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Benny Russell
Saxophonist Benny Russell, a graduate of Morgan State University, moved to New York shortly after graduation and quickly formed a jazz orchestra called the NEW YORK ASSOCIATION – a seventeen piece ensemble that featured such noted jazz artists as trumpeters Cecil Bridgewater and Tom Harrell, saxophonist John Purcell, trombonists Steve Turre and Robin Eubanks, pianist Onaje Allan Gumbs, and drummer Mike Clark.
Russell chaired the jazz division at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, where he also taught jazz history. While working at the Conservatory, he was able to launch a string of other cultural activities that served Brooklyn, including a program of workshops for high school students in the Brooklyn public school system, the Charlie Parker Birthday Festival, and regular performances with the Next Legacy Orchestra. In February, 2002, Russell presented his work Langston Hughes: The Soul of His Words at the Museum of Natural History in New York.
In 2004, Russell chaired the Jazz department at the Maryland Conservatory of Music where he produced the 100th Anniversary Celebration of the birth of Count Basie which included Grammy-nominated artists Frank Foster, Antonio Hart and Mark Gross. In February 2005, Russell was commissioned to write a Jazz score for Zora Neale Hurston’s play Cold Keener. In 2008, Mr. Russell was commissioned by the Multicultural Music Incorporation to write a three movement suite entitled The Darfur Chronicles which was performed by the Bronx Arts Ensemble and featured the actress Nora Cole as the narrator. In 2011, Mr. Russell conceived a program that featured an overture entitled Just Before the Autumn performed by the Susquehanna Symphony Orchestra. On February 24, 2013, Mr. Russell presented at Harford Community College Spirituals and Other Musings: A Tribute to 50 Years of a Dream. It featured a nine piece chamber orchestra in which he arranged all of the music and conceived the entire multi-media production.
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Ravita Jazz: Oriana
by Bill Milkowski
On his second outing as a leader, bassist-composer Phil Ravita recruited a close-knit crew of musicians that he's worked with in the Mid-Atlantic region since their time together in grad school at the University of Maryland, College Park. “We've known each other since 2007," he said of bandmates Greg Small on piano and Nucleo Vega on drums. Since then, they've done gigs in jny: New York City, jny: Washington, D.C. and jny: Baltimore and a myriad of Maryland towns and ...
read moreThe Grasso-Ravita Jazz Ensemble: Jagged Spaces
by Jack Bowers
The Baltimore-based Grasso-Ravita Jazz Ensemble is a congenial quintet co-led by guitarist Skip Grasso and bassist Phil Ravita. Its other members are saxophonist Benny Russell, pianist Greg Small and drummer Nuc Vega. Jagged Spaces, the group's debut recording, encompasses nine original compositions: four by Grasso, two each by Ravita and Russell, and one by Small. If earnestness alone could win the day, this ensemble would no doubt emerge victorious. As it is, their diligence and design aren't ...
read moreThe TNEK Jazz Quintet: Plays the Music of Sam Jones
by Jack Bowers
The late Sam Jones is mainly remembered as an earnest craftsman whose perceptive bass lines undergirded the likes of Cannonball Adderley, Oscar Peterson, Cedar Walton, Barry Harris, Kenny Dorham, Bobby Timmons, Bill Evans and a host of other jazz masters. Jones, however, had another special albeit lesser-known talent, one that is addressed here, almost forty years after his passing in 1981, by the TNEK Jazz Quintet. Jones, as it happens, was a superb writer whose keen ear for a melody ...
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