Jazz Fest Minutes

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Jazz Fest Minutes: Pianist And Composer George Cables Apr 19, 2013

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George Cables is a superb pianist, an outstanding composer with a real gift for melody. He was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Queens. He started piano in grade school, and liked taking traditional lessons and studying classical music right away. “I did like the piano. I had a crush on my piano teacher,” he said. Cables studied classical piano at the Manhattan High School for the Performing Arts, and found a way to incorporate jazz into his afternoon commute home. “So I had to take a subway and then a bus. So I get off the subway to get the bus, and the pizza joint there — I’d stop in and there was a jukebox in this place,” he said. “The only thing that was remotely close to jazz was a Wynton Kelly cut called ‘Little Tracy’, with a little calypso. And I loved that; I played it every day.” As soon as Cables turned 18 years old, and a little before, he would go to The Five Spot, a lot. “I could see Thelonious Monk, and in those days he was there maybe four or five or six months at a time,”

Jazz Fest Minutes: Johnette Downing's Call To Perform Apr 18, 2013

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Johnette Downing is an award-winning singer and songwriter of music for kids. A New Orleans native, and the daughter of musical parents, Downing felt the call to perform since she was in kindergarten. “In fact, my first performance I was in kindergarten,” Downing said. “I sang in the school play. And I was very shy, and the teacher thought, ‘Well, there’s no way this child is going to get up and sing.’ So she called my mother, she said, ‘She wanted to be the lead,’ and my mother said, ‘She’ll do it, she can do it.’ And I did. I was really shy, but I could sing in front of a whole audience.” Downing said her parents exposed their kids to music at an early age because they loved music so much. “They would bring us down to the French Quarter and we would stand in the doorways of jazz clubs and listen to Dixieland Jazz,” she said. “I mean, we’re so fortunate to live in Louisiana and have all this music right here in our front yard.” Around the seventh grade Downing wanted a guitar, so her

Jazz Fest Minutes: A Musical Journey With George Duke Apr 17, 2013

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George Duke is one of the most sought-after and accomplished players and producers in music. He grew up in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. “My mom used to talk me to see ballet, classical concerts, gospel concerts, jazz concerts — and the thing that stuck was I got a chance to hear and see Duke Ellington live. The Big Band,” Duke remembered. “And that kind of messed me up. I was like four-and-a-half years old or so, and it really affected me. Maybe because his name was Duke? I really don’t know. I didn’t understand the music, but it made me feel good and I told my mom, ‘I don’t know what he’s doing, but I want to do that.’” Duke started piano at seven-years-old, and later took up trombone. While in college at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music he started working at a club called The Half Note. “Who walks in one Sunday afternoon but a guy named Al Jarreau. A young Al Jarreau started singing. He just tore the place up. We began working together in this place for about two

Jazz Fest Minutes: Topsy Chapman And Solid Harmony Apr 16, 2013

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Topsy Chapman is one of New Orleans’ most engaging and soulful singers. Her mix of gospel, blues, traditional jazz and swing proves both captivating and uplifting. And, when Topsy Chapman blends her fine voice with those of her daughters Jolynda Phillips and Yolanda Windsay in the vocal trio Solid Harmony, it’s magic. “What happened was, when I did my performances, I would ask before practice if it was okay if I brought my two daughters in and they could hear what the group sounded like. And Snug Harbor was one that always said yes, so we did most of our performances there,” Champman said. “When I do a performance at Snug Harbor I always ask the girls to come and sit in with me. And then it just caught on from there. People started calling sand said, ‘Listen, I’d like to have you and the girls up. We heard you at Snug Harbor, we heard about you at Snug Harbor.’” Chapman says that started in the late 1990s. Their first time out as a group was in Japan in 1998. The group’s solid

Jazz Fest Minutes: Wayne Shorter — Connecting With The Beat Apr 15, 2013

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Wayne Shorter is one of the top saxophonists and composers in jazz. It was, strangely enough, getting caught at 15 years old playing hooky from school that put him on a path into music. His punishment: enrollment in the music theory course at his Newark, NJ arts high school. “The teacher was a disciplinarian, and before they sentenced me they asked me ‘Where do you go when you play hooky?’ And I said to the theater; one day they had a double feature film and a stage show,” Shorter said. “They said ‘You like stage shows, huh? Alright... You kinda like the music, you like what’s going on on the stage, okay.’ They picked up the phone and called Achilles D’Amico, the teacher there and put me in his class.” You know, this is like signs, reading signs,” he said. “The first thing he said in that class was, he had three records on his desk, and he said, ‘Music is going to go in these three directions. He held up the first record, it was a Latin record, with this singer from Peru, Yma Sumac,

Jazz Fest Minutes: The Legendary Del McCoury Apr 12, 2013

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Bluegrass Hall of Famer Del McCoury’s folks came from the mountains of western North Carolina, but he grew up on a farm in York County, Pennsylvania, less than an hour’s drive from Baltimore. “My dad and my older brother listened to the Grand Ol’ Opry every Saturday night,” McCoury said. It was before television, in the middle- to late-1940s. “At a young age I heard Earl Scruggs, and that’s what got me into music.” McCoury had already learned a little guitar from his older brother — who had learned it from their mother — when, inspired by Earl Scruggs, he took up banjo. And, thanks to his dad, soon acquired one. “My dad knew a guy who had an old banjo; he didn’t play it, and so he borrowed it from that guy because I kept talking to my dad about getting me one. And he said, ‘I know a guy who’s got one. He don’t even play it.’ And, after a while, that guy started owing him money for something, so we got a banjo out of the deal,” he said. “It wasn’t a good one, but you could play it.”

Jazz Fest Minutes: Words and Music with Donald Harrison, Jr. Apr 11, 2013

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Saxophonist, composer and Mardi Gras Indian Chief Donald Harrison, Jr . started learning about Mardi Gras Indian culture firsthand and early. “The first time I put on a suit was at two years old for the Creole Wild West," Harrison said. I was a little chief of the Creole Wild West. I had on a dark blue and white suit my father made for me. I remember them running and going fast up and down in feathers, flying and singing.” He says his mother talks about how he used to play drums on his crib. "They should have gotten me a drum set instead of a saxophone," he said. "I think I have a natural affinity for rhythm.” And a thorough grounding in the powerful connection between music and dance. “One of the great things was that my mother used to make us dance the popular dances. So some kind of way that got into my psyche that you should also play music. When I started to play, it makes you want to dance.” Harrison started playing alto sax at 10 years old, and made a couple of key musical

Jazz Fest Minutes: David Egan — 20 Years of Trouble Apr 10, 2013

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David Eagan is one of Louisiana's most recorded songwriters. A short list of artists covering his tunes includes Irma Thomas, Marcia Ball, Solomon Burke, Etta James, Joe Cocker, Mavis Staples, John Mayall and Johnny Adams. Egan grew up in the music-rich environments of 1960s Shreveport. "You had the whole chitlins-circuit thing," Egan said. "You had the Bossier Strip, which was, of course, somebody's going to write a great book about that someday; just a hotbed of neon and music and vice. All those clubs and everything. And you had the Louisiana Hayride." And, in David Eagan's family, a strong classical influence. "I grew up in a symphony family, and we had guest conductors and ballet dancers and guitar troupes staying at our house," he remembered. "Cast parties until four o'clock in the morning on school nights. An atmosphere of tolerance and a lot of eccentric people coming through the household. It was a lot of fun." Eagan started writing songs in the fifth grade and has never

Jazz Fest Minutes: C.J. Chenier Keeps It Red Hot Apr 09, 2013

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C.J. Chenier is the son of Zydeco legend Clifton Chenier . "I didn't know to what magnitude my dad's popularity was, but I knew he played music and because he played music I wanted to play music," Chenier said. C.J. took a few piano lessons, messed around with guitar a little bit, and by the fourth grade was ready to try a horn. "The only instrument I knew about was a trombone because I saw this movie 76 Trombones ," he said. "So that's really the only instrument I knew about. And I told my mom, I said I want to play the trombone, and she's like, no, you've got to play saxophone because your daddy's got a saxophone in his band. And I didn't know what a saxophone was." It turned out to be a very good choice. "My mom must have had a foresight, because me and the saxophone became one real quick, you know, it was like I adapted to it real fast." C.J. wanted to play music full time, but couldn't make a living doing that in his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas. So, after finishing high school,

Jazz Fest Minutes: A Conversation With Dianne Reeves Apr 08, 2013

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Dianne Reeves is one of the finest jazz singers on the planet. Born in Detroit, she grew up in Denver in a family full of musicians. "There's a lot of musicians in my family," Reeves said. "My uncle is a bassist and he was with the symphony for many years, as well as a jazz bassist. A couple of great aunts were performers, and then I have another cousin who actually produced a lot of my records, George Duke. So music was very much part of the family." Reeves started singing seriously in junior high, taking vocal lessons and joining the school choir. "I remember walking down the hall in passing period in school and thinking I've always heard 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket,' but I am. Because I loved it. I loved how singing made me feel and I loved how I could communicate with people on this other level that I couldn't define." For many years now Reeves has enjoyed a strong appreciation for, and association with, New Orleans musicians. "I remember one time I was doing this thing

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