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| Harlem Set to Celebrate the Second Annual FREE John Coltrane Jazz Festival| Miles Ahead September 23, 3:00 – 8:00 pm What could make a celebration of jazz giant/saxophonist John Coltrane even better? Throw a FREE concert on his birthday, September 23, add in a salute to the musical genius Miles Davis, and invite music fans throughout the region to celebrate at the second annual John Coltrane Jazz Festival | Miles Ahead at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Harlem's Marcus Garvey Park, 3:00 – 8:00 pm. With lead financial support from The Mellon Foundation and Harlem Grown, the producing partners – State Senator Cordell Cleare, Jazzmobile, Harlem Late Night Jazz, NY Jazz Society, New Amsterdam Musical Association, Marcus Garvey Park Alliance, and New Heritage Theatre Group – are coming together with other community organizations to celebrate these two jazz icons. The festival will feature some of today's greatest performers playing this American music we call jazz, including National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Reggie Workman (bass) and his band, Najee (sax), Norman Connors (drums), T.K. Blue (sax), Al Flythe (sax), Patience Higgins (sax), Bertha Hope (piano), Bill Saxton (sax), Frank Lacy (trombone) and special surprise guests. In 2022, State Senator Cleare created the first annual Jazz Appreciation Day, and with Dr. Mujib Mannan, founder of the NY Jazz Society as well as the jazz festival honoring the music of John Coltrane, brought together a group of Harlem-based jazz presenters to premiere the John Coltrane Jazz Festival in Marcus Garvey Park. Born in Harlem, Dr. Mannan (aka Dr. John Satchmo Mannan) began his music career inspired by his Jamaican father, Aston McRae, a classical violinist, his first cousin Carmen McRae, the late world-famous jazz singer, and the music of Louis Armstrong. Over 20 years ago, he began doing small John Coltrane festivals in smaller parks in neighborhoods throughout Harlem. His 2022 collaboration with State Senator Cleare and other Harlem-based organizations launched the inaugural John Coltrane Festival in Marcus Garvey Park. The musical friendship of Davis and Coltrane will be exalted as the all-star musicians re-imagine classic songs from the "Davis Coltrane Songbook, " and interpret classic tunes such as "A Love Supreme, " "Sonny, " "So What" and others that are often recognizable after the first three notes. The audience will be blown away as dynamic musicians put their mark on each tune and bring the music of these legendary American performers to new light. Registration is not required; but click here and let us know you and your guests are coming so we may better accommodate you. For more information about the festival, click here. * * * John Coltrane (September 23, 1926 - July 17, 1967): With his superhuman technique, distinctive sound and boundless imagination, the North Carolina-born, tenor and soprano saxophonist John Coltrane was one of jazz's most innovative and influential musicians. Influenced by the spirituals and the blues, saxophonists Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Charlie Parker and the bebop he heard in Philadelphia, Coltrane cut his teeth in bands led by King Kolax, Jimmy Heath and Dizzy Gillespie. In 1955, Coltrane joined Miles Davis' band with bassist Paul Chambers, pianist Red Garland and drummer Philly Joe Jones. Dubbed "The First Great Quintet, " Davis' spare, singing trumpet tones were contrasted by Coltrane's supersonic solos that jazz critic Ira Gitler dubbed "sheets of sound." Their recordings for the Prestige label included a 1956 marathon session that produced Cookin', Relaxin', Workin', and Steamin' (with the Miles Davis Quintet). Due to Coltrane's drug abuse, he was fired by Davis in 1957, and joined Thelonious Monk's band that same year. Although his stay with Monk was short, Coltrane grew tremendously with the pianist/composer, as evidenced by their Riverside recording Live at the Five Spot. Coltrane returned to Miles, who moved to Columbia Records in 1955, and recorded several LPs for the label, including Someday My Prince Will Come. During that time, Coltrane recorded his first albums as a leader for Prestige in the 50's, and his last studio recording with Davis was the historic modal 1959 LP, Kind of Blue. Save for his 1958 Blue Note recording, Blue Trane, his most important and revolutionary music, was released from 1960 to his death in 1967 on the Atlantic and Impulse! labels. Now leading his famous quartet consisting of pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones, Coltrane's recordings on that label included Giant Steps, Ole Coltrane, and the saxophonist's immortal version of My Favorite Things, which featured him on soprano saxophone. Coltrane's Impulse! recordings included mainstream LPs with vocalist Johnny Hartman and Duke Ellington. Coltrane reached his zenith with his 1964 masterpiece, A Love Supreme: a four-part suite that is an impassioned aural prayer to the healing powers of God. His last recordings for the label, including Interstellar Space and Ascension, brought him to the outer limits of the avant-garde. As John Coltrane said, "My music is the spiritual expression of who I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being." Miles Davis (May 26, 1926 - September 28, 1991): A musician is fortunate if he/she can influence music one time. Trumpeter, bandleader, composer Miles Davis has influenced music more than once. The Illinois-born played trumpet growing up around St. Louis, where he developed his trademark, full-bodied, middle register, walking-on-eggshells trumpet sound. He went to New York in the 40s to study at Juilliard and play bebop with Charlie Parker. Searching for a more melodic, softer approach to bebop, Davis, and his soon-to-be-lifelong friend Gil Evans, formed a nonet that included pianist John Lewis and baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, and recorded a series of tracks that came to be known as Birth of the Cool from 1948 to 1950. Davis later signed with Prestige records, where he would record with his "First Great Quintet, " which included Coltrane and other jazz greats. That group recorded the marathon sessions, Cookin', Relaxin', Workin', and Steamin' (with the Miles Davis Quintet). Davis moved to Columbia records in the mid 50s. He recorded Someday My Prince Will Come, and he would reunite with Gil Evans on the big band LP Miles Ahead. In 1959, Davis made history with the release of Kind of Blue, a modal mid-tempo/ballad masterpiece with Coltrane and Chambers on tenor sax and bass, alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, pianist Bill Evans and drummer Jimmy Cobb. The next year, Davis and Evans would combine again on the expansive, large ensemble, flamenco-themed Sketches of Spain. In the early 60s, Davis founded his "Second Great Quintet" with pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Tony Williams and tenor saxophonist/composer Wayne Shorter. Their telepathic style of jazz called "controlled freedom" combined the best aspects of post-bop and the avant-garde, aurally illustrated by the elliptical improvisations of "ESP, " Footprints" and "Nefertiti." Sensing the sound of things to come, Davis' recordings of In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew marked the musical big bang of jazz-fusion. In the mid-70s, Davis went into "retirement, " remerging in the 80s with the funk-jazz comeback Man with the Horn and the Marcus Miller-produced Tutu. Davis went forward extending the boundaries of music until his last breath in 1991. Miles Davis never stayed still. "I have to change, " he said, "it's like a curse." write your comments about the article :: © 2023 Jazz News :: home page |