CLIFF RICHMOND & THE CLIFFNOTES

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JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER | WYNTON MARSALIS

The Ertegun Jazz Concert honoring Mica Ertegun

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis welcomes audiences back to the House of Swing for the 2024-25 season with electrifying new arrangements of classic 1920s and 30s tunes. Music directed by Wynton Marsalis and saxophonist, composer, and Grammy Award-winning scholar Loren Schoenberg and featuring special guests Kurt Elling and Shenel Johns, Hot Jazz & Swing encourages Rose Theater audiences to get up on their feet.

Experience dance hall favorites from composers like Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington, whose works exploded in fame and infamy during the early days of jazz.

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MATT WILSON

Dizzy’s Club celebrates the 60th birthday of cherished jazz drummer, Matt Wilson, a long-standing favorite on our stage. He brings a special two-night engagement to honor this milestone. He’ll debut his dynamic new band, Good Trouble, followed by a performance with his acclaimed ensemble, Honey & Salt.

Named Musician of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association and with over 500 album appearances, this celebration promises to be a fitting tribute to his extraordinary journey in jazz.

Performance Lineup:

Sep 13–14 • 7 & 9 p.m. | Matt Wilson’s Good Trouble
Tia Fuller, alto saxophone
Dawn Clement, piano & voice
Jeff Lederer, tenor saxophone and clarinet
Ben Allison, bass
Matt Wilson, drums

Sep 15 • 5 & 7:30 p.m. | Matt Wilson’s Honey and Salt (Music Inspired by the Poetry of Carl Sandburg)
Dawn Clement, piano & voice
Kirk Knuffke, cornet
Jeff Lederer, reeds
Martin Wind, bass
Matt Wilson, drums

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Graeme Emerson Bell was born on September 7, 1914 in Richmond, Victoria, Australia. His father performed musical comedy and music hall on the early Australian Broadcasting Commission radio, and his mother was a contralto recitalist in Dame Nellie Melba’s company.

From the age of 12, Bell had weekly piano lessons in classical music by Jesse Stewart Young, a contemporary of his mother. He attended Scotch College in 1929 and 1930, leaving school at sixteen during the Great Depression and worked for T & G Insurance as a clerk for over nine years, and had a stint as a farm hand. He paid for his own piano lessons for two further years, and in later years he supplemented his income by teaching.

Graeme was converted to jazz by Roger, a drummer, who later became a singer and trumpete. Roger would play 78s on the family’s record player, including Fats Waller’s Handful of Keys. It was in 1935 that he started playing jazz with Roger at Melbourne dances and clubs. By 1941 he fronted his own Graeme Bell Jazz Gang. Unfit for active duty during World War II, he entertained Australian troops, including travelling to Mackay, Queensland in early 1943. After his return to Melbourne, Bell became a full-time professional with the Dixieland Jazz Band.

His first recordings were for William Miller’s Ampersand label in 1943, after which he became leader of the house band for the Eureka Youth League and established a cabaret, the Uptown Club, in 1946. After playing at the inaugural Australian Jazz Convention, Bell’s band was renamed Australian Jazz Band and became the first such band to tour Europe.

The Australian Jazz Band travelled to the United Kingdom in early 1948 and Graeme started the Leicester Square Jazz Club, playing music specifically for dancing, which continued into the 1950s. Many future and contemporary bands were to be influenced by his music. During the early 1950s he periodically returned to UK and Europe to perform, and in 1951 they appeared at Oxford Town Hall with the performance ultimately released as Big Bill Broonzy in Concert with Graeme Bell & his Australian Jazz Band.

Upon returning to Australia he settled in Sydney and became one of the leading promoters of jazz in the country, bringing American performers such as trumpeter Rex Stewart. He played commercial music and taught piano to supplement his income.

Pianist Graeme Bell, wrote Graeme Bell, Australian Jazzman, was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association Hall of Fame in 1997 and made over 1,500 recordings, died on June 13, 2012 after suffering from a stroke at 97.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Sol Schlinger was born on September 6, 1926 in the Bronx, New York. His father was an unsuccessful entrepreneur who booked concerts in Europe, his mother a successful cook who earned the family money. He grew up with Stan Getz, Bernie Glow and Lenny Hambro. His first instrument was the tenor saxophone and took lessons from the saxophonist in the band at a small resort in the Catskill Mountains north of New York City. His dedication did not go unnoticed and his father got him a C-melody saxophone and began lessons with Bill Sheiner on a tenor that he sold him for $75.

He began his professional career at the age of sixteen with Henry Jerome & His Stepping Stones at the Pelham Heath Inn. World War II saw Sol touring wit.h Shep Fields, including a trip to Europe to play for the troops. After the war ended he took up the baritone saxophone and went out on the road with Charlie Barnett’s band. He then joined Buddy Rich’s outfit.

The late Forties saw Schlinger with Tommy Dorsey, recording with Sauter-Finegan, and became a member of the East Coast sax section with Hal McKusick, Gene Quill, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn and sometimes Phil Woods. He often recorded with trombonist-arranger Billy Byers, who was also a ghostwriter for Quincy Jones. Following this he joined Benny Goodman for a period. He would go on to work with Tony Bennett, Carmen McRae and others.

Baritone saxophonist Sol Schlinger, who was a first call and solid anchor in the reed section, died at 91 years old on November 1, 2017.

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