Friday Night Jazz: JVC Jazz Festival NY

Our previously scheduled FNJ is now lost to the ether, but here’s a short list from the upcoming Jazz Festival to tide you over (the full schedule is on line here):

Friday, June 15

CASSANDRA WILSON/OLU DARA In the early 1990s Cassandra Wilson
made “Blue Light ’Til Dawn,” an album with light, slow-moving,
Southern-signifying arrangements informed by ’60s folk and pop. The
trumpeter, guitarist and songwriter Olu Dara, a Mississippian like Ms.
Wilson, was one of her collaborators; his own subsequent solo albums,
full of acoustic guitar grooves and rural-blues echoes, complemented
hers. Central Park SummerStage, Rumsey Playfield, midpark at 70th
Street, summerstage.org, 7 p.m., free.

Wednesday, June 20

BRANFORD MARSALIS/JOSHUA REDMAN TRIO Mr.
Marsalis started making his own records in 1984, Mr. Redman nine years
later. But as if responding to a common call, both these tenor
saxophonists have crystallized what they do best and made possibly the
best records of their careers over the last year: Mr. Marsalis’s
“Braggtown” and Mr. Redman’s “Back East.” With Mr. Marsalis this comes
down to the mechanics of his gloriously coordinated, hard-hitting
quartet; with Mr. Redman, it’s the clarity and flow of his improvising
within the simplicity of a trio setting. Town Hall, JVC, 8 p.m., $50 to
$65.

Friday, June 22

STEFANO BOLLANI A fine and
freewheeling Italian pianist in his mid-30s, Mr. Bollani has come to
the crucial understanding that he can find an audience without having
to choose among attitudes, influences and styles: deeply playful or
serious, ragtime, pop, Prokofiev, Jobim, Keith Jarrett, whatever. He is
a particularly good solo performer (as suggested by last year’s “Piano
Solo,” on ECM), so this performance will be a special one. Fazioli
Salon at Klavierhaus, 211 West 58th Street, Manhattan, pianoculture.com, 8 p.m., $25.

Sunday, June 24

LOUIS MOHOLO-MOHOLO A South African jazz
drummer, Mr. Moholo-Moholo was part of the British jazz scene in the
mid-’60s as a member of the Blue Notes and the Brotherhood of Breath,
living in London and collaborating with South African and English
musicians. (See Tern [LIVE]) He recently returned to South Africa, where he leads a big
band.) He’s an exemplary modern drummer, in his flexibility between
strong swing and a free-rhythm vocabulary, and he’s still mostly
unknown here: aside from one Vision Festival show six years ago, he
hasn’t played here since the 1960s. Vision, 9 p.m., $30.

Wednesday, June 27

‘RON CARTER: THE MASTER AT 70’ The bassist Ron Carter, first famous as a member of  Miles Davis’s
mid-1960s quintet and then loosed on the jazz world as a ubiquitous
free agent, has played on so many records — including more than 30 of
his own — that a concert like this seems almost necessary, never mind
the fact that he turned 70 last month. He will perform with two other
members of that great Davis group, the saxophonist Wayne Shorter and
the pianist Herbie Hancock,
alongside Billy Cobham on drums; in duet with the guitarist Jim Hall (a
good thing, as their rich duet records are underrated); in a trio with
the pianist Mulgrew Miller and the guitarist Russell Malone; and with
his own quartet. Carnegie Hall, JVC, 8 p.m., $30 to $75.

Friday, June 29

NANCY WILSON Ms. Wilson remains an
exciting jazz singer, despite the light, low-pressure subtleties of her
voice, and even if her records have been treated as a kind of antidote
to excitement. (Her hits started showing up on the Billboard
easy-listening chart in the mid-’60s, but few can condescend to the
casually brilliant album “Cannonball Adderley and Nancy Wilson” or the
recently released “Live in Las Vegas.”) JVC, 8 p.m., $35 to $85.

That’s all for this belated (and highly stolen) version of FRIDAY NIGHT JAZZ . . .

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Source:
If It’s June, This Must Be Jazz
BEN RATLIFF
NYT, June 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/arts/music/15jazz.html