Vision Festival

Sunday 5/28/2017 Show: Kidd Jordan

Photo: Kidd Jordan @ the 2016 Vision Fest | © Joyce Jones/ Suga Bowl Photography. Some Rights Reserved. Creative Commons CC-NC-BY-ND. Used with Permission.

The next show will air on Sunday, May 28, 2017 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. Suga’ In My Bowl continues its Vision 22 coverage featuring the 2008 Lifetime of Achievement recipient composer, saxophonist, teacher and mentor Edward “Kidd” Jordan.

Edward “Kidd” Jordan (May 5, 1935) was born in Crowley, Louisiana, and was raised during the time when rice farming was the predominant economic activity in the area. Jordan has noted that the music in southwestern Louisiana was “strictly Zydeco and Blues from way around, and that’s what I came up listening to.” Zydeco musician Clifton Chenier hailed from the same area, as did tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet (whose music teacher also instructed Jordan).

Jordan’s first instruments were C-melody and alto saxophones. While in high school, Jordan began performing “stock arrangements for three or four saxophones” with some older musicians, and immersed himself in the music of Charlie Parker. Jordan read transcribed solos in Down Beat magazine but also learned Parker’s music by ear. He credits Illinois Jacquet with first giving him the idea of playing free improvisation, but was more profoundly affected by the free jazz of Ornette Coleman (who had previously performed in the area with blues bands).

Jordan majored in music education at Southern University, attending the school at the same time as Alvin Batiste (his brother-in-law). He originally planned to become a classical alto saxophonist. He moved to New Orleans in 1955, and began playing frequent R&B gigs with musicians such as Guitar Slim, Ray Charles, Big Maybelle, Big Joe Turner, Chuck Willis (with George Adams on baritone) and Choker Campbell. Jordan has described these gigs as being “satisfying for me, because there was a feeling that you’d get from dealing with that. I’ve played with some of the great female vocalists, from Gladys Knight to Aretha Franklin, or Big Maybelle, Little Esther, Lena Horne, and there’s an aesthetic in dealing with those people that a whole lot of people don’t get to. And the aesthetic from the Blues is a part of the thing that I want to have in my playing. I don’t care how out it gets.”

Jordan performs on tenor, baritone, soprano, alto, C-melody and sopranino saxophones, as well as contrabass and bass clarinets. He has indicated a preference for playing “outside” music (for example, free improvisation) on tenor, because he closely associates the alto with his earlier study of classical repertoire, tone, and technique. Jordan has performed and recorded with a wide selection of musicians in styles ranging from R&B to avant-garde jazz, including Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, R.E.M., William Parker, Alvin Fielder, Archie Shepp, Fred Anderson, Ornette Coleman, Ellis Marsalis, Cannonball Adderley, Ed Blackwell, and Cecil Taylor. In 2008, he was awarded a lifetime recognition honor by the Vision Festival.

In his performances and recordings his music is entirely improvised: “Everything you hear on my albums is improvised.” he explains. “It’s collective improvisation, but there are no tunes. I tried writing down ideas a long time ago but I don’t do that anymore.”

The French Ministry of Culture recognized Jordan as a Knight (Chevalier) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1985. The French government bestowed him with their highest artistic award for his impetus as a visionary educator and performer.

Jordan taught Donald Harrison and Branford Marsalis while the two were teenagers, and was an instructor at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA). As an instructor of jazz studies at Southern University at New Orleans, Jordan encouraged his students to pursue new approaches to traditional musical forms. One of Jordan’s students was trombonist Charles Joseph, who would go on to co-found the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Jordan composed “Kidd Jordan’s Second Line” for the Dirty Dozen Brass Band prior to their first European appearance in 1982, and has also performed with the band.

In 2006, Jordan lost his home and most of his possessions during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. A few weeks after the hurricane, he recorded the album Palm of Soul in Brooklyn with William Parker and Hamid Drake. Jordan has since returned to New Orleans In 2011, the television series Treme featured a track from Palm of Soul, “Last of the Chicken Wings.” Jordan later made a brief appearance in Treme.

(Bio adapted from Wikipedia)

Vision 22 starts Sunday, May 28 at Anthology Film Archives. Vision 22 features film, dance, music, visual art and poetry. Suga’ will open the program with a spoken word piece titled “Negroidal Noise” by Kalamu Ya Salaam featuring Kidd Jordan from his release My Story My Song.

Kidd Jordan will appear at Vision 22 on Friday, June 2, for the 9:30 p.m. set with the Dave Burrell Quartet: Dave Burrell – Piano, Kidd Jordan – Tenor Saxophone, William Parker – Bass, William Hooker – Drums. See our blog for an extended preview and full coverage of this year’s Vision Fest. WBAI proudly returns as a media sponsor.

This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

Web Extras:

Watch Jordan lead a quartet with bassist William Parker, drummer Hamid Drake, and the late violinist Billy Bang in this live performance.

Watch  Jordan with drummer Milford Graves and pianist DD Jackson in this 2013 live performance at the Vision Festival.

Watch  Jordan in this 2017 improvised set at the Hi Ho Lounge in New Orleans.

Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.

Sunday 5/14/2017 Show: Cooper-Moore

Photo: Cooper-Moore | © Joyce Jones/ Suga Bowl Photography. Some Rights Reserved. Creative Commons CC-NC-BY-ND. Used with Permission.

The next show will air on Sunday, May 14, 2017 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. “Suga’ In My Bowl” kicks off its Vision 22 coverage featuring this year’s Lifetime of Achievement recipient composer, performer, instrument builder/designer, storyteller, teacher, mentor, and organizer, Cooper-Moore.

Cooper-Moore has been a major, if somewhat behind-the-scenes, catalyst in the world of creative music for over 40 years. As a child prodigy, Cooper-Moore played piano in churches near his birthplace in the Piedmont region of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

His performance roots in the realm of avant jazz music date to the NYC Loft Jazz era in the early/mid-70s. His first fully committed jazz group was formed in 1970 – the collective trio Apogee with David S. Ware and drummer Marc Edwards. Sonny Rollins asked them to open for him at the Village Vanguard in 1973, and they did so with aplomb. A studio recording of this group was made in 1977, and issued as Birth of a Being on hatHut under Ware’s name in 1979 (re-mixed and re-issued in expanded form on AUM Fidelity in 2015!).

Following an evidently rather trying European tour with Ware, Beaver Harris, and Brian Smith in 1981, Cooper-Moore returned home and completely destroyed his piano, with sledgehammer and fire, in his backyard. He didn’t play piano again until some years after, instead focusing his energies from 1981-1985 on developing and implementing curriculum to teach children through music via the Head Start program.

Returning to New York in 1985, he spent a great part of his creative time working and performing with theatre and dance productions, largely utilizing his hand-crafted instruments. It was not until the early 90s, when William Parker asked him to join his group In Order To Survive, that Cooper-Moore’s pianistic gifts were again regularly featured in the jazz context.

In the early ‘aughts the group Triptych Myth was his own first regular working jazz group in decades and together they blazed some trails (may again!) and released two albums; one rich formative, and one exquisite. Cooper-Moore’s creative life continues well, strong and unabated into the present day.

Among the many instruments Cooper-Moore has built are a diddley-bow, a three-string fretless banjo and a mouth bow played with hands and drumsticks. According to Cooper-Moore, “I have taken stuff out a dumpster to make an instrument which I have used at gigs. If you put me somewhere, and I had to play and didn’t have an instrument, I’d get everything I needed and make an instrument within a few hours.”

We’ll begin the show with an update on this year’s Vision Fest from organizer Patricia Nicholson Parker, and we’ll play a audio from a discussion between Moore and bassist William Parker from a recent salon.

(Bio adapted from Cooper-Moore’s page on Aum Fidelity Records)

Cooper-Moore performs at Vision Fest on May 29 with the Digtal Primitives and In Order to Survive ensembles. See our blog for an extended preview and full coverage of this year’s Vision Fest. WBAI proudly returns as a media sponsor.

This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

Web Extras:

Watch Cooper-Moore in this 2013 live performance at The Stone with William Parker, Hamid Drake, and Daniel Carter.

Watch Cooper-Moore in this 2008 live solo performance with his custom made instruments.

Watch Cooper-Moore in this 2017 live performance at Jazzhouse in Copenhagen with Digital Primitives.

Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.

Sunday 6/26/2016 Show: Andrew Cyrille part 2

Photo: Andrew Cyrille at 2016 Vision Fest | Joyce Jones. Some Rights Reserved. Creative Commons CC-NC-BY-ND.
 
The next show will air on Sunday, June 26, 2016 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast will wrap up our coverage of Vision 21 with part two of an interview with composer and drummer/percussionist Andrew Cyrille. This concluding half of the conversation will focus on Mr. Cyrille’s career from his time with Cecil Taylor until the present.
 

 
Andrew Cyrille, born in Brooklyn on November 10, 1939, studied with Philly Joe Jones in 1958 and then spent the first half of the 1960s studying in New York at Juilliard and the Hartnett School of Music. At the same time, he was performing with jazz artists ranging from Mary Lou Williams, Coleman Hawkins, and Illinois Jacquet to Kenny Dorham, Freddie Hubbard, Walt Dickerson, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, among others. He also played with Nigerian drummer Babtunde Olatunji and worked with dancers. In 1964 he formed what would prove to be an eleven-year association with Cecil Taylor, a gig that brought him new acclaim and established him in the vanguard of jazz drumming.
 
Starting in 1969, Cyrille played in a number of percussion groups with notable drummers including Kenny Clarke, Milford Graves, Don Moye, Rashied Ali, Daniel Ponce, Michael Carvin, and Vladimir Tarasov. Cyrille formed his group Maono (“feelings”) in 1975, with its fluid membership dictated by the forces his compositions called for rather than vice versa. Since leaving Taylor’s group, he has also worked with such top-flight peers as David Murray, Muhal Richard Abrams, Mal Waldron, Horace Tapscott, James Newton, and Oliver Lake, was the drummer on Billy Bang’s A Tribute to Stuff Smith (Soul Note 121216), notable for being the last studio session of Sun Ra.
 
An artist-in-residence and teacher at Antioch College (Yellow Springs, Ohio) from 1971 to 1973, Cyrille has also taught at the Graham Windham Home for Children in New York and is currently a faculty member at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
 
(Taken from Drummersworld – Top 500 Drummers)
 
This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones.
 
Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.
 
Web Extras
 
Read/view our expanded coverage of Vision 21 on our blog, where we have daily reviews, photos, and more!
 
Watch Cyrille with saxophonist Kidd Jordan and bassist William Parker in a live performance at the Vision Festival.
 

 
Watch Cyrille with TRIO3 collaborators saxophonist Oliver Lake and bassist Reggie Workman in a live performance at the Vision Festival.
 

 
Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.

Sunday 6/12/2016 Show: Andrew Cyrille

Photo: Andrew Cyrille at 2016 Vision Fest | Joyce Jones. Some Rights Reserved. Creative Commons CC-NC-BY-ND.
 
The next show will air on Sunday, June 12, 2016 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast will wrap up our coverage of Vision 21 with part one of an interview with composer and drummer/percussionist Andrew Cyrille. Part one of this conversation will focus on Mr. Cyrille’s career up to his time with Cecil Taylor.
 
Andrew Cyrille, born in Brooklyn on November 10, 1939, studied with Philly Joe Jones in 1958 and then spent the first half of the 1960s studying in New York at Juilliard and the Hartnett School of Music. At the same time, he was performing with jazz artists ranging from Mary Lou Williams, Coleman Hawkins, and Illinois Jacquet to Kenny Dorham, Freddie Hubbard, Walt Dickerson, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, among others. He also played with Nigerian drummer Babtunde Olatunji and worked with dancers. In 1964 he formed what would prove to be an eleven-year association with Cecil Taylor, a gig that brought him new acclaim and established him in the vanguard of jazz drumming.
 
Starting in 1969, Cyrille played in a number of percussion groups with notable drummers including Kenny Clarke, Milford Graves, Don Moye, Rashied Ali, Daniel Ponce, Michael Carvin, and Vladimir Tarasov. Cyrille formed his group Maono (“feelings”) in 1975, with its fluid membership dictated by the forces his compositions called for rather than vice versa. Since leaving Taylor’s group, he has also worked with such top-flight peers as David Murray, Muhal Richard Abrams, Mal Waldron, Horace Tapscott, James Newton, and Oliver Lake, was the drummer on Billy Bang’s A Tribute to Stuff Smith (Soul Note 121216), notable for being the last studio session of Sun Ra.
 
An artist-in-residence and teacher at Antioch College (Yellow Springs, Ohio) from 1971 to 1973, Cyrille has also taught at the Graham Windham Home for Children in New York and is currently a faculty member at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
 
(Taken from Drummersworld – Top 500 Drummers)
 
This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones.
 
Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.
 
Web Extras
 
Read/view our expanded coverage of Vision 21 on our blog, where we have daily reviews, photos, and more!
 
Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.

Sunday 5/29/2016 Show: Vision Festival 21 Preview

Photo: Bassist Henry Grimes — 2016 Vision Festival honoree
 
The next show will air on Sunday, May 29, 2016 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This membership/fund raising broadcast will preview the 2016 Vision Festival and feature interviews with pianist Geri Allen (in her first time Vision appearance), guitarist Marc Ribot, drummer Andrew Cyrille and composer/vocalist Lisa Sokolof honoring the career of bassist Henry Grimes. As usual, we will hear from organizer Patricia Nicholson Parker.
 

 
WBAI is media sponsor of Vision 21, New York’s longest running jazz festival. It starts June 5 with films on the Sun Ra Arkestra at Anthology Film Archives and moves to Judson Memorial Church from June 7 through 12 for nightly live avant garde jazz, poetry, dance, and visual art. See the full schedule at their site.
 
During this membership program, Arts for Art has generously donated 3 one-day passes to offer as thank you gifts for those who support WBAI-FM. You can pledge online or call in during the show. Suga’ will also offer 7 autographed copies of Quincy Troupe’s Miles & Me as a thank you gift for a pledge to help WBAI-FM/Pacifica Radio in New York continue to provide programming you enjoy.
 
From the publisher’s description of Miles and Me:
 
Quincy Troupe’s candid account of his friendship with Miles Davis is a revealing portrait of a great musician and an intimate study of a unique relationship. It is also an engrossing chronicle of the author’s own development, both artistic and personal. As Davis’s collaborator on Miles: The Autobiography,Troupe–one of the major poets to emerge from the 1960s–had exceptional access to the musician. This memoir goes beyond the life portrayed in the autobiography to describe in detail the processes of Davis’s spectacular creativity and the joys and difficulties his passionate, contradictory temperament posed to the men’s friendship. It shows how Miles Davis, both as a black man and an artist, influenced not only Quincy Troupe but whole generations.
 
This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones.
 
Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.
 
Web Extras
 
Watch the trailer for Vision 21:
 

 
Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.