The tenth annual Healdsburg Jazz Festival was my third. And it won’t be my last. Amidst the wineries, bike trails, rolling hills and galleries of Sonoma County, Jessica Felix and company have been putting on one of the nation’s finest, if one of the least hyped, jazz festivals. For the tenth anniversary, many past performers returned, a cast as compelling as any at Monterrey, Montreal, or Montreux. The second weekend boasted the likes of Cedar Walton, Billy Hart, Joshua Redman,... read full article

Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, May 23, 2008 -- Pianist Laurence Hobgood was born in Salisbury, N.C., where his father headed the theater department at Catawba College. The family relocated several times during Hobgood's childhood, following his father's professional career. They ultimately landed in Dallas, Tex., where his father secured a job at Southern Methodist University. Hobgood began playing piano at age six, when his father enrolled him in piano lessons with a teacher at the university. Though his lessons were... read full article

When jazz vocalist Kurt Elling was booked for the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, some people wondered why. Part of the reason relates to the skills of Elling's pianist, Laurence Hobgood. It was refreshing to see Hobgood spotlighted when Elling's group performed Sunday for the first of two shows at Western Michigan University's Gilmore Complex as part of the festival's Jazz Club Series. Hobgood, who is to be featured May 23 on Marian McPartland's "Piano Jazz" program on National Public Radio,... read full article

As the crowd settled into the soft shufflings that the Sydney Symphony Orchestra has come to expect, Conductor Ben Northey strode onto stage, keen to get things running. The first piece was unannounced but the program notes indicated it as Astor Piazolla’s Tangazo. Those familiar with the piece will know its opening string melody – played here in smooth unison by the SSO Cello and Double Bass sections. The style was nostalgic, connecting with the jazz style in terms of... read full article

Why was this such an incredible live music experience? What makes this man seem prophetic and his music seem magic? Kurt Elling is one of a rare breed of musicians whose complete mastery of their instrument has dissolved all technical barriers to expression. With these concerns removed from the equation, with effortless mastery of one’s instrument taken as given, what is there left to focus on but pure expression? What happens in a performance like this one is that we... read full article

Last night’s concert, presented under the auspices of the Sydney Symphony’s Kaleidoscope 2008 season was a lesson in breathtaking virtuosity: from Elling himself, who has a prize, precision instrument; the Lawrence Hobgood Quartet (at it’s nucleus, the trio of LH, piano, Robert Amster, acoustic bass and Kobie Watkins, drums), featuring saxophonist, Julien Wilson; and Ben Northey, conducting the wonderfully versatile SSO. For the last, its presentation of Astor Piazolla’s impossibly romantic Tangazo was living proof of that versatility and a... read full article

At first blush the stage at the Allen Room on Friday night appeared to be set for seduction. Soft lighting? (Check.) Simmering groove? (Check.) Slow drift of headlights in the background, along Central Park South? (O.K., sure.) And finally Kurt Elling in a double-breasted suit, microphone in hand. “Love is the only thing to balance fearing,” he sang, with suave self-assurance. “Loving the deepest depths appearing.” (What’s that again?) Mr. Elling was enunciating his own lyrics to a version of... read full article