Results for "Pittsburgh"

2022: The Year in Jazz

by Ken Franckling
December 29, 2022

Current events impacted the jazz world in significant ways throughout 2022. In its third year, the coronavirus pandemic continued to lurk in some settings, while others recovered in robust fashion. Russia's war on Ukraine was felt by musicians and triggered an outpouring of support for its victims. Initiatives to ensure greater equity in jazz advanced. The ...

Joe Lovano: Cleveland's Ultimate Jazz Titan

by Matthew Alec
December 20, 2022

Friday, June 24th, 2022, saxophonist Joe Lovano's group Sound Prints (alongside trumpeter and co-leader Dave Douglas) delivered a tour de force performance to spellbound audience members at the historic Mimi Ohio Theatre in Playhouse Square as a part of Cleveland's annual Tri-C JazzFest. Seasoned group interplay between drummer Rudy Royston, bassist Matt Penman, and pianist Leo ...

Craig Davis

Craig Davis is a highly gifted and formally trained pianist with over 30 years of professional experience as a performer, composer, arranger and educator.

Craig studied privately with Bobby Cardillo during his formative years and was mentored in prominent local bands led by Roger Humphries and Kenny Blake. He was a ‘lifer’ at Shady Side Academy, and received his B.M. in Jazz Studies from I.U. - Bloomington Jacobs School of Music and his M.M. in JazzArts from Manhattan School of Music.

Craig was a member of Sean Jones' quintet 'Mission Statement' and toured with Artie Shaw Orchestra. His NYC trio debuted at ‘The Kitano’ and headlined at Pittsburgh JazzLive International.

Joe Kennedy, Jr.

Born: November 17, 1923

Joe Kennedy, Jr. was an American jazz violinist and educator. Kennedy was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He performed and recorded with pianist Ahmad Jamal and was director of jazz studies at Virginia Tech from 1984 to 1995.

Take Five with Bryan S. Wright

by AAJ Staff
August 19, 2022

Meet Bryan S. Wright Bryan S. Wright is a pianist and Grammy-nominated musicologist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since 2003, he has been the Executive Producer of Rivermont Records, a label dedicated to preserving and promoting ragtime and early jazz styles through reissues of historic recordings alongside new recordings by today's most celebrated ragtime and early jazz ...

Bryan Wright

Bryan S. Wright, Ph.D., is a pianist and Grammy-nominated musicologist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he teaches at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also the founder and executive producer of Rivermont Records, a label specializing in ragtime and jazz.

A native of Lynchburg, Virginia, Bryan first showed musical interest as a toddler and began classical piano lessons with Sandra Horwege at age 5, adding violin lessons two years later. In his early teens, Bryan became keenly interested in ragtime, jazz, and related styles, adding pieces by Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, and others to his repertoire. By 15 he was host of a popular weekly radio program, Sunday Night Nostalgia, heard in Central Virginia over WLVA, WVLR, and WLQE. The program featured big bands, vintage jazz, and “old-time radio” dramas (with occasional live in-studio dramas that Bryan directed). As an undergraduate at the College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia), he furthered his piano studies with Christine Niehaus, taking time to host a weekly ragtime radio program, Elite Syncopations, on WCWM. (The program provided the groundwork for the first 24-hour internet ragtime radio station, Elite Syncopations Radio, which Bryan operated from 2003 to 2010.)

Stephen Philip Harvey: Big Band Superhero In the Making

by John Chacona
July 6, 2022

There's a passage in “Party Song," the concluding cut on the Stephen Philip Harvey Jazz Orchestra's debut recording, Smash! (Next Level, 2022) where the band claps hands, whoops and cheers over a syncopated praise-band saxophone riff. It's pure, unbridled joy and just like the exuberance implied by the exclamation point in the album's title, it's an ...

Groove Town: Buffalo Jazz And Its Legacy - Historical Insights

by Barbara Ina Frenz
April 5, 2022

From early on, Buffalo attracted musicians as a place to live and pursue their artistic endeavors—and they were excellent ones: Lil Hardin Armstrong, Jimmie Lunceford, Pete Johnson, and Stuff Smith. Dodo Greene, two masters of polyrhythm, Frankie Dunlop and Clarence Becton, as well as pianist and bassist Wade Legge grew up here. Two distinctive voices on ...

Deanna Witkowski

Born: March 20, 1972

Known for her adventurous, engaging music that heals the soul, pianist-composer-vocalist Deanna Witkowski moves with remarkable ease between Brazilian, jazz, classical, and sacred music. The award- winning bandleader releases her seventh recording, Force of Nature (MCG Jazz) in January 2022, a companion piece to her biography, Mary Lou Williams: Music For The Soul (Liturgical Press), published in September 2021. The two projects cap a twenty-year deep dive into the ground-breaking impact of Williams’ life and music, making Witkowski one of the few living authorities on the iconic pianist

2021: The Year in Jazz

by Ken Franckling
December 31, 2021

The jazz world continued grappling and adjusting in year two of the COVID-19 pandemic. International Jazz Day again went virtual for the most part. Singer Tony Bennett put the final stamp on his touring--and likely recording--career after his Alzheimer's disclosure. Trumpeter Irvin Mayfield was headed to federal prison. The National Endowment for the Arts welcomed four ...