…a sampling of Jazz news deserving of a post rather than a roll, a blogroll that is
Word filtering into the Woodshed is that Antiguan drummer and certified music teacher, Vince ‘Kazi’ McCoy, turned it up at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City this past July. Kazi was just coming off his fifth appearance at the Cape Cod Jazz Festival, June 30.
Kazi emigrated to East Coast, USA with a healthy background as a drummer in the calypso bands of some of the most successful Antiguan and Trinidadian entertainers. Once in the US, he earned himself a Masters degree in Music Education from Hunter College (City University of New York). Outside of that, he studied with folks like Cindy Blackman to hone his performance skills, skills that he took with him to the Jazz Standard, Birdland, Joe’s Pub and St. Peter’s Church, the Jazz Church.
Kazi told caribarena.com that his next goal is take his band to Antigua again.
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Trumpeter Ray Vega took a swing through Middlebury, Vermont on July 17 with his five-piece band, Tales from the Boogie Down. This New Yorker, born of Puerto Rican parents, had his Latin Jazz programmed and hedged between bluegrass music and Big Band Jazz on the penultimate day of the six-day Jazz on the Green, which ended July 18.
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A fortnight earlier, Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés broke a seven-year absence from the Canadian touring circuit to fill up the Théâtre Masionneuve to capacity. Valdés‘ stop in Montreal was one of five through the Canadian Jazz circuit.
Valdés captains his ship mates – bassist Lazaro Rivero, conga player Yaroldy Abreu, drummer Juan Carlos Rojas and his vocalist sister, Maria Caridad – into a sea of Classic Jazz, prog-Jazz fusion and Cuban clave, with a supreme confidence as Mike Doherty on nationalpost.com would put it.
Chucho Valdés at Montreal Jazz Festival, Canada, July 02 2009.
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