If you aren’t one of the lucky music fans to have a ticket to the sold-out Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival this weekend and next, have no fear, there is plenty of music to experience in our local environs and you don’t have to listen to it in blistering heat. One such event is the kick-off concert for the twenty-first season of Jazz at LACMA featuring Kenny Burrell and Los Angeles Jazz Orchestra Unlimited, on Friday, April 27.
The free concert on the grounds of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art marks the premiere of the Los Angeles Jazz Orchestra Unlimited (LAJOU), which features some of the finest jazz musicians in Los Angeles and will showcase new music by LAJOU co-directors Kenny Burrell, Charley Harrison, and Dr. Bobby Rodriguez.
A special highlight of the concert will be a tribute to the legendary Duke Ellington in honor of his birthday, April 29. Burrell, a Detroit-born jazz guitarist who has worked with such prominent musicians as Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, and Milt Jackson, has served as director of Jazz Studies at UCLA since 1998 and lectures around the world on the music of Ellington. The free concert starts at 6 p.m. and takes place at the BP Grand Entrance at the museum.
The Grammy Museum, along with Woody Guthrie Publications and the Woody Guthrie Foundation has organized a centennial celebration of his prolific songwriting gifts that will culminate in an all-star concert at Club Nokia at L.A. Live this Saturday, April 14. Performing classic Guthrie songs will be Jackson Browne, David Crosby and Graham Nash, John Doe, Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Morello and Rob Wasserman among others.
If you want to learn more about this American folk hero, there’s no better way than to take in a detailed documentary on his life, called “Woody Guthrie: This Machine Kills Fascists.” The film, originally released in 2005 is directed by Stephen Gammond and narrated by singer/songwriter Billy Bragg. Gammond’s film tells the cradle-to-grave story of Woody Guthrie as told by those who knew him, most memorably his daughter Nora, son Arlo, sister Mary Jo, and peer Pete Seeger. The movie screens at the Grammy Museum at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles on Friday, April 13. All information of the Guthrie centennial events can be found at www.grammymuseum.org.
If contemporary opera is your preference, then look no further than Royal-T Cafe and Gallery on Washington Boulevard in Culver City on Friday, April 13. The What’s Next? Ensemble presents a program entitled “Two Operas.” The show starts with percussionist Nick Terry playing L.A. composer Shaun Naidoo’s Nigerian Spam, a disturbing fifteen minute one-man drama for percussion and electronics revolving around those annoying email scammers posing as kings, songs of presidents and long lost distant relatives asking for money.
For the second half, composer Michael Gordon’s work for ensemble and three voices simply entitled “Van Gogh,” will be presented. Tracing the life of the famous artist through his letters, this six-scene mini-opera paints a simultaneously ecstatic and heartfelt portrait of Van Gogh in Gordon’s trademark genre-bending hardedge style.
The What’s Next? Ensemble is a Los Angeles based new music group based in Los Angeles that was formed with the intention of bringing together talented young musicians to write and perform new music from Los Angeles and abroad. Tickets are $10.00 for the concert and can be purchased at the door.
Ruth Price and her Jazz Bakery Movable Feast series continues this Saturday with a concert featuring renowned jazz violinist Regina Carter’s “Reverse Thread.” The album of the same name features African folk melodies and instruments blended with a contemporary jazz interpretation.
Carter is another in a long line of talented musicians to come out of Cass Technical High School in Detroit, whose alumni includes the aforementioned Kenny Burrell, trumpeter Donald Byrd, bassist Ron Carter, Motown legend Diana Ross and former White Stripes front man Jack White among many others. The 8 p.m. concert will take place at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center at 4718 W. Washington Boulevard. Ticketing information can be found at http://jazzbakery.org.
With the Passover holiday in the rear-view mirror, now might be the time to imbibe in a bit more chicken soup to ward off a possible spring cold, with a dash of Klezmer thrown in. The west side’s favorite Klezmorim the Extreme Klezmer Makeover takes over Lenny’s Deli in the Sports Bar in Pacific Palisades for a show on Friday April 13. Lenny’s is located at 1035 Swarthmore Avenue and the concert will be from 8-10 p.m.
Jonathan Weiss is a Los Angeles based music supervisor for film, TV and advertising and radio journalist. Email him at jonjaz@aol.com
