Riffs: Music News from Out and About

By Patricia Myers

Summertime, and music events are easy to hear; notes are wafting, and the sounds are clear; there’s lots of places with jazz, and everyone can find them at MusicSceneAZ

 

OK, so those aren’t such great lyric changes, but the message is totally true. Even though The Season has ended and the summer heat has hit, the sounds of live jazz and blues (and other genres) continue to be plentiful, with only a small number going on summer hiatus. Look for find dates and places in the Calendar and Venues segments of this monthly Update, and at my website:www.MusicSceneAZ.com

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I recently read a most remarkable medical statement about music. When one listens to a favorite music for 30 minutes, it causes the brain to release oxytocin, “the happiness molecule.” That suggests another great reason to keep going to hear live music performances.

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The Buzz: Throughout the world, fans and musicians mourned the death of B.B. King at age 89 on May 14. The son of a Mississippi sharecropper, he grew up working in the fields and became the most recognized voice of blues and R&B. He performed and recorded for a full half-century, from first record in 1956 (Singin’ the Blues, Crown) and his final album in 2008 (One Kind Favor, Geffen). King played mote than 200 concerts every year. I vividly remember reviewing and interviewing him on Friday, June 15, 1984 at Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix (ticket price was an astounding $12.50 for a seat in row 9 of the A2 section, very close to the revolving stage). That one-on-one experience proved that he was as kind and friendly as he was talented. Subsequent performances that I attend of B.B. King were always entertaining and heart-warming, and all went away feeling positively uplifted by this man and his music.

 

Michael Kocour, pianist and director of jazz studies at Arizona State University, recently released two CDs on OA2 Records, an ensemble recording and a solo piano outing. Kocour came to Arizona in 2004 from Chicago where he was a regular sideman for tenor saxophonist Benny Golson and the late James Moody. Unhinged is a sextet playing together for the first time, its members having mutual associations. That album features all-original charts by Will Campbell, alto saxophone; Matt Olson, tenor saxophone; Vern Sielert, trumpet; Kocour, piano; and Jon Hamar, bass; with Phoenix drummer Dom Moio. Koour’s compositions were “Too Deep” and “Squiggles.” The other album is solo Kocour playing standards on acoustic and a Fender Rhodes keyboard. The title, Wherever You Go, There You Are, is from a phrase James Moody often used to conclude stories he told onstage.

The 2015 McDowell Mountain Music Festival donated $120,000 to Phoenix Children’s Hospital and UMOM New Day Centers to benefit underprivileged families and youth throughout Arizona. The hospital will use the $60,000 donation for its Rainy Day Fund that supports projects that run out of funding; the center use its funds for a variety of current and upcoming projects. The three-day weekend in March had attendance of approximately 13,000 at Margaret T. Hance Park in Phoenix.

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Quotable: “Jazz means a lot more than a music style from the last century. To me, it’s the most lively and spontaneous music to date, and a language that is exclusively human and unique in its entire message – love and harmony – based on dialogue.” — trumpeter Till Bronner

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Final Chorus: B.B. King, 89, blues guitarist-vocalist, May 7 in Las Vegas; Bruce Lundvall, 79, Blue Note-Columbia Records executive, May 19; Bob Belden, 58, multi-instrumentalist-producer-bandleader, recording executive-writer, May 20 in New York City; Jerome Cooper, 68, drummer-percussionist (with Lester Bowie, Cecil Taylor, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Anthony Braxton), May 6 in Brooklyn; Marcus Belgrave, 78, trumpeter (Ray Charles, B.B. King, McCoy Tyner, Charles Mingus), May 24 in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Categories: News