All That Jazz

(Newser) - Grammy-winning jazz giant Freddie Hubbard died today in Sherman Oaks, Calif., a month after having a heart attack, the AP reports. He was 70. Revered among trumpet players, Hubbard collaborated with legends like John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins as he established a blazing, hard-bop style that influenced a generation. "His playing is exuberant," said Wynton Marsalis, who admired Hubbard's "big sound" and "sense of rhythm and time." More »

(Newser) - We love our iPods and stereos, but what evolutionary purpose does all of this music serve? The Shakespearean idea that "music be the food of love" is popular among experts, who say music aids courtship and therefore human survival. Another theory says music replaced another social activity: grooming. When tribes grew too big for everyone to groom everyone else, humans started singing to keep the group together. More »

(Newser) - Chicago has bid adieu to old blues music and welcomed a new legion of players, many foreign-born, who are transforming the city's low-down tradition, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Largely abandoned by blacks, the blues has moved from Chicago's shuttered South- and West-Side clubs to the friendlier, gentrified North Side—where players from Japan and Israel can be seen jamming with white musicians. More »

(Newser) - A white guy from Queens may be our best link to a music rooted in black history. Phil Schapp grew up in a home full of jazz, and has hosted a radio show obsessed with the music's minutiae for decades, the New Yorker reports. He's liable to digress on Charlie Parker's pronunciation of "Okiedoke," but that's an improvement: "For the first twenty years, I was concerned about telling you absolutely everything about every tune," he said. More »

(Newser) - The iconoclastic clarinetist and composer Jimmy Giuffre died Thursday, two days before what would have been his 87th birthday, the New York Times reports. The Texas-born jazz legend's 50-year career took him from big-band hits with Woody Herman to minimalist trios, with a stint playing in mess halls as a GI in WWII. Giuffre's experimental, blues-infused styling made him a leading figure in the '50s "cool jazz" scene. More »

(Newser) - Legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson died last night at his home near Toronto from kidney failure, CBC News reports. He was 82. The Canadian musician made hundreds of recordings, won seven Grammys, and played alongside greats like Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, and Ella Fitzgerald. "The world has lost the world's greatest jazz player," said Peterson's hometown mayor. More »

(Newser) - Even though it's freezing outside, you don't have to shut yourself up at home. Party on three continents at these amazing festivals, selected by Sherman's Travel: Barbados Jazz Festival, Jan. 14–20 Buenos Aires Tango Festival, Feb 22-Mar 3 Carnival in Rio, Feb 2–5 More »

(Newser) - Joe Zawinul, the keyboardist who plugged America into "Electric Jazz" in the 1970s, has died at age 75. Best known for playing jazz-rock fusion with Miles Davis and starting up Weather Report with Wayne Shorter, Zawinul defended his electric sound against jazz purists. "There is no difference between a Stradivarius or a beautiful synthesizer sound," he once said. More »

(Newser) - The battered post-Katrina economy drove jazz musicians into the streets of New Orleans yesterday, holding instruments silent at their sides in what they termed a “solidarity march.” Ninety percent of city musicians were living at or below the poverty line even before the hurricane, the Times-Picayune reports, and now competition for remaining spots has bands playing for peanuts. More »

(Newser) - Max Roach, a drummer who moved to his own beat and became a seminal figure in modern jazz, died today at 83. Roach renovated his genre's traditional instrumentation, and pioneered a layered, contrapuntal style that became the trademark of contemporary percussion. Even his recent albums defied the conventions he helped forge. "You can't write the same book twice," he once said. More »