Steve Lehman – New York: New Horn Of Plenty
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
New York’s place in jazz history is undisputed, but is there a new chapter of creativity being written in the present? Countless musicians, an ongoing exchange of ideas and the influence of several key figures such as Steve Lehman may explain why the sounds of the iconic east coast metropolis are as rich as they are plentiful.
Kevin Le Gendre lends an ear to some of the Big Apple’s current prime movers.
The cab ride is a potent symbol of New York. A journey across town affords the opportunity to see the multiform concrete canvas of the city, and to hear, certainly if the windows of the incumbent vehicle are rolled down, the volleys of noise which duly pepper the streets. Extremes of sound and vision, big music and tall buildings, are real.
Seth Rosner is in a yellow hybrid taxi heading from his office in Brooklyn, to a meeting in Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. This steady motoring of no more than 15 minutes, that will shuttle him south down Lexington, an avenue where skyscrapers gain a moustache of cloud from their high altitude kiss with the sky, serves as a metaphor for the dynamism currently running through the New York jazz scene. If a phone interview with Rosner, who runs the Pi record label with Yulun Wang, happens in the back of a car that is because time is short, and if he patches in his associate then that is a practical solution to a basic scheduling problem. Things have to keep moving.
This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #170 – to read the full article click here to subscribe and receive a FREE CD...