JULY 3, 2007 @ 7:30 PM
Boston Brass
Jose Sibaja, Trumpet
Jeff Conner, Trumpet
J.D. Shaw, Horn
Lance LaDuke, Trombone
Andrew Hitz, Tuba
TubaTournament Galop – Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Tango Apasionado – Astor Piazzolla [A Tribute to Astor Piazzolla’s 1987 Central Park Concert]
1. Adios Nonino
2. Libertango
3. Oblivion
4. La Muerte del Angel
“Glitter and Be Gay” from Candide – Leonard Bernstein
Goin’ Home – Antonin Dvorak [Dvorak’s hymn to America from “Symphony from the New World”]
Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 – Franz Liszt
Brass Roots – Don Sebesky
It’s All Right with Me – Cole Porter
Manteca – Dizzy Gillespie
The Chicken – Jaco Pastorius
Coconut Champagne – Dennis DiBlasio
I Remember Clifford – Benny Golson
Caravan – Duke Ellington, Irving Mills & Juan Tizol
All arranged by J. D. Shaw except for “I Remember Clifford”, arranged by Jeff Conner
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
About the composers:
Grammy, Tony, and Oscar award winner Don Sebesky is best known as house arranger for many of producer Creed Taylor’s Verve, A&M, and CTI productions; the man whose orchestral backgrounds helped make artists like Wes Montgomery, Paul Desmond, Freddie Hubbard, and George Benson acceptable to audiences outside of jazz. He has taken critical heat for this, but Sebesky’s arrangements have usually been among the classiest in his field, reflecting a solid knowledge of the orchestra, drawing variously from big band jazz, rock, ethnic music, classical music of all eras, and even the avant-garde for ideas. He once cited Bartok as his favorite composer, but one also hears lots of Stravinsky in his work. Sebesky started out professionally as a trombonist while still at the Manhattan School of Music, working with Kai Winding, Claude Thornhill, the Tommy Dorsey Band led by Warren Covington, Maynard Ferguson, and Stan Kenton. In 1960, he gave up the trombone to concentrate upon arranging and conducting, eventually receiving the breakthrough assignment of Wes Montgomery’s Bumpin’ album (1965). Some of the most attractive examples of his work for jazz headliners include Bumpin’, Benson’s The Shape of Things to Come, Desmond’s From the Hot Afternoon, and Hubbard’s First Light. He began to step out into the spotlight with the release of his all-star Giant Box, which was followed by sporadic further releases on CTI and GNP/Crescendo. He has also written classical works and a book, The Contemporary Arranger (Port Washington, NY, 1975).
Jaco Pastorius Three-time Grammy award winner Jaco Pastorius is the only electric bass player to be honored by Downbeat Magazine’s Jazz Hall of Fame. With three Grammy Awards to his credit, brilliant fleet technique and fertile melodic imagination, Pastorius made his fretless electric bass leap out from the depths of the rhythm section into the front line with solo fluidity that demanded attention. He also posed a further triple-threat as a talented composer, arranger and producer. He and Stanley Clarke were the towering influences on their instrument in the 1970s. Born in Pennsylvania, Pastorius grew up in Fort Lauderdale, where he played with visiting R&B and pop acts while still a teenager and built a reputation as a local legend. Everything started to come together for him quickly once he started playing with another rookie fusionmeister, Pat Metheny, around 1974. By 1976, he had been invited to join Weather Report, where he remained until 1981, gradually becoming a third lead voice along with Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. Outside Weather Report, he found himself in constant demand as a sessionman and producer, playing on Joni Mitchell, Blood Sweat and Tears, Paul Bley, Bireli Lagrene and Ira Sullivan albums — and his first eponymous solo album for Epic in 1976 was hailed as a tour de force. From 1980 to 1984, he toured and recorded with his own band, the innovative Word of Mouth that fluctuated in size from a large combo to a big band.
Benny Golson A rarity among contemporary jazzmen, Benny Golson is as accomplished a composer as he is a saxophonist. He was born in Philadelphia in 1929, and began his musical training on the piano before picking up the sax in his early teens. He learned to write music in a rather painstaking fashion, methodically transcribing the tunes off his favorite records into musical notation. Around the same time, Golson began serving his jazz apprenticeship, playing in jam sessions on Philadelphia’s Columbus Ave. with fellow up-and-comers such as John Coltrane, Jimmy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, and others.
After graduating from Howard University in 1950, Golson joined the first of a number of Rhythm ‘n Blues groups, this one led by Benjamin Clarence “Bull Moose” Jackson. He got his first big break as a composer in January 1955, when James Moody recorded a song of his called “Blue Walk.” Toward the end of the year, he got an even bigger break when Miles Davis recorded ” Stablemates,” a song Golson began to write during an intermission of a show, ] when he stayed on the bandstand after spotting someone in the audience whom he wished to avoid. As musical director of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Golson spearheaded perhaps the most important period of that storied group’s 46-year history. The Messengers’ classic 1958 album Moanin’ featured several Golson tunes, including “Blues March.” Beginning in the mid-1960s Golson shifted his attention away from the jazz world per se, and began writing for movies and television. The themes of several popular television shows, such as M*A*S*H, Mission Impossible, Room 222, The Partridge Family, Mannix, It Takes A Thief, and Where It’s At (David Janssen), are marked with his smooth, melodious signature. Benny has also been called upon to create arrangements for many superstar musicians, including Ella Fitzgerald, Lou Rawls, Diana Ross, Mel Torme, Dizzy Gillespie, David Sanborn, Max Roach, and many more. While growing into the role of a jazz legend, Golson has undertaken a variety of ambitious projects in recent years.
He was commissioned by the Lila Wallace Foundation to write a symphony which premiered at New York’s Lincoln Center in 1993. In 1994 he wrote a piece for violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman which also premiered at Lincoln Center. During a two-year stint as a scholar-in-residence at William Patterson College he lectured to students about music and sociology. He received an honorary doctorate and gave the commencement address to 1,500 graduates. A Guggenheim Fellowship awarded in 1993 enabled him to begin work on his second symphony. In 1995, together with J.J. Johnson and Tommy Flanagan, Golson was given the Jazz Masters award by the National Endowment of the Arts. At the moment, he is finalizing a major college textbook which will be published in 1998. All of these honors and projects notwithstanding, Golson seems in recent years to have renewed his zest for playing. Since 1995 he has been a member and musical director of the all-star saxophone repertory band, Roots, which toured extensively in Europe and has recorded four albums. In 1996, Golson entered into a long-term relationship with New York’s Arkadia Jazz. The first album for his new label is Up Jumped Benny, a live recording done in Switzerland with Kevin Hays on piano, Dwayne Burno on bass, and Carl Allen on drums. Next up is a collaboration with Harold Ashby, James Carter and Branford Marsalis, an album called Tenor Legacy a tribute to some of the great jazz tenor saxophone players. Also due from Arkadia Jazz is 40 Years of Benny Golson, an album featuring Benny, Art Farmer, and Curtis Fuller, plus pianist Geoff Keezer, bassist Dwayne Burno and drummer Joe Farnsworth. It will be released together with a video concert and a video documentary chronicling his stellar career
After graduating from The University of Miami, Denis DiBlasio joined the big band of legendary trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, serving as Maynard’s Musical Director for five years. During this time he honed his virtuosity on the baritone saxophone and flute as well as a prodigious scat-vocal technique, and developed estimable composing / arranging skills. His scores have been published by Kendor, William Allen, Kjos, Doug Beach, Hal Leonard. Houston, Jamey Aebersold and Roncorp Publications. He is currently Director of the Jazz Program at Rowan University, conducts Rowan’s Lab Band and holds the seat as the Executive Director of The Maynard Ferguson Institute of Jazz Studies at Rowan.
