The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Friday; February 12, 2010 -- 5 Jazz festival educates 'U' Ben Huh is the CEO of the Cheezburger Network, which includes FAIL Blog, I Can Has Cheezburger and wany other huwor sites. The Ce ezurger king Ben Huh, the man behind the LOLs, explains the business of captioned cats. By ROBERT SOAVE Daily Arts Writer Ben Huh never wanted to be a comedian. "I certainly don't find myself that funny," he said in an interview with The Michigan Daily. And yet, because of Huh, millions of peo- ple around the world LOL at their computer screens every day. Huh, who came to the Ann Arbor Public Library last week to talk about his company, is the CEO of the Cheezburger Network, which includes more than two dozen popular Internet humor blogs, including I Can Has Cheezburg- er? and FAIL Blog. But the key to the compa- ny's success is that neither Huh nor his staff members actually supply the humor. That's the users' job. "For us, the cost of creating content is vir- tually negligible because our users do it," Huh said. "We provide the tools and the framework, things like that. That's what's made the busi- ness viable." Of course, there was little evidence that such a business would really work when Huh left a well-paying management job in 2007 to launch a career in Internet humor. But the widespread popularity of captioned photos online - as well as the extremely low cost of generating content - has helped the Cheezburger Network thrive. Users can upload already captioned pho- tos or add captions to other users' photos. It's Huh's job to make sure this content reaches the computer screens of the millions of people who visit the blogs. "We really focus on building a community of people who love what they do," he said. "(We) use their creativity to continue to produce interesting stuff." It was in fact e-mails fromusers that inspired the Cheezburger Network to adopt the mission of making the Internet laugh for five minutes a day. "They would e-mail us and say, 'You know, you're the highlight of my work day,' "Huh said. "They're looking for kind of an escape from their everyday work. You may love your job, but still you need a break every once in awhile." For fans of the Cheezburger Network, that break is all about the cats. I Can Has Cheez- burger, one of Huh's most visited blogs, depicts cats in various pictures surrounded by funny captions. According to Huh, it's no accident that cats became the gold standard of online photo cap- tioning. "They show more emotion in their facial expressions (and) their body language than dogs do," he said. "With cats you kind of live in their world, so they ignore this camera some- times and you get to catch a lot of really fun stuff that they do." Putting funny captions on pictures of cats goes back quite a long time. Huh mentioned that he once came across a black-and-white postcard from 1905 featuring a dressed-up kit- ten with the words MOMMY WHERE'S MY DINNER in all caps. "A decade after popular photography came into being, somebody was putting all-caps cap- tions on cat pictures," Huh said. Today, funny cat pictures are still injecting much-needed laughter into the stressful lives of working people. For Huh, that's the thrill of running his company. "It's not (like) selling insurance to people," he said. "There's something fundamentally good about what we do." And of course, Huh loves to laugh at lolcats. He even has a favorite. "This kitten, it's got ear hair coming out of its ears," he said. "It's in a wine glass and it's, like, chilling ... and it says 'send me with the compli- ments to the ladies.' It's such a cool cat." By JOSHUA BAYER Daily Arts Writer The University of Michigan Jazz Festival just may be the biggest musical extrava- ganza you've 2010UM never heard of., And, ironically, z FestValI the reason this Tomorrow, on-campusmusic all day festival has Various locations slipped so far off the radar is that it's so huge in scale, the organiz- ers couldn't afford to use money on advertising. According to Dennis Wilson, executive director of the festival and director of both the Univer- sity Jazz Ensemble and the Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra (both of which will be performing on Sat- urday night), it is truly a monster of an event. "Our jazz festival has reached more people than all of the con- certs put on by the School of Music combined, over a 10 year period," he said. But this event isn't just a concert. When it comes to the University of Michigan Jazz Festival, the key word is "outreach." The festival unites musicians from all talent lev- els, encompassing everyone from middle school students to legend- ary jazz bassist Christian McBride. Groups from 22 different middle schools, high schools and colleges will converge in Ann Arbor on Sat- urday to learn from the best." Unlike blockbuster music festi- vals like Lollapalooza, the jazz fes- tival isn't geared primarily toward the stars. As Wilson asserts vehe- mently, this isa festival for the stu- dents - an "educational festival." All day, musicians will flock in and out of workshops and clin- ics across North Campus to be critiqued by some of the nation's most acclaimed jazz virtuosos, including pianist Matt Harris, bassist Robert Hurst, saxophon- ist Andrew Bishop and trumpeter Terell Stafford. Unlike most jazz festivals, the adjudication process is not designed to separate the champs from the chumps. The focus is staunchly on education and indi- vidual growth. Wilson stresses that this a non-competitive festi- val, designed to foster positive atti- tudes and "help (students) go from where they are to the next step up," rather than to leave the stronger students feeling victorious and the weaker students feeling trampled. In fact, the workshops aren't even restricted to official partici- pants or even to music students in general. Essentially anybody can sign up for these clinics - registra- tion starts at 8:15 a.m. in the main lobby of the E.V. Moore Building, operating on a 'first-come first- served basis. And even those who have never picked up an instru- ment in their lives can simply drop by and observe jazz education at its absolute finest. Stafford hopes students of all ages come together, so that they can become the headliners of tomorrow. "I'm hoping ... some of the college students there will be extremely, extremely encouraging to some of the younger students, and I'm hoping that the younger students will find the college bands so inspiring it will inspire them to continue on with what they're doing," he said. "It'll give them an incentive to keep going to see that that could be them in the next five to six years." Student performances will be going on all day. The "Big Ten Jam Session" kicks off at 2:15 p.m. in the Britton Recital Hall, forcing the Wolverines, Spartans and Buck- eyes to set aside their rivalries as they engage in a' fully improvisa- tional jam. And at 4:45 p.m. in the Stamps Auditorium, students in the University's Jazz Lab Ensem- ble will have the invaluable oppor- tunity to play alongside guest soloists Terell Stafford and Matt Harris. But the real centerpiece will be in the Power Center at 8 p.m. - a sonic epic so massive it's being record- ed live by Mack Avenue Records. The piece, titled "THE MOVE- MENT Revisited" and composed by McBride, unites the Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra, McBride's quar- tet, the Second Ebenezer Majes- tic Voices (a Detroit-based gospel choir) and a handful of hyper-tal- ented University students for a genre-bending tour de force. Nearly 100 musicians will pack the stage as they present what workshop co-director Andrew Bishop likened to "a 19th-century epic performance." And since the piece is a tribute to the American Civil Rights Movement, it will be accompanied by dramatic read- ings of speeches written by Mar- tin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X. Legends of jazz come to campus. Just as impressive as the grand finale itself is the fact that Univer- sity students are playing a hefty role in the organization of the spectacle, highlighting the festi- val's emphasis on education and growth. In additionto the students actually performing in the event, students in the Performing Arts Technologyprogramwill be assist- ing in the recording process. And some of Wilson's students have collaborated to compose a piece that will run before "THE MOVE- MENT," featuring outstanding high school students selected to solo with the Jazz Ensemble. Wilson stressed the value of exposing students to the tremen- dous pressures that go along with working on a professional, "real- world" timeline. "This is how you put the Gram- mys together. This is how you put the Oscars together. It's not a class project. If you make a mistake, it's gonna hurt," he said. "If the Power Center runs out of power, we can't do it after next class, you know? This is it." But really this is a festival for all the students at the University. In fact, those who don't even know the difference between Mingus and McBride would probably learn the most from attending this event. Gabe Steiner, lead trumpet in the University's Jazz Ensemble and sophomore in the School of Music, Theater & Dance, put it simply: "I think people shold definitely take advantage of who's coming, even if they haven't heard of these people. It's a great way to open your ears to something new." Braun's 'Birthday' celebration By ANU ARUMUGAM Daily Arts Writer The black and white keys of the piano sound beautiful when played with love, and few people truly Mr. B's love the piano as much as jazz, d blues and boogie- Bome woogie pianist Mark Lincoln Tomorrow Braun, who will at 8 p.m- be performing his Kerrytown annual "Mr. B's Concert Hall Birthday Bounce" Tickets from $15 Saturday at the Kerrytown Concert House. A Michigan native, Braun grew up in Flint, attended the University and started playing professionally here in Ann Arbor before he hit 20. "I started playinglater than most people. I started when I was about 15 years old. It wasn't for the rea- sons that you hear some rock musi- cians say where (they) wanted to meet a girl," Braun said. "I wanted to express myself somehow, and the piano felt just right to me from the time that I started to play it." Braun's admiration of the piano led him to seek guidance and study directly from blues and boogie- woogie legends. "In terms of the traditional blues and boogie-woogie pianists, the ones that I knew well and stud- ied directly from were people like Sunnyland Slim, Blind John Davis, Little Brother Montgomery and Boogie Woogie Red. No jazz pia- nist could be unaffected by Duke Ellington, McCoy Tyner, Horace Silver - (I have) many, many, many favorites," Braun said. These were the men who taught Braun to appreciate the raw strength and beauty of the piano. They were also the men who taught him to appreciate the blues. "The blues is the foundation of all good jazz. The blues is also at the root of all forms of American popular music, all kinds of rock 'n' roll, folk music, rap, hip hop," Braun said. "The blues is the basis for all that. It is a feeling. It is a story that's told through song. "You can hear echoes in it of any other kind of music that you like," became what we call boogie woo- he added. "Usually people (who) gie," Braun added. have not heard it before are amazed As the performance approach- at the aggressive nature of the es, Braun is excited to bring his music and what an athletic piano extraordinary energy and talent style it is. Very outgoing, very ambi- to the Kerrytown Concert House tious pianistically, very rhythmi- stage. cally intense and fun." "My birthday falls in mid-Feb- ruary. It's just a way for me to cel- ebrate. It's a chance for me to play at one of my favorite venues locally. I Boogie-woogie don't have to be halfway around the *n t e world." piaIIOJ tunes. As he prepares for his "Birthday Bounce" performance, Braun hopes more people will want to experi- So what exactly is boogie woogie? ence the musical styles he holds so "(Boogie woogie) came from the close to his heart. Deep South. As it relates to pianists "It's just a reality that there and piano-playing, therewas a huge are not many people left who play movement of pianists in the late this style of music anymore. Even 1920s and 1930s that took the blues, around the whole world, there and took elements that they liked aren't a lot of people," Braun said. of it," Braun explained. "They were "I would say if you've never heard influenced by the way they traveled it before, it's a chance to hear from job to job in the deep South, something that is a little rare and (which) was on freight trains, unusual from someone who's been "It became a very effervescent, doing it their whole life, loves outgoing, extroverted and happy doing it and loves showing that I way of playing the blues, and it love it when I play." Malhas brings cross-cultural influence to 'U' Museum of Art By EMMA GASE For the Daily Hana Malhas knows what it'slike to travel in the name of music. The Jordanian-born, Ann Arbor-based singer- songwriter underwent a painstakingyear-longpro- duction process between her two home bases to record her debut album Shapeshift, which she is self-releasing in March. Malhas graduated from the University of Hana Malhas Tonight at 8 p.m. UMMA commons Free Marketa Irglova of The Swell Season. Unlike the spontaneous feel of her EP, Shapeshift's evokes the labor involved in thousands of miles of travel between Jor- dan and Ann Arbor. "I like the idea of bridging that gap between the two worlds," Malhas said. "Musically, I like connecting with artists from both regions." Though Malhas feels a strong bond to her native country and its musicians, she is staying true to her own musical direction and instincts. "(Shapeshift) is not a mix of Arabic music and Western music," Malhas explained. "It's not a fusion in that sense; it's my own style. It's just bringing contributions from other artists onto it." Malhas's musical ties run deep. Clas- sically trained in music as a young child - despite what she described as limited practice -she has been composingsongs on piano and guitar for years. Last year she felt ready to take things to the next level. "I think that at every point in a musi- cian's life, the music evolves," she said. "And I just felt that my music was at a point of growth that I was ready to cap- ture it in an album." Malhas had a very specific vision for her album, and wanted to ensure it reflected her growth as an artist. "I like connecting with artists from both regions." "My goal was to just put out an album that was full of songs that I felt truly repre- sented where I'm at musically... and I did," Malhas said. With the help of Ann Arbor-based pro- ducer Jim Roll, Malhas is finally satisfied with Shapeshift a year after its conception. With the album completed, Malhas has been hard at work on the local music circuit. After her 2009 spring and summer tour around the Midwest, she now plays venues like the Blind Pig, where she has opened for artists like Maria Taylor. Malhas finds the Ann Arbor music scene to be a welcoming one for burgeoning artists, in contrast to her hometown in Jordan. "There are a lotof underground indepen- dent artists in Jordan who don't get recog- nition or have enough venues to showcase their music," she explained. "In Ann Arbor there are quite a few places ... and in Jordan the scene is pretty small." Despite what she says is a lack of expo- sure for indie artists in the Middle East, Malhas is set on bringing the two scenes closer together by featuring cross-conti- nental collaboration in her own music. Her two home bases allow for a unique group effort involving Middle Eastern and Ameri- can musicians, as she recorded parts of the album in Jordan with Jordanian musicians, before returning to America to continue production with American musicians. Mal- Michigan, and is currently working toward an MBA in the Ross School of Business with a focus on nonprofit management. She describes her music as "indie-folk pop" and counts Ray LaMontagne and Feist among her primary influences. Malhas's 2008 EP Olive Tree is filled with emotive, barebones acoustic songs with spare piano accompaniment that evokes comparison to Glen Hansard and Malhas is a student in the Ross School of Business. has has also played shows in each country. Though Shapeshzft is Malhas's first full- length album, it's the beginning in what is hopefully a long career. "I would love to do music for the rest of my life," Malhas said. Hana Malhas will be performing at the University of Michigan Museum of Art tonight. Shapeshift will be officially released at the Blind Pig on March 12.