Saturday, November 28, 2009

GLASS

Just watched the Philip Glass documentary on a bit of an impulse. I've never been the biggest fan, but have always been intrigued. It sucked me in right away, and I definitely gained an appreciation for his music and incredible output and longevity as an artist.

Here are a few of my favorite videos that I've found online.

See the movie. You can stream it on Netflix.








Sunday, November 22, 2009

local shame

Sad to find out that a bunch of popular restaurants in Park Slope (my former hood) have been caught using some questionable labor practices. Thanks to Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn for putting this up.

25 Park Slope Restaurants Cited/Fined for Labor Violations

Many favorite Park Slope restaurants are on the list released by the State Department of Labor Department yesterday. 25 Brooklyn restaurants owe at least $910,000 in unpaid wages to more than 200 workers.

In Park Slope, state inspectors found that workers make as little as $2.75 an hour way below state minimum wage of $7.25. They found that delivery workers earn $210 to $275 a week for 60 to 70 hours of work.

Of the 25 restaurants cited, 12 restaurants paid back the wages while 13 other restaurants are still in negotiations to pay back the wages.

Park Slope Restaurants With Violations

The following restaurants are negotiating a resolution for payment:
Aunt Suzie's Restaurant
Bagel World
Bogota Latin Bistro
Coco Roco
Joe's Pizza
Marcho Corp's Cholita
Olive Vine Cafe (two locations)
Rachel's Taqueria
Sette
Song
Taqueria
Uncle Moe's


Here's the link to the Daily News article that ran the story.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Paris



Thanks to a grant from Chamber Music America and the French American Cultural Exchange (FACE), I've had the great pleasure of putting together a great set of original music by both pianist Laurent Coq and myself. We have taken four poems (two originally in French and two written in English, both translated to the other language) and set them in our respective languages. Thanks to some great work from singers Christine Correa and Laurence Allison, bassist Yoni Zelnik, and drummer Karl Janusska we have a really wonderful set of eight songs.

We'll be at Radio France on Saturday November 21st and Sunside the following day.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Jazz Dock




I've had the great pleasure of playing with Czech guitarist/composer David Doruzka and his trio the past few nights in Prague. Here are some great photos by Barka Fabionova from a concert we did at Jazz Dock on Saturday.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

fOr yoUr eNjoYmeNt

I've put up some tantalizing videos on YouTube of tracks from the Words Project (2007) and Words Project II (2008)

Words Project III: Miniatures will be released Jan. 29th, 2010 at Galapagos.



Sunday, November 8, 2009

Required Reading



Knowing that I would have plenty of reading time over the next month (numerous flights and overnight trains) I bought this after I read the initial NY Times review of it, not realizing an even more full length review was to come out in the Sunday edition of the paper.

I'm midway through its hefty 450 pages of text and over 100 pages of notes and deeply impressed and inspired. Robin D.G. Kelly put in an extraordinary amount of research into this and takes on Monk's story with honesty, love, and compassion, through which he gained an unprecedented level of trust and closeness with the Monk family (including his wife Nellie before her recent death). The story of Monk and Nellie's ancestry is a deep portrait of slavery and the oppression of blacks in the South, which didn't end with the migration of Monk's family to the North and the days of living in San Juan Hill (now the ritzy area around Lincoln Center), and would follow Monk into much of his career. But not only is this a story of deep struggle, but also an incredible sense of pride and triumph. Monk's mother toiled as a cleaning woman for years in order to support her kids (including Monk through much of his twenties), and Nellie would do the same for many years until Monk's music began to bring steady income to the family. Despite early hardship, joblessness, and countless negative reviews, Monk never sacrificed his artistry and having learned some harsh lessons about the music business early on (his estate still only receives 1/3 of the royalties from "Round Midnight" due to Monk entrusting his publishing to others) he never allowed promoters, labels, and club owners to push him around.

It's an incredible portrait of the jazz scene from the forties into the seventies, and of musicians and others who lived by their own set of rules. Monk would have an incredible musical influence over the course of his lifetime. The number of musicians who he taught and who passed through his bands is staggering. Anybody who played with Monk had to be taught his music by ear, often in the studio or on the gig, resulting in numerous apprenticeships that would shape giants such as John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Roy Haynes, and Steve Lacy.

As talked about in both reviews, the book also dispels much of the mystique surrounding Monk, and is a beautiful story of a lifelong love and devotion between Monk and Nellie, as well as Monk and his two children and extended family. He actively took a part in the well being of countless others, and donated his artistry numerous times to a number of civil rights organizations over the years. Monk did struggle with what would now most likely be diagnosed as manic depression and some horribly misguided treatments, not to mention his own alcohol abuse and occasional drug use, all of which took a toll on him. Still, he managed to persevere into the last decade of his life, leaving a legacy that has been paralleled by few artists in history.

I hope books such as this continue to raise the level of scholarship in jazz. Kelly undoubtebly went the extra mile to get the truth, making many sacrifices of his own along the way. I think any lover of Monk owes him an incredible degree of gratitude for his work.

Thursday, November 5, 2009