Jazz Giant Mulgrew Miller Will Lead Wingspan Quintet Today, Saturday

Easton native and internationally acclaimed jazz pianist Mulgrew Miller, Lafayette’s 2003-04 Alan and Wendy Pesky Artist-in-Residence, will lead his Wingspan quintet in a performance with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company tonight and in a concert tomorrow, both at 8 p.m. at the Williams Center for the Arts.

Tickets for the public cost $20 for tonight’s performance and $18 for the Saturday concert. The Williams Center has offered a pricing incentive to encourage attendance at both performances. With the purchase of a ticket for one event at full price, a ticket for the second can be added for one dollar more. Tickets can be purchased by calling the box office at 610-330-5009.

As part of his interaction with students as Pesky Artist-in-Residence, Miller is giving presentations to several classes, including those in music and art. His previous activities include performing with the Jazz Ensemble Dec. 4 at its annual winter concert. Miller attended six rehearsals, working with the ensemble on rhythmic issues, dynamics, and intonation. A Williams Center favorite, Miller was named the most in-demand pianist in a recent New York Times poll and has been called “perhaps the leading pianist of his generation” by the Boston Globe.

Yesterday, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC) gave lecture performances at four schools in Easton – Forks, March, and Tracy Elementary Schools and Easton High School. In addition, Miller and DCDC artistic director Kevin Ward had a conversation hour accompanied by choreography and music with a group of 50 dance students – including Miller’s daughter — at Lehigh Valley Charter School for the Performing Arts in Bethlehem. Last night, DCDC gave a presentation to Lafayette students interested in dance. The DCDC residency is supported by an ArtsConnect grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation and a touring grant from the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Wingspan, fronted by inventive saxophonist Steve Wilson and vibraphonist Steve Nelson, throbs with the probing creative spirit of Miller’s keyboard work and his veteran rhythm section. One of the top touring bands in American jazz, Wingspan’s performance with DCDC includes a jazz suite that Miller created with a commissioning award from Lafayette in honor of the Williams Center’s 20th anniversary. Tonight’s performance will include the tour premiere of “The Clearing in the Woods,” a dance by Ronald K. Brown that the commissioned suite accompanies. The commission was made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts funding that supports this year’s Jazz Masters series at Lafayette.

Half of the DCDC program will be taken from the ensemble’s Flight Project, which honors the 100th anniversary of flight, accomplished by Dayton natives Wilbur and Orville Wright. Transcendence, elevation, and spiritual attainment lie at the metaphorical heart of Flight Project, with original choreography by Bill T. Jones, Warren Spears, Doug Varone, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Dwight Rhoden, and Bebe Miller. Each work explores what the concepts of invention and flight mean in the contemporary world. The Jones and Spears choreography will be part of the Lafayette performance.

The New York Times has called DCDC “a showcase for creativity and virtuoso dancing” and “a multicultural troupe that has a signature style rooted not so much in power as in speed, suppleness, and intricacy.” Adds the Seattle Times, “Its members match well-honed technical skills with heartfelt passion.”

Founded in 1968 by Dayton, Ohio, native Jeraldyne Blunden, DCDC is a repertory modern dance company rooted in the African American experience. The oldest modern dance company in Ohio, DCDC holds the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of classic works created by African American choreographers.DCDC has won national and international acclaim and is renowned for powerfully moving performances, virtuosic dancing, and excellence in educational and outreach programming.

DCDC’s repertoire includes works created by master choreographers such as Eleo Pomare, Alvin Ailey, Ulysses Dove, Merce Cunningham, Donald McKayle, and Talley Beatty. As evidenced by Flight Project, the group also acquires new works by contemporary choreographers.

DCDC collaborated with the New Orleans-based Dirty Dozen Brass Band to create a full-length work that premiered in Dayton in 2001, entitled When the Spirit Moves. In 1998, DCDC was one of four dance companies chosen by the American Dance Festival to participate in its Black Tradition in American Modern Dance project. It involved the reconstruction of classic dance works by African-American choreographers and led to an extensive touring schedule for DCDC. Through performances and tours presenting the project in North Carolina, New Mexico, Minnesota, and California, the company built a reputation as artistically superb and technically gifted.

Since the late 1980s, DCDC has toured almost every state in the U.S. and also has traveled to Russia, Germany, France, Poland, Korea, Bermuda, and Canada. It has performed numerous times at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival as well as at the American Dance Festival. Additional major appearances in the United States have included the prestigious Joyce Theater and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors in New York City, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and The Kennedy Center’s Satellite Program for Schools, televised nationally.

In February 1999, DCDC premiered Children of the Passage, co-choreographed by Brown and Donald McKayle. It was commissioned by the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce, Ohio, as the performance component of a major traveling exhibition, When the Spirit Moves: the Africanization of American Movement. The exhibition explored the relationship between the history and cross-fertilization of African dance and American culture.

The creation and debut of Children of the Passage, along with numerous other classic works reconstructed on and performed by DCDC, have been captured in the PBS Great Performances Dance in America special, Free to Dance.The documentary chronicles the significant influence of African American choreographers on modern dance.It aired nationally in June 2002.

Miller’s professional career started at age 20 with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, led by the late Mercer Ellington. During his formative years as a sideman, Miller also worked with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Woody Shaw’s Quintet, and Betty Carter’s group. He was also one of the founding members of the Tony Williams Quintet.

The experience gained with such luminaries allowed Miller to rapidly become established as one of the most in-demand pianists in the New York scene. In 1985, Miller made his first recording as a leader for producer Orrin Keepnews’s former label, Landmark. During the 1990s, Miller developed his career as a leader of his own trios/quintets, recording an impressive series of albums for RCA/Novus.

In 1995, Miller toured Europe and the United States, sharing the stage with fellow pianist Kenny Barron. He also has played in various all-star groups, such as The New York Jazz Giants, One Hundred Golden Fingers, and the yearly editions of Jam Session-Jazz at the Philharmonic Today, and has recorded with almost every known jazz artist in the scene, from Joe Lovano to Nicholas Payton.

Miller remains one of the most recorded pianists in the scene today, second only to Barron, with over 400 recording sessions to his credit. His 2002 release, The Sequel, on MaxJazz, features Miller surrounded by long-time associates such as Steve Nelson and Steve Wilson in a blend of original compositions and standard tunes.

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.