JAZZ IN THE VALLEY Festival Returns to Poughkeepsie’s Waryas Park Sunday, August 18, 2024, Noon

contents

jazz

Jazz in the Valley (JITV), upstate New York's premiere festival, returns to Poughkeepsie's Waryas Park on Sunday, August 18, 2024, starting at Noon and ending at 6:00 pm. Presented by TRANSART & Cultural Services, Inc., the 24th annual festival celebrates the legacy, history and future of jazz, with a blend of young and legendary musicians that include harpist Brandee Younger and her trio, alto saxophonist Charles McPherson, Mitch Frohman & The Bronx Horns and JITV Artistic Director Javon Jackson performs with featured guests, the esteemed poet Nikki Giovanni and vocalist Nnenna Freelon.

This year's festival kicks off on Saturday August 17, with the second annual Poughkeepsie Jazz Crawl. This celebration throughout downtown Poughkeepsie returns after last year's outstanding inaugural event. Free and open to the public, the jazz crawl will run from 4:00 – 9:00 pm, featuring exciting musical performances, themed cocktails, and fine cuisine at three local eateries.

For festival founder/producer Greer Smith, recipient of the Jazz Journalist Association's 2021 Jazz Hero Award, this year's festival is a continuation of its successful formula for presenting first class jazz to the Hudson Valley. "Since our inception 24 years ago, we've presented this music as a living legacy - something not just to be listened to, but something to be studied, cherished and shared, " she says. "We strive to present musicians from different eras, different genres and different styles, to show the unity-in-diversity that makes jazz the dynamic art form that it is." This year's lineup of musicians is true aural evidence of Smith's swinging success as a festival curator.

Tickets go on sale Monday, April 15, at www.jazzinthevalleyny.org. Waryas Park is located on the beautiful banks of the Hudson River, steps away from Poughkeepsie's Metro North Train Station and just a 90-minute car ride from New York City.

Brandee Younger Trio
The Grammy-nominated, Long Island-born, harpist Brandee Younger is the next step in the evolution of jazz harp after Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. Younger is fluent in many musical genres, from classical, jazz and Latin, to pop, R&B, gospel and hip-hop. Younger's ethereal mix of those sounds are heard on her 2021 major label debut recording, Somewhere Different, and on her successful follow-up, Brand New Life. Voted a "Rising Star '' in the DownBeat Magazine's 2020 International Critics Poll, Younger has worked with a wide variety of artists including Stevie Wonder, Jack DeJohnette, The Roots and Wynton Marsalis. When Younger comes to the JITV stage with drummer Allan Mednard and bassist Rashaan Carter, you'll hear her infinite variety of influences, inventions and improvisations.

Charles McPherson
For over 50 years, San Diego-based alto saxophonist Charles McPherson has reigned supreme as one of the last true bebop saxophonists who genuinely knows how to play like Charlie Parker and incorporate Bird's genius into his own sound. A native of Detroit who grew up playing with pianist Barry Harris, baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams and bassist Paul Chambers, McPherson's piercing alto tones enriched the music of several jazz icons including Charles Mingus, Art Farmer, Jaki Byard and Wynton Marsalis. McPherson has recorded over 25 albums as a leader including, Be-Bop Revisited, Con Alma, Manhattan Nocturne and his April 2024 release on the Smoke Sessions Records label, Reverence. Now is the time to see this musician in his prime.

Javon Jackson with Nikki Giovanni and Nnenna Freelon
Javon Jackson, the festival's Artistic Director of Programming, was a bonafide Young Lion when he was a Jazz Messenger with Art Blakey in the late 80's. Blessed with a robust and riveting sound, Jackson was the horn man of choice for numerous jazz leaders including pianist Hank Jones, trumpeter Thad Jones and bassist Ron Carter. As a leader with more than 14 CDs to his credit, his 2022 album, (NAACP Image Award nominated CD) The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni garnered a nomination for the NAACP Image Award in the Best Jazz Album category. Giovanni's Billie Holiday-buoyed vocals are a joy to behold. Fresh off the heels of the release of her groundbreaking HBO Documentary "Looking for Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project", Giovanni and Jackson bring their stellar collaborative work to the Jazz in the Valley stage for a performance also featuring vocals from the incomparable voice of Nnenna Freelon. Renowned within the jazz idiom, Freelon also recently garnered attention for her Grammy-nominated children's album, Ancestars.

Mitch Frohman & The Bronx Horns
A frequent festival favorite is the sound of New York's Afro-Latin rhythms, a concert where attendees don't hesitate to get up and dance. Enter tenor saxophonist/flutist Mitch Frohman & The Bronx Horns. A veteran sideman with almost every Latin star – from Tito Puente, Machito and Eddie and Charlie Palmieri, to Celia Cruz, Joe Cuba and David Byrne – Frohman was the recipient of the 2016 Latin Jazz USA Chico O'Farrill Lifetime Achievement Award. Combining the best of mambo, salsa and Latin jazz, this ensemble, formed in 1992, moves and grooves with the best of them, as evidenced by their breakout Horace Silver album, Silver in the Bronx.

One year before its 25th anniversary, JITV is poised to take the music to new heights. "We are thrilled about this year's festival and looking forward to hitting that milestone next year, " Greer Smith says with anticipation. "There is so much more to come."

Join JITV on Sunday afternoons for its weekly Rhythm Salon Series, an acoustic afternoon in The Gallery @ 107 featuring TRANSART's artists-in-residence renowned trombonist Craig Harris, vocalist and pianist Mala Waldron, bassist Christopher Dean-Sullivan, percussion master Chief Baba Neil Clarke, and their special guests. These performances allow music lovers the opportunity to experience jazz in an intimate setting and to directly interact with the musicians. Doors open at 2:30 PM for these weekly 3:00 PM performances at 107 Henry Street, Kingston NY. Tickets are $10 at the door. For further information, please visit www.transartinc.org.

TRANSART & Cultural Services, Inc. is a Kingston, NY-based non-profit arts organization dedicated to promoting awareness of the art, history and popular culture of people of African descent. The festival's origins go back to an afternoon of music in the year 2000, when TRANSART received funding from the New York State Council on the Arts to commission Ahmad Jamal to write an original composition for the organization. Jamal composed "Picture Perfect, " inspired by the scenic beauty of the Hudson Valley, which he played in concert. In addition to the music, JITV also features films and other programs designed to increase dialogue dealing with jazz music, the musicians and the audience. The festival also provides educational programming to area schools. The festival also presents a program of music and interviews by host Sharif Abdus-Salaam on WKNY, 107.9 FM and 1490 AM, www.radiokingston.org.

write your comments about the article :: © 2024 Jazz News :: home page