City Slang: Jazz at the Concert of Colors

Don Was’ Detroit All-Star Revue at this year’s Concert of Colors, taking place on July 12-15, will celebrate some of Detroit’s jazz greats.

This will be Was’ fifth Revue, as it “switches out its typically rock-heavy lineup to spotlight hometown jazz greats. Was, the multi-Grammy-winning super producer and president of legendary Blue Note Records, is carefully crafting the Revue lineup with a guest curator – the great Detroit jazz bassist Marion Hayden – and Concert of Colors founder Ismael Ahmed. The full line up will be revealed in early June at the Concert of Colors website.

Elsewhere in the jazz world, local label Mack Avenue is about to put out an album from acclaimed pianist Aaron Diehl, The Bespoke Man’s Narrative.

"The idea for the metaphor was that the composition and concept were specifically for these musicians," Diehl says, referring to his working quartet of 30-ish all-stars - vibraphonist (and Mack Avenue artist) Warren Wolf, bassist David Wong and drummer Rodney Green - that interprets the five originals and five arrangements comprising the program. "There's a sequence, an arc, a beginning, middle and end. Each piece has something to do with my musical development."