Confirmation: Weekly News & Notes

*Tim Finn provides insights into Friday's performance of Beck's Song Reader by Mark Lowrey, the Project H, Jeff Harshbarger and Shay Estes.

*Kenny G will appear with the Kansas City Symphony on January 17-18, 2014.

*Craig Glazer lambasts the Jazz District as a "total and complete, unadulterated failure."

*Libby Hanssen reviewed concerts by Bobby McFerrin and Bach Aria Soloists.

*Here's a peek at Bobby Watson rehearsing with the Kansas City Ballet.

*Logan Richardson was a guest on an episode of the JazzWatch podcast.

*Joe Straws was featured in The Kansas City Star.

*Tweet o' the Week: mbirdmusic- Singing about Paris #paris #sprinbird #springtime #Bored Vine.

*Comment o' the Week: Anonymous- You say "anachronistic" like it's a bad thing ;)

*From a press release: Students in the KU School of Music Jazz Studies program received five awards from DownBeat magazine’s 36th Annual Student Music Awards.  Four students won awards in the following categories: Original Composition – Lead Sheet (undergraduate division), Original Composition – Orchestrated Work (graduate division) and Jazz Arrangement (graduate division).  David von Kampen, a doctoral student pursuing a music composition degree and previous DownBeat award recipient, was the recipient of two awards received top prize in the graduate division. He is the winner in the Original Composition -  Orchestrated Work category for “Soft Glow, Sharp Edges” and received an Outstanding Performance Award in the Jazz Arrangement category for “The Tourist.”  Clint Ashlock, pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts in trumpet, was named the winner of the Jazz Arrangement category (graduate division) for “Nebula.”  In the undergraduate division, Brock Chart (“Northern Lights”) and Devin Wright (“Imploding Man”) both received Outstanding Performance awards in the Original Composition – Lead Sheet category. Chart is a senior pursuing a bachelor degree in music composition, while Wright was a senior pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in jazz studies in 2012.  All of the winning compositions and arrangements were written for and recorded by the top ensembles within the KU Jazz Studies Program:  Jazz Ensemble I, Combo I, and the Jazz Singers.  The program is under the direction of Dan Gailey, director of jazz studies at KU. Under Gailey’s leadership, the program has received 17 DownBeat awards since 1992.

*From Jim Mair: For most of the 700 musicians from three states, the 3rd Annual Kansas City Jazz Summit provided them with their first look at Kansas City Kansas Community College.  “It had a real impact on those who had never been here,” said Jim Mair, Director of Jazz Music at KCKCC and founder and organizer of the three-day Jazz Summit that attracted 35 middle school, high school and college bands from three states… The Summit was highlighted by the Kansas City Jazz Heritage “Basically Basie” competition won for the third straight year by Blue Valley Northwest High School. The championship was decided by members of the audience who were able to text their votes.  Mair said the 35 bands which competed came from as far away as Springfield and St. Louis in Missouri, Iowa and western Kansas and represented a 15 percent increase in participants. Participating bands included four college bands, Johnson County Community College, Penn Valley, Southwestern Iowa and Washburn University along with KCKCC.

*From a press release: The Heartbeat Next to My Heartbeat is a collection of writing over three years by Victoria “Fanny” Alaadeen. She chronicles the time she devoted as her husband’s full-time caretaker on a slow journey through cancer and shares the process of her recovery after his death. Fanny was wife, business manager, inspiration and personal savior to celebrated saxophonist and educator Ahmad Alaadeen… She lays bare the anguish of losing him through musings that she calls ”beats” – poem/essay hybrids that strike at the emotions like beats on a drum or the rhythmic pulsing of a heartbeat… The American Jazz Museum will host a book signing with Fanny Alaadeen and has selections of Ahmad Alaadeen’s discography available in the Swing Shop.  The Heartbeat Next to My Heartbeat is available through Fandeen publishing and the Swing Shop in the American Jazz Museum… and online at alaadeen.com, smashwords.com, and amazon.com.

(Original image by Plastic Sax.)