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| The Vermont Jazz Center Welcomes Ambrose Akinmusire Quartet Saturday, September 17, 2022 at 8:00 pm EST Hearing Ambrose Akinmusire perform brings to mind Louis Armstrong's description of first hearing cornetist Bix Beiderbecke: "Those pretty notes went right through me." Akinmusire's trumpet style sounds nothing like Beiderbecke's, but his music does share a penetrating quality with that of the early jazz icon. Confident, technically brilliant and often bravura, his playing exudes an exquisite tenderness." —Downbeat Magazine The Vermont Jazz Center is pleased to present on September 17th, 2022 at 8:00 PM, the Ambrose Akinmusire Quartet featuring Mr. Akinmusire on trumpet along with Sam Harris on piano and Tim Angulo on drums (bassist TBA). This is a live, in-person concert with no live streaming. Because Ambrose Akinmusire lives in California and seldom tours, this concert will be a special and rare event. The musicianship will be stellar and the quality of the experience will be sublime. This concert will be a very special, limited experience. The Vermont Jazz Center is pleased to present on September 17th, 2022 at 8:00 PM, the Ambrose Akinmusire Quartet featuring Mr. Akinmusire on trumpet along with Sam Harris on piano, Russell Hall on bass and Tim Angulo on drums. This is a live, in-person concert with no live streaming component. Akinmusire's most recent album, his 5th for Blue Note Records, On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused Moment, has been nominated as Best Jazz Instrumental Album for the 2021 Grammy Awards. The list of Akinmusire's accolades include Thelonious Monk International Jazz Trumpet Competition Winner, Carmine Caruso International Trumpet Solo Competition Winner; Downbeat Critics Poll, Jazz Artist of the Year, Best Trumpet (numerous times); Jazz Times Critic's Poll: Trumpeter of the Year (3 times), Artist of the Year, Record of the Year; New York Times Best Jazz Album of the year (2011), Jazz Journalist Association Trumpeter of the Year and others too numerous to mention. His discography includes six albums as a leader and sideman work with Kendrick Lamar, Joni Mitchell, Joel Ross, Brad Mehldau, the Blue Note All-Stars, Mary Halvorson, Jen Shyu, Somi, Marcus Miller, Dayna Stephens, Trilok Gurtu, Gerald Clayton, the Yellow Jackets, Jack DeJohnette, Archie Shepp, David Binney, Terri Lyne Carrington, Roy Hargrove, Mimi Jones, Esperanza Spalding, Russell Hall, Tom Harrell and many others. Ambrose Akinmusire is a truth-teller whose music is an expression of his personal journey as a Black man. Although he loves playing jazz standards, he has chosen to compose original music that draws attention to the realities of racism. In a recent interview with Phil Freeman of the Burning Ambulance Podcast, Akinmusire alluded to his upbringing as the child of a woman from the Mississippi delta and a father from Lagos, Nigeria. He said: "I'm raised by a woman from the most racist county in the most racist state in the country. My mom picked pecans out of Fanny Lou Hammer's yard. My uncle knew Emmet Till. I'm born and raised in Oakland and my first trumpet teacher was actually a Black Panther. This is how I grew up. Living in Oakland is my experience. My life isn't about love ballads. It's difficult, it's beautifully complicated. I have to find a way of expressing this complexity. I would argue that every Black person living in America has to deal with this…so all this stuff is in my music." In that interview Akinmusire begrudgingly accepted his position as a leader, as a person who other people pay attention to. He explained: "What do you do from your platform? I tried to run from that and I tried to deny that I had one [an influential voice] for a long time. Now I can't. It's important to me to talk about the injustices that Black people experience, and the fear that I have walking around the United States and really a lot of places in the world. And that is why I called this last album a blues album - it's trying to express beauty and pain at the same time, trying to express what is to me the most defining part: resilience. And that's what all my records are trying to express." Strong convictions define each of Akinmusire's albums as a leader. His compositions and arrangements aren't easy listening, but they are so well-balanced that the struggles and anxiety that do emerge are part of a bigger picture that is quelled by a universal equilibrium achieved by long stretches of sensitive playing and empathetic reflection. Akinmusire's sound on the trumpet is unlike anyone else's. He masterfully bends notes up and down to make the air coming out of his horn sound like the melismas of a human voice. In an interview with Quobuz Music Blog about his album that includes three guest vocalists, The Imagined Savior is Far Easier to Paint, Akinmusire says: "I'm really influenced by the voice, specifically the female voice, because it's the same range as the trumpet, especially the range that I like to play in. There's a certain timbre, timbral qualities that the female voice has that I go for in my sound. Singers like Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Bjork, Sarah Vaughan, Becca Stevens…I'm really influenced by the voice. More than any instrument that's what I turn to for inspiration." Along with the timbre of the voice, Akinmusire explores sonic possibilities such as unique forms, atypical instrumentation, extended techniques and varied textures. Although his vocabulary is based primarily in jazz, he studied writing for strings while at the Thelonious Monk Institute and employs the magical colors of a string quartet to great effect in two of his albums, The Imagined Savior is Far Easier to Paint and Origami Harvest. In general, Akinmusire employs these creative tools to express the Black experience through his own personal lens. He sees Black music as a continuum. He sees himself as a "channel" for its expression. As an example of how Black music is seamlessly connected throughout genres and history, Akinmusire infers that we look at the relationship between gospel music and jazz: "I remember the first time I heard Art Blakey's "Moanin'" (composed by Bobby Timmons) and it sounded like gospel music being played on instruments with a different rhythm." One of Akinmusire's most striking (and perhaps controversial) realizations is that he views hip hop music as the natural evolution of Black music. In the conversation with Phil Freeman referred to above, he gets into it: "First we have to address what hip hop is to me - it's not a genre of music that has a backbeat that people rap over – it's a culture for me, and I am a part of the hip hop culture: the way I talk and the way I see and experience the world. So, I would argue that my music is that [hip hop]. And I would take it a step further and say that hip hop music is the most natural development of jazz. If you look at what was happening in the 70s [and] accept that Weather Report and Head Hunters is jazz then you have to accept hip hop as jazz. So for me hip hop is jazz… I can hear Louis Armstrong in Kendrick Lamar, I really can. It's kind of like what I was saying about Art Blakey and gospel. Black music at the end of the day is Black music. And I would argue that I make Black music, and therefore I make jazz, and therefore I make gospel - and it's all part of the same tree. You can't rip a branch off of the same tree and plant it, and convince everybody that what grows is a different tree, Black music is Black music." Joining Akinmusire in his concert at the Vermont Jazz Center on September 17th will be Sam Harris on piano, Russell Hall on bass and Tim Angulo on drums. Sam Harris has toured and recorded extensively with Akinmusire as well as Melissa Aldana, Logan Richardson, Rudy Royston, and Ben Van Gelder. He is featured on Akinmusire's Grammy-nominated album On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused Moment, as well as Aldana's Visions. For more than a decade, Harris has performed with bassist Martin Nevin and drummer Craig Weinrib. In 2018, they released HARMONY, a write your comments about the article :: © 2022 Jazz News :: home page |