July 17-26, 2006
BILL CHARLAP, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
PHIL WOODS - FRANK WESS - JAMES MOODY
DR. BILLY TAYLOR - JON FADDIS
EDDIE PALMIERI - BRIAN LYNCH
BARBARA CARROLL - PAQUITO D'RIVERA
All Concerts | 8:00 p.m.
Tickets: $50
Subscriptions: 6 Concerts for $234 | 4 Concerts for $168
92nd STREET Y
Lexington Avenue & 92nd Street in New York
92Y.org/jazz | 212-415-5500
New York, NY: Jazz in July at the 92nd Street Y, in its third year under the direction of pianist and Blue Note recording artist Bill Charlap, features six concerts over two weeks from Tuesday, July 17 to Thursday, July 26.
Charlap brings together some of the world's best jazz players for once-in-a-lifetime performances. This year's festival features a variety of jazz styles from bebop to Latin. The festival opens with Phil Woods performing his new arrangements of music by two major composers, Quincy Jones and Oliver Nelson. Venerable jazz polymath Dr. Billy Taylor makes a special appearance on the festival's Piano Jam evening, and the American Songbook takes center stage in a Cole Porter night with Frank Wess, Sandy Stewart and Richard Rodney Bennett. This year's Jazz in July tribute to a living legend of jazz features saxophonist James Moody. Some of New York's finest musicians pay tribute to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in a night of bebop. And Eddie Palmieri and Brian Lynch close the festival with a night of hot Latin jazz featuring music from their 2007 Grammy Award-winning album, Simpatico.
On Monday, July 16 at 8:15 p.m., the Jazz in July master class with Bill Charlap and Ted Rosenthal showcases four gifted young jazz pianists. Tickets are $20.
For more than a decade, pianist Bill Charlap has been forging a career characterized by eloquence and swing. With his long-term working trio of bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington, he has released five highly-acclaimed albums for Blue Note Records, and this week Blue Note released a sixth: The Bill Charlap Trio — Live at the Village Vanguard. The trio is recognized as one of the premiere musical groups in jazz today.
Complementing Charlap's role as artistic director is his award-winning record producer Joel Moss, who is producer of Jazz in July at the 92nd Street Y. In his 35+ years in the music industry, Joel Moss has worked on jazz, rock, classical and Broadway cast recordings. His recent credits include Ray Charles's Grammy-winning recording, “Genius Loves Company," the cast recording of The Drowsy Chaperone (which just won five Tony Awards, including Best Score), and several recordings for Tony Bennett, including the recent Grammy- winning “Playin' with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues" and “Bennett Sings Ellington — Hot & Cool." Moss has also worked with Harry Connick, Jr., Herbie Hancock, Cissy Houston, Audra McDonald, Shirley Horn, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Little Richard and Dawn Upshaw, among many others.
Moss and Charlap work with Hanna Arie-Gaifman, director of the 92nd Street Y Tisch Center for the Arts, which presents the festival and the 92nd Street Y's other music programs.
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PHIL WOODS PLAYS Q AND OLLIE:
THE MUSIC OF QUINCY JONES AND OLIVER NELSON
Tuesday, July 17, 8pm, $50
Quincy Jones (b. 1932) has won 26 Grammy Awards and is probably best known to the general public for his work with artists like Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin and Frank Sinatra. For more than 60 years, he has been a jazz performer, composer and arranger, working with greats like Count Basie, Cannonball Adderley, Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie. Oliver Nelson, a contemporary of Jones (he was a year older), passed away in 1954. During his lifetime, Nelson established himself as a major jazz composer, arranger and saxophone player, working not only with Quincy Jones, but also with Louis Jordan, Erskine Hawkins, Wild Bill Davis, Louie Bellson, Thelonious Monk, Wes Montgomery, and Billy Taylor. Nelson's 1961 recording, Blues and the Abstract Truth, which included his composition “Stolen Moments," is still considered a jazz classic.
Leading the Jazz in July tribute to “Q" and “Ollie" is Grammy- winning saxophonist, bandleader and arranger Phil Woods, who is widely recognized as one of today's premiere alto saxophonists and received a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Fellowship. A disciple of both Quincy Jones and Oliver Nelson, Woods takes an imaginative look at the music of these two greats with new arrangements of their music. Joining Woods is an all-star “little big band" with the same instrumentation as Woods's 2004 recording This is How I Feel About Quincy (which was itself a nod to Jones's 1956 recording This Is How I Feel About Jazz).
The band features Woods (alto sax), Jimmy Greene (tenor), Gary Smulyan (baritone), Brian Lynch (trumpet), Bobby Routch (French horn), and Steve Davis (trombone). The rhythm section features Bill Charlap on piano, Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington at the drums.
COLE PORTER: ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT
Wednesday, July 18, 8 pm, $50
Composer and lyricist Cole Porter is widely recognized as the epitome of sophistication, wit and romance. Pianist and vocalist Richard Rodney Bennett (perhaps best known as a composer of movie scores including Four Weddings and a Funeral) and vocalist Sandy Stewart conjure the spirit of Porter with performances of classic songs like “All of You" and “It's All Right With Me." The concert also features jazz interpretations of Porter's irresistible melodies performed by the legendary Frank Wess, a recipient of this year's National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship, and an ensemble of top-flight jazz musicians.
The ensemble features Frank Wess, tenor saxophone; Richard Rodney Bennett, piano & vocals; Sandy Stewart, vocals; Bill Charlap and Ted Rosenthal, piano; Joe Locke, vibes; Peter Bernstein, guitar; Sean Smith, bass; and Lewis Nash, drums.
BIRD & DIZ: BEBOP TODAY
Thursday, July 19, 8pm, $50
The music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie was the springboard for modern jazz; their rhythmic, harmonic and melodic innovations took jazz to a new level of sophistication. That new level was bebop, and it remains the central language of jazz into the 21st century. In this concert, Charlap presents an exciting array of New York-based beboppers who perform the music of Bird & Diz and their contemporaries, such as Tadd Dameron and Bud Powell.
The Jazz in July bebop band features Jim Rotondi, trumpet; Eric Alexander, tenor saxophone; Steve Davis, trombone; David Hazeltine, Bill Charlap, piano; Joe Farnsworth, drums; Vincent Herring, alto saxophone; Peter Washington, bass; Kenny Washington, drums.
MOODY'S MOODS: AN EVENING WITH JAMES MOODY
Tuesday, July 24, 8pm, $50
Artistic director Bill Charlap devotes one Jazz in July evening each year to a living jazz legend. This year, it's James Moody (b. 1925), the man behind the jazz classic “Moody's Mood for Love" and one of the world's greatest tenor saxophonists. Dizzy Gillespie was Moody's musical father and they spent many years playing together. Moody has a healthy respect for tradition, but takes great delight in discovering new musical paths, which makes him one of the most consistently expressive and enduring figures in modern jazz today.
Moody performs with longtime members of his quartet, pianist Renee Rosnes and bassist Todd Coolman, along with two special guests: trumpet virtuoso Jon Faddis and Cuban-born, Grammy- Award-winning clarinetist and alto saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera. Joining these musicians are Antonio Hart, alto saxophone, Bill Charlap, piano, and Lewis Nash, drums.
PIANO JAM
Wednesday, July 25, 8pm, $50
A fleet-fingered foursome delivers a multi-generational excursion through the history of jazz piano, from stride to Bill Evans. Jazz ambassador and former CBS News correspondent Dr. Billy Taylor lends his wide-ranging stylistic versatility and virtuosity to the proceedings. Also performing on piano are the elegant pianist and vocalist Barbara Carroll, the hard-swinging Eric Reed and Jazz in July artistic director Bill Charlap. The concert also features saxophonist Harry Allen and a rare New York appearance by Baltimore-based singer Ethel Ennis, whose celebrated career includes stints with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Benny Goodman. Peter Washington is on bass and Eddie Locke is at the drums.
EDDIE PALMIERI-BRIAN LYNCH: LATIN RHYTHMS
Thursday, July 26, 8pm, $50
Jazz in July closes with a night of explosive Latin jazz, led by Latin jazz-piano innovator Eddie Palmieri and his long-time collaborator, trumpeter-composer Brian Lynch. The program includes music from their 2007 Best-Latin-Jazz Grammy Award-winner Simpático, which Downbeat hailed as “an exceptional illustration of the verdant common ground between Afro- Caribbean music and bebop." In addition to Bill Charlap on piano, the band includes eight top-line young musicians who have brought their significant talents to the Latin jazz scene, including Simpático sidemen Conrad Herwig, Boris Kozlov, and Dafnis Prieto.
The Latin Rhythms band features Eddie Palmieri, Bill Charlap, piano; Brian Lynch, trumpet; Conrad Herwig, trombone; Miguel Zenon, alto saxophone; Craig Handy, tenor saxophone; Mario Rivera, baritone saxophone; Boris Kozlov, bass; Dafnis Prieto, drums; Little Johnny Rivero, bongos; Pedro Martinez, congas.
ABOUT JAZZ IN JULY
Over the course of more than two decades, under Dick Hyman's direction and more recently under Bill Charlap's leadership, Jazz in July at the 92nd Street Y has welcomed the royalty of jazz to the Y's stage, including Milt Hinton, Ruby Braff, Dick Wellstood, Ralph Sutton, Flip Phillips, Peanuts Hucko, Major Holley and Joe Williams. Others who have appeared at the festival include Bucky Pizzarelli, Derek Smith, Joe Wilder, Jay Leonhart, Johnny Frigo, Kenny Davern and Marian McPartland. Recent guests have included Cedar Walton, Barry Harris, Frank Wess, Houston Person, Wynton Marsalis, Sandy Stewart, Trio da Paz, Hank Jones, Jim Hall, Freddy Cole and Joe Locke, among others. The festival has also nurtured younger jazz musicians, many of whom are now veterans — including current artistic director Bill Charlap, pianist Ted Rosenthal, trumpeter Randy Sandke, guitarist Howard Alden and reed players Ken Peplowski and Dan Levinson.
Dick Hyman stepped down as artistic director in 2004 and passed the baton to pianist and Blue Note recording artist Bill Charlap, whose took the reins of the festival in 2005 and brings his own sensibilities to this annual celebration of jazz.
ABOUT THE 92nd STREET Y
Founded in 1874 by a group of visionary Jewish leaders, the 92nd Street Y has grown into a wide-ranging cultural, educational and community center serving people of all ages, races, faiths and backgrounds. The 92nd Street Y's mission is to enrich the lives of the over 300,000 people who visit each year -- both in person and through the Y's satellite, television, radio and Internet broadcasts. The organization offers comprehensive performing arts, film and spoken word events; courses in the humanities, the arts, personal development and Jewish culture; activities and workshops for children, teenagers and parents; and health and fitness programs for people of every age. Committed to making its programs available to everyone, the 92nd Street Y awards nearly $1 million in scholarships annually and reaches out to 7,000 public school children through fully-subsidized arts education programs. For more information, please visit the website below.
For more information contact All About Jazz.
