“A Concert for Cuba”: The Largest-Ever Virtual Performance of Legendary Musical Artists from All Over the World to Honor Cuba & its First Responders

“A Concert for Cuba”:

The Largest-Ever Virtual Performance of Legendary Musical Artists from All Over the World to Honor Cuba & its First Responders

June 26, 2020--(Chicago, IL) -- Although it is the one of the hemisphere’s smallest nations, with its resources constrained by continued U.S. policies, Cuba has played an outsized role during the Covid-19 pandemic, sharing medical advances, and sending medical teams to more than two dozen nations across the globe. In recognition of these profound contributions, next month, many of the island nation’s legendary musicians joined by a score of international stars will hold a two-night celebration of the Island and the music it has given the world, streaming live via the Twitch.tv/HotHouseGlobal channel.

On Saturday, July 18th and Sunday, July 19th renowned and marquee virtuoso performers from the heralded Afro-Cuban music tradition will join with musicians and presenters from Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, Spain, and other European countries in “A Concert for Cuba.” The concert is free, however advance registration is required to view the live stream.

Sponsored by the Instituto Cubano de la Música/The Cuban Institute of Music, HotHouse (Chicago, IL), Raul Cuza (Montreal, Canada) and Bill Martinez (San Francisco, CA), the event will be broadcast live on HotHouseGlobal direct to destinations the world over. This unprecedented gathering has already secured the commitment of highly regarded A-list talent from the Americas and Europe.

Confirmed to date to perform are:

Alexander Abreu Y Su Timba All Stars ~ Arturo O’Farrill ~ Aruán Ortiz ~ Barbara Dane with Pablo Menéndez and Mezcla ~ Bush ~ Cimafunk ~ El Septeto Santiaguero ~ Eliades Ochoa ~ Jane Bunnett with Danae Olano and Dayme Arocena ~ John Santos ~ Jon Cleary ~ Los Van Van “Nachito” Herrera ~ Omar Sosa ~ Omara Portuondo Con La Orquesta Failde ~ Orbert Davis’ Chicago Jazz Philharmonic ~ Orquesta Aragon ~ Osain Del Monte featuring Brenda Navarrete ~ Oscar Hernández ~ Ozomatli ~ Proyecto Socio-Cultural El Patio De Adela Y El Caverchelo Comb with special guest Ben Lapidus ~ Síntesis ~ Susana Baca ~ Tom Morello.

Joining the musicians in the celebration and exploration of Cuban culture will be numerous artists, writers, and social justice activists, including David Soul ~ Danny Glover ~ Ron Perlman ~ Medea Benjamin ~ James Early ~ Judith Le Blanc ~Antonio Gonzales ~ Alicia Jrapko ~ Jontay Darko ~Juan De Marcos González ~ and Alfredo Caxaj, Actor Elliot Gould and Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

Additional performers and speakers are expected to confirm shortly.

Marguerite Horberg, whose Chicago cultural-mecca HotHouse, developed an HotHouseGlobal as an online streaming initiative to serve the NGO, small business, and cultural industries adversely affected during this health and economic crisis, and a sponsor of the two-night event speaks of the uniqueness and importance of the moment. “Not only is this an amazing gathering of talent – it is an important affirmation of hope. If we’ve learned nothing else these last months, we’ve learned how connected we all are. In the same spirit that Cuba, one of the world’s smallest nations, sent medical teams to more than 26 nations during the pandemic, this concert too is meant to underscore that interconnectedness. It is as it states, “A time to heal.”

The “Concert for Cuba” will take place on Saturday, July 18, and Sunday July 19 at 8pm Eastern Standard Time ~ 7PM Central Daylight (Chicago) Time/ ~ 5pm Pacific Time. The free two-day festival will be exclusively broadcast LIVE via the Twitch.tv/HotHouseGlobal channel from Havana’s Instituto Cubano de la Música, on Cuban national television and from additional points around the globe while physical distancing is still observed.

About the Sponsors:

EL INSTITUTO CUBANO DE LA MÚSICA ( ICM) / THE CUBAN INSTITUTE OF MUSIC

The Cuban Institute of Music (ICM) is a department within the Ministry of Culture of Cuba and is one of the most important cultural institutions of the country. It is tasked with the implementation of the policy of development, promotion, and projection of music inside and outside the island. It has a system of subordinate institutions, which house more than 16,000 artists throughout the country. Today it is the governing institution of the Music Development Programs, whose ultimate objective is to achieve a stronger affinity with culture in the Cuban people, applying a strategy aimed at stimulating, developing and implementing actions supporting musical institutions throughout the country. ICM produces a variety of shows in the country that ensure the development, protection, enrichment, defense, and promotion of the musical heritage of the nation.

RAUL CUZA

He is the principal at Cuza Talent Agency, a company based in Montreal, Canada specializing in World Music, with a very strong knowledge in Latin and African music. Raul Cuza has been active in this music field for more than 20 years, starting as a Programming Director of Festival Nuits d Afrique, co-owner of Eye For Talent Canada, President of Mango Music, and Vice President of GEM Latina. He has been responsible for the tour of artists like: Septeto Santiaguero, Adalberto Alvarez, Amparanoia, Azucar Negra, Los de Abajo, Paris Combo, Seckou Keita, Sierra Maestra, Qbanito, Orquesta Sensacion and many other prestigious artists.

BILL MARTINEZ

Bill is an immigration attorney who has also produced and managed cultural events in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1973. A native San Franciscan, he is a graduate the University of San Francisco and Hastings College of the Law. He has worked in the Community Law Collective (’74- ’79), New College of California School of Law (’79-’83) and the Volunteer Legal Services Program of the Bar Association of San Francisco (’84-’93). In 1981, he co-founded the Encuentro del Canto Popular, a San Francisco-based Latin American music festival. His work with the Encuentro lead him to become one of the nation’s leading experts in U.S.- Cuba cultural exchanges and artists’ visas. He co-founded the Latino Entertainment Partners which produced historically significant concerts of Cuban artists.

MARGUERITE HORBERG

Marguerite is the founder and Executive Director of The Center for International Performance and Exhibition dba HotHouse. HotHouseGlobal is the newest project to join the constellation of projects initiated by the non-profit organization. She has a distinguished career in international cultural exchange. She is also known through her many executive producing credits including: the Women of the New Jazz Festival, The Flamenco Festival, Jazz en Clave, Woody Guthrie's Centennial Celebration, The W.P.A. 2.0, a Brand New Deal, From the Lion's Point of View ( An African Jubilee), The Old and New Dreams Festivals, the Son Jarocho International Exchange Project, The Chicago-Guantánamo Blues Exchange and Tricontinental '66 and other Acts of Liberation. Throughout her thirty + year career at HotHouse, she has organized over 7,000 community-based programs including concerts with Hugh Masekela, Gil Scott Heron, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, and the U.S. debut of Cuban legends, Los Van Van.

UNHEARD THELONIOUS MONK RECORDING OF A SURPRISE 1968 HIGH SCHOOL PERFORMANCE FINALLY SET FOR RELEASE - PALO ALTO, JULY 31, 2020 - IMPULSE RECORDS

UNHEARD THELONIOUS MONK RECORDING OF A SURPRISE 1968 HIGH SCHOOL PERFORMANCE FINALLY SET FOR RELEASE  - PALO ALTO, JULY 31, 2020 - IMPULSE RECORDS 

In the fall of 1968, a sixteen-year old high school student named Danny Scher had a dream to invite legendary jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk and his all-star quartet to perform a concert at his local high school in Palo Alto, CA. In a series of twists and turns, against a backdrop of racial tension and political volatility, that concert happened and was recorded by the school's janitor. Palo Alto is set for release on July 31, 2020 on legendary jazz label Impulse! Records – marking Thelonious Monk's posthumous debut on John Coltrane's label home. 

"That performance is the one of the best live recordings I've ever heard by Thelonious," says T.S. Monk, son of the pianist/composer maestro, drummer and founder of the Thelonious Monk Institute. "I wasn't even aware of my dad playing a high school gig, but he and the band were on it. When I first heard the tape, from the first measure, I knew my father was feeling really good."

The vibrant 47-minute album spotlights Monk's steady touring band (tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, bassist Larry Gales, drummer Ben Riley) and features his touring repertoire, which were his finest compositions.  

1968 was a tumultuous year in America, marked by the shocking  shocking assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, unsettling revelations about the Vietnam War, and protests and unrest throughout the country. Palo Alto and the primarily African-American neighboring neighboring town of East Palo Alto were no different. This was the stage for young high school student Danny Scher, a jazzhead with an idealistic bent and knack for concert promotion (who later on became a well-known promoter who worked with legendary San Francisco rock promoter Bill Graham.)  

Scher says, "I always looked at music as a way to put issues on hold or up to a mirror, whether they be political or social. On October 27, 1968, there was a truce between Palo Alto and East Palo Alto. And that is what music does."

In 1968, Thelonious Monk was in many ways at the pinnacle of his career – his quartet was at its best musically, and he was still riding high in the public eye after he appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine a couple years prior.  However, behind the scenes finances were rough and his health was in bad shape. When he got a call in the middle of his threethree-week run at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco, he listened to the teen on the other end of the receiver. Perhaps he was moved by the young promoter's gumption.   

On October 27, 1968, Thelonious Monk and his quartet – Charlie Rouse (tenor sax), Larry Gales (bass), and Ben Riley (drums) – climbed out of the Scher  family van, walking past a rainy parking lot full of surprised Palo Alto and East Palo Alto residents, into Palo Alto High School's auditorium and delivered a stellar, energetic and historic 47-minute set. 

Included in the mix is Monk's lyrical love song "Ruby, My Dear" (Rouse boldly blowing the melody with Monk comping in his unique oblique way then taking the lead with a dazzling solo);  the dynamic and spirited "Well, You Needn't" taken for a 13-minute ride with solos by all members; the pianist's captivating solo reading of "Don't Blame Me" by Jimmy McHugh; an epic dance through "Blue Monk"; and a playful charge through "Epistrophy." The show ends with a truncated encore of Monk slowly striding through the 1925 Tin Pan Alley hit tune by Rudy Vallee, "I Love You Sweetheart of All My Dreams" and after a standing ovation saying his goodbye because they had to leave to make their San Francisco date that evening. 

The concert was quite impressively recorded by Palo Alto High School's janitor, and the tape sat in the attic of Scher's family home for years. When he contacted T.S. Monk to release it, they chose legendary label Impulse! Records, the label home of John Coltrane, known as "the house that Trane built." The relationship between Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane is well documented and historic, so it is particularly appropriate that almost forty years after his death, Monk finally makes his Impulse! debut with Palo Alto. 

Palo Alto is the first of multiple planned joint releases over the next five years from Impulse! Records in conjunction with the Monk estate's Rhythm-A-Ning Entertainment led by T.S. Monk.
 

About Impulse! Records:

For nearly sixty years, Impulse! Records has stood as a label of musical integrity and lasting cultural significance. Known as the "house that Trane built" in honor of its best-selling artist John Coltrane, the label produced music exciting in its experimental charge, and spiritual in its priority. Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones, Max Roach, Ray Charles, Alice Coltrane, Keith Jarrett, Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, and Pharoah Sanders were but a few of the legendary musicians who helped define the label's sound and message. To this day, Impulse! continues to proudly wear its distinctive orange-and-black color scheme, and be home to the new vanguard of creative musicians including Shabaka Hutchings and his groups Sons of Kemet, Shabaka & the Ancestors, and the psychedelic jazz trio The Comet Is Coming. 

About Rhthm-A-Ning Entertainment:

Rhythm-A-Ning Entertainment is the official company of the Thelonious Monk Estate, founded by Chairman T.S. Monk, Gale Monk, and president Douglas Holloway. RAN Ent is a multi-faceted company involved in music and film production, as well as product licensing.  Please visit: thelonious-monk.lnk.to/home.

An Elegant Last Testament From Legendary Saxophonist Jimmy Heath Verve Records Announces The Release Of Love Letter Available Worldwide On July 17

An Elegant Last Testament From Legendary Saxophonist Jimmy Heath

Verve Records Announces The Release Of Love Letter

Available Worldwide On July 17 

A Masterful Collection Of Ballads That Features Luminaries Gregory Porter, Cécile McLorin Salvant, And Wynton Marsalis

Verve Records announces the release of Love Letter, a parting masterpiece and the first all-ballads album from magisterial tenor saxophonist-composer Jimmy Heath. The first single from the collection "Con Alma" is out now and you can listen to it here. Love Letter will be available worldwide on July 17 and is available by pre-order now.  

In addition to original material, Love Letter is the jazz ambassador's beautiful take on seminal ballads, including songs written by Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, and Kenny Dorham.  Recorded in New York during the 48 hours preceding Jimmy's 93rd birthday, and two more a month later in Atlanta, Jimmy presided over a brilliant cast of colleagues and friends.  Propelling the album forward is a multi-generational all-star unit, including NEA Jazz Master pianist Kenny Barron, poll-winning guitarist Russell Malone, soulful vibraphone veteran Monte Croft, New York first-call bassist David Wong, and all-world drummer Lewis Nash. Augmenting the group on separate tracks are 21st century vocal superstars Gregory Porter and Cécile McLorin Salvant, and trumpet icon Wynton Marsalis.

The collection includes Heath's elegant arrangements of three less traveled originals culled from his vast body of work. He distinctively interprets "Con Alma," an essential jazz standard by Dizzy Gillespie, his lodestar from the moment they met in 1946. Joining him and Kenny Barron in erudite, tender dialogue on trumpeter Dorham's "La Mesha" is Marsalis. On "Don't Explain," the Dorham gem and Arthur Herzog-Billie Holiday collaboration, Heath's soulful, trenchant, urbane solo flights evoke his poetic spirit with old master concision and the authoritative chops of a musician half his age.

A highlight in a program of highlights is Cécile McLorin Salvant's poignant tour de force portrayal of unrequited love that is at the core of Billie Holiday's lyric on the blue ballad "Left Alone," composed by Mal Waldron. Another is Gregory Porter's compelling, gentle reading of Gordon Parks' underground classic "Don't Misunderstand." 

"Jimmy always wanted to know the lyrics of a song before playing it," says Carol Friedman, who co-produced Love Letter with Grammy-winning producer Brian Bacchus. "That particular sensitivity no doubt contributes to the intimacy of his sound and is the reason he loved playing ballads - whether a tune had lyrics or not, he was singing with that horn. This is the record Jimmy never got to make. Asking him if he wanted to do an all-ballads album was preceded by decades of us talking about singers and love songs." 

Two of Heath's three originals on Love Letter gestate in orchestral charts - "Fashion or Passion" comes from a 2004 Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra commission, while "Inside Your Heart" - Heath's only soprano saxophone vehicle on the date -  is the second movement of The Endless Search, a suite Heath recorded in 2010 with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra.  On the third original, it sounds as though Billy Strayhorn was on Heath's mind when he wrote "Ballad from Upper Neighbors Suite," which he'd previously addressed on a 1995 recording. 

A listener unfamiliar with the back story of Love Letter would not imagine that the main instrumental voice throughout the proceedings is a jockey-framed 93-year-old man surely aware of his impending mortality and facing it with pluck and equanimity. He brings the full breadth of his intellectual powers to this final salvo. As Gary Giddins notes: "The result is pure, primo Heath: polished, inventive, surprising, candid, beautiful."

Celebrate w/Awards Winners at 6/18 Live-Streaming Party

Celebrate w/Awards Winners at 6/18 Live-Streaming Party

Jun 9th, 2020 | By JJA Editor

The Jazz Journalists Association celebrates its 2020 Jazz Awards https://www.jjajazzawards.org/p/2020-winners.html online on Thursday, June 18 at 8 pm ET, with a first of it’s kind, all-star Jazz Awards Winners Live-Streaming Party. https://jja.wildapricot.org/events

2020 Awards winners (including Jazz Heroes) and active JJA members are able to register to be on the call on Zoom, while the general public will watch on Hot House Global https://www.twitch.tv/hothouseglobal and the JJA’s Facebook page.

Honorees from the 24th annual JJA celebration of excellence in jazz and jazz media work will interact live, addressing each other, taking questions and observing musical interludes from past Jazz Awards galas by Sheila Jordan, Randy Weston and Sonny Rollins, among others.

Confirmed participants to date include Carla Bley (Lifetime Achievement in Jazz recipient), Lakecia Benjamin (Up and Coming Musician of the Year) Terri Lynne Carrington (Musician of the Year and Drummer of the Year), Nate Chinen (for his personal writing, and the WBGO blog), Kris Davis (Composer of the Year and Pianist of the Year), Male Vocalist of the Year Kurt Elling, Percussionist of the Year Zakir Hussain, and Roscoe Mitchell representing the Art Ensemble of Chicago 50th Anniversary Large Ensemble and Allison Miller for her mid-sized ensemble, Boom Tic Boom. Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism honoree Stanley Crouch, who is ailing, has sent a message to be read.

Soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom, clarinetist Anat Cohen, guitarist Bill Frisell, trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, multi-reeds player Joe Lovano, and flutist Nicole Mitchell, bassist Linda May Han Oh, JazzTimes editor Mac Randall, cellist Tomeka Reid, vibist Joel Ross, author Mark Stryker and alto saxophonist-arranger Miguel Zenón will also speak on the call.

Due to Zoom limits of 100 to a meeting, access to be on the call itself must be offered on a first-come, first-served basis to JJA Jazz Heroes and members. An overflow of would-be viewers will be directed to watch on the other platforms, Hot House Global and the JJA’s Facebook page. The webcast will be recorded for later viewing, on YouTube.

And viewing the party on the free Hot House Global and JJA Facebook platforms is actually an advantage, as pre-recorded bits will only be seen via those streams, not on Zoom itself. The workaround for people on the Zoom call will be to open a second web-browser to watch the pre-recorded music and statements on Hot House Global or Facebook.

LOS GANADORES DE PREMIO GRAMMY GONZALO RUBALCABA Y AYMÉE NUVIOLA LANZAN "VIENTO Y TIEMPO - LIVE AT BLUE NOTE TOKYO"

LOS GANADORES DE PREMIO GRAMMY 

GONZALO RUBALCABA Y AYMÉE NUVIOLA LANZAN

"VIENTO Y TIEMPO - LIVE AT BLUE NOTE TOKYO"

Cumpliendo el sueño desde que se conocieron en La Havana, Cuba, los galardonados artistas Gonzalo Rubalcaba y Aymée Nuviola se unen para lanzar "Viento y Tiempo - Live at Blue Note Tokyo". Amigos de la infancia, que han recibido altos reconocimientos por sus trabajos individuales, se unieron para la grabación realizada en vivo durante seis noches con lleno total en el prestigioso Blue Note de Tokio el pasado agosto de 2019. Disponible hoy en todas las plataformas de música a través de Top Stop Music, el disco fue producido por Gonzalo Rubalcaba y Gregory Elias.

Gonzalo Rubalcaba y Aymée Nuviola (foto por  Emilio Guedes Jr)

"Viento y Tiempo - Live at Blue Note Tokyo" incluye clásicos como "El Manisero", "Bemba Colorá" y "Lágrimas Negras". "Viento y Tiempo - Live at Blue Note Tokyo" a su vez presenta una nueva canción, "Rumba Callejera", escrita por Aymée Nuviola e interpretada junto a su hermana, Lourdes Nuviola. 

El álbum en vivo le sigue al lanzamiento de "Azúcar Pa' Tu Café", donde Aymée y Gonzalo cuentan con la participación del artista cubano CimaFunk. El tema combina una mezcla de tropical fusionado con jazz latino y funk.

"Me produce alegría, satisfacción, tristeza y orgullo escuchar este documento. Son muchas cosas, la grandeza de Aymée, el lugar y sus habitantes, la banda, personas amadas y compañeros de trabajo presentes, y el despertar de memorias ahora convertidas en el deseo de ver a mi mama y a otros seres queridos bailar con esta música que ya existía, y a vuelto a vivir. Gracias a la música!"
- Gonzalo Rubalcaba - 

"Viento y Tiempo es el sueño realizado desde mi niñez, es decirle de alguna manera a nuestras madres - que ya no están - que sus esfuerzos no fueron en vano y que esos dos niños por las que ellas lucharon siguen unidos, es el tributo a la música que corre por las calles de La Habana con la cual nos formamos. Gracias a Dios y a la visión de Top Stop Music por hacerlo realidad".
- Aymée Nuviola - 

Gonzalo Rubalcaba (foto por Anna Turayeva)

Rubalcaba es un virtuoso músico considerado una de las figuras líderes en el jazz afrocubano y uno de los mejores pianistas del siglo 20. Ha recibido el reconocimiento mundial de medios como Wall Street Journal, NPR, Downbeat, El Chicago Tribune y otros. Ha sido nominado a 16 GRAMMY^® y Latin GRAMMY® y ha ganado dos de cada uno. 

                                                           Aymée Nuviola (foto por Enrique Tubio)

Nuviola, quien ha sido apodada "La Sonera del Mundo", ha mezclado timba, jazz, son y salsa ganando así el premio GRAMMY^® al mejor álbum de música tropical en 2020 por su más reciente lanzamiento "A Journey Through Cuban Music"; y en el 2018, ganó el Latin GRAMMY^® por el mejor álbum tropical de fusión, por su disco "Como Anillo Al Dedo".

Alto saxophone star Rudresh Mahanthappa celebrates his formative influences with Hero Trio, a wide-ranging session encompassing the music of Charlie Parker and Stevie Wonder, Keith Jarrett, Ornette Coleman and Johnny Cash

Alto saxophone star Rudresh Mahanthappa celebrates his formative influences with

 Hero Trio, a wide-ranging session encompassing the music of Charlie Parker and

Stevie Wonder, Keith Jarrett, Ornette Coleman and Johnny Cash

Mahanthappa’s first album focusing on compositions not his own features

longtime compatriots François Moutin and Rudy Royston

Available June 19, 2020 via Whirlwind Recordings

The last time Rudresh Mahanthappa went into the studio with bassist François Moutin and drummer Rudy Royston they recorded one of the decade’s most acclaimed albums, 2015’s Bird Calls (ACT). The quintet session with pianist Matt Mitchell and trumpeter Adam O’Farrill featured the altoist’s original compositions inspired by the extraordinarily rich idiom forged by bebop architect Charlie Parker. In many ways his new album Hero Trio is a companion piece to Bird Calls, but this time Mahanthappa draws directly on the music of his formative influences. Slated for release on the British label Whirlwind on June 19, 2020, Hero Trio offers a revelatory window into his wide-open aesthetic with a disparate program that begins and ends with Bird.

“I think it is a continuation of sorts,” says Mahanthappa, whose responsibilities as a father and the Anthony H. P. Lee ’79 Director of Jazz at Princeton University have kept him close to home in Montclair, New Jersey in recent years. “If I’m thinking about music that’s inspired me to pick up the saxophone Charlie Parker is at the top of my list. Those tunes are some of the first I heard. All of these pieces had a powerful impact on me.”

One of the era’s definitive saxophonists, Mahanthappa has topped numerous jazz critics polls over the past 15 years. His recordings are regularly recognized as among the best of the year, and his cast of collaborators includes artists who have earned similar distinction, including pianist Vijay Iyer, guitarist Rez Abbasi, and saxophonist Steve Lehman.

The trio with Moutin and Royston emerged out of gigs with the Bird Calls quintet when sound checks gave them brief opportunities to play in the stripped-down setting. But the bonds between Mahanthappa and his bandmates extend back decades. He and Royston were buddies growing up in the Boulder/Denver area, and they played in a band together in the early 1990s. After being out of touch for many years, they rekindled the relationship when Royston moved to New York City about a decade ago. Since then Royston has become one of the music’s most sought after players, a standout talent on a scene overflowing with extravagantly talented drummers. Moutin is similarly in demand. Mahanthappa met the bassist in the fall of 1997 within weeks of moving to New York City and they’ve collaborated intermittently ever since. The bassist and drummer hadn’t played much together before Bird Calls, “but they connected so well and sounded so good,” Mahanthappa says.

The album opens and closes with Mahanthappa’s arrangements of classic Parker tunes that Bird first recorded in the 1940s, kicking off with a blazing romp through the rhythm changes of “Red Cross” and closing with an equally ferocious run through “Dewey Square” (also known as “Prezology” and “Bird Feathers"). In between the trio dips back into the Bird songbook, referencing the mambo bounce on “Barbados,” then segueing into Coltrane’s “26-2,” a contrafact of Bird’s “Confirmation.” A dizzying hall of mirrors, the performances are so rich and evocative it’s hard not to wish for a full plunge into ornithology. For Mahanthappa, these are foundational tracks. “They have a sense of humor that’s really unique in Parker’s canon,” he says. “‘Barbados’ has that quasi-Caribbean thing, and ‘Red Cross’ and ‘Dewey Square’ contain an inherent momentum.”

Possessing one of the most immediately identifiable sounds in jazz, Mahanthappa is at his most buoyantly lyrical on Stevie Wonder’s 1985 hit “Overjoyed,” an intricate arrangement by pianist Danilo Perez that features some of Moutin’s brilliantly orchestral bass work. It’s a tune that Perez plays with his own trio, and his chart for the trio is another step in a promise-laden relationship that first surfaced on the pianist’s acclaimed 2010 album Providencia (which features two brief duo tracks with Mahanthappa).

If there’s a surprise on Hero Trio it’s Mahanthappa’s tricky arrangement of “Ring of Fire.” At first listen the piece seems like an unadorned rendering of the iconic Johnny Cash song, but the addition of one beat to the third measure subtly changes the rhythmic cadence. “But even doing that is keeping in the context of his music,” Mahanthappa says. “You look at his music and it has phrases of all sorts of bar length. He and Dolly Parton write with complex, surprising phrase lengths that feel really natural and conversational. Cash is someone that inhabited large chunks of my childhood.”

He encountered Keith Jarrett a little further down the line in college when a friend told him he needed to check the pianist out. He did exactly that when he found a copy of the 1974 ECM album Belonging at the library, and the trio’s version of “The Windup” captures the bursting, exuberant joy that made Jarrett’s European quartet such a creative force. “The music sounds like it’s going to explode,” he says. “Jan Garbarek is unbelievable. His sound is so rich, with so many overtones. Doing this piano-less is kind of nuts, but if you listen François plays a lot of Keith’s fills.”

Moutin’s arco work sets the scene for the trio’s brief, buzzy take on Ornette Coleman’s “Sadness,” a balladic vehicle for some particularly keening playing by Mahanthappa. The theme was introduced by Coleman’s great trio with Charles Moffett and David Izenzon on Town Hall, 1962. He pays tribute to several other seminal pianoless trios with a high velocity deconstruction of “I'll Remember April,” a tune recorded by Sonny Rollins on his Blue Note album A Night at the Vanguard in 1957 and Lee Konitz in 1961 on his trio session Motion. It all adds up to a tour de force performance that honors the past by seizing the present, as Mahanthappa, Moutin and Royston play with an immediacy that flows from confident intimacy. In other words, it’s just what jazz fans have come to expect from Mahanthappa.

Born May 4, 1971 in Trieste while his father was on faculty at Italy’s International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Mahanthappa grew up in Boulder after K. T. Mahanthappa took a tenure track position at the University of Colorado. Turned onto jazz in elementary school he soaked up the sounds of Grover Washington Jr. and David Sanborn, the Yellowjackets and the Brecker Brothers. An encounter with Charlie Parker’s Savoy sessions set him on a different path. “This really rocked my world, that side.”

He graduated from Berklee in 1991 and went on to earn an MM in jazz composition from Chicago's DePaul University in 1995. Mahanthappa first gained widespread attention at the turn of the century with pianist Vijay Iyer as they recorded on each other’s albums and in the duo they introduced on 2006’s Raw Materials (Savoy Jazz). His creative evolution was also shaped by his encounter with Kadri Gopalnath, who introduced the saxophone into South Indian classical music. Studies with the Carnatic saxophone master led to the acclaimed 2008 Carnatic jazz album Kinsmen (Pi). Mahanthappa deepened his relationship with the South Indian tradition via a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship, which resulted in 2011’s dazzling Carnatic fusion album Samdhi (ACT Music).

He found another powerful mentor in veteran altoist Bunky Green, an emotionally raw player with whom he recorded on 2010’s Apex (Pi). More recently Mahanthappa has toured and recorded with the trios MSG (with Ronan Guilfoyle on bass and Chander Sardjoe on drums) and the Indo-Pak Coalition (with Rez Abbasi on guitar and Dan Weiss on tabla). In another path that leads back to Bird he’s touring throughout 2020 with Fly Higher, a group co-led with drummer Terri Lyne Carrington founded to celebrate Charlie Parker’s centennial. With Hero Trio, Mahanthappa pays Parker the ultimate tribute with a project that summons his indefatigably creative spirit into the 21^st century.

www.rudreshm.com

Streaming Live at the Village Vanguard : Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons beginning June 13

178 7th Ave S. New York, NY 10014 Phone: 212-255-4037 Email: 178vanguard@gmail.com

Streaming Live at the Village Vanguard   Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons beginning June 13  On February 22, 2020 the Village Vanguard, the world’s oldest continuously operated jazz club, marked its 85th year in the basement at 178 7th Avenue South in New York City. On March 16th the club closed its doors indefinitely. On Saturday, June 13th at 7 p.m. EDT the club will present its very first livestream with The Billy Hart Quartet featuring Mark Turner, Ethan Iverson and Ben Street A matinee will follow at 2 p.m. EDT on Sunday, June 14th  Each week there will be two shows approximately 75 minutes in length Saturday @ 7pm EDT and Sunday Matinee @ 2pm EDT $7 gets you in the portal at villagevanguard.com Bring your beverage of choice.   Livestream schedule: • June 13th and 14th – Billy Hart Quartet featuring Mark Turner, Ethan Iverson and Ben Street • June 20th & 21st – Vijay Iyer Trio featuring Nick Dunston and Jeremy Dutton   • June 27th & 28th – Joe Martin Quartet featuring Mark Turner, Kevin Hays and Nasheet Waits • July 4th & 5th – Joe Lovano Trio Fascination featuring Ben Street and Andrew Cyrille   The 16-piece Vanguard Jazz Orchestra is on hold for the moment. Please continue to check https://villagevanguard.com/ and follow the club on Instagram @vanguardjazz and Facebook for updates.