Blue Note recording artist Dianne Reeves is recognized today as the pre-eminent singer of jazz. With her many accomplishments, including holding a record for recieving four consecutive Best Jazz Vocal Grammies, and her work with legendary producers such as Arif Mardin, Dianne Reeves has become a voice to reckon with. And, it doesn't look like she's slowing down any time soon. Her newest album, When You Know, released in April 2008, has recieved much critical claim and her fans are far from dissappointed. Since her start back in the 1970s, Reeves is still at the top of her game and continues to tour, aweing her worldwide followers with her soulful sound. Read more »
Sierra Hull may be the next great bluegrass sweetheart, a Tennessee teenager with a voice and style reminiscent of the young Alison Krauss. Her first album, Secrets, produced by Krauss bandmate Ron Block and featuring a who's who of bluegrass instrumental stars, has gained favorable notices. Hull has been working the festival circuit the last several years, and is already a regular at MerleFest. Now that she is graduating high school this spring, expect to see her even more frequently at national and regional bluegrass and Americana events. Read more »
Blue Note recording artist Dianne Reeves, recognized as the pre-eminent singer of jazz, will perform with the Oregon Symphony at the Portland Jazz Festival on Valentine's Day 2009. The festival will be celebrating the 70th anniversary for the legendary Blue Note recording label.
Reeves never fails to awe worldwide audiences with her unique jazz stylings. She has gained an ever-growing fan base as well much critical claim. In 2006, she received a record breaking fourth consecutive Best Jazz Vocal Grammy. Reeves was the first Creative Chair for Jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic as well as the first singer to ever perform at the famous Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Reeves has recorded and performed extensively with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, as well as with Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim. She also worked with the legendary producer Arif Mardin on the collection A Little Moonlight, which features her trio. Read more »
Pacific North jamgrass mecca Northwest String Summit will be back with Yonder Mountain String Band hosting as usual July 17-19 at Horning's Hideout in North Plains OR. The festival named the dates and confirmed Yonder Mountain's role in a December 16 announcement. Tickets go on sale February 6.
YMSB will play two sets each of the three nights of the festival. They will be joined by long-time friend, multi-instrumentalist Danny Barnes. In addiiton, one of Barnes' performing projects, The Bad Livers, will appear at the Summit. The rest of the 2009 lineup will be announced at a later date. FP festival page.
Portland Jazz Festival will top off its celebration of Blue Note Records with a finale performance by former Blue Note artist and Portland native Kurt Elling performing his tribute to the 1963 collaboration between saxophone great John Coltrane and baritone Johnny Hartman. A similar performance by Elling was one of the highlights of last year's Monterey Jazz Festival.
The concert recreates many of the ballads on the 1963 recording, Dedicated to You, which was recorded just over a year before Coltrane produced his seminal recording A Love Supreme. Unlike that transcendent effort, the Hartman collaboration was a more intimate and accessible album, a mood captured by Elling and his instrumental partner Ernie Watts.
Elling is widely regarded as one of the top jazz vocalists today, having won multiple Downbeat critic's polls and Jazz Times reader polls as well as seven Grammy nominations. He has performed twice before at the Portland Jazz Festival. For more information. Read more »
Even some of the biggest festivals are getting creative to meet their ticket sales goals, especially with the early-bird and holiday shopping season in full swing.
For the first time, Bonnaroo is offering a payment plan option for ticket purchases. The Bonnaroo box office opens for business December 4. Early bird pricing is in effect for general admission at $210 and VIP for $1350. With the payment plan, buyers may space out their payments over five months.
Seattle's big Labor Day weekend culturefest Bumbershoot offers a deep holiday discount for members of its Bumberfan Club community—just $60 for a three-day pass.
Alaska has of course been much in the news lately. But until recently, none of that news had anything to do with jazz.
That has changed. While the rest of the country was focusing on the state’s maverick governor and criminal-defendant senator, Alaska Airlines made itself a player in the jazz world by virtue of a surprising act of heroism: pledging $50,000, this year and next, to keep the Portland (Oregon) Jazz Festival going. In early September, just a few weeks before the airline stepped in to save the day, the festival had announced that it was “ceasing operations, ending a five-year span of presenting a world-class jazz festival each February in Portland.
Now it’s back to business as usual for the Portland Jazz Festival, which has just announced its 2009 lineup. And next year the festival, to run from Feb. 13-22, will have not just a sponsor (more than one, actually: the event’s new full name is the cumbersome “Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air Portland Jazz Festival Presented by The Oregonian A&E”) but an enticing theme as well — Blue Note Records, which will be celebrating its 70th anniversary.
The first annual nationwide Kat Von D And Samsung Mobile Musink Tattoo And Music Festival will launch January 30, 2009 and traverse 25 major cities in the United States for six weeks. Musink was conceived by Kat Von D — one of the most popular tattoo artists in the world and the star of the TLC show "L.A. Ink" (a top-rated show on cable network television) — and she will be attending all dates.
Roots festival favorites Uncle Earl, the all-female string band, announced that it won't be touring in 2009 so that members can focus on individual projects. Abigail Washburn's duties with the Sparrow Quartet have complicated the band's scheduling the last two years, but the reasons are probably deeper than that, especially because the email announcing the news suggests that she is also slowing down that band's appearances next year while she pursues more travel in China and a duo album with cellist Ben Sollee.
Each of the other members also has outside projects. Kristin Andreassen performs with Sometimes Why and as a solo performer. Rayna Gellert has a variety of things in the works, including work on a documentary soundtrack and collaborations with Toubab Krewe and Loudon Wainwright. KC Groves has a new solo album and is working with two other bands, The Moody Sisters and Dangerfields, where she'll be join by, among others, former G'Earl Sharon Gilchrist. Read more »