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Charles "Specs" Wright
Tickets Now On Sale For November Shows At Smoke Jazz Club Including Billy Hart, Charles McPherson, And More
Source:
AMT Public Relations
SMOKE Jazz Club today announced an exciting line-up for November 2026. The month begins with two legends leading their respective quintets: bebop saxophonist Charles McPherson (pictured above) and NEA Jazz Master Billy Hart. TENOR TITANS! the Wayne Escoffery and Jimmy Greene Quintet features jazz legends Buster Williams and Lenny White. The Thanksgiving holiday weekend welcome back acclaimed guitarist Peter Bernstein featuring a guest appearance by 3x Grammy Award-winning pianist Sullivan Fortner. For the most up-to-date November schedule, please visit SMOKEjazz.com. ...
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Lizz Wright + Kenny Banks Sr. Announce Duo Jazz Album 'nearness' With Release Of New Single
Source:
Big Feat PR
Last week, on Friday, June 26, jazz vocalist and songwriter Lizz Wright, together with acclaimed pianist Kenny Banks Sr., announced the forthcoming release of their duo album, Nearness, and released the first single, “Soon I Will Be Done.” Set for release on September 25, 2026, on Blues & Greens Records and Candid Records, the 11-track LP of standards and spirituals serves as an intimate showcase of each artist’s talent, as well as their creative connection. The new single, “Soon I ...
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Sir Charles Thompson in 15 Tracks
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Pianist Sir John Thompson could play anything. And he did, from swing and jump blues to bebop and pop, on recording session after recording session. Lester Young dubbed him “Sir" in the early 1940s when they were both performing at Cafe Society in New York. Prez laid the moniker on Thompson to honor his elegant keyboard style, and it stuck. [Photo above of Sir Charles Thompson] Remarkably, Thompson lived to be 98. I say remarkably because being a jazz musicians ...
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Etienne Charles Discovers New Cultural Connections with 'Gullah Roots,' Arriving June 20 on Culture Shock Records
Source:
Terri Hinte Publicity
Etienne Charles traverses an underexplored corner of the African American diaspora on Gullah Roots, set for a June 20 release on his own Culture Shock imprint. Helming an extraordinary sextet that includes alto saxophonist Godwin Louis, pianist Christian Sands, guitarist Alex Wintz, bassist Russell Hall, and drummer Harvel Nakundi (plus special guests), trumpeter/composer Charles immerses himself in the history, culture, and music of the Black ethnic group centered in the Lowcountry region of the southeastern United States. Best known for ...
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April 29: Visionaries And Eccentrics: Ives’ Problem Children Explores Charles Ives’ Musical Legacy In Multiple Musical Genres
Source:
Braithwaite & Katz Communications
With his concept of musical transcendentalism, Charles Ives paved the way for a century of experimentation in multiple modes of musical expression. In Visionaries and Eccentrics: Ives’ Problem Children, Contemporary Musical Arts students explore the worlds of collage, postmodernism, and other genres of multi-layered music, including rock, jazz, funk, noise, and other contemporary genres, drawing on the music of Brian Wilson, Captain Beefheart, Parliament Funkadelic, Connie Converse, Polly Bradfield, and others. This special concert, produced by Anthony Coleman and Lautaro ...
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Perfection: Teddy Charles - Borodin Bossa Nova (1963)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
In April and May of 1963, Teddy Charles, accompanied by an all-start group of musicians, recorded Russia Goes Jazz: Swinging Themes From the Great Russian Composers (United Artists). The point of the LP, conceived by Teddy, was to record Russian classical works that influenced American popular songs. One of them was Borodin Bossa Nova, recorded in April 1963, with Jerome Richardson (fl), Zoot Sims (ts), Eric Dolphy (b-cl), Pepper Adams (bar), Teddy Charles (vib), Hall Overton (p), Jimmy Raney (g), ...
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Smoke Jazz Club Announces March Line-up Including Terri Lyn Carrington's Tribute To Max Roach, Fred Hersch Solo Piano, Charles McPherson, Jeremy Pelt And More
Source:
AMT Public Relations
Hailed as the “#1 Jazz Club in New York City (SecretNYC),” SMOKE Jazz Club presents legendary artists and today’s leading female musicians in March. The month kickstarts with the NEA Jazz Master Terri Lyne Carrington paying tribute to Max Roach’s Centennial with the debut of her “We Insist! 2025” ensemble complete with live dancing on the SMOKE stage (Mar 5-9). Making his highly anticipated SMOKE debut is pianist Fred Hersch performing three nights solo (Mar 12, 13 + 16) and ...
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New England Conservatory Fall Festival Celebrates 'Charles Ives, Ruth Crawford Seeger And American Musical Innovation' from November 10-17, 2024
Source:
Braithwaite & Katz Communications
Honoring the legacy of John Heiss, this weeklong festival features residencies with guest artists Raven Chacon and John Musto, a barn dance with Alex Cummings and Adah Hetko, a four-night run of John Musto and Mark Campbell’s opera, Later the Same Evening and more. 2024 marks the return of the NEC Festival, a week-long event honoring the legacy of composer, legendary NEC faculty member and Festival founder John Heiss. Organized by NEC’s Faculty Senate Steering Committee and running from November ...
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Leo Wright: Suddenly the Blues (1962)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
When he wasn't playing and recording in the 1960s with Dizzy Gillespie, Tadd Dameron, Milt Jackson and others, alto saxophonist and flutist Leo Wright recorded a handful of albums as a leader. One of the best of these was Suddenly the Bluues. Recorded for Atlantic in April 1962, Wright's quartet included Leo Wright (as,fl), Kenny Burrell (g), Ron Carter (b) and Rudy Collins (d). The album was his second studio recording as a leader, the first being Blues Shout for ...
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Charles Mingus: Peggy's Blue Skylight
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
About an hour and 45 minutes north of Manhattan sits the village of Millbrook, N.Y. In the 1960s, a sprawling American Queen Anne mansion just outside the village became something of a counterculture landmark. Built in 1912, the house and the 2,500-acre estate was acquired at the start of the 1960s by the twin sons of the wealthy Mellon-Hitchcock family. The sons' grandfather was William Larimer Mellon, a co-founder of Gulf Oil. Their mother, Margaret, had married Thomas Hitchcock Jr., ...
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Charles "Specs" Wright
Instrument: Drums
Born: September 8, 1927
Died: February 6, 1963
