Apr 8, 2025 1:23 PM
Blue Note Jazz Festival New York Posts 2025 Lineup
Blue Note Entertainment Group has unveiled the lineup for the 14th annual Blue Note Jazz Festival New York, featuring…
The Don Jamison Heritage School of Music, a free after-school program with campuses throughout New Orleans, has expanded and will hold auditions next week for 11- to 18-year-old students.
The school was started in 1990 by the renowned saxophonist Edward “Kidd” Jordan, who ran it at Southern University at New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina. Last September, Jordan restarted the program and moved it to Lusher High School, where it attracted more than 40 students from throughout the area in its first semester of post-Katrina operation.
In January, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation, Inc., which funds the school, expanded to program to include campuses at McDonough 35 High School and Dillard University.
Now, with the addition of campuses at Behrman Elementary and Joseph A. Craig Elementary School, the foundation is increasing the number of campuses from three to five. (The McDonough 35 and Craig campuses are open only to students of those schools; the others are open to the entire community.)
Auditions will be held:
• Sept. 13, at 3:30 p.m., at Lusher High School (5624 Freret St.)
• Sept. 15, at 9 a.m., at Martin Behrman Charter Elementary School (715 Opelousas Ave. in Algiers Point)
• Sept. 15, at 9 a.m., in the Cook Fine Arts Center at Dillard University (2601 Gentilly Blvd.)
Instruction will be in brass, woodwinds, piano, bass, drums and voice. Beginners and intermediate-level students are being directed to the Lusher and Behrman campuses; the Dillard campus will cater to more advanced students, who will receive instruction in composing and arranging, computer programs for music notation and music business.
Beginners auditioning for the Lusher and Behrman campuses should have completed at least some instruction on their instruments. They should be able to play a major and minor scale, identify notes on a staff and play at least one song. Students should own their own instruments and should bring them to the auditions.
More advanced students auditioning for the Dillard campus should be prepared to:
• Perform a song (preferably a jazz standard) that demonstrates their full range of ability
• Demonstrate an ability to improvise over a blues form in the keys of F and B flat
• Play chromatic scales (F major and B flat major) over the entire length of their instrument
• Sight-read an unfamiliar jazz composition
• For pianists and bassists, demonstrate a fundamental ability to read chord changes
• For drummers, demonstrate an ability to play “straight-ahead jazz time” (swing and shuffle beats) at different tempos
The Blue Note Jazz Festival New York kicks off May 27 with a James Moody 100th Birthday Celebration at Sony Hall.
Apr 8, 2025 1:23 PM
Blue Note Entertainment Group has unveiled the lineup for the 14th annual Blue Note Jazz Festival New York, featuring…
“I’m certainly influenced by Geri Allen,” said Iverson, during a live Blindfold Test at the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival.
Apr 15, 2025 11:44 AM
Between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ethan Iverson performed as part of the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival in…
“At the end of the day, once you’ve run out of differences, we’re left with similarities,” Collier says. “Cultural differences are mitigated through 12 notes.”
Apr 15, 2025 11:55 AM
DownBeat has a long association with the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference, the premiere…
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
Foster was truly a drummer to the stars, including Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson.
Jun 3, 2025 11:25 AM
Al Foster, a drummer regarded for his fluency across the bebop, post-bop and funk/fusion lineages of jazz, died May 28…
