Jazz Journalists Association Best Of 2012 selections on Spotify

This playlist features the top selections of 2012 from individual members of the Jazz Journalists Association. It includes full albums, reissues, vocal and latin selections available on Spotify. Unfortunately, a few releases are not available (yet?) on the service. Still, it is a good barometer of what happened in jazz these past 12 months.

You can view the original top ten lists at www.jazzjournalists.org. The Spotify playlist was compiled by Jazz.gr. Hierarchy is random.

Austin Peralta, Oct 25 1990 – Nov 21 2012

An astonishing talent and a beautiful person, just 22 years old, passed away yesterday. I feel numb.

From Wikipedia:

Peralta was a piano player, devoted to music from his very young years when he started taking piano lessons at age 6, and continued his music studies with Eleanor Lindboe and Sara Banta at Pepperdine University. He has also studied with the noted jazz pianist Alan Pasqua and saxophonist Buddy Collette. He won the Shelly Manne New Talent Award given by the Los Angeles Jazz Society in 2003. He performed all over the world including Germany and Japan, where he had his first tour in 2006.

At age 15, Peralta was also a featured performer at the 2006 Tokyo Jazz Festival, appearing with his own trio, as well as a live performance with major jazz and jazz fusion stars Chick Corea, Hank Jones, Sadao Watanabe, John Patitucci, Omar Hakim, and the young Japanese pianist Hiromi Uehara. At age 16 Peralta appeared at the internationally-known Java Jazz Festival (2007). In 2012 he was performing regularly with Allan Holdsworth and Virgil Donati.

Peralta’s first CD, Maiden Voyage, featured bassist Ron Carter, and his second release Mantra included bassist Buster Williams.

Peralta was the son of the Z-Boy skateboarder and film director Stacy Peralta. He contributed to the original soundtrack of his father’s documentary film Riding Giants with a piano solo.

Peralta appeared on the track “DMT Song” on Flying Lotus’ album Until the Quiet Comes (2012).

He died on November 21, 2012 at the age of 22.

Support Billy Harper’s Kickstarter project!

Billy Harper, the tenor saxophonist who released the classic jazz lp “Black Saint” in 1975 and has played with some of the greatest jazzmen, is organizing a massive groundbreaking concert at Saint Peter’s Church (the Jazz Church) in New York City on December 1st 2012.

Harper will lead his sextet and a choir of sixty voices in a concert titled “Speak To Me Of Love, Speak To Me Of Truth”, exploring the dynamics of the human voice, “mankind’s first tonal instrument” as he says.

Check out the video below to see rehearsals with twenty members of his vocal group and support this worthy Kickstarter project. Their aim is to raise $25,000 to fund rehearsal and performance fees.

Nina Simone 1969 documentary

“You see music, you know, is all encompassing. So that if you’re not performing, you’re dancing. If you’re not dancing, you’re composing. If you’re not composing, you’re listening. You’re always, I’m always involved with music, and most of the world is. Daily, 24 hours, we’re involved with it… I could never get away from it, and don’t want to… My brain can’t conceive of getting away from music. That’s me.” – Nina Simone

Here’s a documentary filmed by Peter Rodis in 1969, which includes original archival footage that has been used by other films about Nina Simone, such as The Legend. Perhaps this can help you form an opinion about the negative feedback surrounding the decision to cast Zoe Saldana as Nina Simone in the upcoming biopic, the latest being India.Arie’s post on the official Nina Simone website.

Please advise

Transcript:

Reposted from Letters of Note