DONALD HARRISON QUARTET

“Donald Harrison is one of the most confident and convincing improvisers in jazz today. The boundary leaping New Orleans alto saxophonist’s distinctive broad toned sound is immediately recognizable as his own, regardless of the environment in which it is being heard, be it bebop, hardbop, New Orleans R & B or funk.” – Jazz Times

NEA Jazz Master Donald Harrison is more than a brilliant alto saxophonist, composer and bandleader. He’s a Renaissance man: The Big Chief of Congo Square, a New Orleans-born traditionalist and innovator, merging modern jazz with Second Line music and hip-hop. He’s a TV actor.

He nurtures young talent like his mentor Art Blakey. Harrison performed with countless legends (Miles Davis, Lena Horne, Dr. John) and recently revived the Charlie Parker with Strings repertoire in concert.

Showtimes: 7:00pm & 9:30pm

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ANTONIO PARKER & FRIENDS

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Melissa Aldana was born on December 3, 1988 in Santiago, Chile and began playing the saxophone when she was six under the influence and tuition of her father Marcos Aldana, also a professional saxophonist. She began with alto, influenced by Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley and Michael Brecker. However, upon first hearing the music of Sonny Rollins, she switched to tenor, picking up her grandfather’s Selmer Mark VI.

Performing around hometown jazz clubs while in her early teens, in 2005 she was invited by pianist Danilo Pérez to play at the Panama Jazz Festival as well as auditions at music schools in the USA. This resulted in Melissa attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts studying under Joe Lovano, George Garzone, Frank Tiberi, Greg Osby, Hal Crook, Bill Pierce, and Ralph Peterson. After graduating she relocated to New York City to study with George Coleman.

Aldana recorded her debut album, Free Fall, released in 2010 on Greg Osby’s Inner Circle Music label. Two years later she released her sophomore project, Second Cycle, and by age 24, she was the first female and South American musician to win the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition, in which her father had been a semi-finalist in 1991. The prize was a $25,000 scholarship, and a recording contract with Concord Jazz.

Aldana has been awarded the Altazor National Arts Award of Chile, and the Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award. She has played concerts alongside artists such as Peter Bernstein, Kevin Hays, Christian McBride, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Jimmy Heath and Wynton Marsalis.

She has formed the group, Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio, with Cuban drummer Francisco Mela and Chilean bassist Pablo Menares, and in addition her most recent configuration in 2017, the Melissa Aldana Quartet includes Aldana on tenor saxophone, pianist Sam Harris or guitarist Lage Lund, bassist Pablo Menares and drummer Kush Abadey.

Tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana continues to explore and expand her vocabulary as she performs and records.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Charlie Ventura was born Charles Venturo on December 2, 1916 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the 1940s, he played saxophone for the Gene Krupa and Teddy Powell bands. In 1945 he was named best tenor saxophonist by DownBeat magazine.

During the Forties he led big bands and led a band which included Conte Candoli, Bennie Green, Boots Mussulli, Ed Shaughnessy, Jackie Cain, and Roy Kral. By the 1950s he formed the Big Four with Buddy Rich, Marty Napoleon, and Chubby Jackson. He was a sideman with Krupa through the 1960s, then worked in Las Vegas with comedian Jackie Gleason. By the 1980s he slowed down until finally retiring from music.

Tenor saxophonist and bandleader Charlie Ventura transitioned from lung cancer on January 17, 1992 in Pleasantville, New Jersey at age 75.  was an American from

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Jesper Thilo was born on November 28, 1941 in Copenhagen, Denmark to a pianist-actress mother and architect father. He started to play clarinet at age 11 and from 1955 to 1960 he played clarinet and trombone in various amateur Dixieland jazz bands with the occasional paid jobs as a musician. Early he knew that he wanted to become a professional jazz musician but to get an education he chose to study classical clarinet at the Royal Danish Academy of Music.

While at the Academy, Thilo joined Arnved Meyer’s orchestra from 1960 to 1964 and again from 1967 to 1974 and it was Meyer who convinced him to shift to saxophone. He would go on to play with Ben Webster, Benny Carter, Harry Edison, Roy Eldridge and Coleman Hawkins. During this part of his career his virile swing style was chiefly inspired by Webster and Hawkins and his own quintet which he put together in 1965 and co-lead with Torolf Mølgaard and Bjarne Rostvold.

From 1966 to 1989, he was a member of the DR Big Band under bandleaders Palle Mikkelborg and Thad Jones. He mainly played alto saxophone but occasionally also tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, baritone saxophone, concert flute, clarinet or bass clarinet. Through the Eighties, Jesper played in Ernie Wilkins’ Almost Big Band. Other collaborators have included Wild Bill Davison and Niels Jørgen Steen.

By 1989, leaving the DR Big Band and Ernie Wilkins’s orchestra he led his own bands with Søren Kristiansen, Olivier Antunes, Hugo Rasmussen og Svend-Erik Nørregaard. He first recorded as a leader for Storyville Records in 1973 and in the 1980s on Storyville his sidemen at various times included Kenny Drew, Clark Terry and Harry “Sweets” Edison, and appeared on the Miles Davis album Aura.

Considered to be one of the top European straight-ahead jazz musicians of the post-1970 period, tenor saxophonist, alto saxophonist, clarinetist and flutist Jesper Thilo continues to perform and record.

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