30 Years of Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland

NPR last week put up a tribute to McPartland’s long running show by creating a beautiful interactive grid of interviewees from the show. Its a very cool thing, and they chose a great variety for guests from Chick Corea to Willie Nelson. Click on a music celebrity and you’ll hear a roughly 6 minute piece from McPartland’s interview.

My three favorites are Chick Corea, Dizzy Gillespie and of course Bill Evans.

Enjoy!

Another post about Stephane Delicq

Another post about Accordion Factory Video

Another post about Accordionist Death

Another post about Brad Mehldau at Carnegie Hall

Another post about Richard Galliano in NYC

Another post about Ben Perowski

Another post about Edith Piaf

Another post about Musette Master Daniel Colin

Another post about Contemporary Accordion Classical Music

Another post about Communist Fighting Accordionist

Another post about World Accordion Trio

Another post about Bluegrass Accordion

Another post about my latest project

Another post about Guido Deiro

Another post about Richard Galliano’s recording Paris Concert

Another post about Accordionist Richard Galliano

Another post about Accordionist Maria Kalaniemi

Carnegie Hall Names Mehldau First Jazz Artist for Composer’s Chair

Great news if you are a fan of jazz pianist Brad Mehldau. Mehldau has been given a season-long residency at Carnegie Hall this season, 2010-2011. What this means? Alot of fantastic new Brad Mehldau music; there will be music with strings, music with words, music for two pianos! Exciting. (Thanks to Nonesuch Records site for having such a great press write up on this news.)

Tuesday, November 9, 2010: Mehldau’s composition Highway Rider with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Jeff Ballard, Larry Grenadier, Joshua Redman, and Matt Chamberlain.

Saturday, February 19, 2011: Expanded Love Songs cycle with singer Anne Sofie van Otter.

From Nonesuch Records:

Mehldau explores both his improvisational side and his interest in the formal structure of classical music with a solo program featuring some of his own original compositions interspersed with classical piano works that influenced him throughout his career. In February, he reunites with mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter for the New York premiere of a newly expanded version of his song cycle Love Songs, along with traditional lieder and standards from composers like Brahms and Lennon & McCartney. The expanded version of Love Songs was commissioned by Carnegie Hall following the original’s spring 2009 debut by this duo. The original libretto comprises three poems by early 20th-century American poet Sara Teasdale, book-ended by poems from Philip Larkin and e. e. cummings.

Friday, March 11, 2011:  a concert featuring the world premiere of a new work for two pianos, six winds, and percussion co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall.

Another post about Richard Galliano in NYC

Another post about Ben Perowski

Another post about Edith Piaf

Another post about Musette Master Daniel Colin

Another post about Contemporary Accordion Classical Music

Another post about Communist Fighting Accordionist

Another post about World Accordion Trio

Another post about Bluegrass Accordion

Another post about my latest project

Another post about Guido Deiro

Another post about Richard Galliano’s recording Paris Concert

Another post about Accordionist Richard Galliano

Another post about Accordionist Maria Kalaniemi

Working on a New Project

I just wanted to let everyone know that the posts on here have slowed down a bit as I am working on a project I hope to have out by the end of February. The working title is The Delaware River Suite.

Another post about Richard Galliano’s recording Paris Concert

Another post about Accordionist Richard Galliano

Another post about Accordionist Maria Kalaniemi

Another post about Accordion Event Calendar

Another post about Octoberfest Accordion Babes

Another post about New Polka

Another post about Punk Rock Accordions

Another post about Busking

Another post about Jean-Louis Matinier

Another post about Jean-Louis Matinier and Renaud Garcia-Fons

Another post about Be-bop Accordion

They Might Be Giants – Photos from Clark County, NJ

My friend Kevin made it to this show last weekend. He said it was amazing and let me put up some photos his sister took of the band.

Another post about Leonard Cohen in Philadelphia

Another post about Richard Galliano’s recording Paris Concert

Another post about Accordionist Richard Galliano

Another post about Accordionist Maria Kalaniemi

Another post about Accordion Event Calendar

Another post about Octoberfest Accordion Babes

Another post about New Polka

Another post about Punk Rock Accordions

Another post about Busking

Another post about Jean-Louis Matinier

Another post about Jean-Louis Matinier and Renaud Garcia-Fons

Another post about Be-bop Accordion

Godfather of Hipsterism – Leonard Cohen

Some terrible photos from the Leonard Cohen show at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia, October 23, 2009. The man is 75 years old! He played all the hits. Skipping off stage, getting down on hes knees for just about every other song. It was an inspiration. The band was great. And today they are honoring him at Chelsea Hotel.

Another post about Richard Galliano’s recording Paris Concert

Another post about Accordionist Richard Galliano

Another post about Accordionist Maria Kalaniemi

Another post about Accordion Event Calendar

Another post about Octoberfest Accordion Babes

Another post about New Polka

Another post about Punk Rock Accordions

Another post about Busking

Another post about Jean-Louis Matinier

Another post about Jean-Louis Matinier and Renaud Garcia-Fons

Another post about Be-bop Accordion

Will Holshouser – American Jazz Accordionist, With ‘Third Man Trio’

Will Holshouser performed improvisational jazz with Third Man Trio on Wednesday night, 10/13/09 in Philadelphia, put on by Ars Nova Workshop.

The group is powered by master musician/drummer/clown Han Bennink (Denmark), and melodically led by reed-man Michael Moore (not that one). Holshouser’s accordion fits in perfectly between the two. Rhythmic and melodic.

This was the first night of their North American tour. See future dates this month here.

Third Man Trio, great music, great musicians. I hope I can see them again at the end of their tour when they return to the Northeast.

Another post about Richard Galliano’s recording Paris Concert

Another post about Accordionist Richard Galliano

Another post about Accordionist Maria Kalaniemi

Another post about Accordion Event Calendar

Another post about Octoberfest Accordion Babes

Another post about New Polka

Another post about Punk Rock Accordions

Another post about Busking

Another post about Jean-Louis Matinier

Another post about Jean-Louis Matinier and Renaud Garcia-Fons

Another post about Be-bop Accordion

Richard Galliano – Solo Accordion, Paris Concert

A truly wonderful recording of Richard Galliano’s playing on this live Solo recording. From March of 2009, in Paris.

I think I am addicted to the opening track, Chat Pitre. My favorite track is the brilliant and masterfully played rendition of Galliano’s composition New York Tango. Through his recordings and performaces, the song has taken many different iterations. From its jazz group tango version, to inclusion as the 3rd Movement of his Opal Concerto with string ensemble, and now a stunning solo recording. In which the themes are stretched and toyed with. I get the feeling of a solo jazz pianist in concert.

I feel like of Michel Autre Bistrot des Accordéon when he says:

In listening to this recording, I immediately had the feeling of a very personal work.

This is a very personal work. It reaches right out of the speakers and grabs you with an immediacy and a truthfulness which tempers Galliano’s otherworldly technical powers.  So much music here.

There is also a great write up from Italian blog Rassegna Stampa Ird Spa:

A festive maze of sounds, that touches the form : jazz, tango French song…waills of blues emerge from the folds of his accordion. Travelling with his compositions, the ones that brought him to perform on stage throughout the world, without forgetting those of Astor Piazzolla, who he has always loved and celebrated in his own way.

Moving, never taking for granted the solutions, always at the service of the melody and the rhythm – principle elements of dance – very attentive to the depth and the form; because, like few artists, Galliano joins technical skill and syntactical knowledge of the music from the 1900s with an uncommon emotionality.

If you love solo accordion music you must get this recording.

Another post about Accordionist Richard Galliano

Another post about Accordionist Maria Kalaniemi

Another post about Accordion Event Calendar

Another post about Octoberfest Accordion Babes

Another post about New Polka

Another post about Punk Rock Accordions

Another post about Busking

Another post about Jean-Louis Matinier

Another post about Jean-Louis Matinier and Renaud Garcia-Fons

Another post about Be-bop Accordion

Oktoburlesk – Girls, Accordions, Thrills

Alex Meixner at OctoBurlesk this Thursday!

Alex is a friend and wise-man of mine. His polka is the best you can get. Grammy nominated (shoulda won!), Alex is polka…all the good things about it. (Check out his recordings!!!)

He’s playing this great show (I’m jealous) with the buxom girls of Wassabasco Burlesque. Next thursday!

The Bell House

8p

149 7th St

Brooklyn, NY 11215

from site:

Close your eyes and imagine yourself in a tent in Munich. Grammy Nominated Polka sensation Alex Meixner is ripping through an amazing classic Oktoberfest set (complete with Lederhosen and Alpine horn). Two of the best competition chefs in the city are serving up award winning sausages. The bartenders are serving up amazing German beer in huge steins. And then you reach the point when you know your dreaming… The girls of Wasabassco Burlesque are now doing their take on classic german dances (including the famous sausage dance).Now all you have to do to make this dream come true is come to the Bell House on Thursday, October 8th.

Another post about New Polka

Another post about Punk Rock Accordions

Another post about Busking

Another post about Jean-Louis Matinier

Another post about Jean-Louis Matinier and Renaud Garcia-Fons

Another post about Be-bop Accordion

Another post about Accordionist Richard Galliano

Another post about Accordionist Maria Kalaniemi

The Conductor of the Muses

Netflix gave me a short biography of Igor Stravinsky. Which is appropriate because Stravinsky stood 5’2″. When it was over I fired up the iTunes and found Stravinsky’s ballet Apollon Musagéte (Apollo, Conductor of the Muses.) Just gorgeous music, neo-classical and modern.

Listen:

Be-Bop Accordion

bebop: a style of jazz playing, fast eighth-note lines weaving through rapidly changing chord progressions, popular in the mid-late 40′s. Think Charlie Parker. Exciting, intellectual, difficult.

Be-Bop Buffet is a tremendous accordion duet of mostly bebop tunes. Simone Zanchini (Italy) on the left channel and Frank Marocco(America) on the right. Comping and playing time for each other as they rip through the changes. Fast, fun, great playing.

From the king of bebop and all jazz, Charlie Parker, to the father of hard-bop, Horace Silver, to standards and more modern compositions by Charlie Haden and Marocco. These guys can play bebop to anything.

The Flintstones: The most famous of all bebop chord progressions is the string of chords to Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm. This set of chords has been used countless times in both jazz melodies and popular tunes: Indiana, Straighten Up and Fly Right, Cottontail, Oleo to name a few. It is also the chrord progression of the theme to the cartoon The Flintstones. Which is the tune that wraps up this disk.

I agree with Vittorio Lo Conte when he says in his  All About Jazz review:

Be-Bop Buffet is a disc that is heard throughout a breath, in which the genre in which they chose to express themselves is restored to the fullest. I due sembrano fatti l’uno per l’altro, simbiotici, come si dice, così che alla fine ci si pone la domanda: a quando la prossima incisione insieme? The two seem made for each other, symbionts, as they say, so that finally there is the question: when the next recording together?

Be-Bop Buffet è un disco che si ascolta tutto di un fiato, in cui il genere musicale in cui hanno scelto di esprimersi viene ridato al meglio. I due sembrano fatti l’uno per l’altro, simbiotici, come si dice, così che alla fine ci si pone la domanda: a quando la prossima incisione insieme? Valutazione: 4 stelle

Be-Bop Buffet

Wide Sound Records

2006

Acc: Simone Zanchini

Acc: Frank Marocco