April 30: GBH & JazzBoston celebrate International Jazz Day

GBH and JazzBoston Team Up to Celebrate

International Jazz Day on Friday, April 30

 

Free Live Virtual Performance, JazzNOW: No Borders,

Features the Boston-based Jazz World Trio

Boston public media producer GBH and JazzBoston are teaming up to celebrate International Jazz Day. GBH’s Eric Jackson will host JazzNOW: No Borders, a free live virtual performance on Friday, April 30 at 8 pm.  Live from the acoustically acclaimed GBH Fraser Performance Studio, the event will feature the Jazz World Trio, a group of three international artists each with a strong Boston tie. The video performance streams to the GBH website.

 

“There's a wealth of jazz talent and experience in Boston, and GBH is determined to help bring this music to audiences near and far,” said Anthony Rudel, general manager of GBH Music. “Streaming a live performance with these incredible artists gives Boston a major local presence on International Jazz Day. I expect this dynamic session is just the first of many more collaborations with JazzBoston.”

 

The Jazz World Trio will present a wide-ranging performance incorporating original works from leader Guillermo Nojechowicz's Argentina tango roots as well as pieces from the deep roots of jazz in Black American culture. The Jazz World Trio consists of Argentinean drummer, composer and educator Guillermo Nojechowicz, internationally-renowned Swedish bassist and composer Bruno Råberg and South African jazz pianist and composer Witness Matlou. All three musicians are affiliated with Berklee College of Music. Matlou, whose work is influenced by African traditional, folk music, classical and other genres, is currently a Fellow at the Harvard University Center for African Studies. 

 

"I'm thrilled that JazzBoston is partnering with GBH for this exciting live celebration of International Jazz Day, as we work together to strengthen the local jazz community,” says Ken Field, JazzBoston Board President. “This fantastic trio of internationally-born, Boston-based musicians showcases Boston's place as a top jazz city.”

 

Started in 2011 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), International Jazz Day is a worldwide celebration of the artform and its diplomatic role in uniting people across the globe. The event is chaired by UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay and iconic jazz pianist and composer Herbie Hancock.

 

Eric Jackson, host of Eric in the Evening on GBH 89.7, is widely considered the dean of Boston Jazz radio, having been a fixture at GBH for more than 40 years. In addition to Eric in the Evening, GBH also offers Jazz 24/7, a streaming station featuring a fresh mix of new songs selected from an extensive library of jazz recordings by Jackson and Tessil Collins. GBH also collaborates with its sister organization NEPM to bring jazz to audiences across Massachusetts. NEPM’s signature jazz program is Jazz à la Mode. 

 

"This collaboration between GBH and JazzBoston is great news, especially for the Jazz community,” said Eric Jackson, host of GBH’s Eric in the Evening. “What a great way to celebrate International Jazz Day by having a performance of a trio from 3 different continents, Nojechowicz, from South America, Råberg from Europe, and Matlou from Africa. It will be an exciting night of music!"

 

Eric Jackson will host a conversation with the musicians following the 8 pm performance on Friday, April 30. The free tickets for JazzNOW: No Borders are provided through the generosity of GBH, with support from the Mass Cultural Council and BioMed Realty. Event pre-registration is required.

About GBH

GBH is the leading multiplatform creator for public media in America. As the largest producer of content for PBS and partner to NPR and PRX, GBH delivers compelling experiences, stories and information to audiences wherever they are.  GBH’s local television channels include GBH 2, GBH 44 and GBH Kids.  With a newsroom headquartered in Boston, GBH reaches across New England with GBH 89.7, Boston’s Local NPR; CRB Classical 99.5; a Jazz 24/7 stream; and CAI, the Cape and Islands NPR station. From Boston to the Berkshires, from Worcester to the Cape and Islands, GBH is dedicated to connecting the Commonwealth through news, programming, learning tools and events. GBH has been recognized with hundreds of the nation’s premier broadcast, digital and journalism awards. Find more information at gbh.org.

About Jazz Boston

JazzBoston connects, promotes, and advocates for the musicians, audiences, and venues of Greater Boston’s dynamic and diverse jazz community. The nonprofit organization spreads the music and message of jazz and celebrates Boston as one of the world’s great jazz cities.  Find more information at jazzboston.org.

El Eco & Guillermo Nojechowicz - Two Worlds (2018)

In 1987, Chilean conceptual artist Alfredo Jaar baffled and angered passerby in Time Square with an installation that showed a map of the United Sates with the words “This is not America.” The computer-animated image then changed to show the word “America” and a map of the whole continent. The point, for Latin Americans at least, was rather obvious, but it had to be made. Similarly, in the 1980s, the late, great Cuban trumpeter and band leader Mario Bauza, who knew a thing of two about jazz, Afro-Cuban and Latin American music, used to baffle and anger many of his lesser every time he said that, with the exception of Paquito D’Rivera, no one was playing Latin jazz. What everybody called Latin jazz, he used to declare with a shrug, as if chagrined for having to state the obvious, was Afro-Cuban jazz. He wasn’t being just a proud Cubano, which of course he was, but calling attention o an overlooked, extraordinary world of rhythms and styles. In the decade since, a new generation of Latin American jazz musicians has emerged with an open, pan-Latin approach to Latin Jazz. Musicians such as Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez, Puerto Rican saxophonist David Sanchez and Venezuelan pianist Ed Simon have been drawing from the roots as well as their experiences in the United States and as a result, in the their music, mejoranas meet Monk, blues take a bomba y plena groove and Venezuelan tonadas take on hard swing. Argentine drummer and composer Guillermo Nojechowicz has been there all along, a practicioner and creator, as well, of this new pan-Latin sound. In compositions that range on this debut CD from the dark Chacarera de Paloma to the lyrical bounce of Samba de Maya, Nojechowicz, who has lived in Boston since 1980, reworks rhythms and styles such as Argentine chacareras, Braziian baiãos and Uruguayan candombes with the vocabulary of blues and bop. If the results sound organic, lived-in, it is because they reflect a life experience that is not just bilingual but bicultural. That’s what’s at the heart of Two Worlds. This is music from a place with blurred boundaries, a place of memories, echoes indeed, and startling newness. Café Opinião, for example, is a glimpse at, and a tribute to, a place in Rio de Janeiro, “a sort of Buena Vista Social Club” where musicians used to hang out and play, says Nojechowicz. Chacarera de Paloma is for a friend of his who became one of the “desaparecidos,” the vanished ones, during the Dirty War in Argentina in the late 70s. Time Lost, an easy-on-the ear ballad, was written after a trip to Buenos Aires to visit to his ill father, painter Noe Nojechowiz, who passed away in 1998. It is a meditation on lost chances, about time passed and things not shared. But this is followed by the bright, hopeful Samba de Maya, dedicatied to his seven-year-old daughter. Musically, Two Worlds stretches from a gentle mocking European tango in the title track and the irresistible groove of candombe, an African-rooted rhythm from the Rio de la Plata to a sober version of Sting’s Fragile and the joyful Afro-Brazilian rhythm of partido alto in Partido Final. This may be music that has its roots a continent away, but Nojechowicz’ writing resonates deeply, not just for the culturally curious. Ricky Ricardo yesterday, Ricky Martin today, the names change but every ten years or so mainstream culture in the United States discovers America – the other America that is. And as it turns out, at this turn of the century, it lives next door. Discover it yourself, here. 

Fernando Gonzalez

1. Two Worlds (feat. Claudio Roditi & Helio Alves) 6:09

2. Partido Final (feat. Dino Govoni) 4:38

3. Time Lost (feat. Romero Lubambo) 5:34

4. Samba de Maya (feat. Kim Nazarian) 4:42

5. Uruguay (feat. Cafe & Helio Alves) 4:32

6. La Bossa Nova de Claudio (feat. Claudio Roditi) 5:21

7. Cafe Opiniao (feat. Romero Lubambo) 5:29

8. Fragile (feat. Kim Nazarian) 4:09

9. Chacarera de Paloma (feat. Donny McCaslin) 5:50

10. Boa Viagem Baiao 4:46

Guillermo Nojechowicz, drums

Kim Nazarian, vocal

Helio Alves, piano

Dino Govoni, saxes

Fernando Huergo, bass

John Allmark, trumpet

Claudio Roditi, trumpet and flugelhorn

Romero Lumbambo, guitar

Cafe, percussion

Nestor Sanchez, background vocals

Donny McCaslin, tenor sax

Brad Hatfield, keyboards

Amaro Laria, congas

Mark Greel, trumpet