Discover Top Posts Tagged with #jim luce

Progressive Silenced: Cori Loses Primary to Pro-Israel Opposition

Cori Bush, a prominent member of the progressive “Squad” in Congress, has lost her primary race. Pro-Israel groups spent millions to defeat her. Bush is known for her strong stance on human rights. She is also known for her opposition to Israeli policies. Her loss highlights the significant influence of political funding. It also demonstrates the challenges faced by those who speak out against…

#Cori Bush #Equality #Human rights #Jim Luce #Justice #Leadership #New York City #Political Funding #Pro-Israel Lobby #progressive politics #Squad #US Politics

The Intrepid Discover - Jazz @ Caramoor turns Twenty (as I turn Fifty?!)

by Barbara Prisament

I am not a jazz "expert" but my roots run deep, back to my childhood home in Queens NY where my mom Millie, a lover of big band swing music and I, young punk rocker, traded songs. I would play her the Ramones, she would play me Tommy Dorsey. I would offer her a Clash song, she would respond with Ella Fitzgerald, Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark (me) - Harry James (she) and we could go on this way for hours at a time. One day I pulled her 78 records down from the shelf, and made a mix tape. I called it: "Songs of the 1940's" and it featured many of her favorite recordings. I still have that well worn TDK cassette tape, I play it to this day, and though my mom is no longer with us, every time I put it on, we're together and she's turning me on to the music that she loved...just like it was yesterday. In later years I would connect with jazz again as I had the great pleasure of working with Bruce Lundvall and the fine folks at Blue Note Records, during my tenure at Capitol, and I was always in awe of the music they released, always wishing that I knew it better, my entry point still not always clear....

But recently something has dawned on me. Jazz music has within it something I can't quite put my finger on, and I think that's exactly why I just might be starting to really get it. It's the not knowing! It's the thing I've realized truly feeds adventure, and my quest for transcendence - the ability to be in the moment and not know what's going to happen and just experience it. This aspect of jazz performance - this state - is probably at the heart of all music, all experience even, but somehow I think that jazz - done well - is predicated upon it. It crystallized for me even more in a conversation with tenor saxophonist Tim Armacost.

I had approached Tim, a friend and musician that I admire and respect, to find out what turned him on about the artists performing at this year's Caramoor Jazz Festival and he obliged, raving about Luciana Sousa right off the bat: "there are singers and then there are singers" he exclaimed - saying her "voice is a jazz instrument", in the bossa nova tradition and "just great!". He also waxed poetic about Lionel Loueke - a guitarist of African descent who blends traditional West African music with jazz - "very soulful and so interesting", then I mentioned Delfeayo Marsalis and the Uptown Jazz Orchestra and the choice of big bands - The Charles Tolliver Big Band and the Mingus Big Band and his eyes really opened wide and sparkled: "these bands are going to fly!" he exclaimed! "Ah! Why?" I asked "why these particular big bands?". "It's because of the band leaders and what they allow for the musicians...freedom!" he said. "They don't 'over-write', they leave the musicians room to improvise and the space to fly.....".

Now we're talking!....and I get it. Freedom within the structure. Room for the not knowing. If the musicians have the space to fly then we (the audience) do too! And if they don't know exactly what will happen in advance and we don't know exactly what will happen in advance...the possibilities are endless. We can share the adventure and fly together!

Maybe that's part of why Caramoor gave each day of this year's Jazz Festival a theme: July 26 - day one: Celebration!, July 27 - day two: Expression!, July 28 - day three: Freedom! or why Jim Luce, Artistic Director, Caramoor Jazz Festival talks about the freedom with which so many, perhaps all, of these artists infuse their music in this video piece that introduces this year's festival, and the artists who will perform for us:

While upstate visiting my cousins last weekend and still contemplating the festival, I reached out to one more Westchester jazz friend, Mark Morganelli - jazz musician (trumpet!) and presenter in his own right (Jazz Forum Arts) only to find out that he helped music direct the very first Caramoor Jazz Festival 20 years ago, at the invitation of Jim Luce himself, and when he heard this years lineup he lit up too! It turns out that Luciana Souza is one of his favorite Brazilian singers on the scene today, Adam Makowicz's technique and interpretations "blow him away" and his accolades went on from there. As I hung up the phone, my cousin Warren, a jazz lover who had been looking at the line-up while I spoke with Mark, called out from the kitchen: "Vijay Iyer! He's amazing!" regarding the highly touted pianist on Saturday's schedule, followed by another exclamation about the Mingus Big Band - a group he's had the pleasure of seeing at the Jazz Standard in NYC and loves, and a third about Jason Marsalis's Vibes Quartet: "this has been all over NPR!" (...a vibes quartet? cool!) The same message, coming at me from all sides...

Jim Luce put it this way:

We are at a special moment. Maybe a defining moment. Because at twenty years, we're poised right now to join the Umbria Jazz Festival, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and Newport as one of the most important jazz festivals in the world.

So...I can't think of a better way to spend my own 50th birthday (coincidentally July 27th!) than with friends and family under a picnic tent at this year's 20th Anniversary Jazz Festival! Look for the pop up tent with the Intrepid Discoverer b-bday bash sign - maybe the sign will read: "Fifty and Free!" (liberty that is!) who knows what awaits in the second half century!....and if you see it please stop by to say hello and join my friends and family for a toast celebrating 50 years of life (me + those great Mingus records!), 20 years of Jazz at Caramoor, freedom...expression...and the not-knowing! Cheers!

"Songs of the 1940's" (photograph by Barbara Prisament)

#Intrepid Discoverer #Barbara Prisament #Caramoor Jazz Festival #Jim Luce #Umbria Jazz Festival #Newport Jazz Festival #New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival #Mingus Big Band #Luciana Souza #Delfeayo Marsalis #the Uptown Jazz Orchestra #Vijay Iyer #Charles Tolliver Big Band #Lionel Louike Trio #Blue Note Records #Capitol Records #Bruce Lundvall #Tim Armacost #Mark Morganelli

IAHD Institutes Recognize Anchor Rita Cosby

TheBarnYardGroup Sr. Client Consultant Lorraine Cancro quoted in Jim Luce's The Stewardship Report on the Institutes of Applied Human Dynamics honoring Rita Cosby.