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| 2008 Caramoor Jazz Festival The 2008 Caramoor International Music Festival, hailed by The New York Times as “...the loveliest Festival of them all," presents a weekend of jazz on August 1, 2 and 3. The legendary pianist, Ahmad Jamal and his Trio were chosen by Jim Luce, Caramoor's jazz producer, to open the fifteenth annual International Jazz Festival. Other highlights include performances by the Ahmad Jamal Trio, Mulgrew Miller's Wingspan, Jimmy Heath Big Band, Michel Camilo Trio, pianist Aaron Diehl, and Wynton Marslis. The Festival's emphasis on Latin Jazz as part of Sonidos Latinos, Caramoor's Latin-American Music Initiative, continues with a Cuban Piano Summit featuring Elio Villafranca and Chuchito Valdes. The innovative and delightfully surprising improvisations heard in the intimate Spanish Courtyard show why Caramoor is the perfect environment for summertime jazz. ARTISTS Westchester resident Michel Camilo is a native of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He studied for 13 years at the National Conservatory, and at the age of 16 became a member of the National Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic (NSODR). He moved to New York in 1979, where he studied at Mannes College and The Juilliard School. In addition to an extensive touring schedule, Mr. Camilo, an accomplished composer, has had his works recorded by by Paquito D'Rivera and the Manhattan Transfer. The latter won a Grammy Award in 1983 for their vocal version of his composition Why Not! Mr. Camilo made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1985 with his trio and toured Europe that same year. His frequent collaborations with Flamenco guitarist Tomatito, led to them to winning a Latin Grammy Award in 2000 for their album Spain. Mr. Camilo is featured among the artists in Calle 54, a film about Latin jazz by Academy Award-winning director Fernando Trueba. His Classical CD for DECCA features him with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin performing his Concerto for Piano & Orchestra and his Suite for Piano, Strings & Harp. Aaron Diehl grew up playing classical piano and segued to jazz. While in Columbus, Ohio he performed with the Columbus Youth Jazz Orchestra, and while completing his junior year at Saint Charles Preparatory School, was named an Outstanding Soloist at the 2002 Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition, sponsored by Jazz at Lincoln Center. Diehl was recently featured in The Juilliard School: A Life of Pain and Joy, a retrospective on the school's 100th anniversary. His recent trio album entitled Mozart Jazz, combines classical favorites with a delightful jazz flair. Paquito D'Rivera, a child prodigy in his native Cuba, played both clarinet and saxophone with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra. He created various musical ensembles as a teenager, including the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, and was a founding member and co-director of the innovative musical ensemble Irakere. With its explosive mixture of jazz, rock, classical and traditional Cuban music, Irakere toured extensively throughout America and Europe and won a Grammy Award in 1979, the first of nine for D'Rivera, who received his first Grammy as a solo artist in 1996 for the highly acclaimed Portraits of Cuba and his ninth Grammy for Best Classical Recording for Riberas with the Buenos Aires String Quartet. His composition Merengue performed by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, also won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition in 2005. While his discography includes over 30 solo albums in jazz, bebop and Latin music, he has also made numerous contributions to classical music as a soloist and composer. In 2005 he was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master and also received the National Medal for the Arts from President George W. Bush at the White House. Dizzy Gillespie said, “If you know Jimmy Heath, you know Bop." Heath has long been recognized as a brilliant instrumentalist, a magnificent composer, and arranger. He is the middle brother of the legendary Heath Brothers (bassist Percy and drummer Tootie), and is the father of Mtume. He has performed with nearly every jazz great of the last 50 years, from Howard McGhee, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis to Wynton Marsalis. In 1948, at the age of 21, he performed in the First International Jazz Festival in Paris, sharing the stage with McGhee, Coleman Hawkins, Slam Stewart, and Erroll Garner. One of Heath's earliest big bands (1947-1948) in Philadelphia included John Coltrane, Benny Golson, Specs Wright, Cal Massey, Johnny Coles, Ray Bryant, and Nelson Boyd. Charlie Parker and Max Roach sat in on one occasion. During his career, Jimmy Heath has performed on more than 100 record albums including seven with The Heath Brothers and twelve as a leader. He has also written more than 125 compositions, many of which have become jazz standards and have been recorded by artists such as Art Farmer, Cannonball Adderley, Clark Terry, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, James Moody, Milt Jackson, Ahmad Jamal, Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, J.J Johnson and Dexter Gordon. He has also composed extended works - seven suites and two string quartets - and he premiered his first symphonic work, “Three Ears," in 1988 at Queens College (CUNY) with Maurice Peress conducting. Critic Stanley Crouch likens Ahmad Jamal's impact on the fresh form in jazz to “Jelly Roll Morton, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Count Basie, Theolonius Monk, Horace Silver and John Lewis, all thinkers whose wrestling with form and content influenced the shape and texture of the music, and whose ensembles were models of their music visions." Considering his trio “an orchestra," Mr. Jamal not only achieves a unified sound, but subtly inserts independent roles for the bass and drums. The hallmarks of Mr. Jamal's style are rhythmic innovations, colorful harmonic perceptions, especially left hand harmonic and melodic figures, plus parallel and contrary motion lines in and out of chordal substitutions and alterations and pedal-point ostinato interludes in tasteful dynamics. He also incorporates a unique sense of space in his music, allowing his musical concepts to hold excitement without being loud in volume. With these unique principals, Mr. Jamal impressed and influenced, among others, trumpeter Miles Davis. Like Louis Armstrong, Mr. Jamal is an exemplary ensemble player - listening while playing and responding, thus inspiring his musicians to surpass themselves. Grammy Award-winner Wynton Marsalis has been described as the most outstanding jazz musician and trumpeter of his generation, as one of the world's top classical trumpeters, as a big band leader in the tradition of Duke Ellington, a brilliant composer, a devoted advocate for the arts and a tireless and inspiring educator. His life is a portrait of discipline, dedication, sacrifice, and creative accomplishment. Mr. Marsalis has performed with Art Blakey, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, Sweets Edison, Clark Terry, Sonny Rollins, and countless other jazz legends. The sound of Wynton Marsalis' band is inspired by the basic principals of democracy. According to Marsalis, what you hear in a great jazz band is the sound of democracy. “The jazz band works best when participation is shaped by intelligent communication." This intelligent, hard swinging interplay has made Marsalis' bands the favorite among jazz musicians and audiences worldwide. Born in 1955 in Greenwood, Mississippi, Mulgrew Miller played country, gospel, R&B for dance bands, and the blues, until he saw The Oscar Peterson Trio perform on television at age 15. Although he also studied classical piano and formed a trio while in high school, Miller immediately dedicated himself to becoming a jazz musician. According to Miller, “When I saw him [Peterson], I realized there was a way to do something with music - and do it with integrity and in a way that demanded virtuosity but wasn't classically oriented." Pivotal to Miller's transition to jazz was his studies at Memphis State University with Donald Brown and James Williams, pianists who would later work with him alongside a very young Geoff Keezer and Harold Mabern in the late 80s-early 90s as part of The Contemporary Piano Ensemble, a group dedicated to the music of Memphis' native son, Phineas Newborn. After recently touring with the Dave Holland Sextet, Miller's recent focus has been on his quintet Wingspan, and his current trio, which consists of bassist Ivan Taylor and drummer Rodney Green. Ricardo Peixoto's fluid melodic sense and original harmonic approach place him as one of the foremost Brazilian guitarists in the world today. An inspired improviser with a keen compositional sense, Ricardo's unique and eloquent style evokes images far beyond Brazilian boundaries. Whether in the role of guitarist, composer or arranger, Ricardo draws from a broad range of instruments in a wide variety of musical dialects. “I like to explore the use of many types of guitars, using each one's unique voice," says Ricardo. “I often prefer to create textures with acoustic instruments, in lieu of synthesizers." Although the classical 7-string guitar is his instrument of choice, Ricardo also relies on a 12 string guitar, octave guitar, cavaquinho and tenor banjo as well as electric guitars to produce his rich sonoral landscape. In addition to working with Claudia Villela, Ricardo has recorded and toured with Flora Purim and Airto, alto saxophonist Bud Shank, percussionist Dom Um Romo, keyboardist Marcos Silva as well as with his popular ensemble, Terra Sul. He is also a well-respected teacher and lecturer on Brazilian music. Born in Havana, Cuba, Chuchito Valedes comes from one of the most distinguished musical families of Cuba. As a child prodigy, he studied with many Cuban masters, including his father Chucho Valdes, the great Cuban pianist. He has studied extensively, Cuban Music, Classical Music and Jazz Piano. He has recorded an write your comments about the article :: © 2008 Jazz News :: home page |