For more than a century Detroit’s factories have sent tens of millions of vehicles into the world. That’s remarkable, but so too is the city’s assembly line of great jazz pianists: Hank Jones, Barry Harris, Tommy Flanagan, Alice Coltrane and Geri Allen. Lesser-known, but equally polished are figures such as Terry Pollard, Johnny O’Neal, Bob Neloms and Kirk Lightsey. Add 69-year-old David Janeway, who will appear at BOP STOP on Friday with Robert Hurst and Billy Hart, to that distinguished list.
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Silent, Listening, Fred Hersch’s affecting new recording, begins with a moody cover of “Star Crossed Lovers,” an Ellington/Strayhorn composition that was also on Hersch’s first trio recording as a leader, Horizon (Concord Jazz,1985). But don’t read too much into the programming. In music and in life, Hersch, who will play a solo concert at the Treelawn Music Hall on Friday, takes things a day at a time.
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Stephen Philip Harvey is a saxophonist, educator, composer, arranger, clinician, label executive, husband and son. Though he just turned 32 last Friday, you have to wonder where he gets the energy.
“I think it’s unfortunately a symptom of high functioning anxiety,” he said with a laugh that belied the sentiment. “Realistically, and emotionally,” he added, “I just really, really love music.”
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Friendly experiencers,
IMAGINE A WORLD . . . where Terence Blanchard at Severance Hall and a significant album release and anniversary are in the roundup column instead of the Tuesday feature slot.
If you heard a portentous announcer voice in your head as you read that, well, it’s that kind of Met Gala of a blockbuster week on the NEO scene. Throw in Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s not-jazz but jazz-adjacent Re:Sound festival and you have a week that will get your ears in shape for the peak summer music season.
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One of the great pleasures of this project is the opportunity to do a weekly temperature check of the NEO scene., with a focus on live performance where it surely belongs. No performances, no scene, right?
But NEO artists have lately been as active in the studios as they are on the area’s stages and bandstands. That’s a good thing, too. Some projects have been covered here, including Work and Song, the exultant live recording by Alla Boara made at BOP STOP last July, Lucas Kadish’s Tundra, which was a big part of this entry from 2023, and the forthcoming recording laid down two weeks ago by the Third Law Collective wsg Russ Johnson, a project I profiled here. A few more will get the in-depth treatment in future posts here and at All About Jazz.
Still it’s been a while since let’s call this has called the roll on recordings, and given the spring shower of recent releases, now’s the time.
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