GREGORY PORTER
The Adrienne Arsht Center is celebrating its 20th Anniversary Gala Concert with jazz vocalist Gregory Porter.
With a voice that has been described as “liquid gold”, Porter has captivated audiences around the world with his soulful baritone and deeply emotional performances. His blend of jazz, soul and gospel has earned him critical acclaim and global success.
Tickets: $23.40 – $140.40 incluing all fees.
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Sarah Lois Vaughan was born on March 27, 1924 in Newark, New Jersey and sang in church and learned to play piano as a child. Around age 18 she won the Apollo’s Amateur Night contest and in the spring of 1943 was called to open for Ella Fitzgerald. This engagement led to signing on with the Earl Hines band as his pianist, although she had some singing duties. An incubator for bebop Sarah played alongside Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bennie Green and Billy Eckstine.
By 1944 Eckstine left the Hines band to form his own and took Gillespie, Parker and Sarah with him giving her an opportunity to stretch her vocal prowess and her first recording session. The year spent with Eckstine proved rewarding as she honed her craft with Miles Davis, Lucky Thompson, Kenny Dorham, Art Blakey, Gene Ammons and Dexter Gordon among others.
Vaughan began her solo career in 1945 freelancing the 52nd Street clubs and record Lover Man on the Guild label. This would lead to recording sessions for Crown and Gotham labels, performing at Café Society and a subsequent Musicraft contract. Soon the hits If You Could See Me Now, Don’t Blame Me, I’ve Got A Crush On You, Everything I Have Is Yours and Body & Soul were released. She then signed with Columbia Records and her stardom was ensured.
Over an illustrious career Sarah Vaughan recorded over six dozen albums and live dates, has two recordings inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, was elected to the New Jersey Hall of Fame, has the lyrics to Send In The Clowns on the edge of the Newark Light Rail platforms, recognized as a NEA Jazz Master, received the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, recorded her final complete album Brazilian Romance in 1987 and briefly scatted on her final and only studio session with Ella Fitzgerald on Quincy Jones’ Back On The Block in 1989, a fitting end to a career that started with Ella.
Sarah Vaughan, nicknamed Sailor, Sassy and The Divine One and passed away due to complications from lung cancer on April 3, 1990. She was 66 years of age.
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Mimi Jones was born Miriam Sullivan in New York City on March 25th and grew up in the Bronx. Influenced by everyone from Sinatra to the Beatles to Earth Wind & Fire, The Doors, Miles Davis, Gene Ammons, Gloria Lynne and John Coltrane, her compositional style is reflective.
By the age of twelve she was studying guitar with her first teacher, Jim Bartow, taking classes in dance, chorus, drums, music theory, piano and composition at the Harlem School of the Arts which all helped her secure a spot at Fiorello La Guardia High School of Music and Performing Arts. Realizing there was no guitar program Jones switched to cello and eventually was given the bass spot in the jazz band. It was during this time she discovered her musical voice.
Mimi began her relationship with the bass by receiving classical lessons, attended the Jazz Mobile Workshop, and studied with bassist Lisle Atkinson who gave her first bass, a Juzak. She went on to receive a full scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music Conservatory where she studied with saxophonist Charles Davis, Barry Harris, Ron Carter, Milt Hinton, Dr. Billy Taylor, Yusef Lateef, Max Roach, and Latin bass techniques with Guillermo Edgehill while matriculating to degree in music.
As a leader her debut “A New Day” is filled with seamless original compositions and as a sideman she has performed and toured with such luminaries as Lionel Hampton, Roy Hargrove, Sean Jones, Kenny Barron, Kevin Mahogany, Onaje Alan Gumbs and Ravi Coltrane among others. The multi-talented bassist, vocalist and composer continues to bring her elegant sound is an eclectic mix of genres based on a strong jazz foundation to the world stage.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jeri Brown was born in Halifax, Missouri on March 20, 1952 and began singing publicly from the age of six. While matriculating through college in Iowa on a four-year scholarship she studied classical voice. As a result of student performances in mid-western U.S. and Europe her voice caught the attention of musical directors and composers looking for an imaginative voice with incredible range effortlessly creating aesthetic touches to their contemporary or avant-garde works.
Along with performances with the Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and several combos, Jeri began incorporating more stylistic renditions of standards from theatre, film and pop culture. This led to her working with Ellis Marsalis, Billy Taylor and Dizzy Gillespie. Upon the suggestion of Joe Lovano, she began to improvise during concert performances.
The short list of jazz artists Jeri has performed and recorded with is not limited to Leon Thomas, John Hicks, Grady Tate, Kirk Lightsey, Betty Carter, David Murray, D.D. Jackson, Billy Hart, Kenny Werner, Pierre Michelot, Onaje Allan Gumbs, Fred Hersch, Tony Suggs, Michel Donato, Winard Harper, Chico Freeman, Rufus Reid and Seamus Blake.
Holding several degrees in Counseling, Education and English, Brown has taught at Cleveland State University, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, The university of Akron, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and several universities in Canada. Not to be limited, she has added documentaries, film and theatre to her arsenal of accomplishments and has written and recorded lyrics in collaboration with Avery Sharpe, Henry Butler, Cyrus Chestnut, Abdullah Ibrahim, and Jimmy Rowles. She continues her lifelong pursuit of excellence performing, composing and recording.
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Elis Regina was born Elis Regina Carvalho Costa in Porto Alegre, Sao Paulo Brasil on March 17, 1945. She began her career as a singer at age 11 on a children’s radio show, O Clube Do Guri on Rádio Farroupilha. In 1959, Rádio Gaúcha contracted her and the next year she travelled to Rio de Janeiro where she recorded her first LP, Viva a Brotolândia (Long Live Teenage Land).
Following this debut she won her first festival song contest in 1965 singing Arrastão that launched her solo career. Recording her sophomore project Dois na Bossa, that became the first album to sell over a million copies, is considered the beginning of the new musical style MPB, Musica Popular Brasileira.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, along with Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, she helped to popularize the work of the tropicalismo movement. Her 1974 collaboration with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Elis & Tom, has been cited as one of the greatest bossa nova albums of all time. Her earlier records were mostly apolitical but from the mid-’70s on, her music became more engaged, and she began to choose compositions and structure her conceptually complex live shows in ways as to criticize the military government, capitalism, racial and sexual injustice and other forms of inequality.
Her death from a cocaine, alcohol and temazepan interaction on January 19, 1982 at the age of 36 shocked Brazil. Elis Regina, singer of MPB, samba, jazz, bossa nova, rock and pop, is widely regarded as the best Brazilian singer of all times by many critics, musicians, and commentators.
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