Josef Woodard
Josef’s Contributions
August 2008 Albums
The World Awakes: A Tribute to Eli “Lucky” Thompson
Michael Blake
Paying affectionate homage to bygone greats is a tricky business, especially when it comes to an artist in the line of jazz duty who rolled with stylistic changes and abided by the dictum that jazz is inherently a progressive music, but with firm traditional...
June 2008 Artist Profiles
Andrew Sterman: Genre Resistance
Tenor saxophonist and bass flutist Andrew Sterman’s ambitious project The Path to Peace, a lyrical suite based on the spiritual teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, is hardly your garden-variety jazz project, on any level. Then again, the artist himself—while generally...
June 2008 At Home
Charles Lloyd
To find Charles Lloyd, the veteran saxophonist and survivor of the jazz wars, proceed 3,000 miles west of the jazz mecca of NYC, turn right at Los Angeles and proceed up into the affluent wooded Montecito, by Santa Barbara. There, in a rustic yet sprawling...
04/04/08 Concerts
Vossa Jazz
Vossa Jazz, the Norwegian festival that celebrated its 35th anniversary in March, may not be one of the best known jazz festivals, but it clearly deserves wider recognition, especially for those jazz lovers with an ear for Nordic musical sensibilities. Vossa...
03/25/08 Concerts
Keith Jarrett Trio at UCLA's Royce Hall
Miraculously, time both stands still and is constantly evolutionary in the case of Keith Jarrett’s so-called “Standards” trio, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Sure, 25 is just a number, but it’s a remarkable one, making this grouping—a model...
02/15/08 Concerts
Portland Jazz Festival
In five short years, the Portland Jazz Festival has miraculously jockeyed its way into the short list of American festivals worth heeding closely. The recipe for success—if it can be called that—is actually deceptively simple: take a programming agenda that...
December 2007 Albums
River: The Joni Letters
Herbie Hancock
Neither a conventional tribute album nor a conventional Herbie Hancock record, whatever that is by now, River: The Joni Letters is instead a refreshingly different breed of “concept” album. It is also a brilliant piece of work, one of the most captivating...
December 2007 Artist Profiles
Paul Bley: Zen Comedy
Pianist Paul Bley might be called a jazz legend who has long been semi-hiding in plain sight. The Montreal-born musician, a master of loaded lyricism, space and expressive freedom, has been present at numerous critical junctures in jazz history, having played...
11/06/07 Concerts
JazzFest Berlin
In the ranks of European jazz festivals, the JazzFest Berlin has long been somewhat off the radar, by nature and by instinct. Not only is does it take place on a long weekend around early November, missing out (semi-thankfully) on the circuit of acts filtering...
November 2007 Solo
Westward Expansion: Monterey at 50
When it comes to jazz legacy, that oft-used and misused l-word, the Monterey Jazz Festival has an unusually bountiful supply. That fact rang clearly in the cool late-night air of the Monterey Fairgrounds arena on the closing Sunday night of its 50th annual...
November 2007 Features
Do The Write Thing: Drummer-Composers Trade Their Sticks for Pens
In the gospel according to conventional jazz wisdom, certain wrong-headed stereotypes live on, despite their irrelevancy. One of these is the notion that drummers belong in the rhythm kitchen, leaving the “serious” business of composing and arranging to...
08/24/07 Concerts
Paul Bley, Gary Peacock and Paul Motian
When the enigmatic yet clearly inspired trio of pianist Paul Bley (pictured), bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian settled in for a gig at Birdland recently, their first gig together in New York City in several years, the subject was trio psychology...
07/17/07 Concerts
Umbria Jazz 08
Plenty of strong musical inspirations flowed through the idyllic medieval city of Perugia, Italy, this July, once again confirming the acknowledged preeminence of the Umbria Jazz Festival. This celebrated event has taken its rightful place in the top echelon...
07/16/07 News
Keith Jarrett Officially Banned from Umbria Jazz Festival After Outburst
Although pianist Keith Jarrett (pictured) has played at the celebrated Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy several times since 1974, festival artistic director Carlo Pagnatta recently announced that the pianist will not be invited back. Jarrett has always...
05/23/07 Concerts
Festival International Musique Actuelle Victoriaville 2007
After more or less taking a holiday from jazz programming last year, FIMAV (Festival de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, aka “Victoriaville”) returned to the jazz cause with a passion this spring, if not a friendly vengeance. Amidst the traditional count...
May 2007 Albums
Homing (In Nine Parts)
J.A. Granelli and Mr. Lucky
Bassist, composer and mood-machinist J.A. Granelli cooks up an engaging, impressionistic sonic stew with his band Mr. Lucky, balancing the ambiguity and the implied emotional storylines of the album title, Homing (In Nine Parts). Jazz may be part of the...
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ReportAbout Josef Woodard
Josef Woodard has covered jazz for JazzTimes and other magazines since the late 1980s, classical/contemporary music for the Los Angeles Times since 1993, opera for Opera Now, and pop and jazz for Rolling Stone, among countless other associations. At the moment, he is working on a book on Charles Lloyd. Also a guitarist, songwriter, co-owner of the 20-year-old Household Ink Records label (householdink.com) and general “situationist,” Woodard tries to maintain a balance between looking at music from the outside and burrowing into creative machinery.