The Bay Area prodigies are coming back, and the Stanford Jazz Festival's got 'em.
It's an old story, really. Aspiring jazz artists, so the script goes, won't hit the big time unless they move to New York to make it in the jazz capital of the world. In recent decades the Bay Area has said bye-bye to worthies like guitarist Charlie Hunter, trombonist Steve Turre, pianist Vijay Iyer and multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum, to name a few.
Now meet four of the latest crop of exiles, who are playing in various configurations at the Stanford Jazz Festival. On Wednesday they all come together in a concert appropriately titled “Ambrose and Friends," because they truly are friends who have been performing with each other since they were teenagers and in some cases younger.
Each is certainly bound for jazz stardom, and each is having to figure out his own way of getting there, because so far in the 21st century there are no standard routes, no plethora of apprenticeships, few jazz club circuits, few record labels clamoring for jazz talent.
It's an old story, really. Aspiring jazz artists, so the script goes, won't hit the big time unless they move to New York to make it in the jazz capital of the world. In recent decades the Bay Area has said bye-bye to worthies like guitarist Charlie Hunter, trombonist Steve Turre, pianist Vijay Iyer and multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum, to name a few.
Now meet four of the latest crop of exiles, who are playing in various configurations at the Stanford Jazz Festival. On Wednesday they all come together in a concert appropriately titled “Ambrose and Friends," because they truly are friends who have been performing with each other since they were teenagers and in some cases younger.
Each is certainly bound for jazz stardom, and each is having to figure out his own way of getting there, because so far in the 21st century there are no standard routes, no plethora of apprenticeships, few jazz club circuits, few record labels clamoring for jazz talent.
For more information contact All About Jazz.
