Roy Ayers

Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s I was exposed to all types of music. My parents had a reel to reel tape player. I remember my father sitting in the living at night and transfer his albums to the reel to reel tape player. One of his favorite artist was Roy Ayers, I remember my dad playing the “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” album. My favorite song was and still is “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”, that song is a song that is still inspiring today.

Roy Ayers grew up in Los Angeles, California in "South Central", back then it was called "South Park". This was where the black music scene for musicians’ in Los Angeles back then. When Roy was five years old Lionel Hampton gave him his first pair of vibraphone mallets for the xylophone. Roy Ayers over the decades have put out some amazing albums. Another one I remember is the “Mystic Voyage” album it had an R&B vibe not like “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” jazz sound. Another one of my favorite songs was "Evolution" from the “Mystic Voyage”. I can always tell when I hear a Roy Ayers song; his signature xylophone sound takes me back to my childhood days. The Roy Ayers Project featuring Ayers and many Hip Hop producers is a documentary that is supposed to be released sometime in 2012.

Tune into the Jazz Café 12-1pm Monday through Friday on Streetwise Radio and catch one of Roy Ayers songs. You can also listen to Streetwise Radio on iTunes, MyGen365, Athena365 and live.365.

LM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Ayers

Trombone Shorty

Troy Andrews (Trombone Shorty) born January 2, 1986 has music in his blood. Trombone Shorty grew up in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans’;he played in brass bands as a child and was a bandleader at the age of six. Trombone Shorty is the younger brother of James Andrews’s trumpeter and bandleader and he is the grandson of singer/songwriter Jessie Hill. In 2005, Trombone Shorty went on tour with Lenny Kravitz’s horn section. When the levees broke in New Orleans on August 29, 2005 Trombone Shorty along with other musicians from New Orleans got together in Austin Texas to do a benefit CD called “Sing Me Back Home”. I first heard Trombone Shorty’s music last year while I was riding in the car with my husband; I like the songs “Show Me Something Beautiful.” This young brother has played with various artists of different genres of music like U2, Green Day, Dave Mathews Band, Eric Clapton, Lenny Kravitz, Dr John and Wynton Marsalis one of my favorite trumpets players. Trombone Shorty performed in my hometown of San Jose California at the 2011 San Jose Jazz Festival I did not get to see him. I think this young brother is going to be around for sometime bringing that Trombone Shorty New Orleans jazz funk sound. 




LM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombone_Shortyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u2btTS9FL4

Alvin Batiste

Alvin Batiste was a New Orleans clarinetist often referred to as a "Legendary Pioneer of Jazz.  He was a true Renaissance man- considered a music pioneer, master teacher, outstanding composer, arranger, an inspiring mentor, as well as a stellar performer. He was also an explorative, avant-garde player who wrote countless musical arraignments but remained under-recognized and under-recorded throughout his career.

Batiste, who was a childhood friend of Ed Blackwell and spent time in Los Angeles in 1956 playing with Ornette Coleman, could have “made it big” as a performer and recording artist. Instead, he chose the life of an educator in Louisiana.

He was the first African-American student to perform as a guest soloist playing with the New Orleans Philharmonic on Mozart’s Concerto.  He also played with the Ray Charles Orchestra and the American Jazz Quintet and recorded with AFO Records, the company credited with New Orleans Modern Jazz. He was a member of the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Music Fraternity, performed on two Julian Cannonball Adderly recordings, and made three albums with Clarinet Summit in the 1980s (a quartet also including John Carter, David Murray, and Jimmy Hamilton). He was later commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts to compose a concerto for African instruments and orchestra. He went on to record only a handful of albums/CD’s between the 1980’s and his death in 2007; his last release- Marsalis Music Honors Series- Alvin Batiste, in which he played with Branford Marsalis and many other notable jazz musicians.   

Alvin’s career spanned more than five decades during which he received countless awards and honors. These include:

• The National Association of Jazz Educators’ National Humanitarian Award
• The International Association of Jazz Educators’ Lifetime Achievement Award
• Offbeat Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Art Education
• Governor’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Art Education
• The Southern University Distinguished Service Award
• Southern University’s Jazz Institute (founded by Batiste) renamed the Alvin Batiste Jazz Institute
• The Louis Armstrong Award
• National Black Music Caucus Outstanding Achievement Award
• Big Easy Awards- 1995 Jazz Artist of the Year
• The Jay Hay Fellows Award
• The Artist Fellowship Award by the Louisiana Division of the Arts

Through out his career, Alvin played and explored in several musical streams; jazz, classical, gospel, blues, diasporan (Cuba, Brazil, and African) and computer-based music. He performed regularly at a variety of local venues between New Orleans and Baton Rouge including the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, He hosted the radio show Jazz Sessions at WBRH and conducted workshops/seminars at various universities including Harvard http://www.myspace.com/alvinbatiste/music 
http://www.alvinbatiste.net/University, Yale University, University of Michigan, Michigan State, UCLA, University of Paris, and University of Bamako (Mali). He appeared in concert throughout West Africa, Europe, and the United States including Carnegie Hall.

Groove 55 “En Route” Now Playing on Streetwise Radio

Groove 55 presents its new release “En Route”, an uptempo smooth jazz album, foot-tapping, rhythm blended & steeped in rich harmonic original melodies!

Collectively, the four band members bring decades of music experience to the project having worked with Oliver Jones, Gregory Charles, & Zachary Richard to name but a few. So it seems almost fitting that they would come together as a unified collective to share in their many years of creative experience and knowledge to create “En Route”.

The Groove 55 members, all very talented esteemed musicians, consists of Yves Adam (alto, tenor & soprano sax) a graduate of McGill’s music faculty in jazz performance as well as teaching saxophone at The Montreal International Jazz festival Blues Camp. Jacques Mignault (Rhodes, piano, clavinet, synths)studied alongside Art Roberts at Montreal’s Concordia University, he would later go on to win the inaugural grand prize of the Roland Synthesizer music contest among hundred’s of entrants spanning over 22 countries that was judged by the late great Oscar Peterson. Yves Nadeau (bass) is a veteran of the Montreal Jazz scene, having played hundred’s of shows on stages all over Quebec with his bands Solstice & Expresso. Rounding out the Montreal quartet is Jacques Gagne (drums) he himself well known and ensconced early on with some of the biggest TV shows in Quebec and on the touring scene – Together they make up Groove 55 the number that has the remarkable property of being the 10th number of the Fibonacci suite and is the sum of the numbers 1 to 10…..The most important part is it’s groove and this band has it in spades with their new release “EnRoute”!

Our MySpace group page is at: www.myspace.com/groove55jazz

Herbie Hancock

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Born Herbert Jeffrey “Herbie” Hancock April 12, 1940 is an American jazz
pianist and composer. Herbie is regarded as one of the greatest living
jazz musicians and one of the most influential in the 20th century.
Herbie’s music is a taste of funk and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz. Herbie was a part of Miles Davis’s “second great quintet”. Herbie helped redefine the role jazz rhythm section and is one of the first jazz musicians to embrace the synthesizers and funk.“Cantaloupe Island”. “Watermelon Man”, Maiden Voyage”, “Chameleon”, “I
Thought It Was You” and “Rockit” were his best known solos; he won a Grammy for Rockit in 1988. Herbie’s 2007 tribute album “River: The Joni Letters” won the 2008 Grammy Award For Album of the Year, only the second album to win the award, the first in 1965 Getz/Gilberto. Head Hunters
album was released in 1973 this album was a major hit and crossed over to the pop audiences even though jazz fans called him a “sell out” the “Head Hunters album is still fresh and vital after three decades. I was introduced to Herbie Hancock in 1973 by my Aunt Bliss, she was watching us
kids while my parents were gone on a weekend trip. She just bought The Head Hunters album, and played it all weekend, that’s when I started liking jazz. The following year Head Hunters second album “Thrust” was released.
Herbie’s other jazz funk album were Man-Child in 1975 and Secrets in1976. The Headhunters original band Herbie put together consist of Bennie Maupin multireedist, Paul Jackson bassist. Bill Summers percussionist and Harvey Mason drummer. Head Hunters album had a influence on jazz, as well as funk, soul, and hip hop. Herbie composed sound tracks for films. In 1973 The Spook Who Sat By The Door, in 1974 Death Wish. Herbie’s three albums Future Shock(1983), Sound System(1984) and Perfect Machine(1988) were criticized by critics they said it should have been labeled “Bill Laswell featuring Herbie Hancock.“ In 2005 half of Herbie’s Columbia recordings have been remastered, Sextant, Headhunters and Thrust as well
as Future Shock, Sound System, the sound track Round Midnight and Perfect Machine. Herbie performed and acted in the film Round Midnight. Herbie wrote the score and soundtrack for Round Midnight and won an Academy Award
for Original Music Score. Herbie. Herbie Hancock has truly changed jazz music and will always be one of my favorites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbie_Hancock

LM

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