Legends of Jazz with Ramsey Lewis
If you’ve been like me, busy fretting about the latest machinations out of DC and letting your other interests slip, you may have (like me) totally missed out on the multimedia tidal wave about to engulf us in April (which, not by coincidence, is National Jazz Appreciation Month). I refer to the upcoming PBS series “Legends of Jazz with Ramsey Lewis” which is being billed as “the first weekly network television jazz show in 40 years.”
Each of the 13 weekly episodes will have a theme, such as “The Golden Horns,” “The Piano Masters,” and “American Songbook,” and will feature well-known jazz musicians both in conversation and in performance. If you have the fancy toys on your home multimedia system, the series will be in Dolby Surround 5.1 audio.
Each show in this ground-breaking series is theme-based and includes conversation with and performances by today’s most important jazz and jazz related musicians, including: Tony Bennett, Chick Corea, Al Jarreau, Dave Brubeck, Billy Taylor, David Sanborn, Phil Woods, Pat Metheny, Jim Hall, George Duke, Marcus Miller, Lee Ritenour, Clark Terry, Roy Hargrove, Chris Botti, Ivan Lins, Eddie Palmieri, the late Ray Barretto, Dave Valentin, Keb’ Mo’, Robert Cray, Jane Monheit, John Pizzarelli, Kurt Elling, Benny Golson, Chris Potter, Joey DeFrancesco, Dr. Lonnie Smith, and many more.
I referred to a multimedia tidal wave, and here are the details:
…this national TV series is accompanied by the successful LEGENDS OF JAZZ with Ramsey Lewis weekly radio show, which airs in more than 60 markets, a multi-city LEGENDS OF JAZZ tour across America and the launch of the media rich web site, www.legendsofjazz.net.
LRSmedia will launch its original branded music programming with a full complement of recorded products, including DVDs, CDs, digital and wireless products. Encoded from HD masters and presented in 5.1 Surround Sound, the first national product release, Showcase, available in April, a 2-disc CD/DVD collection of 13 unique performances from the series, including Al Jarreau and Kurt Elling on “Take Five,” Chris Botti’s “My Funny Valentine,” and a David Sanborn and Phil Woods duet on “Senor Blues”, among others.
Recently announced, WEA Corp., the Warner Music Group Corp.’s U.S. sales and retail marketing company, will be the exclusive U.S. distributor for LEGENDS OF JAZZ and future LRSmedia products.
The full press release, with effusive quotes from many of the series’ artists, can be found here.
Incidentally, for those new to jazz, Ramsey Lewis is a well-known jazz pianist born in 1935 and a Grammy-winning artist and composer. Detailed biography, discography, and other information are available at the link on his name.
Tip of the Week
Some of you may be in the process of completing your taxes, and if you’re fortunate enough to be getting some $$$ back, you might want to consider attending a jazz festival this year. Or you might want to attend a jazz festival to forget how much you paid in taxes this year, LOL. In either case, the spot to go to plan is here; the allaboutjazz.com festival listing has 425 festivals in their database, searchable by name and by location.
The latter is especially useful for folks like me (getting $122.56 back) who would prefer something close to home… Hmmm… Nothing within 25 miles… Nothing within 75 miles… Here we go – Quite a shindig in Asheville, NC. Unfortunately it was in January… Hmmm… Nothing else within 200 miles… Nothing within 400 miles… Looks like I’ll be buying some CDs on eBay with that money, just like last year, and taking Mrs. K.P. out to dinner… Hope you have better luck! 🙂
And while I was poking around at allaboutjazz.com I found this
It seems every time I go to this website I stumble onto something new. This time it was a link called Reassessing, a column where Trevor MacLaren pulls out an old vinyl disk and gives it a spin, listening with fresh ears and putting the work into context, especially under-appreciated gems. Among the records he finds have gotten short shrift over the years are Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way, Grover Washington’s Mister Magic, and most especially Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch, which he considers on the same level as Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.” Pretty impressive praise! While I think he may be a little over the line on that claim (although it is a great album), I found his comments interesting even when I disagreed with him, and well worth checking out. You never know when you might luck on to some of this old vinyl at a garage sale, or find it reissued on CD (as I did with Out To Lunch).
Speaking of that tax refund and eBay
…On dada’s recommendation I bid on a couple of St. Germain CDs this week, but got outbid. 🙁
Maybe I’ll have better luck next time…
What are you listening to this week?
