September 10th-October 2nd
Festival of New Trumpet music presents
Music for Small, Medium and Massive: Premieres, Fanfares and Remembrance
A marked exposition of sound for trumpet including commissions and tributes to friends old and new, premieres and fanfares, and music for 52 trumpets.
The New Yorker calls FONT “a grand highlight of the musical season”; The New York Times says FONT “prizes a spirit of innovation” and describes it as “a cross-stylistic extravaganza”; and JazzTimes praises its “stellar and eclectic schedule of genre-blurring commissions and exploratory collaborations.”
9/10-11
Tuesday September 10 @ 8:00pm – Roulette – 509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217 20$/15$ (students)
Over the past decade, the Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT) has presented some of New York City’s most exciting and adventurous music. This year we open the festivities at Roulette with the world premiere Christian Wolff’s Octet for brass with a violin for TILT Brass and Joshua Modney and a premiere of a new piece commissioned by FONT from the Roy Campbell Jr Akhenaten Large Ensemble.
The next night we premiere an Antiphonal Fanfare for six trumpets by John Zorn, celebrate the memory of Butch Morris with trumpeters and colleagues of Butch, and present the New York premiere of a Henry Brant antiphonal piece for 52 trumpets and percussion! Fifty. Two. Trumpets.
9/10
Alongside John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Earle Brown, composer Christian Wolff emerged in the 1950s on the New York experimental music scene and became a prominent champion of the aesthetics of musical indeterminism. His works, which became increasingly explicit in their political content as his career progressed, stress choice, artistic cooperation and interdependence, and an accommodating attitude toward the potential relationships between music, sound, and silence.
Wolff was born in Nice, France, but moved to the United States during his childhood. He took a rather indirect route to composition, studying classics and comparative literature at Harvard University, where he also taught, before taking positions in both music and literature at Mills College and later Dartmouth.
Roy Campbell Jr. Akhenaten Large Ensemble FONT Commission
This “monster trumpeter”, as the jazz magazine Cadence once called him, traces a line from the bop trumpet tradition of Lee Morgan (with something of Booker Little) to the free jazz contexts we find him with the groups Pyramid Trio, Other Dimensions in Music, Shades and Colors of Trane and Downtown Horns, along with front line musicians like William Parker, Daniel Carter, Sabir Mateen, Hamid Drake, Warren Smith and Rashied Bakr. And when some are trying to present jazz as the American classical music, his vision of this language is the perfect example of the idea of “world music”. Roy Campbell takes elements from several music expressions of the African diaspora in the New World, from rhythm and blues to hip hop, and mixes it with the Black Continent roots, be it musical, cultural or spiritual, not forgeting the Afro-Cuban rhythms. Jazz as he plays it is a trans-idiomatic and ethnic / folk music, with everything to do with present day times. Enough reason to be awarded as a Harlem Unsung Hero, an honor he received in 2003. “Ancestral voices, modern artistry and futuristic vision”, we read as a subtitle in his website, and with these words all is said about his path as a musician and a human being. His old teachers Yusef Lateef, Kenny Dorham, Howard McGhee and Lee Morgan must be proud of him, wherever they are, this side of life or the other.
9/11
Wednesday, September 11 @ 8:00pm – Roulette – 509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217 20$/15$ (students)
John Zorn Antiphonal Fanfare for the Great Hall, preview performance
The one word virtually everyone can agree on in any discussion of the work of composer John Zorn is “prolific,” in the strictest sense of the definition. Though he didn’t begin making records until 1980, the recordings under his own name number well over 100, and the sheer number of works he has performed on, composed, or produced easily doubles that number. Though now an internationally renowned musician and the founder and owner of the wildly successful and equally prolific Tzadik imprint, Zorn is a cornerstone of New York’s fabled and influential downtown scene. In addition, he has played with musicians of every stripe. He is also a musical gadfly: genre purity, and pursuing the ends by which it is defined, are meaningless in Zorn’s sound world, thus making him a quintessential mirror of 21st century culture. He has mentored countless musicians in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and has broadened the exposure of many other artists stateside via his Tzadik label. His compositions have been performed by hundreds of artists, including the Kronos Quartet and Medeski, Martin & Wood. In addition, he has composed literally dozens of film scores. He has been the subject of books and documentary films, as well.
Honoring Butch Morris and His Language: Conductions® with Dino J.A. Deane and Colleagues, including Taylor Ho Bynum, Graham Haynes, Stephanie Richards, Kenny Wolleson, Brandon Ross, and others.
Conduction® (created by Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris) is a vocabulary of ideographic signs and gestures activated to modify or construct a real-time musical arrangement or composition. Each sign and gesture transmits generative information for interpretation, and provides instantaneous possibilities for altering or initiating harmony, melody, rhythm, articulation, phrasing or form.
Lawrence “Butch” Morris first became known as a lyrical, round-toned (if roughly hewn) free jazz cornetist. As his career progressed, his cornet playing took a back seat to his bandleading; Morris invented a style of organized group improvisation that was dubbed “comprovisation,” an elision of composition and improvisation. Morris’ organization relied on a conducting technique that he called Conduction®.
Morris was originally a free jazz player. In California in the early ’70s, Morris played with such notables as his brother, the bassist Wilber Morris, pianist/composer Horace Tapscott, trumpeter Bobby Bradford, and tenor saxophonist Frank Lowe. In the mid-’70s, Morris worked around New York City with the likes of baritone saxophonists Charles Tyler and Hamiet Bluiett and tenor saxophonist David Murray. Morris lived in Paris from 1976-1977, where he began recording under the leadership of others. He made his debut on disc on a record by Lowe; he also recorded with French musicians, as well as the American expatriate soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy. A 1977 performance in Amsterdam with Murray’s Low Class Conspiracy band (which included an overmatched Stanley Crouch on drums) was recorded and released in two volumes on LP by Circle Records (a CD version that combined both volumes was reissued in 1990 by West Wind). The relationship with Murray would bear further fruit; Morris continued to play and record with the saxophonist for several years. Morris began directing Murray’s large ensembles, which led to the development of his conduction® technique. Murray’s big band music in the ’80s was marked by Morris’ presence as conductor.
In the ’80s, Morris continued to perform and record on cornet, sometimes under his own leadership, but mostly with Murray, Lowe, and the violinist Billy Bang. Gradually, however, his manner of spontaneous composition became his primary creative outlet. In the ’90s, Morris became quite well known in certain circles for his conductions; his work began receiving attention outside the realm of jazz. He worked with artists from other disciplines — theater, dance, and film — and began receiving monetary support from arts organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts and the Mary Flagler Cary Trust. By the end of the ’90s, Morris had established himself as a major figure in new music, performing his conductions and lecturing all over the world. Butch Morris passed away in January of last year.
Over a career spanning four decades multi-instrumentalist, sound-designer, conductor Dino J.A. Deane has demonstrated a unique and innovative approach to the world of music. Deane pioneered the use of live-electronics in Indoor Life a popular art/punk band from San Francisco during the early 1980’s. There he played trombone controlled synthesizer that emulated the sound of an electric guitar and employed a tape-echo to create in the moment loops. Soon afterwards he was touring the world as the electro-acoustic live-sampling percussionist with Jon Hassell. That collaboration resulted in the ground breaking Power Spot recording for ECM in 1986, produced by Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois. During that same period Deane became a close collaborator in Butch Morris’s real-time composition creations called Conduction® and in 1995 co-produced Morris’s epic 10 CD box set Testament for New World Records. Deane coined the term live-sampling, which means to record members of the ensemble while in performance, manipulate the sound and play back the recorded audio as part of the piece, all in real time. He is considered a master in this field of performance. Deane has an extensive background in composition for modern dance having created over fifty dance/music works with his partner, dancer choreographer Colleen Mulvihill. He has an equally long history creating sound designs for dramatic theater, working with writer directors as diverse as Sam Shepard, Julie Hebert, Christoph Marthaler and John Flax of Theater Grottesco. Dino is sought after by music festivals, instrumental ensembles, spoken word artists, film makers, theater companies and conservatories worldwide for performances, projects and workshops.
Henry Brant – Flight Over A Global Map, Spatial Assembly for 52 trumpets, 3 percussion and piano Conducted by Neely Bruce. Trumpeters include Jonathan Finlayson, Nick Roseboro, Ted Daniel, Wilmer Wise, Nadje Noordhuis, Gareth Flowers, Nate Wooley, Greg Glassman.
One of the great iconoclasts within modern American music, Canadian-born composer Henry Brant is a radical figure whose work is impossible to classify. Born in Montreal, Brant began composing at the age of eight and studied at McGill University beginning in his 16th year. In 1929, Brant transferred to the Institute of Musical Art, later renamed the Julliard School wherefrom he graduated in 1934. Already by that time Brant had written Angels and Devils, a concerto for 10 flutes, that gained its 21-year-old composer publication in Henry Cowell’s periodical New Music Quarterly. Through the depression and war years, Brant kept himself afloat through conducting and arranging on radio, working on independent films (he was an orchestrator for Pare Lorentz’s unit at the WPA) and for swing dance bands, including that of Benny Goodman. With war’s end, Brant took concurrent positions teaching at Columbia University and at Juilliard, but in 1957 settled at Bennington College in Vermont, where he taught until retirement in 1980. In purely academic terms, Brant’s achievements are impressive, as he was the winner of two Guggenheim Fellows, the Prix d’Italia, NEA, Fromm, Koussevitzky, ASCAP, and Ford Foundation grants and election to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1979.
9/14
Saturday, September 14 @ 8pm and 9pm – Village Zendo – 588 Broadway #1108, New York, NY 10012 20$ suggested donation
Matt Postle; trumpet, Radek Rudnicki; electronics
RPE Duo is a live act that explores interaction between trumpet and live electronics. Electronic grooves combine hip- hop with techno/dub in an experimental manner. The trumpet interacts with electronics, aiming to contrast/duplicate the electronic timbre. Improvisations slowly develop in time into dense noise or fragmented pieces. None of the material is scored however each sound is carefully crafted. Visuals used in the show, expose how limited material can entertain and evolve, these produced during the concert range from clear to abstract images.
Trumpeter Douglas Detrick’s Cartography Quartet explores the landscape of American music, from gospel to blues to traditional ballads through creative arrangements and original compositions drawing on Detrick’s background in jazz and chamber music. The newest of Detrick’s many musical projects, ranging from a big band to the chamber-jazz quintet AnyWhen Ensemble, this group continues his commitment to the blending of jazz with chamber music, this time inspired by the many channels of the American folk tradition. This ensemble has taken on several forms ranging from solo performances, duos, trios and quartets, all featuring the composing, arranging, singing and trumpet playing of its founder and leader.
This performance of Douglas Detrick’s Cartography features the Cartography Quartet with Jonathan Goldberger on guitar, Tanya Kalmanovitch on viola, and Sara Schoenbeck on bassoon.
9/15-16
Sunday, September 15th at 8pm, 9pm and 10:30pm – Douglass Street Music Collective – 295 Douglass Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217 10$ suggested donation
9/15
Chad McCullough Quartet with Chad Lefkowitz-Brown – tenor sax, Or Bareket – bass, Kenneth Salters – drums
Chicago-based Trumpeter/composer Chad McCullough… called “a thoughtful improvisor with technique to spare” by Allaboutjazz.com, Chad’s various albums have received wide critical-acclaim. His stable of collaborators is a diverse collection of unique musicians and speaks to the depth of his palette. Dan McClenaghan writes, “He is a rare instrumentalist who makes each note sound as if it were imbued with a deeper meaning. Certainly a player with great chops, his approach is one that is measured and deliberate, often introspective, sometimes gorgeously melancholic, and one that employs a continuity of mood and atmosphere that the best recordings have.”
He is a member of the West African-inspired group The Kora Band, a group who’s latest record ‘Cascades’ has garnered national attention, peaking at #12 on the World Music Charts, and won NW Recording of the Year in Earshot Magazine. They were recently awarded a CMA New Jazz Works grant for their upcoming record. He also tours with Tunnel Six, an international group that has been awarded 4 Canada Council of the Arts grants. Their debut record made the top ’100 albums of 2011′ on eMusic, and a new ‘live’ record was just released this year. His new group The Spin Quartet will record this summer as well.
Laura Kahle trio with : LK – pocket trumpet, Orlando le Fleming – double bass, Jeff “Tain” Watts – drums
Trumpeter and composer Laura Kahle released her debut album “Circular” in 2011, featuring Yosvany Terry, JD Allen, Jeff “Tain” Watts and Orlando le Fleming. A participant in the 2012 Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute at UCLA, Laura is the arranger for the Watts Family Reunion Band, a 16 piece jazz orchestra lead by Jeff “Tain” Watts and featuring a stellar band including Don Byron, Lew Soloff, Yosvany Terry, Frank Lacy, Robin Eubanks, Ravi Coltrane and Alex Sipiagin. Laura’s arrangements have also been performed by The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, The Danish Radio Big Band, The Norrbotten Big Band and the Branford Marsalis Septet. Currently performing on the pocket trumpet, Laura’s style is melodic, adventurous and imaginative. Laura Kahle trio: LK – pocket trumpet, Orlando le Fleming – double bass, Jeff “Tain” Watts – drum set
David Smith is a Canadian-born trumpeter currently residing in New York City. He studied and began his professional career in Toronto, and in 2000 he relocated to New York with a study grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. Before long he was much in demand on the New York City jazz scene.
His debut album as a leader, “Circumstance”, was released in October of 2006 on the Fresh Sound New Talent label (FSNT 267), and features his original compositions and an outstanding quintet featuring Seamus Blake on tenor, Nate Radley on guitar, David Ephross on bass and the ubiquitous Mark Ferber on drums. In 2010 he followed that up with “Anticipation” on the Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records label (BJUR 015), featuring Kenji Omae on tenor, Nate Radley on guitar, Gary Wang on bass and Greg Ritchie on drums. While the roots of his music are in classic jazz, he combines elements of classical harmony and counterpoint resulting in a very original compositional style. His approach to the trumpet is also unique, intervallic and harmonically sophisticated yet lyrical and emotional. http://www.davesmithtrumpet.com
9/16
Monday, September 16th at 8pm, 9pm and 10:30pm – Douglass Street Music Collective – 295 Douglass Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217 10$ suggested donation
Matt’s new project, “The Tenth Muse”, will feature: Matt Holman – trumpet & flugelhorn, Sam Sadigursky – woodwinds, Andy Milne – piano, Chris Dingman – vibraphone
New York based trumpeter/composer/educator Matt Holman has performed and/or recorded with such diverse jazz and creative artists as Fred Hersch, John Hollenbeck, Darcy James Argue, Jon Gordon, Kate McGarry, Kurt Elling, Matt Ulery, Bob Newhart, Andrew Rathbun, Los Amigos Invisibles, and The Gregory Brothers in countries including the United States, Canada, Mexico, The Netherlands, Italy, Germany, and Australia. He has earned national and international performance awards including the International Trumpet Guild’s Jazz Improvisation Competition, the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition, the National Trumpet Competition, and Down Beat.
Taking inspiration from such diverse influences as Wayne Shorter, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Sigur Ros, Holman has composed works for Marvin Stamm, Ed Soph, David Baker, Marie Speziale, and The National Conservatory of Costa Rica and was a 2009 ASCAP Young Jazz Composer’s Competition winner. A current member of the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop, Holman was the winner of the 13th annual BMI Foundation’s Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize and will compose a new work for the Manny Albam Commission in June 2013. http://mattholman.com
LINA ALLEMANO FOUR: Lina Allemano – trumpet, Brodie West – alto saxophone, Andrew Downing – double bass, Nick Fraser – drums.
Hailed as one of Canada’s leading avant-garde/free-jazz bands, LINA ALLEMANO FOUR is known internationally for their inventiveness and synergy as they deftly blur the line between composition and improvisation. The band has toured extensively over the past 8 years across Europe, USA and Canada. Their newest and 4th album, Live at the Tranzac (Lumo Records 2012), has been receiving favourable attention from reviewers internationally. “Lina Allemano is one of the most exciting new voices of the last few years… this music is playful… It doesn’t take its avant-gardism too seriously. There’s no mistaking that Allemano is an important new talent…” – Point of Departure, June 2013
The Westerlies: Riley Mulherkar – trumpet, Zubin Hensler – trumpet, Andy Clausen – trombone, Willem de Koch – trombone
The Westerlies are a New York based brass quartet comprised of four friends from Seattle, Washington. Avid explorers of cross-genre territory, the Westerlies are a collectively run ensemble dedicated to the cultivation of a new brass quartet repertoire that exists in the ever-narrowing gap between American folk music, jazz, classical, and indie rock. The Westerlies have premiered over 30 original works for brass quartet since their inception in 2012. As a horn section the Westerlies have worked with new music mavericks Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz, Relatives, Juilliard Dance, and Mason Jar Music. Members of the Westerlies currently study at The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music.
9/17-18
Tuesday, September 17th @ 7pm, 9pm, 10:30pm, 11:30pm – Smoke – 2751 Broadway, NY 10025, No Cover
9/17
7pm Vitaly Golovnev
Vitaly was born in Nalchik, Russia into a family of musicians. Vitaly graduated from the Russian Academy Of Music in Moscow. Throughout those years he has worked with leading jazz musicians in Russia such as Oleg Lundstrem, George Garanian, Anatoly Kroll, Igor Brill, German Lukianov, David Goloschekin and others. In 2000, Vitaly won 1st prize in the National Jazz Competition in Rostov and the Jazz Competition for small combos in Moscow. In fall of 2003, Vitaly moved to New York where he was fortunate to share the stage with Wynton Marsalis, Mingus Big Band, David Berger and Sultans Of Swing Orchestra. Since then he has performed in US, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland. In 2009, his debut album “To Whom It May Concern” was released from Tipping Records. In 2012, his second album as a leader “What Matters” was released from Tippin Records. Presently, Vitaly lives in New York and is performing with many talented musicians.
9pm Miki Hirose
Miki began playing trumpet in High school in his native city Kobe, Japan. He quickly became a well sought after talent in the Kansai West Japan area. After graduating from high school Miki was one of the youngest recipients to receive several awards for his talent such as the Shoji Nakayama and Naniwa Art Prize awards. Miki arrived in New York in 2003 and has been freelancing here ever since. He has played with many prestigious artist in the New York scene such as Benny Golson, Frank Lacy, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Frank Wess, Billy Harper, Primordial Jazz Funktet, Rick Parker Collective, Harlem Renaissance Orchestra, Valery Ponomarev Big Band, Pedro Giraudo Jazz Orchestra, Matt Snow Group and many others. Miki continues to perform internationally.
In 2010 he released his debut album entitled “A DAY IN NEW YORK” which received critically acclaimed responses and reviews and massive radio plays in Japan. He has currently released his new album “SCRATCH” which is a reflection of his inspiration of Latin music.
10:30pm Lulu’s Playground with Adam Meckler
Adam Meckler is a professional trumpet player, composer and educator living in Saint Paul, MN. He holds a B.Mus in Jazz Studies from Lawrence University, and a M.M in Trumpet Performance from the University of Minnesota. He has studied composition with some of the finest composers in the world including Fred Sturm, Dean Sorenson, Doug Richards, and Richard Sussman. Meckler has toured all over the world with Todd Clouser’s A Love Electric (Ropeadope Records, Royal Potato Family Records), The Jana Nyberg Group led by his wife, Jana Nyberg, and the Jack Brass Band. He plays regularly with his quintet, the Adam Meckler Quintet, and his big band, The Adam Meckler Orchestra, and also plays regularly with The Graydon Peterson Quartet, Lulu’s Playground, The Nexus Ensemble, The Brass Barn Polka Band, The Good The Bad The Funky, and The Pete Whitman X-Tet.
Adam is one of three founders of SoKillingMan.com, a site dedicated to transcription and analysis of jazz solos, and is adjunct faculty at Bethel University in Trumpet and Jazz.. He has had the pleasure of performing with DJ Logic, Klezmerica, The Artie Shaw Orchestra, Fatbook, Nova Jazz Orchestra, La Gran Charanga and many more.
11:30pm Josh Evans
JOSH EVANS, born and raised in Hartford, CT, was drawn to the trumpet after hearing a Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie recording at the age of 10. Josh began studying with Raymond ‘Dr. Rackle’ Williams and within a year he began performing regularly with Dr. Rackle’s Sound Griot Brass Band. By the age of 14 Evans’ musical career began to take shape when he started to study with and be mentored by the celebrated alto saxophonist/composer, and educator Jackie McLean. The experience would blaze the path for performances with Jackie McLean which included New York based venues known as the Blue Note, Iridium, the Regattabar located in Boston, MA, and the Bushnell Center for Performing Arts in Hartford, CT.
In April 2005 Josh began a Three and a half year stint with the Winard Harper Sextet, touring the United States performing and conducting master classes. In April 2007, Josh was invited to perform a two week tour of Siberia with master saxophonist, and composer Benny Golson. It was during this time period that Evans would also start performing with master Drummer Rashied Ali and would become the bands trumpet player for the next two years. Josh Evans would play with Rashied Ali until the drummer’s untimely death in 2009. In January 2011, Josh Evans recorded and released his debut album ‘Portrait’. This Album shares Evans influential relationships with Rasieid Ali, Jackie McLean, Raymond Williams, Alan Palmer, and Ralph Peterson.
Wednesday, September 18th @ 7pm, 9pm, 10:30pm, 11:30pm – Smoke – 2751 Broadway, NY 10025, No Cover
9/18
7pm Bria Skonberg
Hailing from Chilliwack, BC, and now living in New York City, award winning trumpeter/vocalist/ composer BRIA SKONBERG is “poised to be one of the most versatile and imposing musicians of her generation.” She got her start as a professional big band singer at age sixteen doubling on trumpet and has since performed as a bandleader and guest artist all over North America, Europe, China Japan. Since arriving in New York two years ago she has appeared in concert halls and clubs such as Symphony Space, Birdland, The Iridium, and Dizzy’s among the likes of Nicholas Payton, Anat Cohen, Bucky Pizzarelli and Scott Robinson.
Her debut American release, SO IS THE DAY, peaked at #7 on the US National jazz charts and features an all- star ensemble including John Pizzarelli, Victor Goines and Wycliffe Gordon. She currently tours the world, headlining major clubs and festivals as well as programming music education workshops for all ages.
9pm Nick Roseboro
Born in seattle, Nick was inspired to play music from his teacher Robert E. Knatt and Nick’s own friends in middle school. After joining the Garfield High School Jazz Band under direction of Clarence Acox, Nick moved to New York City to study with the likes of Eddie Henderson, Billy Harper, Charles Tolliver, and Rachel Z at New School University. Now based out of Brooklyn, Nick has been molding his new quintet since 2007, featuring some the freshest young musicians on the scene. The Nick Roseboro Quintet features Travis Reuter on guitar, Jarod Kashkin on piano, Jorge Roeder on bass, and Rogério Boccato on drums.
Influenced by many sources Nick has had the honor of performing with the likes of Charli Persip, Rene Marie, Joe Chambers, Bill Harper, Rachel Z, and many more. In 2008 Nick was selected to be part of a special group honoring Woody Shaw and his music (The Brass Knights). This group featured the trumpet frontline of Sean Jones and Ezana Edwards and included the great rhythm section of Mulgrew Miller, Dwayne Burno and Victor Lewis. Nick’s own recording is set to be release September 4, 2012, and he can be found on Albert Rivera’s current Turnaround Records release “Inner Peace”.
10:30pm Billy Buss
Playing trumpet since the age of nine and studying jazz since age 11, Berkeley, California native Billy Buss has received numerous awards, including the Monterey Jazz Festival’s Jimmy Lyons Scholarship to Berklee College of Music, two Outstanding Performance/Soloist awards from the Down Beat Magazine Music Awards, as well as the Gold Award in Jazz from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Inspired and coached by former Tower of Power trumpeter Mic Gillette, Billy considers himself fortunate to have played and studied with a number of prominent musicians, including Jay McShann, Herbie Hancock, Ravi Coltrane, Steve Turre, Charlie Hunter, Roy Hargrove, Brian Blade, Tiger Okoshi, Nicholas Payton, Phil Wilson, Dave Santoro, Hal Crook, Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Oscar Peterson, Allen Toussaint, Hank Jones, Barry Harris, Irma Thomas, Ivan Neville, and Coolio.
As a recent graduate of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance, Class of 2011, Billy looks forward to his continuing evolution as a musician, performer, and composer after studying for the last two years with many of the greatest living Jazz masters.
11:30pm Jeremy Pelt
Jeremy Pelt has become one of the preeminent young trumpeters within the world of jazz. Forging a bond with the Mingus Big Band very early on, as his career progressed, Pelt built upon these relationships and many others which eventually lead to collaborations with some of the genre’s greatest masters. Pelt frequently performs alongside such notable ensembles as the Roy Hargrove Big Band, The Village Vanguard Orchestra and the Duke Ellington Big Band, and is a member of the Lewis Nash Septet and The Cannonball Adderley Legacy Band featuring Louis Hayes. As a leader, Pelt has recorded ten albums and has toured globally with his various ensembles, appearing at many major jazz festivals and concert venues.
Pelt’s recordings and performances have earned him critical acclaim, both nationally and internationally. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal by legendary jazz writer and producer, Nat Hentoff, and was voted Rising Star on the trumpet, five years in a row by Downbeat Magazine and the Jazz Journalist Association. Pelt is currently touring throughout the United States and Europe in support of his latest release, “Water And Earth” (High Note Records, January 2013).
9/20
Friday, September 20 @ 12pm – J. Landress Brass Showroom – 153 West 36th Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10018 Free!
Trumpet maker Josh Landress leads a discussion on the mechanics and technology of trumpet design, demonstrations with Aaron Shragge. All are welcome to try out his instruments.
9/22-23
Sunday, September 22nd @ 3:30pm, 5pm and 7pm – St. Peter’s Church – 619 Lexington Ave at 54th St, NY 10022 Free admission for 3:30pm and 5pm events, 20$ suggested donation for 7pm event.
9/22
3:30pm a talk with Ted Daniel on Exploring the correlation between improvisation and therapy. 5pm: Vespers with Hugh Ragin and trumpeters.7pm: Hugh Ragin with David Amram, Lew Soloff, James Zollar, Myles Sloniker, Bruce Cox.
Best known for capably filling the problematic trumpet chair in saxophonist David Murray’s various large ensembles, Hugh Ragin possesses the well-rounded technique and abundant imagination that his predecessors in those bands did not. A harmonically daring player, Ragin combines the clear, ringing tone of a classical trumpeter with the chops and rhythmic ingenuity of a top-notch bebopper. Ragin was raised in Houston, TX. Ragin received schoolboy honors in music (traveling to England and Wales with the Houston All-City High School Orchestra) then attended the University of Houston, where he received his bachelor’s degree in music education. Trumpeter Donald Byrd influenced Ragin around this time. Ragin attended Colorado State University, receiving his master’s in classical trumpet performance. In late 1978, he attended the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY, where he studied composition with Roscoe Mitchell. The following summer, he played the annual jazz festival in Moers, Germany, with the Roscoe Mitchell/Leo Smith Creative Orchestra. Later that year, he toured with Anthony Braxton.
Since then, Ragin has periodically traveled to Europe to perform and teach. Ragin first met Murray in 1980; he toured with Maynard Ferguson throughout 1983. In 1985, Murray brought him to New York to play in his band. The two have been close musical associates ever since. On his 1999 album An Afternoon in Harlem (Justin Time), he’s joined by Murray, drummer Andrew Cyrille, and pianist Craig Taborn. He followed with more releases for Justin Time: Fanfare & Fiesta in 2001 and Feel the Sunshine in 2002. Ragin has taught extensively, including a stint at Oberlin College in Ohio.
A consummate fixture on the New York jazz scene, Lew Soloff’s career is filled with a rich history of renowned sessions and world-class collaborations. From the time he eased into the east coast world of trend setting musicians in the mid 1960s, Soloff’s creative ventures have resulted in a respected body of work that places him in a category of true accomplishment and keeps his elegant and lyrical signatures in constant demand. Whether interpreting a standard or improvising on an original composition, his phrasing and note choices exemplify his unique voice. Soloff is known as a virtuoso with tremendous range and superior technical command, yet he exudes a wisdom for quietness and melody. Soloff’s expertise includes trumpet, flugelhorn, harmon mute, plunger mute and he is particularly recognized for his work on piccolo trumpet.
9/23
Monday, September 23nd 7pm – St. Peter’s Church – 619 Lexington Ave at 54th St, NY 10022 20$ suggested donation
Dave Douglas Quintet and Sextet with special guest vocalist Heather Masse and Jon Irabagon, Josh Roseman, Matt Mitchell, Linda Oh, Rudy Royston. Post concert reception celebrating release of new album.
Dave Douglas is a prolific trumpeter, composer and educator from New York City.
His unique contributions to improvised music have garnered distinguished recognition, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Aaron Copland award and two Grammy nominations. Douglas has developed his work for several unique ensembles with whom he’s currently active, including his new quintet, an electric sextet (Keystone), and Sound Prints Quintet, co-led with saxophonist Joe Lovano. His new quintet released its debut recording, Be Still, in September 2012 with singer Aoife O’Donovan, the first time Douglas has featured a vocalist on a recording. The follow-up to that critically-acclaimed recording, Time Travel, was released in April 2013.
Since 2005, Douglas has operated his own record label, Greenleaf Music, releasing his own recordings as well as albums by other artists in the jazz idiom. Through his artist-friendly approach and innovative practices, he continues to prove himself a pioneer in new music marketing and delivery methods for the jazz world and among artist-run labels.
Douglas has held several posts as an educator and impresario. From 2002 to 2012, he served as artistic director of the Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music at The Banff Centre in Canada. He is a co-founder and director of the Festival of New Trumpet Music, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2012. In 2013, he begins his second year as International Jazz Artist in Residence at the Royal Academy of Music in London and launches his own Jazz Workshop, dedicated to enriching the musical experiences of younger players.
10/1-2
Tuesday and Wednesday, October 1st and 2nd, 7:30pm and 9:30pm – Jazz Standard – 116 E 27th St, NY 10016
Festival of New Trumpet Music Celebrates The Marcus Belgrave Quartet with Geri Allen, Marion Hayden, and Kassa Overall.
Marcus Belgrave is Detroit’s internationally recognized jazz trumpet great. He came to prominence in the late 50’s, touring and recording with the late great Ray Charles’ Orchestra, at the height of Ray’s hit-making era. Marcus is heard as a trumpet soloist on some of Ray’s most famous “hits”… both albums and singles. He always pays tribute to Ray, who mentored him from the young age of 19. He is the only living member of Ray Charles’ small band horn section. He was also mentored by the Great Clifford Brown. Clifford’s early influence on the young Belgrave can still be heard in his tone. Belgrave then spent the early 60’s spearheading the modern jazz movement in New York working and recording in the bands of such major innovators as Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy and Max Roach.
Belgrave moved to Detroit in the early 1960’s to join Motown Records as staff trumpeter, playing on most of the Motown hits. Marcus has established himself as Detroit’s foremost jazz musician. He was recently awarded the singular title of the official Jazz Master Laureate for the City of Detroit., as well as a Kresge 2010 Eminent Artist award for his 46 years of service to the young musicians of Detroit.
Always the teacher, Marcus continues to mentor the “next generation” of jazz musicians. His protégés include the who’s who of young jazz musicians: violinist, Regina Carter, bassist, Robert Hurst, saxophonist, Kenny Garrett, pianist Geri Allen, saxophonist James Carter, guitarist, Ray Parker Jr., drummer Ali Jackson, the list goes on and on. Marcus Belgrave, Jazz Master, Mentor.