click Rise to listen 3 Hour Show Sept 30, 2013 !!!
Hope you enjoyed the positive vibrations
check out the Playlist Below!!!
We talked about the Angel City Jazz Festival
and interviewed Jon Comeford Producer of
Icons Among us Jazz in the Present Tense
The most “Progressive Music Festival” that Los Angeles has ever known now in its 5th year continues to be on point with the music. Come out and experience Jazz music at its finest!
Redcat theater
Technology now allows musicians to emulate and manipulate any sound, to collaborate from long distances, to learn from people they’ve never met, and to deliver their music instantaneously to international legions of networked listeners. How have these changes affected a spontaneous art’s quality and depth? Who and what stands to benefit — and to suffer?
The Blue Whale
Redcat theater
6pm: 2013 Young Musician Competition Winners
LACMA Hosted by LeRoy Downs
Electric guitarist John Scofield returns to Royce Hall. This time around, he presents his
raucous, electronic-infused Überjam Band featuring Andy Hess on bass, rhythm guitarist Avi Bortnick, and Tony Mason behind the drum kit. Together they create a dizzying fusion of jazz, funk, atmospheric and electronic music.
The inaugural movement of the series directly challenging perceptions of what jazz is and what it is becoming by examining its innovative new voices as well as their influential forebears. We discover the primary questions associated with the jazz artists’ quest to define themselves and their art form. They bravely communicate their allegiance to the present time in the face of jazz legacies that are monumental. The new voices as well as the powerful journeymen weigh in on their search for mentorship and its powerful effect on success.
Our dialogue unfolds with Nicholas Payton, Terence Blanchard, Jason Moran, Russell Gunn, Matthew Shipp, Avishai Cohen, Bill Frisell, Greg Osby, Robert Glasper, Bugge Wesseltoft, Aaron Parks, Lionel Loueke, Frank Lacy and David King, featuring interview appearances with Wynton Marsalis, Herbie Hancock, Joe Lavano and George Wein.
Ford Theater Hosted by LeRoy Downs
Spend a weekend with the best and longest running Jazz Festival
LeRoy Downs introducing Lou Donaldson on the Night Club Stage at Monterey!
Click on Tim Jackson
The entire festival is going to be outstanding with a well crafted line-up of extraordinary “Jazz Musicians”! Come to Monterey for the weekend and spend some time with us. I will be over at Dizzy’s Den so make sure to stop by, say hello and enjoy the MUSIC!!!!!!
LeRoy Downs – The Jazzcat at Dizzy’s Den at MJF 2012
Diana
George
Good Friend, Great Human and Musical Legend George Duke. You are missed more than you can imagine.
Always Love
LeRoy Downs
Click link above for archive of George Duke Celebration
The World Stage Honors Jazz Master
Kenny Burrell with a Big Band Benefit Concert
and Tribute at the Ford, August 18, 2013
Los Angeles, CA –
The World Stage Performance Gallery is bringing the Jazz Masters series from their Leimert Park home to the Ford Theatres on August 18th at 6pm for a big band benefit concert and tribute to guitar legend Kenny Burrell. With music direction by John Beasley, the event will be an evening of contemporary large ensemble sounds with Burrell’s Los Angeles Jazz Orchestra Unlimited and Beasley’s MONK’estra.
Featured guests will be legendary guitarist Lee Ritenour and singers Gretchen Parlato, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dwight Trible. The event is sponsored by Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas. Metro is a community partner.
Hosted By “The Jazzcat” LeRoy Downs
“For Kenny Burrell’s tribute, outdoors on a hot summer night, with the moon high at the
Ford Amphitheatre, you are going to hear jazz luminaries play the solid, straight-ahead, elegant, and soulful style of jazz that Kenny Burrell helped create with Burrell playing in his big band, followed by a new modern jazz big band, MONK’estra, raising the temperature playing jazz with a contemporary twist,” says John Beasley, the event’s music director. “A stellar ensemble of the finest jazz musicians in Los Angeles who spend their days playing on film, TV, and records get loose and set themselves free playing in big bands. Expect syrupy sounding horns, exciting textures from the brass sections, propulsive sounds from the rhythm teams, imaginative soloing, and wall-to-wall sound of envelope-stretching arrangements from the The Los Angeles Jazz Unlimited Orchestra and MONK’estra, plus special guest guitarist Lee Ritenour and three mesmerizing vocalists.” This amazing list of talent will honor guitarist and composer Burrell in an evening that recognizes his prolific 60+ year career as well as his continued support of arts education. 
Kenny Burrell is one of the most respected jazz artists in the world. He has been active from 1951 to the present as a guitarist and composer in a variety of musical contexts including solo, small combo, large ensemble and symphony orchestra. He is a producer and recording artist whose extensive discography includes the critically acclaimed Guitar Forms; Ellington is Forever; and Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane. He has recorded 97 albums under his own name and several hundred with other artists. He has performed and recorded with many of the most influential musicians in jazz history including Duke Ellington, Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Oscar Peterson, Tony Bennett, Billy Holiday, Quincy Jones, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Smith, Art Blakey, Nat King Cole, Ray Charles, and Louis Armstrong.
Burrell, recipient of many awards, including a Grammy®, was named a 2005 Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, a title awarded annually to a handful of living figures in recognition of their exceptional contributions to the field of jazz. He also received a 2004 Jazz Educator of the Year award from DownBeat magazine for academic achievement and excellence in jazz education. Burrell’s Los Angeles Jazz Orchestra Unlimited (LAJOU), features some of the finest jazz musicians in Los Angeles and will showcase new music by LAJOU co-directors Burrell, Charley Harrison, and Dr. Bobby Rodriguez. The players in LAJOU include Burrell on guitar, Andre Delano, Randall Willis, Justo Almario, Hitomi Oba, and Charlie Owenson sax, Francisco Torres, Nick DePinna, Ryan Porter, and Maurice Spears on Trombone, Charlie Davis, Harry Kim, Rob Schaer, Courtney Jones, and Rodriguez on Trumpet, and a rhythm section of Billy Mitchell, Trevor Ware, and Clayton Cameron, all conducted by Harrison.
Music Director John Beasley
The Grammy®-nominated John Beasley has become one of the top jazz pianists and music directors on earth having directed tours by Steely Dan, Queen Latifah, and A.R. Rahman, shows including the Los Angeles Symphonic Jazz Orchestra, the United Nations sponsored International Jazz Day Concerts, the 2005 season of American Idol, various other music reality television shows and much more. His MONK’estra is a 17-piece BIG modern jazz BAND that captures the spirit of Monk’s unique quirkiness, offbeat accents, and punchy dissonances, in his fresh arrangements of Monk’s and others classic and original compositions. Beasley’s contemporary twist incorporates Afro-Cuban rhythms, modern jazz, hip-hop, big band instrumentation, and stunningly atmospheric ensemble textures, powerfully driven by a propulsive rhythm section.
The MONK’estra BIG BAND features sax players Bob Sheppard, Jeff Driskill, Justo Almario, Tom Luer, and Tommy Peterson, trumpeters Bijon Watson, Jamie Horvaka, Brian Swartz, and Gabriel Johnson, trombonists Francisco Torres, Wendell Kelly, Ryan Dragon, and Steve Hughes, bassist Rickey Minor, and drummer Gary Novak, with Beasley on keys.
Lee Ritenour
Growing up in L.A. in the 60s, Grammy® award-winning guitarist Lee Ritenour received a rich cross section of exposure to jazz, rock and Brazilian music. From one of his first sessions at 16 years old with the Mamas and Papas to accompanying Lena Horne and Tony Bennett at 18, his 40-year eclectic and storied career is highlighted by a Grammy® Award win for his 1986 collaboration with Dave Grusin, Harlequin; 17 Grammy® nominations; numerous #1 spots in guitar polls and the prestigious “Alumnus of the Year” award from USC. He has recorded over 40 albums, with 35 chart songs, notably the Top 15 hit “Is It You,” which has become a contemporary jazz radio classic. In the 90s, Ritenour was a founding member of Fourplay, the most successful band in contemporary jazz, with keyboardist Bob James, bassist Nathan East and drummer Harvey Mason. The first Fourplay album in 1991 spent an unprecedented 33 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s contemporary jazz chart. Adding to this legacy is his latest CD Smoke ‘n’ Mirrors; the recently completed Grammy® nominated recording Amparo, (a follow-up with Dave Grusin to their highlysuccessful 2001 Grammy® Award nominated contemporary classical crossover CD) and producer of Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band’s latest CD Act Your Age which was nominated for three Grammys.
Gretchen Parlato
Acclaimed jazz singer, and former Burrell student, Gretchen Parlato has performed and recorded with musicians such as Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Kenny Barron, Esperanza Spalding, Terence Blanchard, Marcus Miller and more. Parlato’s 2009 sophomore release, In a Dream was given rave reviews by NPR, Jazz Times, the Village Voice, and The Boston Globe. Billboard magazine hailed it as “the most alluring jazz vocal album of 2009.” Her 2011 release The Lost and Found received over 30 national and international awards including iTunes Vocal Jazz Album of the Year and Jazz Critics Poll No. 1 Vocal Album of 2011.
Georgia Anne Muldrow
Born to musical parents in Los Angeles, California, Georgia Anne Muldrow was born to play. Surrounded by music of all types and origins, and reading at the age of two broadened her receptivity to learning new information about the world around her. To this very day she carries the same spirit, and that makes her instrumentation and songwriting so unique. She has worked with trailblazing underground artists such as Dudley Perkins, her mother Rickie Byars Beckwith, Madlib, Wildchild, M. E. D., Big Pooh, Prince Po, The Visionaries, Casual, Jimetta Rose, and Eagle Nebula as well as commercial artists like Mos Def and Erykah Badu. Her releases include the Worthnothings, Olesi : Fragments Of An Earth, Sagala, Beautiful Minds, The Message Uni Versa, Umsindo, Early, Kings Ballad, SomeOthaShip, and the full length jazz album Ocotea.
Dwight Trible
Long affiliated with The World Stage, Dwight Trible is a singer who combines the best of vocal virtuosity with musicianship and improvisational skills to the delight of audiences and musicians alike. In addition to performing with his own group, the Dwight Trible Ensemble, Dwight is the vocalist with the Pharaoh Sanders Quartet and is also the vocal director for the Horace Tapscott Pan Afrikan Peoples’ Arkestra. Dwight has worked with such notables as Oscar Brown Jr., Charles Lloyd, Billy Childs, Kenny Burrell, Kenny Garrett, Harry Belafonte, Della Reese, Patrice Rushen, and LA Reid. Dwight’s collaborations with Horace Tapscott, Billy Higgins, Kamau Daaood and others have produced some of the finest musical moments in Los Angeles in recent years. Like his mentors, Dwight is not content to use his music just to entertain people, he uses his music to bring people together, to bridge the gap between the races, and to heal the human heart.
This event has reserved seating with ticket prices starting at $35 and additional prices at $50 and $65. Purchase by August 11 and save $5! Tickets are available at
or 323 461-3673 (for non-visual media 323 GO 1-FORD). To learn
about discounts for groups of 8 or more, please call 323 769-2147.
About The World Stage
The World Stage is a completely volunteer-run educational and performance arts gallery in Leimert Park Village, the heart of L.A.’s African American cultural community. The Stage, as it is affectionately called, was founded in 1989 by the late world-renowned master jazz drummer Billy Higgins and by poet and community arts activist Kamau Daáood in an attempt to fill a cultural void that existed in the Los Angeles community. Initially formed as a loose collective of artists and arts supporters, The World Stage has grown to assume a pioneering and pivotal role in the flowering of an arts movement in Leimert Park that has been hailed as the black cultural mecca by the Los Angeles Times.
For more information on The World Stage please see http://www.theworldstage.org/.
About The Ford Theatres
The Ford Theatres are located at 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood, CA 90068, just off the 101 Hollywood Freeway across from the Hollywood Bowl and south of Universal Studios.
The grounds open two hours before showtime for picnicking. The Ford offers a number of dining options: a variety of food and beverages is available on site and box dinners for evening events may be ordered in advance. Patrons are welcome to bring their own food and drink.
The Ford is disabled accessible. Portable wireless listening devices are available upon
request. On-site, stacked parking costs $5 per vehicle for evening shows and $1 per
vehicle for morning family shows. FREE non-stacked parking serviced by a FREE
shuttle to the Ford, for evening amphitheatre performances only, is available at the
Universal City Metro Station lot at Lankershim Blvd. and Campo de Cahuenga. The shuttle, which cycles every 15-20 minutes, stops in the “kiss and ride” area.
This event is part of the Ford Theatres 2013 Summer Season, a multi-disciplinary arts series produced by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission in cooperation with Los Angeles
County-based arts organizations. For a complete season schedule, directions to the theater and parking information, log on to www.FordTheatres.org.
The Jazzcat, LeRoy Downs, President of Make Music LA gets interviewed by Channel 4′s MeKahlo Medina of “Today in LA”. I talk about the importance of music and the concerts that are happening all over the city every year on June 21st, the first day of summer and Make Music LA Day!!! Dorsay Dujon, CEO of Make Music LA shows off the tour bus!!
at
The Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Ensemble (17 pieces)
with Special Guests….
Ambrose Akinmusirie, Zane Musa, Jessica Vautor, Zach Harmon and more…
Artist Kathie Foley
Kathie remembers Bronzeville, or more accurately, imagines it in her new exhibit at LA Artcore at the Union Center for the Arts in Little Tokyo. Her show is part of the larger Project Bronzeville, which has events throughout the month of June, including a play, a panel discussion and of course, a jazz show!!
Project Bronzeville is a combination of fine art, theater, a panel discussion and music coming together to commemorate the brief but vibrant part of LA history when Japanese Americans were forced out of their homes and businesses in Little Tokyo during WWII and African American families from the south moved into these vacant spaces and renamed the neighborhood “Bronzeville.”
Jim Black is at the forefront of a new generation of musicians bringing jazz into the 21st century. In addition to being one of the most influential drummers of our time, he is also the leader of one of the world’s most forward-thinking bands, AlasNoAxis.
in the late 1990s. Unlike most jazz ensembles where the particular musicians may come and go, drummer, composer and leader John Hollenbeck always wanted Claudia to be a ‘band’ with a sound not only determined by the compositions and the instrumentation, but with the actual players who perform the music.
Nicole Mitchell is a creative flutist, composer, bandleader and educator. With contemporary ensembles of varying instrumentation and size (from solo to orchestra). As the founder of Black Earth Ensemble, Black Earth Strings, Ice Crystal and Sonic Projections, Mitchell has been repeatedly awarded by DownBeat Critics Poll and the Jazz Journalists Association as “Top Flutist of the Year” for the last four years (2010-2013….
Pianist and composer Richard Sears grew up in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Northern California. In 2005, Richard received a scholarship to attend the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, where he studied with Shelly Berg, John Clayton, and Alan Pasqua.
nominated group Kneebody has created a diverse, loyal fan base in the United States and Europe. Founded in 2001, Kneebody has built upon an impressive array of individual resumes and conservatory training to create a truly singular voice within the instrumental world.
Born in Cuba, the musician-composer-educator incorporates American jazz traditions with his own Afro-Cuban roots to produce performances and compositions that flow from the rhythmic and hard-driving avant-garde to sweet-sounding lyricism. He brings his inimitable style to stages all over the world, performing regularly with the Yosvany Terry Quartet and Yosvany Terry and the Afro-Caribbean Quintet, as well as with the Gonzalo Rubalcaba Quintet and Eddie Palmieri and the Latin Jazz Ensemble. Yosvany has also worked with some of the biggest names in the business, including Roy Hargrove, Steve Coleman, Chucho Valdes, Silvio Rodriguez, Branford Marsalis, Paquito de Rivera, Dave Douglas, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Avishai Cohen, Meshell Ndegeocello, Cassandra Wilson, Israel “Cachao” Lopez, Wycliffe Gordon, Dafnis Prieto, Taj Mahal, Giovanni Hidalgo, David Murray, Joe Lovano, and Paul Simon.
