Hothouse Featured

  • Antoine Roney

    Antoine Roney: Heart Music

    by Raul da Gama

    Where does music come from? We are, indeed, speaking of the realm of the platonic, the realm of the spirit. We are talking of each note that goes to form a string of ineffably precious and beautiful pearls that, in turn, forms a proverbial necklace that adorns the melody of a song. From a black dot on a line or the spaces between the lines of a staved paper? Certainly not where Antoine Roney comes from.

    In the case of Antoine – as in the case of the spiritual ancestors of the horns from whom he has descended: Dexter Gordon, Hawk and Bean, Charlie Parker, Jackie Maclean, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, Pharoah Sanders – it pulsates from the beat of his heart.

    The heart – more than the head – speaks through Antoine’s horns. It is something he always knew from listening to music at home with his musically noble family. “Of course, technique is important,” he says, “but what’s in the heart determines the sound of your voice.” We all breathe the same air, but what you make of it aurally is what counts.

    It is one of those unforgettable lessons you learn when your early mentors are Wayne Shorter and Jackie Maclean. “Jackie and [his son] René always said, ‘focus on telling the story… sing the blues.’ Sure, structure – the 12-bar structure of WC Handy – is important, but ‘composition is storytelling.’”

    Antoine says, “I believe I have a story to tell. That, and because music has the power to heal. It’s why I make music.” 

    To read more, visit https://heyzine.com/shelf/e31d04e81a.html.

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  • Cindy Blackman Santana

    Legendary Musician, Philanthropist, Vocalist, and Role Model: Cindy Blackman Santana is Changing the Game

    by Joyce Jones and Chrys L. Roney

    Born in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Cindy Blackman Santana epitomizes the power of passion and perseverance in the world of music. From the moment she could stand on her two feet, Cindy found herself drawn to the rhythmic allure of the drums. "I was just drawn to everything about the drums," Cindy reminisces. "When I heard music, drums were the instrument that I singled out in my ear." Encouraged by her mother, Ghita Blackman, Cindy would tap rhythms on her mother's back, finding the perfect tones. While her parents initially believed Cindy’s fascination with drums was a passing phase, this intrigue evolved into a lifelong passion and career.

    Cindy’s relentless pursuit of drumming mastery guided her trajectory. "I always searched out drums to play, people to play with, things to play music, and everything involved with playing. I was very interested in it, and I loved it, so that’s what I developed," she explains. This fervor for drumming—and a profound admiration for the legendary Tony Williams—led her to enroll at Berklee College of Music in Boston. There, she studied under Alan Dawson, the same instructor who taught Tony Williams. Berklee also introduced her to the late trumpeter and composer Wallace Roney, whose encyclopedic knowledge of music further broadened her horizons. "Wallace turned me on to a ton of incredible records, and it really opened up my head in terms of what I was thinking about," she says with evident appreciation.

    To read more, visit https://heyzine.com/shelf/e31d04e81a.html.

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  • Dee Dee Bridgewater

     

     


    Dee Dee Bridgewater: Yesterday, Today … and Tomorrow
    by Raul da Gama

    How do you fit the life of someone celebrated for her multi-dimensional artistry, and more importantly, a quintessential human being, in a few hundred words or so? Why, even a 300- or 400-page book wouldn’t do to fit all that she has accomplished in life so far. Here’s a snapshot: three GRAMMY Awards, a Tony Award winner for her role as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wiz - the Broadway version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1975) - the Doris Duke Award (2019), NEA Jazz Master (2020), Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, first American to be inducted into the Haut Conseil de la FrancophonieCommandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Award (France), and that is just scratching the surface.

    The soul is where Dee Dee’s art resides, and it is from that deepest recess of her being that it emerges. Her voyage of discovery took her first to Mali, to discover her African ancestry. The evanescent music of Red Earth: A Malian Journey (DDB Records, 2007) resulted from that part of her journey. From Bamako, the next stop was Memphis, where she was born and lived until three years of age, when she moved to Flint, MI. “After having done Red Earth, which was the African part of my journey,” Dee Dee says, “I needed to look at my birthplace. I was born in Memphis, TN. And I decided that I needed to look at my birthplace and my ancestry here in the United States.” That part of Dee Dee’s journey yielded perhaps her most stripped down, and also her most ambitious album, Memphis… Yes I’m Ready (OKeh, 2017). Again, that is just scratching the surface of her catalogue.

    To Read More, Visit: https://mags.hothousejazzmagazine.com/509e3d909f.html#page/12

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  • Dave Stryker Movies

    by George Kanzler

    Guitarist Dave Stryker has forged a long career firmly rooted in soul jazz. Early on, he paid his dues playing with soul jazz B3 organist Jack McDuff and with leading soul jazz tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine. In recent years, he has led an organ trio and recorded a series of albums in a collection he’s named Eight Track, which includes many soul jazz and R’n’B/Soul hits from the 1970s and 1980s. But as a teenager in the 1970s, Dave wasn’t just, or primarily, into music. He was also an avid film buff, a fan of the burgeoning indie film movement of the era, as well as such studio-based franchises as 007, James Bond. That love of film has persisted throughout his life, leading him to call his latest recording project “one to check off my bucket list."

    Goes to the Movies, Dave Stryker with Strings, Orchestra arranged and conducted by Brent Wallarab (Strikezone Records), features eleven tunes from ten different movies, all but one featuring a string and brass (trombone choir) orchestra, with Stryker and a rhythm section, occasionally joined in solo roles by violinist Sarah Caswell; Greg Ward, alto sax; Jim Pugh, trombone; and Mark Buselli, flugelhorn.

    The album is an outgrowth of a collaborative project by Brent and Dave in 2023 at Indiana University (where they were both on the jazz faculty) to honor the centennial of guitarist Wes Montgomery, a native of Indianapolis. Brent wrote orchestral arrangements for a string orchestra to highlight Dave’s guitar tribute to Montgomery, and the pair wanted to continue that orchestra-soloist relationship on a recording project. But Dave did not want it to be a Wes Montgomery project. “I just love Wes too much," he said. But one of the tunes from the tribute, “Dreamsville,” the theme from the TV series Peter Gunn and movie Gunn, prompted Dave and Brent, also a movie buff, to come up with Goes to the Movies.

    The album has a definite 1970s, CTI Records vibe, reflected in the lush string-horn arrangements, pianist Xavier Davis’s contributions on electric piano (a favorite of producer Creed Taylor, the CT of CTI), and Dave’s playing that is highly reminiscent of Wes Montgomery. “Wes was a big influence on me,” says Dave, who counts the guitarist as equally important to him as movies in his formative years.

    Dave Stryker will be playing versions of the movie themes on Goes to the Movies at Birdland Theater, January 24–26, with his Organ Trio (Jared Gold, organ; McClenty Hunter, drums) and tenor saxophonists Troy Roberts (January 24-25) and Rob Dixon (January 26).

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  • Dr. Eddie Henderson - A Storied Life 

    Dr. Eddie Henderson - A Storied Life 

    By John Zaff 

     

     

    When he was growing up, Eddie Henderson had no idea that he was surrounded by music 

    legends. At the age of nine, his mom took him to the Apollo Theater to see Louis Armstrong. 

    Backstage, Louis gave Eddie his first trumpet lesson. “So that was the beginning,” said Eddie. “I 

    had no idea it was going to turn into the rest of my life!” 

         This anecdote is but one of many Eddie pulls out of his back pocket during a lively interview. 

    His father was in a renowned singing group whose records occasionally featured Frank Sinatra. 

    His mother was a dancer at the Cotton Club in Harlem and a one-time roommate of Billie 

    Holiday. Miles Davis and Duke Ellington were family friends and frequent house guests. But for 

    young Eddie, these were just his parents’ friends. And knowing them would exert a life-long 

    influence. 

         It takes years of dedicated practice to play an instrument at the virtuoso level. Jazz giant Dr. 

    Eddie Henderson has not only accomplished that, mastering trumpet and flugelhorn, but, 

    remarkably, has managed a double life as a practicing medical doctor—and perhaps even a triple 

    life, as he was also a competitive ice skater. A recent documentary about Eddie’s life, called 

    Uncommon Genius, chronicles his many achievements. 

         The year of Eddie’s trumpet lesson with Satchmo was life-changing for other reasons. Eddie’s 

    dad passed away and his mom remarried a doctor who moved the family from New York to San 

    Francisco. Eddie began trumpet lessons and developed an intense love of music. But his 

    stepfather didn’t approve and pushed him hard to pursue a career in medicine. “The only real 

    reason I became a doctor was because my stepfather was a doctor and he told me that if I 

    pursued music, I’d end up a bum” said Eddie “So I became a doctor.” Eddie’s forays into music 

    would soon prove his stepfather wrong. 

         In medical school, Eddie lived a double life studying psychiatry during the day and playing 

    jazz at night.  Eddie worked as hard on music as he did on medicine. He listened carefully to the 

    great trumpet players on the scene and slowly but surely picked up on the language of bebop and 

    post-bop.  “At first I tried to sound like Miles Davis, then I tried to sound like Freddie Hubbard, 

    then I wanted to sound like Lee Morgan,” said Eddie.  “So, all of those jazz heroes of mine 

    rubbed off on me…That’s how jazz language perpetuates itself from one generation to the next, 

    like passing the baton in a relay race.”  Eddie is quick to point out that all of the greats went 

    through a similar process of listening to their own heroes and then synthesizing their own 

    musical personas in response to what they take in.  “Miles would have wanted to play like Dizzy 

    Gillespie, but not many people could imitate Dizzy, because it’s just so difficult, so Miles had to 

    go the other way and develop a cool style of trumpet playing.” He says with a laugh.  

         Eddie seemed to have a knack for crossing paths with some of the greatest musicians of his 

    times. Once upon meeting John Coltrane and striking up a conversation with him, Coltrane gave 

    young Eddie some advice that always stayed with him. “Practice what you don’t know” he told 

    Eddie. “Don’t waste time practicing what you’re already good at.”   

         One evening, Herbie Hancock happened into a club where Eddie was playing. He was 

    impressed by what he heard and needed a sub trumpet player for a one-week club tour. Eddie 

    was hired. Playing with musicians of that caliber blew his mind. That one-week stint turned into 

    a multi-year stint with Herbie’s iconic fusion group, Mwandishi and brought Eddie to the point of no turn back with his music career. And yet, he continued to practice medicine when he was 

    not on the road. And even in his medical career, Eddie managed to cross paths with jazz legends; 

    both Thelonious Monk and Chet Baker came through his clinic, as patients of his.   

         After teaming up with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, the legendary group that nurtured so 

    many future jazz stars, Eddie was finally ready to play and record as a leader of his own groups 

    and ensembles. Over the years, the elite names and music legends that run through Eddie's 

    discography multiplied and serve as a testament to his ability to consistently create outstanding 

    and relevant music with the highest level of musicians. Eddie still plays with the superstar 

    ensemble, the Cookers, but also continues to play and record with his own groups.  Asked, when 

    did you finally feel like you’d made it and arrived as one of the great musicians, Eddie replied 

    “Oh, that never happened! That never crosses my mind, because it’s a lifetime growing process. 

    You never say, oh I’m at my peak, because you’re never at your peak. You can always be 

    learning something new every day! 

         Still teaching at Oberlin College, Eddie has “passed the baton” on to countless students who 

    he has taught and mentored. “Jazz, I think, is alive and well,” says Eddie. “There’s a wealth of 

    younger, talented musicians coming up who are very good.” He likes to tell his students that “it’s 

    always better to be the worst person in the band, not the best, because that’s what helps you to 

    grow.” 

         Eddie recently released his twenty-sixth leader album, very appropriately called "Witness to 

    History" on the Smoke Session Records Label.  “I’ve been very fortunate,” says Eddie, “to have 

    good genes, a good background and great life circumstances. My life was just like a fairytale 

    come true!”  

    The Eddie Henderson Quintet holds court at Smoke Jazz Club with Vincent Herring on 

    Saxophone, Peter Zak on Piano and Nat Reeves on Bass, August 1st through the 4th.  

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