An interview with Wynton Marsalis, and a look ahead at fall

I spoke with Wynton Marsalis earlier this month. The interview appears in today's Minneapolis StarTribune. Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra come to Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis on Sunday.

My editor at MinnPost asked for a post on jazz coming up this fall in the Twin Cities. She probably got more than she bargained for, simply because there's so much going on. To borrow words from Davis Wilson at the Artists' Quarter, I continue to be pleased and flipped at the quantity and especially the quality of live jazz available to us in flyover land. We're not New York City, but we surely are Minneapolis-St. Paul.

The MinnPost piece replaces my usual This Week's Jazz Picks post.

Behind the scenes of Arne Fogel’s radio series “Minnesota’s Voices—Certain Standards”

Arne Fogel by John Whiting
ALL PHOTOS BY JOHN WHITING FOR KBEM

If you listen to public radio or frequent Twin Cities jazz clubs, you know singer, musician, actor, writer, producer, recording artist, and storyteller Arne Fogel. His radio series “The Bing Shift,” featuring the music of Bing Crosby, airs Saturdays at 7 p.m. CST on KBEM. Fogel is an acknowledged expert on Crosby; he wrote the liner notes for the first American release of Crosby’s 1975 album A Southern Memoir and the text for the radio section of the official Bing Crosby website.

For 12 years, he produced and hosted “Arne Fogel Presents” for Minnesota Public Radio. With Connie Evingson, he co-hosted “Singers & Standards” on KBEM from 2002–05. You can read more about Fogel on his website.

He’s a busy guy, an idea man, and when he has a good thought, he doesn’t let it go. There’s a Post-it on the wall in his home office on which he has written two words: “Certain Standards.” It’s been there for years. An old file on his computer describes a radio show of songs from the Great American Songbook and the stories behind them.

Program announced for JazzMN's concert with John Clayton

Grammy-winning bassist/composer John Clayton is the JazzMN Orchestra's special guest as Minnesota's premier big band launches its 2011–12 season on Saturday, Oct. 1.

Judi Donaghy is  guest vocalist.

JazzMN's artistic director Doug Snapp has announced the evening's program.

Behind the scenes of "TimePiece for Jazz Soloists and Orchestra" by Stephen Paulus and Greg Paulus

Greg Paulus (l) and Stephen Paulus
All rehearsal photos by John Whiting

In 2007, St. Paul composer Stephen Paulus went to a chamber music concert where Minnesota Orchestra music director Osmo Vänskä was playing clarinet. Stephen stuck around after to talk with the maestro and mentioned maybe writing something with his son, jazz and electronic musician and composer Greg Paulus. A work for jazz soloists and orchestra, perhaps. What would Vänskä think about that?

According to Stephen, Vänskä’s response was immediate: “That’s just exactly what we need to do with the orchestra.”

Four years in the making, composed partly over Skype (Greg is now based in Brooklyn but tours the world with his electronic production team No Regular Play), TimePiece will have its world premiere at the Minnesota Orchestra’s season opener this weekend. Joining the orchestra on stage will be Greg Paulus on trumpet, Michael Lewis on saxophone, Bryan Nichols on keyboards, Adam Linz on bass, and JT Bates on drums.

Amiri Baraka comes to the Southern for an evening of spoken word, jazz, and dance theater

From Tru Ruts Freestyle Theater, a chance to see the great poet/playwright/activist Amiri Baraka live and in the company of many fine Twin Cities artists including Kevin Washington, Anthony Cox, and J. Otis Powell. Tickets are available online. Easy-breezy; order, pay, print them out.

Here's the press release, abbreviated:

E.G. Bailey adapts Amiri Baraka's Wise Why's Y's, an epic journey through the history of Africans in America, and a perfect blend of avant-garde poetry with the griot consciousness. Paying homage to Langston's Ask Your Mama, William Carlos William's Patterson, and Melvin B. Tolson's Liberia alike, it attempts to articulate the history of a people or a place. Wise Why's Y's questions and answers broad themes of history and cultural identity.

Concert review: Theo Bleckmann at Macalester

Theo Bleckmann
by Susie Knoll

From what planet does Theo Bleckmann come, and what century? His music is both otherworldly and timeless—not in a never-gets-old way, but in a Time Lord/Highlander way of someone who moves from era to era easily, casually, like the rest of us cross the street.

In solo performance Friday night in St. Paul, part of Macalester College’s annual New Music series, the singer/composer took us back to the French courts of the 14th century and forward to a day in the future when a song like his surrealistic version of “I Remember You”—with a small talking bear squeaking “I love you! Kiss me!”—might conceivably top the pop charts.

I’ve read about Bleckmann, watched some YouTube videos, listened to him online (and friended him on Facebook), but nothing compares to seeing and hearing him make music on the spot. (I went with a friend who’d seen him three times before, and he said this night was completely different than the others.) There were moments of haunting, heart-rending beauty, Bleckmann’s pure, clear voice looped, layered, and soaring. (That the performance took place at Macalester-Plymouth Church upped the ethereal factor.) The music was inspiring and disturbing, serious and funny, provocative, strange, and utterly absorbing.

This week's jazz picks for Minneapolis-St. Paul

Tonight (Friday, Sept. 23), the famously inventive singer/composer Theo Bleckmann comes to town, thanks to Macalester College. I totally forgot to mention this on the air with Ed Jones this morning; smacking self now. I've been looking forward to Bleckmann's performance ever since learning about it in late August. He'll do a solo show at Macalester-Plymouth United Church--no band, just Bleckmann and his array of low- and high-tech toys. Here he is singing Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep." I do hope he sings some Kate Bush. 1685 Lincoln Ave., St. Paul, one block south of Grand, one block west of Snelling, adjacent to the Macalester campus. 8 p.m. Free.

Tonight and tomorrow (Friday–Saturday), New York-based alto saxophonist Jim Snidero heads downstairs to the Artists’ Quarter. He has performed with the Frank Sinatra Orchestra, the Mingus Big Band, Sting, Billy Joel, and other stars; his latest CD, Interface, features Paul Bollenback on guitar. Snidero plays standards and originals based in bop. Should be two swinging, solid nights at the AQ. 9 p.m. ($15)

For NPR's A Blog Supreme: Monterey Jazz 2011: A Recap

Sonny by Johnny
(Sonny Rollins by John Whiting)

Patrick Jarenwattananon and I had an iChat late Monday night about this year's Monterey Jazz festival and the music. It was his first time there, my sixth, but we both thought it was pretty great. I'll probably follow later with a few more thoughts/memories of my own. Someone needs to mention the strawberry man.