These are the next upcoming performances of "Mr. Violin Criollo" Ali Bello in New York City!

Dear friends, come and join us for our last performance of our residency at Club Bonafide for the summer! It's going to be a blast with special guest and virtuoso Jorge Glem on the Venezuelan Cuatro.  I'll be also performing at Central Park @ the Harlem Meer Fest. and much more. Don't miss it!!! Alí Bello  & The Sweet Wire Band w/ special guest Jorge Glem - Venezuelan Cuatro Club Bonafide  Last performance for the summer! Sat, Jun. 18th @ 7:30 to 8:45 pm 212 East 52nd Street, New York, NY 10022. (click pictures for more info)

Alí Bello & The Latin Jazz Liaisons Alí Bello - violin Baden Goyo - piano Abraham Saenz - bass Daniel Prim - percussion Bliss Plaza Music Fest Thur, July. 21th @ 6:00 pm (click picture below to see website) Alí Bello  & The Sweet Wire Band Harlem Meer Performance Festival Sunday, Aug. 21st  from 2:00 to 4:00 pm (click pictures for more info) Performing w/ Charanga América at Lincoln Center Midsummer Night Swing July 1st @ 7:30 pm. Performing w/ The DavidL Band @ The Hudson River Performing Arts Center Summer Concerts Aug. 17th at 7:00 pm  Upcoming performances with... w/ Musical Encounters Orch. @ Lehman College - 06/16 to 18 Alí Bello & The Sweet Wire Band @ Club Bonafide - 06/18 w/ Típica '73 @ West Gate Lounge - 06/25 w/ Charanga América @ Lincoln Center - 07/01 w/ Orq. Broadway @ World Fair Marina - 07/02 w/ SonSublime @ Resort World Casino - 07/05 w/ La Charanga Pacha @ Las Palmas - 07/09 Brazilian Ensemble @ Flatiron Room - 07/14 w/ Típica '73 @ Resort World Casino - 07/19 Alí Bello & The Latin Jazz Liaisons @ Bliss Plaza - 07/21 w/ Típica '73 @ Orchard Beach - 08/07 w/ Típica '73 @ Hudson Valley Resort - 08/13 Alí Bello & The Sweet Wire Band @ Harlem Meer Fest. - 08/21 w/ Típica '73 @ Empire City Casino - 08/21 and much more! Check out my website at www.alibello.com for a full schedule A review of my music and work by Radio France Internationale in celebration of my participation at Tempo Latino Festival at Vic Fezensac, France w/  Típica '73 and Orquesta Broadway. To listen to the interview click here Thanks to Florencia Valdés & María Carolina Piña of RFI

Alí Bello "Connection Caracas - New York" (ZOHO ZM 201313) In CD stores, iTunes, CD Baby & Amazon Alí Bello - acoustic & elec. violin Luis Perdomo - piano Juancho Herrera - guitar & cuatro Javier Olivencia - tenor & soprano sax Luques Curtis - upright bass Willie Martínez - drum set & güiro Álvaro Benavides - bass Raúl Agraz - trumpet & flugelhorn Neil Ochoa - kitiplá & culo'e puya Leonardo Granados - voice & maracas Sean Kupisz - bass José Moreno - cajón & palmas Pedro Cortés - guitar ¡¡Viva The Latin Jazz!! www.alibello.com www.jazzglobalbeat.blogspot.com jazzglobalbeat@gmail.com www.jazzven.blogspot.com www.jazzcaribe.blogspot.com

Fabrizio Sotti Trio (Peter Slavov and Francisco Mela) new CD "Forty"

This production shows us a Fabrizio Sotti developing his music with the experience 

of the moment ... and the incorporation of Slalov and Mela gives modern and varied 

features to "Forty", Luis Raul Montell - Jazz Global Beat

The CD:
"Forty"
Fabrizio Sotti

Tracks: 1. Redemption; 2. Dangerous Walk; 3. Is That What You Think; 4. Beginning Now; 5. How Sensitive; 6. Thalia; 7. So Far So Close; 8. Forty; 9. Intro to the Bridge; 10. The Bridge

The Musicians:

Fabrizio Sotti (guitar); Peter Slalov (bass); Francisco Mela (drums)

World renowned guitarist and composer Fabrizio Sotti is proud to announce today’s release of “Forty”, his fifth album as a leader.

The momentous occasion was celebrated with two different launch events. The first took place this past Wednesday, June 8, at the Ferrari North America Showroom in New York City. Fabrizio, who is one of the few jazz musicians to hold a major automobile endorsement, welcomed friends, fans and colleagues as they took part in an exclusive pre-release listening of "Forty".

The following evening saw the release of ‘Forty’ in concert at the Highline Ballroom as part of the Blue Note Jazz Festival. The packed house was treated to a rousing performance of "Forty" in full by Fabrizio along with bass Peter Slavov and drummer Austin Williamson, who filled in for Francisco Mela last minute. The audience was also given a treat by special guest, Miles Davis and Weather Report alum Minu Cinelu.

The release of “Forty” also coincides with the release of the D’Angelico EX-SS Fabrizio Sotti Signature Model guitar. Using the D’Angelico guitar as his brush, Sotti paints a dynamic sonic picture that presents him as not just an extraordinary and innovative improviser, but as the harbinger of a unique and distinctive sound that is completely his own. In the words of revered writer and critic Ted Panken, the title, “Forty”, testifies to Sotti’s assertion that the onset of his fifth decade signifies a sea change in both his personal life-path and aesthetic development. “Forty is more than arriving at one spot,” Sotti says. “It’s starting from the beginning to a new place. Artistically, as you get older, you understand how much you still have to discover, how much more deeply you can go into yourself to improve your playing and understand what you really want to say.”

On “Forty” Sotti collaborated with two jazz visionaries in their own right: bassist Peter Slavov and drummer Francisco Mela. “Peter is a complete musician with a strong melodic sense and a thorough classical music background. He’s able to be free while respecting the tradition. Francisco also brings a melodic approach and is completely a free thinker. He’s a force of nature. When he swings, it swings hard; when he’s not swinging, it’s so creative, he fills up the music with something magical,” says Sotti.

“Forty” lays its groundwork for the forthcoming 10 tracks with the autobiographical “Redemption”, a 3/4 minor blues that Sotti says represents the “redemption between myself and people around me, to accept me for who I really am.” Sotti unleashes the full measure of his jazz chops on “Dangerous Walk,” a brisk, disjunctive, Monkish line “inspired by the walk of women, and particularly my wife,” and “Is That What You Think” a B-flat blues with a melody Sotti describes as ‘aggressive.’ The mood changes on “Beginning Now,” played a cappella by Sotti on nylon string guitar but then progresses into the iconic “How Insensitive,” which Sotti’s grandmother played for him before he was a child. The trio returns for the calypso-flavored “Thalia,” named for Sotti’s year-old daughter, and written a few weeks before her birth. “The happy melody is how I felt when we were waiting for her and how she makes me feel now.” Following is the expressive ballad “So Far, So Close,” rendered as a Sotti-Slavov duo, which was written for his younger brother.

For Sotti, the title track represents “how I like to play right now—you can hear the joyful playfulness between these different rhythms, going from a modern funk rubato to a straight ahead swinging thing, playing what I like with nothing to prove.” The final track, “The Bridge”, along with its preceding introduction entirely represents Sotti’s mature voice. It’s a love song with a bluesy connotation named for the Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs) in Venice, where Sotti and his bride decided to get married.

With this new release, Sotti presents a departure for a new group that is only scratching the surface of possibilities with “Forty”. Says Sotti, “This album shows where I am as a guitarist, improviser and composer and of what’s to come.”

The presentation of his new CD "Forty" in the Highline Ballroom in New York, marked a success for Fabrizio Sotti Trio, but also as regards the release of his label Sotti Entertainment Inc.

Notes of Fabrizio Sotti:

A New Yorker since 1991, when he emigrated from Padua, Italy, as an ambitious, jazz obsessed 16-year-old, Sotti drew on a broad palette of jazz-imparted musical knowledge when producing hit tracks with artists like Dead Prez, Ghostface Killah, Q-Tip, Tupac, and Whitney Houston while still in his twenties, as well as two collaborations Glamoured,from 2003, and Another Country, from 2012, with the great jazz diva, Cassandra Wilson . In parallel, he built a distinguished career as a highly-respected jazz stylist, documented on three accomplished recordings—This World Upside Down, from 1999, with jazz titans Randy Brecker, John Patitucci and Al Foster; Through My Eyes, from 2003, a solo guitar recital; and Inner Dance, from 2010, with organist Sam Barsh, drummer Victor Jones, and percussionist Mino Cinelu—on which he showcases the considerable electric and acoustic guitar skills that are the centerpiece of this, his latest offering.

The title, Forty, testifies to Sotti’s assertion that the onset of his fifth decade signifies a sea change in both his personal life-path and aesthetic development. “Forty is more than arriving at one spot,” he says. “It’s starting from the beginning to a new place. Artistically, as you get older, you understand how much you still have to discover, how much more deeply you can go into yourself to improve your playing and understand what you really want to say.”

For the occasion, Sotti recruited an A-list trio of emigres—Bulgarian-born bassist Peter Slavov, and Cuban-born drummerFrancisco Mela. “We mesh stylistically, and we’re about the same age, so I think we can keep going for a while,” he says. “Peter is a complete musician with a strong melodic sense and a thorough classical music background. He’s able to be free while respecting the tradition. Francisco also brings a melodic approach and is completely a free thinker. He’s a force of nature. When he swings, it swings hard; when he’s not swinging, it’s so creative, he fills up the music with something magical.”

Sotti began preparing the repertoire for Forty not long after meeting his wife, in the vicinity of the release of Right Now, from 2013, “a Herbie Hancock-type” collaborative album on which his trio with bassist Tony Gray and Cinelu interacts with high Q-score figures Ice-T, Shaggy, Melanie Fiona, Zucchero and Algebra Blessett. “It was in the vein of what I’ve done with Cassandra—mixing genres and trying to be more accessible,” Sotti says. That descriptor also applies to On The Way, from 2014, which Sotti produced for and played on with Italian piano virtuoso Alberto Pizzo, as did Cinelu, Dire Straits co-founder David Knopfler and Toquinho.

“I wanted to go back to the basics, the way I started when I was studying jazz as a kid, playing in small combos with bass and drums,” Sotti says. “I wanted to be very clear in my phrasing, to be to-the-point and not overplay. I wanted to do a pure jazz recording, but using all original compositions, not standard material. My new family influenced the music a lot; the melody of each piece means something personal. It’s a relief album, something that had to come out of me.”

His concise exegesis of the opening track, “Redemption,” a 3/4 minor blues, hints at the autobiographical substrate that bedrocks the proceedings. “It means redemption between myself and people around me, to accept me for really who I am,” says Sotti, whose divorced parents, both Doctors of Medicine, urged him to follow their career path in lieu of a musician’s life. His paternal grandmother, Alda Sotti, who held a degree in music and was Sotti’s piano teacher, “understood me and began to teach me to play under the radar of the family, and by the time I was 5 or 6 I could already read music, though I couldn’t read or write words yet.” At 9, after Sotti’s mother relocated with him and his younger brother to a small apartment with no room for a piano, he received his first guitar.

From then on, Sotti says, “I was only doing music all day.” Among other things, he absorbed jazz guitar method books by Joe Pass, Mick Goodrick and Joe Diorio; from age 12 until his first U.S. sojourn he gigged and played in recording studios. “I saved some money, and told my parents I was going to hang out in America for the summer,” he recalls. Sotti had met guitar heroes like Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Jim Hall and Mike Stern at festivals; Stern gave the promising teenager his number and told him to call if got to New York. Sotti did, and Stern provided a couch to sleep on.

The summer turned into three years, before Sotti, during a trip to Italy, was conscripted into military service. After two years stationed at the Aviano Air Force base on the border of Yugoslavia, he returned to the jazz capital in September 1996, no longer a member of the jazz police. “Before the Army I was very snobbish, always having to prove I was good enough to play jazz, although I always played a lot of different styles,” he says.

Sotti unleashes the full measure of his jazz chops on “Dangerous Walk,” a brisk, disjunctive, Monkish line “inspired by the walk of women, and particularly my wife,” and “Is That What You Think” “a B-flat blues with an aggressive melody that I wrote after I read a review of one my albums that I didn’t like too much.”

The mood changes on “Beginning Now,” played a cappella by Sotti on nylon string guitar. “I wrote the melody remembering a very sad day, when my mother organized a birthday party for my brother, who was turning 5 or 6,” he says. “Because we were a divorced family, not one kid showed up. That’s the moment I decided that I would fight to find my happiness.” It fades into Antonio Carlos Jobim’s iconic “How Insensitive,” which Sotti’s grandmother played for him before he was 10. The solos by Sotti and Slavov “embrace the feeling of how insensitive it was for people to do that to us.”

For Sotti, the title track represents “how I like to play right now—you can hear the joyful playfulness between these different rhythms, going from a modern funk rubato to a straight ahead swinging thing, playing what I like with nothing to prove.” He composed the expressive melody of the ballad “So Far, So Close,” rendered as a Sotti-Slavov duo, for his younger brother. “We’re very close,” Sotti says. “Sometimes we don’t talk for a month, but I know he’s a presence.” The trio returns for the calypso-flavored “Thalia,” named for Sotti’s year-old daughter, and written a few weeks before her birth. “The happy melody is how I felt when we were waiting for her and how she makes me feel now.”

Although “Thalia” has a Jim Hall-ish flavor, “The Bridge,” which follows, entirely represents Sotti’s mature voice. It’s a love song with a bluesy connotation named for the Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs) in Venice, where Sotti and his bride decided to get married. “Venice is a 15-minute train ride from Padua, and my grandparents took me there on Sundays to listen to classical music,” says Sotti, who prefaces the song with a brief introduction that references the experience of hearing Bach’s organ music on those expeditions.

“The jazz world is very particular,” Sotti concludes. “When you want to expand, people often make you afraid you won’t be accepted. But on this album, I’ve expanded. You want to hear Wes Montgomery? I’ve learned that. You want to hear Jim Hall or Mike Stern? Everything is there. But now it’s me—my personality, my feelings, my way of playing”. 

In the following video we can hear fragment of the CD "Forty" and a brief explanation of the realization of it with Fabrizio Sotti:

www.fabriziosotti.com    info@sottientertainment.com  

www.lydialiebman.com                

www.jazzglobalbeat.blogspot.com           jazzglobalbeat@gmail.com

Sherie Julianne in traditional Brazilian jazz wave

Sherie Julianne is one of our "Ladies of Latin Jazz" she produced with pianist and composer Marcos Silva CD "10 Degrees South" where she shows her grace and facilities as vocalist Brazilian Jazz.

This CD "10 Degrees South" to always ringing in Jazz Caribe Radio, and may know more of Miss Julianne in www.jazzcaribe.blogspot.com; but now we want to offer this live video from the Palm Ballroom Sherie Julianne performing "Batucada" with Silva (keyboards); Brendan Neutre (bass); Mary Fettig (flute) and Phil Thompson (drums):

¡¡Viva The Latin Jazz!!

www.sheriejulianne.com

www.jazzglobalbeat.blogspot.com          jazzglobalbeat@gmail.com

Neil Kelly / Robby Elfman premiered at several sites in San Francisco your CD "In Roads"

"Kelly and Elfman are two musicians with great imagination and good music 

will continue to provide cutting edge", Luis Raul Montell-Jazz Global Beat

The CD:
"In Roads"
Neil Kelly / Robby Elfman

Tracks: 1. Stylus; 2. Flowers in the Fossils; 3. Moon River; 4. Ugh the Thug; 5. Inner Mission; 6. Julia; 7. Anybody in There; 8. Landscape

The Musicians:
Neil Kelly (guitar); Robby Elfman (sax); Lukas Vesely (upright bass); Joe DeRose (drums)

The Neil Kelly / Robby Elfman quartet started as a meeting of minds at the Playa Jazz Café, a jazz based theme camp that appears annually at the Burning Man Festival in Black Rock City Nevada. This camp entails a collective of SF Bay area and LA based jazz musicians who come together to perform concerts, host jam sessions, and provide educational workshops throughout the week of the Burning man Festival. 

Kelly and Elfman were encouraged to forge collaboration when sound man/producer Ken Deloria saw them perform on the playa. Robby originally from LA relocated to North Bay San Francisco and he and Neil began co-writing the album “In Roads”. 

What transpired was a mixture of Elfman’s edgy punk style jazz (his first record project Smashups recorded with the Jazz Punks bears witness to this aesthetic), with the modern Jazz lush harmonies witnessed on Kelly’s premier album Rivers Converge. Both musicians approach jazz from a composer’s perspective. Elfman holds a degree in Film Score Compositon from USC and Kelly a Master’s Degree from SJSU in Jazz composition and arranging. Teaming up with bay area all star rhythm section of Lukas Vesely and Joe Derose a unique sound and approach to music was created and is now being unveiled.

Rare moments of musical genius emerge when an ensemble finds that certain magic, that willingness to reach for the stars with nothing held back, no fears, just pouring out pure music. Moving, powerful, delightful, soothing, captivatingly pure music! When you hear it, you know you’ve experienced a profound difference when music comes from the core of a players’ being. This album is precisely that: pure music and pure heart from the deepest possible source.

Neal Kelly on guitar and Robby Elfman on sax are players of the highest caliber. They possess the technical chops, to be sure, but far beyond that they have something to say, musically speaking. The fluidity and ease with which they command their instruments must be heard, and heard again, and heard again. Their creative rhythms and instrumental harmonies reveal greater and greater depth with each new listen. This is an album to be played often; this is an album to be cherished.

The ensemble hits high gear on these (audiophile grade) recordings1. Performed in an intimate studio setting in Silicon Valley, the tracks have the unmistakable feel of four master jazzmen who love working together...and do so seamlessly to the delight of the listener.

Lucas Vesely occasional use of sound effects on the bass give some up-tempo tracks a distinct ‘fusion’ quality that eggs on the guitar and sax to match his intensity. And that’s exactly what they do.

Joe De Rose drumming forms the groove that incite the others to bond together under his rhythmic mastery. He skillfully takes the listener from a ‘lazy’ beat, such as Moon River and Julia, to driving, exciting percussive motion on the original compositions. Joe listens and complements the other three, especially while they’re soloing, fitting in where there’s space, and laying back when there’s not.

This album represents a major milestone in today’s world of contemporary ensemble jazz. It will transport you to a new plane of rhythmic and melodic enjoyment.

The upcoming presentations Kelly / Elfman will be on June 15 at Sheba Piano Lounge (San Francisco), 1st. July at Cafe Pinkhouse (Saratoga) and every Wednesday at B Street an Vine (San Mateo)

Notes of Neil Kelly / Robby Elfman:

Neil Kelly is a Jazz Guitarist / Composer / Arranger / and Band Leader who has been working in the greater San Francisco Bay area for the past 10 years. Originally from the East Coast and Chicago Neil arrived in California in 1992. Since that time he has devoted his life to the craft of music.

He holds a Master’s Degree in Jazz Studies from San Jose State University where he majored in Jazz composition and arranging. He received the award for outstanding Graduate Student of the 2009 graduating class from the Department of Music and Dance.

Neil’s original composition “Threshold,” and “All the Things We Were,” orchestrated for Big band, were winning compositions for the San Jose Jazz Society’s Local Composer’s Showcase of 2009 and 2010

Neil is one of the founding members of the Playa Jazz Cafe, a collective of jazz musicians from LA and the bay area who bring a Jazz theme camp to Burning man each year since 2003. The Jazz Café hosts nightly jam sessions, daily educational workshops, and formal concerts throughout the week where players from all over the world converge to create art and music.

He has performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival, San Jose Jazz Summer Fest. He has shared the stage with Bobby Shew, Chris Amberger, and countless others.

Neil’s debut CD “Rivers Converge” (2010) features his compositional talents in a quartet setting and received critical acclaim upon its release.

His second outing “In Roads” (2015) is a collaboration with saxophonist / composer Robby Elfman and takes the modern vision and exploratory sounds to a new level.

Robby Elfman is a graduate of the USC Thornton School of Music (2003) with a Bachelor’s degree in music composition. He was the recipient of the Joe and Alice Harnell Scholarship, the Silvia Grancel Endowed Music Scholarship, the Michael Kamen Scholarship through the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, and the BMI Scholarship for music for film and television.

While attending USC he had new music compositions premiered by local L.A. groups such as The Capitol Ensemble, the Donald Novakowsky Foundation, and the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony. He also wrote the music for several short films and documentaries, including the award-winning “Pharaoh’s Streets”, which received recognition at the Silverlake Film Festival in 2002. In 2004, Robby was one of fifteen composers selected to attend the prestigious ASCAP Summer Film Scoring Workshop.

In 2009 and 2010 Robby had two original compositions premiered in New York, as part of the “Detour” concert series featuring the work of new composers. In 2012 he composed the original score for the short film “Private War”, which was shown at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. In 2013 Robby was hired to compose the entire news theme music package for San Diego’s local CBS affiliate KFMB News 8.

In addition to composing music, Robby is also a professional instrumentalist, recording saxophone and clarinet for film and TV scores, radio and TV commercial spots, and rock/pop albums. In 1999, he won the coveted Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Award for his jazz performance on the tenor saxophone at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. He was the 2nd chair clarinetist of the L.A. Jewish Symphony from 2002-2012, and the tenor saxophonist for the L.A. jazz quintet, Jazz Punks, who recorded their debut album Smashups in 2011.

Robby now lives in the Bay Area, where he performs regularly with several different bands and continues to compose music for film, television and the concert stage.

"Moon River" is an original composition by Henry Mancini, but we will hear the version that make Kelly / Elfman, this song is part of "In Roads" ... enjoy it:

www.neilkellyjazz.com            www.firstorbitsounds.com 

   

jazzglobalbeat@gmail.com    

Outline Rec invites Sunday June 5, 2016 the launch of the new CD from its star Jane Ira Bloom, "Early Americans" on Cornelia Street Cafe, New York City

"When we talk about the Ladies of Jazz, mention must have for Jane Ira Bloom,

one of the most complete today, full of virtues in different 

musical areas ", Luis Raul Montell -  Jazz Global Beat 

The CD:

“Early Americans”

Jane Ira Bloom

Tracks: 1. Song Patrol; 2. Dangerous Times; 3. Nearly (fot Kenny Wheeler); 4. Hips & Sticks; 5. Singing the Triangle; 6. Other Eyes; 7. Rhyme or Rhythm; 8. Mind Gray River; 9. Cornets of Paradise; 10. Say More; 11. Gateway to Progress; 12. Big Bill; 13. Somewhere

The Musicians:

Jane Ira Bloom (soprano saxophone, composer, educator, producer); Mark Helias (bass); Bobby Previte (drums)

Impressively of Jane Ira Bloom. "Early Americans" not only is the production number sixteen (16) of one of the greatest soprano saxophonist of all time, but in her career, in all musical facets, can be seen an marked growth.

This time it meets in two notable musicians Trio with Mark Helias (bass) and Bobby Previte (drums), and the results are satisfactory, as always.

All her compositions are carried contagious rhythm, and even the only "Somewhere" is original of t of he famous Leonard Berstein (RIP) and in homage to him, they are works of art. The Jazz is Art.

This excellent album "Early Americans" contains melodies in different styles and rhythms, but with the creative and personal seal of Miss Bloom.

If you want to know the live music of "Early Americans" Sunday is an excellent opportunity because Jane Ira Bloom, Mark Helias and Bobby Previte be together playing @ Cornelia St. Cafe, New York City from 8:30 pm and may further acquire new album.

Notes of Jane Ira Bloom:

Soprano saxophonist/composer Jane Ira Bloom has been steadfastly developing her unique voice on the soprano saxophone for over 30 years. She is a pioneer in the use of live electronics and movement in jazz, as well as the possessor of "one of the most gorgeous tones and hauntingly lyrical ballad conceptions of any soprano saxophonist - Pulse." 

Her continuing commitment to "pushing the envelope" in her music has led to collaborations with such outstanding jazz artists as Kenny Wheeler, Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell, Rufus Reid, Matt Wilson, Bob Brookmeyer, Julian Priester, Jerry Granelli, Matt Wilson, Jay Clayton, Mark Dresser, Bobby Previte, & Fred Hersch. She's also spearheaded collaborative world music groups featuring world music virtuosi Min Xioa-Fen on Chinese pipa, South Indian veena artist Geetha Ramanathan Bennett, Korean komungo player Jin Hi Kim, and bassist Mark Dresser. She has performed at such diverse venues as Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, the Kennedy Center, the United Nations, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Smithsonian's Einstein Planetarium, the Montreal, JVC, and San Francisco Jazz Festivals as well as regular club engagements in NYC and tours of England, Portugal, Switzerland and Brazil with her current quartet. 

She has garnered numerous awards for her creativity including a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition and a 2009 residency at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Winner of the 2007 Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Award for lifetime service to jazz, the 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2011, and 2012 Jazz Journalists Award for soprano sax of the year, the Downbeat International Critics Poll for soprano saxophone, the Charlie Parker Fellowship for Jazz Innovation and the International Women in Jazz Jazz Masters Award, she is the first musician ever commissioned by the NASA Art Program and was also honored by having an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union (asteroid 6083janeirabloom). A new jazz festival in Brooklyn, NY featuring cutting edge woman artists was named in her honor (The 2009 Bloom Festival). 

A strong visual thinker and a cinematic stylist, Bloom's affinity for other art forms such as painting, film, theatre and dance has both enriched her music and brought her into contact with other innovative artists such as actors Vanessa Redgrave & Joanne Woodward, painter Dan Namingha, comic Lewis Black, cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and legendary dancer/ choreographer Carmen DeLavallade. She has composed for the American Composers Orchestra (NYC), the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, the Pilobolus, Paradigm, & Philadanco Dance Companies, TV movie features (Shadow of A Doubt/ NBC-TV), and film soundscores (John Sayles' Silver City) writing works for large ensemble involving her signature movement techniques. She has also collaborated with classical composers premiering new works for soprano saxophone ("Sinfonia" by Augusta Read Thomas). She has curated a discussion/ performance series on improvisation at the Philoctetes Center for the Multi-Disciplinary Study of Imagination in NYC, presenting a wide range of programs including collaborations with dancer/ choreographer Carmen deLavallade and bassist Rufus Reid (Moving & Playing: Jazz Improvisation & Dance), performances with pianist Fred Hersch and bassist Drew Gress (The Art of the Ballad), and panel discussions with neuroscientist Josh McDermott and Arabic music scholar Toufiq Ben Amor (Dancing on the Ceiling: Music and the Brain). Videos of the events can be viewed here. 

Bloom is the recipient of numerous grants including two artist fellowships in jazz composition from the Chamber Music America / Doris Duke New Jazz Works Program for the creation of Chasing Paint, a series of compositions inspired by painter Jackson Pollock that premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and a suite of new compositions for her current quartet. 

"Sometimes I throw sound around the band like paint and other times I play and feel as if I was carving silence like a sculptor."

The Philadelphia Music Project commissioned her premiere of Unexpected Light - a unique collaboration of improvised sound & light with world renowned lighting designer James F. Ingalls. Recently JIB has participated in several international and “remote” events directed by bassist Mark Dresser and composer Sarah Weaver including a large ensemble performance at the United Nations that linked improvising musicians in Korea, China, New York, and San Diego. Bloom continues to find inspiration in creating exploratory music with improvising musicians from around the world. She has recorded and produced 15 albums of her music dating from 1977 to the present. In 1976 she founded her own record label & publishing company (Outline Music) and later recorded for ENJA, CBS, Arabesque and Artistshare Records. Bloom has been the subject of a number of media profiles; she has been featured on CBS TV's Sunday Morning, Talkin' Jazz on NBC-TV, TIME Magazine's Women: The Road Ahead special issue, in the publication Jazzwomen: Conversations w/ 21 Musicians, in the Library of Congress Women Who Dare calendar, in Life Magazine's "Living Jazz Legends," on NPR's Morning Edition, Jazzset, Live From the Kennedy Center w/ Dr. Billy Taylor, and in the documentary film Reed Royalty hosted by Branford Marsalis. She is a professor at the New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in NYC, holds degrees from Yale University and Yale School of Music and studied saxophone with woodwind virtuoso Joseph Viola. Nat Hentoff has called Bloom an artist "beyond category." Bill Milkowski has called her "A true jazz original...a restlessly creative spirit, and a modern day role model for any aspiring musician who dares to follow his or her own vision."

Just get this year, 2016, the Jazz Journalist Association Award for Soprano Saxophone.

We want to share with you this simple and brief presentation made by the great Jane Ira Bloom from her CD "Early Americans" whose compositions can enjoy live Sunday June 5, 2016 @Cornelia St. Cafe, New York City:

www.janeirabloom.com                       outline@tuna.net

www.jazzglobalbeat.blogspot.com                   jazzglobalbeat@gmail.com