Rising Stars Jazz Award
A Jazzman's Tale
by Annette Johnson
3y ago
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Rising Stars Jazz Award 2020
A Jazzman's Tale
by Annette Johnson
3y ago
PRESS RELEASE SEASON 4 HAS STARTED! The fourth season of the ‘LetterOne RISING STARS Jazz Award’ launched on August 1st, 2020! While a global pandemic has brought the live music industry to a standstill, the ‘LetterOne RISING STARS Jazz Award’ offers a glimpse of hope to aspiring musicians who have seen their concerts and tours vanish into thin air. The award presents an opportunity to win two readymade tours: 7 shows  at major jazz festivals in Europe for the European winner and 10 shows at major jazz festivals in the USA and Canada for the winner of the North American edition. Both tour ..read more
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Jazz Appreciation for Newbies
A Jazzman's Tale
by Annette Johnson
4y ago
Jazz Tunes With Lyrics and Without  Jazz Appreciation for Newbies Perhaps the most difficult aspect of jazz appreciation for newbies, is the fact that many jazz tunes have no lyrics and are instrumental tunes.   People like lyrics. People like to sing along when they hear a favourite tune especially if the words speak to recent fun times or heartbreak or loss. Well, jazz does have music with lyrics. Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne sang their hearts out in the 1940s and 1950s.  Who can forget the lyrics of It’s a Wonderful World by Louis ..read more
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A Jazzman’s Tale – Book Review and Author Interview
A Jazzman's Tale
by Annette Johnson
4y ago
A Jazzman’s Tale – Book review and Author Interview by Debbie Burke, Jazz Author    A Jazzman’s Tale,  about trumpet player Charles Freeman Lee is a heady mélange of a book that starts off with the unique perspective of a screenplay. Part one delves deeply into the gritty life of a jazz musician whose gigging takes him from the Midwest to New York and New Jersey. It segues into a down-and-dirty, honestly spoken interview of Freeman, then wraps a bow around it with a brief study of his collegiate experiences at Wilberforce University and the rich musical history that predated his attendance at ..read more
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What does the music from Law and Order have to do with jazz?
A Jazzman's Tale
by Annette Johnson
4y ago
What does the music from Law and Order have to do with jazz? Are you moved whenever you hear the music from Law and Order?  It is the same music with different arrangements for Law and Order SVU, CI and the original Law and Order.  Maybe the music from another TV series moves you more.  CSI, NCIS, Hawaii Five O?  Does just hearing the music make you so want to watch the episode as baddies get caught and victims get justice? Jazz is just the same.  It moves people.  And there is a lot of jazz music with strong melodies that you can recognize as you hear them.  To develop jazz appreciation, one ..read more
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Book Review of “A Jazzman’s Tale” by James A. Cox of MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW
A Jazzman's Tale
by Annette Johnson
4y ago
Book Review of “A Jazzman’s Tale” by James A. Cox of MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW, November 2018 Synopsis: “A Jazzman’s Tale” by Annette Johnson is a screenplay memoir of bebop trumpeter and pianist Charles Freeman Lee. Freeman (as he was better known), was one of the jazzmen who joined the jazz revolution called bebop at Minton’s Playhouse and the Paradise Club in Harlem, New York City in the 1950s. Freeman came out of Wilberforce Collegians, an important band in jazz history formed in 1926 at Wilberforce University in Ohio, with famous alumni like Benny Carter, Frank Foster and Ben Webster. He played ..read more
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Are you interested in jazz but don’t know where to start?
A Jazzman's Tale
by Annette Johnson
4y ago
Are you interested in jazz but don’t know where to start? As a jazz fan of many years, I often wonder why this American art form has not found a home among many millennials, genXers and genZers.  For jazz music to continue into the future, it must find a base in the younger population.  Jazz is very individualistic music – every jazz artist has his or her own sound, style and approach to the music.  This individualistic sound ought to appeal to millennials, genXers and genZers, who are perhaps more in tune with personal expression than previous generations. Why have millennials and others not ..read more
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When I met Freeman
A Jazzman's Tale
by Annette Johnson
4y ago
When I met Freeman When I met Freeman, his coolness struck me most, as he approached, dressed like someone from a 1950’s jazz book.  He was cool in the sense of relaxed, accepting, bobbing and weaving with life’s surprises, sharp as a tack on reading people’s intent and feeling their heart.  His speech was that of a jazzman, laden with jazz slang, so when he said a “cat” my thoughts were no longer feline.  A cat is a guy, a man, a dude, a gentleman so when he spoke of “black cats” superstitious thoughts about bad luck did not cross my mind. Wilberforce University Collegians Instead, I jus ..read more
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Jazzitude
A Jazzman's Tale
by Annette Johnson
4y ago
What is jazzitude? Jazzitude is a certain attitude to interpreting what is going on around us like a jazzman does every time he plays a jazz standard, a tune he the audience and every other jazzman knows well.  Standards are part of jazz music history and played widely by jazz bands as part of their repertoire.  While we, the audience, are delighted by the improvisation of the jazzman as he paints a complex, rich tapestry from the bare bones of the standard’s melody, when it comes to our lives we often seem determined to play it like it was played before, fearful lest we drift from the in ..read more
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Misterioso
A Jazzman's Tale
by Annette Johnson
4y ago
Misterioso Music and improvisation – that comes naturally to our ears but what if we say life and improvisation? Huh? Well, life is improvisation is it not? How do we deal best with that period of time between birth and death that we call life? Life is a strange dance partner – it offers one fun, friends, food, love, knowledge, discovery but lets you know throughout that death is part of this deal called life. Does improvisation sound more inviting now? These are the questions that occurred to me as I sat to write my first column that we called Misterioso – a fitting tribute in Mo ..read more
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