EDITORIAL

May Day 2012, SEATTLE: For this Edition, we have changed our masthead to “Celebrating our 13th Year.” Notwithstanding being a lifelong jazzoid, the motivation for this site was being a high school band mom. In 1999 two Seattle High School Jazz Bands were first invited to join what had before then been an elite East Coast competition, brilliantly conceived and very personally administered by Wynton Marsalis, as the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Program.

Clarence Acox and Scott Brown led the Garfield and Roosevelt Jazz Bands into the lion’s den of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall; and my son Greg was lucky enough to have been along, with Mom and Dad in tow.

There is a NCAA commercial featured during the Final Four that speaks for college athletes with the tag line “we are all going pro in something other than sports.”

The same can be said for the students that have enjoyed the inspiration and teachings of Scott Brown and Clarence Acox--and others that have followed them in the Puget Sound region. The musical skills and disciplines learned in these elite music programs enrich each of their lives in many ways; and, most go on to go pro in something other than jazz.

Music has been the central motivation in Greg’s life since his days at Roosevelt. All through the USC music program--and climbing most every mountain in the Western U.S.--it has been his guitars, mandolins, fiddles, and now his stand-up base that has continued to be his rock, and guiding light to become what can only be described as a wonderful singer-songwriter.

He recently wrote, sang, performed all of the instruments; and, recorded in his own “Letter B Studios,” a song that--for my ear, as a marcher and protestor of the Cambodian invasion and the Vietnam War--feels like the timeless call of protest against greed and power. He speaks for many of his generation, and I am glad to share it with you, to stand with him, and join in support of his message. It may not be jazz, but it’s still got that swing.

OCCUPY JAZZ Facebook Page

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Roosevelt High Jazz Band places second at Essentially Ellington

 The Seattle Times:
By Paul de Barros
Seattle Times jazz critic

The Roosevelt High School Jazz Band has placed second at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition in New York.

The Seattle school, with a world-renowned jazz program, has won three times previously, but on Sunday was bested by a Florida magnet school, Dillard Center for the Arts, from Fort Lauderdale, which took first place, as it did last year. Miami’s New World School of the Arts, which won in 2005, placed third.

The announcement Sunday night came at the end of a concert by the three finalists and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall.

“The kids were a little disappointed because of how coherently they played,” said Roosevelt jazz-band director Scott Brown after the announcement. “Which is not taking anything away from Dillard. They played great.”

Brown said the Roosevelt kids “blew the roof off Avery Fisher Hall at the Sunday night concert.” Afterward, Brown said Duke Ellington’s granddaughter said to Brown, “Duke would have been proud to have had his music represented that way.”

Two other Seattle-area jazz bands competed over the weekend — Mountlake Terrace and Ballard.

Darin Faul’s Mountlake Terrace bunch are old hands, having been finalists six times, placing third in 2005 and 2011. But for Ballard this was all new, and the school’s band director, Michael James, was extremely pleased.

“It’s been a very cool experience,” said James. “I’m very proud of how my kids did. They were so thrilled.”

Continue reading at The Seattle Times.

 

Industrial Revelation Live!

On Tour with New Release “Live at the Eastside”

Industrial Revelation formed in 2005 with the collective interest to build a group that would have the ability to express freely outside a specific genre or label, and to play with the utmost passion. D’Vonne Lewis, Ahamefule J. Oluo, Evan Flory-Barnes & Josh Rawlings joined forces with a vision to follow in a similar musical vain of bands like Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam. They wanted to draw upon the power Seattle Grunge seemed to express boldly in the world during its heyday.
They have now embarked on 2 regional tours for the first time, as well as release the much anticipated ‘Live at the Eastside‘ album from recordings at the incredible Eastside Club Tavern in Olympia. Before the end of March Industrial Revelation also has plans to record a brand new album of entirely new material.

Visit their stunning web site:
http://www.IndustrialRevelation.com/
Free Download of “Live at the Eastside”:
http://Download/LiveAtTheEastside

It Dosen’t Get Any Better

Jazzoids highly recommends the opportunity to view this wonderful 135 minute webcast of the entire 2012 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Awards Ceremony & Concert. Presented in HD from Fredrick P. Rose Hall, the home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, and honoring the 2012 inductees: Jack DeJohnette, Von Freeman, Charlie Haden, and Sheila Jordan; with performances by Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. It just doesn’t get any better than this.