EyeShotJazz | Jazz Photography

Toshiko Akiyosh conducts the Seattle Jazz Repertory Jazz Orchestra during a performance at Nordstrom Hall on March 7th 2009

I wanted to run another image from a fantastic and entertaining performance, by internationally renowned, award-winning composer, pianist, and NEA Jazz Master Toshiko Akiyoshi . She lead the SRJO in a concert of big band works from her many years touring the globe with the Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin Big Band. Born in Manchuria, Akiyoshi took up jazz as a teenager in Japan, coming to the US in her 20s to immerse herself in the sounds of Basie and Ellington. She became the first woman named “Best Arranger and Composer” by Down Beat magazine, and has recorded over 45 albums with a refreshing view of the art of jazz.

This was one in a series of concerts by the : NEA Jazz Masters Live a new NEA initiative and Earshot Jazz has been chosen to participate. The program celebrates the living legends who have made exceptional contributions to the advancement of jazz, NEA Jazz Masters Live supports meaningful, in-depth, extended engagements featuring NEA Jazz Masters that:

Photograph by Seattle photographer Daniel Sheehan, a photojournalist specializing in jazz photography, photojournalism and portrait photography for publications and corporations. He is also a Seattle wedding photographer with an unobtrusive, story-telling approach creating award winning wedding photojournalism among Seattle wedding photographers.

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Susan Carr just before performing at Egan’s Ballard Jam House last month
“The jazz-vocals world has plenty of belters, few screamers. Susan M. Carr is neither. But the singer of jazz and popular song, and of many other styles, can lay claim to a most unusual
skill and line of work. A seasoned performer of stage and screen, she uses her unusual expertise in vocal techniques to help singers of rock, grunge, thrash, and metal to produce ungodly output from the far reaches of the capabilities of vocal cords and larynx….
She’s a full package. Her voice does not lend itself to any classic jazz style; rather, it has some of the characteristics and constraints that classically trained voices often have when turned loose on jazz. But as she delivers her sets, carefully varied with songs from all over, qualities of assurance, delivery, and staging win through. Carr sells her songs.

It helps, certainly, to have on board the likes of saxophonist Brian Kent and pianist Fred Hoadley, both veterans of various parts of the local scene. Hoadley has long led the Latin jazz ensemble, Sonando, while Kent is a highly respected, solid, and imaginative saxophonist, although to some degree he flies beneath the radar of popular acclaim.

Adding to the ensemble’s assurance is guitarist Robert Peterson, electric bassist Dan Schmidt, and drummer Don Dietrich, who have all worked with Carr for more than 20 years.

Carr sings some standards, but prefers to do what singers like Diana Krall do: “If you really listen, she takes obscure pieces that aren’t jazz and she jazzifies them. I’d rather do that, because it’s unexpected. “Traditional jazz is cool, but there is Americana, too, where it can cross over to other things. Brazilian creates that bridge, and you can still have that little flair.”

A pleasure of working in LA, she says, was that she could present shows that mixed in all her musical styles—opera, musical comedy, jazz, and folk—and perform for friends and friends’ friends’, and at the same time keep up her chops in all the genres.

She tries to think of her own ensemble the way she has always viewed bands she has worked with. “I go and see my bands perform, and give them lots of feedback,” she says. “I say, ‘OK, I’m just a person coming to your show.’ I imagine I’m a manager or a label guy coming to the show and asking myself, ‘Why would I sign your band?’

The only reason she would, she says, s obvious: If “it’s the whole thing—it’s not just what I heard on a CD; it’s what you present to audiences.” It’s the staging. The selling of the song. The engagement of folks out for an evening. All her training and experience tell her, she says, that “if people are going to pay money, they should get to come and see a show.””

From this month’s story in earshot Jazz by Peter Monaghan. See Earshot Jazz Magazine for the complete story.

Photograph by Seattle photographer Daniel Sheehan, a photojournalist specializing in jazz photography, photojournalism and portrait photography for publications and corporations. He is also a Seattle wedding photographer with an unobtrusive, story-telling approach creating award winning wedding photojournalism among Seattle wedding photographers.

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Jovino Santos Neto

The Golden Ear Awards for 2006 were given out on Monday Jan 29th 2007 and were held at EMP. The weekend was full of music there and this shot of and Jovino playing was made on Saturday the 27th. It was an evening of Brazilian Jazz with Jovino Santos Neto – piano, flute and melodica and his Quarteto opening up for Anne Drummond with Som de Brazil. One of Seattle’s brightest jazz exports, now working in New York and touring internationally, Anne presented her new group, (below) featuring top Brazilian musicians Nilson Matta, bass; Klaus Mueller, piano; and brilliant drummer Duduka da Fonseca. Looking back on a great weekend of jazz.

Toshiko Akiyosh conducts the Seattle Jazz Repertory Jazz Orchestra during a performance at Nordstrom Hall on March 7th 2009

In a fantastic and entertaining performance, internationally renowned, award-winning composer, pianist, and NEA Jazz Master Toshiko Akiyoshi  lead the SRJO in a concert of big band works from her many years touring the globe with the Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin Big Band. Born in Manchuria, Akiyoshi took up jazz as a teenager in Japan, coming to the US in her 20s to immerse herself in the sounds of Basie and Ellington. She became the first woman named “Best Arranger and Composer” by Down Beat magazine, and has recorded over 45 albums with a refreshing view of the art of jazz.

This was one in a series of concerts by the : NEA Jazz Masters Live  a new NEA initiative and Earshot Jazz has been chosen to participate. The program celebrates the living legends who have made exceptional contributions to the advancement of jazz, NEA Jazz Masters Live supports meaningful, in-depth, extended engagements featuring NEA Jazz Masters that:

* honor their body of work, history, or styles
* provide understanding of their significance to jazz through thematically-designed or retrospective programming
* broaden audiences’ awareness of their unique contributions to this original American art form.

Photograph by Seattle photographer Daniel Sheehan, a photojournalist specializing in jazz photography, photojournalism and portrait photography for publications and corporations. He is also a Seattle wedding photographer with an unobtrusive, story-telling approach creating award winning wedding photojournalism among Seattle wedding photographers.

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Bill Frisell watches Russell Malone as they play during the first set at the Triple Door on Weds Feb 25th.

What a fantastic show. The interplay of the guitar voices was fabulous. It was wonderful to hear the two of them when they each played a solo but mostly when they played so well together, whether on some old classic by T. Monk or the old Monkey’s tune “Last Train to Clarksville” or a Hank Williams tune. A delightful mix to the set.
“It’s hard to find a more fruitful meditation on American music than in the compositions of guitarist Bill Frisell. Mixing rock and country with jazz and blues, he’s found what connects them: improvisation and a sense of play. Unlike other pastichists, who tend to duck passion, Mr. Frisell plays up the pleasure in the music and also takes on another often-avoided subject, tenderness.” – The New York Times.

Over the years, Frisell has contributed to the work of such collaborators as Elvis Costello, Ginger Baker, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Suzanne Vega, Loudon Wainwright III, Van Dyke Parks, Vic Chesnutt, Rickie Lee Jones, Ron Sexsmith, Marianne Faithful, John Scofield, film director Gus Van Sant, David Sanborn, David Sylvian, Petra Haden and numerous others, including Bono, Brian Eno, Jon Hassell and Daniel Lanois on the soundtrack for Wim Wenders’ film Million Dollar Hotel. This work has established Frisell as one of the most sought-after guitar voices in contemporary music. The breadth of such performing and recording situations is a testament not only to his singular guitar conception, but his musical versatility as well. This, however, is old news by now. In recent years, it is Frisell’s role as composer and band leader which has garnered him increasing notoriety.

Ever since Charlie “Bird” Parker recorded his (first) Charlie Parker With Strings sessions in 1949 and 1950, jazz artists have celebrated their romantic sides by employing lush string sections. Everyone from Chet Baker to Clifford Brown to Wes Montgomery did some of their best work in the presence of string sections, and on Heartstrings (Verve), Russell Malone puts his own spin on the jazz-with-strings tradition. Those who think that they’ve heard it all when it comes to strings projects are in for a surprise; Heartstrings, the swinging yet lyrical guitarist’s sixth album, is full of gems that jazzmen often overlook. Typically, a jazz-with-strings project will emphasize what has often been called “The Great American Songbook”—namely, well-known standards of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. But on Heartstrings, which was produced by the GRAMMY®-winning Verve Music Group Chairman Tommy LiPuma, Malone doesn’t limit himself to the George Gershwin and Cole Porter standards that jazz artists have recorded time and time again. Employing a solid rhythm section (pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts) and three different string arrangers (pianist Alan Broadbent, Brazilian great Dori Caymmi, and the famous Mandel), Malone lends his unmistakable sound to everything from an Anne Murray hit (“You Needed Me”) to a gospel favorite (“What A Friend We Have in Jesus”) to the Sammy Cahn/Jule Styne gem “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry.”

More pictures to follow tomorrow. It is getting late.

Photograph by Seattle photographer Daniel Sheehan, a photojournalist specializing in photojournalism and portrait photography for publications and corporations and a Seattle wedding photographer with an unobtrusive, story-telling approach creating award winning Seattle wedding photography and wedding photojournalism ranked among the best Seattle wedding photographers.