Audio By Carbonatix
Whenever Dirty Harry isn’t blasting the brains outta unlucky punks or snarling at empty smartass socialist chairs, he’s keeping it cool with a copy of Ornithology. That’s right, Clint Eastwood is a jazz junkie. He produced and directed Bird, a biopic about bebop pioneer and heroin casualty Charlie Parker. He’s written scores for a bunch of his own movies. And he’s even earned an honorary doctorate from the Berklee College of Music. But the Oscar-winning legend’s greatest musical achievement just might be making a baby, Kyle Eastwood, who grew up to become an acclaimed bassist, film composer, and coheadliner of this weekend’s inaugural Miami Nice Jazz Festival at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts. Beyond Clint’s kid, though, the Miami Nice lineup’s got a ton more top-shelf jazziness, from beloved diva, NPR host, and United Nations ambassador Dee Dee Bridgewater to piano-playing Puerto Rican bandleader Eddie Palmieri, virtuosic French drummer André Ceccarelli, and Miami’s own Nicole Henry. Understandably, all this has probably got you Eastwood-level jazz junkies saying, “Whoa, Daddy-O. That is a nice fest.” But it’s actually pronounced neese. Like the town in France. Because the Miami festival is a spinoff of the overseas original. As Clint in Provence-Alpes-Maritimes Côte d’Azur might say: “Vas-y, voyou, chante la chanson.”
