GARY BARTZ “JAZZ CONVERSATION” W/ ASHLEY KAHN

2022 BIAMP PDX JAZZ FESTIVAL
GARY BARTZ “JAZZ CONVERSATION”
W/ ASHLEY KAHN

P5 ARTBAR  | 3.00 PM – 4.00 PM
FREE Community Event

Gary Bartz
A look at his body of work reveals dalliances with bebop, hard bop, free jazz, spiritual jazz, soul jazz, jazz-funk, fusion and acid jazz, all while resolutely remaining unmistakably Gary Bartz. There’s early work with Eric Dolphy and McCoy Tyner in Charles Mingus’ Jazz Workshop, work with Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, a stint in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and also one with Miles. There’s his groundbreaking and highly influential Ntu Troop albums of the early ‘70s where he blends soul, funk, African folk music, hard bop, and avant-garde jazz on such albums as I’ve Known Rivers and Other Bodies, based on the poetry of Langston Hughes, as well as Music is My Sanctuary, Love Affair, Another Earth, and Home; and his jazz-funk work including two classic albums with the Mizell Brothers, one of which supplied A Tribe Called Quest with a sample that was smooth like butter. And while on the subject of samples, the Bartz catalog has provided hip-hop and other genres with a rich source of them, and artists who have gone to his well when producing beats also include Black Sheep, Jurassic 5, Casual, RPM, Warren G, Photek, Statik Selektah, Chi-Ali, 3rd Bass, Showbiz, Z-Trip, Young Disciples, and many others.

The socio-political content of much of Bartz’s work, particularly during the early ‘70s, is another factor that has captured the attention of and influenced many. He was wide awake to the pressing issues of his day, which sadly haven’t changed much in a half-century—long before the term “woke” was ever coined—which adds continued relevance and resonance to albums like the two Harlem Bush Music LPs. Speaking his mind and expressing thoughts and feelings lyrically and vocally were a consistent aspect of his work during this era, but even with all this there’s always still a space within Gary’s oeuvre for the celebration of simple and beautiful basic truths.

Ashley Kahn is a GRAMMY® winning music historian, author and producer, a wearer of hats, is wary of autocrats, loves jazz but is allergic to cats. He co-wrote Carlos Santana’s autobiography The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story To Light, and has written titles on legendary recordings Kind of Blue by Miles Davis and A Love Supreme by John Coltrane, and a record label: The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records. His most recent book, George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters was published in August 2020. He teaches at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music.

Ashley has been our esteemed guest interviewer since 2020 in conversations with Archie Shepp, Brian Jackson, Stanley Jordan, Harold López Nussa, Judith Hill, director John Scheinfeld and more.