Jazz

"Skylark," "Come Rain Or Come Shine," "I'm Old Fashioned," "The Days Of Wine And Roses," "Satin Doll," the English version of "Autumn Leaves" ... it keeps going. And in thinking about his incredible accomplishments, it struck me then that we may never again have any new jazz standards. Sure, there will be songs, from within jazz or apart from it, which may be covered a number of times by jazz musicians.  

British Columbia-born Darren Rahn has spent nearly all of his life involved in music. He's been playing the saxophone from the age of 12 and has undertaken studies of the instrument at Adams State College and the University of Northern Colorado. Apart from being a fine instrumentalist, Darren has also produced fellow smooth jazz artists such as the late Wayman Tisdale and Dave Koz. Darren chatted to me very recently about his latest CD, Talk of the Town, which certainly lives up to its title given the rave reviews its received since its release.  

The Miserable Rich released their latest EP Covers this week via the excellent Humble Soul label. The five piece, featuring members of The Leisure Society and Shoreline recently answered are probing questions about what's causing their ears to prick up at the moment. One of the most entertaining On Song's we've had in a while for sure.  

bassist/composer Al Henderson includes the suite Regeneration (for Sachi and Raymond Moriyama) and six other previously unrecorded works. The original Al Henderson Quintet includes Pat LaBarbera and Alex Dean (reeds), Richard Whiteman (piano) and Barry Romberg (drums). For this album, the quintet becomes a septet as they are joined by cellists Matt Brubeck and Mark Chambers.  

As Latin-jazz legends go, saxophonist Ray Santos ranks high on the list. Few living Latin-jazz artists today can claim to have played in and arranged for the bands of Machito, Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez. To give you an idea of what this trifecta means, it would be akin to a saxophonist playing in the Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Woody Herman bands.  

Remember the halcyon days when to be considered a university, you had to have six or seven accredited colleges as well as graduate and professional divisions? In our society's more recent cavalier and clever language-mashing, it seems anything goes. It started with Hamburger University, then Dunkin' Donuts University and probably thousands' more corporate training initiatives that persist today with the university adjunct.  

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) has awarded a $200,000 grant to the Jazz Arts Group of Columbus (JAG) to create a national model for building jazz and music audiences, entitled the Jazz Audiences Initiative. The 21-month project, which spans November 1, 2009 through July 31, 2011, will enable the Jazz Arts Group to research and test new strategies for overcoming barriers to jazz participation and for building jazz audiences through more targeted marketing and programming efforts. The initiative will tackle fundamental questions about how and why people engage with jazz.  

1959 was a very good year. Hear how good it was when The Chicago Jazz Ensemble (The CJE) with Artistic Director Jon Faddis presents Honoring 1959: The Music of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Miles Davis at Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 East Randolph on the southeast corner of Chicago's Millennium Park, on Thursday, December 10, at 7:30 pm. The concert celebrates the 50th anniversary of Coltrane's Giant Steps , Davis' Kind of Blue and Coleman's Shape of Jazz to Come with performances ...  

After being without the annual jazz festival this past June for the first time in 37 years, jazz fans from around the world can celebrate the music at the CareFusion New York Jazz Festival June 17-26, 2010. George Wein, along with his New Festival Productions, LLC, again will produce a 10-day festival that will cover the city with concerts. CareFusion Corporation is a global provider of products and services that measurably improve the productivity and safety of healthcare.  

June was born as Shirley Luster on November 20, 1925 at the Memorial Hospital in Springfield, Illinois and was raised from the age of three in Decatur, Illinois; and from the beginning always wanted to sing...