I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
National Public Radio had a great feature about Albuquerque’s jazz community Monday night in their series on homegrown music scenes:
A jazz fan visiting Albuquerque, N.M., might equate the chances of seeing great live jazz there with the chances of getting caught in a rain shower. But since the 1970s, a devoted group of musicians and educators has turned the area into a hotbed of jazz performance, with a scene so hearty, its musicians can support themselves by playing out. Its venues are so magnetic that international stars often make it a stop on their tours.
The program continues by sketching the origins and evolution of the New Mexico Jazz Workshop, which began as a collective of eight musicians in 1976, as well as the creation of the Outpost Performance Space in the mid-80s. On the value of the Outpost, NPR spoke with pianist and composer Vijay Iyer, who first played there in 2005:
"First of all, when we drove up to the place, I was just amazed that there was a free-standing structure in the United States that’s dedicated all year ’round to this kind of music. And it wasn’t a club," Iyer says. "Because most of these venues, you know, if you go to Yoshi’s in Oakland, Calif., or some of the clubs in New York, these are great places to play, but you’re always competing with what’s on the menu. I mean, if every state in the United States had one venue like this, the entire landscape would be totally different."
Who knew?
The Jazz Workshop is the non-profit behind the two week New Mexico Jazz Festival, which is underway right now, plus a summer-long music series that happens every year.
