abbey lincoln

Description

Intense but hip jazz chick lays it down with veteran and younger Cuban musicians, and spreads her and friends' love by musical instruments' repairs and donations...an entertaining and eye-opening view of Cuba before the creation of the Buena Vista Social Club through Ry Cooder's efforts. For artist's and Cuban musicians' promotion only. From jazz.com: "Bunnett, Jane, soprano saxophone, flute; Toronto, 22 October 1956. She was trained as a classical pianist and clarinetist. Hampered at the piano by tendonitis, she began playing flute and a little bit of alto saxophone. While at the university, she broke her ankle, and with the out-of-court settlement money she bought a soprano. Bunnett moved into jazz after meeting trumpeter Larry Cramer at York University in Toronto--they have been together ever since. Among their favorite LPs from those years were Stanley Cowell's record, Musa Ancestral Streams; Abbey Lincoln, That's Him; Don Pullen's solo piano album on Sackville; and Clifford Jordan's 1973 album Glass Bead Game. She did some studying under saxophonist Steve Lacy and pianists Pullen and Barry Harris. They first went to Cuba as tourists in the early 80s. They started to work on the project in Jane Bunnett about 1988 and started to record in 1990. One experience Bunnett and Cramer shared was the threat of legal action from the United States for doing business in American-blockaded Cuba, even though the two are Canadians. The internationally-condemned Helms-Burton bill cast a shadow over musical artists involved with Cuban musicians, but the undeterred Bunnett and Cramer playfully named their 1996-97 tour "Come Helms Or High Water." Ultimately, they claimed a sort of moral victory when they took a group of Cuban musicians to perform at Washington's Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Since 1990, she and partner Larry Cramer, a trumpeter, have brought more than 40 Cuban musicians to tour with them in Canada and the United States, and they've established the Spirits of Music project that raises money to repair broken instruments in Cuba's conservatories. In 2000, Jane was the subject of a feature length NFB documentary, "Spirits of Havana." In May of 2002 the Smithsonian Institute recognized and honoured Jan for her "lifetime of dedication to the enrichment and diffusion of Latin music" At the same time, Bunnett has maintained her connection to the jazz mainstream. Throughout her career she has regularly performed and recorded with such major jazz artists as saxophonist Dewey Redman, pianists Pullen, Paul Bley, and Stanley Cowell, bassist Charlie Haden, drummer Billy Hart, and singers Sheila Jordan and Janne Lee, among others." Recordings: Cuban Odyssey (2002); Water Is Wide; Rendez-Vous; Spirits Of Havana; Jane Bunnett/Spirits Of Havana: Chamalongo janeb@janebunnett.com larry@janebunnett.com janeb@king.tapscott.com www.janebunnett.com