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April 6, 2010
CARAMOOR INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL
PRESENTS THE 2010 JAZZ FESTIVAL
AUGUST 6 – 8
CHICK COREA’S FREEDOM BAND, BOBBY HUTCHERSON QUARTET, STEFON HARRIS & BLACKOUT,
MULGREW MILLER TRIO, ELIO VILLAFRANCA QUINTET, CHUCHITO VALDÉS BIG BAND,
CLARICE ASSAD, ROSWELL RUDD’S TROMBONE TRIBE, BRAD SHEPIK’S HUMAN ACTIVITY SUITE,
AND SPOKEN HAND PERCUSSION ORCHESTRA
KATONAH, NY – Jim Luce, Jazz Producer, has announced the lineup for the 65th Caramoor International Music Festival’s annual Jazz Festival, August 6, 7, & 8, at the Center’s distinguished 90-acre garden estate in Katonah, New York.
One of the vital jazz events in the region each year, Caramoor’s annual weekend-long Jazz Festival is renowned for its star-studded line-up of jazz greats and new forces on the scene. Returning after his superlative solo concert during Caramoor’s inaugural fall festival last year, the visionary Chick Corea headlines this year’s festival with his Freedom Band, featuring Kenny Garrett, Christian McBride, and the equally legendary Roy Haynes, with the final concert of the weekend. Saturday night’s headline event is World Vibraphone Summit with the legendary Bobby Hutcherson and his ensemble passing on the torch to the young Stefon Harris and his group Blackout. The talented Mulgrew Miller and his trio kick off the festival Friday with an evening of prowess and captivating elegance.
The afternoon sets capture the sheer breadth of global influences on the jazz scene today. On Saturday, Roswell Rudd brings his Trombone Tribe for a chameleon-like set of music with eclectic influences from down home to Kurt Weill to Eastern European gypsy brass music. The Brazilian Clarice Assad’s versatility and sophistication as a pianist, vocalist, and composer ensures a deeply musical experience. A high-energy celebration of polyphonic rhythms, Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra unifies four percussion batteries into one distinct voice: North Indian tabla, Afro Cuban bata, Brazilian samba, and West African djembe.
On Sunday, well-versed world traveler and guitarist Brad Shepik presents his Human Activity Suite—his most expansive and committed project to date—with Ralph Alessi, Gary Versace, Drew Gress, and Tom Rainey. Cuban pianist Elio Villafranca returns to Caramoor featuring guest artists Lewis Nash and Terell Stafford. After his solo performance two years ago and his quartet set last summer, Cuban piano monster Chuchito Valdés returns with his Big Band performing the music of his grandfather Bebo Valdés—a central figure in the Golden Age of Cuban music. Chuchito Valdés and Elio Villafranca are presented as part of Sonidos Latinos, Caramoor’s ongoing Latin American music initiative.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Chick Corea and the Freedom Band
16-time Grammy winner Anthony Armando “Chick” Corea is a prolific composer and undisputed keyboard virtuoso. From straight ahead to avant-garde, bebop to fusion, children's songs to chamber music, along with some far-reaching forays into symphonic works, Chick has touched an astonishing number of musical bases in his illustrious career. Mr. Corea’s popularity has soared as a solo artist, but he has also collaborated with various musicians from jazz, crossover, and classical fields, including Miles Davis, Blue Mitchell, Herbie Mann, Stan Getz, Michael Brecker, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, Eddie Gomez, Miroslav Vitous, violinist Ida Kavafian, and cellist Fred Sherry.
Chick’s new all-star quartet, the Freedom Band, features alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett, bassist Christian McBride, and legendary drummer Roy Haynes, who turns 85 this year. McBride and Garrett have both previously played in Chick’s Remembering Bud Powell group and the Five Peace Band. Haynes was also a member of Remembering Bud Powell and played on Chick’s landmark 1968 recording, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs. Corea is writing all new music for this group. “The Freedom Band is a meeting of free spirits in music,” says Chick. “The art and practice of improvisation will be our platform. The quartet will be celebrating freedom of expression and freedom to make music the way we feel at the moment. This is our definition of freedom.”
Chuchito Valdés
Born in Havana, Cuba, Chuchito Valdés comes from one of the most distinguished musical families of Cuba. As a child prodigy, he studied with many Cuban masters, including his father Chucho Valdés, the great Cuban pianist. He has extensively studied Cuban music, classical music, and jazz piano. He has recorded and performed with the world renowned Cuban band, Irakere, which he led for two years. He performs at festivals, clubs, and concerts throughout the world and has recently completed his first recording as a co-leader. Worldwide appearances have included the jazz festivals of: Chicago, Detroit, San Jose, Havana, Cancun, as well as a recent festival performance at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Music Festival. Club dates have included Ronnie Scotts in London and Green Dolphin Street in Chicago. On November 9, 2001 he led his Afro-Cuban ensemble at Orchestra Hall in Detroit. When Chuchito is not travelling around the world performing, he lives in Cancun, Mexico where he leads his Afro-Cuban based Latin-Jazz ensemble. Chuchito appeared solo at the 2008 Caramoor Jazz Festival and with his quartet at the 2009 Caramoor Jazz Festival.
Elio Villafranca
Pianist and composer Elio Villafranca was born in the Pinar del Rio province of Western Cuba and was classically trained in percussion and composition at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. Since his arrival in the U.S., Mr. Villafranca has been involved in the East and West coast jazz and Latin jazz scenes. His music, inspired by the jazz and Afro-Cuban styles, creates a unique cultural and musical fusion, with spirited, groundbreaking innovations. In 2003, Jazz Times magazine recognized his reputation for musical excellence by selecting his debut album Incantations/Encantaciones (Universal/Pimienta) as one of the top 50 best jazz albums of the year. Mr. Villafranca recently completed separate European tours with Grammy-nominated Blue Note recording artists saxophonist Jane Bunnett and guitarist Pat Martino, with whom he performed at various world-renowned venues, including the Blue Note Jazz Festival in Ghent, Belgium, the Blue Note Jazz Club in Milan, Italy, the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy, and the North Sea Jazz Festival at The Hague, Holland.
Mulgrew Miller
Mulgrew Miller moves easily from standards to Brazilian to bebop to his own compositions and tours worldwide with his trio, which comprises bassist Ivan Taylor and percussionist Rodney Green. As a young musician, Miller studied with the outstanding pianists James Williams and Donald Brown at Memphis State University, and by age 20 he was playing with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, then under the direction of Duke's son Mercer. Over the last two decades, Miller has also been a top jazz session pianist, working nearly 400 recordings with legends Art Blakey, Betty Carter, and Tony Williams, among others. Mulgrew recorded with the Landmark and Novus labels through the 1980s and '90s. He currently records for MaxJazz, and his latest releases include The Sequel (2002), Live at Yoshi’s (2004, 2005) and Live at the Kennedy Center (2006, 2007).
Roswell Rudd
Although skilled in all styles of jazz, American trombonist Roswell Rudd is known primarily for his work in free and avant-garde jazz. Rudd began his career as a trombonist in a traditional jazz band called Eli's Chosen Six at Yale University and went on to become a leading trombonist in the jazz avant-garde scene of the 1960s and 1970s. A major factor in Rudd's career has been his lifelong collaborations with saxophonists Steve Lacy – with whom he released numerous recordings of the music of Thelonious Monk – and Archie Shepp. Rudd participated in key free jazz recordings, notably with the New York Art Quartet, on the soundtrack recording for Michael Snow's 1964 film New York Eye & Ear Control, and Michael Mantler & Carla Bley's 1968 Jazz Composer's Orchestra-Communications, featuring Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Larry Coryell, and Gato Barbieri. Currently, Rudd conducts master classes and workshops both in the United States and around the world, and continues to perform with his many jazz groups – the most recent of which is his sextet Trombone Tribe.
Bobby Hutcherson
Bobby Hutcherson is a jazz vibraphonist and composer credited – along with Gary Burton – with ushering what was essentially a novelty instrument into the modern era. Hutcherson in turn influenced the few musicians who chose to follow in his footsteps, including Steve Nelson, Joe Locke, and Stefon Harris. A native of L.A., Hutcherson performed locally with Curtis Amy and Charles Lloyd as well as with a quintet co-led by Al Grey and Billy Mitchell, which brought him to N.Y. in 1961, when he was 20 years old. There, he began performing with a visionary group of artists including Jackie McLean, Grachan Moncur III, Charles Tolliver, Archie Shepp, Eric Dolphy, Hank Mobley, and Herbie Hancock. As a result of these associations, in 1963 Hutcherson began appearing as a leader and a sideman on several Blue Note albums that would become classics, including McLean's One Step Beyond, Moncur's Evolution, Hill's Judgment, Dolphy's Out To Lunch, and his own album The Kicker.
Stefon Harris & Blackout
Vibraphonist-composer Stefon Harris has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, is a recipient of Lincoln Center’s prestigious Martin E. Segal Award, and is heralded as “one of the most important young artists in jazz” (The Los Angeles Times). A graduate of The Manhattan School of Music – where he received a B.A. in Classical Music and an M.A. in jazz performance – Harris is committed both to exploring the rich potential of jazz composition and to blazing new trails on the vibraphone. Six years ago, Stefon Harris started Blackout, a jazz group that NPR referred to as “a troupe of music mercenaries adept in the language of jazz, the strut of soul music and the raucous ruckus of breakbeats, go-go, and new-jack rhythms.” The band includes Marc Cary on keyboards, Vicente Archer on bass, Terreon Gully on drums, and Casey Benjamin on alto sax. They have performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival, The Kennedy Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Egg (Albany), and Herbst Theater (San Francisco), among many others. Their album Evolution was named one of the Top 50 CDs in 2004 by Jazz Times, and Stefon Harris has been honored as Best Vibist by Jazziz, Jazz Times, Downbeat and the Jazz Journalist Association.
Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra
A high-energy celebration of polyphonic rhythms, Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra unifies four percussion batteries into one distinct voice: North Indian tabla, Afro-Cuban bata, Brazilian samba, and West African djembe. They link the past and the present, the sacred and the secular with a symphonically-textured fusion of traditional and contemporary drumming and choral compositions. Spoken Hand is a two-time winner of Philadelphia City Paper’s “Best World Music/Roots Performance” and is nationally recognized for its collaboration with tabla master Zakir Hussain and hip-hop dance guru Rennie Harris in the “Flammable Contents” project.
Brad Shepik
Jazz guitarist Brad Shepik has explored many cultural traditions – both on his own albums, and as a member of "world music" collectives, such as Babkas, Lingua Franca, Pachora and Triduga, as well as Matt Darriau's Paradox Trio, Dave Douglas' Tiny Bell Trio, and Yuri Yunakov's Bulgarian Wedding Band. Shepik’s first two records as a leader, The Loan and The Well, were praised for their marriage of world music styles and jazz. In 2000, Shepik began re-examining the traditional guitar/bass/drums format with drummer Tom Rainey and bassist Scott Colley. The trio recorded two CD’s, Drip and Short Trip, both of which were critically acclaimed and featured on NPR. Shepik’s latest project, Human Activity Suite, is a 10 movement piece about climate change for jazz quintet. It features Shepik on guitars, saz and tambura, as well as Ralph Alessi (trumpet), Gary Versace (piano, organ, accordion), Drew Gress (bass) and Tom Rainey (drums). Human Activity Suite was released in February 2009 on Songlines Recordings.
Clarice Assad
Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as a "serious triple threat," and "an arranger and orchestrator of great imagination" (SF Classical Voice), Clarice Assad is making her mark in the music world as a pianist, arranger, as a vocalist, and as a composer. A versatile artist of musical depth and sophistication, her works have been published in France, Germany, and in the United States, and have been performed in Europe, South America, the United States, and Japan. Miss Assad's music often has a thematic core and explores the physical and psychological elements of the chosen story or concept. With a repertoire in continuous expansion, her works are sought out by musicians both in the classical and the jazz realms.
Fazioli Piano: Pianists at this year’s Caramoor Jazz Festival will play the Fazioli F-278 piano, courtesy of Klavierhaus, Inc., 211 West 58th Street, in New York City. Klavierhaus is the authorized dealer for Fazioli Pianoforti of Sacile, Italy. Fewer than 100 Faziolis are available worldwide each year.
ABOUT CARAMOOR
Caramoor is the legacy of Walter and Lucie Rosen, who built their summer home – now known as the historic Rosen House at Caramoor – and filled it with their treasures. Walter Rosen was the master planner for the Caramoor estate, bringing to reality his dream of creating a place to entertain friends from around the world. Their musical evenings were the seeds of today’s Caramoor International Music Festival. Realizing the pleasure their friends took in the beauty of Caramoor – the house with its art collection, the gardens, and the musical programs on summer evenings – in 1946 the Rosens established a public charity to open Caramoor to the community. Lucie Rosen survived her husband by seventeen years. During those years, she expanded the Music Festival: the Spanish Courtyard was used as a setting for musical events, as it is today, and, under her direction, the great stage of the Venetian Theater was built.
Caramoor is a performing arts center, located on a unique 90-acre setting of Italianate architecture and gardens in Westchester County, NY. It enriches the lives of its audiences through innovative and diverse musical performances of the highest quality. Its mission also includes mentoring young professional musicians and providing educational programs for young children centered around music. It is often described as “a Garden of Great Music,” where audiences are invited to come early, explore the beautiful grounds, enjoy a pre-concert picnic, and discover beautiful music in the relaxed settings of the Venetian Theater, Spanish Courtyard, Music Room of the Rosen House, and the magnificent gardens.
With its unique heritage, Caramoor remains a place where magical summer days and nights are shared and enjoyed by thousands. “Caramoor is the loveliest Festival of them all.” - The New York Times
Concert Venues and Gardens
Concerts take place in two outdoor theaters: the 1714-seat, acoustically superb Venetian Theater and the more intimate, romantic Spanish Courtyard. Caramoor’s gardens are also well worth the visit and include nine unique perennial gardens. Among them are a Sense Circle for the visually handicapped, a Butterfly Garden, Tapestry Hedge, and Iris and Peony Garden, which may be enjoyed on one’s own or seen on a guided tour.
GETTING TO CARAMOOR
Caramoor is easy to get to by car and mass transportation.
By car from the West Side of Manhattan and New Jersey, take the Saw Mill River Parkway north to Katonah. Exit at Route 35/Cross River. Turn right, and, at the first traffic light, make a right turn onto Route 22 south. Travel 1.9 miles to the junction of Girdle Ridge Road. Follow the signs to Caramoor. (For detailed directions call 914.232.5035 and press 2, or online at www.caramoor.org). Parking at Caramoor is free.
By train, take the Harlem Division of the Metro-North Railroad to Katonah, New York. Taxi service from the station to Caramoor (5 minutes away) is available.
TICKETS
Friday $25, $35; Saturday $25, $40, $55; Sunday $25, $40, $55. Tickets are on sale now. Order by calling the Box Office at 914.232.1252 or online at www.caramoor.org.
PRESS CONTACT
For Press tickets, images, and/or artist information, contact Whitney Holden at 917.339.7188 or wholden@cohndutcher.com
PROGRAMS
Friday, August 6, 2010
Caramoor Jazz Festival I
Spanish Courtyard
$25, $35
8:00pm – Mulgrew Miller Trio: Mulgrew Miller, piano; Ivan Taylor, bass; Rodney Green, drums
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Caramoor Jazz Festival II
Venetian Theater
$25, $40, $55
2:00pm – Roswell Rudd’s Trombone Tribe
3:15pm – Clarice Assad
5:00pm – Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra
Dinner Break: Great Performances® will grill chicken, ribs, burgers and hot dogs on the picnic lawns.
8:00pm – World Vibraphone Summit: Bobby Hutcherson Quartet / Stefon Harris Blackout
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Caramoor Jazz Festival III
Venetian Theater
$25, $40, $55
1:00pm – Brad Shepik’s Human Activity Suite
2:15pm – Elio Villafranca Quintet featuring Pat Martino
3:30pm – Chuchito Valdes Big Band: The Music of Bebo Valdes
Dinner Break: Great Performances® will grill chicken, ribs, burgers and hot dogs on the picnic lawns.
6:00pm – Chick Corea’s Freedom Band: Kenny Garrett, Christian McBride, Roy Haynes
CREDITS
DON’T MISS WQXR’S LIVE SNEAK PREVIEW OF THE CARAMOOR FESTIVAL ON JUNE 24!
On June 24 at 7pm, Classical 105.9 WQXR, New York's sole 24/7 classical music station, will present a sneak preview of this summer's Caramoor International Music Festival. In a live broadcast from The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, WQXR Host Terrance McKnight will be joined by Caramoor’s General Director Michael Barrett, who will introduce singers, pianists, violinists and quartets from this year’s festival lineup. This lively evening of music and talk will be broadcast live on WQXR and videostreamed live at www.wqxr.org, and www.thegreenespace.org.
Performances are made possible, in part, by ArtsWestchester
with funds from Westchester County Government.
Performances are made possible with public funds from the
New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
The 2010 International Music Festival is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra’s performance is partially supported by a grant from Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, a program developed and funded by The Heinz Endowments; the William Penn Foundation; the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency; and The Pew Charitable Trusts; and administered by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.
The 2010 Jazz Festival is made possible, in part, by Peter & Katherine Kend.
CARAMOOR CENTER FOR MUSIC AND THE ARTS IS LOCATED AT
149 GIRDLE RIDGE ROAD, KATONAH, NEW YORK
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ALL PROGRAMS AND ARTISTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE
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