Tag Archives: jazz

Fri 4/12: Serenade to a Cuckoo hosts Dr. Anthony Branker

Just in case you were feeling particularly confident about your accomplishments, we thought we’d introduce you to Dr. Anthony Branker–a composer, arranger, jazz educator, conductor, bandleader and scholar.

Dr. Branker will be hosted on Jerry Gordon’s Serenade to a Cuckoo on Friday, April 12, 12PM to 2PM.

He’ll be spinning jazz CDs, talking about his career, and discussing the award-winning jazz program he heads at Princeton.

Dr. Branker just released his newest album, Uppity, on March 19th.

He composed his last album, Blessings, during a residency in Estonia, and was described by John Barron in 2009′s All About Jaz z as music with a “…strong rhythmic foundation, with Afro-Cuban inspired grooves and solo sections over energetic vamps…With a unique combination of depth and accessibility, Branker is able to put forth a jazz perspective steeped in soulful optimism.”

For more information on Dr. Branker, go to his website http://www.anthonybranker.com/

Remembering Marvin Bradshaw

On behalf of the station staff and volunteers of WPRB, we are sad to report that one of our wonderful on-air hosts, Marvin Bradshaw, passed away on Sunday, December 19 in Philadelphia:

TRENTON – Marvin James Bradshaw, son of the late Ella Bradshaw, was born Aug. 17, 1939 in Andalusia, Ala. He departed this life on Sunday, Dec. 19, 2010, at Jeanes Hospital, Philadelphia. Marvin lived most of his life in Trenton. He was employed by Princeton University and Rider University and retired in 1996. After he retired, he became a Sunday morning host of WPRB 103.3 FM, where he played some of yesterday’s and today’s best jazz music. On Dec. 26, 2010 WPRB dedicated the entire program in his memory. He was a member of Shiloh Baptist Church, Trenton. He also was a Mason and belonged to the Bordentown Lodge. Marvin especially enjoyed reading, fishing, and football. He was a lifelong fan of the New York Giants and you could always catch him, Donald Bray, and the guys at Giants Stadium or at Klotz watching the game.

Those left behind to cherish Marvin’s memory are his beloved brothers, John Bradshaw of Boston and Robert Lane (Essie) of Trenton; his sister, Lois Rodafox of Pensicola, Fla.; three children, Andrea Wells (Keith) of Evansville, Ind., John Morton of Hamilton Township and Marva Bradshaw of Lawrenceville; nine grandchildren Qiana Counts, Gabrielle Morton, Cindy Morton, Marcus Wells, Mason Wells, Keon Heaverly, Marquis Bradshaw, Johnna Morton, and Tatiana Morton; and one great-grandchild, Devyn Baldon. Marvin, Daddy, Poppa Dukes, Pop-Pop, or Uncle Marvin will always be remembered by his winning smile, his laughter, and most of all, his electrifying personality. He was wholeheartedly devoted to his family. He loved us all and desired only the best for us.

Since the mid-1990s, Marvin had been one of the cornerstones of our jazz programming, most recently co-hosting “Sunday Jazz” with Jeannie Becker. “His voice had an incredible presence on the air — full of joy and excitement for the music he loved,” remarks fellow on-air host, Julia Factorial. Our sincerest condolences to his family and friends — we will certainly miss his presence here at WPRB and on our airwaves.

Celebrate Sun Ra!

Come join WPRB and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia as we celebrate jazz pioneer SUN RA with live performances, lectures, films, and a record fair! These events are part of the ICA’s current exhibition, “Pathways to Unknown Known Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn & Chicago’s Afro-Futurist Underground, 1954-1968,” which runs until August 2nd.

Full information about Sun Ra and the exhibition after the jump!

WED 07-01 @ 7PM: The Sun Ra Arkestra
Tickets are $10 General Admission, $5 for Students with a Valid ID, FREE for ICA Members

ICA is very pleased to present The Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen. The Sun Ra Arkestra continues to deliver some of the most potent, soul-grabbing jazz music ever written. With lyrics and song titles filled with mysticism, mythology, space travel, and other similarly cosmic trains of thought, the Arkestra’s freewheeling stage shows, complete with colorful costumes and uninhibited adventurism, perfectly embody the otherworldly proclivities of true jazz innovator Sun Ra.

WED 07-08 @ 7PM: John Szwed Lecture
FREE!

Hear a lecture by John Szwed, the biographic expert on all things Ra. He is an anthropologist, musicologist and historian who teaches at Columbia University and is the author of Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra (Da Capo Press, 1998).

SAT 07-11 @ 9AM-5PM: Philadelphia Record Fair 2009
$10 from 9-11AM, FREE from 11AM-close

A day of vinyl nirvana! ICA hosts the annual benefit for Vox Populi, Philadelphia’s acclaimed artist-run collective and gallery. Flip through bins. Find your treasure.

WED 07-15 @ 7PM: Outdoor Double Feature, curated by Jesse Pires (WPRB’s DJ Hi-Res!!!!)
Rain or shine. FREE!

Sun Ra: Brother from Another Planet (Dir. Don Letts, UK, 2005, video, 59 mins)
Don Letts, the legendary London DJ who introduced reggae and ska to a generation of punk rockers, delves into the mysterious world of Sun Ra in this British, made-for-television documentary. Sun Ra biographer John Szwed, musician Archie Shepp and member’s of Sun Ra’s Arkestra discuss the life and work of one of jazz music’s pre-eminent pioneers. For the uninitiated, Brother from Another Planet is a great introduction to Sun Ra, and for Ra devotees, it’s required viewing.

Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (Dir. Robert Mugge, USA, 1980, video, 61 mins)
Consisting of explosive live footage of the Sun Ra Arkestra and fascinating interviews with the man himself, A Joyful Noise is the complete Sun Ra experience. Filmed in and around Philadelphia and Washington D.C. when the Arkestra was living in Germantown, Robert Mugge’s documentary captures the group at the height of its creative powers. Each live performance featured in the film further illustrates the distinctive alchemy Sun Ra was able to create with his disciplined band. Ra makes his case for a better world through music, transcending banal, earthbound realities to produce a strange and fascinating aesthetic fusing ancient history with future visions.

WED 07-22 @ 7PM: King Britt & Rucyl, “Saturn Never Sleeps”
FREE!

“Saturn Never Sleeps” is a cosmic adventure in contemporary music. For this artist-curated event, Philadelphia DJ, composer and producer King Britt, in collaboration with multimedialist Rucyl, present a night of sonic and visual funk taking micro-edits of Sun-Ra source music and combining it with live experimentation together with video collage.

WED 07-29 @ 7PM: Sonic Liberation Front & Planet Y, curated by Ars Nova Workshop

Please join Ars Nova Workshop and ICA for two very special performances in conjunction with Pathways to Unknown Worlds. An expanded 12-member Sonic Liberation Front, the Philadelphia ensemble acclaimed for their iconoclastic combination of Free Jazz passion and Afro-Cuban percussion, will premiere “Jetway Confidential No.3 (for Sun Ra)”, a new composition dedicated to Sun Ra and commissioned specifically for this performance, and perform an arrangement of Sun Ra’s “Where Pathways Meet” from 1978’s Lanquidity recording, which featured saxophonist and SLF member Julian Pressley. This evening will also feature a very rare appearance from Planet Y – Buchla Music Easel master Charles Cohen and Stinking Lizaveta’s Yanni Papadopoulos, best described as “Subotnick meets Sun Ra meets Schnitzler.” (Aquarius Records) In addition, newly-unearthed archival films will be projected on the gallery walls.

Led by percussionist Kevin Diehl, a protégé of Free Jazz pioneer Sunny Murray, Sonic Liberation Front merges post-bop with traditional Afro-Cuban Yoruba roots music. While other ensembles have merged Bata drumming and jazz, none have done it with the vigor of SLF. The band members are true students of the Lukumi tradition under the guidance of percussionist/omo aña Chuckie Joseph, a lifelong Yoruba cultural scholar. It’s been said a million times that all music originates in West Africa ¬ and by returning the focus to its origins, SLF achieves a natural eclectism that serves as a fountain of ingenuity. Ancient to the future, indeed. For this special performance, an expanded 12-piece SLF performs featuring some of the most notable names in Philadelphia’s exploratory music scene including members of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Make A Rising, and Shot x Shot.

Planet Y: Yanni Papadopoulos (dg-20 Casio digital guitar), Charles Cohen, (Buchla Music Easel)

Sonic Liberation Front: Todd Margasak (cornet), Terry Lawson (tenor saxophone/flute), Dan Scofield (alto saxophone), Julian Pressley (alto saxophone), Brent White (trombone), dmHotep (guitar), Travis Woodson (guitar), Matt Engle (double-bass), Chuck Joseph (Bata drums/drumkit), Shawn “Dade” Beckett (Bata drums/percussion), Khari Clemmons (Bata drums), Kevin Diehl (Bata drums/drumkit)

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Jazz pioneer, bandleader, mystic, philosopher, and consummate Afro-Futurist, Sun Ra, (born Herman Poole Blount 1914, Birmingham, Alabama, died 1993) and his personal mythology have grown increasingly relevant to a broad range of artists and communities. “Pathways to Unknown Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn & Chicago’s Afro-Futurist Underground, 1954-1968” presents a collection of paintings, drawings, prints, manuscripts, ephemera, and video produced by and about Ra and his associates–much of it previously unseen.

This exhibition, on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art April 24 – August 2, 2009 in the second floor gallery, examines how Ra and his dynamic, continually-evolving ensemble, the Philadelphia-based Arkestra, crafted both their otherworldly image and fiercely independent approach to self-production.

Highlights of the exhibition include original drawings for their 1960’s albums Art Forms of Dimensions Tomorrow and Other Planes of There, and five newly discovered typed and annotated broadsheets. Until recently, only one such broadsheet was known to exist – the one that Ra gave saxophonist John Coltrane in 1956. The show will also include the unpublished manuscript, The Magic Lie, a book of Ra’s poetry, which has become influential in the nascent Black Islamic movement. In addition to these documents, the film Spaceways, by Edward English, will be on view. The film documents Ra and his Arkestra (a deliberate re-spelling of “orchestra”), in 1968, as they prepare to perform at Carnegie Hall.

Early in his career, Sun Ra spent virtually all of his time and energy on Chicago’s south side, identifying with broader struggles for black power and identity, and saw his music as a key element in that struggle. As well as Sun Ra’s connection to the incipient grass-roots Afro-Futurist movement in Chicago, he also has a connection to Philadelphia. In 1968, Sun Ra brought the Arkestra to Philadelphia, where his band mate Marshall Allen inherited a house on Morton Street in Germantown. The house served as band headquarters until Sun Ra’s death in 1993. The Arkestra continues to perform under the leadership of Marshall Allen, who still resides at the Germantown house.

Long admired among fans of progressive jazz, Ra and his personal mythology have grown increasingly relevant and influential to a broad range of artists and communities. His music touched on the entire history of jazz, but he was also a pioneer of electronic and space music, and free improvisation.

Sun Ra developed a complicated persona of cosmic philosophies and lyrical poetry that made him a pioneer of Afro-futurism (a term coined by cultural critic Mark Dery in his 1994 essay “Black to the Future.”)

“Pathways to Unknown Worlds” is curated by John Corbett, Anthony Elms and Terri Kapsalis for the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago and is coordinated at the ICA by Whitney Lauder Curatorial Fellow Stamatina Gregory. This exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.

Jazz Update: Chick Corea and John Mclaughlin's "Five Peace Band"

WPRB Jazz Director Max is here to fill you in on a new release from the world of jazz fusion. Got something to share? What new Jazz records have you been digging? Drop a line to our Jazz Department in the comments!

Right now, jazz legends Chick Corea and John Mclaughlin are touring with their “Five Peace Band.” The Five Peace Band is a fusion supergroup the likes of which has not been seen since Miles Davis created the genre some forty years ago. Chick and John are joined by Kenny Garrett on alto saxophone, Brian Blade on drums, and a personal favorite of mine, Christian McBride on bass.

When they announced the tour last year I was excited and bought tickets to see them when they came to New York as soon as they were available. I was worried briefly, though, that the group may not live up to my expectation. Although John McLauglin is without a doubt one of the most gifted guitarists ever, and a great composer, some of his recent albums have left a bit to be desired when compared to his earlier work (a few are also a bit heavy on the programmed synth for my taste). They have recently put out an album from some of the shows while they were in Europe which has put me at ease, since it is a spectacular collection of material.

Five Peace Band consists of two discs of live material divided into only eight songs (half of which are twenty minutes or longer). The extended tracks let every member of the band have a chance to really stretch out, and they do, with spectacular results. The only real problem with having such long tracks in general is that sometimes they begin to feel stale by the end; there is no reason to say in ten minutes what could be said in five. The Five Peace Band does not have this problem. Each track here follows a natural arc never wears out its welcome. Some, like the opening track “Raju,” start with and maintain throughout a driving intensity. Others, like “In a Silent Way/Its About That Time” have a slower or softer intro that over the course of six or seven minutes builds into that sort of driving intensity.

Closing the album is the standard “Someday My Prince Will Come”, which is a duet between Chick and John, which remains soft, lilting and beautiful from start to finish. In all cases the songs remain grossly entertaining. The bandmembers know how to listen to eachother are always interacting in interesting ways. Solos sometimes weave in and out of eachother as the musicians swap whose in front more or less as they choose to. The tracks are varied in sound as well. Although Mclaughlin continues to use the same basic subdued tone he has used on everything recently, there is a great deal of sonic variety elsewhere in the band. Chick switches from the Rhodes electric piano to the acoustic on select tracks (such as Jackie Mcleans blues, “Dr Jackle”) and Christian McBride switches liberally from electric bass, to plucked or bowed acoustic. All in all, no two tracks sound the same. If that doesn’t sound good on its own, then as a bonus, Herbie Hancock sits in with the band on one track, “In a Silent Way/Its About that Time” (the first time Herbie, Chick and John have played that cut together since they recorded with Miles). I don’t think words can do that song justice, needless to say its worth the price of admission on its own.

I would recommend that anyone fan of jazz at all at least give this album a look. I can only hope you enjoy it as much as I have. I cannot wait to see them live.