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| The 2015 Charlie Parker Jazz Festival Friday, August 21 - Sunday, August 23 City Parks Foundation is proud to announce the 22nd edition of the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, made possible with the generous support of the Dalio Foundation. Founded in memoriam of beloved jazz musician Charlie Parker, this festival annually attracts thousands of fans to two historic parks in Manhattan. The festival will kick off the first of its three days on August 21st in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, blocks from the famous jazz clubs where Parker graced the stage, and move to Tompkins Square Park in the East Village on Sunday, just across the street from the late Parker's apartment. Prior to the launch of the festival, we invite fans to participate in a free panel hosted at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music celebrating the musical legacy of Charlie Parker featuring two musicians participating in the shows, Oliver Lake and Rudresh Mahanthappa. In the words of Miles Davis, "You can tell the history of jazz in four words: Louis Armstrong. Charlie Parker." Almost sixty years after his passing, Parker is celebrated and credited for his contribution to modern music through rhythmically and melodically complex solos and his creation of the bebop sound. The acts in this year's festival will offer a wide range of performances reflective of Parker's music and of the ever-changing genre of jazz. From Dr. Lonnie Smith to Myra Melford, this year's lineup will feature both jazz veterans and up-and-coming stars alike. Come join us to celebrate Charlie Parker's legacy – both to New York City and to the world of jazz. The complete Charlie Parker Jazz Festival schedule follows. For up-to-date scheduling and lineup for all SummerStage programming, follow SummerStage via the links below and visitwww.SummerStage.org. Thursday, August 20 "In The Spirit - Dedicated to Bird" & "Bird Calls": A conversation with Oliver Lake & Rudresh Mahanthappa The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music's Jazz Performance Space, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM In celebration of the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, join Oliver Lake and Rudresh Mahanthappa for a discussion on music and culture that has inspired them.. Oliver Lake is an American jazz saxophonist, flutist, composer and poet, and worked with the Black Artists Group in the 1960s. Rudresh Mahanthappa saxophonist and composer who has hybridizes progressive jazz and South Indian classical music in a fluid and forward-looking form that reflects Mahanthappa's own experience growing up a second-generation Indian-American. Q & A to follow. Space is limited so please rsvp to rsvp@cityparksfoundation.org to reserve a seat. Seating is first come, first served. Friday, August 21 Charlie Parker Jazz Festival: Oliver Lake Big Band / King Solomon Hicks in association with Jazzmobile / Michela Taps, Bird Lives! Marcus Garvey Park, MN 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM For the past decade, Oliver Lake's Big Band has served as one of his greatest achievements and most sophisticated compositional outlets. He is currently celebrating the second recorded release of his Big Band, entitled Wheels, which has been met with widespread critical acclaim. Lake attributes much of his diverse array of musical styles and disciplines to his experience with the Black Artists Group (BAG), the legendary multi-disciplined and innovative St. Louis collective he co-founded with poets Ajule Rutlin, and musicians Julius Hemphill and Floyd La Flore over 35 years ago. As a co-founder of the internationally acclaimed World Saxophone Quartet with Hemphill, Hamiet Bluiett and David Murray, Oliver continues to work with a variety of groups, and collaborates with several notable choreographers, poets and a veritable who's who of the progressive jazz scene, performing all over the U.S., Europe, Japan, the Middle East, Africa and Australia. In addition to his musical endeavors, Oliver is also an accomplished poet, painter and performance artist. Michela Marino Lerman is a star in the tap dance community. Born and raised in NYC and mentored by Buster Brown, Gregory Hines, Leroy Myers and Marion Coles, Lerman performs regularly at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Minton's, Smalls (where she also runs the first and only acclaimed weekly tap jam) and countless other NYC jazz venues. Lerman has danced with musical greats such as Barry Harris, Benny Golson, Roy Haynes, Roy Hargrove, Nicholas Payton, Harry Whitaker, Marcus Strickland, Ravi Coltrane, Reggie Workman, Revive the Live Big Band, Jon Batiste, Johnny O'Neal, Jennifer Holliday, and many more. In recent years, Lerman has performed and taught in Brazil, Canada, Italy, Korea, Peru, Spain, and Sweden as well as at U.S. venues throughout the East, South, Midwest, and West Coast. Recognizing that tap and bebop share the same historic language of rhythm, she has dedicated herself to accentuating the bonds between them. Lerman is honored to perform at the Charlie ParkerJazz Festival this summer. "He was such an innovator and a driving force in this music, as well as an important influence on tap. We hope to contribute, in some way, to his tremendous legacy." Saturday, August 22 Charlie Parker Jazz Festival: Dr. Lonnie Smith / Andy Bey / Jeff "Tain" Watts / Camille Thurman / Norma Miller / Master Class: Samuel Coleman Marcus Garvey Park, MN 3:00 PM – 7:00 PM Dr. Lonnie Smith is an unparalleled musician, composer, performer and recording artist. An authentic master and guru of the Hammond B-3 organ for over five decades, he has been featured on over seventy albums, and has recorded and performed with a virtual "Who's Who" of the greatest jazz, blues and R&B giants in the industry. Consequently, he has often been hailed as a "Legend, " a "Living Musical Icon, " and as the most creative jazz organist by a slew of music publications. Jazz Times magazine describes him as "a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a turban!" His unpredictable, insatiable musical taste illustrates that no genre is safe, as Lonnie has recorded everything from covers of the Beatles, the Stylistics and the Eurythmics, to tribute albums of Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane and Beck–all by employing ensembles ranging from a trio to a fifteen-piece big band. Always ahead of the curve, it is no surprise Dr. Smith's fan-base is truly worldwide. Andy Bey's silky baritone has become one of the finest instruments in jazz, resonating through decades of American standards. A lyrical storyteller, he possesses "a film noir voice: languid, mysterious, and surpassingly beautiful" (The New York Times). Bay's four-octave range starts at a low C and he is virtually alone today in his ability to summon the deep, manly burnish of some of the great band baritones, like Billy Eckstine. But singing softly seems to be his comfort zone now, and his voice often has a kind of musical iridescence, slipping between croon and falsetto. He extends a word by letting the tone trail off in a long exhalation or through a springy vibrato that shakes all the accumulated meaning from a phrase built up by years of interpretation.Though well known and respected among musicians, Andy Bey was not all that well represented on records until 1996's "Ballads, Blues and Bey, " at that time his first solo recording in 22 years. He feels that his obscurity is partly due to not going along with what he calls the ''black male singer syndrome'' - record producers and club owners expecting him to sing nothing but the blues, and he explains, he holds a de facto role as a natural outsider in jazz. Bey's roots are in the era before categories. Jeff Watts, the drummer they call "Tain, " spent his formative years with Wynton and Branford Marsalis, and his compositional skills now command equal attention. Jeff initially majored in classical percussion at Pittsburgh's Duquesne University, where he was primarily a timpanist, followed by enrollment at the Berklee School of Music. Jeff joined the Wynton Marsalis Quartet in 1981 and proceeded to win three Grammy Awards with the ensemble for Black Codes From The Underground, J Mood and Marsalis Standard Time - Volume 1. Watts left Wynton Marsalis in 1988. After working with George Benson, Harry Connick. Jr. and McCoy Tyner, he joined the Branford Marsalis Quartet in 1989, winning Grammy's for I Heard You Twice the First Time and Contemporary Jazz. In the film and television industry Jeff has appeared as both a musician on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and as an actor, Rhythm Jones in Spike Lee’s "Mo Better Blues". Jeff joined Kenny Garrett's band after returning to New York in 1995 and continued to record and tour with Branford Marsalis as well as Danilo Perez, Michael Brecker, Betty Carter, Kenny Kirkland, Courtney Pine, Geri Allen, Alice Coltrane, Greg Osby, McCoy Tyner, Steve Coleman, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Harry Connick Jr, and Ravi Coltrane. Camille Thurman, multi-talented saxophonist, flutist, vocalist, composer and educator is a young musician emerging on the horizon, acquiring an impressive list of accomplishments that extend well beyond her years. Her lush, velvety, rich & warm sound on the tenor saxophone has eluded others to compare her sound to the likeness of tenor greats Gene Ammons, Dexter Gordon and Lester Young to name a few. Camille’s ability to sing 4 octaves and perform vocalese has given her the capability to influence audiences with melodies reminiscent to the sounds of Minnie Riperton, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Her ability to take the sounds evocative of yesteryear’s legends and creatively pair them with the nuances, edge ad freshness of today’s music has not only expanded the possibilities of jazz in the upcoming generation but also gained her the respect of audiences in Israel, Switzerland and around the world. Norma Miller is one of the creators of the acrobatic style of swing dancing known as the Lindy Hop. As a child, she watched the dancers at the legendary Savoy Ballroom perche write your comments about the article :: © 2015 Jazz News :: home page |