as a musician, reaching and growing beyond her experience.  Her early contact with these "phenomenal resources", as she calls the musicians who played with her,  fostered her sense of rhythm and helped nurture her interest in her instrument.  She does not consider herself a musical prodigy. "I am surrounded by prodigies everywhere I go, but because they are a little older than me, or not a female, or not on a major label, they are not acknowledged as such," says Spalding.

     Gary Burton, Executive Vice President at Berklee, said in 2004 that Spalding had "a great time feel, she can confidently read the most complicated compositions, and she communicates her upbeat personality in everything she plays."  Ben Ratliff wrote in The New York Times on July 9, 2006 that Spaldings voice is "light and high, up in Blossom Dearie's pitch range, and she can sing quietly, almost in a daydream" and that Spalding "invents her own feminine space, a different sound from top to bottom." Spalding was the 2005 recipient of the Boston Jazz Society scholarship for outstanding musicianship.  Almost immediately after graduation from college later the same year, Spalding was hired by Berklee College of Music, becoming one of the youngest professors in the institution's history,  at age 20.  As a teacher, Spalding tries to help her students focus their practice through a practice journal which can help them recognize their strengths and what they need to pursue.

       Esperanza Spalding blends jazz, R&B, Brazilian vocalese and classical music. Her works have proved to have broad appeal at a moment when many in the music industry were fretting that young people were turning away from jazz en masse. She's managed that rare feat: earning raves from the most discriminating jazz aficionados while also attracting a loyal fan base all over the globe. It also helps that Spalding has friends in high places. President Obama invited her to perform at the White House twice, as well as at his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. Her new album, Chamber Music Society, harkens back to her classical music training. For Spalding, classical music is "music among friends."

      A broad contingent of Spalding's fans, especially within but certainly not limited to the jazz community, knew she has winning musicianship. But few believed she had even a puncher's chance at the actual award. Especially for its highest-profile categories, the Grammys tend to reward top-selling acts signed to major record labels, regardless of musical merit. And with teenage heartthrob Justin Bieber in the running — not to mention Drake, Florence and the Machine and Mumford and Sons — her missing-out seemed a foregone conclusion. The Recording Academy had never given this honor to a jazz artist before ' Best New Artist Grammy in 2011'.

 Jun 17, 2011
Society HAE got a chance to sit down for an intimate conversation with Esperanza Spalding at The Roots Picnic in Philadelphia. We chat about her music, her creative process, the importance of studying your craft, and how jazz and live instrumentation are being revitalized.

Samba Em Preludio by Esperanza Spalding

Esperanza Spalding - Morning

Esperanza - Body & Soul

Grover Washington Jr.

              Grover Washington Jr. - Winelight


              Grover Washington Jr. - Mister Magic


Grover Washington, Jr.'s love of music began as a child, Grover was born in Buffalo, New York on December 12, 1943. His mother was a church chorister, and his father was a collector of old Jazz gramophone records and a saxophonist as well, so music was everywhere in the home. He grew up with the great jazzmen and big band leaders like Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, and others like them. At the age of 8, Grover Sr. gave Jr. a saxophone. After I started playing," Grover says, "I'd sneak into clubs to watch guys like Jack McDuff, Harold Vick and Charles Lloyd. My professional life began at age twelve. I played a lot of R&B, blues, and what we used to call 'gut-bucket'."

Washington left Buffalo and played with a Midwest group called the Four Clefs and then the Mark III Trio from Mansfield, Ohio. He was drafted into the U.S. Army shortly thereafter, which was  to his advantage, as he met drummer Billy Cobham. A music mainstay in New York City, Cobham introduced Washington to many New York musicians. After leaving the Army, Washington freelanced his talents around New York City, eventually landing in Philadelphia in 1967. Grover also met his wife Christine (who acted as his business partner as well) in Philadelphia around that time; they married shortly after his discharge in 1967. The two were happily married till death; their son, Grover III (who co-produced a Grammy-nominated song on Grover's last album) now lives in Los Angeles and their daughter, Shana attended Temple University. In 1970 and 1971, he appeared on Leon Spencer's first two albums on Prestige Records, together with Idris Muhammad and Melvin Sparks.

Washington's big break came at the expense of another artist. Alto sax man Hank Crawford was unable to make a recording date with Creed Taylor's Kudu Records, and Washington took his place, even though he was a backup. This led to his first solo album, Inner City Blues. He was talented and displayed heart and soul with soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones. Refreshing for his time, he made headway into the jazz mainstream.

Whilst his first three albums established him as a force in jazz and soul music, it was his fourth album in 1974, Mister Magic, that proved a major commercial success. The album climbed to number 10 in Billboard's Top 40 album chart and the title track reached #16 on the R&B singles chart (#54, pop). All these albums included guitarist Eric Gale as a near-permanent member in Washington's arsenal.  His follow-up on Kudu in 1975, Feels So Good also made #10 on the album chart.
A string of acclaimed records brought Washington through the 1970s, culminating in the signature piece for everything he would do from then on. Winelight (1980) was the album that defined everything Washington was then about, having signed for Elektra Records, part of the major Warner Music group. The album was smooth, fused with R&B and easy listening feel. Washington's love of basketball, especially the Philadelphia 76ers, led him to dedicate the second track, "Let It Flow", to Julius Erving (Dr. J). The highlight of the album was his collaboration with soul artist Bill Withers, "Just the Two of Us," a huge hit on radio during the spring and summer of 1981, peaking at #2 on the Hot 100. The album went platinum in 1981, and also won Grammy Awards in 1982 for Best R&B Song ("Just The Two of Us"), and Best Jazz Fusion Performance ("Winelight"). "Winelight" was also nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

In the post-Winelight era, Washington is credited for giving rise to a new batch of talent that would make its mark in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He is known for bringing Kenny G to the forefront as well as such smooth jazz artists as Walter Beasley, Steve Cole, Pamela Williams, Najee, and George Howard. His song Mr. Magic is noted as being influential on Go-go music starting in the mid-1970s.

Reflecting on his life, Grover says, "I'm thankful for the people who inspired me over the years: Dexter Gordon, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Stanley Turrentine, Cannonball Adderley, Sonny Rollins, Oliver Nelson. I would like to believe that some of the reason I've been around so long is that I don't do the same thing over and over--I like to grow, to keep adding another thread to my musical tapestry," he adds. "I'm just staying true to the things that got me to play in the first place."

On December 17, 1999, while waiting in the green room after taping four songs for The Saturday Early Show, at CBS Studios in New York City, Washington collapsed. He was taken to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at about 7:30 p.m. He was 56 years old. His doctors determined that he had suffered a massive heart attack.

              Grover Washington Jr. - Just the two of us (1981) HD and HQ


              Grover Washington Jr. - Let It Flow (for ''Dr. J.'')


              Grover Washington Jr. - Make Me A Memory (Sad Samba)


              Grover Washington Jr  -  Sausalito


 

               Grover Washington Jr with Kenny Burrell -  Summertime


               Grover Washington Jr  -  Can You Stop The Rain


               Grover Washington Jr. -  "Ain't No Sunshine"


       

Jazz For Christmas

        Ramsey Lewis Trio - Merry Christmas Baby (1961)


         John Coltrane - What Child Is This? (Greensleeves) Live @ Village Vanguard (1961)


         Oscar Peterson plays Jingle Bells


          Bill Evans / Santa Claus Is Coming To Town


          Charlie Parker-White Christmas


          Louis Armstrong / Christmas in New Orleans & Billie Holiday / I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm


Miles Davis - blue xmas


Wynton Christmas


Silent Night - Kathleen Battle, Wynton Marsalis


The Christmas Song - Dexter Gordon Quartet


Kenny Burrell - Have Yourself A Merry Christmas.WMV


Jimmy Smith God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen


          Dave Koz & Friends - Smooth Jazz Christmas Overture


          Ramsey Lewis Trio - God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (1961)


          Oscar Peterson plays O Christmas Tree

Kenny G - Xmas Jazz (White Crhistmas)

wynton marsalis - have yourself a merry little christmas

John Coltrane Tribute to the greatest Tenor saxophonist of all time, John William Coltrane (Trane)

Merely mention the name John Coltrane and you’re likely to evoke a deeply emotional, often spiritual response from even the most casual jazz fan. John Coltrane was the most revolutionary and widely imitated saxophonist in jazz. 

Born September 23, 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina, John Coltrane was always surrounded by music.Coltrane grew up in High Point, North Carolina, his father played several instruments sparking Coltrane’s study of E-flat horn and clarinet. While in high school, (at about the age of 15) Coltrane’s musical influences shifted to the likes of Lester Young and Johnny Hodges prompting him to switch to alto saxophone. After moving to Philadelphia, he continued his musical training  at Granoff Studios and the Ornstein School of Music. He was called to military service during WWII, where he performed in the U.S. Navy Band  (1945-46) .

After the war,he played alto saxophone in the bands led by Joe Webb and King Kolax, then changed to the tenor to work with Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson (1947-48). He performed on either instrument as circumstances demanded while in groups led by Jimmy Heath, Howard McGhee, Dizzy Gillespie (with whom he made his first recording in 1949), Earl Bostic, and lesser-known rhythm-and-blues musicians, but by the time of his membership in Johnny Hodges's septet (1953-54) he was firmly committed to the tenor instrument. Coltrane began playing tenor saxophone with the Eddie "CleanHead" Vinson Band, and was later quoted as saying, "A wider area of listening opened up for me. There were many things that people like Hawk, and Ben and Tab Smith were doing in the ‘40’s that I didn’t understand, but that I felt emotionally." Prior to joining the Dizzy Gillespie band, Coltrane performed with Jimmy Heath where his passion for experimentation began to take shape. However, it was his work with the Miles Davis Quintet  with Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones (1955-57)  that would lead to his own musical evolution. " Miles music gave me plenty of freedom," he once said. During that period, he became known for using the three-on-one chord approach, and what has been called the ‘sheets of sound,’ a method of playing multiple notes at one time.

Coltrane next played in Thelonious Monk's quartet (July-December 1957), but owing to contractual conflicts took part in only one early recording session of this legendary group. He rejoined Davis and worked in various quintets and sextets with Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Chambers, Jones, and others (1958-60). While with Davis he discovered the soprano saxophone, purchasing his own instrument in February 1960. 

Throughout the 1950s addiction to drugs and then alcoholism disrupted his career. Shortly after leaving Davis, however, he overcame these problems.

Having led numerous studio sessions, established a reputation as a composer, and emerged as the leading tenor saxophonist in jazz, Coltrane was now prepared to form his own group; it made its debut at New York's Jazz Gallery in early May 1960. After briefly trying Steve Kuhn, Pete La Roca, and Billy Higgins, Coltrane hired two musicians who became longstanding members of his quartet, McCoy Tyner (1960-65) and Elvin Jones (1960-66); the third, Jimmy Garrison, joined in 1961. With these sidemen the quartet soon acquired an international following. At times Art Davis added a second double bass to the group; Eric Dolphy also served as an intermittent fifth member on bass clarinet, alto saxophone, and flute from 1961 to 1963,eventually adding players like Pharoah Sanders. The John Coltrane Quartet created some of the most innovative and expressive music in Jazz history including the hit albums: "My Favorite Things," "Africa Brass," " Impressions," " Giant Steps," and his monumental work "A Love Supreme" which attests to the power, glory, love, and greatness of God. Coltrane felt we must all make a conscious effort to effect positive change in the world, and that his music was an instrument to create positive thought patterns in the minds of people.

Coltrane turned to increasingly radical musical styles in the mid-1960s. These controversial experiments attracted large audiences, and by 1965 he was surprisingly affluent. From autumn 1965 his search for new sounds resulted in frequent changes of personnel in his group. New members included Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane (his wife), Rashied Ali (a second drummer until Jones' departure), several drummers as seconds to Ali, and a number of African-influenced percussionists. In his final years and after his death, Coltrane acquired an almost saintly reputation among listeners and fellow musicians for his energetic and selfless support of young avant-garde performers, his passionate religious convictions, his peaceful demeanor, and his obsessive striving for a musical ideal.

In 1967, liver disease took Coltrane’s life leaving many to wonder what might have been. Yet decades after his departure his music can be heard in motion pictures, on television and radio. Recent film projects that have made references to Coltrane’s artistry in dialogue or musical compositions include, "Mr. Holland’s Opus", "The General’s Daughter", "Malcolm X", "Mo Better Blues", "Jerry McGuire", "White Night", "The Last Graduation", "Come Unto Thee", "Eyes On The Prize II" and "Four Little Girls". Also, popular television series such as "NYPD Blue", "The Cosby Show", "Day’s Of Our Lives", "Crime Stories" and "ER", have also relied on the beautiful melodies of this distinguished saxophonist.

In 1972, "A Love Supreme" was certified gold by the RIAA for exceeding 500,000 units in Japan. This jazz classic and the classic album "My Favorite Things" were certified gold in the United States in 2001.In 1982, the RIAA posthumously awarded John Coltrane a Grammy Award of " Best Jazz Solo Performance" for the work on his album, "Bye Bye Blackbird". In 1997 he received the organizations highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award.

On June 18, 1993 Mrs. Alice Coltrane received an invitation to The White House from former President and Mrs. Clinton, in appreciation of John Coltrane’s historical appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival.

In 1995, John Coltrane was honored by the United States Postal Service with a commemorative postage stamp. Issued as part of the musicians and composers series, this collectors item remains in circulation.


  John Coltrane & Miles Davis - Bye Bye Blackbird


    My Favorite Things - John Coltrane


    John Coltrane live, 1965, playing "Naima".


    John Coltrane - Dear Lord


    John Coltrane -  Spiritual


    John Coltrane - Afro Blue


    After the rain - John Coltrane


    John Coltrane "Stardust" (1958)


   John Coltrane - Lover, Come Back to Me


   JOHN COLTRANE: A Love Supreme I - II - III - IV (33:04 full version) - HQ Audio

John Coltrane - JAZZ

          John Coltrane - Blue Train


          John Coltrane - Moment's Notice


          John Coltrane - Equinox (Original)


          John Coltrane - Feeling Good


          John Coltrane - I'm Old Fashioned


          John Coltrane - You Don't Know What Love Is


          John Coltrane - Love , First Meditations, 1965

O'Donel Levy

      

        

     

   O'DONEL LEVY - Have You Heard


       Odonel Levy - Weve Only Just Begun


       O'Donel Levy - Let's Stay Together