0 Comments

Email to a friend

Printer-friendly

Add to myNUVO

Digg this

Music
Larry Ridley: a jazz reason for Indy
by Chuck Workman
Jun 12, 2002

Music
Indy Jazz Fest recap
by Chuck Workman
Jun 19, 2002

Music
A feast of talent
by Chuck Workman
Sep 24, 2003

Music
Indy Jazz Fest is back
by Editors
Jun 16, 2004

News
Indy Jazz Fest
by Editors
Jun 15, 2005

Arts
Macabre and merriment
by Rita Kohn
Nov 20, 2002

Columns
The power of music
by Steve Hammer
Apr 9, 2003

Food
Eclectic eats where the concert crowd meets
by Terry Kirts
Jan 12, 2005

Music
Workmans Picks
by Chuck Workman
May 10, 2006

Arts
Another Bloody Sunday
by Editors
Sep 6, 2006

Indy Jazz Fest
by Chuck Workman Jun 12, 2002

Who to see at the annual musical smorgasbord

With more than 200,000 visitors through the gates since the first Indy Jazz Fest in 1999, the three-day event has proven itself to be a popular and enduring downtown event. With dozens of acts in various genres from which to choose, finding the best performers can be almost as tiring as traversing all of downtown itself. Advance tickets for Saturday and Sunday"s events are $18 in advance and $24 the days of the event. Call Ticketmaster, 239-5151, to order tickets by phone. Bob James Jazz Heritage Stage 3:15-4:30 p.m., Saturday Pianist and composer Bob James has been a major force on the contemporary jazz movement since the 1970s. Today, he is involved in one of the most cohesive smooth jazz groups you can find: Fourplay. When you have had 11 successful years with a band that has no leaders, but functions in a democratic way, then you are on top of the constant changes in jazz. Bob James is sensitive to those changes and their impact on maintaining the appeal of jazz. James says, "The lifeblood of our music is still live performance. I think it has always been that but now it"s even more important than it ever has been because of the struggle with record companies and downloading music by the Internet and all these complex problems we are reading about all the time. One of the ways you retain loyalty and contact with your audience in the most direct way is to get out and perform live. We are certainly trying to rise to that challenge." Larry Carlton Jazz Heritage Stage 3:15-4:30 p.m., Saturday Larry Carlton has written his name into every facet of contemporary jazz with his guitar sound. Today, he brings his distinctive sound to smooth jazz as the newest member of Fourplay. His style has reshaped this unique cooperative quartet of leaders that has musically bonded to keep Fourplay at the front of the smooth jazz school. For all that Carlton has done in jazz, he expressed his dream of wanting to perform once with a jazz artist he idolizes: "I would like to perform one evening with McCoy Tyner. I have never met McCoy; obviously, his musical reputation is stellar, but I have also heard that he is a really nice guy. I know Harvey Mason of our group is very good friends with him. At some point, just because he is one of my heroes, I would love to spend an evening playing two sets with him in a club some place." David Benoit Jazz Heritage Stage 5-6:15 p.m., Sunday David Benoit has had a distinguished career in jazz that covers every style - from the modern to contemporary and now the radio-oriented smooth jazz. His mass appeal to the public came with his inheriting the musical legacy from the late Vince Guaraldi as the jazz sound for the popular Charlie Brown television series. Benoit has countless albums under his name along with acclaim from both fans and critics. With a career that has covered the past two decades, Benoit gave me his impression on the ever-changing aspect of the jazz festival: "I think each festival is very different, but I think a lot of them now have more and more a pop element to attract larger crowds. The festivals are getting into that world a little more than just pure jazz. I think what we are seeing nowadays is much more a mix of music. I think every festival is always going to have a certain amount of jazz content. They are also looking at R&B acts, smooth jazz as well as traditional jazz and seeing a lot more variety as well as a lot of different kinds of jazz." Spyro Gyra Jazz Heritage Stage 6:45-8 p.m., Saturday For over two decades, Jay Beckenstein, saxophonist/bandleader, has fearlessly led Spyro Gyra in making contemporary jazz an accepted form to the jazz community. During that time, he has played countless jazz festivals. He reflected on his experience of summer musical extravaganzas over the years and how they have evolved: "I think jazz festivals and the bottom line in 90 percent is economics. The festivals may even have an underlying nobility to them but the festivals are faced with how do we not lose money so that we can do it next year for our noble cause. That has led many, many jazz festivals to book acts they perceive as ticket sellers. I am sympathetic but that is certainly a change I have seen over the years." Arturo Sandoval Jazz Heritage Stage 8:15-9:45 p.m., Friday There is not much more that can be said about the enormous trumpet virtuosity in jazz and classical performances by Arturo Sandoval. He has 26 albums recorded under his name and guest appearances on hundreds of others, along with soundtracks for movies and television. Sandoval has been nominated 19 times for Grammy Awards, winning four times. In addition, he has been given numerous honors and accolades for his work in education as a full professor, giving clinics around the nation at colleges and universities. Sandoval, who is playing at the peak of his awesome power on trumpet, has passionately taken up the piano and performs now with as much vigor and technique as he does on trumpet. Sandoval revealed a personal secret of his new double musical identity: "You know, the trumpet is a hate-love relationship. It"s an instrument that can really give you a lot of pleasure, but at the same time, it demands a lot of attention. To be honest, I have a lot more fun practicing the piano than practicing the trumpet. I love to play the trumpet, but to be honest, I don"t like to keep my face behind the trumpet for four hours a day. With the piano, I can practice all day long and I don"t get tired; I want more and more. The piano helps me to understand the music, to really compose, to write new tunes to arrange. I feel I owe a lot of things to the piano." For more jazz picks from Chuck Workman, see his column in the Sound section. There is more than just jazz at the Jazz Fest NUVO Staff Report While jazz, of course, makes up the primary fare at the Indy Jazz Fest, festival organizers realize that audiences also want to hear pop music at a smorgasbord-type music event. If the music on one stage isn"t to your liking, there"s always something else interesting going on at the Jazz Fest. Aretha Franklin American Music Stage 10:15-11:45 p.m., Saturday Americans have never had much love for monarchs, with one notable exception: Aretha Franklin, whose reign as the Queen of Soul has spanned close to four decades. The Queen is still going strong at 60, and her performance at the Jazz Fest will almost certainly be the high note of the weekend"s pop offerings. Though she"s playing the pop stage, such a short word is wholly inadequate to describe Franklin"s music, style or legacy. Her catalogue is too expansive, her voice too versatile to be encompassed by one genre or label. Over the years, Aretha"s dominant aesthetic has ranged from gospel to R&B to jazz to pop, but she recorded the best music of her career for Atlantic Records at the height of soul music"s popularity and cultural influence, releasing a staggering string of 10 top 10 hits in an 18 month period from 1967-"68, including "Respect," "I Never Loved a Man," "Chain of Fools," "Baby I Love You," "I Say a Little Prayer" and "Think." Franklin won several Grammys for her seminal 1967 album, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You, and sang at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr. the following year. The intervening quarter-century has seen Franklin veer off in a number of other musical directions - perhaps the most successful of which was her return to her gospel roots on the powerful 1972 double album Amazing Grace. Franklin has always remained soul in the philosophical sense of the word: spiritual, passionate, authentic, tragic. In 1987, Franklin made history by becoming the first woman inducted (woefully late) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "Soul is a constant," she once remarked. "It"s cultural. It"s always going to be there, in different flavors and degrees." As the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, too, is a constant, still commanding the R-E-S-P-E-C-T from audiences long after that single first went to No. 1, becoming an anthem of both the feminist and civil rights movements that continue to resonate today. Middletown and Citizens Band American Music Stage 12-1:15 p.m., Saturday "American music" is the best way to describe these two local bands whose sounds are complementary but hardly alike. Middletown traffics in traditional American roots music with a twist, the twist being contemporary touches added expertly by the band"s members. Citizens Band, despite its trucker-chic name, is roots-rock via CCR and Tom Petty: hard-nosed, educated and fun. Their music will rock like hell; then stop and reflect upon itself in a way few bands can do well. The new Citizens Band album, Truckstop Chapel, is undoubtedly one of the best albums this year from any local band. These artists are well worth checking out. Richard Thompson American Music Stage 5:45-7 p.m., Saturday Considered one of rock"s premier guitarists since his debut, at the age of 17, with the acclaimed Fairport Convention, Thompson has been engaging and challenging audiences for more than 30 years. Fairport Convention was considered the British answer to the Jefferson Airplane and became a critical and commercial success. In 1970, Thompson began a solo career that has seen him record and release dozens of albums, many with his former wife, Linda. He now divides his time between Britain and America, where he"s in constant demand as a performer. A Hoosier icon sums him up this way: "Richard Thompson could say more in one line than I could in a whole song." -John Mellencamp Steve Earle American Music Stage 7:30-8:45 p.m., Saturday Once considered the heir to Hank Williams Sr."s legacy of heartfelt, brokenhearted country songs, Earle has become a legend in his own right through his own blend of rockabilly, blues and country. Considered too harsh for country radio, and too soft for mainstream rock radio, Earle has nevertheless forged ahead for decades as a singer and songwriter. After a well-publicized heroin arrest in the early 1990s, Earle was released from prison and began recording bluegrass albums, several of which were nominated for Grammys. His most recent album is Sidetracks, a collection of B-sides and rarities. Ann McWilliams Band American Music Stage 12-12:45 p.m., Sunday One of Central Indiana"s most tireless advocates for local music and local musicians, Ann McWilliams herself is an accomplished singer and songwriter. The former co-vocalist in the group Plaid Descent, McWilliams tends to stay a little more toward the softer side of music. But she can also rock out with the best of them, as she did on her recent album, Sister Luna & the Diamond Stars, where she tackles rock and folk-rock material with a passion. The founder of CityOfMusic.com, McWilliams also hosts weekly concerts featuring local artists. DJ Logic & Project Logic American Music Stage 2:30-3:30 p.m., Sunday Born and raised in the boogie-down Bronx in 1972, Lee Jason Kibler"s (aka DJ Logic) adolescent years were spent in the front row of the hip-hop revolution watching and listening as the first sounds of Kool Herk, Afrika Bambaata and Grandmaster Flash were broadcast from his hometown to the rest of the world. A founding member of the Black Rock Coalition, DJ Logic opened for Living Color during that group"s heyday. These days, along with his five-piece group Project Logic, Kibler has been dropping jaws and turning heads with his unique blend of hip-hop beats, jazz riffs and rock sounds. Defiantly unclassifiable as to genre, Logic"s popularity continues to grow. Wilson Pickett American Music Stage 5:45-7 p.m., Sunday There are those who will tell you to forget about Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and James Brown: Wilson Pickett is the TRUE soul man. The singer of such crowd-pleasers as "Mustang Sally," "In The Midnight Hour" and "Land of 1000 Dances," Pickett"s true genius lies in his way of belting out a grits-and-gravy passionate soul song. Listen to his vocals on "99 and a Half (Just Won"t Do)" and you can hear the yearning and pleading in his voice. Raw, unfiltered soul was his specialty during his mid-1960s heyday, and his classic recordings contain some of the best sessions of the legendary Stax band. He was even audacious enough to tackle the Beatles" "Hey Jude," and won praise from both John Lennon and Paul McCartney for his effort. While Otis and James got more attention, Wilson was out there singing his heart out. Thirty years later, he still does. B.B. King American Music Stage 7:30-9:30 p.m., Sunday If B.B. King needs an introduction, then you shouldn"t be allowed anywhere near the Indy Jazz Fest, or for that matter, any music show whatsoever. Born Sept. 16, 1925, in Indianaola, Miss., he began recording music close to 50 years ago. He"s recorded hit records in every decade since the 1940s and recently gained a larger pop audience with his recent album with Eric Clapton. His 1964 album Live At The Regal is widely considered the best blues album ever recorded, but there are plenty of other compilations which span his amazing recording career. B.B. King is best experienced live and audiences worldwide have been entertained by his sets for decades. It"s therefore appropriate that he closes out the Indy Jazz Fest 2002. For a complete schedule, see www.indyjazzfest.org.

Email Print Digg this