Showing posts with label Joe Lovano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Lovano. Show all posts
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Jazz for Obama
I suspect that New York City is full of people who are jazz fans and who plan to vote for Barack Obama. If you are one of them, kill two birds with one stone and get yourself down to the Jazz for Obama concert on October 1. A great lineup, wish I could be there! Mehldau! Lovano! Stanley Jordan! Hank Jones!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Jazz and Health, Poetry and Health
One of the ongoing issues in the world of jazz made the New York Times today: jazz musicians often have no health insurance, so when they get ill, their friends have to organize benefit performances for them.
This is, of course, a reason to be for universal health insurance (says the American living in Switzerland), but in the absence of that, it's also a reason for performing artists to have teaching jobs if they cannot afford to pay for health insurance.
By extension, this is one of my arguments in favor of giving poets teaching jobs: they get health insurance!
So if you're one of those poets who thinks that creative-writing programs are ruining poetry, just remember that, in one sense at least, they are keeping poetry alive—by keeping poets alive.
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Here's the spectacular photo of John Scofield and Joe Lovano from the above article:
(Scofield and Lovano fans: don't worry, they're not sick.)
This is, of course, a reason to be for universal health insurance (says the American living in Switzerland), but in the absence of that, it's also a reason for performing artists to have teaching jobs if they cannot afford to pay for health insurance.
By extension, this is one of my arguments in favor of giving poets teaching jobs: they get health insurance!
So if you're one of those poets who thinks that creative-writing programs are ruining poetry, just remember that, in one sense at least, they are keeping poetry alive—by keeping poets alive.
*
Here's the spectacular photo of John Scofield and Joe Lovano from the above article:
(Scofield and Lovano fans: don't worry, they're not sick.)
Monday, January 15, 2007
Michael Brecker
I saw Michael Brecker with the McCoy Tyner Trio a few years ago in Basel. Since Tyner was the pianist in John Coltrane's Quartet for years, the comparison was easy, but Brecker lived up to the challenge, riding Tyner's accompaniment into his own variations on Coltrane's incredible sound. (And Avery Sharpe on bass was brilliant, too. I don't remember who the drummer was.)
In the summer of 2005, I went to the Willisau Festival to hear the Saxophone Summit of Dave Liebman, Joe Lovano, and Michael Brecker. It became a two-peak summit, because Brecker was in the hospital with leukemia. Liebman and Lovano were stunning; I can only imagine what it must have been like to hear those two with Brecker alongside them. Now I really can only imagine it, as Brecker died on Saturday.
It's ironic to me that Alice Coltrane, who replaced Tyner in Coltrane's band, also died last week, on Friday.
In the summer of 2005, I went to the Willisau Festival to hear the Saxophone Summit of Dave Liebman, Joe Lovano, and Michael Brecker. It became a two-peak summit, because Brecker was in the hospital with leukemia. Liebman and Lovano were stunning; I can only imagine what it must have been like to hear those two with Brecker alongside them. Now I really can only imagine it, as Brecker died on Saturday.
It's ironic to me that Alice Coltrane, who replaced Tyner in Coltrane's band, also died last week, on Friday.
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