Tag: Norman Provizer
Why Jazz Matters: Track 15
by Norman Provizer Back in 1926, Chicago hosted a six-day long International Jazz Congress that had Paul Whiteman as its honorary chairman. The event is widely viewed as a key precursor of the phenomenon we know as jazz festivals, three of which take place in Colorado in August. It’s also an event that reminds us […]
Why Jazz Matters: Track 14
by Norman Provizer On June 8, the band Big Head Todd and the Monsters returns to Red Rocks Amphitheater for the seventeenth time. Over its long run, Big Head Todd went from a local group begging for gigs to one with a very high national profile playing major venues. In this sense, along with bands […]
Why Jazz Matters: Track 13
by Norman Provizer Back in 2002, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History began promoting April as Jazz Appreciation Month. The idea, with the appropriate acronym JAM, caught on and there now exists a wide-range of activities connected to the month-long celebration. Of course, jazz, America’s great contribution to global culture, should be appreciated more […]
Why Jazz Matters: Track 12
by Norman Provizer If you are not a jazz fan, the odds are that you have never heard of Bob Belden. In fact, even if you are a jazz fan, there’s a good chance that the name of this Grammy Award-winning saxophonist and arranger, who was born near Chicago in 1956, might not ring a […]
Why Jazz Matters- Track 11
by Norman Provizer From its very beginnings, jazz has always had, in the words of Jelly Roll Morton, a “Spanish tinge” to it. After all, New Orleans has been, in many ways, strongly connected to the Caribbean – and it was the city of New Orleans that played such a special role in the emergence […]
Why Jazz Matters: Track 7
by Norman Provizer In 2002, just before she turned 23, singer/pianist Norah Jones struck gold with the release of her debut disc, Come Away with Me. Fueled by the hit tune “Don’t Know Why,” the music from that inaugural CD seemed to be everywhere. It went from gold (500,000 copies sold) to platinum (1 million […]
Why Jazz Matters: Track 6
by Norman Provizer Sankofa is a term from the Akan people of southern Ghana and the neighboring West African states of Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Togo. Essentially, the term means that you need to reclaim your past before you can move ahead. It’s an idea frequently symbolized by a bird that is looking backward […]
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