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PITTSBURGH JAZZ

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From Blakey to Brown, Como to Costa, Eckstine to Eldridge, Galbraith to Garner, Harris to Hines, Horne to Hyman, Jamal to Jefferson, Kelly to Klook; Mancini to Marmarosa, May to Mitchell, Negri to Nestico, Parlan to Ponder, Reed to Ruther, Strayhorn to Sullivan, Turk to Turrentine, Wade to Williams… the forthcoming publication Treasury of Pittsburgh Jazz Connections by Dr. Nelson Harrison and Dr. Ralph Proctor, Jr. will document the legacy of one of the world’s greatest jazz capitals.

 

Do you want to know who Dizzy Gillespie  idolized? Did you ever wonder who inspired Kenny Clarke and Art Blakey? Who was the pianist that mentored Monk, Bud Powell, Tad Dameron, Elmo Hope, Sarah Vaughan and Mel Torme? Who was Art Tatum’s idol and Nat Cole’s mentor? What musical quartet pioneered the concept adopted later by the Modern Jazz Quartet? Were you ever curious to know who taught saxophone to Stanley Turrentine or who taught piano to Ahmad Jamal? What community music school trained Robert McFerrin, Sr. for his history-making debut with the Metropolitan Opera? What virtually unknown pianist was a significant influence on young John Coltrane, Shirley Scott, McCoy Tyner, Bobby Timmons and Ray Bryant when he moved to Philadelphia from Pittsburgh in the 1940s?  Would you be surprised to know that Erroll Garner attended classes at the Julliard School of Music in New York and was at the top of his class in writing and arranging proficiency?

 

Some answers  can be gleaned from the postings on the Pittsburgh Jazz Network.

 

For almost 100 years the Pittsburgh region has been a metacenter of jazz originality that is second to no other in the history of jazz.  One of the best kept secrets in jazz folklore, the Pittsburgh Jazz Legacy has heretofore remained mythical.  We have dubbed it “the greatest story never told” since it has not been represented in writing before now in such a way as to be accessible to anyone seeking to know more about it.  When it was happening, little did we know how priceless the memories would become when the times were gone.

 

Today jazz is still king in Pittsburgh, with events, performances and activities happening all the time. The Pittsburgh Jazz Network is dedicated to celebrating and showcasing the places, artists and fans that carry on the legacy of Pittsburgh's jazz heritage.

 

WELCOME!

 

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Phat Man Dee
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Phat Man Dee's Cavalcade of Stars N'at! at Mr Smalls Theatre

October 17, 2013 from 6pm to 11:45pm
Creative Life Support Revival Series and Phat Man Dee Productions have teamed up to bring together the first ever "Show of Shows and Cavalcade of Stars" featuring some of Pittsburgh's finest entertainers. The music performed will be jazz, salsa, gospel, hip hop, and rock n' roll as well as burlesque and bellydance.This "Cavalcade of Stars N'at" includes:Phat Man Dee's cabaret jazz group "The Cultural District" featuring musicians Tony DePaolis, Carlos Peña, John "Smitty" SmithAmoeba Knievel -…See More
Oct 8
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Phat Man Dee posted a blog post

I did not fall in...

But I fell out....and up....and all around.....maybe now I should consider falling in.....So, I send these emails out once a month, right? Unless my dining room ceiling falls in and my mom shatters her ankle and I lose a couple friends in a sadly untimely fashion and I decide to start working in the video department at Mr Smalls Creative.Life.Support and maintain my regular gig schedule.... then apparently I don't write for 3 or…See More
Oct 6
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Phat Man Dee posted an event
Thumbnail

Phat Man Dee's Cavalcade of Stars N'at! at Mr Smalls Theatre

October 17, 2013 from 6pm to 11:45pm
Creative Life Support Revival Series and Phat Man Dee Productions have teamed up to bring together the first ever "Show of Shows and Cavalcade of Stars" featuring some of Pittsburgh's finest entertainers. The music performed will be jazz, salsa, gospel, hip hop, and rock n' roll as well as burlesque and bellydance.This "Cavalcade of Stars N'at" includes:Phat Man Dee's cabaret jazz group "The Cultural District" featuring musicians Tony DePaolis, Carlos Peña, John "Smitty" SmithAmoeba Knievel -…See More
Oct 6
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Dr. Nelson Harrison liked Phat Man Dee's event The Pillow Project Second Saturdays w/ Phat Man Dee
May 28
Phat Man Dee's event was featured
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The Pillow Project Second Saturdays w/ Phat Man Dee at The Space Upstairs

June 8, 2013 at 8pm to June 9, 2013 at 12am
Phat Man Dee is thrilled to be included in the Second Saturdays event with the phenomenal dancers of the Pillow Project. Also featured throughout the evening will be new conceptual multimedia work by the residents of The Space Upstairs, as well as ongoing Freejazz performances. I will be bringing a slightly different version of the Cultural District to play with me, joining us in this exciting improvisational collaborative effort between jazz dance company and myself will be the musicians:…See More
May 28
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Phat Man Dee & the Cultural District @ Tables on the Green at Tables on the Green

May 24, 2013 from 7pm to 10pm
New venue, new restaurant, no cover, please come out and support this new venture in Natrona Heights! Join me with my group, The Cultural District, featuring Carlos Peña (guitar), Miles Jackson (bass), Langston Kelly (sax) and Brian Edwards (drums) at this once private club in it's new incarnation as a beautiful destination restaurant! Creole cuisine and live jazz! Their motto is “In an effort to shape our way of cooking, we look to our landscape and delve into our ingredients and culture,…See More
May 23
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Phat Man Dee's blog post was featured

Jazz is not a what you do, but a how....

Or at least that's what I tell myself. I also believe that jazz happens when you use music and your instrument to communicate complex ideas and feelings in a conversation that isn't spoken. You don't  need words, (though they help,  if your a poet and vocalist like me, they are as much a part of your instrument as much as a reed is to sax player or a string is to a bassist). Sometimes those conversations bleed into to other art forms, they shape them and the other art responds and shapes the…See More
May 23
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Phat Man Dee posted a blog post

Jazz is not a what you do, but a how....

Or at least that's what I tell myself. I also believe that jazz happens when you use music and your instrument to communicate complex ideas and feelings in a conversation that isn't spoken. You don't  need words, (though they help,  if your a poet and vocalist like me, they are as much a part of your instrument as much as a reed is to sax player or a string is to a bassist). Sometimes those conversations bleed into to other art forms, they shape them and the other art responds and shapes the…See More
May 22
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Profile Information

Favorite website
http://laughingsquid.com/
Pittsburgh Connection
I live here.
Favorite Pittsburgh musicians/performers
Gerald "Shotgun" Haymon, Chizmo Charles, Gene Ludwig, Sandy Staley, Colter Harper, Tony DePaolis, Mike Murray, Kenny Peagler, Nelson Harrison, James Johnson III, Dave Throckmorton, Ben Opie, Paul Cosentino, Reggie Watkins, Gene Stovall, Sonji, Christiane D, John Purse, Sam Pace, Darryl Fleming, BC, Tommy Amoeba, Zafira Bellydance Company, Ishtar, Nick Ragheb
Favorite Jazz Radio or media station
http://www.shoutingfire.org
Favorite Pittsburgh Jazz Venue
Ava Lounge
About Me:
Phat Man Dee has a voice and a stage presence that rings clear as a bell. Her soulful delivery and heart ripping phrasing make the story of the song come through her body like a mountain rising to meet the sea. She is as comfortable floating in the air singing to the swells as she is through a megaphone in the Mermaid Parade or the Ides of March March.

She has toured and appeared with The Madagascar Institute of Brooklyn, NY, Candye Kane, the Goddess Perlman's Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad, the Fat Bottomed Girls Burlesque Review, Chicken John's Circus Ridiculous, Wolgemut, Jazz Mandolin Project, the Bindlestiff Family Roadshow, The Bull Seal! Collective, SEEMEN, the Flaming Lotus Girls and Heavy Pedal Cyclecide.

Though Phat Man Dee was somewhat recently nominated "One to Watch" in the pop music category of Pittsburgh Magazine's Harry Schwalb Awards, Mandy L. Kivowitz was born in 1975 to schoolteacher and a railroad man in Youngstown, OH. She studied music, classical cello and voice, theatre and dance all through childhood and into her brief college career at Allegheny College in Meadeville, PA. She left college to join the circus as Mistah Sistah Phat Man Dee , a half man half woman vaudeville act singing love songs to herself , eating glass, tap dancing, and playing cello while traveling with several variety acts cross country. Since then she has been blessed to work with some of the finest players Pittsburgh's rich musical community has to offer. Working to create an alternate reality for her audience utilizing her friends, be they musicians, poets, belly dancers, fire eaters, painters or circus geeks, Phat Man Dee puts on a show in which the visual texture is as important as the quality and intensity of the music.

Televsion and broadcast appearances include FUSE TV, KDKA Morning Show, WTAE Evening News, CSPAN, Judge Joe Brown (Fox), On Q (WQED), Lynn Cullen's Talk Show (WPTT).

She has appeared at the Improv as an opener for Caroline Rhea (NBC), Joe's Pub (NYC), Cabaret @ Theater Square, Exotic Erotic Ball (SF, CA), NYC Burlesque Fest, the Derby (LA, CA) , Rosemary's Billygoat's Odditoriom (LA, CA)the Andy Warhol Museum and the Great American Music Hall. Her best singing was performed at the Point Arena Lighthouse, and she ever longs for a return. She does love a parade, and to date, parades love her.

One evening will burn forever in the mind of Phat Man Dee, and that was her appearance with the Pittsburgh Opera wherein she sang an entire set of french cabaret love songs at the Benedum Center swinging aloft from a floral swing. (Though the night Circus Rediculous almost burned down the camp site at the Lafayette, Lousiana Festivale Internationale, in a misguided and unfortunate attempt to play flaming soccer ball with the misprinted tour shirts and the Veg-O-Matic of the Apocalypse burns nearly as bright.)

She recently celebrated her wedding anniversary with Tommy Amoeba, her husband of 5 years. They were wed on a pink elephant in Pittsburgh, PA's historic South Side on July 11. 2002.

The most frighteneing thing she ever did in her whole life was sing Lush Life by Billy Strayhorn at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater on July 18, 2008. That was terrifying. Like walking through fire....
Website:
http://www.phatmandee.com
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Phat Man Dee's Blog

I did not fall in...

Posted on October 6, 2013 at 5:30am 0 Comments

But I fell out....and up....and all around.....maybe now I should consider falling in.....



So, I send these emails out once a month, right? Unless my dining room ceiling falls in and my mom shatters her ankle and I lose a couple friends in a sadly untimely fashion and I decide to start working in the video department at Mr Smalls…

Continue

Jazz is not a what you do, but a how....

Posted on May 22, 2013 at 3:53am 0 Comments

Or at least that's what I tell myself. I also believe that jazz happens when you use music and your instrument to communicate complex ideas and feelings in a conversation that isn't spoken. You don't  need words, (though they help,  if your a poet and vocalist like me, they are as much a part of your instrument as much as a reed is to sax player or a string is to a bassist). Sometimes those conversations bleed into to other art forms, they shape them and the other…
Continue

Burlesque, Jazz & the Return of the Bong Show, a benefit for Pgh NORML!

Posted on April 6, 2013 at 2:12am 0 Comments

Oh friends.... what a fascinating, tumultuous and looooong winter it has been.... I'm happy to say I finally believe we may have actually reached the other side. The warm winds blow with the sweet tantalizing promise of beautiful music, graceful dancers and hilarious escapades. I don't trust the wind to deliver these things all by itself, so I have committed myself to helping make them reality.…



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Second Line Saturdays w/ Phat Man Dee & the Cultural District!

Posted on January 11, 2013 at 12:00am 0 Comments

There was a galactic and planetary shift of consciousness last December.

On the 21st we aligned with our solar system, the galaxy and the

universe....whether or not you spent the solstice hiding in a bunker

with a gross of rations and water purification tablets, in prayer with

drums and chanting to the moon or madly purchasing gifts to prove to

your loved ones that you really do care (I myself did a little of each, I

like to keep my bases covered), whatever…

Continue

Ghost Stories and Gospel!

Posted on October 25, 2012 at 2:08am 0 Comments

Hey friends! What an emotional and charged week we are having! I don't know about you, but I for one am quite concerned about the future of our nation and the world in general.... but the show must go on!



I wanted to remind you of some wonderful events happening in the next couple weeks, I would love to see your beautiful faces at one of our shows.…



Continue

Comment Wall (14 comments)

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Join Pittsburgh Jazz Network

At 5:02pm on April 13, 2009, Dr. Nelson Harrison said…
Mandee,

Thanks for the feedback and for being an active member. We are supposed to be leaders in the jazz community as were our predecessors. Please help us recruit new members. We lose an occasional few along the way but we are growing steadily and gaining respect in all corners of the globe.
At 5:34pm on April 12, 2009, Kent Bey said…
Greetings... I am establishing a live Jazz Night on a Wednesday between 7pm to 10pm at a very nice, clean, and classy venue in the East Liberty area. The evening will feature local Pittsburgh musicians like Tony Campbell and many others performing for a very appreciative audience of jazz lovers.

I am a Pittsburgh native and local youth arts advocate attempting to expose young up and coming artists to the heart and soul of pure Pittsburgh music culture and traditions as they meet and learn from some of the local Music Masters. If you are interested in hosting a Wednesday night once a month or every other month I would be humbled and honored to make this happen.

Respectfully,

Kent Bey

412.657.3327
kbey7@royaltribemusic.com
At 4:51am on March 28, 2009, Aaron Jackendoff said…
I donno, was that at the backstage bar?
At 12:13am on December 7, 2008, Gypsy Cafe said…
Hey Lady--Don Aliquo's in tonight and I just heard Don Jr. will be with him. Stop by if you're in the hood!
At 4:57am on August 10, 2008, SANDY STALEY said…
USUALLY THE 1ST TUESDAY OF EACH MONTH, I AM AT
SPIN ON ELLSWORTH. AUG.29TH, I WILL BE AT THE
PENN CENTER (OUTDOORS, GOD WILLING) IN
MONROEVILLE FROM 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM. IF IT IS TOO
HOT THOUGH, I WILL HAVE TO CANCEL... WILL LET YOU
KNOW. MY E-MAIL IS : sstaley2@verizon.net
At 10:17pm on July 29, 2008, Elizabeth "Betty" Asche Douglas said…
Your imagination seems to know no bounds, and I love it! What courage-- and you have the talent to justify it all-- that's the amazing part. Keep on keepin' on.
At 5:34pm on July 27, 2008, Janelle Burdell said…
Hey Hey! Been hearing bout you for years!!!! Glad I finally bumped into you~(Thanks Nelson!!!) Let's sip together something refreshing when I return to the Burgh in August. RIght now I am teaching Teen Girl ROck and ROll Camps in Western MASS-with legendary ROckrGrrlS! VEry fun! Look forward to meeting you! ENjoy, -janelle
At 3:19am on July 21, 2008, George Heid said…
Hey hey... they had the files.... great news and for the future, I will have the hedgehog's voice in top form. Be well and thank you for the most sweet email.
-George
At 3:06am on July 21, 2008, Kevin Amos said…
Hi Man Dee! Long time no hear from. Welcome
At 8:21pm on July 19, 2008, J. Malls said…
Wassup ManDee? Glad that you joined the jazz network! Hope you can stop by AVA on Monday!! See ya soon. -J

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