THE TERENCE HARPER PROJECT FEATURING AUDREY SHAKIR
Terence Harper is one of the youngest members of the Harper Family Dynasty and is currently touring around the world. He has played and recorded with the great Curtis Lundy, Steve Turre, Jimmy Heath, Musiq Soulchild, Solange, Keith David, Bobby Watson and Chinese Movie Star and Mandopop artist Andy Lau just to name a few. He has also appeared on numerous television shows and movies including, The Orignals as well as the remake of the movie The Color Purple, directed by Blitz Bazawule and produced by Quincy Jones, Scott Sanders, Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey.
Audrey Shakir is a jazz-pop vocalist extraordinaire and dubbed Atlanta’s First Lady of Jazz. She has entertained throughout the United States and internationally. Her scatting talents have been compared to the great Ella Fitzgerald, and she brings a remarkable jazz influence to all the material she performs.
Showtimes: 7:30pm & 9:30pm
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PETER WHITE, MINDI ABAIR, VINCENT INGALA
Over the years, Peter White has maintained a reputation as one of the most versatile and prolific acoustic guitarists on the contemporary jazz landscape. Armed with an unparalleled combination of lyricism and energy, he combines elements of jazz, pop and classical guitar to create a sound that is singular and at the same time accessible to a broad audience.
Born in 1954 in Luton, a small town north of London, White and his family moved to nearby Letchworth shortly after he was born. As a child, he learned to play several musical instruments, including the clarinet, trombone, violin and piano. And of course, like so many youngsters growing up during the heyday of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, he gravitated to the guitar.
He learned his first chords on an acoustic guitar, then bought his first electric guitar in his early teens and studied the recordings of the reigning guitar gods of the day – Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. But his musical aspirations ultimately veered back in an acoustic direction following an accident that doomed his beloved electric guitar. The axe was destroyed in a fire, one that White’s younger brother Danny – an aspiring pianist – accidentally started.
“The funny thing is that Danny didn’t actually admit to setting that fire for at least twenty-five years,” says White. “I had been kind of obsessed with the electric guitar at that point in my life, so that episode kind of forced me to go back to playing the acoustic. In retrospect, that’s a good thing.”
Indeed, White’s interests after the accident shifted more toward the music of acoustic artists like Crosby, Stills and Nash, James Taylor, and Joni Mitchell. Plugged or unplugged, he had decided by his late teens that music was his calling, and his first professional gig was at a holiday resort in England when he was 19 years old.
Barely a year later, he was invited to join Al Stewart’s band as a keyboardist for a tour of England, Scotland, and the U.S. in 1975. In addition to opening for artists like Linda Ronstadt, Billy Joel and Queen, White worked with Stewart in the studio in the making of Year of the Cat, which became a huge hit for Stewart in 1976. The tour and the album marked the beginning of a twenty-year association with Stewart. In that time, the two musicians co-wrote numerous songs, including Stewart’s 1978 hit, “Time Passages.”
By the beginning of the ‘80s, White and Stewart had relocated to Los Angeles, formed a band called Shot in the Dark, and established a music publishing company called Lobster Music. Around the same time, Danny White – he of the burning guitar incident several years earlier – formed a group called Matt Bianco, which included a talented Polish singer named Basia Trzetrzelewska. Danny White and Basia splintered off to launch the singer’s solo career with the 1987 debut album, Time and Tide, which featured Peter White on guitar.
After fifteen years as a backup musician and a session player, White launched his solo recording career with the 1990 release of Reveillez-Vous (French for “Wake up,” a title chosen by White in honor of his French mother). The album included several unused songs that White had written for Stewart, and it became a favorite among contemporary jazz radio stations.
He followed with three records on the Sindrome label – Excusez-Moi (1991), Promenade (1993) and Reflections (1994) – before signing with Columbia for the 1996 release of Caravan of Dreams. He maintained an ambitious release schedule through the ‘90s and beyond, but also found time to appear on recordings by many of his friends, including Dave Koz, Rick Braun, Richard Elliot, Jeff Golub, Lee Ritenour, Kirk Whalum, Boney James and many others.
On the road, he has participated in numerous “Guitars and Saxes” tours with the aforementioned players, and has established an annual “Peter White Christmas Tour” – the latter enterprise fueled by the success of his two highly regarded holiday albums, Songs of the Season (1997) and A Peter White Christmas (2007).
Good Day, released in 2009 on Peak Records, a division of Concord Music Group, was White’s first collection of original songs in several years. “I just started going through my backlog of material – songs that I’d never finished, some going as far back as ten or fifteen years – and I discovered that I had a lot of gems that I really wanted to show to the world,” he says. “I wanted to record them in my own time and in my own way, without any outside influence or interference.”
White released Here We Go in 2012 on Heads Up International, a division of Concord Music Group. The 11-song set, produced by White and DC (George Benson, Larry Carlton, Bob James, Patty Austin), featured several high-profile guest musicians, including saxophonists David Sanborn and Kirk Whalum, and pianist Philippe Saisse, and included a range of original material written in the recent and distant past. “I wanted variety,” says White. “I wanted songs that moved me, in the hopes that they’ll move the listener as well. I’m on a journey, and I want to bring with me anyone who’s willing to follow.”
Smile, released on October 7, 2014, is the final CD in White’s trilogy of albums consisting entirely of his own material. Co-produced with DC, the recording features ten tracks – some were written recently, some White wrote along the way with close friends and some were from the vault. Special guests include Mindi Abair (vocals), Rick Braun (horns), Euge Groove (soprano sax) and Philippe Saisse (keyboards, piano and orchestra programming). White’s daughter, Charlotte, plays violin on one song.
In a career that spans nearly four decades, over a dozen solo recordings and countless performances, White insists that it’s the faces in the crowd and the fans that keep the experience fresh. “I’ll play a live show, and someone will come to me afterward and say, ‘Oh, I loved this CD,’ or ‘This song helped me through a bad time,’” he explains. “Or I get emails from people saying, ‘Oh, I love the way you covered one of my favorite songs on your record back in 1994.’ The idea that someone can write me an email and tell me about something I did on a record that was released fifteen years ago – you can’t buy that. That’s priceless. That’s what keeps me going – the idea that people out there really care about what I do, the idea that I’ve made a difference for someone.”
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EL DEBARGE & AVERY*SUNSHINE
El DeBarge
Five-time GRAMMY-nominee El DeBarge got his start as the lead singer of the family group DeBarge, who were on par with The Jacksons in terms of sheer family talent, releasing a string of chart-topping hits such as “Rhythm of the Night”, “Stay With Me”, “Time Will Reveal”, “I Like It” and “All This Love”. Known for his unique high tenor register and strong falsetto, DeBarge went solo, collaborating with artists like Dionne Warwick, Chanté Moore and Babyface. His comeback album “Second Chance” was nominated in three GRAMMY categories, and in 2023 Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him 137 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.
Avery*Sunshine
Singer-songwriter and pianist Avery*Sunshine released her first self-titled album in 2010, which was praised by the media including The Washington Post who called it “a radiant brand of soul”. She’s been a choral director for performances with artists like Michael Bublé, David Foster, and Anthony Hamilton.
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JAZZ TOUR OF THE SUMMER
Dave Koz & Friends Featuring Candy Dulfer, Maysa & Eric Darius
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STEVE TYRELL & DAVID BENOIT
Steve Tyrell
GRAMMY Award-winning producer and vocalist Steve Tyrell is the definition of a renaissance man. In his nearly five decades in the music business, he has achieved success as a singer, songwriter, producer, music supervisor, and most recently, radio host. His breakthrough performances in Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride II helped Tyrell reinvent and re-popularize classic pop standards for a modern-day audience. His hits, The Way You Look Tonight, The Simple Life, Crush On You, and The Sunny Side of The Street, have launched millions of romances and been played at thousands of weddings, including Chelsea Clinton’s!
As an artist, all 9 of his American Standards albums have achieved top 5 status on Billboard’s Jazz charts. His first album, A New Standard, was amongst the best selling jazz albums for more than 5 years. Steve’s latest album, That Lovin’ Feeling, debuted in the top 5. On it, he celebrates what he calls the Great American Songbook 2, featuring seminal rock era classics penned by legendary songwriters, including Carole King, Burt Bacharach, Neil Sedaka, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber, among others. He teamed with Judith Hill of 20 Feet From Stardom, as well as Neil Sedaka, Bill Medley, and B.J. Thomas for duets that put a new spin on their signature songs.
In August 2015, Tyrell added radio host to his long line of credits. Every Monday thru Friday, he can be heard on The Steve Tyrell Show, from 5PM to 8PM/PT on KJAZZ 88.1 in Los Angeles and online at jazzandblues.org.
Steve has had the pleasure of singing for Heads of State, including Presidents Bush and Clinton, Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Santos of Columbia, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In 2014, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales invited Steve and his band for a command performance at Buckingham Palace.
As for American royalty, the Sinatra family has long embraced Steve and his music. Together with Quincy Jones, they handpicked Steve to be the featured performer with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra at their season opening concert in which Frank Sinatra was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame. Also at the request of the Sinatra family, he reprised that performance at Carnegie Hall. This was one of the rare times the family has reached into the vault of original Sinatra arrangements to share them with another artist.
Although Steve tours mainly with his band, he also enjoys playing with some of the most renowned orchestras in the world, and has had multiple performances with The Boston Pops, The New York Pops, The Nashville Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, and The Houston Symphony, among many others. In 2005, after the passing of the legendary Bobby Short, Steve was asked by New York City’s Cafe Carlyle to take over their revered holiday season of November and December, which Mr. Short had not missed for 36 years. Tyrell’s work in the studio as a record producer has included collaborations with such diverse and legendary artists as Rod Stewart, Diana Ross, Ray Charles, Linda Ronstadt, Aaron Neville, Bonnie Raitt, Blood Sweat and Tears, Mary J Blige, Chris Botti, Dave Koz, Dolly Parton, Smokey Robinson, Burt Bacharach, Bette Midler, and Stevie Wonder, among many others. He produced Woody Allen’s classic comedy album, Woody Allen – Stand Up Comic, as well as an album with the late Andy Griffith, which won the Grammy in 1995 for Gospel Album of the Year.
As a music supervisor and music producer for film and TV, Tyrell has worked with such distinguished directors as Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Nancy Meyers, Steven Soderbergh, Charles Shyer, and Hugh Wilson. His song, How Do You Talk To An Angel, written and produced for Aaron Spelling’s Fox television series The Heights, was a No. 1 hit on Billboards Top 100 Pop Charts.
Aside from being a GRAMMY Award winner, Tyrell is a Daytime Emmy Award winner and has earned two Prime Time Emmy nominations. He’s also garnered three Ace Nominations, the 2004 American Society of Young Musicians All That Jazz Award, a 2004 The Wellness Community Human Spirit Award, a 2006 Society of Singers Lifetime Achievement Award, 2008 Los Angeles Jazz Society’s Jazz Vocalist of the Year, and 2013 City of Hopes Goodwill Ambassador Award. His productions have earned over 11 GRAMMY Awards themselves. The music he produced for the children’s special, Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue, which aired on all three major networks simultaneously, was given a special certificate of recognition by the Emmys.
Though Steve was born and raised in Texas, he has called Los Angeles home for more than 30-years. The production he cherishes most is his ever expanding family!
David Benoit
For four decades, the GRAMMY®-nominated pianist/composer/ arranger David Benoit has reigned supreme as one the founding fathers of contemporary jazz. When he was coming up, Benoit worked with singers Patti Austin, Connie Stevens, Ann-Margaret, and Lainie Kazan as her musical director/conductor. In 1976, Benoit released albums on the AVI label from 1977 to 1984. He later released several chart-topping recordings for GRP, including Freedom at Midnight (1987), Waiting for Spring (1989) and Shadows (1991), which both topped Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Charts at #5, #1, and #2, respectively. His other noteworthy recordings include Letter to Evan (1992), his tribute to another piano influence, Bill Evans, and Here’s to You, Charlie Brown: Fifty Great Years (2000). Benoit also recorded with Russ Freeman on their album The Benoit/Freeman Project (1994), and on their follow-up collaboration, 2 (2004), which was released on Peak Records. His other recordings for the label include American Landscape (1997) and Orchestral Stories (2005), which featured his first piano concerto, “The Centaur and the Sphinx,” and a symphonic work, “Kobe”.
He has received three GRAMMY® nominations in the categories of Best Contemporary Jazz Performance for “Every Step of the Way” (1989), Best Large Ensemble Performance for GRP All-Star Big Band (1996), and Best Instrumental Composition for “Dad’s Room,” the latter from the album Professional Dreamer (2000) and in 2010, David Benoit received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Smooth Jazz Awards. He has also worked with an impressive potpourri of musicians including the Rippingtons, Emily Remler, the late Alphonse Mouzon, Dave Koz, Faith Hill, David Sanborn, CeCe Winans, Keiko Matsui, Hiroshima, and Brian McKnight.
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