Death of Jazz Club Underscores a Changing Scene
from The New York Times:
As another holiday season under a stagnating economy draws to a close, it is hardly surprising that San Francisco would lose that rarely profitable of ventures, a jazz room.
But Coda, a bar, restaurant and club in the Mission District, did not seem like it was going under. In just a year and a half, it had established itself as one of the most interesting jazz-based schedules in the Bay Area. Acts like the Jazz Mafia tapped into a vibrant younger music scene, and salsa Sunday bookings and Latin jazz nights sold out. Stevie Wonder dropped by for a set; Liz Phair covered Velvet Underground songs.
Two weeks ago Bruce Hanson, the club’s owner, shocked staff members and promoters with the news that Coda would close after a New Year’s Eve blowout featuring Rayband and 8 Legged Monster.
Mr. Hanson blamed poor economic timing, not the business model or the musical genre. “Maybe if we opened today, we’d make it,” he said.
Continue reading at The New York Times.
Bassist and composer Charles Fambrough passed away on New Year’s Day at his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Billy Taylor, a pianist and composer who was also an eloquent spokesman and advocate for jazz as well as a familiar presence for many years on television and radio, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 89 and lived in the Riverdale area of the Bronx.
KWJZ 98.9fm, Seattle’s smooth jazz station for the past 17 years, abruptly changed format yesterday becoming Click 98.9, another station that plays Adult-Contemporary/Classic Alternative music (think Coldplay and Red Hot Chili Peppers).
The holiday concert of “Sacred Music by Duke Ellington,” will be presented at 7:30pm on Sunday, December 26th, 2010 at Town Hall Seattle (1119 Eighth Avenue, Seattle). This very special event, now celebrating its 22nd anniversary, features the all-star Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra with guest vocalists Everett Greene and Nichol Venee Eskridge, the 30-voice Northwest Chamber Chorus, and tap dancer Alex Dugdale.
Tuesday, December 28
Trumpeter Thomas Marriott keeps growing as an artist. He has released CDs at a healthy pace since 2005: an introduction for many perhaps unwary jazz fans to some warped country western flavor on Crazy: The Music of Willie Nelson (Origin Records, 2008); cranking an all-star quintet up in a modern mainstream mode on Flexicon (Origin Records, 2009); and letting it rip on a two-trumpet blow fest with fellow brass man Ray Vega on East-West Trumpet Summit (Origin Records, 2010). Constraints and Liberations ups his output to two releases in 2010.