Saturday, July 19, 2008

Jazz in Paris for late July and on - The American Jazz Fest Continues

Jazz clubs in Paris are hopping this warm week and its easy to find great jazz music in Paris up till the end of July (when a lot of the players and clubs head out of town for the month of August) I like the programming in the American Jazz Festival at Sunset/Sunside - and my pick for the week is at this festival - Jeri Brown with the Jobic Masson trio.








Jobic plays a pretty outside free style when he gets going, but pulls in the reins a bit when working with singers and I think the combination of Jeri Brown's stylings with Jobic's work should be pretty amazing. They're on at the Festival Sunday the 26th and Saturday the 27th. - see our 'Best Of' page for detailed listings and the club listing page for addresses and phone numbers.

Next up ...and running until the 5th of August, there is the All Star Festival at New Morning. It is Jazz/Blues/World Music with a lot of bands making stop overs in Paris while they cruise the festival circuit. This great club is a little north of the downtown core, in the fabulous neighbourhoods around the Boulevards (a gorgeous 15 minute walk from Opera or a hop skip and a jump from Strasbourg St. Denis Metro) Here's the LINK to their site and my recommendation (as I'm on old ska fan from the days of the Specials and Madness and The Selector, who were my first concert!) for a really and fun night out would be the New York Ska Jazz Ensemble, playing on the 29th of July. Enjoy!!

Friday, July 18, 2008

Whiskey Bars with songs by Kurt Weill at the Edinburgh Fringe




For those of you travelling north this summer come see Whiskey Bars by Bremner Duthie, with the songs of Kurt Weill at the Edinburgh Fringe. I'll be in Edinburgh performing at the Fringe Festival with my show based around the songs of Weill. Here's a link to myspace site if you want to check out the recordings - not a jazz album - but a lot of these songs did end up becoming standards for other jazz recording artists, so think of this as a kind of historical reenactment of the original versions!

http://www.myspace.com/bremnersingsweill

here are the dates and times... come check out the show - it's only 6 pounds!

WHISKEY BARS

by Bremner Duthie, with songs by Kurt Weill

at The Vault, 11 Merchant Street

preview Aug 3, 9pm (1hr) £3.00

Aug 4-10, 12-17, 19-25, 8:40pm (1hr) £6.00(£5.00)

book online at edfringe.com

WHISKEY BARS AT THE ED FRINGE, THIS SUMMER

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/whiskey.bars/whiskey.html

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Fests and Super Groups - Live Jazz listings for Mid July upcoming in Paris




Live Jazz in Paris is alive and well this week and jazz clubs in Paris are not closing down for their summer holidays yet! So its a great time to get out to the clubs and festivals and see some great players.

Well, the fusion super group Return To Forever is at the Olympia on July 8th. Chick Corea, Al Di Meola, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White will be doing their virtuoso fusion thing with tickets going from 70 to 100 euros. It should be an amazing concert, though I have read some on-line reviews of their tour that complains a bit of a cold virtuosity sneaking into their playing - but I'm curious if age has added a new depth to what they do - it has been what, 30 years since ego and differing musical ambitions broke them up.


The Sunset/Sunside has the American Jazz Festival for the next two weeks. I'll post the entire schedule in the "Best Of' page (click through is over to the right) There are some fine young players - and I'll be curious to hear Dan Tepfer play on the 5th - he's the pianist son of a some friends of mine who've been running a wonderful performance space (Atelier de la Main D'Or) in Paris for years - they've provided a great launching pad for many careers and projects.


And this is a fab little Paris Jazz Fest - Les Arenes du Jazz takes place in the stately roman ruins of the tiny arena Lutece, on the left bank above the latin quarter - 27, Rue Chappe - 75018 Paris. Its a great history filled space and makes a wonderful outdoor concert hall...



and for those who like their jazz really 'outside' -although the Festival Rotonde de Choc takes place inside the Espace Jemmapes on the lovely Canal St. Martin (definately worth getting there early to put up at some outdoor terrace and people watch) the music should be as out there as Paris can provide. Perhaps we'll see the future fusion super group in the making as they push the boundaries of what improvised music can mean...




check out the 'best of' page for the sunset schedule and you'll find addresses for the clubs in our separate 'clubs' page...