GA Russell

You may recall that after the season, the union gave each team a report card, and the Stampeders players complained about the food. Today the Stamps announced their plan to improve things. https://3downnation.com/2025/03/25/calgary-stampeders-partner-with-flames-to-upgrade-food-service-after-player-complaints/ ***** Yesterday the union officially objected to Ed Hervey's comment of last week that there are no superstars in the league. I enjoyed a friendly back-and-forth with Rick Zamperin on Twitter/X about it. https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/cflpa-sends-letter-to-league-edmonton-elks-regarding-comments-from-elks-gm-ed-hervey-1.2276359 ***** Combine news https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/25/10-cfl-prospects-who-stood-out-at-the-cfl-combine/ https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/25/3-players-that-translated-cfl-combine-results-to-the-field/ ***** Sask draft analysis https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/combine-szn-canadian-draft-needs-for-roughriders-defense/

My first thought is that the stones would be unhygenic. Maybe they soak them in alcohol first to disinfect them. Maybe the liquor would kill the germs too. I get the idea, but I'm not aware of any trend to use pebbles instead of ice. Why not?

Combine news https://3downnation.com/2025/03/24/seven-risers-and-fallers-from-the-2025-cfl-combine/ ***** Top 3 Defensive Ends https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/24/mmqb-ranking-the-cfls-top-3-defensive-ends/

Each team's plans regarding the salary cap https://3downnation.com/2025/03/22/which-cfl-teams-plan-to-spend-to-the-increased-salary-cap-ceiling-which-dont/ ***** Combine news https://3downnation.com/2025/03/22/two-top-20-draft-prospects-suffer-injuries-at-cfl-combine/ https://3downnation.com/2025/03/23/11-fun-facts-from-the-2025-cfl-combine/ https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/22/whos-the-top-receiver-at-the-2025-cfl-combine/ https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/22/3-cfl-combine-standouts-from-saturday/ https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/22/choquette-beauchemin-named-day-1-coaches-picks/ https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/23/whos-the-top-offensive-lineman-at-the-cfl-combine/ https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/23/3-cfl-combine-standout-performers-from-sunday/ https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/23/flanagan-senecal-named-day-2-coaches-picks/ ***** Sask news https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/huskies-lb-seth-hundeby-hopes-swiss-army-knife-ability-gets-him-selected-in-cfl-draft/ https://pifflespodcast.com/blog/riderville-roundup-march-23/ *****

RIP George Foreman! I remember January 22, 1973, very well. Three things happened that day. 1) The US Supreme Court handed down its Roe v. Wade decision. 2) LBJ died. 3) Foreman beat Frazier.

Combine news https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/21/cfl-combine-leaderbord-top-5-from-every-drill/ https://www.cfl.ca/combine/2025-cfl-combine/ https://3downnation.com/2025/03/21/ottawa-db-eric-cumberbatch-wins-broad-jump-at-2025-cfl-combine/ https://3downnation.com/2025/03/21/laval-db-anton-haie-wins-three-cone-at-2025-cfl-combine/ https://3downnation.com/2025/03/21/laurier-db-maliek-cote-azore-wins-vertical-jump-at-2025-cfl-combine/ https://3downnation.com/2025/03/21/saskatchewan-receiver-daniel-wiebe-runs-second-fastest-short-shuttle-ever-at-2025-cfl-combine/ https://3downnation.com/2025/03/21/western-dl-max-von-muehldorfer-wins-bench-press-at-2025-cfl-combine/ https://3downnation.com/2025/03/21/alberta-rb-ope-oshinubi-wins-forty-yard-dash-at-2025-cfl-combine-with-fifth-fastest-time-ever/ https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/21/opemipo-oshinubi-blazes-to-4-41-second-40-yard-dash/ ***** The Argos have announced their coaching staff. https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/21/argos-announce-coaching-staff-including-jason-shivers/ https://3downnation.com/2025/03/21/argos-hire-jason-shivers-as-co-defensive-coordinator-unveil-2025-coaching-staff/ ***** Sports Tourism Canada has named last year's Grey Cup Final and Festival the Markee Sport Event of the Year. https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/20/111th-grey-cup-2024-grey-cup-festival-named-marquee-sport-event-of-the-year/ *****

Combine news https://3downnation.com/2025/03/20/x-players-to-watch-at-the-2025-cfl-combine/ https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/20/whos-the-top-defensive-prospect-at-the-cfl-combine/ ***** Five possible comebacks https://www.cfl.ca/2025/03/20/5-comeback-stories-waiting-to-be-written-in-2025/

Saxophonist Joe Lovano and the Marcin Wasilewski Trio Are in an Especially Adventurous Spirit on Homage, Their Second Album for ECM Building on the Lyrical Strengths that Inhabited the Group’s Previous Recording (Arctic Riff, 2020), on Homage the Quartet Investigates the Type of Free-Flowing Interplay and Expansive Passages of Improvisation Featuring Pianist Marcin Wasilewski, Bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and Drummer Michal Miskiewicz Available April 24, 2025 via ECM "The music throughout the week was unfolding every night in a very special way. So when we went into the studio, we were able to capture an exceptional, concentrated five-hour moment." — Joe Lovano Joe Lovano and his Polish conspirators from the Marcin Wasilewski trio are in an especially adventurous spirit on their second joint endeavour for ECM. Building on the lyrical strengths that inhabited the group’s previous recording (Arctic Riff, 2020), on Homage the quartet moreover investigates the type of free-flowing interplay and expansive passages of improvisation that have become a staple in Lovano’s ventures with his trio tapestry group and elsewhere. The album was recorded at a studio session in the midst of the group’s Village Vanguard residency in late Autumn 2023, revealing fluent structures as they’re being developed. A rare sense of expressivity and spiritual affinity grace the session. Clocking in at over ten minutes each, two long-form compositions and the title track “Homage” – all Lovano originals – make up the bedrock of the album and find the players at their most exploratory, with Joe frequently swapping out his tenor and tárogató for a variety of percussion instruments - “Just a handful of gongs and some light percussion sounds,” notes Lovano. “It’s so nice to communicate with Michael [Miskiewicz] on drums – in the studio it felt like we were one!” Reigniting the spark in the studio was no difficult task for the quartet, as they’d toured extensively since their first album. “We connected with Joe right from the start,” the trio recalls. “It was natural. He’s the kind of musician who jumps into the moment and plays along with whatever he hears, which matches how we approach music. Touring together over the years only made this connection stronger, both on and off stage. His openness and spontaneity allowed real musical dialogue to happen.” Joe originally wrote “Homage”, the title track, for the 2023 ECM celebration at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, celebrating Manfred Eicher’s 80th birthday alongside A-listers Dave Holland, Anouar Brahem, Ralph Towner, Norma Winstone and many more. There, Lovano performed the composition in quartet with Avishai Cohen, Tigran Hamasyan and Nasheet Waits. “The piece is dedicated to Manfred and the label’s history. I grew up listening to ECM recordings, because those were the cats that I wanted to play with, and it turned out to be the music that gave me a lot of direction.” In putting the score together, Lovano “used no notes – just feelings written in a sequence of events”. Not strictly tonal, Lovano and Marcin’s trio shift between different keys throughout the song, alternating pulse and rhythm in the process and revealing Lovano’s deep connection with the music of conductor and composer Gunther Schuller, and by extension of Jimmy Giuffre and George Russell. “Golden Horn”, one of the two lengthier pieces, is a modal meditation that finds the tides shifting smoothly between the players. Miskiewicz’s pulse is elegantly uncompromising, as he and Slawomir Kurkiewicz on bass keep a steady backdrop against Wasilewski and Lovano’s dauntless explorations through the bars. The interaction is reminiscent of what the trio used to sound like accompanying the great late Tomasz Stanko on the trumpeters ECM recordings in the early 2000s (the archival live recording from 2004, September Night was just released in 2024). Even more spontaneity and freedom grace the twelve-minute cut “This Side – Catville”, as the quartet embarks on a freewheeling blowout through swinging bars and again modal harmonic shifts – exemplary of each players heightened intuition for responsive interplay. Wasilewski’s keyboard flights move like ripples in the water, his soft-spoken action shaping an effective contrast against Lovano’s sharply overblown and melodically intricate jabs. “We really love to follow Joe’s spontaneous free approach in playing,” says Marcin, also speaking for his bandmates. “But it’s always rooted in the tradition at the same time. Combining these two elements in our own sense of music became more expressive recently.” The group’s pass at “Love In The Garden”, a composition by the Polish violinist Zbigniew Seifert, embellishes the evocative ballad with fluid harmonies, wrapped in a rubato pulse. Marcin: “It was a spontaneous choice – no discussion about how or what to play. We just went for it, and the music unfolded naturally.” It’s a surprising and tasteful take on the rather electric original from the 70s, but, as Joe notes, “the thing is to not play something the way it looks but to try and create it as you play, you know. And playing ballads, that’s the heart and soul, really, of the music.” Improvised miniatures complete a programme that proves Wasilewski and his trio cohorts to be the ideal match for Lovano’s singular musings and the group’s flawless chemistry is more apparent than ever on Homage. Recorded at the Van Gelder studio in New Jersey and mixed at Bavaria Musikstudios in Munich, the album was produced by Manfred Eicher. Joe Lovano · Homage ECM · Release Date: April 25, 2025 For more information on ECM, please visit: ECMRecords.com | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter # # #

Anyone know why Eliska81 and 123meklozed would be common?

  SAN FRANCISCO JAZZ FESTIVAL JUNE 13-15, 2025 Curated by SFJAZZ Executive Artistic Director Terence Blanchard Patrice Rushen · Stanley Clarke & Gonzalo Rubalcaba Charles Lloyd Sky Quartet · Cimafunk · Lakecia Benjamin Lisa Fischer · The Soul Rebels · Zig Zag Power Trio SFJAZZ Collective w/ Kurt Elling · Jason Moran · Eric Harland Theo Croker · Dave Holland & Lionel Loueke · Orrin Evans Don Was & The Pan-Detroit Ensemble · Nicholas Payton Sullivan Fortner & Ambrose Akinmusire · Mark Letteri Group And Many More JazzCorner™ is proud to partner with SFJAZZ on their varied and compelling content including Drop The Needle series, SFJAZZ at Home, The Breakdown series, Video On Demand, and more. We are excited to share with you more about the the 42nd San Francisco Jazz Festival. This three-day bash celebrating music and community will feature 12 concerts each day in both the Miner Auditorium and Joe Henderson Lab at SFJAZZ, as well as the Festival Tent. In addition, curated guest DJ sets, an outdoor festival street market will take place on Franklin & Oak St., and will feature food, wine, and beer vendors, a vinyl record swap, book and zine merchants, and more. A community art market will be held in the SFJAZZ Center, offering a unique selection of local artwork. Limited full access VIP & 3-Day Passes, 1-Day Passes, and venue specific passes are available now! Tickets SFJAZZ Lois Gilbert Managing Director JazzCorner.com

Jordan VanHemert Faces Down Difficult Times On "Survival of the Fittest," Set for May 16 Release by Origin Records Saxophonist-Composer Draws Inspiration From Person, Political, & Cultural Adversities In a Collection of Nine Originals & Standards In a Sextet with Michael Dease, Lewis Nash, Terell Stafford, Helen Sung, Rodney Whitaker   March 19, 2025 Tenor saxophonist and composer Jordan VanHemert considers the twin poles of adversity and resilience with Survival of the Fittest, arriving May 16 on Origin Records. VanHemert’s fifth release as a leader, the album of post-bop jazz finds him leading a sextet with a jaw-dropping all-star lineup: trumpeter Terell Stafford, trombonist Michael Dease, pianist Helen Sung, bassist Rodney Whitaker, and drummer Lewis Nash. While in a broader sense it’s part of a sequence of recordings that explore VanHemert’s identity and struggles as a Korean American, Survival of the Fittest was inspired by the very specific occurrence of his sudden termination due to budget cuts from a tenure-track position as a university director of jazz studies. “The only way I was able to make sense of it was through the music I wrote, which brought me comfort,” he says. “My hope is that in sharing this journey, it would be one that people would identify with because it’s part of the human experience to go through difficult times.” Yet the music never wallows in anger or self-pity; if anything, it’s an antidote to those crippling feelings. The album opens with the strident determination of “Here and Now” and closes with the celebratory glow of “Survival of the Fittest,” bookending a wide range of ideas, images, and emotions that recast the personal as universal. There is a balance within this range of darkness and light, intensity and subtlety. The doleful “Mourning Comes Again,” inspired by the racially motivated Atlanta spa shootings of 2021, is offset by the buoyant “Tread Lightly,” a vehicle for Nash to ply his formidable but ever tasteful chops. Similarly, a hard-driving rendition of the standard “Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise” is juxtaposed against the spare, peaceful wonder of “Sea of Tranquility.” Those dueling forces come together in pieces like Ellington’s “Come Sunday”—a song of both oppression and hope—and in the traditional Korean murder ballad “Milyang Arirang,” which VanHemert and company temper with beauty and spirit. The album’s thesis statement, muses VanHemert, comes from an old Japanese proverb: “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.” Whether by accident or design, there are nine tracks to be found on Survival of the Fittest: VanHemert takes one extra stand just to remind us, the listeners, of the hidden strength we all have within us. Jordan VanHemert was born in 1988 in Cheongju, South Korea, but was adopted as an infant by American parents who raised him in Holland, Michigan. The family loved music and Jordan had taken up alto saxophone by the time he was 11 years old. When his school band proved a less-than-ideal training ground for his instrument of choice, VanHemert talked his way into the jazz band despite his being a beginner. He learned the repertoire first through a Charlie Parker album he’d received from his grandfather, then by checking out stacks of CDs from the local library. The jazz-education-by-fire stuck. VanHemert (who by then had switched to tenor sax) earned a degree in music education from Central Michigan University, then went on to graduate studies in music at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It was while he was at UM that VanHemert also began investigating his Korean heritage, which became an essential component of both his personal and artistic identities. Capping off his education with a doctorate in jazz performance from the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign, VanHemert made the transition from student to teacher. He was also a working musician and composer, incorporating Korean traditional music into his jazz rubric. This, plus the emotions of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent scapegoating of Asians and Asian Americans for the spread of the virus, led to the creation of his first album, I Am Not a Virus, released in 2021. VanHemert dug deep into his musical and cultural heritage as a Korean American with his second album, Nomad (2022), and the following year’s Metamorphosis EP. He then plumbed the depths of the modern jazz tradition with 2024’s Deep in the Soil, an album that introduced the same all-star sextet that populates Survival of the Fittest. He is currently director of jazz studies at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Photography: Jamie Pratt    EPK: Jordan VanHemert "Survival of the Fittest"  Jordan VanHemert Website  

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