this week

Wednesday, July 8th

Tim Ziesmer's Snafu plays Tea Lounge in Park Slope tomorrow night, wed, July 8th at 9pm. Tea Lounge is located on Union st btw 6th & 7th ave.

Snafu members tomorrow:

T.Z. - guitar
Nate Radley - bass
Vinnie Sperrazza - drums
Brian Drye - trombone
Sam Sadigursky - saxophone

Thursday, July 9th

The Encuentro + Lucia Pulido video

The Encuentro continues to grow year by year, both in size and vision. The energy in the room was incredible, and the mix of bands quite diverse. There were a number of highlights, and I even got a glimpse of the new Highline during a break in sets.

I shot two songs during Lucia Pulido's amazing set with Stomu Takeishi and Sebastian Cruz. Here they are:

The Sixth Annual Encounter of Colombian Musicians

This Sunday at Highline Ballroom I'll once again be exploring my secret indigenous South American roots at the annual Encuentro, which has proven more extraordinary with each year. This year it will feature over one hundred different musicians over the course of ten hours. I'll be performing with Tibagui, Folklore Urbano, Diego Obregon, and La Cumbiamba.

Here's the info from Pablo and Anna Mayor followed by the schedule:

The time has finally arrived! Our "VI Encuentro" (6th Annual Encounter of Colombian Musicians in NY) is this Sunday, June 14th, at the renowned High Line Ballroom in Manhattan.
For those not familiar with the event, it is an all day/night festival of Colombian music-10 hours to be exact, 20 bands. It is a special evening (families welcome) that will keep you on the edge of your seats (and hopefully up on the dance floor!)....The program will take you from the intimate songs of Lucía Pulido and Marta Gómez, to an all-out dance celebration of Folklore Urbano and La Cumbiamba eNeYe, to awe at the virtuosity of Samuel Torres on percussion and Edmar Castañeda on harp. You will hear African music from the Pacific coast, guitar/tiple music from the Andes, harp from Los Llanos (the Plains region), Cumbia and Vallenato from the Caribbean, in styles from jazz to traditional to singer-songwriter---all influenced by Colombian rhythms and song. Folklore Urbano will be performing at about 6:45pm. See details that follow, including a full schedule. ***Purchase tickets ahead so you are assured admission! $12 tickets for children under 10 at the door

THIS Sunday, June 14th, 2pm-12am
VI Annual Encounter of Colombian Musicians in NY
VI Encuentro de Músicos Colombianos en NY
@
The High Line Ballroom
431 W. 16th St. (bt/n 9th and 10th Ave) in Manhattan
Subway: A,C,E to 14th St.
easy street parking since it's SUNDAY!
www.highlineballroom.com
to purchase tickets ahead: Ticket web: 866.468.7629/Nuestro Ticket (español) 201.633.1152

SCHEDULE/HORARIO
2pm Welcome
2:05pm Nilko Andreas Guarín
2:33 Gallo-Florez Duo
3:01pm Johanna Castañeda
3:29pm Hector Martignón
3:57pm Daniel Reyes y Parias Ensamble
4:17pm Diego Obregón
4:45pm Rebolú
5:13pm Tibaguí
5:41pm Fidel Cuellár
6:09pm Marta Gómez
6:37pm Presentación formal del Encuentro
6:52pm Folklore Urbano
7:20pm La Cumbiamba Eneye
7:48pm Lucía Pulido
8:16pm Sebastián Cruz
8:44pm Andrés Garcia
9:12pm Daniel Correa and the Crazy Rhythm Orchestra
9:40pm Harold Gutierrez
10:08pm Gregorio Uribe Big Band
10:36pm Samuel Torres
11:04pm Andrea Tierra
11:32pm Edmar Castañeda

So in Love - Fred Hersch

Thanks to Tyshawn Sorey for posting this on the Facebook. I've treasured the CD version of this found on Songs Without Words for a long time. It's captivating to watch this live version.

Tyshawn also linked to an excellent interview with Fred done by Ted Panken that can be found here.

Infernal Machines on New Amsterdam Records

Out yesterday on New Amsterdam Records... I'm really thrilled to be a part of this record and it's been a thrill seeing it get so much well-deserved attention and doing a great CD release at Galapagos last week. Thanks to Suzi Beyerstein for sponsoring my participation on the record.

Check out the amazing press this record has been getting:

"[A] fresh jolt of discovery [...] a potent debut [...] the weight of its achievement feels properly definitive."
— Nate Chinen, New York Times

"For a wholly original take on big band's past, present and future, look to Darcy James Argue."
— Seth Colter Walls, Newsweek

"It's maximalist music of impressive complexity and immense entertainment value, in your face and then in your head."
— Richard Gehr, Village Voice
"[A] seven-track marvel of imagination."
— David Adler, Time Out New York

"Infernal Machines stands defiant, updating the big band tradition for the new millennium while presenting exciting possibilities for the future."
— Troy Collins, All About Jazz

"[A] wonderful combination of sounds, styles, moods and messages"
— Richard Kamins, Hartford Courant

"[T]his is a seriously great record, one of the finest examples of new jazz I’ve heard in the past decade, one of the finest big band records ever made, one of the finest jazz records I’ve truly ever heard."
— George Grella, The Big City

"Among the young turks, Darcy James Argue has the most heat."
— Trevor Hunter, NewMusicBox

"An exciting stylist with an abundance of ideas, Argue deserves his place alongside Schneider, Hollenbeck and other contemporary big band arrangers who are looking beyond traditional notions of what a large jazz orchestra should, and can, sound like."
— James Hale, Jazz Chronicles

Darn that Dream

Only Ahmad Jamal can make a ballad sound like it was made to swing. His influence as a pianist, arranger, and bandleader can't be underestimated.

This made my rainy day.

giving them the fix

These excerpts are from an interview with Brooklyn writer (aren't they all?) John Wray on Gothamist, who just published a new book called Lowboy.

I wanted my third [novel] to be as different as possible from my second. Mainly because— not because of ambition— I just didn't like the idea of always writing the same novel. There are authors I love who always write the same novel, like Ernest Hemingway or Cormac McCarthy. I mean they might not feel that way, Hemingway might have been like, what are you talking about? But from an aesthetic point of view, he was writing the same book over and over. It would drive me insane. It would be like an obsessive person at an asylum darning the same sock.

There's a tradition in film, and there's this thing that's kind of a curse on fiction in the 20th century, I don't know who it was in what writer's workshop who first thought of this "finding your voice" notion. I think it's destructive. I mean I think it's fine for certain writers who are finding a voice they're interested in— but they're choosing a voice, a particular role to inhabit. People with the archetypal voice: Gertrude Stein or James Ellroy or Raymond Chandler. I mean you hear it and you immediately know it's them, it's consistent from book to book. They chose that voice. Kids in creative writing programs are told that there's a single, genuine voice inside them, only one, and that they have to find it. And I think you can really give a kid a complex with that. The truth is you are starting out your career and you have this whole spectrum. You can choose what you want and it'll be your book no matter what. And you can do that again with your next book or you can do something totally fucking different if you want.

I once interviewed Haruki Murakami, which ended up being a great interview, one of the best things I've been involved in. It was a long Paris Review interview, which meant we could spend a long time talking. I'm a huge fan, and the interview process revealed a lot about what goes on behind the screen, and demystified it. One of the interesting things Haruki said was that while he had been interviewing John Irving, of all people— it's like this endless chain of writers interviewing writers— Irving said to Haruki that when you have your readers you want to hook them on your writing. You want to hook your readers on it like a drug. And you want to get them hooked on that particular feeling like you're writing it for them and you want to come back for every one of your books, like a fix. And if anyone was interested in taking on the whole Irving oeuvre, they'd probably see that.... I think there's a certain understanding of supply and demand that pertains to the microcosm of the literary world. With movies, traditionally, a lot of people going to the movies don't know who the director is, which is probably freeing. Authors are innately identified with their books.