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Four of the brightest lights in American jazz will pool their gifts as the Classical Jazz Quartet in a concert 8 p.m. today at the Williams Center for the Arts.
Tickets for the public cost $22 and can be purchased by calling the Williams Center box office at 610-330-5009.
Pianist Kenny Barron, drummer Lewis Nash, and bassist Rufus Reid will make their return to the Williams Center, joining acclaimed mallet master Stefon Harris. He uses both vibraphone and marimba, demonstrating a flair for improvisation that matches Barron’s mastery phrase for phrase.
The Williams Center’s first major jazz concert was a November 1989 performance by Modern Jazz Quartet. The Classical Jazz Quartet has the same instrumentation and similar spirit, without in any way being a “cover band,” says Ellis Finger, director of the Williams Center.
Barron played at the Williams Center with saxophonist Frank Morgan in the early ’90s and returned with the Sphere quartet in 1999 for a Thelonius Monk tribute. Lewis Nash and Rufus Reid performed in separate concerts with Dave Leonhardt, and Lewis returned as part of an Art Blakey tribute sextet in 1998.
“At a time when the Modern Jazz Quartet is now a part of history, it is so nice that another, brilliantly different quartet emerges to not only partially fill the void made by the loss of the other, but to also expand and evolve the original’s vision,” states allaboutjazz.com.
The concert is supported by a jazz programming endowment created by Lafayette alumnus Ed Brunswick ’58.
“To commemorate his 30th class reunion, Ed created this endowment at Lafayette out of his deep love for jazz; this funding support has significantly enhanced the quality and scope of our programming,” says Finger. “As we close our 20th anniversary year, we pay special tribute to the history of concerts supported by this endowment, beginning with the Modern Jazz Quartet in 1989. Other Brunswick performances have showcased Sonny Rollins, Betty Carter, Milt Jackson, Tommy Flanagan, McCoy Tyner, Roy Hargrove, the Mingus Big Band, and the sextet program featuring Jon Faddis, Slide Hampton, and Jimmy Heath.”
The Los Angeles Times has named Barron “one of the top jazz pianists in the world” and Jazz Weekly calls him “the most lyrical piano player of our time.” He consistently wins polls of both jazz critics and readers, including those of Down Beat, JazzTimes, and Jazziz magazines. He has been named Best Pianist by the Jazz Journalists Association every year for the past four years and was a finalist in the prestigious 2001 Jazz Par International Jazz Award. His recordings for Verve have earned him seven Grammy nominations, and other Grammy nominations have come from his collaborations.
Starting in 1962, Barron played five years with Dizzy Gillespie’s band, then joined Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Milt Jackson, and Buddy Rich. The early 1970s found Barron working with Yusef Lateef. He became professor of music at Rutgers University in 1973, mentoring many of today’s young talents, including David Sanchez, Terence Blanchard, and Regina Bell, in a job that lasted until 2000. In 1974, Barron recorded the first of his more than 40 albums as a leader, Sunset To Dawn.
Throughout the 1980s, Barron collaborated with the great tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, touring with Getz’s quartet and recording several legendary albums, including Anniversary, Serenity, and the Grammy-nominated People Time. Also during the 1980s, he co-founded Sphere with Buster Williams, Ben Riley, and Charlie Rouse. After Rouse’s death, the band took a 15-year hiatus and reunited, replacing Rouse with alto saxophonist Gary Bartz.
Nash’s discography of more than 300 recordings includes projects with jazz legends Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, Benny Carter, Hank Jones, and John Lewis, as well as with new jazz stars Diana Krall, Joe Lovano, and Roy Hargrove. He also is featured on recordings by Natalie Cole, Bette Midler, Nancy Wilson, Kenny Rankin, Melissa Manchester, and George Michael.
Nash joined the trio of the great jazz vocalist Betty Carter in 1981, touring internationally with her for nearly four years and playing on three of her recordings, including the Grammy-winning Look What I Got. Then as a member of world-renowned bassist Ron Carter’s nonet, quintet, and quartet, Nash toured extensively and was featured on several of the bassist’s recordings. He joined the quartet of saxophonist Branford Marsalis in 1986, playing for two years in concerts that took him to several continents and participating in Marsalis’ Grammy-nominated recording Random Abstract.
Subsequent work included rhythm duties for jazz trombone master J.J. Johnson’s band, the Don Pullen/George Adams quartet, legendary saxophonist Sonny Rollins, the Tommy Flanagan Trio, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, as well as performances with Stan Getz, Art Farmer, Clark Terry, and Milt Jackson. Nash leads several of his own groups, from duo to septet, and gives lectures, clinics, and workshops. He is a member of the jazz studies faculty at The Julliard School in New York City.
Reid has traveled, performed, and recorded with many jazz greats, including Gene Ammons, Kenny Dorham, Eddie Harris, Sonny Stitt, Don Byas, Philly Joe Jones, Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Dexter Gordon, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, and Art Farmer. For the past three years, he has participated in the BMI Jazz Composers’ Workshop. He won the Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Award for “Skies Over Emilia” and wrote “Whims of the Blue Bird” as a result of the award’s commission. Reid writes works for string orchestra, jazz ensembles large and small, and double bass ensemble pieces. He performs his compositions with both small and large ensembles throughout the world. The BBC Big Band in Great Britain has recorded three of Reid’s compositions and three of his arrangements of standards.
Reid performed and recorded with André Previn, Kathleen Battle, and the St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestra in 1992. The same year, Reid gave two performances of “Two Faces,” a Concerto for Solo Double Bass and Jazz Trio, composed by Benny Golson for Reid. He debuted the piece with the Wayne Chamber Orchestra at William Paterson University and played its New York premiere that October in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. From 1990 to 2001, Reid co-led a quintet with Akira Tana, releasing five CDs.
He also has released a number of duo, trio, and quintet albums. He has taught jazz studies in both workshop and university capacities, and his book, The Evolving Bassist, is recognized as the definitive bass method. In 1997, the International Association of Jazz Educators awarded Reid its Humanitarian Award. Bass Player magazine gave Reid the 1998 Jazz Educator Achievement Award, and Down Beat magazine’s March 1999 issue had a feature story on Reid’s 30-year career. In November 1999, The New Jersey Chapter of the International Association of Jazz Educators named him Outstanding Educator of 1999.
Harris is a recipient of the Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center and the International 2002 Bird Award for Artist Deserving Wider Recognition from North Sea Jazz (The Netherlands). His honors include Best Mallet Player by the Jazz Journalists Association (2003, 2002, 2001, and 2000); Debut Artist of the Year by Jazz Times;Chicago Tribune’s Debut of the Year;and Down Beat’s 2003 Critics Poll Winner for both Vibraphone and Rising Star, Vibraphone; Newsweek’s Best Jazz CD; and Best New Talent and 1999–2000 Readers Poll Best Vibraphonist by Jazziz magazine.
His 2003 release, The Grand Unification Theory, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Album, Jazziz Critics Choice, and four-star reviews from Down Beat, Rolling Stone, and The Los Angeles Times. Harris’ 2001 CD Kindred also was nominated for a Best Jazz Album Grammy. The album Black Action Figure was nominated for a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo. His premiere as a leader, A Cloud of Red Dust, was voted Best Debut Recording at the 1999 New York Jazz Awards. In addition to leading his own band, and touring and recording with The Classical Jazz Quartet, Harris has recorded and toured with many of music’s greatest artists, including Joe Henderson, Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, Buster Williams, Kenny Barron, Charlie Hunter, Kurt Elling, Cyrus Chestnut, Steve Coleman, and Steve Turre.
Harris has performed at many of the world’s most distinguished concert halls, including Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, The Kennedy Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theater, UCLA’s Royce Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center, Detroit’s Orchestra Hall, and the Sydney Opera House. He has toured and recorded with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and performed his original compositions with the Dutch Metropole Orchestra in Den Hague. He has toured South Africa, Brazil, and Europe, and performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival, Istanbul Jazz Festival, and Umbria Jazz Festival, among others. In 2001 he premiered The Grand Unification Theory, a full-length concert piece commissioned by The Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, which was later presented at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. He has also appeared at the Montreal Jazz Festival and the Orange County Performing Arts Center.
He conducts more than 100 clinics and lectures annually at schools and universities throughout the country. He is artist-in-residence at San Francisco Performances, a post he held in 2002 at Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. He has also been an active member of Chamber Music America’s executive board of directors.
The nationally recognized Performance Series attracts more than 10,000 people each season. It has been cited for performing excellence by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, Chamber Music America, Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund, Pennsylvania Arts and Humanities Councils, and Association of Performing Arts Presenters.
The 2003-04 Performance Series at Lafayette is supported in part by gifts from Friends of the Williams Center for the Arts; by the F.M. Kirby Foundation; by provisions of the Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence Program, the James Bradley Fund, and the Ed Brunswick Jazz Fund; and by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, and New England Foundation for the Arts.