Almost 20 years ago, a young student at the National University of Mexico went in search of a very old instrument in the mountains of the southern state of Oaxaca. Today, he has become a leading force in the revival of the instrument called the bajo quinto and the music played on it.
Ruben Luengas was working on a research project at the National School of Music in Mexico City in 1995. He wanted to focus on the music of his hometown, in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, so he asked his 97-year-old grandmother to tell him about the music played at her wedding.
The music of Solas is always exciting perhaps because it's constantly evolving. Meet Seamus Egan and Win Horan who chat about their roles in shaping Irish-America's most influential band and share loads of their music with us.
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The Village Vanguard's awning and sign have become iconic among jazz aficionados.
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Musicians think they've made it when they've headlined at the Vanguard, but true success is earning a permanent place on the wall.
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Max Gordon once described the Vanguard's patrons as "poets, WPA writers, hustlers, insomniacs, college students from the Bronx and Brooklyn, broads on the make, musicians and moochers, all of them crowding the place every night to let off steam." That's a lot of people.
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The clearly marked but winding trail to the men's room was immortalized in the title of Chris Potter's album Follow the Red Line, recorded live at the club and released in 2007. Along the way, it snakes past the Vanguard's famed kitchen, which now doubles as both office and green room.
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The Vanguard's skinny red awning offers little in the way of shelter, but that's hardly the point. It lends the basement club curb appeal and leads straight to its bright red doors.
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If you wish to enter this sacred jazz site, your rite of passage will be to navigate the perilously steep red stairwell. Suggestion: Use the handrails.
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Jazz club owners rarely seem to inspire warm and fuzzy feelings. That's why it's so impressive that the corner of 7th Avenue South and Perry Street, just a few feet from the Village Vanguard's entrance, was named for beloved club founder Max Gordon back in 1996.
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Of course, there's also a cover charge if you want to get in, but it's a steal by New York standards ($25 with a $5 drink minimum, $20 for students for the late set on weeknights). Although the club remains old-school — no food, no talking, no frills — it did start accepting credit cards last year.
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In the interest of accommodating lots of people, tables and chairs should take up as little real estate as humanly possible.
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Protected from the glare of sunlight, the little wedge-shaped room is peaceful in the afternoon. Musicians will sometimes come to practice here, among the spirits of jazz past, before their performances in the evening.
Originally published on Tue September 18, 2012 3:41 pm
For New York Polyphony, it's location, location, location. The four-man vocal ensemble thrives on music from the Renaissance, much of it designed for cavernous, reverberant spaces. Think voices soaring through arched cathedrals. But madrigals by Flemish composer Orlando di Lasso, with their more intimate storytelling vibe, are suited for smaller venues — like, say, the living room of New York Polyphony bass Craig Phillips.
Like the music of his good friend Béla Bartók, Scottish composer Erik Chisholm's two piano concertos rely heavily on folk sources. But in Chisholm's case, the influences come from Scotland and India rather than Bartók's beloved Eastern Europe.
When the pianist Esbjorn Svensson died in a scuba accident in 2008, many fans of his group, the Swedish trio known as E.S.T., wondered if there might be some unreleased experiments lurking in a studio vault. There were. Just out is a disc called 301, which was recorded in 2008 during sessions for the group's final album.
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