Wynton's missed deadline (again)

Breaking news via artscriticATL: Wynton's performance of Blues Symphony has been postponed for the third time. Instead of debuting the hour-long work on Nov. 19 at 8 p.m., the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will instead play the first two movements of the piece. The full shebang will be performed at Morehouse College on January 14. No word on refunds.

Friday: Jeff Hamilton Trio

Friday night, Churchill Grounds welcomes the Jeff Hamilton Trio, a dynamic group of musicians featuring the excitable Tamir Hendelman on piano, Christoph Luty on bass and, of course, Hamilton on drums. I've seen countless performances by these guys over the years at the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival at the University of Idaho, and the group has always brought thoughtful, exciting improvisations — and Hamilton's omnipresent "I'll play the melody on my kit" party trick — to each show.

In September, Hamilton's group issued Symbiosis, an album full of unexpected arrangements of standard jazz fare and a few original compositions. The drummer and pianist also helped out on the debut release by guitarist Graham Dechter, a fellow member of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. While both CDs are very different — the latter presents Hamilton as an accompanist, and Symbiosis is the best of Hamilton in his element — the two discs should be viewed together as picture of Hamilton's versatility, a snapshot of the drummer's musical personality.

If you go to the concert, don't forget to tweet.

Oh yeah — Jeff Hamilton was a long-time member of the Ray Brown Trio. Check it out:




The Jeff Hamilton Trio. Friday; 9:30 p.m. Churchill Grounds. $20 with a $10 minimum.

Piedmont, jazz and the AJC

The city announced yesterday that the ban on festivals at the newly thirst-quenched Piedmont Park has been eviscerated, setting the stage for a triumphant 2010 Atlanta Jazz Festival in Piedmont Park. The AJC has the story. This is good news, of course, because Woodruff Park (site of the 2008 event) wasn't cutting it, and the 2009 venue wasn't much better. But something in the AJC article irked me a bit. Read on:

"[Camille Russell] Love said the last time the Jazz Fest was held in Piedmont Park, up to 150,000 people attended over the three-day Memorial Day weekend. Last year’s event at Grant Park attracted 20,000 at best."

This statement would imply that a return to Piedmont Park would automatically boost attendance. While that might be true, the author didn't even consider the festival lineup when comparing attendance numbers between 2007 and 2009. The 2009 festival featured Freddy Cole and Russell Gunn. A quick look here reminded me that Vijay Iyer, Charles Tolliver, Bobby Hutcherson and, oh yeah, Herbie Hancock were here in 2007.

Maybe a return to Piedmont means a return to plump sponsorships and high-quality national acts, but I doubt it. Let's at least hope that more local musicians are asked to perform during the 2010 festival.

Art vs. the mayoral candidates

Late last month, The Metro Atlanta Arts & Culture Coalition tasked Atlanta's four mayoral frontrunners with outlining a plan, in burnished prose, to strengthen the city's arts programs. The AJC covered Monday's ensuing debate.

What's that? 5,000-odd words and no direct mention of the Atlanta Jazz Festival? The debate did center around arts and artists and visual art-related things, but the word "music" did pop up once. Here's Lisa Borders, the current council president, on creating new venues:

"I would lead the charge to build infrastructure to include performance spaces, museums, historical parks, galleries, artist studios and live/work spaces, arts-focused retail establishments, music and film production studios, dance studios, and crafts workshops, among other improvements. We should access and leverage TAD funding to develop these spaces, create developer incentives using existing tax mechanisms, and repurpose abandoned but convertible facilities in the City, such as the AJC building downtown."

Athens Blur, issue 10

My piece on pianist Tyrone Jackson's Another Voyage for the 10th issue of Athens Blur magazine is now up online for your viewing pleasure. To read more about Jackson and the local scene, check out my interview with him here.

Some of us still buy CDs

I find a lot of my music and get exposed to new artists through blogs, Rhapsody, iTunes and other avenues only made possible by the Internet. But I still cherish CDs and have been disheartened to find that, as digital music sales have become the norm, record stores are stocking fewer and fewer jazz artists. I would much rather have a tangible album than a bunch of computer files any day, so I've made it a practice to go to record stores for my purchases. Sure, I can buy discs through online retailers, but waiting patiently for new music to arrive in my mailbox is not a trait I possess.

Stubborn in my quest, I recently had to go to three different retailers before I found a copy of the just-released Roy Hargrove Big Band album, Emergence, and I still haven't been able to find any Carla Bley CDs in Atlanta. Surely, these aren't the most popular musicians, but they are a far cry from esoteric artists. I've tried used bookstores, I've tried record stores, I've tried Borders and Barnes & Noble. So, I'll put it to you, humble reader: Where can you find a decent selection of jazz CDs in this town?

Update: This past weekend, I procured a turntable from my future father-in-law. Turns out, it's a lot easier to get really, really good jazz vinyl in these parts. (One of my recent purchases, which was $3 at Wax 'n Facts.)

Atlanta tweets

Much has been written about Terry Teachout's now infamous column Can Jazz Be Saved?, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on August 9. Bloggers have dissected Teachout's arguments — NPR's A Blog Supreme has a nice list of the various reactions — but nobody has proposed a way to actually prove him wrong. Now, a call to action. Writer Howard Mandel is encouraging jazz lovers and twitter users to tweet concert reviews. So if you find yourself at Churchill Ground or Studio 281 this weekend, take a few minutes to long onto your computer and wax poetic about jazz in the city.