AFRO LATIN JAZZ ORCHESTRA
The multi-Grammy winning Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra (ALJO) is an 18-piece big band of jazz and Latin-jazz virtuosos, led by the inimitable Arturo O’Farrill.
More Posts: adventure,club,ensemble,genius,jazz,music,preserving,travel
AFRO LATIN JAZZ ORCHESTRA
The multi-Grammy winning Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra (ALJO) is an 18-piece big band of jazz and Latin-jazz virtuosos, led by the inimitable Arturo O’Farrill.
More Posts: adventure,club,ensemble,genius,jazz,music,preserving,travel
WYCLIFFE GORDON QUARTET
Wycliffe Gordon experiences an impressive career touring the world performing to great acclaim from audiences and critics alike. Jazz Journalists Association named him 2020 “Trombonist of the Year” for the record breaking 13th time, and he’s topped Downbeat Critics Poll for “BestTrombone” again for an unprecedented six times (2020, 2018, 2016, 2014, 2013 &2012). Last year he was the recipient of the “Louie Award”, the International Trombone Award and the Satchmo Award, among others. Wycliffe is a prolific recording artist and is extremely popular for his unmatched signature sound, plunger technique and unique vocals. He can be heard on hundreds of recordings, soundtracks, live DVD’s and documentaries. In addition to an exceptionally successful solo career, Gordon tours regularly leading his quintet, headlining at legendary jazz venues and performing arts centers throughout the world. He is commissioned frequently, and has an extensive catalog of original compositions that span the various timbres of jazz and chamber music. Musicians and ensembles of every caliber perform his music throughout the world and his arrangement of the theme song to NPR’s “All Things Considered” is heard daily across the globe. Gordon is a former veteran member of the Wynton Marsalis Septet, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and has been a featured guest artist on Billy Taylor’s ” Jazz at the Kennedy Center” Series. Gordon is also one of America’s most persuasive and committed music educators, and serves as Director of Jazz Studies at Augusta University in Augusta, GA. Wycliffe Gordon is a Yamaha Performing Artist and has his own line of Wycliffe Gordon Pro Signature Mouthpieces by Pickett Brass.
More Posts: adventure,club,genius,jazz,music,preserving,travel,trombone
VANESSA RUBIN & HER TRIO
Revered as both a torchbearer and a storyteller, jazz vocalist Vanessa Rubin possesses a voice hailed for crystalline clarity, hearth-like warmth and playful lioness sass. The Cleveland native brings a wealth of diverse influences to her vocal performance from both the Trinidadian/Caribbean roots of her mother and traditional jazz by way of her Louisiana-born father. Additional homespun influences include the melodic bell tone clarity of a young Capital Records recording artist, Nancy Wilson, the fire of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, the sweet sounds of trumpeter Blue Mitchell as well as her love of the Motown Sound…especially girl groups like the Supremes.
More Posts: adventure,club,genius,jazz,music,preserving,travel,vocal
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Thomas Robert Talbert was born on August 4, 1924 in Crystal Bay, Minnesota and grew up listening to big band music on the radio. He learned to play piano before he became a composer. He got started as a band leader when he was drafted in the Army in 1943, becoming composer for a military band at Fort Ord, California, performing for War Bond drives throughout California.
In the late 1940s he led his own big band on the West Coast, much of his work foreshadowing what became known as West Coast jazz. During the decade in Los Angeles he worked with Johnny Richards, Lucky Thompson, Dodo Marmarosa, Hal McKusick, Al Killian, Art Pepper, Steve White and Claude Williamson…….
Moving to New York in the early 1950s after being denied a recording contract in Los Angeles, California he worked with Marian McPartland, Kai Winding, Don Elliott, Johnny Smith, Oscar Pettiford, Herb Geller, Joe Wilder, Eddie Bert, Barry Galbraith, Aaron Sachs and Claude Thornhill. In 1956, Talbert recorded two records that would become his best known works, Wednesday’s Child and Bix Duke Fats, which gained him fleeting fame.
When rock and roll eclipsed jazz in popularity, in 1960 he moved to his parents’ home in Minnesota. He tried his hand at cattle ranching in Wisconsin but eventually moved back to Los Angeles and a musical career in 1975. As a sideman he recorded with the Boyd Raeburn Orchestra, Johnny Richards, and Patty McGovern.
In addition to composing for TV and movie studios, he became involved in music education, and set up a foundation to help talented young musicians, with one of the first recipients in 1996 was Maria Schneider.
Pianist, composer and band leader Thomas Talbert, who recorded eighteen albums as a leader, transitioned on July 2, 2005 in Los Angeles.
More Posts: bandleader,composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano