Jamie Cullum to Perform Two Sets at CareFusion Newport Jazz Festival

NEWPORT, RI -- British singing and piano sensation Jamie Cullum brings his eclectic mix of jazz, pop and rock-influenced music to the opening night celebration of the CareFusion Newport Jazz Festival* on Friday, August 6, at 8:00 pm at the International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport Casino. The evening opens with the saxophonist/singer Grace Kelly.

The festival continues August 7 and 8 at Fort Adams State Park; Cullum is set to perform on the Fort Stage on Saturday. Tickets and more information are available at newportjazzfest.net.

Get a sneak preview of Jamie Cullum in performance when he appears on The Bachelorette on Monday, May 31, at 8:00pm on ABC. For more information, visit http://abc.go.com/shows/the-bachelorette. Jamie Cullum, who has played guitar and piano since age eight, developed an avid interest in jazz from his older brother. He was inspired by piano icons Oscar Peterson and Dave Brubeck and spent some of his formative years living in Paris, where he honed his abilities performing in jazz clubs. Cullum will perform selections from The Pursuit, his first album in four years, as well as some of his favorite jazz standards and his own originals. His latest music embraces the full range of his diverse talents and far-flung musical passions. While it covers more stylistic ground than anything he's done previously, the album offers the same musical fluency, emotional commitment and lyrical wit that helped to make Cullum's prior releases Twentysomething and Catching Tales international crossover hits selling more than four million combined copies worldwide. He recorded his first album, Heard It All Before, at age 19, followed by Pointless Nostalgic.

After spending two years touring in support of Catching Tales, Cullum retreated from the spotlight and spent much of the next two years working on a variety of musical and non-musical endeavors. He and his older brother and frequent collaborator, Ben, joined forces for a dance music project, “BC vs. JC," that found the brothers creating melodic dance music in clubs across England. Jamie also contributed to albums for Pharrell Williams, the Count Basie Orchestra, Japan's Soil & Pimp Sessions, Norway's Beady Belle and France's Camille, as well as spent time as a Goodwill Ambassador to Ethiopia for UNICEF. Cullum's highest profile side projects saluted his courtship with Hollywood, beginning with the animated Disney feature Meet The Robinsons, in which Jamie was the singing voice of Frankie The Frog. He followed with his vocal on the Golden Globe-nominated “Best Original Song" from the John Cusack film Grace Is Gone, and culminated in his co-writing and performing with Clint Eastwood for the Golden Globe-nominated “Best Original Song" from 2008's Gran Torino. Now, he's back on the road celebrating The Pursuit at concert across Europe and the United States.

Eighteen-year-old Grace Kelly's career is definitely on the fast track. Wynton Marsalis (who performs on the Fort Adams Stage on Sunday) was so impressed with her three-night stand as guest of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in November 2008 that he invited her to join the ensemble at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Harry Connick, Jr. heard her in a master class and invited her to sit in with his band and she has been a featured guest on NPR's Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland. In addition, Grace has received numerous honors including The Boston Music Awards' “Outstanding Jazz Act," WCVB-TV's “Five Bostonians to Watch," Downbeat Critics Poll's youngest ever “Alto Saxophone Rising Stars," the Boston Phoenix's “Best Jazz Act in Boston" in the 2009 Best Music Poll (for the second consecutive year) and three ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award. To this astonishing list of credits, Kelly adds Mood Changes, the fifth release on her PAZZ label. The album mixes six standards with four Kelly originals. She is particularly excited about the strides that Mood Changes reveals in her band leading skills. “There's nothing like playing my own music with my own band," she acknowledges. She also enjoyed critically acclaimed success on her previous album, Gracefulee, which has dominated the DownBeat Student Awards over the past four years. A student at Boston's Berklee College of Music, Grace enjoys “... playing all the time and just living music all day." Her College is also represented at the festival by the Berklee Global Jazz Institute Septet on Saturday afternoon.

George Wein made history 56 years ago when he started the festival era with the Newport Jazz Festival. Along with his company, New Festival Productions, LLC, Wein continues to present the best in established and rising stars, this year including Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea Freedom Band with Kenny Garrett, Christian McBride & Roy Haynes, Ahmad Jamal, Wynton Marsalis, Maria Schneider Orchestra, Chris Botti, Jason Moran's Bandwagon, Jon Faddis Quartet, Gretchen Parlato, Fly, Julian Lage Group, JD Allen Trio, David Binney Third Occasion Quartet, Darcy James Argue's Secret Society and many more.

allaboutjazz.com

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Java Jazz Festival 2012: Some Tid-Bits from the Fest

Java Jazz Festival 2012 has been passed, yet many of us should still experience the jazz-lag after receiving the blows from stage to stage. Aside from enjoying jazz being served by around 2000 musicians from all over the world, it’s also interesting to see what’s happening outside during the festival.

It’s clear that Java Jazz Festival has become an important part of the lifestyle. Speaking of fashion, many people tried to dress up jazzy for this occasion as we found vests, blazers and of course the Sinatra’s fedora hats everywhere, other than the casual dress like t-shirts and jeans. Looking at the number of attendance, we can have a solid proof that jazz is actually not that difficult to digest. All ages from small babies to seniors packed in to catch their favorite artists, or even just to absorb the sense of jazz. For us, all these showgoers brought a different kind of excitment to see in a festival as big as this. It’s normal to see puzzled face when they were trying to find the stage or people running in full speed because they didn’t want to miss the selected show. There were many funny things, cool moments or unique situations all around the venue that we didn’t want to miss, not to mention the lovely blue sunset sky which appeared above the venue for the whole three days.

Salute to our photographers, they still managed to snap some shots in between their duty to take stage photos and squeezing through crowds. So now we want to share their off stage during the foremost music bash on earth. (Please click each thumbnail at the end of this article to see the photos).

There were many sweet couples seemed to drown their romance into Java Jazz by hugging each other while enjoying the show. Java Jazz Festival has also become the meeting point for artists around the world, including those who came from the same country said hi to one another. Fans took the chance to take pictures with the artists if they were lucky enough, while others had such a good time with their family and friends inside.

What Java Jazz Festival brings to us is not just a simple jazz event. Yes it’s gigantic, with thousands of artists and hundreds of show for total 3 days, but more than just that, we could also see the kind of jazz lifestyle under one roof living peacefully and harmoniously. We just remember a song from Level 42 titled “Love in a Peaceful World”, and we experience the essence in this festival. How lovely to have it through jazz. Not only jazz can entertain us to the max, but it can also carry the message of peace. Thank you Java Jazz! We’ll see you again next year.

jazzuality.com

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Norah Jones and the Music She Loves

It took Norah Jones precisely one year to become a household name. Her debut album, “Come Away With Me,” was released in February 2002, and by the following February it had sold four million copies and she had won five Grammys.

A side project she created the following year is less well known. As a diversion from the pressures of following up one of the best-selling debuts of all time, Ms. Jones and four friends formed the band the Little Willies (named after her childhood hero, Willie Nelson) and began playing her favorite country songs at a series of unannounced gigs at the Living Room, a tiny music venue in New York.

“I think I had to leave home for me to know how much country music meant to me,” said Ms. Jones, who moved to New York in 1999 after studying jazz composition and performance in high school and college in Texas. “I listened to Hank Williams, Dolly Parton and Willie growing up, but I wanted to play jazz. When I listened to Bill Evans, I transcribed the chords. When I listened to ‘Red Headed Stranger,’ I just listened to enjoy it. But it really seeped in more than I could have known.”

Almost six years after the Little Willies released its self-titled 2006 debut, the band — which features Lee Alexander on bass, Jim Campilongo and Richard Julian on guitar and Dan Rieser on drums — is finally unveiling its sophomore set, “For the Good Times.” The album, which will be released on Jan. 10, includes covers of songs by Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton.

In the final days of December, we put Ms. Jones on the spot and asked her to create an on-the-fly five-song playlist of her favorite Texas songwriters — artists she’s been inspired by, performed alongside or covered with the Little Willies.

WILLIE NELSON, “PERMANENTLY LONELY” “He’s my No. 1,” said Ms. Jones, who has earned Grammy nominations for three of her duets with the country legend — “Wurlitzer Prize (I Don’t Want to Get Over You),” “Dreams Come True” and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” The Little Willies’ version of Mr. Nelson’s “Permanently Lonely” is on the upcoming album.

“Willie’s songs are deceptively complicated,” Ms. Jones said. “He’s like a twisted jazz musician under all that country. He writes these chords that are just beautiful — the way they come together so simply, yet they go against normal forms that you learn as a musician. But he makes them sound so beautiful and simple. You don’t try to that, you just do. And that’s what’s great about Willie: he just does.”

TOWNES VAN ZANDT, “NO PLACE TO FALL” A song considered by many to be one of the late great Texas songwriter’s signatures, the Little Willies included it on its 2006 debut.

“I tend to listen to Townes when I’m feeling melancholy,” Ms. Jones said. “And this is one of Townes’s most beautiful songs. For the Little Willies, it was one of the easiest and most natural things we’ve recorded. That’s the best kind of situation, when the song kind of plays itself. For that to happen, it has to be a pretty incredible song.”

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, “BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS” Mr. Kristofferson recorded “Best of All Possible Worlds” in 1970 for his debut album “Kristofferson,” and 36 years later, the Little Willies laid down the same track on its debut release. (The title track of the band’s new album, “For the Good Times,” is also one of Mr. Kristofferson’s songs.)

“Best of All Possible Worlds” is “so much fun because it stacks up a lot of words and a lot of clever lines; it’s so well crafted, but also so soulful,” Ms. Jones said. “That’s the trick to songwriting — you want craft, but you also need soul and honesty. And who’s as inherently soulful as Kris Kristofferson? Look at ‘For the Good Times.’ It’s one of the most heartbreaking, beautiful lyrics ever. If he only wrote those two songs, he’d be on the list. But obviously, he’s given us so much more.”

SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE, “IF YOU WANT ME TO STAY” “I’ve always loved the fact that Sly Stone was born in Denton,” said Ms. Jones, who went to college in Denton at the University of North Texas. She has yet to record a Sly Stone song.

“He’s just one of those people,” she said. “You put on a Sly Stone record and it changes your mood. It feels so good. I might be crazy, but I also feel like I can hear the Texas in his singing. I feel like you can hear the country in the back of his voice and the pronunciations, the way he splits syllables.”

CINDY WALKER, “YOU DON’T KNOW ME” Ms. Walker, a country songwriter, had Top 10 hits in every decade from the 1940s to the ’80s, and big-name musicians from Ray Charles and Bing Crosby to Elvis Presley and Mr. Nelson performed her songs.

“I didn’t know much about her until Willie did that ‘Songs of Cindy Walker’ album and I realized I knew half of those songs. I grew up on them,” Ms. Jones said. “ ‘You Don’t Know Me’ is so fantastic because it strikes the perfect balance of simplicity, directness and heart.” 

www.nytimes.com

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SXSW: The Strokes show how it’s done

The main strip in South by Southwest (SXSW), the musical festival held in Austin, Texas, teems with small, dingy dive bars hosting the most important musical acts of 2011. On any corner you could run into Bob Geldof – the festival’s keynote speaker this year – Simon Le Bon, Jack White or Odd Future, the most exciting act in the world at the moment.

Guitar rock rules here. After many pale imitations, the talking point was the Strokes, who played in a riverside park outside the main area. The band, who are releasing their fourth album, Angles, today, performed at twilight before a backdrop of sci-fi skyscrapers and flitting bats. They sounded fresher and crisper than any of the indie bands playing at the festival.

Julian Casablancas’s molasses-slicked voice and rock-star presence showed up many of the pretender bands and even the poorer songs from the new album were enjoyable. Most of the crowd stopped tearing into their enormous turkey legs as soon as they started. The fireworks at the end of the set provided an apt finale.

Legends of synthpop Duran Duran headlined on the first evening and, again, showed their progeny how it’s done. A synth (and a tattoo) in Austin is a standard accessory and the carbon new wave copies can get tiresome. But the lengthy queues for the Brummie band were deserved. They proved why they’ve been so popular for decades.

The highlight, the show that was talked about for the entire weekend, was Odd Future. They’re a macabre, lyrically knifesharp hip-hop collective in their late teens. They played in a skate park in the blazing sun and climbed on top of the speakers and the roof, rapping over the crowd before launching themselves like flying squirrels into the pit and continuing their songs, held up by their loyal fans.

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Julian Pavone is World’s Youngest Professional Drummer

Guinness World Records has recognized a U.S. boy as the youngest professional drummer. Julian Pavone was certified as of March 21, 2010, when he was 5 years 10 months and 3 days old, Guinness announced Tuesday.

The rules for London-based Guinness say a drummer must play on at least one commercial record and be paid for the work. The drummer also must have given at least 20 concerts of 45 minutes or longer within five years. Julian is 7 and lives outside Detroit.

His drummer-father, Bernie Pavone, said Julian’s percussion background dates back before birth. “I used to play music on my wife’s stomach all the time when she was pregnant with Julian,” Guinness quoted the father as saying.

Julian has appeared on about 150 television and news shows, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “Good Morning America,” “Martha Stewart,” “The Maury Show,” “FOX News Dayside” and “Inside Edition.”

The previous record holder was Tiger Onitsuka of Japan, who was recognized at age 9 years, 9 months.

Source : cbsnews.com

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