Eleven years ago, three undisputed titans of smooth jazz joined forces to become the supergroup known far and wide today as BWB. Those three gentlemen—trumpeter/flugelhornist Rick Braun, tenor saxophonist Kirk Whalum and guitarist Norman Brown—will be touring, beginning June 1, in support of their second release together, Human Nature (Heads Up), a set of 11 songs popularized by Michael Jackson, scheduled to drop on June 18.

Here are BWB’s tour dates:

June 1—2013 Jazz Festival @ Hyatt, Newport Beach, CA
June 6—Napa Valley Opera House, Napa, CA
June 14—A Celebration of Black Music, Cincinnati, OH
June 15—One World Theatre, Austin, TX
June 21—DuPont Clifford Brown Jazz Festival, Wilmington, DE
June 22–Uptown Charlotte Jazz Fest, Charlotte, NC
June 26—Spirit Cruise Ship, New York, NY
July 19—The Norfolk Jazz Festival, Norfolk, VA
July 20 & 21—Bonelli Park – JazzFest, West San Dimas, CA
August 3—Rodney Strong Winery, Healdsburg, CA
August 10—Festival of the Vine – Fraze Pavilion, Kettering, OH
August 11—Richmond Jazz Festival, Richmond, VA
September 13—Back Bay Amphitheatre @ Hyatt, Newport Beach, CA
September 14—Thornton Winery, Temecula, CA
October 5—Akron Civic Theatre, Akron, OH

A pledge campaign is underway to further fund a documentary about Wayne Shorter that was begun in 2006 and that is scheduled for release in 2014. The film, titled Wayne Shorter: Zero Gravity, promises to be an intimate portrait of an artist who’s created a great wealth of innovative and spiritually uplifting music—as a solo artist and as part of other groups, including the Miles Davis Quintet and fusion pioneers Weather Report.

The documentary will feature concert footage of Shorter’s superb quartet, as well as collaborations between Shorter and other artists. Interviews with friends and family will reveal personal aspects of Shorter’s life. Archival footage will support his life history and career as a jazz composer/ musician with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, the Miles Davis Quintet and Weather Report. His visual art (paintings and comic books) and his love for American cinema and science-fiction/ fantasy novels will be woven into the documentary to reflect his diverse and distinct vision of life and music.

For a limited time, pledgers will have a crack at a range of Shorter-related treats, which include an invitation to a live digital premiere of the director’s cut of the documentary, autographed DVDs, concert tickets, Shorter’s artwork, a voice-mail recording with Wayne and Esperanza Spalding, tickets to Shorter’s star-studded 80th birthday party, and even a private dinner with Shorter and Herbie Hancock.

In addition, the pledge campaign is offering an exclusive to universities, music schools and other organizations for a “master experience” with Shorter, during which the saxophonist will make an appearance for a Q&A session and will hand over a signed composition.

For more information on Zero Gravity and the Pledge Music campaign, please visit www.wayneshorterdoc.com and www.pledgemusic.com/wayneshorter.

The Girls in the Band is set to run at New York’s Lincoln Center starting today and running throughout next week. In addition to the Lincoln Center screenings, the award-winning documentary film will soon appear for a week-long run at Laemmle Noho 7, a handsome new theater situated in the middle of the arts district in North Hollywood, California. The Girls in the Band tells the story of female jazz instrumentalists and their struggle for recognition from the 1920s to the present. Written, directed and co-produced by Judy Chaikin, the film will premier at the Laemmle during an invitation-only screening on June 4, then run for the general public from June 7-13.

Combining rarely seen archival footage and interviews with musicians including trombonist Melba Liston (pictured above) drummer Viola Smith, saxophonist Roz Cron, bassist Carline Ray and trumpeter Clora Bryant, Chaikin explores how these and other women helped shaped the history of American music, usually in the face of extreme sexism and racism. The film also explores how female musicians of today—Maria Schneider, Anat Cohen, Esperanza Spalding and others—are building upon the legacy of their predecessors.

For more information, go to www.thegirlsintheband.com
The film’s official trailer can be seen here: www.youtube.com

Boston-based pianist Laszlo Gardony released a solo disc titled Clarity on May 7. It’s a thoughtful, rhythmically varied and wonderfully executed piece of work on the Sunnyside label that arrives two decades after Gardony’s debut Sunnyside release, Changing the Standards—also a solo-piano album.

By his own account, Laszlo recorded Clarity in one straight 49-minute shot on a fall morning in 2012. His parents had died recently. He writes that he felt a “burst of inspiration,” so he set up some mics, started a digital recorder, sat at his piano and began to play. Then, according to a press release, “suspecting that he had reached some new place, he set the music aside to give himself some perspective. When he listened to the session several months later, he found that he had indeed captured a powerfully coherent, deeply personal and startlingly beautiful cathartic journey.”

Even though those lines were pulled from a press release, those last descriptors of the music—“powerfully coherent,” “deeply personal,” “startling beautiful”—accurately characterize the album’s 10 tracks. This is really a lovely, lively album from a talented artist. Well worth a listen.

CLICK ON MAGAZINE COVER to preview our monthly May 2013 Digital Edition.

Click on feature photos to watch videos and album covers to hear the music. Enjoy!