'Last Repair Shop' for LAUSD musicians gets $1-million gift, plus a visit from Yo-Yo Ma The LAUSD program that provides free working instruments and was featured in the Oscar-winning doc 'The Last Repair Shop' receives $1 million to safeguard its future. Yo-Yo Ma marks the occasion with ...

World-renown cellist Yo-Yo Ma showed up in a downtown Los Angeles warehouse Sunday night to play with kids from LAUSD where about a dozen school employees maintain and repair the school district’s 130,000 instruments.

www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Thanks to Nate Chinen for including this from Sara Gazarek’s acceptance speech:

“I want to take a second to acknowledge a very important composer and arranger, the great John Clayton, who lost his house in the fires in Altadena. He also lost the Grammy Award that he won in this category in 2007.”

Props to @2220arts.bsky.social for hosting this special event! Definitely doing their part to make LA a better place for creative music.

Los Angeles Against the Mountains John McPhee’s 1988 report about life in the San Gabriel Mountains, in northern Los Angeles County, which were disintegrating into rock porridge at a rate that was among the fastest in the world.

If anyone is wondering “how could this happen” regarding the disasters in Southern California, a morning spent reading this classic piece by John McPhee will tell you everything you need to know in vivid, gripping fashion.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/198...

Yeah for sure George, thanks. I know we are all helping to get our friends back to wholeness and making music again soon.

Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he heard someone banging on his front door. “Our neighbor said, ‘You gotta get out, ...

This was a difficult piece to write, quite personal to me as many of those affected by the #wildfires are people I have known, interacted or even played with over the years.

#altadena
#palisades
#socalstrong
#jazz
#jazzsky
#allaboutjazz

downbeat.com/news/detail/...

Get Help with MusiCares | MusiCares.org MusiCares helps grant short-term financial assistance for personal or addiction needs that have arisen due to unforeseen circumstances. Such as rent, car payments, insurance premiums, utilities, medic...

For musicians in the LA Area - please pass this to anyone you think could use their help musicares.org/get-help They are providing assistance to those affected by the fires. #jazzsky

Ringing in the new year with a summary thread of my #Downbeat articles from last year:

#Jazz
#JazzSky
#JazzMusic
#AllAboutJazz

Starting 2025 with a glance back to my DownBeat articles over the past year:

#Jazz
#JazzSky
#JazzMusic
#AllAboutJazz

My 2024 #DownBeat article rundown:

It’s been a fun year of writing about jazz. Here’s to more stories in 2025!

Devin Daniels: From Inglewood to Hancock “I kind of wasn’t expecting me not liking gentrification,” Devin Daniels says, stroking his beard as he looks away from the screen. The alto saxophonist is referring to his hometown of Inglewood, C...

8. Lastly, altoist Devin Daniels: Tracing his journey from a free after-school program in Inglewood to prestigious schools overseas and at the Hancock Institute, to trading solos onstage at the Hollywood Bowl with Herbie himself:

downbeat.com/news/detail/...

#Jazz
#JazzSky
#JazzMusic
#AllAboutJazz

Herbie Hancock: On Top Where He Belongs On April 12 of this year, Herbie Hancock turned 84. How many people do you know in their 80s who are still working full time — and a lot more effectively than some candidates in this year’s U.S. presi...

7. Herbie Hancock: His Hollywood Bowl Headhunters reunion, and how winning the 2024 DB Critics Poll (Keyboard) helps in part to offset decades of being snubbed by the writers, and the now-classic albums he made during that span:

downbeat.com/news/detail/...

#Jazz
#JazzSky
#JazzMusic
#AllAboutJazz

Ryan Porter: Resilience and Optimism On a warm June night at the annual Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival, where nearly 18,000 people packed onto the benches of the historic Los Angeles-based amphitheater for nearly 16 hours of music over two...

6. Trombonist Ryan Porter: On growing up in the inner city with Kamasi Washington, and how a chronic illness rendered him homeless even as his career soared as a member of the West Coast Get Down—portrayed in Resilience, a film about his life:

downbeat.com/news/detail/...

#Jazz
#JazzSky
#JazzMusic

Kenny Garrett & Svoy: What’s Next Is Now! It’s 8:30 in the morning, and Kenny Garrett is walking. He does this most mornings, on a track near his home in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, about 45 minutes outside of New York City. “Hold on, let me f...

5. Kenny Garrett, marching on: how he finally turned back to fusion four decades after working with Miles Davis, thanks to Who Killed AI, a collaboration borne out of a long friendship with an electronic artist:

downbeat.com/news/detail/...

#Jazz
#JazzSky
#JazzMusic
#AllAboutJazz

Brian Bromberg: Of LaFaro and Reinvention Driving into the San Bernardino National Forest, some 40 miles east of Los Angeles, the two-lane road snakes through the suddenly steep cliffs blanketed by lush green pines. Reaching the humble town o...

4. Bassist Brian Bromberg: Always loving and wanting to play straight-ahead jazz despite the diversity of his musical life, and how a serious health challenge actually helped him with LaFaro, his tribute to the legendary bassist.

downbeat.com/news/detail/...

#Jazz
#JazzSky
#JazzMusic
#AllAboutJazz

Jon Irabagon’s Absurdist Tendencies If ever there were an artist who has earned the label “enigma,” it would be saxophonist Jon Irabagon, whose hyper-genre career has warped repeatedly between the narrow straight ahead paths and wide-op...

3. Jon Irabagon: His penchant for being elusive to define as an artist, along with “absurdist” tendencies in his projects, elucidated by his double album release, Recharge the Blade and Survivalism:

downbeat.com/news/detail/...

#Jazz
#JazzSky
#JazzMusic
#AllAboutJazz

Ches Smith: ‘A Fearless Seeker’ Cities and towns, large and small, through their geography, culture, cuisine and dialect, possess unique, compelling qualities. In California, a plethora of such places abound: Los Angeles, San Franci...

2. Drummer/composer Ches Smith: His musical origin story out of Sacramento and the Bay Area, reconciling his love of jazz, classical and punk rock, his work with John Zorn and his latest, genre-busting album, Laugh Ash:

downbeat.com/news/detail/...

#Jazz
#JazzSky
#JazzMusic
#AllAboutJazz

Musicians 1st at Sam First The back entrance opens into a cozy, darkened room, leather-cushioned benches snaking around the irregular, rounded perimeter walls. The furniture and decor are elegantly crafted, as if it were a feat...

1. A look into the Los Angeles jazz club Sam First, and their designs on becoming the “Village Vanguard of the West” through their new label featuring high quality live recordings of their performances:

downbeat.com/news/detail/...

#Jazz
#JazzSky
#JazzMusic
#AllAboutJazz

My 2024 #DownBeat article rundown:

One of the best new album covers in recent years, in my view. By LA-based David Haskell. Rarely in history of jazz or rock do you get to see a whole band playing in one photo. Inspired music too.

Thanks to @simplythee.bsky.social for reminding me about this article!

W.R.O.L., by Jon Irabagon from the album Survivalism

Of note is his Frankensteinian commingling of the tiny soprillo with hunting game calls to produce sounds that are at one compelling and rather disturbing. Check it out if you dare:

jonirabagon.bandcamp.com/track/w-r-o-l

We touched on his humorous absurdist tendencies in his writing and playing, and how exploring the forests and survival bunkers in South Dakota-along with binging some dark fiction-helped him cope with the pandemic.

Jon Irabagon’s Absurdist Tendencies If ever there were an artist who has earned the label “enigma,” it would be saxophonist Jon Irabagon, whose hyper-genre career has warped repeatedly between the narrow straight ahead paths and wide-op...

Here’s a fun piece I did last year on saxophonist Jon Irabagon, winner of the 2008 Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition. He’s recorded a lot of excellent and unusually varied albums since then!

downbeat.com/news/detail/...

This really made my evening

Wow, you’ve got this writer at a loss for words…so glad to know someone’s gone deep into my stories…thank you 🙏🏻

The two of them shared their insights on their family, the mentors in their lives and careers, their love of all kinds of music, finding your artistry in your own unique way, surfing, smiling through the struggle, and serving the music above all.

John & Gerald Clayton: Serving the Music Altadena, California, is nestled into the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, a companion-community to its better-known neighbor, Pasadena. Spacious roads lined with quaint homes carve neat gridli...

This was my first cover story for DownBeat for the July (Father’s Day) issue. I visited the home of bassist John Clayton, which is where his son Gerald
Clayton also grew up. It was a memorable conversation with both of them.

downbeat.com/news/detail/...

Thank you for reading! I’ll continue to post my writings. If you think of it, repost the ones you especially enjoy. #gratitude