Seattle Jazz Scene

from The Seattle Times:

In 1965, the Pulitzer Prize’s three-member music jury voted unanimously to award Duke Ellington a special citation for his prodigious contributions to American music, an award unceremoniously rejected by the Pulitzer’s 14-member advisory board.

The 66-year-old Ellington handled the snub and resulting controversy with customary aplomb. “Fate is being kind to me,” the Maestro said. “Fate doesn’t want me to be famous too young.”

In truth, Ellington had his eye on loftier concerns. On Sept. 16 of that year, the Duke Ellington Orchestra premiered “A Concert of Sacred Music” at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, the first of three Sacred Music programs that he considered his most important work.

These days there’s little argument about Ellington’s status as a singularly creative force in 20th-century music, but compared to his beloved standards and ambitious longer suites with Billy Strayhorn, his Sacred Music is rarely performed.

Continue reading at The Seattle Times.

TOWN HALL: Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music w/ SRJO

TRIPLE DOOR: Here & Now Quintet

BOXLEY’S: Carolyn Graye Quartet

LOMBARDI’S: Leah Stillwell Trio

EL GAUCHO BELLEVUE: Trish Hatley Trio

TULA’S JAZZ CLUB:Ray Ohls Trio with Louis Ledbetter and Tim Malland

SERAFINA: Alex Guilbert Trio

EGAN’S BALLARD JAM HOUSE:
7pm – Jon Sheckler Group, featuring Chad McCullough, with Jon Sheckler (drums), Erika Price (piano), Dean Schmidt (bass) and Chad McCullough (trumpet)
9pm – Kristin Chambers Quintet, with Jamie Dieveney (piano), Lauren Hendrix (bass), Glen Allen (guitar) and Brad Gibson (drums)
11pm – Jim Knodle and the Distract Band

Here is the only events we could find online … know of anything else? Send us an email at [email protected].

NEW ORLEANS: Ham Carson Quintet

THAIKU: Jon Alberts, Jeff Johnson & Tad Britton

TULA’S JAZZ CLUB: Tatum Greenblatt, Jay Thomas, Ben Roseth & Friends

THAIKU: Ron Weinstein Trio

BOXLEY’S: Emerald City Little Big Band

NEW ORLEANS: Legacy Band w/ Clarence Acox

NORTH CITY BISTRO: Sandy Carbary & Bill Chism

LUCID JAZZ LOUNGE: Le Trio: A Christmas Special

CHAPEL: Perry Robinson & Marc Smason

EGAN’S BALLARD JAM HOUSE: 9pm – Slant Quartet, with Devon Yesberger (piano), Max Holmberg (drums), Xavier del Castillo (tenor sax) and Trevor Brown (bass)

from The Seattle Times:

Thomas Marriott, “Flexicon” (Origin)
Seattle trumpeter Marriott tips his hat to horn heroes Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis without ceding his own identity as a melodically inventive composer and consistently incisive improviser whose lines simmer anxiously without boiling over. A top-shelf cast featuring pianist/keyboardist Bill Anschell, bassist Jeff Johnson, drummer Matt Jorgenson, saxophonist Mark Taylor and vibraphonist extraordinaire Joe Locke (on two tracks) brings Marriott’s expansive vision vividly to life.

{buy Flexicon from Origin Records}

TOST: Michael Shrieve’s Spellbinder

TULA’S JAZZ CLUB: Darin Clendenin Trio Jazz Jam

NEW ORLEANS: New Orleans Quintet

POGGIE TAVERN: Better World w/ Marc Smason & Joanne Klein

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19

Reservations: 206-443-4221

featuring:
Hadley Caliman – saxophone
Thomas Marriott – trumpet
Eric Verlinde – piano
Phil Sparks – bass
Matt Jorgensen – drums

Saxophonist Hadley Caliman celebrates the release of his new CD Straight Ahead (Origin Records) this Saturday, December 19, at Tula’s Jazz Club.

Call and reserve your spot: 206-443-4221

Concert of Sacred Music by Duke Ellington

Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra
+ NW Chamber Chorus
+ vocalist Everett Greene

Saturday, December 26, 2009
Town Hall Seattle, 7:30 pm
1119 Eight Avenue (at Seneca), Seattle

Tickets now on sale through brownpapertickets.com.

Preferred Section Seating: $28 (this section is sold out)
General Seating Section: $24(tickets still available)
Discounts available for Earshot Jazz members, senior citizens and full-time students.

On December 26th, the beloved Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra returns with its annual concert of Sacred Music by Duke Ellington. For the first time, vocalist Everett Greene, a renowned Emmy Award winning vocalist currently recording and touring with the Count Basie Orchestra, joins the SRJO and its co-directors alto saxophonist Michael Brockman, an Ellington scholar and professor of music at the University of Washington, and drummer Clarence Acox, the award-winning director of Garfield High School’s nationally-ranked jazz program. Returning for this year’s concert is vocalist Nichol Venee Eskridge (who is also featured on the SRJO’s Sacred Music of Duke Ellington CD), tap-dancer Alex Dugdale, and the Northwest Chamber Chorus under Director Mark Kloepper.

As always, the SRJO aims to recapture the spirit of Ellington’s original Sacred Music that debuted on September 16, 1965 at the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. It was at the conclusion of this landmark concert that Ellington proclaimed, “I’m sure this is the most important statement we’ve ever made.” Ellington considered the Sacred Concert to be amongst his most significant accomplishments and devoted the last years of his life to performing the programs hundreds of times throughout the world.
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The Susan Pascal Quartet in concert at The Seattle Art Museum (photo by Harlan Chinn)

A recent concert by the Susan Pascal Quartet at the Seattle Art Museum will air on Jazz Northwest Sunday, December 20 at 1 PM Pacific Time on 88.5, KPLU. This month, the Susan Pascal Quartet is revisiting the music of The Modern Jazz Quartet, one of the most long-lived jazz groups which played concerts all over the world for more than 40 years with the same personnel.

Susan Pascal transcribed a selection of music recorded by the MJQ for her quartet and the instrumentation is identical: vibraharp (Susan Pascal), piano (Bill Anschell), string bass (Chuck Deardorf) and drums (Matt Jorgensen). The music includes several seasonal pieces including one original arrangement by Bill Anschell.

Originally the rhythm section of the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band in the 40s, the Modern Jazz Quartet recorded and toured extensively and was one of the most successful and popular groups in the history of jazz. The delicate, crystalline music they played had overtones of classical music and their audiences listened with the same rapt attention given to a classical string quartet. However, there was a strong rhythmic pulse and a blues-based core in addition to contrapuntal interplay. Pianist John Lewis and vibist Milt Jackson composed most of the music played by the quartet whose other members were Percy Heath, bass and Connie Kay, drums.

The Art of Jazz Series at the Seattle Art Museum is produced by Earshot Jazz, John Gilbreath Executive Director, and presented on the second Thursday of each month. The next concert on January 14 will feature the Hadley Caliman Quintet.

Jazz Northwest is recorded and produced by Jim Wilke exclusively for 88.5 KPLU and kplu.org. A podcast of the program will be available at kplu.org after the airdate.

Listen to an audio sample below.

TULA’S JAZZ CLUB: SCCC Jazz Orchestra with Lonnie Mardis

THAIKU: Ron Weinstein Trio

BOXLEY’S: Jim Cutler Quartet

EGAN’S BALLARD JAM HOUSE:
7pm – Chip Parker with Randy Halberstadt (piano) and Geoff Cooke (bass)
9pm – Vocal Showcase featuring Deborah Shelton, Meg Roberts and Eleanor Fye – Hosted by Robert Parks, with Randy Halberstadt (piano), Dan O’Brien (bass) and Robert Rushing (drums)

NEW ORLEANS: Legacy Quartet w/Clarence Acox

TULA’S JAZZ CLUB: Bellevue CC Jazz Orchestra w/ Hal Sherman

TOST: Michael Shrieve’s Spellbinder

NEW ORLEANS: New Orleans Quintet

POGGIE TAVERN: Falingo Machaz w/ Marc Smason & Pavel Shepp

photos by Jim Levitt

Reuel Lubag – piano; Michael Marcus – bass; Clarence Acox – bass

Make sure the volume is up to get the full effect …

Sketchy Santa from Coty Gonzales on Vimeo.

from The Guardian:

Jazzman Larry Ochs has seen many things during 40 years playing his saxophone around the world but, until this week, nobody had ever called the police on him.

That changed on Monday night however, when’s Spain’s pistol-carrying Civil Guard police force descended on the Sigüenza Jazz festival to investigate allegations that Ochs’s music was not, well, jazz.

Police decided to investigate after an angry jazz buff complained that the Larry Ochs Sax and Drumming Core group was on the wrong side of a line dividing jazz from contemporary music.

The jazz purist claimed his doctor had warned it was “psychologically inadvisable” for him to listen to anything that could be mistaken for mere contemporary music.

According to a report in El País newspaper yesterday, the khaki-clad police officers listened to the saxophone-playing and drumming coming from the festival stage before agreeing that the purist might, indeed, have a case.

Continue reading at The Guardian.

from The Olympian:

TRAVIS SHOOK TRIO – SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12
The United Churches
110 11th Ave. S.E.
Olympia, 7:30pm, $15

After being signed to a major-label record deal at age 23, jazz pianist Travis Shook took some career detours.

But the winding road is leading uphill these days. This weekend, it’s brings the award-winning musician back to his boyhood home in Olympia.

His concert Saturday – with drummer Matt Jorgensen and bassist Phil Sparks, both of Seattle – is his first time playing here in seven years.

A California native who moved to Olympia at age 10, Shook played piano from the time he was 5, but it was at Olympia High School that he was first exposed to jazz.

“I joined the jazz band at the age of 16,” said Shook, whose mother, Belva Shook, still lives in Olympia. “I’d always taken classical lessons but did not really want to become a classical musician.

“When I started playing jazz, I said, ‘Oh, well, this is actually perfect.’ I pulled out a Duke Ellington album we had at home. I’d never heard it; it was still in the plastic.

“There was no question about what I wanted to do after that.”

What captured his attention was the energy of jazz.

“Jazz is composing on the spur of the moment,” Shook said. “There’s something magical that happens. Say there are four of us playing at once; we’re all listening to what the others are playing but we’re all saying what we want to say at the same time.

Continue reading at The Olympian.

TULA’S JAZZ CLUB: Susan Pascal’s Modern Jazz Quartet Revisited

BAKE’S PLACE: Jackie Ryan

BOXLEY’S: Milo Petersen Trio

LATONA PUB: Phil Sparks Trio

LOMBARDI’S: Travis Ranney Trio

SOUTHPORT CAFE: Karen Shivers

CHAPEL PERFORMANCE SPACE: Seattle Phonographers Union CD Release

EL GAUCHO BELLEVUE: Trish Hatley Trio

HIROSHI’S: Tracy Knoop w/Greg Williamson Quartet

LOCAL COLOR: Oghale

NORTH CITY BISTRO: Gail Pettis & Friends

SERAFINA: Tim Kennedy Trio

PAMPAS ROOM: Brian Nova Quartet

EGAN’S BALLARD JAM HOUSE:
7pm – Perry Robinson
9pm – Joey the Saint and the A-men
11pm – Spekulation, with Nate Omdal, Absolutemadman and Spekulation

from The Seattle Times:

The concept behind the vocal jazz group Cocoa Martini seems both familiar and novel, three women who sing songs that most of us know well, backed by a quartet.

When performing, the three singers, who straddle age 50, dress in elegant, evening dresses and take turns singing most of the songs, harmonizing on about a third of them, taking care in between to joke, address the audience and talk about their experience with the music.

Familiar, because the formula is tried and true and the songs easy to connect with. Novel, because it seems jazz is seldom presented this way anymore.

The members of Cocoa Martini, who will perform Sunday night at 7 at the Triple Door for the third time in three years, admit to tapping into a nostalgia for the kind of songs they sing and the way they sing them.

Continue reading at The Seattle Times.