#Corey Wilkes

[dustedmagazine]

Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble — Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit (Spiritmuse)

Photo by Christopher Andrew

Celebrating 50 years of his Ethnic Heritage Ensemble bandleader, activist, educator and percussionist Kahil El’Zabar delves deeply into the music he has helped shape over his long career. Open Me is neither a valedictory nostalgia trip nor a lap of honor. Spanning spiritual and avant-garde jazz, African rhythms, soul blues and protest music, El’Zabar and his cohorts, trumpeter Corey Wilkes and baritone saxophonist Alex Harding, are joined by guests Ishmael Ali on cello and violinist James Sanders in collection of original tunes and finely wrought covers that look forward while linking the threads of El’Zabar’s musical legacy.

The quintet finds a devotional center to Miles Davis’ “All Blues”. El’Zabar plays on kalimba and bells, his hums and ululations a prayerful focus. The band play at a meditative pace with Wilkes pushing his tone through Davis’ modal calm into higher registers that evoke Don Cherry whilst Harding provides soulful counterpoint and a solo that carries the barest trace of Coltrane. Sanders’ short solo scratches then soars as if freeing itself from earthly concerns. “The Whole World in His Hands” feels reclaimed as El’Zabar lays down a rolling African beat and his vocal emphasizes the gospel blues root of the song. Behind, the horns and strings provide an intense group sound, with a call and response of short solos that mirror both church service and jam session. Their version of Eugene McDaniel’s “Compared To What” finds El’Zabar’s graveled vocal backed by Harding’s nimble baritone riff, a glorious clarion call from Wilkes and atmospheric flourishes from the strings. The spirit is to the fore, but this band also swings hard. “Hang Tuff” and McCoy Tyner’s “Passion Dance” are exuberant celebrations. The former graced by a dervish of a solo from Sanders and the latter played with all the power of a big band, the horns blasting the theme, El’Zabar all over his kit, the solos uniformly fiery.  

From Lester Bowie, Anthony Braxton and Pharoah Sanders to David Murray to Tomeka Reid and Isaiah Collier, El’Zabar’s career spans generations of forward-thinking musicians. The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble is the longest running of his many musical projects and on Open Me, they produce a stirring mix of spirituality, groove and fire music. This is history very much alive and kicking.

Andrew Forell

[mariacallous]

The attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump shocked the nation.

While speaking to a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of Saturday, July 13, a 20-year-old man fired at Trump. A bullet appears to have swiped Trump’s ear, drawing blood, before the former president ducked beneath the podium, surrounded by Secret Service agents. He insisted on standing up as his security detail gave him cover, pumping his fist into the air and yelling to the crowd: “Fight!” A firefighter and rallygoer named Corey Comperatore, who dove on his family to protect them from the gunfire, did not survive.

The horrendous incident rightly earned strong condemnation from across the political spectrum. “There’s no place in America for this kind of violence,” said U.S. President Joe Biden. “It’s sick—it’s sick.”

The violence instantly became a moment for politicians and pundits to call for calm and pull back from the toxic polarization that has left Americans bitterly divided. “Violence is infecting and inflecting American political life,” an editorial in the New York Times lamented. “It’s not who we are as a nation,” Biden said in his remarks the following day.

But is it? Much of the reaction downplays just how pervasive violence has been in U.S. history. Although the ideology of American exceptionalism pushes Americans to think of their country as fundamentally different than other nations that have been wracked with these kinds of events, the truth is that the United States has a long and sordid history of people who try to solve political differences using bullets rather than ballots.

Violence is one of the reasons that the U.S. electoral system has always been extraordinarily fragile. It has taken heroic efforts to maintain the republic that Benjamin Franklin, one of the country’s founding fathers, famously warned would be necessary to care for and protect.

The common perspective that violence is somehow un-American misses a key point. The normalization of violent rhetoric in recent years is so dangerous not because it constitutes a fundamentally new turn in U.S. democracy, but because it taps into a deeply rooted history that Americans ignore at their own risk. The reality is that assassinations and assassination attempts targeting high-level officials have been taking place for decades.

The United States has sadly had many political leaders, presidents, and prominent candidates killed. The price that President Abraham Lincoln paid for trying to preserve the union and bring an end to slavery was John Wilkes Booth murdering him on April 14, 1865, in Washington, D.C. In July 1881, Charles Guiteau shot President James Garfield, who died in September. The nation had barely caught its breath before an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz killed President William McKinley in 1901. And Americans would mourn collectively after Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy in November 1963.

The count of these four slain leaders does not include the many serious assassination attempts that failed, such as when President Franklin Roosevelt was nearly killed in February 1933 by an unemployed tradesman named Giuseppe Zangara. President Gerald Ford survived two attempts to kill him within weeks in 1975. President Ronald Reagan’s life was almost brought to an end by John Hinkley Jr. in March 1981. Like Trump, Reagan managed to manage the crisis to his benefit. Reagan and his team downplayed the severity of the wound. He and his team shared jokes to emphasize perseverance, such as his telling the surgeons: “I hope you are all Republicans.”

Candidates for the presidency have also been targets. On Oct. 14, 1912, former Republican President Teddy Roosevelt, running as a third-party candidate, was fired at by John Schrank during a campaign rally. An eyeglass case made of metal and the thick text of the copy of his speech in his pocket saved his life even though a bullet penetrated his chest. Roosevelt refused to go to the hospital and instead went on to give his talk. “I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot,” Roosevelt said, “But it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose!”

Most baby boomers remember when Sen. Robert Kennedy, after winning the June 1968 California primary, was slain by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Four years later, Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who became infamous for his staunch opposition to racial integration, was partially paralyzed a bullet during his run for the presidency in 1972.

Violence has also afflicted Capitol Hill. The Yale University historian Joanne Freeman writes that violence in the pre-Civil War Congress was as American as apple pie. Freeman took the classic story of the pro-slavery South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks beating Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner with a cane and revealed that it was not an anomaly. By the 1850s, members of the House and Senate were coming to work armed and loaded, and they frequently engaged in physical conflict on the floors of the chambers as tensions over slavery mounted. Freeman documented more than 70 acts of violence between congressmen in the tense period between 1830 and 1860.

Civilians have also deployed violence against legislators. A man named Carl Weiss took the life of Louisiana Sen. Huey Long, a potential candidate for the presidency, in 1935. On January 8, 2011, Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was badly wounded after being fired upon in Tucson; one of her staffers and five others were killed. In 2017, a 66-year-old man named James Hodgkinson gravely wounded House Majority Whip Steve Scalise during a practice for the annual congressional baseball game. Even family members can become victims, as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, experienced in his home when a conspiracy theorist David DePape bludgeoned him in October 2022.

At the national level, violence has not been confined to politicians. The United States has also lost the leaders of many movements along the way. The streets of the cities were on fire after civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot down in Memphis in April 1968; three years earlier, Malcolm X had been killed as well.

The United States has also seen immense electoral violence at the local level. The Jim Crow South was a political system where institutionalized violence was essential to the disenfranchisement of Black Americans. In states such as Mississippi, Black residents understood that they faced immense risk when they traveled to the courthouse in an attempt to register to vote. Another civil rights leader, the charismatic and inspiring NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers, was struck down outside his home on June 12, 1963. T.R. Howard, a surgeon and civil rights leader, said in his eulogy for Evers: “For 100 years, we have turned one cheek and then another. And they have continued to hit us on both cheeks, and I’m just getting tired now of hurting in silence.”

This year is also the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer in Mississippi, where three civil rights workers—James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman—were murdered by the KKK and allied police officials because they were partaking in the voting rights mobilization that inspired young people around the world. And much of the country, including President Lyndon B. Johnson, was horrified a year later on March 7, 1965, now called “Bloody Sunday,” when police and white mobs brutally attacked nonviolent civil rights activists who were marching from Selma to Montgomery in support of voting rights legislation. Photographers captured the horrific images when troops fractured the skull of John Lewis, a leader from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and future member of Congress.

On Nov. 27, 1978, Dan White, a former member of the board of supervisors of San Francisco, shot and killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, who had become a heroic figure within the gay community. And since the tumultuous 2020 election that culminated with the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, 40 percent of state legislators polled by the Brennan Center for Justice have reported receiving threats.

The United States has many wonderful characteristics, but violence is one of them as well. As the historian Richard Slotkin has written in his classic works on the subject, violent mythology has always been deeply embedded in American culture. More recently, the historian Steven Hahn has traced the powerful impact of illiberalism, which has included electoral violence, since the founding of the country.

None of this unsettling history should discount the dangers stemming from the very real uptick in violence and violent threats that government officials have faced in recent years, which have reached elected officials, judges, and even poll workers. The current atmosphere is indeed one of heightened danger. Just because conditions have been bad in the past does not provide comfort in current times.

Yet history should send a strong warning about the dangers of politicians and others who use violent rhetoric. Indeed, this warning was often made to Trump, both when he was president and after, about his willingness to incite crowds. These calls to action tap into a treacherous component of U.S. culture that is often right beneath the surface.

The attempt to kill Trump should be a chilling reminder of how easy it is for some Americans to trigger a lethal tradition. Americans have seen the ugliness too many times before to act like this doesn’t usually happen here. It does.

[judgeitbyitscover]

Starrigger (Skyway #1) by John DeChancie

Cover illustration by James Gurney

Ace Books, December 1983

Independent space trucker Jake McGraw, accompanied by his father, Sam, who inhabits the body of the truck itself, his "starrig," picks up a beautiful hitchhiker, Darla, and a trailer-load of trouble. One of the best of the indies, Jake knows a few tricks about following the Skyway, which connects dozens, or maybe hundreds, of planets-nobody knows how many and nobody really knows the full extent of the Skyway, and much of it remains unexplored. But somehow, a rumor gets started that Jake has a map for the whole thing, and suddenly everybody wants a piece of him: an alien race called the Reticulans; the human government known as the Colonial Assembly; and a nasty piece of work called Corey Wilkes, head of the wildcat trucker union TATOO. No matter what Jake does, no matter how many twists and turns he makes, he cannot shake any of the menaces on his tail.

[burlveneer-music]

A new album from Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble today as well - "Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit"

This is the new offering from Kahil El’Zabar and his Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, in conjunction with the legendary group’s 50th anniversary, Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit. Open Me is a joyous honoring of portent new directions of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble; it’s a visionary journey into deep roots and future routes, channeling traditions old and new. It mixes El’Zabar’s original compositions with timeless classics by Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, and Eugene McDaniels. Thus, the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble continues affirming their indelible, half-century presence within the continuum of Great Black Music.  Open Me, El’Zabar’s sixth collaboration with Spiritmuse in five years, marks another entry in a run of critically acclaimed recordings that stretch back to the first EHE recording in 1981. The storied multi-percussionist, composer, fashion designer, and former Chair of the Association of Creative Musicians (AACM) is in what might be the most productive form of his career, and now in his seventies, shows no signs of slowing down. Few creative music units can boast such longevity, and fewer still are touring as energetically and recording with the verve of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble.  The EHE was founded by El’Zabar in 1974 originally as a quintet, but was soon paired down to its classic form — a trio, featuring El’Zabar on multi-percussion and voice, plus two horns. It was an unusual format, even by the standards of the outward-bound musicians of the AACM: “Some people literally laughed at our unorthodox instrumentation and approach. We were considered even stranger than most AACM bands at the time. I knew in my heart though that that this band had legs, and that my concept was based on logic as it pertains to the history of Great Black Music, i.e. a strong rhythmic foundation, innovative harmonics and counterpoint, well-balanced interplay and cacophony amongst the players, strong individual soloist, highly developed and studied ensemble dynamics, an in-depth grasp of music history, originality, fearlessness, and deep spirituality.” With El’Zabar at the helm, the band’s line-up has always been open to changes, and over the years the EHE has welcomed dozens of revered musicians including Light Henry Huff, Kalaparusha Maurice Macintyre, Joseph Bowie, Hamiett Bluiett, and Craig Harris. The current line-up has been consolidated over two decades — trumpeter Corey Wilkes entered the circle twenty years ago, while baritone sax player Alex Harding joined seven years ago, after having played with El’Zabar since the early 2000s in groups such as Joseph Bowie’s Defunkt.  For Open Me, El’Zabar has chosen to push the sound of the EHE in a new direction by adding string instruments — cello, played by Ishmael Ali, and violin/viola played by James Sanders. The addition of strings opens new textural resonances and timbral dimensions in the Ensemble’s sound, linking the work to the tradition of improvising violin and cello from Ray Nance to Billy Bang, Leroy Jenkins, and Abdul Wadud.  Open Me contains a mixture of originals, including some El’Zabar evergreens such as “Barundi,” “Hang Tuff,” “Ornette,” and “Great Black Music” (often attributed to the Art Ensemble of Chicago but is, in fact,  an El’Zabar composition). There are also numbers drawn from the modern tradition, which El’Zabar uniquely arranges, including a contemplative interpretation of Miles Davis’ “All Blues.” As a milestone anniversary celebration and a statement of future intent, Open Me effortlessly carries El’Zabar’s healing vision of Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit.   All compositions by Kahil El’Zabar except tracks ‘All Blues’ by Miles Davis, ‘He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands’ spiritual folk by Unknown, ‘Passion Dance’ by McCoy Tyner and ‘Compared to What’ by Gene McDaniels All arrangements by Kahil El’Zabar Tapestry and Art Direction by Nep Sidhu

[dreimalfuermich]

Dienstag, 1.11.2022

KAHIL EL’ZABAR-COREY WILKES-JUSTIN DILLART-ALEX HARDING  

Samstagabend das Konzert von Kahil El’Zabar. America The Beautiful und anderes. Das Wort nach diesen anderthalb Stunden wäre: Unwiderstehlich, also: kann man sich nicht gegen wehren, falls man das denn wollte, sich wehren. The purest stuff. Ich war richtiggehend e n t s e t z t. Hin und wieder wird einem klar, wird einem vorgeführt, dass es einen Unterschied gibt zwischen Performance und Kunstäusserung. Dieser Unterschied ist niemals im Material begründet, niemals in den Werkzeugen, Instrumenten, Aufbauten etc., sondern, wie jetzt bei Kahil und den drei anderen Männern aus Chicago: es werden nicht Stücke aufgeführt, sondern sie ENTSTEHEN geradezu nochmal neu vor einem, für die Musiker selbst, und für uns. Und sei das selbst auch nur ein Trick, dann ist es dieser Trick eben. Der Keyboarder, ein thick boy, mit ultrafreundlichem, sanftem Gesicht, lugte immer  fast verschlagen von seinem Hammond Synthesizer auf, den er einfach direkt auf seinem Schoß liegend spielte, bediente, teilweise drei Stimmen gleichzeitig, denn vom Keyboard her kamen an diesem Abend Bass, Gitarre und andere Sounds. Auch noch nicht gesehen sowas. Das ganze Konzert über, und das ist schon, nach meiner Beobachtung, etwas spezifisch black american-mässiges: der Eindruck einer ständigen Kommunikation der Männer untereinander, Zurufe, Lachen, Nicken, Kopfschütteln, eine Form der Tiefenkonzentration, die weniger auf den Ausdruck von Versenkung geprägt ist, sondern eben: nach aussen hin geht. Bei jedem Stück veränderte sich der Gesamtsound der Band auf eine wirklich verblüffende Art, denn es wurden ja keine Intsrumente gewechselt. War das erste Stück noch sehr fleischig und soulful, und von der Konsistenz her eher sirupartig, verschob sich fürs zweite auf einmal komplett der Frequenzraum, auf einmal wurde es perlend und klirrend, die Trompete und das Bariton-Saxofon gingen in die Mitten, und von den Triolen auf dem Ride-Becken kam die Perlenschnur, an der sich das alles langzog, das war dann richtig amtlich Hard Bop Sound, aber mit Bass und Gitarre vom Synthesizer. Das dritte Stück kam leise, fern, wie von hinter den Dünen vom Meer herübergespült, die Message war LOVE, ich kam nicht klar, und damit kam ich gut klar, so schön wars. Bier war auch gut, Zigarettchen eh.

[monstermaster13]

Corey and Oats in…

Monstrous Mayhem at Universal Studios

Note: This is a double special story because it is not only a halloween story but also it is a guest story featuring guest star Kathy Bates, it is made to commemorate her in general because she has announced she is going to do one last tv role before she ‘retires’.

Corey and Oats went on many adventures together including to different places around the world and sometimes on crazy adventures to realms of their choices but they were planning something very special for this adventure, it was September 10th 2024 and they were gearing up for a series of halloween adventures.

Mel saw some videos of Halloween Horror Nights mazes and it gave her an idea for an adventure, she thought she would take the duo and their friends on a Universal Studios adventure, she used a special item from the bedroom (a skull themed glow wand she was given last year for halloween) which she used to open up a portal in the wall.

The duo along with Aiyvan the monster, Wailleo, Anglo, Mel, and Piff among others jumped through it and when they came out of it they had arrived at Universal Studios which made all of them excited Corey looked around as what appeared to be advertisements for Halloween Horror Nights.

Oats looked around and he looked at the lots, the lot that used for ‘Whoville’ in the live action adaptation of the Grinch was no longer there because it had been taken down back in 2020 but the Psycho set or the ‘Bates’ motel as it was called was still there, they all decided to head off to the Bates Motel to go and take a look.

Anglo used his light to guide them and when they all entered, Oats began to feel a little bit afraid but Mel protected him and everyone from the monsters in the motel, they had just come across a series of clues that lead to a hidden area and they walked into the bathroom area.

Mel decided to look around for a bit as did Oats, but she jumpped back a little when she saw a masked killer (wearing a mask that resembled an executioner’s mask) trying to stab her in a way mimicking the famous shower scene. ‘Aaah!’ ‘Oh did I scare you guys? I am sorry, where are my manners?’ the masked killer pulled off the executioner mask to reveal none other than Kathy Bates underneath it. ‘Mel..am I seeing things or is that Kathy Bates?’ ‘No you’re not seeing things, i’m here.’ Kathy responded, chuckling.

‘You nearly scared us to death there.’ ‘Aaaw, I was just having fun. And you know how me and the other American Horror Story ladies are around this time of year.’ ‘Oh yeah, we know what you’re like.’ ‘So what is the special occasion?’ ‘Well you may have heard I am retiring.’ ‘Retiring, oh so it is not so.’ ‘Well retiring after my last TV show that is.’

‘I have to say that it does seem fitting that you picked the Bates Motel set as your halloween hangout this year.’ ‘You and Norman wouldn’t happen to be related, would you?’ ‘Well apart from both of us having the same last name, not really. Annie Wilkes would totally get along with Norman though, and she knows it.’

Kathy showed the duo around, showing them all the rooms including the ones the group had just been through, and even where the monsters were…’As you can see, I went out a lot to make this place as horrifying as possible for my guests.’ She showed them some props and even some of the items she kept. ‘Wow, you still keep that sledgehammer around.’ ‘Well yes I do, just in case some people want to hurt me.’ ‘Why would anyone want to hurt you, if anything they’d be afraid of you doing it to them.’

‘Yeah…I get that a lot. And also James Caan’s spirit talks to me, he says he has forgiven me for making him bedridden and for nearly breaking his legs!’ ‘Glad to see you have made up.’ They all explored the motel and encountered various monsters and surprises in each room.

There was a room near one of the bedrooms in the motel which had a supernatural element to it, Mel found herself turning into a demoness while Corey became a vampire bat-like creature and Oats turned into a ghostly horse-person resembling the Pokemon Spectrier, Piff and Anglo becoming Gillman-esque fish-monsters with traits of their fish species while Kathy grew gray and white fur on her hands and her fingernails lengthened, the fur crept up her body as her hair grew longer and her ears became pointed, her eyes remained the same but she took on a humanoid feline appearance with canine teeth resembling fangs, a gray nose and whiskers, making her look like a cat-woman.

‘Kathy, that is a purrfectly cute monster look for you.’ ‘Yeah, you look like a big friendly turtoise-shell cat!’ ‘We always do transformations like this every year, the best part is we get to be ourselves.’ Wailleo smiled and laughed as they all walked through the motel and solved the riddles.

‘I must say that since I first met you and the other women from American Horror Story I have not been disappointed by your halloween surprises, you are truly a mistress of Scaremonies.’ ‘Oh you guys are so kind.’ ‘No problem, you deserve all the praise you have gotten over the years.’

Mel had always admired Kathy (as did Nathan and That Werebelushi In Shades) and to see her be so excited about halloween made her more than happy, she was also enamored by how convincing Kathy was at being spooky. ‘You should be considered an honorary scream queen if you are not one already.’ ‘I am considered to be one in my own right of course, i’m just different from most.’

“That’s why we love you.”

“Absolutely.”

They had lunch and after lunch they continued their little exploration of the set and even stopped to befriend some friendly monsters, when they finished up their search they had afternoon tea and bought some souvenirs from the gift shop and learned about the history of horror movies and the history of curses and haunted sets, and Mel appreciated Kathy as a halloween hostess and the quirky puns and jokes she made.

Kathy was enjoying herself and her role as a halloween hostess, Mel asked her for an autograph and she was more than happy to oblige, signing a copy Mel had of ‘Misery’ and a prop ax. She then hugged Mel and everyone joined in the hug, Anglo was happy as was everyone to have had such a lovely halloween adventure together.

When it was time for them to go home they all said goodbye to her, but not before giving one last hug before leaving the motel and heading back to the entrance of Universal Studios, they all waved goodbye as they jumped back through the portal.

Upon jumping back through the portal they had arrived back at their home in Nile Road, Corey and Oats told all their friends about their adventure and they sat down together in the lounge and waited for dinner. When dinner arrived they all had some lovely food for their meal.

After dinner they relaxed with some music and games before emailing Jill about their adventure and how they enjoyed being monsters, they turned back to normal from being their transformed states and they looked around for some more fun halloweeny places to go on for the next few adventures they would no doubt be planning.

They ended their day and evening with a trip to the bedroom as Corey put on his bat pajamas and Oats put on his pink nightgown, they brushed their teeth in the bathroom before all going back to the bedroom to pick out friends to snuggle up with.

Anglo jumped into bed as did everyone else including Mel, Mel turned off the light and they all drifted off to sleep. The bed began to move and glow as it was powered by the thoughts they all had in their heads, and they all had dreams that took them on a journey to Universal Studios where they took part in Halloween Horror Nights and made their own monster movies.

And thus their adventure had once again ended but more adventures are coming up, so stay tuned.

[goalhofer]

2024 Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins playoff stat leaders

Games played: Corey Andonovski, Joel Blomqvist, Tristan Broz, Taylor Fedun, Jonathan Gruden, Avery Hayes, Vinnie Hinostroza, Jagger Joshua, Ville Koivunen, Xavier Ouellet, Sam Poulin, Valtteri Puustinen, Jack Rathbone, Austin Rueshhoff, Ryan Shea, Jack St. Ivany & Radim Zohorna (2) Goals: Radim Zohorna (2) Assists: Vinnie Hinostroza (3) Points: Vinnie Hinostroza & Valtteri Puustinen (3) +/-: Jack Rathbone (+3) PIM: Vinnie Hinostroza (4) Wins: Joel Blomqvist (0) Fewest losses: Joel Blomqvist (2) Fewest goals allowed: Joel Blomqvist (7) Saves: Joel Blomqvist (59) Shutouts: Joel Blomqvist (0)

[hbhughes]

Mary Ellen Shupnik Schell

Mary Ellen Shupnik Schell, a lifelong resident of Luzerne, passed away peacefully at home on May 30 after a brief illness. She was 67 years old.

Mary Ellen was the daughter of Louis T. and Elizabeth Martin Shupnik. She was an alumna of Scranton Preparatory School and graduated from College Misericordia where she received her Bachelor of Science degree in nursing. She began her nursing career at the Wilkes-Barre General Hospital Emergency Department, where she met her husband, Frank. She then took time to begin a family before returning to work at First Hospital Wyoming Valley until its recent closure. 

She took great pride in her family, career, many beloved friends, and 15 years of service as a Luzerne Borough council member. 

In addition to her parents, Mary Ellen was preceded in death by her two sisters, Elizabeth Gulick and attorney Nancy Shupnik, along with her nephew, Corey Rosentel.

She is survived by her husband, Dr. Frank Schell, and children, Dr. Elizabeth Schell and Francis (Jake) Schell; Brother-in-law Dr. Robert Gulick, his two daughters Kathy Gulick and Ellen Abere, and their families.

A viewing will be held at Hugh B. Hughes Funeral Home, 1044 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort on Friday from 4 to 7 pm. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Swoyersville on Saturday at 10 am. Family and friends are asked to go directly to the church. The interment will be private. A luncheon open to all family and friends will follow at the Swoyersville American Legion at 1 pm.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to Ruth’s Place Women’s Shelter; 425 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702.

[chez-mimich]

NJ WEEKENDER FALL EDITION 2022_DOMENICA. DOMENICA

È proprio da “Fall Editon” l’atmosfera che si respira a Nòva in questo pomeriggio autunnale, dove le prime foschie serali rendono argentea la luce che entra dalle grandi vetrate. A riscaldare i cuori però ci pensa lui, Jeff Parker con la sua chitarra e con un ritmo incalzante, ma non frettoloso che culla il foltissimo pubblico in attesa. La ripetizione non ci mette molto a trasformarsi in un fraseggio e il fraseggio si trasforma in un’onda di harmonium, un sottofondo sopra il quale Jeff arzigogola a suo piacimento e poi la “narrazione” si fa pacata come una conversazione tra vecchi amici. La chitarra di Parker sembra procedere per quadri narrativi, piccole scene di vita, quasi uno story-board con qualche asperità, persino qualche dissidio e successive riconciliazioni. E arriva anche il momento del rumore, quasi un sottofondo di traffico urbano, sopra il quale Jeff Parker può imbastire una trama sonora ironica e minimale che sembra, con la sua delicata indifferenza, annullare il rumore di sottofondo: pezzo davvero originale per composizione e ambientazione. Il pezzo seguente (strepitoso) é una destrutturata ninna nanna di rara intensità e di ineguagliabile raffinatezza. “Parterre du rois ” per questo “solo” di Jeff Parker, con jazzisti, giornalisti specializzati, un curioso Riccardo Bertoncelli e anche Maurizio Cattelan capitato, non si sa come, a Novara Jazz e che partecipa ,anche divertendosi, al successivo dj-set energetico di Nicola Conte. Quello che segue, invece, può entrare direttamente nella storia del festival novarese ed essere ricordato tra i più sbalorditivi concerti ascoltati a Novara. Appena comincia a suonare il “Kahlil ‘El Zabar Quartet”, l’incanto è immediato. Anche se citare sè stessi è una cosa da non fare, sembra proprio che “le onde del sound di Kahlil El’Zabar vengano direttamente dall’Africa per infrangersi sulle sponde del lago Michigan”, come scrissi in un recente articolo. Qui c’è praticamente tutto quello che un amante del jazz può desiderare, ma anche un amante del blues o dell’afro-music , insomma c’è tutto quello che un “amante”in senso lato può desiderare perché prima di tutto nella musica di Khalil ‘El Zabar c’è l’anima. Multi-percussionista, compositore, voce, ma anche educatore, “filosofo” e divulgatore della musica nera, Kahlil è certamente molto di più che un jazzista, ma allo stesso tempo incarna alla perfezione l’anima del jazz. Pezzi dai ritmi trascinanti, dominati dalla batteria e dalle percussioni di varia natura di Khalil e dalla tromba onirico-lirica di Corey Wilkes, dal tuonante sax di Alex Harding, che ha sostituito degnamente Isaiah Collier, e infine dalle tastiere suonate meravigliosamente, in modo tutt’altro che ortodosso, da Justin Dillard. È indubitabile che Kahlil sia più di un musicista e forse è il corpo stesso di Kahlil ad essere uno strumento vocale e musicale ed il pubblico di Nòva sembra ipnotizzato nel sentire il suo fiato diventare suono, le lunghe digressioni vocali che hanno il sapore dell’avanguardia cólta e della più raffinata ricerca e contemporaneamente sembrano aliti ancestrali. I numerosi bis eseguiti nel finale del concerto la dicono lunga sul gradimento del pubblico, ma soprattutto di quella voglia di jazz che questo straordinario quartetto porta in giro per il mondo. Finisce così tra il delirio del pubblico (e un soddisfattissimo Maurizio Cattelan), questa straordinaria due giorni di “Nj Weekender Fall Edition”, ennesima, rutilante invenzione regalata alla città da Corrado Beldì, Riccardo Cigolotti ed Enrico Bettinello.

[nofoodjustwax]

Kahil El'Zabar's America the Beautiful

Kahil El’Zabar’s America the Beautiful

[perry-tannenbaum]

JazzArts’ Mostly Merry Holiday Edition Spans Continents and Holidays

JazzArts’ Mostly Merry Holiday Edition Spans Continents and Holidays

Review: Jazz Room concert virtually streamed over Facebook and YouTube By Perry Tannenbaum President and CEO Lonnie Davis and artistic director Ocie Davis have been delivering JazzArts programming and monthly Jazz Room concerts for over 10 years – and Holiday Editions from their first year onwards. Previous Jazz Room Holiday Editions were staged at Booth Playhouse or McGlohon Theater to…

[raspberryjones]

Kahil El’Zabar, Kahil El’Zabar’s America the Beautiful [Spiritmuse 2020] | For the past couple of months, I’ve been writing a (still-unfinished) piece about all the elements that have contributed to the recent resurgence in the popularity of improvised music — some fairly described as being in the jazz tradition(s), more of it fairer to be called jazz-adjacent. There are many causes for this. And the theme, execution, and timely drop (less than two weeks before Election Day) of Kahil El’Zabar’s second great album of 2020, reaffirmed a pair of silently crucial reasons in the greatness and importance of this music: its ability to be a soothsayer and pulse-setter. By which I mean, how improvised music and musicians attune to the surrounding energy and atmosphere, each other’s and that of the world around them, and translate that perception into art. Much of their prowess rests on building up the information and stories, receiving, magnifying, and transmitting this energy throughout their entire lives. They practice the magic of seeing around the corner of the world’s rotation, before the turn happens. With America, that relationship is even more pronounced. For the predominantly Black American musicians who perfected the improvisational music sometimes called jazz, it often meant survival. Recognizing the tempo, spotting the truth early, and choosing how to express it (or whether to express it at all), meant the difference between types of lives they could lead, or between life and death. The very existence of such an art form - especially one that was a music, capable of manipulating its audience's emotion while conveying countless layers of information - is in my mind’s eye, an immeasurably radical act. 

Especially when it’s pulled off with as much graceful, artful nonchalance as Kahil El’Zabar’s America the Beautiful. This is a profoundly sympathetic collection of (mostly) instrumental music, filled with songs and melodies 90% of listeners who approach it will recognize. Even its central creative conceit — tweaked arrangements with instrumentation (African hand-percussion, strings, brass and reeds) that reframes these familiar songs just enough to matter — feels like the comfort of home. But the music and the playing (Corey Wilkes, Tomeka Reid, the late Hamiet Bluiett) also makes abundantly clear that this “home” is a thoroughly different place than the one resting in our historical memory. As I’ve been listening to America the Beautiful over and over these past few weeks, I have kept thinking of it as the musical equivalent of a great response to all those stupid red hats people have been wearing as signifiers these past four years. No, the response is not the one that goes “America was never great”; but more like, “Parts of her have always been.” Except, those aren’t the parts that voters or candidates always going on about, especially on the campaign trail. Because the parts that this album addresses were born of profound tragedy, as artistic and humanist responses to unspeakable historical evil. That they can result in something this beautiful is nothing short of a miracle.

More About Kahil El’Zabar + America The Beautiful:

Great recent interview with Kahil El’Zabar over on ToneGlow

Nice review of America The Beautiful by Marty Sartini Garner

[burlveneer-music]

Isaiah Collier - Parallel Universe - a hot direct-to-disc session for Night Dreamer, featuring Jimetta Rose on vocals

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Isaiah Collier connects with the divine ancestors on a transcendent Direct-To-Disc session, Parallel Universe. Chicago-based innovator and educator Isaiah Collier is opening up new dimensions in the jazzwise continuum. A saxophonist by trade whose multi-instrumental talents and compositional prowess have stretched the limits of the form, Parallel Universe represents a new chapter in Collier’s musical journey. Having already performed with a diverse range of musicians such as Chance The Rapper, Waddada Leo Smith, Chicago jazz royalty Angel Bat Dawid and his own band The Chosen Few, Collier’s latest work as a bandleader explores the shared musical heritage of the African diaspora with a sense of grace and assurance that belies his years. Embracing the risk and vulnerability that comes with the live process, Collier and his band tapped into the frequencies of improvisation that fired up so many of the most timeless jazz recordings. “Recording direct-to-disc gave me a really fortunate opportunity to experience what our musical predecessors almost a hundred years ago were dealing with,” he explains. Name-checking Sun Ra, Ras G, J Dilla, Fela Kuti, Miles Davis, Gil Scott-Heron, Whitney Huston, Aaliyah and Frankie Knuckles, the opening of track of Parallel Universe imagines a genreless musical lineage that resonates with the polyphony of stories his band bring to the table, from Chicago and beyond. Featuring gospel soul singer Jimetta Rose, AACM and former Art Ensemble of Chicago trumpet player Corey Wilkes, blues-rooted guitarist Michael Damani, regular collaborators Julian Davis Reid, James Russell Sims and Micah Collier, the 8-track album bristles with a sense of love and understanding between players at the top of their game. “Give me that feeling that makes me feel like I’m alive,” Collier enthuses. “People can tell when you’re taking chances. I know that’s what everybody is looking for.”  Saxophone, Flute, Vocals, Keys - Isaiah Collier Vocals - Jimetta Rose Keys - Julian Reid Bass - Micah Collier Trumpet -Corey Wilkes Drums - James Russell Sims Guitar - Michael Damani Kalimba - Ra Additional Vocals - Sonny Daze Recorded, mixed and mastered by Martijn Schouten Cut by Patrick De Looper at Artone Studio Produced by Sonny Daze Recorded at Artone Studio on Thursday 9th & Friday 10th March 2023

[sinceileftyoublog]

Greg Spero Live Show Review: 7/31, Polk Bros Park, Chicago

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Mere hours before performing Friday night at Polk Bros Park, Greg Spero posted a picture on Facebook of himself boarding a plane from L.A. in a gas mask. The Highland Park native was returning to Chicago to perform as part of Navy Pier’s Water Colors series, weekly free jazz nights that have occurred despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Audience members could bring their blankets, chairs, food, and drinks and sit in pre-drawn, socially distant circles, required to don a mask should they choose to leave to take a picture or use the bathroom. As Spero started playing solemn, rolling piano notes, he was joined on stage by a masked Dee Alexander; she removed her face covering and belted a rendition of Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy”. The rest of the band then joined, some wearing masks, the others, like the horn players, obviously not, spaced out on stage as much as they could. This was a COVID concert.

As jazz venues like The Green Mill have inexplicably reopened without singers or horn players in order to mitigate risk of transmission, the Water Colors series seemed infinitely more “normal” in comparison, or at least a hell of a lot safer. Perhaps the ultimate test of normalcy, I found myself grooving to the lively sax-and-trumpet-led tunes, vocal trills, hand percussion, and scratchy guitar and drum solos, as if a pandemic wasn’t even going on. It also helped to have an overwhelming display of talent on stage in general; Spero remarked that he was embarrassed even calling it his show, buoyed by Alexander, percussionists Kalyan Pathak and Charles Heath, bassist Jeremiah Hunt, trumpeter Corey Wilkes, guitarist Isaiah Sharkey, tenor saxophonist Irvin Pierce, and spoken word artist J. Ivy. They elevated tracks like Spero’s “No Rest For The Weary”, co-written by Peter Yastrow (and whose studio version features the Chicago all-star duo of Makaya McCraven and Junius Paul) and versions of Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird” and John Lennon’s “Imagine”, normally overdone but unique in their hands. Most exciting was the performance of a track called “The Chant”, built around tugging horn lines, part of an upcoming album called The Chicago Experiment to be released on Ropeadope. (The track “Maxwell Street” from the album has already been released.)

Sure, the occasional wandering, panicky thought entered my head while at the show. Did Navy Pier pay for Spero’s gas mask? Did all of the band members get tested before the performance? Why isn’t that Karen’s mask covering her nose? Seeing a live show right now, unable to stand and dance, not at a drive-in in the suburbs but in Chicago, was weird. The model presented by Navy Pier was workable for nights like this, but not sustainable for a local or national industry by any means. But I think I and a lot of other people needed, at least for one safe night, the communal experience, that of being alone, together.

[jazzismus]

“ Corey Wilkes - Kahil El’ Zabar “...