Quagh
Super Member
So after checking out the below article, I actually have been drifting more towards jazz at the age of 50. (being a 60's/70's kid) I typically am more Ted Nugent/Bad Co, etc but have always liked Miles, Patricia Barber, Etta James, etc. What say you all?
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Jazz Guitar Shrine Expands Beyond Jazz to Survive
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: November 11, 2011
For years the Iridium has been known as not only the home of Les Paul, the electric-guitar pioneer, but also as one of the city’s premier jazz clubs, where on any given night you can hear big-name performers like the pianist McCoy Tyner or the bassist Charlie Haden.
But these days its calendar is full of guitarists from the worlds of rock, blues and pop, as the owner tries to transform the Iridium into a guitar Mecca, a shrine of sorts to Paul, who died in August 2009. Take the October lineup: It included jazz musicians like the guitarist Stanley Jordan and the saxophonist Richie Cole, as well as rock guitarists like Robby Krieger, formerly of the Doors; Adrian Belew, of King Crimson fame; and Marshall Crenshaw, who wrote the pop hit “Someday, Someway.”
On tap for this month are the jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, as well as veteran rockers like Albert and Joe Bouchard of Blue Oyster Cult and younger rock musicians like Devon Allman and his group, Honeytribe.
“What do you do when you lose Les Paul?” the owner, Ron Sturm, said in an interview at the club, at Broadway and 51st Street. “Do you go out of business? How do you adapt to change?”
His answer is to lure more rock and blues fans — especially guitar aficionados in their 40s and 50s — who might be open to expanding their tastes to jazz or jazz-rock.
“I want to turn them on to jazz and to turn them on to rock,” Mr. Sturm said, “and the fact I’m doing rock is good for jazz, because I’m bringing in people who normally wouldn’t be there.”
These are difficult times for jazz clubs, as shrinking audiences and an aging clientele make it harder to stay in business. The steps the Iridium has taken mirror the moves that jazz labels like Verve and Blue Note have made over the last decade to remain profitable, putting more pop musicians on their rosters to subsidize jazz recordings.
The club started booking more guitarists and pop musicians a year ago and has gradually included more of them in its lineup. The shift became more pronounced this summer, and now about half the musicians playing the Iridium come from rock, blues and pop backgrounds.
Mr. Sturm has also tried to turn his club into a recording studio, installing a state-of-the-art mixing board and digital recording system beside the stage. Like the owners of a few other jazz clubs, he has plans to start a label, archive performances, produce live albums and offer patrons a chance to buy a compact disc of the show they just watched.
The club’s new emphasis becomes obvious from the moment you walk in. A score of electric guitars are displayed on the walls, some in glass cases, all signed by famous musicians: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Tom Petty, Steve Miller.
The strategy seems to be paying off, and revenues are up, Mr. Sturm said, declining to give details. The club has been packed for performances in recent months by rockers like Ted Nugent and Nels Cline of Wilco, as well as for a reunion of King Crimson players and a night devoted to Frank Zappa’s music.
“It’s more eclectic now,” said one longtime patron, Nelson Onofre, before a recent show by a blues band, the Nighthawks. “You have the purists that want this to remain a jazz-only club, but I have been here on nights when it was jazz only, and the place is half-empty. It’s still a business. They can get a guy like Ted Nugent and pack them in the place.”
Greg Deller, a former music executive, was also at the Nighthawks show. He said he remembered the Iridium fondly as a jazz club but was not troubled that it had diversified. “Why not?” he said, as the band started playing a country blues song. “To me it’s all related.”
Mr. Sturm said rock and pop musicians welcomed the chance to play the club, since many of them revere Paul as the man who electrified the guitar. He knows jazz purists might be turned off by the mixing of genres, but he sees such concerns as counterproductive. The audience for jazz is small, and a strict definition of jazz only excludes new listeners, he said.
“Jazz has always been conservative,” Mr. Sturm said. “You have people say this is jazz, and this is not jazz. You build up these walls and guess what? There is no audience left.”
The new booking policy often includes thematic shows. Mr. Crenshaw, 57, who has been a Les Paul fan since he was a teenager and found a 78 of two of that jazzman’s singles in the garbage, recently completed three nights at the club in a tribute to famous musicians who had adopted the Gibson Les Paul guitar, like the bluesman Freddie King and the 1950s R&B and jazz artist Mickey Baker. He performed two nights with the Les Paul Trio and a wealth of guests, including the keyboardist with the E Street Band, Charlie Giordano, and the guitarist Steuart Smith of the Eagles.
“I’ve been a rock ’n’ roll musician all my life but I have loved jazz most of my life too,” Mr. Crenshaw said. “I’m not crossing over to that world — that will never happen — but it’s an honor to take this little step over to that side.”
The genre mixing can make for surprising music. On a recent night the Les Paul trio — the guitarist Lou Pallo, the bassist Nicki Parrott and the pianist John Colianni — played a set of jazz standards like “All of Me” and “Blue Skies.” John Oates, half of the duo Hall and Oates, then came out and lent his finger-picking blues guitar sound, covering Lightning Hopkins, Jimmy Rogers, Curtis Mayfield and Dave Van Ronk. Later in the night Steve Miller sat in with the band.
“It’s not really jazz that we’re doing, but what’s the difference?” Mr. Pallo said. “It’s still good music.”
Mr. Colianni said the sets with pop and rock musicians continue a trend that started when Paul was alive, and guitarists would show up and ask to sit in.
“It was a pilgrimage,” he said. “All these guitar guys worship him. And the room represents a challenge. It’s a jazz room. That makes them want to have the credibility and prestige of having played a jazz room.”
NYTimes, Iridium Link
------------------------------------------
Jazz Guitar Shrine Expands Beyond Jazz to Survive
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: November 11, 2011
For years the Iridium has been known as not only the home of Les Paul, the electric-guitar pioneer, but also as one of the city’s premier jazz clubs, where on any given night you can hear big-name performers like the pianist McCoy Tyner or the bassist Charlie Haden.
But these days its calendar is full of guitarists from the worlds of rock, blues and pop, as the owner tries to transform the Iridium into a guitar Mecca, a shrine of sorts to Paul, who died in August 2009. Take the October lineup: It included jazz musicians like the guitarist Stanley Jordan and the saxophonist Richie Cole, as well as rock guitarists like Robby Krieger, formerly of the Doors; Adrian Belew, of King Crimson fame; and Marshall Crenshaw, who wrote the pop hit “Someday, Someway.”
On tap for this month are the jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, as well as veteran rockers like Albert and Joe Bouchard of Blue Oyster Cult and younger rock musicians like Devon Allman and his group, Honeytribe.
“What do you do when you lose Les Paul?” the owner, Ron Sturm, said in an interview at the club, at Broadway and 51st Street. “Do you go out of business? How do you adapt to change?”
His answer is to lure more rock and blues fans — especially guitar aficionados in their 40s and 50s — who might be open to expanding their tastes to jazz or jazz-rock.
“I want to turn them on to jazz and to turn them on to rock,” Mr. Sturm said, “and the fact I’m doing rock is good for jazz, because I’m bringing in people who normally wouldn’t be there.”
These are difficult times for jazz clubs, as shrinking audiences and an aging clientele make it harder to stay in business. The steps the Iridium has taken mirror the moves that jazz labels like Verve and Blue Note have made over the last decade to remain profitable, putting more pop musicians on their rosters to subsidize jazz recordings.
The club started booking more guitarists and pop musicians a year ago and has gradually included more of them in its lineup. The shift became more pronounced this summer, and now about half the musicians playing the Iridium come from rock, blues and pop backgrounds.
Mr. Sturm has also tried to turn his club into a recording studio, installing a state-of-the-art mixing board and digital recording system beside the stage. Like the owners of a few other jazz clubs, he has plans to start a label, archive performances, produce live albums and offer patrons a chance to buy a compact disc of the show they just watched.
The club’s new emphasis becomes obvious from the moment you walk in. A score of electric guitars are displayed on the walls, some in glass cases, all signed by famous musicians: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Tom Petty, Steve Miller.
The strategy seems to be paying off, and revenues are up, Mr. Sturm said, declining to give details. The club has been packed for performances in recent months by rockers like Ted Nugent and Nels Cline of Wilco, as well as for a reunion of King Crimson players and a night devoted to Frank Zappa’s music.
“It’s more eclectic now,” said one longtime patron, Nelson Onofre, before a recent show by a blues band, the Nighthawks. “You have the purists that want this to remain a jazz-only club, but I have been here on nights when it was jazz only, and the place is half-empty. It’s still a business. They can get a guy like Ted Nugent and pack them in the place.”
Greg Deller, a former music executive, was also at the Nighthawks show. He said he remembered the Iridium fondly as a jazz club but was not troubled that it had diversified. “Why not?” he said, as the band started playing a country blues song. “To me it’s all related.”
Mr. Sturm said rock and pop musicians welcomed the chance to play the club, since many of them revere Paul as the man who electrified the guitar. He knows jazz purists might be turned off by the mixing of genres, but he sees such concerns as counterproductive. The audience for jazz is small, and a strict definition of jazz only excludes new listeners, he said.
“Jazz has always been conservative,” Mr. Sturm said. “You have people say this is jazz, and this is not jazz. You build up these walls and guess what? There is no audience left.”
The new booking policy often includes thematic shows. Mr. Crenshaw, 57, who has been a Les Paul fan since he was a teenager and found a 78 of two of that jazzman’s singles in the garbage, recently completed three nights at the club in a tribute to famous musicians who had adopted the Gibson Les Paul guitar, like the bluesman Freddie King and the 1950s R&B and jazz artist Mickey Baker. He performed two nights with the Les Paul Trio and a wealth of guests, including the keyboardist with the E Street Band, Charlie Giordano, and the guitarist Steuart Smith of the Eagles.
“I’ve been a rock ’n’ roll musician all my life but I have loved jazz most of my life too,” Mr. Crenshaw said. “I’m not crossing over to that world — that will never happen — but it’s an honor to take this little step over to that side.”
The genre mixing can make for surprising music. On a recent night the Les Paul trio — the guitarist Lou Pallo, the bassist Nicki Parrott and the pianist John Colianni — played a set of jazz standards like “All of Me” and “Blue Skies.” John Oates, half of the duo Hall and Oates, then came out and lent his finger-picking blues guitar sound, covering Lightning Hopkins, Jimmy Rogers, Curtis Mayfield and Dave Van Ronk. Later in the night Steve Miller sat in with the band.
“It’s not really jazz that we’re doing, but what’s the difference?” Mr. Pallo said. “It’s still good music.”
Mr. Colianni said the sets with pop and rock musicians continue a trend that started when Paul was alive, and guitarists would show up and ask to sit in.
“It was a pilgrimage,” he said. “All these guitar guys worship him. And the room represents a challenge. It’s a jazz room. That makes them want to have the credibility and prestige of having played a jazz room.”
NYTimes, Iridium Link
