Three Wishes

While in conversation with Melba Liston, girl talk turned to the granting of three wishes and she told Pannonica that she would wish for:

1. “One thing I’m concerned about is the youth music program. Kids don’t have the opportunity they should have – kids with talent, I mean. There’s an awful lot of talking, but not enough doing. There should be a workshop, or a place where they’d have a chance to learn something besides rock “n’ roll. I would love to be able to do something about that.”
2. “The other things are personal…. I wish I had lots of money.”
3. “I wish I had equal opportunity according to energy, ability, and desire. And sex. Mainly sex.”

*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter

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DELFEAYO MARSALIS & MARTHA REEVES

Motown Meets The Big Easy – Delfeayo Marsalis & Martha Reeves will bring a magical evening, filled with music from two of America’s iconic cities and their complex musical cultures, to Keystone Korner Baltimore!

Grammy-winner Delfeayo Marsalis is one of the top trombonists, composers and producers in jazz today. Known for his technical excellence, inventive mind and frequent touches of humor, he is “one of the best, most imaginative and musical of the trombonists of his generation,” (Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner). In 2011, Delfeayo and the Marsalis family (father Ellis and brothers Branford, Wynton and Jason) earned the nation’s highest jazz honor – a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award. Marsalis has toured internationally with jazz legends such as Ray Charles, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Elvin Jones and Slide Hampton, as well as leading his own groups. As a cultural activist, he has founded three non-profits – Uptown Music Theatre, Uptown Jazz Orchestra and Keep New Orleans Music Alive – all of which are designed to strengthen the community in his hometown of New Orleans.

Martha Reeves has made her imprint in the history books and in pop culture for her string of hit Motown songs in the 1960’s and early 1970’s including such hits as “Dancing in the Street”, “My Baby Loves Me”, “Come and Get These Memories”, “Nowhere to Run”, “Quick Sand”, “(Love is Like a ) Heatwave”, “Jimmy Mack” and “Bless You”. Martha was front and center as the lead singer of the legendary Motown girl group, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, who are listed among Rolling Stone magazine’s 100 Immortal Artists of all time. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance for “Heat Wave”. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and is also the recipient of the Dinah Washington Award, a Rhythm n’ Blues Foundation Pioneer Award, and a Black Woman in Publishing Legends Award. 2023 marks Martha’s 60th anniversary of her first two albums with Motown both from 1963, Come and Get These Memories and Heat Wave.

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WYCLIFFE GORDON & FRIENDS

Wycliffe A. Gordon jazz trombonist, arranger, composer, band leader, and music educator at the collegiate-conservatory level. Gordon also sings and plays didgeridoo, trumpet, soprano trombone, tuba, and piano.

His early works as a professional were with Wynton Marsalis, but in 2010 he has expanded beyond swing and has experimented with new instruments. The strongest example of this might be The Search where he plays didgeridoo and covers Thelonious Monk songs. He has also played Gospel music.

In 1995, Gordon arranged and orchestrated the theme song for NPR’s All Things Considered. Gordon’s arrangement and orchestration is the third version of the melody composed in 1971 by Donald Joseph Voegeli (1920–2009).

On September 24, 2004, Gordon conducted the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in the premiere of his new, original score for “Body and Soul”, the 1925 silent film directed by Oscar Micheaux.

He has recently gained more worldwide popularity, being featured in South Australia’s Generations In Jazz 2016 and 2017, playing alongside artists such as James Morrison, Jazzmeia Horn, Gordon Goodwin and Ross Irwin among others. For over a decade, he has also worked with visual artist and educator Ligel Lambert on numerous collaborative projects.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Chris Abelen was born in Tilburg, Netherlands on September 29, 1959 and started out on trumpet at 11, switching to the bigger horn at 18. He studied classical trombone with Charles Toet and Henri Aarts, and then jazz and improvised music with Willem van Manen a member of Willem Breuker Kollektief, the band that first called global attention to Dutch improvised music.

Taking over van Manen’s chair in the Kollektief in 1984, they would tour and record extensively with that band until 1988. Abelen led his own groups and in 1992 led a pan-generational, pan-stylistic international tentet showcasing the players with mini-concertos that demonstrate Abelen’s preoccupations with color, texture, mood, and his wry indirect sense of humor.

His desire to lead his own band had him forming first a sextet that evolved into a quartet. He then put together a tentet, in which a quartet and quintet was produced. All the configurations went on to record several albums. Over the years Chris has toured and recorded with numerous Dutch jazz and new music ensembles, including Willem van Manen’s Contraband, I Compani, Paradise Regained Orchestra, Eric van der Westen Octet, and numerous others.

Taking his music in a new direction by 2016 he had released his sixth album, A Day At The Office, with a septet. Other new projects are still in the pipeline and trombonist Chris Abelen continues to perform and compose.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Rodney Charles Levitt was born on September 16, 1929 in Portland, Oregon and studied composition at the University of Washington, where he took his BA in 1951.

He was in the Radio City Music Hall orchestra from 1957 to 1963, and during those years he performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Ernie Wilkins, Kai Winding, and Sy Oliver. In 1959 Rod worked with Gil Evans when his orchestra accompanied Miles Davis. The following year he played with Gerry Mulligan and Mundell Lowe, with Quincy Jones in ‘61, and with Oliver Nelson in 1962.

He recorded four albums as a leader of an octet between 1963-66 and continued to work with this combination into the 1970s, when he played with bassist Chuck Israels.

Later in his career he worked with Cedar Walton and Blue Mitchell, and wrote music for commercials with a company he ran from 1966-1989. The late Seventies saw him teaching at Fairleigh Dickinson, Hofstra University, CUNY, and Hunter College.

Trombonist, composer, and bandleader Rod Levitt transitioned from Alzheimer’s disease in Wardsboro, Vermont at the age of 77 on May 8, 2007.

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