By The Blues Blogger

I haven’t written very much in the past 20 years. It’s only been in the last few months that I have rediscovered my greatest passion. There are many reasons for this that are not necessary for me to get into. That’s another story. Perhaps my recent heart attack gave me the opportunity to spend a fair amount of time reflecting back into my past.

I started listening to a lot of music recently and drifted back to my childhood. Maybe in some profound way I finally felt more justified to discuss my love of jazz music and especially blues. These latest events made me finally attempt to bring my love of music and writing together.

Growing up in the sixties I recall so many different genres of music that played in our household. From The Beatles and The Monkees in my sister’s room, to Big Band Jazz in the living room, to my brother’s turntable that span the soulful sound of electric blues and jazz in the bedroom we shared.

By David Brooks

On Feb. 9, 1964, the Beatles played on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Or as Steven Van Zandt remembers the moment: “It was the beginning of my life.”

Van Zandt fell for the Beatles and discovered the blues and early rock music that inspired them. He played in a series of bands on the Jersey shore, and when a friend wanted to draw on his encyclopedic blues knowledge for a song called “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” Van Zandt wound up as a guitarist for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

The 1970s were a great moment for musical integration. Artists like the Rolling Stones and Springsteen drew on a range of musical influences and produced songs that might be country-influenced, soul-influenced, blues-influenced or a combination of all three. These mega-groups attracted gigantic followings and can still fill huge arenas.

But cultural history has pivot moments, and at some point toward the end of the 1970s or the early 1980s, the era of integration gave way to the era of fragmentation. There are now dozens of niche musical genres where there used to be this thing called rock. There are many bands that can fill 5,000-seat theaters, but there are almost no new groups with the broad following or longevity of the Rolling Stones, Springsteen or U2.

By Ndaba Dlamini

THIS year's Metro FM Music Awards promise to be a humdinger, with South Africa's best hip-hop, kwaito and jazz musos battling it out for top honours.


The finalists in the eighth annual music awards were announced on Wednesday, 7 November in Johannesburg, with jazz sensation Lira and hip-hop group Jozi topping the nominations tally.

Members of the public voted for their three favourite finalists after judges identified five nominees in each of the 15 categories - best male vocalist, best female vocalist, best R&B, best African pop, best kwaito, best hip-hop, best gospel, best jazz, best group, best compilation, best produced album, best styled, best newcomer, best dance and best song.

The public will once again decide who takes the top spots, voting by SMS for their favourite artist in each category. The winners of the 2007 Metro FM Music Awards will be announced on 24 November in Port Elizabeth.

Announcing the finalists, Metro FM's station manager, Matona Sakupwanya, thanked the public for the "overwhelming" number of votes received. "This shows that South Africans are as passionate about their music as they are about their sport."

Competition will no doubt be tough, with Lira and Jozi getting nominations in four categories each. Lira's Feel Good, Jozi's What's With The Attitude and L'vovo's Bayang'sukela are all in the running for song of the year.

D Everett-White just completed the book titled "You’ll Never Be Nothing," an autobiography of his life. The manuscript tells a heartbreaking story of the entertainer. First, as a boy and then as a young man and how a series of events, time and time again, could derail the power of the human spirit. As he tries to rise above his father's words, "You'll Never Be Nothing", a single performance at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles brings him full circle and back to the audience he loves. The show includes a four song tribute to D Everett's mentor Sammy Davis Jr., who got him his first solo engagement at the Sahara Hotel, and later introduced him to Frank Sinatra.

D Everett-White's smooth, classically trained voice effortlessly moves through Pop, Rock and Roll and Rhythm and Blues with a distinct sound of his own. He has chosen eleven standards from the forties and fifties immortalized by Frank Sinatra on a debut album entitled, "The Voice Revisited," featuring the classic "I'm A Fool To Want You/My Funny Valentine" included in the major motion picture released by Miramax Films ASeasons Of Life.

D Everett-White . . . Headlines a Variety/Night Club Show with 16 dancers, 4 back-up singers with a 28- piece orchestra. Conducted by: Roberta Lydecker

D EVERETT-WHITE’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY “YOU’LL NEVER BE NOTHING” IS AVAILABLE FOR PREVIEW VIA HIS WEBSITE  DEVERETTWHITE.COM

War cries and traditional music fused with American funk, R&B and jazz to fuel a 1960s golden age in Ethiopian music. Robin Denselow reports on a riotous revival

It’s a scorching hot afternoon in a recording studio outside Toulouse in southern France. Inspired by the Ethiopiques albums compiled by French music producer Francis Falceto, local experimental jazz quartet Le Tigre Des Platanes have invited Ethiopian traditional singer Etenesh Wassie to work with them, and Falceto to oversee the project.

Despite the language barrier, the results are dramatic. Furious free-form brass and percussion are interspersed with declamatory, harsh-edged vocals, and there’s an extraordinary passage in which she duets with a wild solo saxophone. “That,” explains Falceto, “was a traditional Ethiopian greeting song.”

Mali may still dominate the African music scene, but in recent years Ethiopian dance music, especially that from the “golden age” of the 1960s and early 1970s, has built up the biggest following among musicians outside the continent.

Terrance Russ runs a consulting and management company which quietly guides the careers of high profile entertainment talent and business people. A diverse professional who knows no business or creative bounds, has launched a new media company, The Russ Group of Companies to produce music and film projects.

One of the projects is Looker - the Music , an funky, innovative music album inspired by the Stanley Bennett Clay novel of the same name.

Read in GBMNews what the man, the producer, the businessman wants to accomplish with the forthcoming Looker - the Music .
 
GBMNews unveils Terrance Russ. A bold man with a plan.

Coming Soon!

By Diane Coetzer

The first-ever Johannesburg 46664 concert will be headlined by a diverse roster of artists, including stalwart supporters of the HIV/AIDS prevention campaign such as Peter Gabriel and Annie Lennox.

The concert takes place on World Aids Day (Dec. 1) and will be held at Johannesburg's 50,000-capacity Ellis Park Stadium. Alongside Lennox and Gabriel, who both appeared at the inaugural concert in Cape Town in November 2003, it will also feature Razorlight, Corrine Bailey Rae, Jamelia, Ludacris and Goo Goo Dolls.

The announcement of the concert's international artist lineup follows a recent statement by former South African President Nelson Mandela in which he gave details of the fifth International 46664 concert to be staged since the organization's inception in 2002.

The 46664 campaign -- named for Mandela's prison number during his 18-year confinement on Robben Island -- aims to raise awareness of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic.

A statement from the organizers said that "Along with each artist appearing in a solo set, the Johannesburg concert, like those previous, is likely to showcase many unique artist collaborations, which have become a 46664 concert trademark."

By Siddhartha Mitter

The idea of returning to Africa has been an essential theme in American arts and culture ever since Africans were brought to this country. But it is a theme that has dwelt mainly at the margins of mainstream culture, whether by political choice of the artists involved or from lack of interest and commercial appeal outside (or even sometimes within) the African-American community.

For jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, making a new album in deep conversation with musicians from Mali was neither a political act nor a
play for world-music market share. Rather, "Red Earth: A Malian Journey" resonates with the authenticity of a natural embrace.

Regrettably, Bridgewater had to cancel a scheduled performance of "Red Earth" in Boston this past Wednesday. But the album, newly out on the Emarcy label, stands on its own merits as the most interesting back-to-Africa project in several years. The credit goes in part to Bridgewater's heartfelt emotional investment in a culture she's identified as her spiritual home, and, just as important, to the personnel she assembled with Cheikh Tidiane Seck, a respected Malian musician and arranger who previously recorded an album with jazz pianist Hank Jones.

By Jesse Hamlin

Marcus Shelby was taken by Harriet Tubman's heroic story at an early age, when his mother gave him a book about the bold runaway slave who brought many others out of bondage through the Underground Railroad, led behind-the-lines raids during the Civil War, nursed Northern soldiers and fought for the right of women of all colors to vote. But he didn't realize how musical Tubman was until he read "Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero," the 2003 biography by Kate Clifford Larson that triggered Shelby's new oratorio for voice and jazz orchestra.

"She had a close relationship with music, work songs and particularly spirituals, which she sang to give messages to other slaves about planned escapes," says Shelby, a gifted bassist, composer and bandleader. His sumptuously swinging orchestra will play parts of the two-hour piece Friday night at the Great American Music Hall. Shelby - an elegant cat in the Duke Ellington vein whose music draws on the rich sounds of Ellington and his main man Billy Strayhorn, Miles Davis and Gil Evans - shares a San Francisco Jazz Festival bill with pianist Jon Jang's septet, playing Jang's new piece celebrating a barrier-crossing San Francisco teacher, "Unbound Chinatown: A Musical Tribute to Alice Fong Yu."

By Todd Leopold

At their best, record labels can conjure a sound as surely as a needle on a phonograph. Chess Records and late '50s gutbucket blues. The Motown Sound of 1960s vocal groups. Stiff Records and the late '70s British New Wave.

When it comes to Atlantic Records, however, not just one sound will do. The company was founded as a jazz label in 1947, turned to rhythm and blues in the 1950s, became celebrated as the home of soul stars such as Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin in the 1960s, and then harvested some of the best of the 1960s and '70s rock and roll acts, from Buffalo Springfield to Led Zeppelin. Even today, the distinctive red-and-black label of Atlantic stands out among the many nameplates of the giant WEA empire. (The WEA family of labels, which includes Atlantic, Warner Bros. and Elektra, is owned by AOL Time Warner, the corporate parent of CNN.)

The history of the label has been celebrated in " 'What'd I Say': The Atlantic Story" (A Publishing, distributed in the U.S. by Welcome Rain), by label founder Ahmet Ertegun, compiled and edited by Perry Richardson and designed by Marc Balet. The book, a coffee-table slab of photographs, oral history, and essays by the likes of music writers Greil Marcus, Robert Christgau, Nat Hentoff, Lenny Kaye and others, traces the label from its independent beginnings to its current standing as the home of Stone Temple Pilots, Kid Rock, and Collective Soul.

"(Atlantic) has had an amazing ability to adapt with the changing times while keeping a standard of artistic excellence," says Kaye, known for his guitar work with the Patti Smith Group as well as his critical efforts. "If you look at any moment in Atlantic history, they're at the forefront with the sound of that moment."

"I think it's better to burn out than to fade away... it's better to live out your days being very, very active - even if it destroys you - than to quietly... disappear.... At my age, why do you think I'm still here struggling with all the problems of this company - because I don't want to fade away."  -Ahmet Ertegun


Rolling Stone/PBS Documentary
by Robert Greenfield

More than most in the $5 billion-a-year global industry he helped build from scratch, Ahmet Ertegun loved the rhythm and the blues. He loved the rock and the roll, jump and swing, and all forms of jazz. More than anything, he loved the high life and the low. When he died at the age of eighty-three on December 14th, 2006 about six weeks after injuring himself in a backstage fall at a Rolling Stones concert at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan, the world lost not only the greatest "record man" who ever lived but also a unique individual whose personal and professional life comprised the history of popular music in America over the past seventy years. On every level, the story of that life is just as rich, varied and exotic as the music that Ahmet brought the world through Atlantic Records, the company he founded in 1947 and was still running at the time of his death.

A charismatic African-American actor of TV and film, Leon was billed as Leon Robinson when he made his professional debut on the "CBS Afternoon Playhouse" production "Journey to Survival" in 1981. He became a part of popular music history when he was cast as the martyred Southern black saint in Madonna's controversial 1989 music video "Like a Prayer". Leon first made an impression on movie audiences as the exuberant captain of the Jamaican bobsled team in "Cool Runnings" (1993).

Born in the Bronx, but raised in the middle class suburb of Mount Vernon, this only son of a transit authority executive and his teacher wife migrated to Los Angeles to play basketball for Loyola Marymount before moving into acting. Early roles included a football teammate of Tom Cruise in "All the Right Moves" (1983) and Fortune, the Notre Dame-bound basketball playing co-worker of Matt Dillon, in "The Flamingo Kid" (1984). It was only after his exposure in the Madonna video that Leon's roles became more substantial. He was a member of a singing group trying to stay off drugs while his brother becomes addicted in Robert Townsend's "The Five Heartbeats" (1991). In 1993, he co-starred as John Lithgow's British henchman out to get Sylvester Stallone in Renny Harlin's "Cliffhanger" and followed with a turn as a disillusioned ex-jock in "Above the Rim" (1994). Leon was also memorable as Lela Rochon's married lover in "Waiting to Exhale" (1996) and co-produced as well as co-starred in the romantic drama "The Price of Kissing" (1997).

Leon and The Peoples Band is New York City’s hottest up-and-coming ‘reggae-soul’ band. Led by multi-talented actor and singer/songwriter Leon, the band has been performing live nationwide and developing their signature sound as well as a loyal fan-base for the past 2 years.

The Peoples Band features top-notch musical talent, high-energy live performances and a commitment to sharing the reggae-soul sound and spirit with a worldwide audience

As CD sales continue on a downward trend and online music sales stay relatively small, artists are focusing more on the growing markets of live music, endorsement deals and merchandising.

By Chris Ayres

Madonna is poised to leave her record company of 25 years to sign a $120 million (£60 million) deal with Live Nation, a concert promotion firm, in a move that many may regard as further evidence that the music industry of the last century is officially dead.

Madonna, 49, and listed in Guinness World Records as “the world’s most successful female musician”, still has one final studio album to deliver for Warner Music Group, her old company, which signed her in 1982 for $5,000 per song. When her next album is completed, the self-styled “Material Girl” of the Thatcher-Reagan years who infuriated the Roman Catholic Church with her sexualised religious iconography, is expected to begin a new ten-year deal with Live Nation.

Although it is the largest concert promotion company in the world, it lost $161 million in 2005 and 2006, and barely managed to make $10 million profit from $1 billion revenues in the most recent quarter of this year.

The world-renowned Boys & Girls Choir of Harlem Alumni Ensemble comes to RFA in Rome, NY on October 13th to record and perform LIVE with the YCCA Wind Ensemble. PBS will be filming this historical concert for a one-hour DVD Special. Ticket sales go to support the YCCA Music Program.

The Boys Choir of Harlem Alumni Choir (The Alumni Choir), created February 2007 under the direction of Terry Wright(head choreographer, assistant director and lead singer of the Boys Choir of Harlem), is the natural offspring of The Boys Choir of Harlem Inc. Through a program of education, counseling and performing arts, the Alumni Choir is an artistically driven organization dedicated to providing its audience with a broad-based entertainment experience.

The Alumni Choir members, age range 17 to 45, thru their training with the Boys Choir of Harlem under the direction of the late Walter Turnbull, are honed to be disciplined, confident, motivated and successful performers, citizens and Americans ambassadors to the world.

By Vanessa Loy

It would take an encyclopedia to list all the biographies of accomplished musical performers who were born or resided in New Orleans, Louisiana. The list would surely include Fats Domino, the Neville Brothers, the Marsalis family, Harry Connick, Jr., Mahalia Jackson, Earl King, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Allen Toussaint and Irvin Mayfield, Jr., among others. As New Orleans has produced so many artists, the city also played an important role in developing jazz, blues, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and zydeco music styles.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans two years ago, the city faced the threat of losing future generations of native musicians since many lost their homes. In December 2005, saxophonist Branford Marsalis and singer-pianist Harry Connick, Jr. teamed up with Habitat for Humanity and various corporate sponsors to save their city’s music. Together, they planned the development of the Musicians’ Village, a housing community designed to keep the city’s musical talent. Today, the Musicians’ Village is alive and thriving, with its own homepage at www.nolamusiciansvillage.org. The village consists of over 70 single-family homes in the city’s Upper 9th Ward, mostly inhabited by musicians.

Indianapolis, IN -- October 4, 2007 – RedeemedSoul.com -- New indie gospel label RedeemedSoul.com has won another gospel music industry award. Its debut CD “The New Soul (Various Artists)” has just been named “Best Compilation Album” as part of the 2007 En Sound Music Awards (ESMA) held in Newark, NJ. The En Sound Music Awards recognizes the year’s best indie Christian and gospel music artists and record labels.

RedeemedSoul.com’s founder David V. Taylor is proud of the accomplishment. “Our recording artists and affiliated songwriters and producers worked hard to create this inspiring music. Winning our ESMA award encourages us to work even harder on our upcoming releases.” Despite only 1 ½ years in business, the label is already being recognized throughout the gospel industry for its music excellence.

Earlier this year leading e-zine BlackGospel.com awarded “The New Soul” CD as one of the “Top Independent Gospel Albums” released in the gospel music industry. “The New Soul” CD also received a separate 2007 ESMA nomination for “Song of the Year” for the track “Echoes from Heaven”.

By Mordechai Shinefield

What does an openly gay, Jewish R&B singer sound like? Thanks to Ari Gold, a formerly Orthodox kid out of the Bronx, the question isn’t speculative. On his newest album, “Transport Systems,” out this week, he answers that an openly gay, Jewish R&B singer sounds much like any good R&B phenom: a sexy, honey-tinged voice and lyrics about falling in love.

Gold, who wears Jewish bling (a gold chai necklace), says that despite few overt lyrical references on “Transport Systems,” he is very influenced by his Judaism. “Growing up as an Orthodox Jew, I can’t escape that. That’s my whole upbringing. It’s intrinsic to who I am,” he tells me. On his last album, the 2004 “Space Under Sun,” he has a song called “Bashert.” And on “Transport Systems,” he calls himself “shtetl-fabulous” on the opening track “Overture.”

One talented Virginia blues man isn't paying his dues anymore.

Instead, he's actually getting paid.

Charlottesville resident Corey Harris is the winner of a $500,000 grant from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, administrators announced last week. Commonly called "genius grants" the awards are intended to help innovative musicians, artists, scholars, inventors and scientists continue their work without financial worries or pressures. The money is paid $100,000 a year for five years. There are no strings attached.

Anglique Kidjo delights in breaking the boundaries of ‘world music’ – even when she is going back to her roots

By Maya Jaggi

Angélique Kidjo’s singing career began at the age of six, with her mother’s theatre troupe in Benin, west Africa. But when the military dictatorship forced her to sing for them, “I felt raped in my soul, my free will stepped on,” she recalls. She fled to Paris in the 1980s to become the West’s most successful African diva, a singer-songwriter melding African sounds with jazz and funk, latin and gospel. Yet her message for anyone wanting to harness her voice – whether tyrannical regimes or roots purists sniping at her “crossover” appeal – is clear. “It’s my vision of my music and my culture,” she stabs the air. “Nobody has a right to tell me what to do with it.”

We are sipping herbal tea in a smart hotel in the centre of Paris, though Kidjo, a petite dynamo with a close crop of dyed-blonde hair, now lives mainly in New York. She will be at the Barbican, in London, on September 28 as part of Passage of Music, a series of events marking the bicentenary of Britain’s abolition of the slave trade.