Blue Note Jazz Festival Announces Upcoming Events

Produced by Jill Newman Productions

Tuesday, June 19, 2012 • 8:00pm & 10:30pm • $65 at table / $40 in bar

 

Soprano Kathleen Battle's luminous voice has been called "...without qualification, one of the very few most beautiful in the world" (The Washington Post).  The range of Battle's repertoire spans three centuries, from the Baroque era to contemporary works.  She has enjoyed some of her greatest successes in the opera house, singing repertoire ranging from Handel to Richard Strauss.  A five-time Grammy winner, her work as a great interpreter of spirituals is documented on Spirituals in Concert (1991).  Ms. Battle is accompanied tonight by famed pianist Cyrus Chestnut, equally at home in jazz, gospel, and classical settings.

 

Produced by Jill Newman Productions

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 • 9:00pm & 11:30pm • $20 at table / $10 in bar

 

Rolling Stone Magazine has declared pianist Jason Moran perhaps "the most provocative thinker in current jazz," and with good reason.  The Blue Note Records recording artist has established himself as a risk-taker and innovator of new directions for jazz as a whole.  Drummer Herlin Riley has toured and recorded Ahmad Jamal, Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Marcus Roberts, Dr. John, Harry Connick Jr., George Benson, Benny Wallace, and Mark Whitfield, among others.  Moran and Riley come together tonight for a rare duo performance that will surely surprise audience members.

 

Thursday – Sunday, June 21-24, 2012 • 8:00pm & 10:30pm • $45 at table / $30 in bar

 

Tonight at the Blue Note, McCoy Tyner, pianist from the original John Coltrane Quartet, will join forces with trumpeter Charles Tolliver and his big band to recreate the music of Coltrane's seminal 1961 album Africa/Brass just over 50 years after its release.  The recording, featuring arrangements and orchestrations by Tyner and Eric Dolphy, was Coltrane's first of numerous releases for the Impulse! label.  A four-time Grammy winner and NEA Jazz Master, McCoy Tyner has contributed to some of the most classic albums and groups in jazz history, including John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things (1960).   An entirely self-taught musician, Charles Tolliver is a remarkable talent who has gained an outstanding reputation as a trumpeter, bandleader, composer and arranger.  Tolliver's Grammy-nominated With Love (2007) earned him the Jazz Journalists Association Best Large Ensemble of the Year award for his new tour de force group, The Charles Tolliver Big Band.