Big Russ is known for saying "What a country"...here in Aspen it is "What a lifestyle"! Last night I met a friend at Brunelleschis in Aspen. I haven't been to the place since winter and this summer Brunelleschis has open aired the place by getting rid of the windows and offering patio seating. The place was packed last night with locals and tourists alike. It was a fun crowd and the staff was quite entertaining. After explaining to our waiter that I could not take a second glass of merlot as we had three concerts to attend last night he came back with an espresso martini and stated "If you don't like it I will drink it"...well for a non-martini drinker it was wonderful!! It tasted like chocolate milk and kept me awake till 2 a.m.
So here’s the betrayal: you might not be old enough to know this, but when CDs replaced LPs, we were told by the electronics industry that they were virtually indestructible—that they would last forever.
So what did we do? We bought all of our old favorite records in CD, and most of the time that worked out. (Though where, oh where, did John McLaughlin’s guitar solo go in “Inner Mounting Flame” by the Mahavishnu Orchestra? That one’s a crime against humanity.) Some audiophiles grumbled the loss of this or that in the re-telling, but most of us could not have told the difference if a stun gun was to our head. Most people eventually dumped their record collections.
New Orleans native Marsalis will lead the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and be joined by Ghanaian drummers Odadaa! in the triumphant Congo Square. This event marks a major collaboration between two local arts presenters: Aspen Music Festival and School and Jazz Aspen Snowmass.
After 17 years of hard work, local hospitality and a variety of rock, blues, R&B and even some jazz, Jazz Aspen Snowmass (JAS) is quickly becoming one of the foremost music festivals in the country. This year’s summer lineup will indulge critically acclaimed musicians throughout the country starting today June 21 until the 24th, with a weekend long series at Rio Grande Park.
With half a dozen novelty artists in town to kick-off the summer season including; Herbie Hancock, Madeleine Peyroux, Earth Wind & Fire, Steve Windwood and Angelique Kidjo and The Black Crowes with Marcus Miller, the JAS Festival will surely live up to its hearsay this summer of being one of the most diverse seasons of quality music in Aspen since its inception in 1991.
It all happened, more or less, within a year: Hancock went from the way-way-out tribal madness of "Mwandishi" to the blockbuster funkadelic success of "Headhunters." And here's the amazing thing: they were both out of sight, the monster at his most masterful, and my guess is tonight when he plays under the tent in Rio Grande Park at the Jazz Aspen Snowmass June hoedown that we will hear smidges of both.
The Aspen Club & Spa graciously hosts a gourmet feast with live music every Tuesday evening from 5-8 p.m. on the sun deck at The Aspen Club! Relax and enjoy the beautiful surroundings, fabulous food, terrific company and popular music by Big Daddy Lee & The Kingbees! The cost is $25 for dinner and a drink. Proceeds benefit a different non-profit every event. Call for free shuttle service 925-8900. SEE YOU THERE!
From an already legendary performance by Ziggy Marley on Fanny Hill last weekend to the upcoming Jazz Aspen Snowmass festival and a “Summer of Free Music” on the horizon: the talent in Snowmass’ is taking it up a notch and vibrating throughout the rest of the valley.
The Saturday night performance that featured ‘Ziggy’ attracted over 5,000 visitors to Snowmass- a number that far outshined last years Jonny Lang performance during the Brew Fest.
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—A combo platter of five leading nonprofits here have cooked up a celebration of the art of Africa in Aspen in summer 2007.
Aspen explores Africa during the last week of June in stories, music, ideas, and film via the Aspen Writers’ Foundation, Aspen Music Festival and School, Aspen Institute, Jazz Aspen Snowmass, and Aspen Film.
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—The journey of the Jazz Aspen Snowmass (JAS) from jazz all the way to pop is now all but complete.
The jazz in the title of the latest version of the June Rio Grande Park festival and the Labor Day version in the Town of Snowmass Village is represented almost entirely in the presence of Herbie Hancock, an undisputed giant whose career represents the same movement from cool buttoned-down jazz to the mass market of pop. But Hancock, JAS’s distinguished artist-in-residence, will have to look long and hard to find other musicians with his historical provenance.
Instead, JAS president and executive producer Jim Horowitz has turned to sure-fire star power sure to put fannies on the Snowmass turf—namely, the Allman Brothers Band. The Allmans will play the festival; and so will Government Mule, with Allmans guitarist Warren Haynes; and the Derek Trucks Band led by the nephew of an original member and the current slide guitarist in the Allman Brothers Band. Even Susan Tedeschi, the wife of Derek Trucks, will also be performing.
Don't forget the whole idea of the Aspen Institute to begin with was "the Aspen Ideas as the cross-fertilization of minds." Co-founder Walter Paepcke's idea of the Idea was to bring together the best noggins across all kinds of disciplines--including the arts--and allow them to hammer away.
The Aspen Ideas Festival is, of course, that very idea made manifest in a conference now steaming into its third year. But Aspen resident Ken Adelman, the former United Nations ambassador and noted neoconservative, has also taken the notion of cross-fertilization into his beloved realm of the arts.
