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Appearances
Herb Pomeroy Tribute -- Ran will perform at a May 10 tribute concert at MIT for Herb Pomeroy, a renowned trumpeter and influential educator who died in August. Pomeroy taught at Berklee, MIT and NEC.
The MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, directed by Fred Harris, is hosting the event, which will feature the MIT Alumni Jazz Ensemble. Other special guests will include Jamshied Sharifi, Greg Hopkins, Mark Harvey, Magali Souriau and Everett Longstreth. Ran will perform a Duke Ellington composition.
The concert is at MIT's Kresge Auditorium at 8 p.m. It will be preceded by a 7 p.m. session hosted by Mark Harvey titled "Remembering Herb."
Tickets are $5. Complimentary tickets are available by contacting Fred Harris at fharris@mit.edu.
Other News
Hitchcock Class -- Ran is offering a two-credit course titled Film Noir: Alfred Hitchcock, The Director and his Music, from June 12-22 at the New England Conservatory.
The class will explore the wide range of music used in Hitchcock's films, from Poulenc to circus rags to the semi-atonal to English pop. Students will be encouraged to participate by composing and improvising on the plots, themes and characters in the great director's works.
The course's first week (with meetings June 12, 14 and 15) focuses on Hitchcock's English period. The tentative list of films for viewing includes Lodger, Blackmail, The 39 Steps, Sabotage, Young and Innocent and Jamaica Inn. The second week, with meetings June 19, 21 and 22, looks at the director's American period. Films are expected to include Shadow of a Doubt, Spellbound, Notorious, The Paradine Case, Rope, Strangers on a Train, and I Confess.
The full schedule and cost info is available here. For more information or to sign up, please contact Margaret Ulmer of NEC's Continuing Education department at (617) 585-1135 or sumsch@newenglandconservatory.edu.
Summer Intensive Study -- Ran is pleased to announce that his annual summer course will focus on the composer and conductor Gunther Schuller. Ran, Gunther, and Fred Harris, director of wind and jazz ensembles at MIT (who is completing a book on the Polish conductor/composer Stan Skrowaczewski), will all lead portions of the course, which is titled: The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller: Scratching the Surface of a Compleat Musician.
The course will run from July 28 to August 7, with meetings from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. on July 28th and 30th and August 1st, 5th and 7th. The class meets at Ran's Brookline apartment, except for Tuesday, August 5, which is a special public evening at NEC with interviews and performances.
The course will provide students with an extremely rare opportunity to interact with Maestro Schuller about his music, his life as a composer, conductor and author, and his vast experience working with dozens of the most important classical and jazz artists of the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.
This is the 23rd year of Ran's summer course. Further details, including the full schedule and cost info, is available here.
Album News #1 -- If you've ever wondered what Ran's music would sound like when performed by a symphonic ensemble, your wait is over. An album released in April by the MIT Wind Ensemble, titled Solo Eclipse, includes two of Ran's compositions: "Impresario of Death" and "Ghosts of Cimetiere de Pere Lachaise."
The compositions (both of which originally appeared on Something to Live For), were transcribed for chamber wind ensemble by Kenneth Amis, a composer and tuba player for the Empire Brass Quintet. They were commissioned by MIT and first performed by the NEC Wind Ensemble (conducted by Charles Peltz) as a surprise gift for Ran's 70th birthday concert in Jordan Hall in 2005.
Solo Eclipse also includes compositions by Amis (the three-movement "Concerto for Tuba") and Argentinean composer and pianist Guillermo Klein ("Solar Return Suite," featuring tenor saxophonist Bill McHenry).
The album is available from Amazon, Albany Records, Amis Musical Circle and ArkivMusic.
Album News #2 -- In January Ran finished recording his next album, a solo set of interpretations of songs associated with his favorite vocalists.
Jonah Kraut, Ran's longtime friend and former assistant at NEC, is producing the album, which will be released early next year on Tompkins Square Records. Jonah says the recording has a very relaxed, emotive and contemplative feel.
Tentatively titled "Driftwoods," the album will likely feature tracks that pay tribute to Chris Connor, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and Hank Williams. It also will include "Dancing in the Dark" as a tribute to Dorothy Wallace, a patron of the arts and a supporter of Ran's music who died in 2001. Ran has performed this song often in recent years but has never recorded it.
Album News #3 -- In February Ran wrapped up an album of piano/vocal duets with longtime friend (and NEC colleague) Dominique Eade.
The pair actually started the project in 2004, recording several cuts. After the New Year they resumed work on the album, which was recorded at Rear Window studio in Brookline (where All That Is Tied was recorded).
The album is expected to include a mix of Dominique and Ran's originals; standards such as "Old Devil Moon" and "The Thrill is Gone"; and some lesser known songs, such as Quincy Jones' "Pawnbroker" and Stan Kenton's "Falling."
No word yet on label info or a release date.
European Tour -- Ran and guitarist David "Knife" Fabris returned in late December from a successful European tour that included performances in France, Germany and Italy. Highlights included the Casa Jazz show in Rome, which nearly 400 people attended, and saxophonist Ricky Ford joining Ran onstage in Tours. Ran also enjoyed seeing many old friends. Check out the December issue of Ran's newsletter for photos from the tour.
*Newsletter Archive: 2008 --
April,
March,
February,
January
2007 --
December,
October,
November,
October,
September,
August,
July,
June,
May,
April,
March,
February,
January
2006 -- December, November, October, September, August, July, June, May, April
Archived news is kept here.
Ran has performed at major jazz festivals, concert halls, jazz clubs, colleges and universities
throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, South America, and Mexico.
Appearances include Monterey Festival, Antibes Music Festival, Nancy
Jazz Festival, Third Stream Festival, Praxis Festival, Grenoble Jazz
Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, Ottawa jazz Festival, Edmonton Jazz
Festival, Jazz and Blues Festival, Museum of Modern Art, Du Maurier
International Jazz festival.
Additional appearances on numerous radio and television programs.
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- MacArthur
Foundation Grant 1988
- Boston
Music Award 1988
- Guggenheim
Fellowship in Music Composition 1988
- Massachusetts
Council of the Arts 1987
- Guggenheim
Fellowship in Music Composition 1982
- Massachusetts
Artists Foundation Fellowship in Music Composition 1982
- Academie
Du Jazz: Prix Billie Holiday 1980
- RCA
Album First Prize in Germany 1963
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The
'official' Ran Blake biography by writer Scott
Menhinick is available by selecting one of the following selections
below: |
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(better
for printing) |
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(better
for viewing on the web) |
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| B.A.
Bard College |
| Studies
at School of Jazz, Lenox, MA |
Composition
and improvisation studies with Ray Cassarino, Willis Lawrence
James,
Oscar Peterson, Bill Russo, Gunther Schuller, Mal Waldron, and
Mary Lou Williams |
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| A
compilation of Ran's reviews is available by selecting one of
the following selections: |
pdf |
(better
for printing) |
| html |
(better
for viewing on the web) |
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Sonic
Temples
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"Ran
Blake is so hip it hurts. At 66, he is still a pianist who
can
make you laugh at his wry humor one second and wring a tear
the next. His playing and composing is so richly idiosyncratic
and his interplay with the Schuller brothers - bassist Ed and
drummer George - so varied that Sonic Temples could have
been recorded at any time in the last 45 years."
-
James Hale, Down
Beat
(January 2002)
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"This
is the sound of lives fully connected and committed. Everything
matters and nothing is taken for granted - what a fine way to
make music."
-Signal
To Noise: The Journal of Improvised & Experimental Music
(Winter 2002)
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Top
10 Jazz Recordings of 2001 (#8)
"...indispensable...Blake in effect takes [jazz standards]
apart and puts them back together in exotic and alluring ways.
The standard tunes, therefore, simply become vehicles for tracing
the arcane and fantastically eccentric ways in which Blake thinks."
-Howard Reich, Chicago
Tribune
(December 11, 2001)
Also
carried on the AP/Knight Ridder wire to other papers
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"Sonic
Temples is a profusely elegant affair that shines forth with
the reverence of a coveted museum piece. Strongly recommended."
-AllAboutJazz.com
(November 2001)
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"Original
voices are so hard to come by in jazz pianism that a two-CD
set such as this amounts to a signal event. To say that [Ran
Blake] alters the harmonies of 'Black Coffee' or brings interesting
colors to 'Stormy Weather' would be like contending that Michaelangelo
did a nice touch-up job on the Sistine Chapel."
-Howard
Reich, LA Times
(November 25, 2001)
Kevin
Whitehead's review on 'Fresh Air with Terry Gross,' 10/17/01
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"4
1/2 stars. Ran Blake has never been so powerful or so quiet,
the restraint and space here is almost mystical. This is in
many ways just the next chapter in an already wildly fruitful
and profound career...it is also a reinvention of the artist
in a portrait of himself."
-All
Music Guide
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- Jazz
Lives, Michael Ullman
- Il
Jazz Degli Anni ’70, Gianni Gualberto
- The
Encyclopedia of Jazz, Leonard Feather
- Who’s
Who in America
- Who’s
Who in the World
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