This announcement is from the Jazz Forward Coalition, a new group of industry leaders.  Please check out the newsletter, forward the link to your friends  and  share our excitement about our new global and unified voice for jazz.

Click here to view the premiere edition of the JFC “Business of Jazz” newsletter.

Jazz is as vital as ever, with vibrant local scenes, active educators and thousands of jazz recordings released each year. However, the jazz community lacks a central organization to coordinate and maximize its vast resources, and must take a mainstream new media approach through social and professional networking. The Jazz Forward Coalition (JFC) was formed by a consortium of industry leaders who seek to raise jazz’s profile by enhancing its vitality and cultural relevance. The organization’s leadership group includes: Peter Gordon (Thirsty Ear Recordings), Michael Ricci (All About Jazz), Marty Ashby (MCG Jazz), Don Lucoff (DL Media) and Jeff Myers (THIS IS RED Agency).

JFC plans to utilize existing and emerging technologies in order to sustain growth and expose jazz to an under-served community. The goals of the organization include creating a central hub for the jazz industry, a global brand for jazz, and a leadership voice for the jazz community. They plan to reach these goals through grants, fundraising efforts, music industry partnerships and with an online presence.

The work of the JFC will be focused on four levels: connectivity via a business-to-business website; a global voice that speaks both within the community and outside; a knowledge base library of tools bringing marketplace solutions to its membership base; and strategic partnerships to help with mainstream market penetration and economic viability.

JFC will create an interactive website that will allow jazz professionals to network, publish and exchange information and access marketplace tools.An online newsletter, “Business of Jazz,” has already been developed to keep jazz professionals up-to-date on industry news and trends.

Click here to view the premiere edition of the JFC “Business of Jazz” newsletter.

UPDATE: Another free summer concert in the park, this time featuring my resurrected fusion band, Aurora.

Just a quick update about these three (FREE!) upcoming gigs.  It’s been a busy summer and it’ll be cool to relax and see some good friends.

• Reservoir of Jazz ~ Sunday, August 22, 2010 ~ 5:00 – 7:00 pm
  Aurora, presented by MCG Jazz
  Highland Park
  Free

• Pittsburgh Jazz Legacy CD Release Party ~ Thursday, July 29, 2010 ~ 8:00 – 9:30pm
  Stick around after for the Roger Humphries Jazz Jam Session
  CJ’s Restaurant and Lounge
  2901-2911 Penn Avenue
  Pittsburgh, PA 15201
  412-642-2377
  Reservations suggested

• Citiparks Bach, Beethoven and Brunch ~ Sunday, July 18 ~ 10:30 am – noon
  Pittsburgh Guitars presented by MCG Jazz
  Mellon Park
  Fifth and Shady Avenues, Point Breeze/Squirrel Hill
  Free

• Monroeville Jazz Festival ~ Saturday, July 17, 2010 ~ 3:00 – 9:00pm
  Boyce Park Wave Pool North Parking Area
  Free with a non-perishable food donation for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank
  Line-up:  (all local musicians)
  Center of Life Youth Jazz Band
  Etta Cox – Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald
  Mike Tomaro – Tribute to Benny Goodman  (I’m playing  in this band)
  Eric Mintel Quartet with Donna Bailey – Tribute to Dave Brubeck

For over 15 years Paul Gertner and I have been combining Jazz and Magic in performances and corporate presentations. The latest iteration of the presentation took place at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, CA, June 14-20, 2010.

Over the years we have explored many connections between Jazz and Magic. In jazz we learn standards like “Take the A Train” and in magic we learn the classics such as the “cups and balls routine.” The great magicians are master improvisers just like the master jazz musicians, and both art forms focus greatly on interaction with their audiences. Also, magicians build there routines based on the tremendous legacy of previous magicians just as we do in jazz. Most importantly, both Jazz and Magic have a deep respect for the masters that have paved the way for what we do now.

See a version of JazzMagic we did for a recent TEDx Conference in Pittsburgh:

After a recent workshop on Barney Kessel I gave at Duquesne University several of the students asked me about the art of taking short/concise solos.  Barney Kessel, Johnny Smith, and Herb Ellis to name a few were all  masters at taking only a chorus or two – yet they made very powerful musical statements.  The students asked me to post some examples of short solos in a live context.  Here are four of mine:

Solo on ‘Air Mail Special’ – Duo with Joe Negri

Solo on ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’ – Duo with Joe Negri

Solo on ‘Four on Six’ – Duo with Joe Negri

Solo on ‘There’s a Boat Leaving for China’  – with Doug and Dane Richeson

As Charles “Teenie” Harris’ photography poetically illustrate, Pittsburgh has been home to a long line of great jazz artists. Masters such as Roy Eldridge, Billy Eckstein, Art Blakey, Mary Lou Williams, George Benson and others were not only great performers but leaders, educators, composers and arrangers. Their influence is heard throughout the world and their legacy lives on through the tenacity and commitment of organizations like MCG Jazz and its Pittsburgh Jazz Legacy Project.

Pittsburgh has been at the epicenter of jazz since the 1930s when all the great big bands of the era would stop in the city, for as long as a month, to perform on their way from New York City to Chicago. The significant number of Jazz Legends who got their start in Pittsburgh is due, in part, to this exposure. Over the past century, cultural diversity coupled with robust philanthropic support for the Arts in the Pittsburgh region has laid the foundation for jazz to flourish and has produced many of the greatest Jazz Masters the world has ever known.

With support from BNY Mellon, MCG Jazz is excited to announce the release of a new CD by the 21^st Century Swing Band entitled, Pittsburgh Jazz Legacy. The 21^st Century Swing Band features nine of Pittsburgh’s finest musicians with special guests Roger Humphries, John Wilson, Maureen Budway and Joe Negri. Each of the 15 songs is dedicated to a specific Pittsburgher whether it is Stanley Turrentine, Henry Mancini, Dakota Staton or Ray Brown.

In 1979, I started a band while as an undergraduate at Ithaca College called AURORA. The band had trumpet, saxophone, trombone, guitar, bass, piano and drums. It was such and exciting period for jazz as the mixing with rock, Latin and R&B gave jazz musicians the opportunity to play in places that were new for jazz musicians. The band played instrumental jazz with a Tower of Power or Chicago type approach which appealed to the college crowd. We would play in dance clubs and perform the Average White Band tune – “Pick Up the Pieces” for 20 minutes with long solos and a hip groove. Then we would play something from Jeff Lorber, Chick Corea, The Brecker Brothers, The Crusaders and maybe Freddie Hubbard’s “Super Blue” to let the kids cool off. The cats in the band were transcribing tunes off the records at a breakneck pace and we were having a ball playing this music while learning new harmonies and grooves at the same time.

Now, 30 years later, I put together an updated version of the band here in Pittsburgh with my brother Jay (who was in the original band) and Mike Tomaro the fantastic arranger and reed player here in town. All three of us cut our teeth on this music and we have had a tremendous time going down memory lane in the process of picking out the tunes. The other three musicians James Johnson III, Alton Merrel and Jeremy MacDonald were not even born when we were playing this music in 1979! While we have only had one gig so far, the experience of recreating this music and playing it with a new generation of musicians has been very gratifying – hopefully more to come. Would love to hear anyone’s thoughts on great tunes from the 1975-85 era. Our next scheduled gig is August 22nd as part of the Reservoir of Jazz Series at Highland Park at 5PM.

We just finished three days of of live concerts with Keiko Matsui and Bob James playing four hands on one piano.  Something that you certainly don’t see everyday.  We filmed the concert which will be a part their new project to be released later this year.  It was a fantastic experience working with Bob and Keiko and witnessing their virtuoso performances night after night.

Visit www.bobjames.com for information when you might catch the show in your town.

I’ll be posting a video clip here as soon as it’s ready.

Each month I go back into my record collection or download or find in some way a recording that I may have missed along the way or need to rediscover its musical message.  This month I am digging back into the 1963 Fantasy recording of Wes Montgomery called Fusion.  This was before the days when Wes would have all of the lush strings behind him while he was playing pop tunes of the day like Windy.

I was at John Levy’s house in LA this past fall and he told me that this was the first recording that Wes actually did with strings (he should know as he was there at the session).  Wes’ playing is so honest and pure on this recording – while it is not sonically the best record ever produced, it has an intimacy about it you don’t hear in the more produced recordings Wes did with strings later in his career.  I selected the track “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning”.

This month, we’re revisiting an interview I did with Tim Zak in 2005 about the future of jazz.

Here’s description of the interview:

“In this audio interview with Tim Zak, Marty charts his career from jazz musician in New York City, to the marketing/development departments of  orchestras in Cleveland and Pittsburgh, and finally to his current role as director of one of the country’s top jazz performance and recording venues. For Marty, the spirit of collaboration and improvisation that characterizes America’s unique music form, jazz, also infuses the culture of the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild itself.”

>> Click here to listen to the interview.

This month I am experimenting with the harp guitar.  The one I am currently playing is a replica of the 1910 Dyer version.  This one is made in Mexico from the Paracho region where there are many little independent guitar makers.  My guitar technician tells me that there are some very strange design elements when it comes to how the harp neck is attached and how the low strings are positioned through the bridge.  Definitely a guitar that was handmade without the use of modern machines. (I’ll send the photo from home later tonight)

The guitar sounds fantastic however and stays in tune well enough to get through a take in a recording.  I am experimenting with a variety of tunings but seem to be partial to D, C, Bb, A, G, F (descending) at the moment.  I will post some sound bits next month from the recordings I am using this axe on.