Musicians at 2008 Healdsburg Jazz Festival
Opening Night!
Friday, May 30
Fred Hersch Trio
John Hebert and Nasheet Waits
with special guest Kurt Elling
Location: Jackson Theater at Sonoma Country Day School, 4400 Day School Place, Santa Rosa (off Airport Blvd.)
Every night is family night at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, where musicians return year after year to the warm, welcoming embrace offered by the organization and the community. But with pianist Fred Hersch opening the festival's 10th season, the familial vibe is particularly potent. An early festival supporter who's performed here in a myriad of contexts, Hersch treats every trip to Healdsburg like a family affair, which is fitting since his father, Henry, lives in town. We like to think he'd visit us anyway, as he's demonstrated his commitment to this event on and off the bandstand. Possessing a ravishing touch and a gift for spinning long, luxuriant lines, Hersch combines rigorous intelligence with unabashed heart. He got his start in the late 1970s as a highly regarded sideman, working or recording with luminaries such as Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Billy Harper, Lee Konitz, Art Farmer, and Toots Thielemans. As a leader he's alternated between exquisite solo sessions, well-conceived concept projects and captivating trios, such as his fantastic 1990s band with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Rainey.
Born and raised in Cincinnati, he started taking piano lessons at age four. Involved in all kinds of musical activities while growing up, from studying theory and composition to singing in high school theater productions, he didn't discover jazz until attending Grinnell College in Iowa. "When I arrived at Grinnell they said Herbie Hancock went here, and I said, ‘Who?,'" he recalls. Delving into the music, he started listening to John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Miles Davis and Chick Corea. But the jazz bug really bit him when he went home for the holidays in the winter of 1973, and happened into a Cincinnati jazz spot. He ended up dropping out of school and earned a degree on the bandstand, with the veteran musicians serving as his professors. After honing his chops for 18 months he enrolled at the New England Conservatory, and in 1977 he made the move to New York.
A highly sympathetic accompanist, Hersch has recorded albums backing vocalists Leny Andrade, Jeri Brown, Chris Connor, Janis Siegel as well as renowned operatic divas Renee Fleming and Dawn Upshaw. But it was the voice of one particular singer he had in mind as he composed his most ambitious project, a suite inspired by Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Though they had never worked together, Hersch conceived of his evening-length project as a perfect vehicle for vocalist Kurt Elling, the most flamboyantly creative male jazz singer to emerge in the past 15 years. It wasn't just that the Chicago-based baritone is a poetry fanatic and accomplished lyricist. Hersch knew that Elling has the presence to deliver Whitman's most ecstatic verse and the chops to handle his hybrid composition, which flows from jazz to Coplandesque soundscapes to sensuous word painting. "I pretty much had Kurt Elling in mind from the very beginning," says Hersch, who documented Leaves of Grass on Palmetto in 2005. "I really respect his musicianship."
Hersch hasn't had many opportunities to collaborate with Elling since the Leaves project, which makes this performance particularly welcome. The singer appears as a special guest with Hersch's trio featuring Louisiana-raised bassist John Hebert (pronounced A-bear) and the extraordinary drummer Nasheet Waits, a long-time Hersch associate showcased on several of the pianist's recent Palmetto albums, including last year's outstanding trio session Night and the Music.
More info:
www.fredhersch.com
Fred Hersch on Wikipedia
Fred Hersch on AllMusic
Fred Hersch on All About Jazz
An Evening with Charles Lloyd in Quartet and Trio Forms:
Charles Lloyd Quartet with Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers, and Eric Harland
Charles Lloyd's Sangam Trio with Zakir Hussain and Eric Harland
Location: Jackson Theater at Sonoma Country Day School, 4400 Day School Place, Santa Rosa (off Airport Blvd.)
The best way to track the remarkable trajectory of Charles Lloyd's high-flying career is to follow the drums. The Memphis-born tenor saxophonist attained rock star status in the mid 1960s at the Monterey Jazz Festival with his first great band, which was powered by the protean trap set genius Jack DeJohnette. After a decade-long hiatus, Lloyd resurfaced in the 1980s backed by a stellar constellation of European musicians and American master Billy Hart. It was another Billy, the late, beloved Mr. Higgins, who lifted Lloyd's 1990s combos into the creative stratosphere. In building a new band after Higgins' passing, Lloyd turned to a supremely gifted young drummer from Houston, Texas, Eric Harland, who has provided the supple, coruscating rhythmic foundation for the saxophonist's quartet ever since.
Lloyd's exceptional new ECM album Rabo de Nube showcases the latest version of Lloyd's ensemble with Harland, bassist Reuben Rogers and the insistently exploratory pianist Jason Moran. While many of his contemporaries glean concepts and harmonic vocabulary from 1960s piano icons Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett, Moran has sought out alternate paths forged by knotty player/composers Jaki Byard, Muhal Richard Abrams, Andrew Hill and multi-instrumentalist Sam Rivers. Every incarnation of Lloyd's quartet has revealed unexpected musical dimensions, but his creative communion with Moran is particularly astonishing. As a protege of the startlingly original pianist and educator Jaki Byard, a player with the entire jazz tradition at his fingertips, Moran has cultivated a wide-ranging musical approach. He first gained notice with alto saxophonist Greg Osby, a keenly prescient talent scout, and before long had assembled his own combo, the Bandwagon. As he demonstrated with Facing Left, his 2000 Blue Note debut, just about every sound is welcome on the Bandwagon, from hip hop and Bjork to Brahms, Ellington and Schumann. While many of his contemporaries glean group concepts and harmonic vocabulary from 1960s piano icons Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Keith Jarrett, or earlier stars Bill Evans and Ahmad Jamal, Moran has sought out alternate paths forged by knotty player/composers such as Byard, Muhal Richard Abrams, Mal Waldron, Andrew Hill and multi-instrumentalist Sam Rivers, who contributed to Moran's stellar 2001 album Black Star.
At the heart of Lloyd's band is his electric connection with Harland. The musical relationship between them has entered such a rarified realm that the saxophonist has also enlisted him in his expansive Sangam trio with Bay Area-based tabla master Zakir Hussain. "It's amazing to hear the two of them together!," Lloyd wrote in a recent email exchange. "I am sure that Master Higgins sent Eric to me." For Harland, the opportunity to play with Lloyd has been a process of constant discovery. "Everything is invited," Harland says. "Charles doesn't push for a specific sound. He trusts the fact that the music will bring the best out of everyone."
Lloyd has certainly provided a perfect improvisational platform for Zakir Hussain, an artist whose musical contributions are impossible to overstate. As the scion of a tabla dynasty headed by his late father, the revered tabla guru Alla Rakha, Hussain has continued his father's mission, tearing down musical boundaries while upholding the highest standards of North Indian, Hindustani classical music. Upon arriving in the US in 1970 to teach at the Ali Akbar College of Music, Hussain threw himself into the Bay Area music scene, collaborating with altoist John Handy, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, and tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. His collaboration with guitarist John McLaughlin and violinist L. Shankar in Shakti opened up vast new territory in Indian jazz, and his Planet Drum CD with Mickey Hart won the first Grammy awarded for Best World Music Album. As a composer of scores for films by Ismail Merchant and Bernardo Bertolucci, as a tireless promoter of India's musical riches through his Masters of Percussion tours, and as a cross-cultural musical explorer, Hussain is a well-traveled one-man bridge between East and West.
More info:www.charleslloyd.com
Charles Lloyd on Wikipedia
Charles Lloyd on AllMusic
Charles Lloyd on All About Jazz
www.zakirhussain.com
Zakir Hussain on Wikipedia
Zakir Hussain on AllMusic
Zakir Hussain on All About Jazz
Latin Jazz On The Green
Sunday, June 1
Eddie Palmieri Latin Jazz Sextet
Brian Lynch, Conrad Herwig, Jose Claussell, "Little Johnny" Rivero, and Luques Curtis
Pete Escovedo Ensemble
Roger Glenn, Murray Low, Curtis Ohlson, and Paul Van Wageningen
with special guest John Santos
plus Salsa Lessons with Antonio and Irene of Santa Rosa Salsa!
Location: Recreation Park in Healdsburg - located at Piper and University Streets
Could there be a better setting to experience Latin music than an afternoon concert in the park? Whatever time of day Eddie Palmieri takes the stage, it's a safe bet that there will be plenty of heat. At 71, Latin jazz's foremost composer is still a vital, commanding figure with nine Grammys under his belt, most recently for his 2007 collaboration with trumpeter Brian Lynch, Simpatico. For more than five decades, he has served as a tireless ambassador for Latin music, first as a sideman in top dance orchestras, and then as the leader of the innovative ensemble dubbed La Perfecta, a landmark conjunto with a distinctive flute and trombone instrumentation that transformed Palmieri from a respected accompanist into Latin music's vanguard standard bearer. As the last great bandleader to hone his skills at the Palladium, the ballroom that served as the home base for the great Latin dance orchestras of Machito, Tito Puente, and Tito Rodriguez, Palmieri put La Perfecta to the most rigorous test. "The Palladium was the Mecca, where the greatest dancers came to challenge the greatest orchestras," Palmieri says. The Palladium was also where Palmieri cemented his reputation as the wild man of Latin music, though his defiant streak was always far more crazy-like-a-fox than reckless. Initially unable to convince the Palladium's manager to hire his band, Palmieri rented the Terrace Riviera down the block on Wednesday nights, and proceeded to poach the ballroom's customers. "I was like the barker on the street, 'Over here folks!,' and eventually they had to negotiate and bring me in there," Palmieri says with a sly chuckle. "I ended up doing 90 dates there, a really good run from 1964 to 1966, when the Palladium closed."
Born in Spanish Harlem to Puerto Rican parents, Palmieri was raised in a highly musical family. Something of a keyboard prodigy - he made his Carnegie Hall debut playing classical music at age 11 - Palmieri always wanted to be a drummer. To this day he explains his highly percussive keyboard style by describing himself as a "frustrated percussionist."
Through his older brother, the late, celebrated Latin pianist Charlie Palmieri, he landed a series of formative jobs with top Latin bands such as Johnny Segui, Vincentico Valdez, and most importantly Tito Rodriguez, with whom he played from 1958 - 1960 and recorded the classic United Artists album Live at the Palladium. When he struck out on his own in 1961, the cold war showdown between Fidel Castro's Cuba and the United States had shut Cuban musicians out of the U.S. Instead of imitating the Cuban dance orchestras, Palmieri put his own spin on the music, replacing the traditional trumpet-laden horn section with two trombones and two flutes. Unable to afford American trumpeters, who would only work for union scale, Palmieri began recruiting trombonists, and soon met Barry Rogers at a jam session in the Bronx. With the later addition of Jose Rodriguez, the two prodigious trombonists became the foundation for La Perfecta, a band whose influence still reverberates today.
Though his music was making a deep impression on budding Latin jazz musicians, Palmieri didn't really take an interest in jazz itself until the mid '60s, when Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner caught his attention. He particularly credits tenor saxophonist Benny Golson's arrangements on Art Blakey's classic Blue Note album Moanin' for opening his ears. His genius has been to combine the potent West African polyrhythms that evolved in Cuba with the advanced harmonic language of modern jazz. In the process, he helped set in motion a musical wave that "started off Afro-Cuban," Palmieri says, "became Afro-Caribbean, and now it's Afro-world."
Pete Escovedo may be living down in L.A. these days, but he left his heart in the Bay Area, and the region continues to return his affections tenfold. The Latin jazz percussionist has been a Northern California institution since the late 1950s, when he performed widely with his younger siblings, bassist Phil and drummer Coke in the Escovedo Brothers, a pioneering Bay Area Latin jazz combo. From his work in the groundbreaking Latin rock bands Santana and Azteca through his decades leading his own popular Latin jazz orchestra, Escovedo has played a central role on the West Coast music scene as a sideman, bandleader and savvy talent scout. Over the years he's honed an infectiously joyous blend of influences. Rooted in Afro-Caribbean grooves, his music also draws on funk, gospel, rock and jazz, the music he was weaned on while growing up in Oakland in the 1940s.
At first he aspired to play bebop saxophone, and then he tried his hand at the vibes. But when percussion chair opened up in pianist Ed Kelly's Latin jazz band, Escovedo jumped at the opportunity. It was the early 50s, and there were no formal institutions dedicated to teaching Afro-Caribbean rhythms. Virtually the only way to learn was by studying recordings and catching the masters whenever they came through town. "Me and my brother Coke met Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, Mongo Santamaria, Armando Peraza, Francisco Aguabella, all these great musicians," Escovedo recalls. "That's where we got our schooling." With younger brother Phil on bass they formed the popular Escovedo Brothers Latin Jazz Sextet. The group lasted until the late 60s, when Carlos Santana hired Coke and Pete for his hugely popular group. They joined just in time to ride a wave of hit Santana albums such as Moonflower, Oneness, and Inner Secrets. Eventually Pete and Coke felt the need to branch out on their own again and in 1970 they founded Azteca, a cooperative 14-piece Latin rock band. By the mid-70s Pete was living a flourishing double life, leading a thrilling band while also working as a busy freelancer with an array of artists, including Herbie Hancock, Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, Woody Herman, Billy Cobham, Anita Baker, Angela Bofill, Barry White, and Boz Scaggs. As a bandleader, he recorded a string of popular albums for Concord, often featuring his impressive musical progeny, percussionist Sheila E, singer Peter Michael Escovedo, and percussionist Juan Escovedo.
Pete is joined by Roger Glenn on flute and vibes, pianist Murray Low, bassist Curtis Ohlson, drummer Paul VanWageningen, and special guest John Santos on congas. Like Escovedo, Santos grew up in the Bay Area, soaking up music from the streets of San Francisco's Mission District. By the mid-1970s, he was an emerging force on the local Latin music scene, leading a succession of bands. From Orquesta Tipica Cienfuegos to Batachanga to the Macheté Ensemble, he became the Bay Area's leading educator, practitioner and resident historian of Afro-Caribbean musical forms. Over the years he's performed and recorded with many of greatest figures in jazz and Latin music, including Tito Puente, Dizzy Gillespie, Cachao, Max Roach, and Eddie Palmieri, while forging alliances with new stars such as Cuban pianists Omar Sosa and Elio Villafranca. A musical innovator, he turned Macheté into a fiercely expressive band stocked with distinctive voices and an unusual pan-Caribbean sensibility in which bomba and plena rhythms from Puerto Rico alternate with a plethora of Afro-Cuban grooves. "The premise of the band was not to get pigeonholed into any one type of sound," Santos says, which sounds like a mission statement that Pete Escovedo would endorse.
More info:www.eddiepalmierimusic.com
Eddie Palmieri on Wikipedia
Eddie Palmieri on AllMusic
Eddie Palmieri on All About Jazz
www.peteescovedo.com
Pete Escovedo on Wikipedia
Pete Escovedo on AllMusic
Pete Escovedo on All About Jazz
John Santos on AllMusic
John Santos on All About Jazz
Monday, June 2
"Bug Music for Juniors"
A Concert for Families with Don Byron Sextet
Ron Miles, Robert DeBellis, George Colligan, Mark Helias, and Billy Hart
Location: Raven Theater, 115 North Street, Healdsburg
Here's a chance for Sonoma County parents and their children to enjoy jazz together, in a fun-filled and fascinating program that unites live jazz, classic cartoons, and historic film footage in a one-of-a-kind exploration of the Swing Era. Part concert, part demonstration, part Q&A, and 100% pleasure, Don Byron's Bug Music for Juniors is jazz education at its most entertaining and exciting - for the kid in all of us.
An artist who brings a rigorous intellectual framework to projects combining politically charged content with an often zany sense of humor, Byron refuses to be bound by notions of what's appropriate material for an African-American musician. The New York City native picked up the clarinet at age seven and started playing and writing arrangements for local salsa bands while studying classical music at the Music and Arts High School. After a year at the Manhattan School of Music he transferred to New England Conservatory, where he started combining elements of jazz, klezmer, Afro-Caribbean, and classical music.
After graduating he returned to New York and joined Hamiet Bluiett's group Clarinet Family, quickly establishing himself as one of the most adventurous and open-minded musicians on the scene. He formed important musical relationships with a diverse group of artists, including Latin jazz patriarch Mario Bauza, pianist Geri Allen, and tenor saxophonist David Murray. Most importantly, he formed a deep connection with guitarist Bill Frisell, with each musician performing on the other's albums.
With so few precedents for clarinet in contemporary jazz - the late John Carter, Marty Ehrlich, and Berkeley's Ben Goldberg are just about the only players with similar breadth - Byron has created his own sound, a beautiful, clear tone with a tight vibrato. His range and tonal pallet are breathtaking, and he infuses much of his work with the overt emotionalism of klezmer. Though his musical passions have always been eclectic, he traces his intellectual foundation back to his years at NEC. "I think that what I've been doing over the last few years is pretty much the agenda of the New England Conservatory's Third Stream Department," Byron says. "I think in lots of ways I'm supposed to be some kind of freak, but I'm just doing what that department seemed to stand for."
For his Healdsburg performance, Byron is focusing on material from his popular 1996 album Bug Music. Originally commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and produced in a two-week run on Broadway, Bug Music features works by three great Swing Era composers - Duke Ellington, Raymond Scott, and John Kirby. These classic tunes are paired with timeless 'toons from the 1940s heyday of Warner Bros., along with a wealth of other intriguing and historic visuals. Byron's Bug Music sextet features trumpeter Ron Miles, saxophonist Robert DeBellis, pianist George Colligan, bassist Mark Helias, and drummer Billy Hart.
More info:
www.donbyron.com
Don Byron on Wikipedia
Don Byron on AllMusic
Don Byron on All About Jazz
Tuesday, June 3
Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Ensemble
David Belove, Murray Low, Michael Spiro, Paul Van Wageningen, and special guest Melecio Magdaluyo
Pre-concert performance by Tacuma King and the Children's Percussion Workshop
Location: Healdsburg Plaza, Downtown Healdsburg
What's so impressive about Wayne Wallace isn't the many hats that he wears as a first-call trombonist, arranger, educator, composer and producer. No, what makes the San Francisco native such an essential component of the Bay Area jazz scene is that he wears a multitude of caps so stylishly. He's the kind of musician who rarely calls attention to himself, while contributing to everyone else's albums and projects. With credits that range from the Count Basie Orchestra and Benny Carter Big Band to Sonny Rollins and Earl "Fatha" Hines, Wallace has performed with many of the most significant musicians of the past century. And his work is hardly confined to the realm of jazz. He's also recorded with the likes of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and Earth, Wind and Fire. As both an improviser with a huge, beautifully burnished sound and a dependably creative arranger, Wallace has also been an essential element in several of the region's best Latin bands, including Pete Escovedo, John Santos and the Macheté Ensemble, Conjunto Cespedes, and Jesus Diaz y Su QBA.
His latest venture is also his most ambitious. In 2006 he launched Patois Records, a label dedicated to releasing the kind of global-minded, genre bending music that's been his stock in trade for the past two decades. He's already released two impressive CDs on Patois, Dedications and The Reckless Search For Beauty, and recently released a third, Infinity. For his Healdsburg performance, Wallace has distilled his working band into an all-star sextet steeped in Afro-Caribbean grooves, featuring the Bay Area's first-call Latin jazz players, including pianist Murray Low, bassist David Belove, percussionist Michael Spiro, drummer Paul Van Wageningen, and special guest Melecio Magdaluyo on reeds.
More info:
www.walacomusic.com
Wayne Wallace on MySpace
Wayne Wallace on AllMusic
Wayne Wallace on All About Jazz
Tacuma King and the Bay Area Youth Arts
Wednesday, June 4Healdsburg High School Jazz Band - Past and Present
With Sarah Wilson’s Trapeze Project with Myra Melford, Ben Goldberg, Matt Wilson, and Jerome Harris
Location: Raven Theater, 115 North Street, Healdsburg
Considering that about every jazz legend got his or her start in a high school band, we want to take an evening to celebrate the legacy of our local proving ground. Tonight's program showcases the musicians from the Healdsburg High School Jazz Band, featuring members past and present, including illustrious alumnus Sarah Wilson. The evening opens with a group performance by jazz band alumni, followed by the current HHS Jazz Band performing three pieces conducted by Randy Masselink and Khalil Shaheed. For their finale, the HHS Jazz Band performs Ricochet, a piece by Sarah Wilson, a trumpeter and vocalist who graduated from Healdsburg High School and the HHS Jazz Band in 1986, and has gone on to become a successful jazz musician and composer. Wilson closes the evening playing music from her Trapeze Project featuring a breathtaking ensemble of musicians who are all esteemed bandleaders and composers, including pianist Myra Melford, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, drummer Matt Wilson, and bassist/guitarist Jerome Harris. No doubt about it, Wilson knows how to come home in style.
Despite her experience in the Healdsburg High School Jazz Band, Wilson took an unusual route to a career in music. Her involvement with the trumpet lapsed during college, and after graduating from UC Berkeley in 1991, she moved to Vermont, where she spent two years with the acclaimed Bread & Puppet Theater. While she mostly worked as a puppeteer, the theater gave her the opportunity to get reacquainted with the horn. By the time she settled in New York in the summer of 1993, Wilson was practicing trumpet two hours a night, and started seriously exploring jazz. Wilson received a life-changing phone call in 1995 that led to a commission writing a score for the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival's annual giant-puppet production. "I had never written music so when I sat at the piano it was very intuitive," Wilson says. "I didn't really know anything about harmony or chords. I developed these melodic lines and these funky bass lines." She documented some of those translucent tunes on her beautiful 2006 CD, Scenes For An Imaginary Play (Evander). Since moving to Berkeley several years ago, she has continued to surround herself with brilliant improvisers, including clarinetist Ben Goldberg, guitarist John Schott, bassist Devin Hoff, and drummer Scott Amendola. Those musicians provided much of the inspiration for the new music she has composed for the Trapeze Project.
More info:
www.sarahwilsonmusic.com
The Music of Eric Dolphy
Featuring Bennie Maupin, James Newton, Jay Hoggard, Billy Hart, and Darek "Oles" Oleszkiewicz
Location: Raven Theater, 115 North Street, Healdsburg
Eric Dolphy, the visionary composer, altoist, flutist, and bass clarinetist, has now been gone longer than he stayed with us here on Earth, but his music remains a beacon for artists everywhere dedicated to the search for beauty. Dolphy's ecstatic sound, full of joyful peals, cascading squeals and exuberant cries, made him the ideal foil for John Coltrane, with whom he forged his deepest musical connection. As if leaving clues behind to help those following in his footsteps, he deposited a treasure trove of sheet music with his close friends Hale and Juanita Smith days before departing for Europe, where he passed away in 1964 at the age of 36. In marking the 80th anniversary of Dolphy's birth on June 28th, James Newton and Bennie Maupin are the first musicians to perform music from this remarkable archive. In addition to these newly discovered works, their Dolphyana ensemble has prepared a program of Dolphy's music ranging from his breakthrough post-bop work for Prestige to his masterpiece on Blue Note, Out To Lunch. Newton, jazz's most adventurous flutist, and Maupin, equally expressive on tenor and soprano saxophone, alto flute and bass clarinet, are joined in Dolphyana by a superlative cast, including vibraphonist Jay Hoggard, drummer Billy Hart, and bassist Darek "Oles" Oleszkiewicz. This is the band's debut performance.
"The concept of this ensemble is to respectfully perform Dolphy's music in a contemporary style that reflects the innovations that have occurred in the music since his passing," Newton says, "and to showcase the profundity of Eric Dolphy's contribution to the language of modern jazz. We're seeking to shed light on the composer who created a timeless language that has great relevance for the future of contemporary music."
A Los Angeles native, Dolphy first gained national attention in the band of Chico Hamilton in the late 50s, though he was already well established on the Southland's thriving jazz scene through his work with Gerald Wilson and Roy Porter. Moving to New York in 1959, Dolphy reunited with LA compatriot Charles Mingus, who featured him in his small combo and big band. Work with intellectual heavyweights such as Max Roach and George Russell followed. Dolphy recorded his first album as a leader in 1960 for Prestige, Outward Bound. It's a revelatory session featuring Freddie Hubbard, Jaki Byard, George Tucker, and Roy Haynes where you can hear Dolphy discovering a language beyond bebop, particularly when he trades his alto for the bass clarinet, an instrument that he single handedly transformed into an important jazz vehicle. By the end of the year, he had contributed to 18 records, including Ornette Coleman's seminal album Free Jazz. His most promising musical relationship was cut short by the devastating death of trumpeter Booker Little in 1961 at the age of 23, just months after their epochal Five Spot stand that led to three searing live albums with Mal Waldron, Richard Davis, and Eddie Blackwell.
Dolphy's ecstatic sound, full of joyful peals, cascading squeals and exuberant cries, made him the ideal foil for John Coltrane, with whom he forged his deepest musical connection. He wrote most of the arrangements for Trane's Africa/Brass album and joined Trane's band for about a year, including the long Village Vanguard stand that led to the classic live album (though most of Dolphy's contributions didn't surface until decades later in the box set The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings). Despite the exposure with Coltrane, Dolphy struggled to find work as a leader in the U.S., though he toured extensively in Europe. While he barely recorded under his own name from 1962-63, the two studio recordings from this period, Conversations and Iron Man, are essential, varied sessions that capture Dolphy surrounded by the emerging generation who had absorbed the new sound, including Bobby Hutcherson, Woody Shaw, Prince Lasha, and Sonny Simmons. Rejoining Mingus in 1964, Dolphy reached new heights of excitement and eloquence, as Mingus encouraged his ecstatic outpourings throughout the European tour documented on numerous posthumously released concert recordings.
No artist has done more to extend Dolphy's legacy on the bass clarinet than Bennie Maupin. He was already a rising tenor saxophone force who had broken in with Roy Haynes and Horace Silver when he added the rarely played reed to his performance arsenal. He made his recording debut on bass clarinet on Miles Davis's Bitches Brew, adding an essential element to the trumpeter's lean, sinuous fusion sound. And when Davis's concept embraced thicker textures and more intricate rhythmic patterns on Jack Johnson, Big Fun, and On the Corner, Maupin's reed work contributed greatly to the kinetic sonic matrix. He joined another brilliant aural adventurer as a member of Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi band, and stayed on board when Hancock changed directions with the Headhunters.
If Maupin was Dolphy's standard-bearer on the bass clarinet, James Newton has been his spiritual heir on flute. While his preeminence in jazz has led to an almost three-decade reign atop the Down Beat critics poll, the Los Angeles native transcends any singular music genre, composing for ballet and modern dance, chamber ensembles and symphonies, as well as jazz, electronic, and world music settings. UCLA recently hired him as a professor in the innovative ethnomusicology department. Over the years Newton has collaborated with a diverse array of organizations, from Mingus Dynasty and the New York New Music Ensemble to the New York Philharmonic, Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. It was during his five-year run as Musical Director/Conductor of the Luckman Jazz Orchestra at Cal State University, Los Angeles, that Newton first had the opportunity to work with Maupin. "We were doing a concert of Eric Dolphy's music, and Bennie was playing some stuff on the bass clarinet that was so profound I had to go grab a reed player's flute and we did a duet. A couple of days we started talking about this Dolphy project."
Dolphyana is the vehicle for a group of interconnected musicians ideally situated to explore Eric Dolphy's vast musical world. Maupin and drummer Billy Hart first played together in Mwandishi. Hart ranks among jazz's most respected accompanists, a player who unfailingly lifts and inspires his fellow improvisers. Hart's commitment to jazz as a perpetual search is a quality that he shares with Newton, who traces his musical relationship with Hart and vibraphonist Jay Hoggard back to 1979. Polish-born, L.A.-based bassist Darek "Oles" Oleszkiewicz is a regular member of Maupin's Penumbra. With each player reflecting part of Dolphy's far-reaching legacy, the project is a celebration of the man and the ways his boundless musical spirit continues to reverberate today.
More info:Eric Dolphy on Wikipedia
Eric Dolphy on AllMusic
Eric Dolphy on All About Jazz
www.jamesnewtonmusic.com
James Newton on Wikipedia
James Newton on AllMusic
James Newton on All About Jazz
Bennie Maupin on Wikipedia
Bennie Maupin on AllMusic
Bennie Maupin on All About Jazz
Saturday, June 7
"A Night In The Country"
Solo, Duos, Trios, and More
Charlie Haden and Kenny Barron
with special guests Joshua Redman and Ruth Cameron
Julian Lage Trio
with Ray Drummond and Billy Hart
Location: Raven Theater, 115 North Street, Healdsburg
With a series of solo, duo, trio and quartet settings, tonight's concert features a variety of intimate sonic encounters. Bassist Charlie Haden has been one of jazz's most consistently creative musicians since his groundbreaking work in Ornette Coleman's revolutionary free jazz quartet of the late '50s. In a generation rife with bassists commanding flawless technique, Haden stood out as a player capable of expressing the deepest of emotions with seemingly simple, harmonically open lines. Over the past 35 years, he's recorded numerous sessions, including a series of albums with his film noir-influenced Quartet West and politically engaged, avant-garde Liberation Music Orchestra.
He first documented his partnership with piano great Kenny Barron in 1998 on Night and the City (Verve), a gorgeous, haunting album that evokes the dark romanticism and knowing sensuality of a past era's downtown nightlife. "We have the same musical values," says Haden. "We both want to make beautiful music and we both want to create new music that's never been played before." One of jazz's most respected pianists, Barron has accompanied just about every major figure of the past four decades, from Dizzy Gillespie and Freddie Hubbard to James Moody and Stan Getz. His work as a bandleader has recently moved to the foreground with a series of enthralling albums for Enja and Verve.
Haden can claim almost familial ties with Joshua Redman, whose father, tenor titan Dewey Redman, played in the bassist's Liberation Music Orchestra. Dewey and Haden also shared bandstands with Ornette Coleman and spent years together in Keith Jarrett's hugely influential US quartet of the mid-1970s. Haden made a point of being present when Joshua emerged as a force in his own right, joining him on his first national tour, and performing on his 1993 Warner Bros. album Wish.
At twenty years of age, Julian Lage is an old hand at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival. The preternaturally talented Santa Rosa guitarist has performed every year since the second season (when he was 11!), and we've witnessed his rapid growth from astounding prodigy to seasoned improviser. Along the way, he's gained international attention for his work with his partner in prodigiousness, pianist Taylor Eigsti, and vibraphone great Gary Burton. Unfazed by sharing the stage with his musical heroes, he's performed with giants such as Herbie Hancock, Bobby Hutcherson, Carlos Santana, and has often encountered his heroes on stage here in Healdsburg.
Lage's rapid advancement as a musician can partially be explained by his parents' willingness to tailor his education around his musical aspirations. While he graduated from Maria Carrillo High School, he spent several years doing an independent study program at home, which allowed him to travel for gigs and devote more time to music. He's also studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Sonoma State University, the Ali Akbar College of Music in Marin and Berklee College of Music in Boston. Unfazed by sharing the stage with his musical heroes, he's performed with giants such as Herbie Hancock, Bobby Hutcherson, Carlos Santana, and has often encountered his heroes on stage at Healdsburg, like the time he sat in with Charles Lloyd, Billy Higgins, and John Abercrombie.
For a musician who's approach his career with due deliberation and a dogged refusal to be led astray by hype (he has yet to release an album under his own name, despite several offers from labels), it's interesting to note the role that media has played in Lage's life. He first gained attention outside the Bay Area with the release of Mark Becker's 1997 Academy Award nominated short documentary Jules at Eight, which captured Lage as a little boy with a big feeling for the blues. A brief television appearance led to his most consequential musical connection to date, when Gary Burton happened to see the 2000 Grammy telecast and spotted the 12-year-old Lage as he flashed briefly on screen for a solo with a youth combo assembled especially for the awards ceremony. "He had half a chorus on a blues, and then they moved quickly on," Burton says. "Just for that moment, when he was dead center in the screen and had a solo spot, something caught my eye, and I said, 'Well, that kid actually sounds like he has a great feel and knows what he's doing.'"
Several months later Burton tracked Lage down and found out that the 6th grader lived in Santa Rosa, and hired him for a gig in Monterey, an evening that culminated with Herbie Hancock joining Burton's band for a blazing romp through "A Night in Tunisia." Burton ended up building his Generations band around Lage, recording highly praised albums for Concord featuring five Lage compositions. It's not lost on Lage that he's taking over a seat previously occupied by some of jazz's most illustrious guitar slingers. "Growing up as a guitarist, I was constantly turned onto different guitar players, Larry Coryell, Pat Metheny, Mick Goodrick," Lage says. "Sure enough, all the ones I really loved were in Gary's band at one point or another."
For his ninth consecutive Healdsburg appearance, Lage couldn't be in better company. Bassist Ray "Bulldog" Drummond is an unflappable master, a tremendously swinging player whose resume includes stints just about every major jazz artist active in the past three decades. Billy Hart is a trap set poet, a supremely sensitive drummer who elevates every situation he encounters. Like Drummond, he's recorded a series of excellent albums as a leader, with credits too extensive to list, and we welcome him back to Healdsburg.
More info:www.charliehadenmusic.com
Charlie Haden on Wikipedia
Charlie Haden on AllMusic
Charlie Haden on All About Jazz
www.kennybarron.com
Kenny Barron on Wikipedia
Kenny Barron on AllMusic
Kenny Barron on All About Jazz
Joshua Redman on Wikipedia
Joshua Redman on AllMusic
Joshua Redman on All About Jazz
www.julianlage.com
Julian Lage on Wikipedia
Julian Lage on AllMusic
Julian Lage on All About Jazz
Sunday, June 8
"Come Sunday" Spirituals and Sacred Jazz Compositions
Music Director James Newton with George Cables and Ruth Naomi Floyd
Location: Raven Theater, 115 North Street, Healdsburg
Let us gather together to praise the spirit. Whatever faith you may or may not subscribe to, there will be an abundance of inspiration with the bountifully blessed pianist George Cables accompanying Ruth Naomi Floyd, world famous jazz singer of sacred music, dedicated to celebrating the soul through song. With flute master James Newton serving as musical director, Cables and Floyd will be joined in musical celebration by musicians featured throughout the Festival. A creatively ambitious performer with a lush, soaring mezzo-soprano, Floyd has recorded a series of CDs filled with praise and glory, such as her 2006 concept album Root to the Fruit, which illustrates the historical nexus between the origins of African American faith and jazz. Based in Philadelphia, she is also a noted music educator and activist dedicated to providing care and spiritual support to people affected by HIV and AIDS.
The presence of George Cables at the Festival is reason enough to offer praise. Since undergoing a kidney and liver transplant last October, he's been off the scene entirely, and his performance with Floyd is one of his first in public since the transplant, giving us all the more reason to celebrate. During his recovery, Cables received an outpouring of love and support from his colleagues and fans. A series of benefit concerts, including a sold-out Yoshi's event organized by Jessica Felix, made it clear to Cables how much his music has meant to people. "I've been really fortunate, getting lots of calls and support from friends and people I don't know," Cables says. "This kind of thing makes you more serious about waking up, opening your eyes and making use of the time."
The beloved pianist has been a Healdsburg mainstay since the beginning, and last year the Festival celebrated his spirit and music. Cables has been at the forefront of the jazz's progressive mainstream for almost 40 years. Though based in his hometown New York City since 1989, he forged particularly strong ties with the Bay Area as the house pianist at Keystone Korner during the North Beach club's heyday in the 1970s. While living in L.A., where he collaborated widely with resurgent altoist Art Pepper, Cables spent so much time at Keystone that many people assumed he lived in San Francisco. His tenure at the club was immortalized in a three-volume live Blue Note recording, Nights at the Keystone, that captured Cables accompanying tenor great Dexter Gordon.
More info:www.georgecables.com
George Cables on Wikipedia
George Cables on AllMusic
George Cables on All About Jazz
www.ruthnaomifloyd.com
Ruth Naomi Floyd on AllMusic
Ruth Naomi Floyd on All About Jazz
Ruth Naomi Floyd on MySpace
Festival Grand Finale
Sunday, June 8
Cedar Walton Trio
with David Williams and Lewis Nash
Bobby Hutcherson Quartet
with Renee Rosnes, Ray Drummond, and Victor Lewis
Festival Grand Finale All-Star Alumni Band
with Bobby Watson, Craig Handy, Mary Stallings and many Festival Favorites!
Produced in association with Jill Newman Productions
Location: Rodney Strong Vineyards, 11455 Old Redwood Highway, Healdsburg
Sometimes jazz doesn't need to surprise in order to delight. Over the course of five decades, jazz fans have come to expect scintillating keyboard work from pianist Cedar Walton. A supremely graceful improviser and composer of nearly a dozen jazz standards, Walton is a bona fide member of the jazz elite, a player whose irrepressible sense of swing has helped define bebop-inspired jazz for several generations. Coming of age in the late 1940s, he was witness as the cutting edge of jazz moved from big bands to small combos. By the end of the 1950s, he was one of modern jazz's most respected young lions, and his participaton on John Coltrane's seminal 1960 Giant Steps put him at the top.
Over the years, Walton has recorded more than 60 albums under his own name, most recently for HighNote Records, and appeared as an accompanist on several hundred more. For his Healdsburg performance, Walton is joined by his longtime bassist, the redoubtable David Williams, and Lewis Nash, whose taste, musicality and compact power has made him one of New York's busiest drummers.
A master vibes player, Bobby Hutcherson belongs to one of the more exclusive clubs in jazz. Widely recognized as one of the most creative musicians ever to pick up a pair of mallets, the 67-year-old Hutcherson has attained his rarefied status by developing an individual voice as both a player and composer, despite his instrument's idiosyncrasies. "When you play an instrument where you just hit the note, it's really hard to get that human feeling and make the note breathe when it's being attacked," Hutcherson says.
During the 15 years Hutcherson was associated with Blue Note he produced a series of classic albums. His latest CD, For Sentimental Reasons on the new label Kind of Blue, is an exquisite quartet session featuring pianist Renee Rosnes, an intrepid improviser who has played extensively with Hutcherson. Veteran bassist Ray Drummond, whose notes are so plump and thick they seem to bounce off the bandstand, and powerhouse drummer Victor Lewis round out the rhythm section. Lewis combines power and finesse on the trap set with a gift for crafting memorable compositions.
As traditions go, it's hard to beat closing an event with fireworks, and with the combustible players of the All Star Alumni Band there will be no shortage of pyrotechnics. With his plush, searing tone and fluid delivery, altoist Bobby Watson is an emotionally dynamic player and a fine composer. Berkeley-raised Craig Handy is a confident tenor sax player with a big, burly sound who served as music director of the acclaimed Mingus Big Band.
Soul is a quality that can't be bought or borrowed, faked or sold, which explains why Mary Stallings has emerged as one of the most expressive and compelling jazz singers on the scene. Though her discography has never kept pace with her consummate artistry, the San Francisco native has always won admirers among fans like Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, and Count Basie, with all of whom she has toured widely.
Don't be surprised if many of the musicians featured throughout the Festival's full 10 days will be on hand to join the joyful conflagration of our grand finale, as we conclude our first decade and set the scene for our second.
More info:
Cedar Walton on MySpace
Cedar Walton on Wikipedia
Cedar Walton on AllMusic
Cedar Walton on All About Jazz
Bobby Hutcherson on Wikipedia
Bobby Hutcherson on AllMusic
Bobby Hutcherson on All About Jazz
www.bobbywatson.com
Bobby Watson on Wikipedia
Bobby Watson on AllMusic
Bobby Watson on All About Jazz
Craig Handy on Wikipedia
Craig Handy on AllMusic
Craig Handy on All About Jazz
Mary Stallings on MaxJazz
Mary Stallings on Wikipedia
Mary Stallings on AllMusic
Mary Stallings on All About Jazz