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Henry Butler News and Reviews
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Henry Butler has been named an official Yamaha Artist
More to come soon...
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NY CULTURE JUNE 24, 2010
The Wall Street Journal
The Haitian-Born Rhythm Revolution
An Uptown Concert Celebrates the Tradition That Grew From the Music Exported to Cuba and New Orleans by Freed Slaves
By CORINNA DA FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
More than 200 years before this year's earthquake, Haitian aftershocks of a different kind swept through the Caribbean, setting in motion developments that would shape 20th-century music. The Haitian revolution of 1791 and the subsequent creation, in 1804, of the first independent black republic in Haiti led to a newly confident search for a black cultural identity in Cuba and in New Orleans. It also gave both places a large influx of freed Haitian slaves, who brought with them a particular three-note musical cell.
The music that grew out of that cell, and the many cross-currents flowing between Havana and New Orleans, are the focus of a concert by pianists Henry Butler and Osmany Paredes to be presented by New York production company Habana/Harlem on Friday at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse. The performance will be part of the CareFusion Jazz Festival... Read on HERE
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Henry Butler's photography presented in new exhibits and in award winning documentary
"Sight Unseen: International Photography by Blind Artists
Kennedy Center for the Arts, Washington, D.C.
June 6 through 20, 2010
Opening Reception: Sun., June. 6 from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.
Sight Unseen presents work by the most accomplished blind photographers in the world. It is the first major museum exhibition focused on blind photography, a world of challenge, inversion, and paradox. These blind artists practice a deeply modern photography, an art of idea. They maintain purely mental galleries of images and then use cameras and scanners to bring their inner visions into the world of the sighted. The work is inherently conceptual and operates beyond the logic of composition and the tyranny of the decisive moment. Marcel Duchamp wrote of 'non-retinal art,' art of concept. This is non-retinal photography. Consequently, the work raises core questions about photography, perception, and mere outward sight versus inner vision. (Originated by UCR/CMP; shown: "Electroman" by Pete Eckert.)"
"La Mirada Invisible Colectiva Internacional Fotógrafos Ciegos
Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City
June 10 through August 8, 2010
Opening Reception: Sun., June. 10, 2010
Colloquium: July 1 - 3, 2010; Instituto de Estudios Criticos, Mexico City
Work by blind photographers Ralph Baker, New York; Evgen Bavcar, Paris; Henry Butler, New Orleans; Pete Eckert, Scramento, California; Bruce Hall, Irvine, California; Annie Hesse, Paris; Rosita McKenzie, Edinburgh; Gerardo Nigenda, Oaxaca, Mexico; Michael Richard, Los Angeles; Seeing With Photography Collective, New York; Kurt Weston, Huntington Beach, California; Alice Wingwall, Berkeley, California."
"Winner Newport Beach Film Festival Best Short Documentary
DARK LIGHT
The Art of Blind Photographers
On April 30, "Dark Light" was awarded Best Short Documentary at the Newport Beach Film Festival.
"Dark Light" features three blind photographers -- all in "Sight Unseen: International Photography by Blind Artists" : Henry Butler, Pete Eckert, and Bruce Hall. In my role as curator of that exhibition, I make periodic interview appearances in the film, but the true stars are, of course, the artists. The film is funded by HBO Documentary Films and masterminded by Corinne Marrinan and Neil Leifer. Rumors are afoot it'll be scheduled on HBO this summer.
Some Recent Screenings of DARK LIGHT
Annenberg Center for Photography, Los Angeles
Bermuda International Film Festival
Big Sky Documentary Film Festival
Garden State Film Festival
Honolulu International Film Festival
Newport Beach Film Festival
Sacramento International Film Festival
Santa Barbara International Film Festival"
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Henry Butler and his jazz campers glow in new documentary
By Dave Walker, The Times-Picayune
April 24, 2010, 7:30AM
Gabrielle Mullem was working in the world of reality television in New York, and not particularly satisfied with the experience, when an opportunity arose to return to New Orleans to make a documentary.
Mullem had studied psychology at Tulane University in the early 1990s, and worked for a time in the kitchen at Bayona.
"My 21-year-old head was thinking I'd pay for film school by becoming a chef," she said.
Interest in film took her to New York. The New Orleans documentary opportunity came in 2003, when she embedded with Henry Butler's weeklong Creative Music and Jazz Camp.
"I pitched myself to the camp," she said. "They invited me to come along... Read on HERE
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Struttin With Some BBQ @ Jazz Standard
12/29/09 Terri's Music Blog
This was absolutely one of the very best shows of the year, of my life! I mean, Henry Butler, Donald Harrison, and Wycliffe Gordon are among the very best in their field. The other 3 that I was not familiar with certainly held their own. The drummer! The drummer! The drummer! Intense and excellent!... Read on HERE
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MUSIC REVIEW | 'STRUTTIN’ WITH SOME BARBECUE'
A Band Has Its Contemporary Way With Old-Time New Orleans Hits
By NATE CHINEN | January 1, 2010; The New York Times
Percussive in his attack, ostentatious with his technique, he was the picture of stubborn mischief — and, not coincidentally, of New Orleans pianism. He obliged the spirit of the occasion with his own stylistic consommé: billowing whole-tone glissandi; furrowed, Monkish hiccups; boppish two-handed octaves; flare-ups of funk and Chopin... Read on HERE
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Henry Butler: Live Last Night
By David Malitz | August 21, 2009; The Washington Post
There were times during Henry Butler's performance at Blues Alley on Thursday night when the New Orleans pianist displayed such a punishing attack that he could have been charged with assault and battery on a Steinway... Read on HERE
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Henry Butler to Perform at Memphis Fundraiser!
Blues Foundation Board member Betsie Brown has arranged for Henry Butler to perform at a fundraiser for The Blues Foundation on Friday, November 28, 2008 @ 8 p.m. (Doors at 7:30 p.m.). The location is one of the funnest and funkiest places in downtown Memphis, The Warehouse, 36 E GE Patterson Avenue (at Front Street).
Betsie's firm Blind Raccoon will be leading the get-out-the-attend effort in order to make this fundraiser a great success... Read on HERE
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Utne Reader Music Reviews: July-August 2008
By Britt Robson
Henry Butler
Pianola Live (Basin Street)
Henry Butler is not a classically pretty performer. The blind New Orleans pianist thunders the ivories with the capacious resonance of McCoy Tyner and the spry, syncopated jangle of Professor Longhair, and sings with a throaty passion that’s even more raw, rough, and ready than his piano work... Read on HERE
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TheBluegrassSpecial.com
NOLA In His Soul
By David McGee | 09/2008
One of the prodigiously gifted musicians of our time, New Orleans native Henry Butler has a way of infusing his native city's soul and pulse into whatever he's playing--and when it comes to what he's playing, it's best you know some geography... Read on HERE
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TheBluegrassSpecial.com
Just Add Jambalaya
By David McGee | 08/2008
Henry Butler, PiaNOLA LIVE A true artifact of Hurricane Katrina, native New Orleanian Henry Butler's PiaNOLA Live is a collection of solo piano performances spanning a period of two decades, salvaged from Butler's tape archive, which miraculously survived the storm's near-total destruction of his home and possessions... Read on HERE
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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Blue Notes
by Jim White | 08.14.2008
The very talented Henry Butler's "Pianola Live" (Basin Street Records) is an easy place to begin, since piano blues is one of my favorites, and Butler's New Orleans-oriented approach is tasty, listenable and inventive, as he approaches a lot of his music from unique directions... Read on HERE
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Henry Butler CNN Interview:
Crime a blues refrain for New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Jazz musician Henry Butler calls himself an ambassador of New Orleans music. He loves the city where he was born and lived for decades. But like tens of thousands of others displaced by Hurricane Katrina, he has yet to return to live... Read on HERE
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Piano Man Henry Butler Remembers Not to Forget New Orleans
Ellen Mallernee | 06.30.2008 Gibson.com
It’s a sticky hot Saturday in June, and the great New Orleans pianist Henry Butler ambles past swarms of people chatting backstage at the Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee... Read on HERE
Henry Butler Brings New Orleans to NPR
All Things Considered, June 2, 2008 - Pianist Henry Butler started playing music as a child in the New Orleans housing projects. Blind since birth, he went on to study at the Louisiana State School for the Blind, learning classical piano scores in Braille... Read on HERE ... Audio HERE.
The Bob Edwards Show
May 30, 2008H
Henry Butler plays some songs for Bob and discusses his life and career... Listen on iTunes HERE
New Orleans gears up for Jazz Fest
By Larry Blumenfeld
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Eight months after the floods following Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005, there was at least one hard, good fact regarding a threatened music scene: the annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival took place at its customary Mid-City Fair Grounds site... Read on HERE
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Quotes
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"...The playing is phenomenal, which shouldn't overshadow the emotional vocal performances,...highly recommended disc."
Al Campbell
"He is the pride of New Orleans and a visionistical down-home cat and a hellified piano plunker to boot...He plays the piano like Art Tatum, but when he starts singing he sounds like Paul Robeson."
Dr. John
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"Henry Butler's name is not a household word, but over the last decade, he has established himself as the finest all-around pianist in New Orleans, a city known for its piano masters. Butler is equally at home in jazz, blues or R&B, and has toured with Verve Big Bands as well as being an acclaimed club performer in his own right..."
Jazz Times, Review of Henry's "For All Seasons"
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"...It's not an exaggeration to say Butler is a piano genius who has yet to be discovered by the masses. His recordings demonstrate that he can do it all: he writes his own songs, does his own arrangements of classic tunes by Professor Longhair and others, and can play with as much passion as a soloist as he can with a band..."
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Richard Skelly - All Music Guide
"...Henry Butler is arguably the greatest living proponent of the classic New Orleans piano tradition, playing an amalgam of boogie-woogie, jazz, blues and classical in the lineage of Professor Longhair, James Booker, Tuts Washington, Allen Toussaint and countless other emperors of the ivories..."
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