Jul 9, 2024 11:35 AM
Trumpeter, Educator Jim Rotondi Dies at 61
Jim Rotondi, a renowned hard-bop trumpeter, composer and educator, died suddenly on July 7 at a hospital in France. He…
A portion of the proceeds from Somi’s latest album, Holy Room: Live At Alte Oper With Frankfurt Radio Big Band, go to benefit the Black Art Futures Fund.
(Photo: Anna Longworth)New York-based vocalist Somi thought that her May 2019 date with the Frankfurt Radio Big Band in Germany was just a gig—an exciting one.
It was her first performance ever with a big band, and world-renown pianist John Beasley had prepared the arrangements for two sets of her original material. The thought crossed her mind that the gig would make for a nice live recording—German public radio was taping the performance for national broadcast—but she was booked up for the next two years. Before she’d have time to undertake such a release the show would be old news, she thought.
“Then the pandemic hit,” Somi recalled in a July Zoom call about Holy Room: Live At Alte Oper With Frankfurt Radio Big Band, the first release on her new label, Salon Africana. “I thought it would be wonderful [to release the recording], and I felt very fortunate to have it. I was quite overcome when I listened to it, because I miss performing so much. I could feel the energy, the centering that happens on stage. The magic.”
For the Frankfurt performance, Somi had fashioned two sets of material from several of her albums, each one an ever-more-personal expression of her multifaceted artistry. From her official 2007 debut, Red Soil In My Eyes, for instance, she took “Ingele,” a lilting, Swahili-language original that shows off the striking expressiveness of her impressive vocal range. As the band explodes in rhythmic abandon, she moves naturally from languid, legato phrases into whelps, calls and shouts—tricky vocal interjections that speak as much of Somi’s sophisticated musical heritage as of magic.
“That particular album was about owning the African side of myself in the music,” she said. “It allowed me to play with all of that color in a fuller way. As somebody who grew up in several different places, with many influences, [my music] is never going to stagnate in tradition. This was my first attempt to create a bridge between my world and my point of view.”
Jim Rotondi was acclaimed for his wide, round trumpet tone, remarkable virtuosity and assured swing.
Jul 9, 2024 11:35 AM
Jim Rotondi, a renowned hard-bop trumpeter, composer and educator, died suddenly on July 7 at a hospital in France. He…
Charles Lloyd, seen here at the 2024 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, makes DownBeat Poll history!
Jul 11, 2024 12:23 PM
The incomparable Charles Lloyd swept the 72nd Annual DownBeat Critics Poll, becoming the first artist ever to earn…
“Being president of Blue Note has been one of the coolest things that ever happened to me,” Was said. “It’s a gas to serve as one of the caretakers of that legacy.”
Jun 4, 2024 12:21 PM
Sitting with Don Was is a comfortable and unhurried exercise. He may seem slightly reserved at first, but ideas and…
The Century Room in downtown Tucson, Arizona, was born in 2021.
May 21, 2024 12:58 PM
Players got to play. It’s long been a part of jazz history: When there’s a venue vacuum, when there are fewer…
“She reminds me of my childhood and makes we want to cry,” Cécile McLorin Salvant, pictured here with writer Ashley Kahn, said of Dianne Reeves.
Jun 11, 2024 12:31 PM
Italy’s Umbria Jazz Winter is one of those rare annual festivals that not only coincides with a major holiday —…
