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News :: Press Releases FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 3/31/08 Download as a PDF National Jazz Museum in Harlem's April Schedule
This month’s National Jazz Museum in Harlem schedule of events is so packed that it approximates a jazz jam session, in which musicians of a variety of styles play together with the common goals of self-expression, group simpatico, and high-level communication with appreciative audiences. Like a rhythm section that anchors a jam session, the museum’s two longest running programs ground this month’s vast exploration into groove and musical reverie. The twice per month Harlem Speaks discussion series presents engaging conversations with Jamaican-born pianist Monty Alexander and the tireless arts advocate and producer Voza Rivers, whereas Jazz for Curious Listeners bestows a five-week journey of discovery, peering deep inside the musical world of the path-breaking jazz pianist Herbie Hancock through the insights of Bob Belden and Christian McBride. Jazz for Curious Readers takes a solo turn through a conversation with jazz author and critic Ira Gitler, who for over fifty years has contributed to the jazz idiom via his writings and service as a jazz record producer. And since a programmatic jazz jam session wouldn’t be complete with actual live performances, we’re offering you the chance to be astonished by the artistry of Joey Calderazzo, Chris Byars, and Randy Sandke at Harlem in the Himalayas while providing the way and means for you to swing dance to the harmonious big band sounds of the Jazz Museum in Harlem Big Band at a special Black & White Ball at the All Saint’s Church. There’s no way to beat the range of programs this month at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, so join us! Tuesday, April 1, 2008 JAZZ FOR CURIOUS LISTENERS Since Herbie Hancock won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Album of the year for River: The Joni Letters, interest in this living legend of jazz piano has skyrocketed. So if you’re curious about the wide-ranging musical world of Herbie Hancock, we’ve got five straight weeks of exploration . . . for free! Bob Belden, one of the most adventurous arrangers of the 1990s and 2000s, knows Hancock and has worked with him on numerous projects. For instance, he arranged Hancock’s The New Standard (1995), and is the author of an extensive biographical essay that accompanied the box set Herbie Hancock: The Complete Blue Note Sixties Sessions. Belden was the reissue producer of Hancock’s Sextant, An Evening with Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea in Concert, and The Essential Herbie Hancock. And along with Hancock, he produced the Herbie Hancock Box Set. (Belden wrote liner notes for most of the above.) He’s also taken the music of Puccini, Prince, and Sting, and turned it into jazz. After graduating from the University of North Texas in 1978, he was with Woody Herman's Orchestra for 18 months, worked with Donald Byrd off and on during 1981-1985, played with the Mel Lewis Orchestra, and produced a couple of Red Rodney records. In 1983, Belden settled in New York as a writer for studio sessions. Influenced by Gil Evans, Belden debuted on Sunnyside with Treasure Island, before working on transforming non-jazz material into jazz. Belden also assisted with Columbia Records' Miles Davis reissue program. He played in a duet with trumpeter Tim Hagans, issuing a live album on Blue Note in 2000 entitled Re-Animation Live! The 2001 release Black Dahlia showcased a 12-part orchestra paying tribute to the late Elizabeth Short, a celebrated Hollywood actress who was killed in 1947.
Thursday, April 3, 2008 HARLEM SPEAKS By grafting the traditions of American jazz to his authentic Jamaican roots, pianist Monty Alexander has spent a lifetime exploring the rich depths of musical and cultural diversity. In a career that spans more than four decades, he has performed and/or recorded with artists from every corner of the musical universe: Frank Sinatra, Ray Brown, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones, Ernest Ranglin, Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare and many more. Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, he took his first piano lessons at age six. As a youngster, he was often invited to sit in with the bands of prominent musicians working in Jamaican nightclubs and hotels. During his teen years, he enjoyed, among others, the performances of Louis Armstrong and Nat "King" Cole at the Carib Theater in Jamaica. The shades of joyful gospel music in these artists' performances had a profound and lasting effect on Alexander's own style. He eventually formed a band called "Monty and the Cyclones," which landed several songs on the Jamaican music charts between 1958 and 1960. Alexander came to the United States in the end of 1961. Less than two years later, he'd landed a gig with Art Mooney's orchestra in Las Vegas, where he caught the eye of New York City club owner Jilly Rizzo and his friend, Frank Sinatra. Rizzo hired the young pianist to work in his club, where he accompanied many well-known performers, including Sinatra. He also met Milt Jackson, who hired Monty to work with him, and eventually introduced him to bassist Ray Brown (with whom he subsequently recorded and performed on many occasions). One introduction led to another, and before long he was working with Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, and Sonny Rollins. In the past decade alone, Alexander has maintained an especially busy schedule with multiple projects spanning multiple genres and styles. In 1991, he assisted Natalie Cole in crafting a tribute album to her father, Nat "King" Cole (the album, Unforgettable, won seven Grammy awards). A regular fixture at the Montreux Jazz Festival since 1976, he performed at the Swiss festival in 1993 and 1994 with opera singer Barbara Hendricks in a program of Duke Ellington compositions. He was back in Montreux in 1995, this time with his all-Jamaican reggae group where he recorded a live album for Island Records, Yard Movement. In August 1996, Alexander performed George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" with a full symphony orchestra directed by Bobby McFerrin at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. By the end of that same year, he had recorded nearly sixty CDs under his own name, and was frequently performing at leading festivals and music venues worldwide. Alexander joined the Telarc label with the 1999 release of Stir It Up, an album that combined acoustic jazz and Jamaican reggae rhythm sections to interpret the music of the great Bob Marley. Stir It Up marked the beginning of a prolific period for Alexander on Telarc. He has drawn from the varied sources of his musical experiences to record the next six albums for Telarc; these include sessions in classic trio format such as Impressions in Blue, as well as recordings of live concerts sets such as Goin' Yard and Live at the Iridium (2005). In the late summer of 2005, Alexander traveled to Bob Marley's Tuff Gong Studio in Kingston, Jamaica, with a crew of highly talented U.S. musicians and teamed up with Jamaican top session players to record the brilliant follow up to Stir It Up. Concrete Jungle is a set of twelve compositions penned by Bob Marley and reinterpreted via Alexander's jazz piano-oriented arrangements. The resulting union of musical sensibilities digs even deeper into the Marley legend. He recently performed a concert themed “Lords of the West Indies: Jazz Meets Calypso and Mento” at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Allen Room. Separate and apart from being the best musician he can be, Alexander's most important objective - whether his vehicle is reggae or jazz or soul, small combo or symphony - is to express the joy of music to all within earshot, regardless of prevailing differences in taste or culture. "My goal is to uplift," says Alexander. "The piano, to me, is a vehicle for connecting to other human beings. I'm very open to all forms of music. I'm not a bebop musician, I'm not a calypso musician, I'm not a reggae musician. I'm a musician who loves it all."
Friday, April 4, 2008 SPECIAL EVENT B.Y. O. B. B. & Set Ups Will be Available (Bring Your Own Brown Bag) The Black & White Dance is Strictly a Black and White (Gray OK) Affair
Tuesday, April 8, 2008 JAZZ FOR CURIOUS LISTENERS Like Herbie Hancock, Christian McBride’s music evinces influences from jazz, European classical music, funk, soul and even hip hop. As is Bob Belden, the other instructor for this special monthly series on Hancock, Christian McBride is eminently qualified to peer into the universe of sounds and grooves of Herbie Hancock. If you have yet to experience Christian McBride discuss music at Jazz for Curious Listeners (for free, no less), you’re missing a treat!
Friday, April 11, 2008 HARLEM IN THE HIMALAYAS Joey Calderazzo is one of the leading pianists in the jazz realm. As he approaches nearly two decades as a definitive accompanist, and sees his output, as a composer, performer and leader grow deeper and more diverse, Calderazzo sustains a trajectory of growing command and maturity. Calderazzo was born on February 27, 1965 in New Rochelle, New York. Inspired by a friend who lived next door, Calderazzo began his piano studies at age seven. He progressed rapidly in a house where other family members were also playing drums and singing, and at 14 became the youngest member of brother Gene’s rock band. When the other, significantly older band members enrolled at Boston’s Berklee College of Music and switched their allegiance to jazz, the younger Calderazzo set aside his passions for the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, began listening to Oscar Peterson, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and McCoy Tyner, and proved that he was still able to hang with the bigger boys, including the many musicians in New York with whom he began sitting in at age 17. While Calderazzo has partnered with a resume-choking list of musical greats, relationships with two tenor saxophonists that began in his teenage years have given critical impetus to his growing stature. The pianist met the late Michael Brecker at a clinic, and soon Brecker was introducing Calderazzo to the jazz world as part of the touring Michael Brecker Quintet beginning in 1987 and on two tracks of the saxophonist’s 1988 album Don’t Try This at Home. “Michael put me on the map,” Calderazzo acknowledges. “There was no philosophy, no metaphysics behind playing…it was just life, just music and one of the best experiences I’ve had.” Brecker produced Calderazzo’s first disc, In the Door (Blue Note, recorded 1990) and played on it along with two other tenor saxophonists who Calderazzo had met in Boston, Jerry Bergonzi and brother Gene’s Berklee roommate Branford Marsalis. As the ‘90s progressed, Calderazzo built his reputation as one of the most fearless and commanding of the new jazz generation. Two more Blue Note albums, To Know One (recorded 1991) with Bergonzi and Marsalis again featured and the rhythm section completed by Dave Holland and producer Jack DeJohnette, and The Traveler (recorded 1992) featuring two different trios, included more impressive playing and writing, while Secrets (Audioquest, recorded 1995), took new imaginative leaps as Bob Belden, this month’s co-instructor of Jazz for Curious Listeners, surrounded Calderazzo’s trio with a seven-piece ensemble. The ongoing relationship with Brecker found Calderazzo contributing as composer as well as pianist on the saxophonist’s Tales from the Hudson, and as pianist, composer and co-producer on Two Blocks from the Edge. There were further encounters with Bergonzi as well, most frequently in a well-documented quintet led by bassist Bruce Gertz, and the beginning of a more active relationship with Marsalis when Calderazzo assumed one of the keyboard chairs in Marsalis’ Buckshot Le Fonque, touring with the group and contributing to its second disc, Music Evolution. When the great Kenny Kirkland died in 1998, Calderazzo assumed Kirkland’s chair in the Branford Marsalis Quartet. The intense working relationship with Marsalis, which remains active to this day, called upon a new scope and maturity from the pianist that complements his own emergence as both man and musician. “In the last ten years, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve changed my point of view and gained focus. I’ve gone backward in the sense of absorbing earlier giants such as Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Jelly Roll Morton and James P. Johnson. I’ve put myself in difficult musical situations, playing music I never previously tried with people I never previously worked with, because difficult situations are what make musicians improve. I’ve started a process which is establishing my own path.”
Monday, April 14, 2008 JAZZ FOR CURIOUS READERS Ira Gitler has been professionally involved with jazz since 1951, when he wrote the notes for a Zoot Sims LP recorded by the Prestige label. From that time, he has annotated countless albums for all the major labels and most of the important independents, internationally, into the CD era. He was the New York editor of Down Beat magazine, 1963–4 and 1967–70. As a freelance writer he has written for Metronome, Down Beat, JazzTimes (USA), Swing Journal (Japan), Musica Jazz (Italy) and Jazz Magazine (France), as well as the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Village Voice, Vibe, and New York Magazine. He wrote a weekly column for Jazz Central Station (a division of N2K) on the World Internet; contributed to its successor, CD Now; and to the Knit Media’s Web site. He currently pens a monthly column, “Apple Chorus,” for Jazz Improv NY. He taught jazz history at City College in the early and mid-’70s and the New School (1986–94) and has been a faculty member at Manhattan School of Music since 1992. His books include Jazz Masters of the Forties (Macmillan), reissued in a revised edition as The Masters of Bebop (Da Capo); and the oral history Swing To Bop, written as a Guggenheim Fellow (Oxford University Press). He also coauthored The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Seventies (Horizon Press) and The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz (Oxford), both with Leonard Feather. Gitler produced recordings with Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Thelonious Monk, Tadd Dameron, Art Farmer, Billy Taylor, Teddy Charles, Charlie Mariano, King Pleasure, and Jimmy Raney/Stan Getz for the Prestige label in the 1950s. He produced concerts, also acting as master of ceremonies, for what in now known as the JVC-NY Jazz Festival in the ’80s and ’90s, including tributes to Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Django Reinhardt, Bud Powell, and Art Blakey. For JVC-NY 2003 he produced and emceed A Tribute to the Royal Roost at Birdland. He is considered to be one of the foremost jazz authorities in the world and has covered jazz events in Italy, Ireland, France, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, Russia, Ireland, Japan, India, Cuba, Morocco, Senegal, and Guadeloupe. As a broadcaster he has been heard on WNCN, WBAI (both in New York City in the ’60s); and KADX (Colorado in the ’80s). His Reminiscing in Tempo was heard on Sirius Satellite Radio in the new millennium. In 2001, he served as master of ceremonies for two concerts featuring the music of Benny Golson for Jazz at Lincoln Center and conducted a public interview session with Mr. Golson at the Kaplan Penthouse during the week of the concerts. Gitler received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New Jersey Jazz Society in 2001, and one from the Jazz Journalists Association in 2002.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008 JAZZ FOR CURIOUS LISTENERS The finest musicians to spring from the world of jazz have clearly had an advantage when it comes to branching into other genres of music. Their mastery of composition, arranging and sight reading coupled with their flair for improvisation and spontaneous creation make them possibly the most seasoned and adaptable musicians in the art. Grammy Award winner Christian McBride, chameleonic virtuoso of the acoustic and electric bass, stands tall at the top of this clique. Beginning in 1989 – the beginning of an amazing career in which he still has wider-reaching goals to attain - the Philadelphian has thus far been first-call-requested to accompany literally hundreds of fine artists, ranging in an impressive array from McCoy Tyner and Sting to Kathleen Battle and Diana Krall. However, it is his own recordings – albums that encompass a diverse canon of original compositions and imaginatively arranged covers – that reveal the totality of his musicianship. He currently leads one of the hottest bands in music - the propulsive Christian McBride Band (saxophonist Ron Blake, keyboardist Geoffrey Keezer and drummer Terreon Gully). The most awe-inspiring thing about Christian McBride is that his prowess as a player is only half of what makes him such a respected, in-demand and mind-bogglingly busy individual. The portrait is completed by a mere mid-thirty-something man who carved out time to speak at former President Clinton’s town hall meeting on “Racism in the Performing Arts.” He holds Artistic Director posts at the Jazz Aspen Snowmass summer program and the Dave Brubeck Institute at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA. McBride participated in a Stanford University panel on “Black Performing Arts in Mainstream America.” He’s hosted insightful one-on-one “jazz chats” in Cyberspace on Sonicnet.com. He also scribed the foreword for pianist Jonny King’s book, What Jazz Is (Walker & Co., New York). 2005 witnessed his adding two more prestigious appointments to his resume. In January, he was named co-director of The Jazz Museum in Harlem. While assisting Leonard Garment and Loren Schoenberg in obtaining government grants and the participation of top flight historians/musicians, Christian will be focusing on a longtime concern: exposing jazz to young people. For those young, middle-aged or elder, McBride will continue his investigation into the musical world of Herbie Hancock.
Friday, April 18, 2008 HARLEM IN THE HIMALAYAS Jazz Pictures at an Exhibition of Himalayan Art Chris Byars wrote: Jazz Pictures at an Exhibition of Himalayan Art adds an element of the exotic. The art and culture of the Himalayas is emerging from obscurity since the opening of the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City. Using images on loan from this vast collection, Byars provides an interpretation of the colors, curves, and themes shown in paintings and sculptures that date back 500 years. His music includes the sounds and concepts of the Asian culture without departing from the jazz idiom; these are truly "Jazz Pictures." The listener will witness jazz embracing something so culturally different, build a new understanding of Himalayan art and culture through jazz, and enjoy the neural fireworks as they observe, comprehend, and enjoy this groundbreaking collaboration of music and visual art. Chris Byars was born in New York City on Nov. 2, 1970 into a family of Juilliard-trained musicians. The artistic resources of NYC were made accessible to the youngster, who soon found himself in musical situations with the top talents of the world. Throughout his childhood, he was granted private study with the great teachers in the area, devoting much effort to learning drums, voice, saxophone, musicianship and ballet technique. From age 6 to 14, Chris enjoyed a successful career as an opera singer, performing, touring, and appearing on television with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera and New York City Ballet. At age 14 he devoted himself exclusively to the idiom of jazz. In the next ten years Byars undertook a period of apprenticeship that transformed him from a jazz novice into a fully functioning jazz composer, arranger and multi- instrumentalist. A Bachelor's and Master's Degree were earned from Manhattan School of Music, but perhaps the most impact was gained by 2 years of intensive private study with musicianship guru Helen Jordan. In 1994 he began a nine-year run of steady engagements at the Greenwich Village “cutting-edge jazz club” Smalls, appearing on average twice weekly with jazz legends Frank Hewitt and Jimmy Lovelace. This decade of late-night gigs saw the birth of two bands: the quintet Across 7 Street (co-led by bassist Ari Roland) and The Chris Byars Octet. Both have recorded with the indie label Smalls Records to great critical acclaim. After three summer tours to Russia and Turkmenistan, The Chris Byars Quartet re-configured as a piano-less band, adding John Mosca on trombone. There is a notable shift towards new compositions, challenging counterpoint, increased melodic development and more prominent song structure. The "New" Chris Byars Quartet presented an innovative combination of original music and visual art at the Rubin Museum in October, 2007, premiering the program "Jazz Pictures at an Exhibition of Himalayan Art," ten compositions set to a larger-than-life slideshow, cast on the back wall of this beautiful performance space.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 JAZZ FOR CURIOUS LISTENERS Bob Belden’s intimate and expert knowledge of the music of Herbie Hancock will be revealed yet again, continuing where he left off on April 1st. The world of Herbie Hancock is so vast that one hour and a half won’t be enough to encompass it. That’s why Belden will be back next Tuesday to complete his portion of this five-week focus on a modern jazz master.
Thursday, April 24, 2008 HARLEM SPEAKS Voza Rivers is an esteemed theatre, music, documentary filmmaker and events producer who has presented quality productions for more than 40 years. He is a prominent advocate and activist on Harlem’s present arts and culture scene, and has a distinctive voice in both his personal and professional analysis on the state of black theater locally. Presently, Rivers is Chairman/CEO of Voz Entertainment Group; Executive Producer/Founding Member of New Heritage Theatre Group; Co-Founder/Executive Producer of IMPACT Repertory Theatre; Executive Producer, Harlem Week, the Harlem Jazz & Music Festival and the National Black Sports & Entertainment Hall of Fame Annual Gala; Co-chairman, Community Works, an arts and education program servicing 250,000 New York City students and adults annually; and Chairman of the Arts Alliance, a cultural service organization of 400 members, including not-for-profit cultural institutions, performing and visual artists, filmmakers, directors, playwrights, choreographers, technicians, designers, colleges, churches, museums, taverns and other individuals and organizations who create cultural events for Harlemites, tourists and tri-state residents.
Friday, April 25, 2008 HARLEM IN THE HIMALAYAS Born and raised in Chicago, trumpeter, composer and arranger Randy Sandke was introduced to jazz and the trumpet by his older brother, Jordan. He says he got into jazz "kind of chronologically," beginning with Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong, followed by Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard. He studied at Roosevelt University with Reinhold Schilke, a legendary teacher and trumpet maker, who was with the Chicago Symphony for many years. Gaining a reputation as a teenage demon trumpet player at local jam sessions, Sandke entered the music school at the University of Indiana in Bloomington, where he met Michael Brecker. Together they formed a rock band with a jazz oriented horn section. Since then he has recorded over twenty albums as a leader, primarily on the Concord, Nagel-Heyer, and Evening Star labels. A recent discography, published by the Dutch jazz scholar Gerard Beilderman, runs to 53 pages. In addition there are guest appearances with instrumentalists Michael Brecker, Benny Goodman, Kenny Barron, Dick Hyman, Mulgrew Miller, Bill Charlap, Eric Reed, Frank Wess, Ray Anderson, Chris Potter, Sweets Edison, Flip Phillips, Scott Hamilton, Wycliffe Gordon, Warren Vaché, and Mel Lewis. Singers include Mel Tormé, Jon Hendricks, Rosemary Clooney, Cab Calloway, John Pizzarelli, Gregory Hines, Art Garfunkel, Barbara Carroll, Dr. John, Karrin Allyson, Susannah McCorkle, as well as appearances with Diane Reeves, Sting, Elton John, Billy Joel, Bette Midler, James Taylor, Chaka Khan, Ruth Brown, Billy Eckstine, and Joe Williams. The Carnegie Hall Jazz Band has performed six of his suites and in 1998, the Concord Concerto label released an album featuring several orchestral compositions performed by the Bulgarian National Orchestra. Over fifty pieces have been recorded. In July of 2003 his "Subway Ballet" was performed at the 92nd St. Y in New York City. He has written arrangements for Sting, Elton John, the King of Thailand, and transcriptions for Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 JAZZ FOR CURIOUS LISTENERS For musicians, fans, and curious listeners desiring to learn more about the work of Herbie Hancock, the previous four sessions of Jazz for Curious Listeners will have given a whole semester’s worth of insights in a matter of hours. Don’t miss this last class with special guest instructor Bob Belden!
This press release was composed and edited by Greg Thomas. The National Jazz Museum in Harlem has been ensconced in its Harlem offices for over five years now; its public programs now attract several thousand people a year. Good news: The Victoria Theater on 125th Street will be redeveloped and includes space (10,150 sq. feet) for the museum! The Victoria Theatre on 125th Street will be redeveloped and includes space (10,150 sq. feet) for the museum! If you would like to receive updates on our progress or further information, please contact us online at http://www.jazzmuseuminharlem.org/contact.html or by phone at 212-348-8300. To find video clips, event summaries, program updates and photographs galore from our previous programs, venture here: www.jazzmuseuminharlem.org |
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Rubin Museum of Art