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ColumbiaHarlemJazzProject
In December 2006, the New York State Music Fund announced a $300,000 grant to Columbia’s Center for Jazz Studies to create the Columbia/Harlem Jazz Project. Through this two-year project, the Center will collaborate with uptown arts organizations to present leading jazz artists in a series of public programs that will explore and interpret jazz music through a variety of perspectives while presenting jazz programs in a community where the roots of jazz run deep.
Upcoming
Adoration of the Melody:
A Tribute to Ruby Braff
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008, 8:00pm
St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University
117th St. @ Amsterdam Ave. (map)
Tickets: $10 / $7 for students and seniors
Tickets may be purchased online at www.tic.columbia.edu or at the Ticket and Information Center in Learner Hall Lobby.
Co-sponsored by Music at St. Paul’s
Featuring: Warren Vaché (trumpet), Howard Alden (guitar), Bucky Pizzarelli (guitar), Nicki Parrott (bass)
There will be a pre-concert interview with Mr. Vaché and Mr. Alden by Professor Robert G. O’Meally.
Four extraordinary musicians – Warren Vaché (trumpet), Howard Alden (guitar), Bucky Pizzarelli (guitar) and Nicki Parrott (bass) unite in tribute to the great jazz trumpeter Ruby Braff (1927-2003). This will be an evening exulting in melody, featuring four musicians with a deep appreciation of Braff’s particular gifts.
"Ruby Braff possessed one of the most beautiful instrumental sounds in jazz, a prodigious gift for phrasing melody, and an acute harmonic sense which revealed his awareness of more modernist developments in jazz." -Kenny Mathieson
Past Events
Sam Rivers and his Orchestra
Music Visionary in Three Parts
Saturday, November 10, 2007, 7:30pm
Marian Anderson Theater at Aaron Davis Hall
The concert began with an interview with Mr. Rivers, followed by performances by the Sam Rivers Trio and by his full 16-piece Rivbea Orchestra.
From his web site: Sam Rivers is the jazz world's high octane octogenarian. The energetic 83-year-old multi-instrumentalist may have left New York for Florida, but he's far from settled and nowhere near retirement. His visionary conception of complex composition and spontaneous creation, unmistakably manifest in the imaginative music of his trio and orchestra, remains revolutionary and yet, unfortunately, largely underestimated by the musical establishment.
Visit www.rivbea.com for more information and samples of his music.
The Olu Dara Band
Blues Up and Down, From the Mississippi Mud to the Avant-Garde
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 125th Street, NYC
Singer-trumpeter-guitarist Olu Dara is a master of the blues and a legend of the free-jazz movement. Mr. Dara began his career as a blues musician at the age of seven in his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi. He later made his name on New York’s free jazz scene, playing trumpet alongside David Murray and Henry Threadgill. The father of famed rapper Nas, Dara’s own critically acclaimed albums weave soulful dance and blues grooves through intricate changes and humorous tales. Dara brings the avant-garde home to his rural roots, but he gets down further than the American South: this sonic alchemist draws West African and Caribbean music into the mix as well. Here is an artist whose warmth and virtuosity make converts of those who discover him.
Eddie Palmieri and his Afro-Caribbean Jazz Septet
Here Comes the Latin Sun
Friday, February 16, 2007
Teatro Heckscher
El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue @ 104th Street
Mr. Palmieri, a Harlem native, has long been considered one of the foremost Latin pianists of the last half-century. His ability to fuse the rhythms of his Hispanic, Puerto Rican heritage with the jazz influences of Thelonious Monk and McCoy Tyner made him an immediate hit when he played New York’s Palladium Ballroom in the 1950s and ‘60s. He has continued to roll on with stylistic innovations, creating classic Tico albums and mixing salsa with R&B, pop, rock, Spanish vocals and more jazz improvisation.
In 2007 Mr. Palmieri was awarded his ninth Grammy Award as his collaboration with Brian Lynch, Simpático, won the award for “Best Latin Jazz Album” – a category Mr. Palmieri helped to invent. This was the second consecutive year Mr. Palmieri won that prestigious award, as his Listen Here! was the 2006 winner in that same category.
Mr. Palmieri’s revolutionary impact on the sound of Latin music has ensured his place in the music pantheon. And for more than 50 years, he has continued to revolutionize Latin music by fusing Afro-Caribbean rhythms with jazz. If music was the young Palmieri’s “way out” of the barrio, it is also his incomparable way of inviting us in.
Special guest appearance by the Harbor Latin Youth Ensemble
Ramon Rodriguez, Diretcor
The Harbor Latin Youth Ensemble is comprised of advanced students from the Harbor Conservatory for the Performing Arts, established in 1970 as a division of Boys & Girls Harbor, which is located in El Barrio. The Ensemble has performed at the Americas Society, Museum Mile Festival, El Museo del Barrio with Jimmy Bosch, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Celebrate Brooklyn. The ensemble is the subject of the PBS documentary "Mi Mambo", which aired nationally in September 2006 during Hispanic Heritage month. The Harbor Conservatory for the Performing Arts is considered the leading school for Afro-Caribbean Latin music. The Conservatory's Latin music program celebrates the rich legacy of Latin music in New York City and the Hispanic contribution to American music through education, preservation and the presentation of public programs, exhibitions and concerts.
Paula West
Swinging Uptown: Paula West Re-Sets the Standards
Friday, January 26, 2007
Miller Theater
Columbia University, Broadway @ 116th Street
Columbia University is honored to present Paula West and her quartet in "Swinging Uptown: Paula West Re-Sets the Standards." Ms. West’s fall set at the Algonquin Hotel earned rave reviews from the New York Times and was named the “Best Cabaret Show” of 2006 by TimeOut New York. On January 29, Ms. West received the 2007 Nightlife Award for Best Female Jazz Vocalist.
Often compared with Billie Holiday and Nina Simone, Paula West shares with these artists a way of coaxing the blues out of any popular song. Born in San Diego, Ms. West made her recording debut in 1997 with Temptation. Her discography also includes Restless (1999) and Come What May (2001). TimeOut New York says: “Her no-frills combination of a luscious sound, a relaxed jazz sense and an incisive understanding of lyrics has made her the only singer in years to earn serious respect in both the cabaret and jazz worlds.”
