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| Impressions In Jazz: two extraordinary concerts In February 2006 the Impressions In Jazz series will celebrate Black History Month with two extraordinary and unique concerts. The jazz repertory concert series produced and presented by Ottawa bassist Adrian Cho has created a buzz since its launch in 2005. The series' inaugural concert The Magic of Miles Davis at the National Arts Centre Fourth Stage, was a sellout success. That success led to an invitation to play in the prestigious Connoisseur series at the 25th Ottawa International Jazz Festival. Both of these events were highly praised by both critics and audiences. The series' two-part Black History Month celebration will offer something for everyone with both vocal and instrumental music, small group performances, and symphonic jazz works never heard before in Canada. As with all concerts in this series, the goal is to educate as much as to entertain. The two concerts will feature unique collaborations of forty jazz and symphony orchestra musicians from Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto. The performances will be the culmination of over eighteen months of research and preparation. On Thursday, February 23rd the series will return to the intimate setting of the National Arts Centre Fourth Stage. Voices In A Strange Land will celebrate the African-American/Canadian experience with an eclectic collection of vocal music including Negro Spirituals and songs from gospel, jazz, musical theatre, and opera, original music composed specially for the show, and selections from Joe Sealy's Juno award-winning Africville Suite. The programme will include both a musical recounting of the journey from Africa to the New World as well as tributes to African-American performers and composers of 20th century popular music with a focus on jazz and musical theatre. The event will feature a unique collaboration of two vocal soloists. Acclaimed Broadway performer and opera soloist Marcus Nance is an African-American bass-baritone now residing in Toronto. He has been a featured soloist with opera companies and orchestras throughout North America. Nance is also very active in musical theatre and has sung the gamut of black musical theatre roles. Last season he appeared in the Baz Luhrman production of La Bohème on Broadway. Anna S. Williams is an acclaimed jazz vocalist and recording artist based in Ottawa. She was born in Sierra Leone and moved to Canada after being raised in England. Williams is an active performer in Ottawa and acknowledged as one of the city's finest jazz vocalists. Odyssey, her recent debut CD reflects the influence of her birthplace and has been met with glowing praise. Nance and Williams will sing both solos and duets accompanied by a quartet led by Cho and featuring Montreal pianist Holly Arsenault, Montreal saxophonist Chet Doxas (who will also play flute and clarinet), and Ottawa percussionist and drummer Mark Rehder. Cho and Rehder will also make vocal contributions to the programme along with Committed Praise, a nine-voice gospel choir. The quartet will be supplemented with a number of special guests throughout the night including Ottawa guitarist Vince Halfhide and a horn section with Rick Rangno (trumpet), Sandy Gordon (alto saxophone), and Maurice Wozniak (trombone). Concert attendees will receive in-depth programme notes containing background information and musical analyses. On Saturday, February 25th the series will debut at Dominion-Chalmers United Church. Suite Freedom will celebrate the passion and intensity of jazz inspired by the Civil Rights Movement with a focus on instrumental works. The first half of the programme will feature small group jazz of the 1960s and 70s. Ensembles ranging in size from a trio to an octet will play seminal compositional commentaries on Civil Rights including works composed by John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, and Charles Mingus. The second half of the programme will feature three symphonic jazz works being played in Canada for the first time with ensembles conducted by Cho: John Coltrane's powerful five-movement Africa/Brass suite played with recreations of Eric Dolphy's arrangements as recorded in 1961. Featuring a quartet with five different saxophone soloists, and a fifteen-piece brass and reed orchestra with such unique instrumentation as multiple French horns, bass clarinets, double basses, and tubas. Duke Ellington's landmark six-movement "Liberian Suite" performed by a twenty-one-piece orchestra. First performed in 1947 at Carnegie Hall, this rarely performed, colourful and dramatic work was commissioned by the government of Liberia to commemorate Liberia's centennial. Among the many solo features in this work are those for baritone voice, vibraphone, violin, and timpani. Suite Freedom will feature an all-star lineup of twenty-five jazz and symphony orchestra musicians from Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal. Guest artists include Ottawa percussionist Alvaro de Minaya Yáñez and violinist Laura Nerenberg, Toronto pianist Richard Whiteman and vocalist Marcus Nance, and Montreal saxophone player André Leroux. The complete lineup also features a bewildering array of some of Ottawa's finest jazz and symphony orchestra musicians. Contributors to the in-depth programme notes will include Prof. Andrew Homzy from Concordia University and Rev. Deborah Ann Taylor from Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in Ottawa. Homzy is one of the world's leading authorities and researchers as well as an active performer of the music of Ellington and Mingus. Taylor, who immigrated to Canada in 2002, is an American Lutheran pastor with twenty years experience in multi-cultural ministry and anti-racism work. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Jazz News :: home page |