Jazz Club

NEW YORK -- My friend and I came up the steps from the basement club elated. We had seen the 14-piece Mingus Big Band from just in front of the stage, where you can feel the bass and the baritone sax, and would almost think you could reach out and grab some of the notes the trumpets were shedding. It had rained while we were inside and the lights from Times Square reflected off the misty sky and Broadway's slick surface like a scene from a film noir. We said goodnight to the fashionable Tokyo couple who had been seated next to us, then set off into the buzz and shuffle of the city, riding a rush of energy,...

The storehouse of unreleased jazz concert recordings seemingly goes on forever. The "new" one from Dexter Gordon is a masterpiece. "Night Ballads, Montreal, 1977," culled from four nights at The Rising Sun, showcases the tenor saxophonist's prowess on slow numbers. Gordon's quartet — with pianist George Cables, bassist Rufus Reid, and drummer Eddie Gladden — uses four standards ("Lover Man," "You've Changed," "Old Folks," and "Polka Dots and Moonbeams") as vehicles for improvisation.

The story of how Club 47 went from humble Cambridge coffeehouse to nationally known folk music mecca is a fascinating one. And yet, it has never been told in such panoramic detail as in the new documentary "For the Love of the Music: The Club 47 Folk Revival. " Nestled in a cozy space at 47 Mount Auburn St. in Harvard Square, Club 47 was the epicenter of New England's burgeoning folk scene in the late 1950s and '60s. Its first breakout star, a teenage Joan Baez who started performing there on slow nights, ended up becoming the movement's matriarch.

The story of how Club 47 went from humble Cambridge coffeehouse to nationally known folk music mecca is a fascinating one. And yet, it has never been told in such panoramic detail as in the new documentary "For the Love of the Music: The Club 47 Folk Revival. " Nestled in a cozy space at 47 Mount Auburn St. in Harvard Square, Club 47 was the epicenter of New England's burgeoning folk scene in the late 1950s and '60s. Its first breakout star, a teenage Joan Baez who started performing there on slow nights, ended up becoming the movement's matriarch.

When club owner Brian Lesser was looking to revamp Saint, the nightclub that occupied the space under the Copley Hotel since 2002, he decided to look back rather than forward. On Sept. 9, the club will open as Storyville, a name that is familiar to classic jazz buffs. Before it was Saint, and before it was Cafe Budapest, the subterranean space under the hotel was called Storyville and it brought in some of the biggest names in jazz. Artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, and Duke Ellington performed there through most of the 1950s.

The storehouse of unreleased jazz concert recordings seemingly goes on forever. The "new" one from Dexter Gordon is a masterpiece. "Night Ballads, Montreal, 1977," culled from four nights at The Rising Sun, showcases the tenor saxophonist's prowess on slow numbers. Gordon's quartet — with pianist George Cables, bassist Rufus Reid, and drummer Eddie Gladden — uses four standards ("Lover Man," "You've Changed," "Old Folks," and "Polka Dots and Moonbeams") as vehicles for improvisation.

NEW YORK - Rashied Ali, a free-jazz drummer who backed John Coltrane and accompanied him in a duet album in the final months of the jazz master’s life, has died. He was 76. The Philadelphia native died Wednesday in Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital of a blood clot in his lung, said his wife, Patricia. When Coltrane decided to use two drummers at a performance at the Village Gate in November 1965, he chose Mr. Ali to back up drummer Elvin Jones. Mr. Ali recorded with both men on the 1965 album “Meditations,’’ and accompanied Coltrane alone on the duet...

Most of the members of Closer Than We Appear were in class when they found out early this month that they were chosen as one of eight finalists in a nationwide band competition. The four Scituate High School students bested 117 opponents in the SchoolJam USA National Teen Battle of the Bands Competition. By advancing to the final round on Jan. 21, they won $1,000 for the SHS Music Department and the opportunity to perform at the National Association of Music Merchants Conference at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif.

 "For the Love of the Music: The Club 47 Folk Revival" sheds a lot of light on the historic Cambridge venue. To dig deeper, we asked Millie Rahn, a folklorist who has studied and written extensively about Club 47 and its legacy, to share some facts most people wouldn't know about the fabled listening room. The original Club 47 was opened by Joyce Kalina and Paula Kelley at 47 Mount Auburn St. near Harvard Square on Jan. 6, 1958, as a European-style coffeehouse and jazz club.

Retreat. Deny. Relive. Escape. Such are the myriad options available to us, the hedonistic and educated human race. Escape may be a luxury, but it's a choice we're increasingly choosing. Think of the millions devoting the better part of waking days to online games like Second Life and World of Warcraft. The lure of other times and realms is plainly seductive. To replay the past is to make all outcomes possible. Even save a destroyed family. Or, "anything was still possible out there in the past," according to Burt Hecker, a.k.a.

 "For the Love of the Music: The Club 47 Folk Revival" sheds a lot of light on the historic Cambridge venue. To dig deeper, we asked Millie Rahn, a folklorist who has studied and written extensively about Club 47 and its legacy, to share some facts most people wouldn't know about the fabled listening room. The original Club 47 was opened by Joyce Kalina and Paula Kelley at 47 Mount Auburn St. near Harvard Square on Jan. 6, 1958, as a European-style coffeehouse and jazz club.

Most of the members of Closer Than We Appear were in class when they found out early this month that they were chosen as one of eight finalists in a nationwide band competition. The four Scituate High School students bested 117 opponents in the SchoolJam USA National Teen Battle of the Bands Competition. By advancing to the final round on Jan. 21, they won $1,000 for the SHS Music Department and the opportunity to perform at the National Association of Music Merchants Conference at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif.

When club owner Brian Lesser was looking to revamp Saint, the nightclub that occupied the space under the Copley Hotel since 2002, he decided to look back rather than forward. On Sept. 9, the club will open as Storyville, a name that is familiar to classic jazz buffs. Before it was Saint, and before it was Cafe Budapest, the subterranean space under the hotel was called Storyville and it brought in some of the biggest names in jazz. Artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, and Duke Ellington performed there through most of the...

CHICAGO — A saxophonist whose Chicago club is known as one of the cradles of contemporary jazz has died. Fred Anderson was 81. His sons, Eugene and Michael Anderson, said their father died Thursday but declined to offer additional details. Mr. Anderson, who was born in Louisiana, played the tenor sax in relative obscurity until the 1990s. At that time, music companies began to release recordings of his work to favorable reviews and he became a regular on the jazz-festival circuit in the United States and Europe.

Seventeen years after it began tricking neo-Deadheads into listening to jazz, the trio of keyboardist John Medeski, drummer Billy Martin, and bassist Chris Wood is the certifiable leader of an entire movement. Jam-jazz is a bona fide subgenre, claiming bands like Garage a Trois, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, and Soulive. But Medeski Martin & Wood has refused to sit still. The trio has shifted gears relentlessly, recording with a DJ (on the album “Combustication’’), teaming up with guitarist John Scofield (on both “A Go Go’’ and “Out Louder’’)

NEW YORK - Rashied Ali, a free-jazz drummer who backed John Coltrane and accompanied him in a duet album in the final months of the jazz master’s life, has died. He was 76. The Philadelphia native died Wednesday in Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital of a blood clot in his lung, said his wife, Patricia. When Coltrane decided to use two drummers at a performance at the Village Gate in November 1965, he chose Mr. Ali to back up drummer Elvin Jones. Mr. Ali recorded with both men on the 1965 album “Meditations,’’ and accompanied Coltrane alone on the...

Seventeen years after it began tricking neo-Deadheads into listening to jazz, the trio of keyboardist John Medeski, drummer Billy Martin, and bassist Chris Wood is the certifiable leader of an entire movement. Jam-jazz is a bona fide subgenre, claiming bands like Garage a Trois, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, and Soulive. But Medeski Martin & Wood has refused to sit still. The trio has shifted gears relentlessly, recording with a DJ (on the album “Combustication’’), teaming up with guitarist John Scofield (on both “A Go Go’’ and “Out Louder’’)

Reprinted from late editions of yesterday's Globe.CAMBRIDGE -- Six months ago, guitarist John Scofield took longtime associates Steve Swallow and Bill Stewart into New York's Blue Note jazz club to cut a live trio CD, inspired by classic dates led by Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, and Jim Hall. The resultant CD, "EnRoute," displays Scofield at his straight-ahead, bebop best. Monday night Scofield and his trio gave Regattabar patrons a taste of the same. They led off with "How Deep," Swallow walking his electric bass so it sounded like an upright, Stewart...

CAMBRIDGE - It was a dark and stormy night. OK, it wasn't, but it should have been. For an hour and a half Saturday evening, the young jazz chanteuse Melody Gardot took her enraptured audience to a dirty, smoky, half-empty bar in the worst part of town. This was no easy feat, considering we were a standing-room-only crowd in the clean, smoke-free Regattabar in Harvard Square's Charles Hotel. But the music she and her band performed was more than a concert in a jazz club. It was theatrical.

Retreat. Deny. Relive. Escape. Such are the myriad options available to us, the hedonistic and educated human race. Escape may be a luxury, but it's a choice we're increasingly choosing. Think of the millions devoting the better part of waking days to online games like Second Life and World of Warcraft. The lure of other times and realms is plainly seductive. To replay the past is to make all outcomes possible. Even save a destroyed family. Or, "anything was still possible out there in the past," according to Burt Hecker, a.k.a.