CHIEF ADJUAH
Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah (formerly Christian Scott) is a two-time Edison Award-winning, six-time Grammy Award-nominated, Doris Duke Award in the Arts awardee. He is a sonic architect, trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, designer of innovative technologies and musical instruments (including The Stretch Music app, Adjuah Trumpet, Siren, Sirenette, Chief Adjuah’s Bow and Chief Adjuah’s N’Goni). He is also the founder and CEO of the Stretch Music App and Recording Company. Adjuah is Chieftain and Oba of the Xodokan Nation as well as the current Grand Griot of New Orleans. He is the grandson of Louisiana luminary and legend, the late Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr., Guardians Institute founder and Grand Griot, Herreast Harrison. And is the nephew of Jazz innovator and NEA Jazz Master saxophonist-composer, Big Chief Donald Harrison Jr. Adjuah (and his twin brother Kiel) joined his grandfather’s Guardians of the Flame banner in 1989 at the age 5.
Since 2001, Adjuah has released thirteen critically acclaimed studio recordings, four live albums, and one greatest hits collection. He is widely recognized as the progenitor of the “Stretch Music,” style. A 21st-century approach that asserts genre blindness and an ethnomusicological approach to limitless fusion that heralded NPR to hail him as “Ushering in a new era of Jazz” and JazzTimes Magazine to mark him as “Jazz’s young style God.” and “the architect of a commercially viable fusion”. He has collaborated with a number of notable artists, including Prince, Thom Yorke, McCoy Tyner, Marcus Miller, Flea, Eddie Palmieri, Robert Glasper, rappers Mos Def (Yasin Bey), Talib Kweli, as well as heralded poet and musician Saul Williams. Adjuah scores music for his identical twin brother’s, writer/director and visual artist Kiel Adrian Scott, filmic works. Scott is a Directors Guild of America Award recipient whose works have been honored with The Peabody Award and an NAACP Image Award.
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HOUSTON PERSON
He remains the King of the Boss Tenor Sax and nothing, it seems, can stop Houston Person, now in his sixth decade of performing. His latest recording (he’s released over 85 of them), as featured guest on Emmet Cohen’s Masters Series Vol. 5, has rocketed up the Jazz Week charts. In its 4-star review, AllAboutJazz.com applauds Houston’s “master’s flair for swing and blues.” A great friend of The Jazz Forum, Houston is a master’s master.
The tenor saxophonist and record producer. Although he has performed in the hard bop and swing genres, he is most experienced in and best known for his work in soul jazz. He received the “Eubie Blake Jazz Award” in 1982.
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LORI WILLIAMS
Acclaimed international Jazz vocalist Lori Williams has a most impressive resume as a performing artist, music educator, songwriter, producer, musical theater actress, radio host, business owner of PositiveMusicPM.org, and artist-in-residence with over 30 years of experience. Her annual vocal jazz tour and performance at music festivals have taken her to Europe to perform in Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Slovenia, Russia, Switzerland, Czech Republic, and Ukraine, Japan, The Caribbean in Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Curaçao, St. Lucia, Turks and Caicos, Mexico, and across the USA. Her vocal jazz artist residencies have allowed her to work with and mentor students on college campuses in the United States and abroad.
As a veteran vocal music educator and private vocal coach, Lori’s received many honors for her contributions to the arts, including recognition from President Biden. With a B.A. in Mass Media Arts from Hampton University, she hosts a weekly radio program and produces/host events at St. James Live! Jazz club in Atlanta, Georgia. Over the years, Lori has collaborated with a multitude of notable artists and has released multiple CDs, along with singles like “Too Late (It’s My Time)” and “Take My Wings.”
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The Jazz Voyager
Heading upstate New York a day early to catch the early summer of nature on the upper Hudson River and ultimately sit in a little place called the Jazz Forum Arts for an evening of great music. Established in 1985, the club has consistently been bringing talent at the top of their game to Westchester County and they have been instrumental in elevating the community’s appreciation for this unique American art form.
This week they welcome the Bill Charlap Trio for a two-day residency with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington taking the stage with the pianist. It’s a jazz super-group that has dazzled audiences for years and they haven’t lost their touch with an interplay and near-telepathic communication ranking among the best. Not only have they received a Grammy Award but also multiple nominations.
The venue is located at 1 Dixon Lane, Tarrytown, New York 10591. For more information you are invited to visit https://notoriousjazz.com/event/bill-charlap-trio-4.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Richard M. Jones, born Richard Marigny Jones on June 13, 1892 in Donaldsonville, Louisiana and grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. Suffering from a stiff leg he walked with a limp, causing fellow musicians to give him the nickname “Richard My Knee Jones” as a pun on his middle name. In his youth he played alto horn in brass bands. His main instrument, however, became the piano and by 1908 he was playing in Storyville, the red-light district of New Orleans. A few years later, he often led a small band which sometimes included Joe Oliver and also worked in the bands of John Robichaux, Armand J. Piron, and Papa Celestin.
In 1918, Jones moved to Chicago, Illinois where he worked as Chicago manager for publisher and pianist Clarence Williams. Jones began recording in 1923, making gramophone records as a piano soloist, accompanist to vocalists, and with his bands The Jazz Wizards and The Chicago Cosmopolitans. He recorded for Gennett, OKeh, Victor, and Paramount record labels in the 1920s.
He also worked for OKeh Records as supervisor of the company’s “Race” Records for most of the decade, separately the Caucasian artists from the Black. During this period he was the producer of Louis Armstrong’s influential Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings. In the 1930s, Jones performed a similar management role for Decca.
Pianist, composer, band leader, and record producer Richard M. Jones, sometimes written Richard Mariney Jones and who had numerous songs bearing his name as author, including Trouble in Mind and worked for Mercury Records until his death on December 8, 1945 in Chicago, at the age of 53.
