Jazz

Check it out, hot hip hop Saturdays, New York urban jazz

Honolulu's only

Jazz Club dedicated to jazz with live jazz six nights a week, closed Sunday

Food, Beverage and Music

1661 Kapiolani Boulevard

Just west of Atkinson

945-0800

* Check for surprise artists

Private parties, catering

Awesome, man!(click here) After a long run, gr00ve.imProV.arTiSts is pau and the Randy Wheeler NuJazz Quartet is taking over Thursday nights Feb. 22. Wheeler is one of the explorers of NuJazz. He has collected a highly expressive and unpredictable band. his musicians include Dave Chiorini on Bass, Reggie Padilla on keyboards and piano, and Abe Lagrimas on drums. Don't be suprised to see special guest appearances by popular local artists. Randy's style has been described as RnB throughout his career, but his advanced and spontaneous solos (which often sound as if he were thinking aloud) defied classification. A professional by the time he was 15, Randy Wheeler starteded in California, moved to Hawaii in 1992 and gained some attention for his playing with "The Beat Poets."
Two singers, one rapper, a didgeridoo player, two DJ's, and one drummer/programmer for the electronics are new Mondays. They're called Conscious Groove. It doesn't get more hip than that. The Sunday reggae worked out and they're coming back the last Sunday of February. Rocky Brown is also back on Feb. 24.

Restaurant workers click here!

Always, always... there is an extensive food menu. Great pupus or a late dinner.

Dave Yamasaki, Wednesdays

Check it out. Your picture might be in Midweek. We have a little spread in their Feb. 9, 2007 issue. See it here: Spotted by Midweek!

Randy Wheeler Thursdays

Rocky Brown Louie Mundy

Feb. 24, 2007

simunye

by www.consciousgrooverecords.com

drums: juju beats djs: toki & monkey

voices: seph1 jeanne p. tiare mata

Monday

Yes, add me to your email list!

February 2007 Schedule

Mondays, February 5,12,19,26 Poetry Slam, 6:30-9 p.m., Jazz Minds Art & Café 945-0800

Mondays, February 5,12,19,26 simunye by Conscious Grove hiphop jazz ensemble with Juju, toki monkey seph1 jeanne p. tiare mata, 10 p.m. – 1 a.m., Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800

Tuesdays, February 6,20 Gilbert Batangan Quartet with Aaron Hill on tenor sax and Abe Lagrimas drums, 9:30 p.m. – 12:30 a.m., Jazz Minds Art & Café 945-0800

Tuesdays, February 13,27 Amber Ricci with Bobbie Nishida and Dan Del Negro, 9:30 p.m.- 12:30 a.m.., Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800

Wednesdays, February 7,14,21,28 Dave Yamasaki Trio, 9 p.m., Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800

Thursdays,February 1,8,15,22 gr00ve.imProV.arTiSts with DeShannon Higa, urban jazz, 9 p.m. – midnite, Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800 (Randy Wheeler sax/video, Abe Lagrimas drum, Maria Remos vocals)

Thursdays,February 22 Randy Wheeler NuJazz Quartet, live groove jazz, 10 p.m. – 1 a.m. Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800

Fridays, February 2,9,16 Buddy Mak Jazz Quartet, live jazz, 9 p.m. - midnight, Jazz Minds Art & Cafe, 945-0800

Friday, February 23, Special concert with Rocky Brown and DeShannon Higa, folk jazz 8-11 p.m., followed by hip hop jazz DJ 11 p.m. – closing, Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800

Saturdays, February 3,10,17,24 Tempo Valley, New York urban jazz, 9:30 p.m.- 12:30 a.m.,,Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800

Sunday, February 25 Selecta Zacharijah featuring Ras Mikey of Isouljahs, dance hall reggae, 9 p.m. – 1:30 a.m., Jazz Minds Art & Café. 945-0800

Waikiki Worker’s Night ½ off all Vodka martinis
Ladies Night ½ off house wines before 10:30 p.m.
Lover’s Night ½ off all Chocolate Martinis

Surprise guests, Sinbad

Special

It’s all about jamming when it comes to jazz. Dropping in at Jazz Minds this past Wednesday were Japanese favorites Yasuko Hayakawa on piano and Masahiro Tajika on drums. They joined the Dave Yamasaki Trio for a few songs. Great music. You can catch part of them at www.makiba.com

Buddy Mak Jazz Quartet

Fridays

Amber Ricci

Tuesdays

Honolulu Jazz Quartet

Abe Lagrimas

Rich Crandall

Tommy Lohmann and Lily Leung

January 1, 2007

What’s hot in jazz?

New York urban sounds

OK, I’ll admit it. I never thought that I’d be this old – where jazz is becoming an unacceptable form.

The truth is it’s too loud.

And the further truth is: Young people have always liked loud music.

They love a huge bass line with pulsing, rapping drum upbeats. Big band was loud. New York urban is loud. That’s the music that’s in today.

The first artist to claim urban jazz was Angelamia Bachemin. She pioneered the style of Jazz Hip-Hop, blending the two most uniquely African-American developments in music into one “phat” sound at Wesleyan University in 1997.

Last Sunday blast, Feb. 25

Bachemin was a child of New Orleans and inner-city Oakland, California.

She developed the synthesis while working on her Master's Degree, where her first jazz hip-hop class rocked the Crowell Concert Hall standing-room-only crowd. She called it the Renaissance Soul Revival.

The tradition continued at Berklee College, where Bachemin's classes and performances were so popular that listeners were often found crowding outside the doors.

Our Monday band flies in this vein.

The newest jazz trend lies in electronic music. Our own DeShannon Higa is deeply into this groove on Thursday evenings.

And our new Saturday band is New York urban all the way.

Electronic music takes electronically generated sounds and turns it into a work of music. The music is typically composed on a synthesizer or a computer.

Higa takes it one step further with visuals and music. At his recent gigs, he has both a real live painter painting and computer generated moving graphics projected on the Jazz Minds brick wall.

This takes jazz to its sharpest edge. It brings it back to the beginning when innovation and improvising reigned supreme. Jazz musicians are artists in the truest sense of the word.

Straight ahead jazz is really like old time rock and roll. It’s comforting. It’s great for old folks. But it doesn’t blow you away.

“Hip hop is the most current expression arising from the African American cultural continuum and utilizes many of the same African musical characteristics as jazz,” says columnist Emmett G. Price III .

“Just as the Hip Hop Nation constructed the word "yo" to designate who was a part of their nation, Lester Young constructed the word "man" to designate who was a part of the jazz generation. Both hip hop "yo" and jazz "man" are anti-heroes in the American tradition.” says writer Rahim Respond.

So, don’t be coming round here saying, “That’s not jazz.”

You might say it’s loud, but it’s jazz.