Lionel Loueke -][- HERITAGE – [Blue Note Records, 2012] –

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Amazon.com, Blue Note Records, Derrick Hodge, entertainment, Gretchen Parlato, Guitarist, LIONEL LOUEKE, Mark Guiliana, Music, Robert Glasper, robert glasper trio, Terence Blanchard, Vocalist, West African

Lionel Louke, HERITAGE

Lionel Loueke -][- HERITAGE – [Blue Note Records, 2012] –

On August 28, the acclaimed West African jazz guitarist/vocalist Lionel Loueke will release Heritage, his dynamic third Blue Note album, which was co-produced by label mate Robert Glasper. Heritage finds Loueke who was hailed by The New York Times as a gentle virtuoso exploring a more electric sound with a new trio featuring Derrick Hodge on electric bass and Mark Guiliana on drums. The album presents seven new compositions by Loueke, two by Glasper, and one co-written by the two. Glasper also contributes piano and keyboards to six tracks, while singer Gretchen Parlato provides background vocals on two tracks.

Chrysler named 2012 Detroit Jazz Festival Presenting Sponsor

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African American, Chick Corea, Chrysler, Detroit Jazz Festival, DL Media, Gary Burton, Imported from Detroit, Pat Metheny, Sonny Rollins, Terence Blanchard, Wayne Shorter, Wynton Marsalis

“The world’s largest free jazz festival branded “Imported from Detroit”

Today the Detroit Jazz Festival announced that the Chrysler brand will be the official presenting sponsor for the 2012 festival. The sponsorship is an extension of its successful “Imported from Detroit” campaign, celebrating the spirit and determination of Detroit and its residents.

Flux Music [Jazz] Essentials … featuring [Blanchard, Brecker, & Di Meola]

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African American, Al di Meola, Jazz, Michael Brecker, Terence Blanchard

Flux Music Essentials

Greeting’s jazz connoisseurs, it’s great to return with another intriguing palette of creative music from some of today’s most unique, adventurous and inspiring voices known and unknown artists alike in the world of jazz.

Terence Blanchard - Flow

Terence Blanchard -][- Flow – [BLUE NOTE, 2005]

Terence Blanchard’s “Flow” may seem from the title to be some sort of easy-going smooth jazz effort. Instead, it’s a fairly strong mainstream jazz CD. The core group is a sextet, though it switches around, and Herbie Hancock evens plays on two songs. The three “Flow” songs are all fairly loose quartet jams — just trumpet, guitar, bass and drums. Blanchard lets his bandmates bring the tunes, and despite variations in style the CD flows nonetheless. “Wadagbe” is a good Lionel Loueke song which includes Lionel’s wordless yelps. I could do without the intro, though. “Benny’s Tune” is a slow song, also by Loueke, but it sounds more like a song from a Blanchard album than a Loueke album. “Wandering Wonder” is strong uptempo, mainstream stuff. “The Source” is by drummer Kendrick Scott and builds and gathers song parts like so many eighth notes laying in the grass. Bassist Derrick Hodge’s “Over There” is strong enough to get revisited in Blanchard’s 2007 “A Tale Of God’s Will” CD. Brice Winston wrote “Child’s Play” and it reminds me of something Wayne Shorter might have written. “Harvesting Dance,” by Aaron Parks, is another long, strong tune to close the CD.

“Flow” is a modern, mainstream CD, but there’s much more to it than its title indicates. There’s strong writing and improvisation. Pretty much any jazz fan ought to like this CD. —Anthony Cooper | Amazon.com

31st Detroit International Jazz Festival 2010 Edition of the Labor Day Weekend Classic to Celebrate Flame Keepers

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Bobby Watson, Branford Marsalis, Mulgrew Miller, Terence Blanchard

Detriot International Jazz Festival

Allen Toussaint, Take 6, Branford Marsalis, Mulgrew Miller, Roy Haynes, Manhattan Transfer, Kirk Whalum, and Mambo Legends Orchestra on tap.

Today, festival organizers announced the lineup for the 31st Detroit International Jazz Festival (DJF), Friday, September 3 through Monday, September 6, in downtown Detroit.

Subtitled “Flame Keepers – Carrying the Torch for Modern Jazz,” the Detroit Jazz Fest will feature a veritable “dean’s list” of alumni who passed through the “schools” of Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Betty Carter, Ray Brown, Miles Davis and Gil Evans. “2010 artists Mulgrew Miller, Bobby Watson, Branford Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Randy Brecker, and Benny Green were all in Blakey’s band at one time or another,” says festival director Terri Pontremoli. “These musicians went on to develop their own bands, explore new territory and nurture a new generation of flame keepers,” she added. “In jazz, a lot of press is given to the veterans or to the young lions. I am happy to focus this year on these “middle men” who are in the peak of their creative and technical powers, making significant music in our time.”

Terence Blanchard nominated for the Best Improvised Jazz Solo

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African American, Composer, Grammy Nominated, Terence Blanchard, Trumpet

Terence Blanchard

Los Angeles–Three-time Grammy Award-winning composer and world-renowned trumpet player Terence Blanchard’s recording, Dancin’ 4 Chicken, has been nominated for the Best Improvised Jazz Solo Grammy. The track was featured on Jeff “Tain” Watts’ album, Watts. Additionally, Blanchard composed the original music for the soundtrack for the feature film Cadillac Records, which was nominated for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media. The 52nd annual Grammy Awards will be presented in Los Angeles on Sunday, January 31, 2010.

Currently signed to Concord Music Group, Terence Blanchard and his band have just finished a world tour in support of his critically-acclaimed new CD, Choices, featuring guest artists Bilal, Lionel Loueke and author/educator/political activist Dr. Cornel West. Earlier this year Blanchard took home the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Solo with Be-Bop, a track from Live at the 2007 Monterey Jazz Festival, and in 2008 received a Grammy for his CD, A Tale Of God’s Will (A Requiem For Katrina). Blanchard also performed live on the 2009 Grammy Awards broadcast with Lil’ Wayne, Robin Thicke and Allen Toussiant.

The Terence Blanchard Group | Choices

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African American, Jazz, Terence Blanchard, Trumpet

The Terence Blanchard Group | Choices [Concord Jazz, 2009]

The Terence Blanchard Group

Concord Jazz presents Choices, the new CD from three-time Grammy award winning trumpet player and composer Terence Blanchard. Recorded in March in Blanchard’s hometown of New Orleans at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Choices addresses the choices we all make in life – both as a society and on a personal level. Blanchard will premiere Choices at a series of concerts at the Ogden in late July which are being filmed for an upcoming documentary.

Accompanying Blanchard on the album are longstanding band members Fabian Almazan on piano, Derrick Hodge on bass and Kendrick Scott on drums, along with newcomer Walter Smith lll on saxophone, all of whom wrote significant track contributions to the CD as well (a complete track listing is attached to this release.) Guest artists include writer, speaker, educator and activist Dr. Cornel West, critically-acclaimed guitarist and Blanchard protégé Lionel Louke, and singer, musician and composer Bilal. West performs spoken word pieces on the album with Bilal providing vocals on several of the tracks.

The Weekend Spin [Blanchard, Urban Knights, Redman & Reeves]

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African American, Dianne Reeves, Female Vocalist, Grover Washington Jr., Jazz, Joshua Redman, Ramsey Lewis, Saxophone, Terence Blanchard, Trumpet

Hi everyone, this week concludes on the flip-side with some seriously radical jazz sounds featuring the likes of trumpeter Terence Blanchard, and Urban Knights which features Grover and Ramsey is possibly the best all-star group projects of the 90’s.  Also the cool timbre of tenor hornman Joshua Redman is always an enjoyable experience and finally one of my favorite female vocalists Dianne Reeves rounds out the playlist for this weeks segment of the Weekend Spin.

Terence Blanchard | Flow [Modern Jazz/Blue Note/2005]

Terence Blanchard

For a musician like Terence Blanchard, flow is about finding the moment when the struggle finally seems worthwhile, when all the years of study and work make sense. At the start of filming, Terence happily speculated that he may have finally assembled the perfect creative unit, a band that grows individually, and simultaneously as a group: “With this band, I just feel born-again! [laughs] It’s given me new life, piqued my curiosity, made me work hard again to really try to redefine myself, to develop and just be an artist. At the same time, I’m really having so much fun…”  In the course of Flow’s visual collage of narrative, travelogue, and tunes — filmed on four continents — Blanchard, chillmaster of the urban film score (Mo’ Better Blues, Malcolm X, Barbershop, She Hate Me, The 25th Hour) and his young, incredibly innovative band nightly pushed the edges, inventing new music that touched the souls of audiences from Paris to New Orleans, at a huge venue in Tokyo and an intimate club in Osaka, and from the street scene of South Africa to the swimming-pool-studded canyons of Hollywood. But the exotic settings serve to frame the human background of the very real daily lives of six musicians, constantly on the move physically and creatively. ~ Source: Amazon.com/Jim Gabour