Nicholas Payton, Keyon Harrold, Chelsea Baratz Among Performers At Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival

Pittsburgh's tenor sax great Stanley Turrentine and trumpet king Sean Jones have set a high bar for fellow practitioners at the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival Presented by Citizens (PIJF) to follow. Trumpeters Nicholas Payton and Keyon Harrold and tenor saxophonist and Pittsburgher Chelsea Baratz, have met that bar with their inventive and individual artistic expressions.

 

The New Orleans-born, Grammy award-winning multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer, producer, arranger, essayist, and social activist Nicholas Payton is a provocative and protean force in modern music. His trumpet tones range from the gutbucket to the galaxy, augmented by his ingenious self-accompaniment on keyboards, and his deft skills as a drummer. A child prodigy on trumpet and an alumnus of the famed New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA), Payton has played with everyone from Ron Carter, Clark Terry and Elvin Jones to George Coleman, Butcher Brown and Orrin Evans. Payton's 20+ albums as a leader include Doc Cheatham & Nicholas Payton, which won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Solo in 1997, his epic, 2-CD, 2017 release The Afro-Caribbean Mixtape, and his 2022 recording The Couch Sessions. Payton, who describes himself as a musician who plays “Postmodern New Orleans Music,” coined the term Black American Music or #BAM to encompass the wide range of improvisational musical genres created by Black people in the United States. Payton utilizes that concept to “…draw from the wellspring of all the great Black ancestors who inspired me to play this music in the first place. And to hopefully keep that energy, that spirit.” Payton will bring that soulful, syncopated spirit to the Highmark Stage on Sunday, September 17, 4:45 pm.

 

Trumpeter Keyon Harrold moved to New York City from his hometown of Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, much in the same way Miles Davis moved from East St. Louis to the Big Apple in the 40s. You can hear the influences of Davis' indigo trumpet tones on Harrold's work on the biopic Miles Ahead starring Don Cheadle, and his first album, The Mugician (a mix of musician and magician), which also features the legendary MC Pharoahe Monch. Harrold encompasses the soul of jazz and swagger of hip-hop on his collabs with Robert Glasper, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Rihanna and Beyonce, to name a select few. Joining Harrold's quintet on the Highmark stage on Sunday, September 17, at 7:15 pm will be Monch and the Baltimore vocalist, Mumu Fresh, adding her vivid and vibrant vocals to Harrold's moving and melodious mix.

 

Like her predecessor, Stanley Turrentine, tenor saxophonist Chelsea Baratz – the pride of Upper St. Clair High School, who played her first jam session at the Crawford Grill when she was 13 – left Pittsburgh and moved to New York City to fulfill her jazz destiny in 2005. She's made quite a name for herself, working with Orrin Evans, Maurice Brown, Nicholas Payton, Brandee Younger, Aretha Franklin and many others. She released her 2009 debut CD, Faith and her 2020 single, “The Promise.” Hailed by ReverbNation as “a new voice on the saxophone,” Baratz is blessed with a robust tenor sound that comes through in rich, tonal colors, whether she's playing the music of Sam Rivers or Fela. Her homecoming on Sunday, September 17, at 1:00 pm promises to be a swinging affair.

 

For tickets and information on the PIJF, please visit https://pittsburghjazzfest.org.

 

The 13th Annual Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival presented by Citizens (PIJF) and produced by the August Wilson African American Cultural Center returns to AWAACC and Highmark Stadium September 14 – 17, 2023. Featured artists include Gregory Porter, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Ledisi, Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Kurt Elling & Charlie Hunter, Nicholas Payton, Bob James, Orrin Evans, José James, PJ Morton, Keyon Harrold with special guests Pharoahe Monch and Mumu Fresh, Nigel Hall, Madison McFerrin, Christie Dashiell, Chelsea Baratz, Howie Alexander and more.

 

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