New York, NY– City Parks Foundation is proud to announce the
2016 Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. The festival is New York City's annual
salute to the legendary saxophonist, featuring contemporaries of Charlie Parker
as well as young jazz musicians that continue to shape and drive the art form.
In a world of modern music - not just jazz - few figures
loom as large or cast as long a shadow as saxophonist Charlie Parker, best
known as "Bird" (short for "Yardbird") to generations of
musicians. He was born in 1920 and almost sixty years since his death in 1955,
he is universally celebrated for single-handedly inventing bebop and bringing
jazz into the modern era.
The festival is particularly significant this year given the
upcoming centennial of the musical dawning of the term “jazz,” as well as what
would have been the 100th birthdays of late jazz greats including Dizzy
Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Ella Fitzgerald. This year’s festival will
feature performances on August 26 and 27 in Marcus Garvey Park, Harlem and
August 28 in Tompkins Square Park in the East Village.
On the 26th, audiences can enjoy performances from Jason
Lindner: Breeding Ground, the electrifying 11-piece band led by keyboardist
Jason Lindner and jazz vocalist Antoinette Montague, accompanied by Jazzmobile
friends.
Randy Weston African Rhythms Sextet will play jazz infused
with influences of African culture, while jazz pianist and gospel musician Cory
Henry will wow audiences with his full band sound on the 27th.
August 28th, audiences will be introduced to DeJohnette -
Moran - Holland, the first-time collaboration of influential jazz drummer Jack
DeJohnette, innovative pianist Jason Moran, and prolific double bassist Dave
Holland. Listeners will be delighted by performances from award winning jazz
vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Allan Harris and acclaimed saxophonist
Donny McCaslin, who will perform his newest album accompanied by his group.
New this year, the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival will feature
film screenings at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music’s Jazz
Performance Space. “The Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story,” will show
on August 24th and feature a post-film discussion with alto sax star and
Frank’s protege Grace Kelly, and Frank’s manager Reggie Marshall. “Bill Evans:
Time Remembered” will be screened on the 25th,featuring a post-film discussion
with the producer Bruce Spiegel.
The complete Charlie Parker Jazz Festival schedule follows
or can be found on the City Parks Foundation website here: Charlie Parker Jazz
Festival
Artist Information
Wednesday, August 24
Screening: The Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story
The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music’s Jazz
Performance Space, MN
7:30 PM – 9:30 PM
Post-film discussion alto sax star and Frank’s protege Grace
Kelly, and Frank’s manager Reggie Marshall.
In the new documentary, SOUND OF REDEMPTION: THE FRANK
MORGAN STORY, director NC Heikin recreates the life of Frank Morgan in concert
form, tracing his progress from teenage musical prodigy to hardcore junkie and,
finally, to one of the music world’s most remarkable comeback stories. A
one-night-only, all-star musical tribute filmed live at San Quentin forms the
backbone of a film that brings together the past, present and future of
Morgan’s musical legacy. Moving seamlessly between the thrilling live
performance and the riveting true story of a musician whose talent first
destroyed and then redeemed him, the award-winning filmmaker paints a searingly
honest portrait of a prodigiously gifted, tragically flawed musical genius.
RSVP Required, CharlieParker@CityParksFoundation.org.
Thursday, August 25
Screening: Bill Evans: Time Remembered
The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music’s Jazz
Performance Space, MN
7:30 PM – 9:30 PM
Post-film discussion with the producer Bruce Spiegel.
Bruce Spiegel has produced a complete documentary giving you
insights into Bill Evans; not just the musician, but also the person. The film
moves chronologically starting with Bill’s childhood in New Jersey and
culminating with details about his death. “The film Bill Evans, Time Remembered
took me 8 years to make. Eight years of tracking down anybody who knew Bill and
who played with him, to try and find out as much as I could about the illusive
and not easy to understand Bill Evans. I feel very honored to have had the
chance to interview and get to know good guys that spent a lot of time with
Bill: Billy Taylor, Gene Lees, Tony Bennett, Jack DeJohnette, Jon Hendricks,
Jim Hall, Bobby Brookmeyer, Chuck Israels, Paul Motian, Gary Peacock, Joe
LaBarbera. It was a once in a life time experience talking to these gifted
talented guys about their time in jazz music, about their “Time Remembered“
with Bill Evans. – Bruce Spiegel” RSVP Required,
CharlieParker@CityParksFoundation.org.
Friday, August 26
Jason Lindner: Breeding Ground / Antoinette Montague and
Jazzmobile Friends / DJ Greg Caz
Marcus Garvey Park, MN
6:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Breeding Ground combines the two most successful projects of
New York-bred pianist Jason Lindner: Now Vs. Now, his propulsive groove trio
with bassist Panagiotis Andreou and drummer Mark Guiliana; and his big band,
which started at the Greenwich Village basement club Smalls twenty years ago.
Created in 2009 by a commission from the Jazz Gallery and the Jerome
Foundation, the 11-piece Breeding Ground ensemble finds Andreou and Guiliana in
the engine room, with Lindner on more piano than synths, leaving room for a
string section, a horn section, and singer-songwriter Jeff Taylor as the
featured vocalist. Electro-acoustic, poly-rhythmic, cross-pollinated, dirty and
mixed up, improvised and composed, multi-formatted and ever shifting, Breeding
Ground is the epitome of liquid modernity. Their debut full-length album will
be released in 2016.
Born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, Antoinette Montague
grew up listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. “I was singing and
humming from an early age. It was how I created my own private, comforting
world.” Early in her career she was mentored by vocalists Etta Jones and Carrie
Smith, and you can often hear their influences when she takes to the bandstand.
Montague has performed onstage with many top jazz and blues musicians including
Red Holloway, Benny Powell, Earl May, Winard Harper, Wycliffe Gordon, Stan
Hope, John di Martino, Bernard Purdy, Victor Jones, Tootsie Bean, Zeke Mullins,
Paul Bollenback, Frank Wess, and others. Headlining her own gigs, Antoinette
has performed on the Jazzmobile stage in Harlem, Birdland, Jazz at Lincoln
Center’s Dizzy’s Club-Coca Cola, Kitano Jazz, the Blue Note, Jazz Standard
clubs and concert halls in Russia and more. Antoinette’s album, Behind The
Smile features a diverse repertoire of standards and originals including
“What’s Going On,” “The Song Is You,” “Get Ready,” “Somewhere In The Night” as
well the vocalist/composer’s original title song “Behind The Smile.” Her latest
album is World Peace in the Key of Jazz!
DJ Greg Caz has been spinning around New York since the
early 1990s. He made a name for himself during his long stint at Black Betty
(R.I.P.) in Williamsburg, where he co-hosted Brazilian Beat Sundays – a raucous
DJ night of 1970s Brazilian dance music that inspired two mix CDs, Baile Funk,
Vols. 1 & 2. Caz caught the "sweet sickness” of record collecting at a
young age and owns crates and crates of funk, soul, rare grooves, reggae, jazz,
golden-era hip hop, Latin music, ’70s soft rock and African music. He has long
been a resident DJ at Nublu in the East Village, and recently provided lyric
translations for the reissue of four Marcos Valle albums on Light in the Attic
records. He has appeared in London, Brazil, Germany, Austria, Scotland,
Ireland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, Chicago, Montreal and
elsewhere.
Saturday, August 27
Randy Weston African Rhythms Sextet / Cory Henry & The
Funk Apostles / The Artistry of
Jazzmeia Horn / Charles Turner III / Master Class: Samuel
Coleman
Marcus Garvey Park, MN
3:00 PM – 7:00 PM
2:00 PM - Master Class
Randy Weston received a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship for Music
Composition that enabled him to compose An African Nubian Suite, a major new
work for jazz orchestra. The piece is based on his lifelong research on and
interest in the culture, heritage and music of Africa. Weston notes: " An
African Nubian Suite is a testament to the profound effect my African heritage
has had on my life. I hope it will also be my message to others to help them
know and feel proud of this heritage, that when I play the work, our common
heritage will touch and inspire my audience. It is a labor of love to the
culture, the people and the music that has so inspired and informed my
life." In 2014, Randy Weston received a Doris Duke Artist Award. This will
allow him to compose a new work, Seven African Queens, and travel to Morocco to
document the traditional music of the Gnawa.
You might know Cory Henry as an in-demand,
multi-instrumentalist and producer who’s worked with an array of musical
legends across genres, including Yolanda Adams, Sara Bareilles, P. Diddy, Kirk
Franklin, Kenny Garrett, Robert Glasper, Derrick Hodge, Shaun Kingston, Donald
Lawrence, Michael McDonald, Boyz II Men, NAS, Bruce Springsteen, The Roots and
as a member of the Grammy Award-winning collective Snarky Puppy. But, The
Revival, (GroundUP Music/Universal Music Classics), Henry's latest release and
touring project, is truly his story: a live album and DVD showcasing Henry’s
deep musical roots, both in the church and outside of it. Filmed and recorded
in Brooklyn at the Greater Temple of Praise, The Revival showcases Henry’s
musical roots in gospel, jazz and soul. As the Kansas City Star writes,
"His performances combine the celebratory aspects of neon-lit Saturday
nights with reverent praise-filled Sunday mornings." Working off his
instrument of choice — the Hammond B-3 organ — the musician is joined by drummer
James Williams and his godfather, Bishop Jeffrey White, who delivers a stunning
vocal take on “Old Rugged Cross.” Whereas The Revival is a tribute to his first
love, the Hammond organ, and a showcase for his exceptional talents on the
instrument, his upcoming album with The Funk Apostles will feature a full band
sound – forged by nearly 100 shows over the last year. It is a synthesis of
Henry’s many influences – Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Prince, Herbie Hancock,
Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, James Brown. Henry will be taking a classic sound
into the here and now. As Henry says, “my way, my take.”
Winner of the 2015 Thelonious Monk International Vocal Jazz
Competition and 2013 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition,
Jazzmeia Horn has a name that speaks for itself capturing her very essence.
Hailing from the great Dallas, Texas Jazzmeia has already earned a reputation
in New York as a “Rising Star.” With the ambition to pursue a solo career,
Jazzmeia graced the New York scene in 2009 and earned her degree at The New
School for Jazz and contemporary Music. It wasn’t much later when she began to
perform as a sideman with musicians Winard Harper, Junior Mance, Billy Harper,
Lincoln Center Alumni Vincent Gardner, Delfeayo Marsalis, Mike LeDonne, Peter
Bernstein, Johnny O’Neal, Vincent Herring, Kirk Lightsey, Frank Wess, and Ellis
Marsalis. Her accolades include Downbeat Student Music Award Recipient 2008,
2009, and Best Vocal Jazz Soloist Winner 2010, The 2013 Betty Carter Jazz Ahead
Program at The Kennedy Center Washington D.C., The Rising Star Award for the
2012 Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Jazz Competition, Finalist for
Mid-Atlantic Jazz Vocal Competition 2014, and The 2015 16th Annual Central
Brooklyn Jazz Consortium’s Young Lioness Award. Currently, Jazzmeia is a
teaching artist in The NJPAC Wells Fargo Jazz for Teens Program and Jazz In
The Schools Program in Newark, New Jersey. She appears in various clubs on the
jazz scene nationally and internationally leading her dynamic group “The
Artistry of Jazz Horn,” which includes pianist, bassist, drummer, saxophonist,
poet, dancer and herself as vocalist.
The First Winner of the Annual Duke Ellington Vocal
Competition in New York City, hosted by Mercedes Ellington, 27 year old Charles
Turner has taken the jazz scene by storm. Charles relocated to New York in
2011, and has performed in venues such as Smoke Jazz and Supper Club, Birdland,
Ginny's Supper Club, Smalls, Minton's in Harlem, and Gin Fiz, where he performs
every Thursday with Marc Cary and the Focus Trio. The Charles Turner Quartet
has performed at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center for the
Generations in Jazz festival for 2 consecutive years. Charles released his
debut album Dreamers, produced by Grammy Award-winning drummer Ulysses Owens at
Jazz at Lincoln Center in March 2014. In 2013, Charles was invited to
participate in the prestigious Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead program, where he
worked with Jason Moran, Craig Handy, Marc Cary, and performed at the Kennedy
Center. He also won Best Jazz Vocalist awards at the Monterey Jazz Festival,
and was a finalist at the esteemed Shure Montreux jazz festival Vocal
Competition. Charles graduated from the prestigious Berklee College of Music in
Boston, MA on a full scholarship. During his time there, he had the wonderful
opportunity to study and perform with Grammy Award–winning drummer and educator
Terri Lyne Carrington, Dave Samuels, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Joanne Brackeen.
Samuel Coleman is an Alvin Ailey School trained dancer and
teacher versed in Ballet, Modern, Jazz, African, Hip Hop and House techniques,
with a special love for Lindy Hop. Coleman was the 1st Place Winner of the 2015
Midsummer Night Swing Lindy Hop Dance Contest at Lincoln Center and was a 2011
Frankie Manning Ambassador scholarship recipient. Coleman currently performs
with the Big Apple Lindy Hoppers and the Rhythm Stompers, and teaches weekly
classes in Harlem and at Swing 46 Jazz and Supper Club.
Sunday, August 28
DeJohnette - Holland - Moran / Allan Harris / Donny McCaslin
Group / Grace Kelly
Tompkins Square Park, MN
3:00 PM – 7:00 PM
In a career that spans five decades and includes
collaborations with some of the most iconic figures in modern jazz, NEA Jazz
Master and Grammy Award winner Jack DeJohnette has established an unchallenged
reputation as one of the greatest drummers in the history of the genre. The
list of creative associations throughout his career is lengthy and diverse:
John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk,
Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Keith Jarrett, Chet Baker, George Benson, Stanley
Turrentine, Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland, Joe Henderson, Freddy Hubbard, Betty
Carter and so many more. Along the way, he has developed a versatility that
allows room for hard bop, R&B, world music, avant-garde, and just about
every other style to emerge in the past half-century.
From his beginnings with Miles Davis to his celebrated
ensembles of today, Grammy Award winning bassist Dave Holland has one of the
most enduring legacies in jazz. The Boston Globe praises Holland as “a master
bassist and bandleader, one of the most sophisticated composers and arrangers
in the jazz world.” Holland’s astounding succession of innovative recordings
have consistently garnered the highest acclaim over the years. Following recent
tours with his own quintet, big band, and a duo with pianist Kenny Barron,
Holland goes electric with his latest groundbreaking project: PRISM, featuring
Kevin Eubanks, Craig Taborn, and Eric Harland. The group’s debut record,
released on September 3, 2013, according to Jazzwise Magazine is Holland’s
“…most visceral recording for many years, recalling the uncompromising
onslaught of his work with Miles [Davis] in 1970, and his own Extensions band
in the late 1980s.”
Pianist and composer Jason Moran has established himself as
a risk-taker and innovator of new directions for jazz as a whole. For more than
a decade, Moran and his trio The Bandwagon have dazzled audiences at elite venues
worldwide, including the Village Vanguard in New York, the Newport Jazz
Festival, and the North Sea Jazz Festival. A recipient of the prestigious
MacArthur Fellowship and winner in DownBeat’s 2011 Critics Poll for Jazz Artist
of the Year, Jazz Album of the Year, and winner in both 2011 and 2013 for
Pianist of the Year, Moran is “a startlingly gifted pianist with a relentless
thirst for experimentation” (The Los Angeles Times). In his recently conceived
Fats Waller Dance Party, Moran presents a contemporary celebration of Waller,
revisiting his legendary sound and deftly showing how Harlem stride piano
resonates today. The rapturous performance played four consecutive sold-out
nights at Harlem Stage for its 2011 world premiere. Jason released a recording
of the music, All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller, on Blue Note on
September 16, 2014.
Brooklyn-born, Harlem-based
vocalist/guitarist/bandleader/composer Allan Harris has reigned supreme as one
of the most accomplished and exceptional singers of his generation. The ample
and aural evidence of Harris’ multifaceted talent can be heard on his ten
recordings as a leader; his far-flung and critically-acclaimed concerts around
the world, from Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, and Washington DC’s Kennedy
Center, to the 2012 London Olympics, and a number of prestigious bookings in
Europe, The Middle East and Asia, and his numerous awards, which include the
New York Nightlife Award for “Outstanding Jazz Vocalist” – which he won three
times – the Backstage Bistro Award for “Ongoing Achievement in Jazz,” and the
Harlem Speaks “Jazz Museum of Harlem Award.” Harris is a first call vocalist
(especially back in Harlem), as evidenced by his potpourri of engagements,
including an impressive run as a featured soloist and producer of Sotheby’s
three-year jazz series. His commitment to education is as equally impressive as
his recordings and engagements. A Gibson guitarist, Harris is a long-time
supporter of the St. Mary’s Children’s Hospital, and donates a performance
every year to Challenge Aspen/America, along with Vince Gill and Amy Grant. All
of which brings us to Black Bar Jukebox: a diverse and dynamic disc that
showcases Allan Harris at the zenith of his all-encompassing artistry. “I’m a
storyteller through the genre of jazz,” concludes Harris.
Acclaimed saxophonist Donny McCaslin takes a bold leap
forward with his tenth album as a leader, Casting for Gravity. McCaslin’s
gargantuan tenor sound finds an ideal setting to rampage through in the
ferocious grooves and electronic textures of keyboardist Jason Lindner, bassist
Tim Lefebvre, and drummer Mark Guiliana. Couching his trademark gift for brawny
melodies in lurching dub rhythms, swirling electronica-inspired atmospheres,
and arena-rock power, McCaslin has crafted a game-changer of an album, fusing a
wealth of forward-looking influences into one wholly new modern jazz sound.
Casting for Gravity follows on the heels of 2011’s highly acclaimed Perpetual
Motion, which found McCaslin experimenting for the first time with merging his
hard-charging acoustic sound with more funk-inflected electrified elements. But
where that album was a blistering electroacoustic hybrid, Casting for Gravity
soars past fusion into alchemy, forging a visionary voice from eclectic influences.
“I wanted to make a bigger record with more sonic layers,” McCaslin explains.
“I wanted to go a lot deeper into the electronic realm and push myself harder.”
The effort paid off, with an album that truly breaks new ground not just for
McCaslin but for integrating modern musical genres seamlessly into
envelope-pushing jazz. The saxophonist has long been one of the music’s most
striking voices, leading to long-running collaborations with innovators like
Dave Douglas and Maria Schneider. His own solo work has been marked by a
restless exploration that is only accelerated with this latest release.
East Coast born and bred saxophonist, singer, and songwriter
Grace Kelly recorded her first album at 12 years old. Grace, now 23, has been
voted seven- times to the Downbeat Critics Poll, five-time winner of ASCAP
Composers Award, and headlined more than 700 shows in over 30 countries. A
regular performer with Jon Batiste’s Stay Human on The Late Show with Stephen
Colbert and a go-to artist for jazz festivals across the globe, Kelly is
featured in the newest season of the Emmy-nominated Amazon Prime series, Bosch.
She has been featured in Vanity Fair, Glamour Magazine, Billboard, NPR and CNN
among others.
