‘ReMix Structures and Improvisations’ is Uri Caine’s visionary project as Director of the 47th Festival Internazionale di Musica Contemporanea (International Festival of Contemporary Music) to be held at the Venice Biennale, Italy (12-21 September 2003.) A bold turning point in terms of programme, it allows Contemporary Music to be experienced in all its kaleidoscopic forms. Caine musically translates Venice’s pensive beauty into the vertical suspension of New York’s skyline, into a stage of dif …

British saxophonist Soweto Kinch has been honored with the MOBO Award for Best Jazz Act 2003, at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The MOBO Awards whose aim is to celebrate and give support to Music Of Black Origins, is one of the highest prizes of its kind. Winners as for the BBC Jazz Awards are decided by public vote. Soweto won despite harsh competition fellow nominees were Norah Jones, Roy Hargrove, Kirk Whalum and Jamie Cullum. Amongst the winners, Hutcheson Gayle as Best Gospel New …

Italy, a country whose people aren't afraid of sharing strong musical opinions with the world, has finally opened one of it's most influential cultural stages to experimental Jazz and improvisation. The controversial move was sparked by Uri Caine’s enticing artistic program, powerfully closing the gap between the ‘purism’ of past ‘Biennali,’ which mainly relied on classical-contemporary music, and this year’s focus on the experimental. Until now, Jazz had not been allowed to walk the central …

A new independent jazz label was born on December 1st from the roots set by vocalist Cleo Laine and husband saxophonist John Dankworth: Qnote will try to bank on a glorious past of re-releases and perhaps try to promote some new quality jazz. TV personalities as well as the usual Jazz crowd attended the reception for the launch of Qnote in London’s Soho. Some of the CDs included in their soon-to-come catalogue will comprise names as guitarist John Williams, cellist Jullian Lloyd Webber, saxop …

Sonny Rollins plays at London’s Barbican Hall, as if 50 years never passed. The Colossus is still capable, at 73, to keep a full-house audience glued to their seats with his never-ending plastic improvisations. He explores the instrument from head to toe; he talks to you though the sax, his phrase iridescent and hypnotizing as a notational chameleon. Rollins chooses for this tour an unusual ensemble, that leaves him completely free at expressive level: electric bass (whose contribution is red