SHARE THIS SHOW:
RELATED CONVERSATIONS:
RECENTLY ON TOL:
TOL Our Town
- A tumblr site dedicated to the people and places that make up Oregon and Southwest Washington.
TAGS:
The annual PDX Jazz Festival is known for its inventive thematic programming, and this year's installment doesn't disappoint. It's called "Bridges and Boundaries: Jewish and African Americans Playing Jazz." The idea is to highlight the contributions and conversations that the two groups have brought to jazz.
We'll explore all of this, and listen to the results, on the show.
We'll be joined by the festival's artistic director, Bill Royston, along with two musicians whose biographies are perfect illustrations of the festival's theme. Don Byron is a pre-eminent jazz clarinetist with a storied — and varied — career. He's also an African American with a deep affinity for klezmer. Anat Cohen, also a reed player, is a rising star in the international jazz scene. She lives in New York now, but was born in Israel.
They all talk about music as a sphere of cultural cross-fertilization, a universalizing language that both celebrates and transcends difference. Have you played jazz — or another form of music — with people from different backgrounds? What experience have you had making or sharing art across cultures? What are the challenges, and the rewards?
Tagged as: african-american · jazz · jews
Photo credit: Lordtrilink / Creative Commons
-
Are Whoopi Goldberg, Laurence Fishburne, or Lenny Kravitz, Jewish or Black, or human bridges?
-
This comment has been removed by the TOL staff.
-
IF YOU REMOVE A COMMENT PLEASE HAVE THE COURTESY TO EXPLAIN WHY >>> DONT BE SUCH TOTALITARIANS
-
We can build a Jazz Bridge, a Race Bridge, a Cultural Communication Bridge and put grass sod on a old bridge.....but we can't build a real Columbia River I-5 Bridge because that cost real money. China opens a major bridge project rivaling I-5 every week.
Kumbaya feels good until you got to eat. Shut up and listen to a unique blend of smooth and easy-listening jazz.
-
You don’t bridge gaps by stating what contributions this group or that group has given to humankind through jazz. For one to be impressed by what Black Americans or Jewish Americans have given to jazz is a kind of segregation in itself. It seems apparent that Jewish people and black people have contributed to jazz, as many people have contributed to jazz, so what? Will the festival also focus on which of these groups has contributed the most to jazz? Why not go this one step further? What exactly does this bridge say or achieve? Oh, black people and Jewish people are great because they excel at Jazz! Well, what about cultures or members of religions who have not contributed as much to Jazz? Is there something wrong with their lack of contributions? Well, there must be if there is something right with these black/Jewish contributions!
-
Jazz has always been about bridges and breaking down boundaries. Some years ago Wynton Marsalis dissed Miles Davis for his forays into jazz fusion. Marsalis' opinion was that jazz was a particular thing rooted in the New Orleans style. The great Cannonball Adderly, however, said that jazz had always been a fusion of influences. Certainly, the music arose in New Orleans from African roots, but it was that spirit fused with the instruments of European classical music that gave it voice.
-
Jewish artists were responsible for introducing African American music to the popular mainstream, from the 1920s until the 1960s. People like the Gershwins and their forebears in Tin Pan Alley wrote popular jazz for sheet music and for Broadway. Later Jerry Wexler brought the Drifters to the radio, and Phil Spector, Ellie Greenwhich, Carole King, and Jeff Barry at the Brill Building wrote and produced music for a variety of mostly black groups using the idioms of black R&B.
-
I'm glad that clarinets are coming back into popularity, I have missed them, they have a particular mellow sound. Reminds me of the voice of Nat King Cole. Also like the low frequency voice of a very sultry sexy woman like Bacall and others.
There is one particular note on the lower end that really gets me, and I don't know enough about music to describe it.
-
Hey! Stop calling Western classical music rigid! As a classically trained clarinetist who does play jazz and klezmer, I know that it is very unfair to make categorizations about ANY type of music- I've met extremely rigid jazzers who stress more about if their improv sounds "right", and I've performed with some of the most amazingly flexible, supportive classical musicians who took amazing liberties in the music to reflect the mood of the players.
In fact, while working with a student on a jazz lead sheet- I had my colleauge next door, a jazz prof, barge into our lesson and cry "you're not playing that stylistically correct!" Never had that happen with one of my classical colleagues.
Please stop making statements that define classical music as anything else but emotionally satisfying, expressive music which reflects human feelings and life- hey, much like jazz!!!
-
Is Don Byron's statement bigoted that black Americans own jazz? Or that Jews own Klezmer? Good bridge! Exactly my point with this sort of bridge-building. He may be a musician of average talent, but he is a terrible thinker.
-
Naming something takes away just about everything from it and reduces it to the letters of that name, "the map is not the territory"! The words on a map that say "Cascades Mountain Range" leave so incredibly much out that personal experience, or photos, or even a good storyteller provides.
I think people can get a little too analytical about this, and it is important to "get out of your head"!
I like klezmer and I like jazz, and both have huge ranges that the names describe.
Play it, listen to someone else play it on media, listen live, whatever, just get out of your analytical head and experience it. It's like making love to your ears.
-
It is disappointing that in this day and age music hasn't broken the boundry is assigned to a particular race. Perhaps in the 1930's jazz was black music, but sorry not anymore! The world is black the world is white...and all colors in-between.
-
I dont really agree, whats the problem about white people playing jazz man?
Backpage New york
-
Not one thing. My point exactly.
-
I didn't say it was universal language- I mainly wanted to focus on the potential negative impact for all of us when we make blanket statements about any one style of music.
-
scot mil you need to lighten up. American Classical Indigenous music is what these folks are talking about. I heard a band from Seattle take a Nirvana tune and allowed for improvasation over the chord changes. Maybe the interveiwer was asking the wrong questions. When one starts using labels things can be put in a box. That is what slave holders and fascist attempt to do. Brazil has a treasure trove of music. Chorino musicians have influenced Hermeto Pascoal, Toniho Horta, Elaine Elias to name a few. Jacob Bandolim, Pixinguinha, Benedito Lacerda wrote beautiful compositions check them out. Music is the human condition sometimes the soul comes out. There is no boxes, it is transendent of all the flack we have to deal with on day to day survival. We are all Heinz57.
-
larryw,
Thanks, I am on a diet! Not really...
Are you accusing me of using some kind of nefarious labels? When and where?
I have a diverse appreciation for music. But, music is not inherently transcendent. It can sometimes be, but not always. It depends on the circumstances and the intent and many other things.
-
wow that maybe wrong ahahaha
pallet indonesia | lab bahasa
-
wow... cool... mucsic make us be one ahaha
penumbuh rambut
-
Comments are now closed.
Really happy Esperanza won a Grammy. Gave me hope that Jazz will thrive another generation. The logical extension is that Jazz will continue to provoke communication and cooperation throughout the world. There are so many possibilities available to the imaginative and open minded.