A rock & roll open secret: U2 care very much about what other people say about them. Ever since they hit the big time in 1987 with The Joshua Tree, every album is a response to the last — rather, a response to the response, a way to correct the mistakes of the last album: Achtung Baby erased the roots rock experiment Rattle and Hum, All That You Can’t Leave Behind straightened out the fumbling Pop, and 2009’s No Line on the Horizon is a riposte to the suggestion they played it too safe on 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
British jazz musician Ian Carr, who played an important role in the development of jazz-rock fusion — he played with John McLaughlin in the early ’60s and formed Nucleus, one of England’s first electronic jazz-rock fusion groups — passed away at the age of 75 on February 25th. Also an author, Carr wrote Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography and Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music. [AllAboutJazz.com]
Monster Hammond B3 organ specialist Lyman Woodard, a legend of Detroit’s jazz scene who also worked with the 8th Day, the Undisputed Truth, and Martha Reeves, passed away on the 23rd. He was 66. Woodard’s coveted Saturday Night Special album, released in 1975 on the Strata label, will be reissued on vinyl (and download) through Wax Poetics next month. [Freep.com]
Tracks from Juliette Lewis’ new album are available via the actress/singer’s website. Lewis will visit the South by Southwest Festival this spring to preview the material, which tones down the raucous, unchained sleaze rock of her preview albums for a more varied approach. [NME.com]
A glance at the lists of winners of major composition awards and commissions shows that many women are emerging as noteworthy composers, but their works are not yet making it onto commercial recordings at the same rate as men’s — an indication that there is still much room for progress toward real parity. The sampling presented here includes composers in their thirties and forties who represent a variety of national backgrounds and have established significant international careers. They may not yet be on the radar screen of the general public, but they deserve to be.
Composer and pianist Lera Auerbach defected from the Soviet Union while still in her teens and has gone on to establish a dual international career in the mold of nineteenth century composer-virtuosos. She was trained at Juilliard, where her teachers were Milton Babbitt and Robert Beaser, and at the Hannover Hochschüle für Musik. Gidon Kremer, Wu Han,Kremerata Baltica, the Tokyo String Quartet, and the Hamburg State Ballet are among the individuals and ensembles who have performed her music. Although her current discography consists primarily of piano and chamber music, she has written in a broadly impressive array of forms, including opera, ballet, symphony, concerto, orchestral music, and choral and vocal music. Among her recent projects is a ballet based on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, for the Royal Danish Ballet. She is also recognized as a major poet in Russia, where her writing has already entered the literary canon.
Lisa Bielawa has a degree in literature from Yale, but has been active as a composer and performer since the early 1990s. She was a vocalist with the Philip Glass Ensemble, has toured and recorded with John Zorn, and is frequently the soloist in her own works. Bielawa won the 2001 Aaron Copland Award for Emerging Composers, and in 2002 received a prestigious Whitaker Commission, for which she wrote the major orchestral work, The Right Weather. She has had her works performed by Boston Modern Orchestra Project (where she is currently Composer in Residence), the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Omaha Symphony, at the Bang on a Can Festival, and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Orchestral music has constituted a significant part of her work, but she has also written vocal, choral, and chamber music, and a chamber opera. Cerddorian Vocal Ensemble - Bielawa: Lamentations for a City
Gabriela Lena Frank is one of the growing number of young American composers to make a career outside the academic community. A defining element in her work is her diverse multi-cultural heritage, which includes Lithuanian, Peruvian and Chinese backgrounds. Although she has written in a variety of styles, including the use of aleatory techniques, the tradition that has most strongly shaped her musical voice is that of her mother’s native Peru, and her work is frequently characterized by the rhythmic vitality of South American folk musics. Frank composes in a number of genres, but is best known for her vocal, chamber, and orchestral music. Her music has been widely performed and recorded by prestigious groups including the Silk Road Project, the Kronos Quartet,Chanticleer, and the Symphony Orchestras of San Francisco,Houston,Baltimore, Atlanta,Los Angeles, and Chicago. Also an accomplished pianist, Frank has established a solid reputation both as a recitalist and recording artist.
Sadie Harrison was born in Australia, but was raised and trained in Great Britain and has gone on to develop a multinational career. She has devoted herself primarily to chamber music, and she has a special affinity for strings, but she has recently begun work on an opera based on St. Christina the Astonishing. A recurring theme in her work is a fascination with the folk traditions of Eastern Europe and Asia. A number of her works draw directly on her research of the musics of Lithuania, Georgia, Armenia, and she has written a cycle, The Light Garden Trilogy, based on Afghan music. Her music has received performances by a number of acclaimed ensembles, including the London Chamber Symphony, the Kreutzer Quartet, and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, and she won the International Grieg Memorial Composition Competition 2005. Her involvement with folk cultures is related to her interest in archaeology, and in 2005 she began a program of studies in archaeology at Southampton University.
Weronika Ratusinska studied at the Warsaw Academy of Music and later studied with Louis Andriessen in The Hague, and his influence is easily heard in her music, which is tinged with the sounds and procedures of post-minimalism. Her work is best known in her native Poland, where she has been honored with many awards, but she is beginning to make a mark on the international scene, with performances in The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Ukraine, and the United States. She is best known for her chamber music, but has also received recognition for her choral music. She has taught at the Warsaw Academy of Music since 2002.
Week 8 of the Jamz finds us criss-crossing the globe to bring you some amazing bands, artists and DJs. We traveled to Italy to uncover a group of health nuts, popped into Northern Califonia to hear what happens when Heavy Metal gets hip hopped and mixtaped, jetted to Australia to find the one all-girl guitar band who doesn’t sound like the Shop Assistants, and hit the ground running in D.C. with some classic old-school indie rock. It’s been exhausting but as usual, we’ll do whatever it takes to bring you the hottest, damnedest jamz.
Randy Bewley, guitarist for the seminal new wave/post-punk band Pylon, died Wednesday at age 53 in an Athens, GA hospital after being admitted for a heart attack on Monday. Pylon’s members had been planning a 30th anniversary reunion show. [Spinner.com]
The proposed Ticketmaster/LiveNation merger has run into some setbacks, including scrutiny of Ticketmaster’s TicketsNow website from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights and a $350,000 penalty for TicketsNow’s mishandling of tickets for a Bruce Springsteen concert earlier in February. [PitchforkMedia.com]
For some reason it seemed like a good idea to go old-school this morning. Maybe it was the hint of spring in the air, I don’t know. More likely it’s because I spent most of last night listening to various mixes by the Avalanches. (Go to their site, sign up and you can do it too!), and it made me want to go digging back into their source material. I’m not sure that’s quite where I ended, but I did manage to unearth some truly amazing video jamz.
There’s something wonderful going on in Spain these days. Something light, frothy and fabulous that gives the impression that the country has taken over as the happiest, silliest, mod-est place on the map. Spanish label Elefant Records has been documenting this shift over the last couple years by releasing some amazingly good pop records from their home country’s best groups. Most of these bands have a sound that borrows from the easy listening boom of the ’60s and the smooth sounds of A&M records in the early ’70s, adds a sweet and slinky bossa nova undercurrent, and then a helping of the gooey goodness of the early Cardigans. This breezy concoction sits happily on top of some of the hookiest, giddiest pop tunes anywhere.
Barenaked Ladies singer Steven Page has announced his departure from the pop/rock band. After a rough year in 2008 that found Page arrested on drug possession charges and fellow Barenaked-singer Ed Robertson surviving a plane crash, Page revealed plans to leave the group and pursue a solo career. Meanwhile, Robertson and the other band members will continue to tour and record as the Barenaked Ladies. [Billboard.com]
Unreleased Beatles material has found its way online, much to the delight of longtime fans. “Revolution 20″ is alleged to be the 20th take of “Revolution 1″ and appears to bridge the gap between that song and “Revolution 9.” Although the song’s authenticity has yet to be confirmed, EMI has forced various websites to take the audio footage down. [NME.com]
The Jonas Brothers are giving away free posters to fans who attend the opening of their 3D concert film this weekend. The teen sensations also announced that they will be making surprise appearances at some of the screenings. Lock up your daughters. [People.com]
A rock & roll open secret: U2 care very much about what other people say about them. Ever since they hit the big time in 1987 with The Joshua Tree, every album is a response to the last — rather, a response to the response, a way to correct the mistakes of the last album: Achtung Baby erased the roots rock experiment Rattle and Hum, All That You Can’t Leave Behind straightened out the fumbling Pop, and 2009’s No Line on the Horizon is a riposte to the suggestion they played it too safe on 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
British jazz musician Ian Carr, who played an important role in the development of jazz-rock fusion — he played with John McLaughlin in the early ’60s and formed Nucleus, one of England’s first electronic jazz-rock fusion groups — passed away at the age of 75 on February 25th. Also an author, Carr wrote Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography and Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music. [
Week 8 of the Jamz finds us criss-crossing the globe to bring you some amazing bands, artists and DJs. We traveled to Italy to uncover a group of health nuts, popped into Northern Califonia to hear what happens when Heavy Metal gets hip hopped and mixtaped, jetted to Australia to find the one all-girl guitar band who doesn’t sound like the Shop Assistants, and hit the ground running in D.C. with some classic old-school indie rock. It’s been exhausting but as usual, we’ll do whatever it takes to bring you the hottest, damnedest jamz. 
Randy Bewley, guitarist for the seminal new wave/post-punk band Pylon, died Wednesday at age 53 in an Athens, GA hospital after being admitted for a heart attack on Monday. Pylon’s members had been planning a 30th anniversary reunion show. [
For some reason it seemed like a good idea to go old-school this morning. Maybe it was the hint of spring in the air, I don’t know. More likely it’s because I spent most of last night listening to various mixes by 
There’s something wonderful going on in Spain these days. Something light, frothy and fabulous that gives the impression that the country has taken over as the happiest, silliest, mod-est place on the map. Spanish label 
Barenaked Ladies singer Steven Page has announced his departure from the pop/rock band. After a rough year in 2008 that found Page arrested on drug possession charges and fellow Barenaked-singer Ed Robertson surviving a plane crash, Page revealed plans to leave the group and pursue a solo career. Meanwhile, Robertson and the other band members will continue to tour and record as the Barenaked Ladies. [
