For Immediate Release
14th annual Healdsburg jazz Festival – June 1-10, 2012
Press Contact information:
Ticket sales and information for public: online or at 800 838-3006
Website: www.healdsburgjazzfestival.org
Press Contact: Jessica Felix, 707-332-8433 cell (please do not use this number in publications)
Media Kit: Online press pack: http://www.healdsburgjazzfestival.org/wordpress/festival-2012/2012-media-kit/ : contains press releases, event descriptions, artist bios and website links, photos, web banner, and more. To request interviews, photos, press materials, etc., please contact Jessica Felix,
or call the Jazz Festival Office: 707 433-4633
14th Annual Healdsburg Jazz Festival Set to Be a "Roy-al" Affair
The Healdsburg Jazz Festival will take the wine country by storm for the 14th consecutive year with a power-packed roster of jazz “Roy-alty” -- that's Roy as in Haynes, the legendary drummer and NEA Jazz Master -- and a bevy of veterans and jazz rising stars. The festival is proud to present for the first time, NEA Jazz Master Sheila Jordan, a unique vocal force in the music for over half a century. Healdsburg, which has never compromised its vision of presenting authentic jazz greats, continues this June with a lineup that includes another Jazz Master -- the peerless guitarist Kenny Burrell -- red-hot pianist Vijay Iyer and his trio that's the toast of New York; local jazz mover and shaker Adam Theis' Shotgun Wedding; the dazzling pianist Michele Rosewoman with trombone legend Julian Priester sitting in as special guest; suave, bluesy pianist/singer Freddy Cole; timbales grandmaster Orestes Vilato's brand-new trans-Latin group Azesu, featuring the beguiling Venezuelan singer Maria Marquez; a dixieland superband led by Mal Sharpe; a Jazz Night at the Movies courtesy of Mark Cantor and his mile-deep cache of rare jazz footage; Northern California soul-jazz guitarist extraordinaire Calvin Keys; and lots more.
As usual, the festival matches the jazz with the area's most beautiful settings, such as Rodney Strong Vineyards, Barndiva restaurant, the Cousteaux Bakery, the town plaza and of course the Raven Performing Arts Theater.
With help from the very prestigious $10,000 NEA Jazz Master's Live grant to present Mr. Haynes and Ms. Jordan, the Festival will also be offering a couple of special programs. A Roy-al Family Panel Discussion featuring headliner Roy Haynes and his two sons, cornetist Graham and drummer Craig and other participants, will air out the limitless legacy of a drummer who has played with practically every significant figure in jazz history, from Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker to John Coltrane to Chick Corea. A Vocal Master Class led by the divine Ms. Jordan, open to singers of all levels, will reveal secrets she has stored since singing with Charlie Parker as a teenager.
Other treats abound at the fest. Try the late-night jams at the Healdsburg Hotel featuring Lorca Hart's juicy trio, or a wine tasting at Seasons of the Vineyard graced by the superlative Benny Barth Trio.
Come to the festival and soak in the magic that has made Healdsburg an annual mecca for jazz pilgrims who crave the real deal.
Below are event descriptions, websites and more. Visit our media section on our website for photos, artist bios and more. Please let me know if I can help in any way.
Jessica Felix,
FRIDAY 6/1
Calvin Keys Organ Quartet
KRUG EVENT CENTER
1261 Grove Street
7-9PM | $20
http://www.calvinkeys.com/
Calvin Keys Organ Quartet
When it comes to laying down a groove, guitarist Calvin Keys is the undisputed master. He's been entertaining Bay Area audiences consistently for decades with his Wes Montgomery-influenced hollow-body stylings, and at 68 he's not slowing down. For Healdsburg this year, Keys will be bringing his Organ Quartet -- Brian Ho on the Hammond, Art Maxwell on sax and Leon Joyce on drums -- which means old-style funky blues in the house.
After attending soul-jazz basic training in the bands of Hammond B3 specialists Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Jack McDuff and Richard Groove Holmes, the Omaha, Nebraska native graduated to the big time with a stint in Ray Charles' band. In Los Angeles in the early '70s Calvin released a few landmark records on the fondly remembered Black Jazz label, two of which, Shawn-Neeq and Proceed With Caution have been re-issued on CD. His latest album, Hand Made Portrait (on Silverado Records), allows Calvin to flaunt is fleet, single-note attack style on American songbook classics like “I'll Remember April, “I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face,” and jazz standards like “Naima” and “The Good Bait.”
For Healdsburg, the emphasis will be on R&B, so be prepared for grooving at our new venue.
SATURDAY 6/2
Jazz & Wine Tasting:
Benny Barth Trio with Randy Vincent & Chris Amberger
SEASONS OF THE VINEYARD
113 Plaza Street4-6PM | No Cover
Benny Barth
On Saturday, June 2, Taste wine at Ferrari-Carano, the jazz-friendly vineyard where the Benny Barth Trio will be spreading good vibes. Barth began playing in the bebop era and has worked in all the legendary San Francisco clubs of yore. Randy Vincent, guitar teacher to the stars, swings his ax, and local Veteran Chris Amberger caresses the stand-up.
Dixieland at the Bakery:
Mal Sharpe’s Big Money & Dixieland Jazz Band &
New Horizon Stompers
COSTEAUX BAKERY & CAFÉ
417 Healdsburg Avenue 7PM | $25
Mal Sharpe’s Big Money in Jazz Dixieland Band
Get the right musicians together playing Dixieland, and the result is an intense conversation that communicates joy. Trombonist Mal Sharpe has been having these conversations for decades, with a direct link to the origins of the music by way of his playing with George “Pops” Foster, who started working in New Orleans in 1907. Mal's Big Money in Jazz Dixieland Band is firmly in the tradition of San Francisco legends Lu Watters, who launched San Francisco's Dixieland revival in the 1940s, and Turk Murphy, who extended it into the '80s.
Perhaps “revival” isn't really the right word for a music that will always exist as long as players, and audiences, demand the kind of simultaneous polyphonic improvisation that Dixieland represents at the quintessence. Mal's band features musicians who are veterans of many early jazz styles, and even some modern. Pianist Si Perkoff is a walking Bay Area jazz academy who has worked with everyone from Harry “Sweets” Edison to Pepper Adams to T-Bone Walker. Trumpeter Leon Oakley served in Turk Murphy's band for 11 years. Clarinetist Dwayne Ramsey plays in the King Cotton Band, the Zenith Jazz Band and the Napa Valley Jazz Band. Bassist and tuba man Sam Rocha is in Clint Baker's All Stars. And drummer Carmen Consino has worked with the Dynamic Miss Faye Carol, Sheila Jordan, Denise Perrier and Kim Nalley.
Expect them to light a fire under standards like “Beale Street Blues,” “Sunny Side of the Street,” and “Mood Indigo,” among others, proving yet again that trad is rad.
The New Horizon Stompers are a Dixieland distillation of a very large Sonoma County orchestra called the New Horizons Band. Ray Walker, a retired music instructor from the Santa Rosa school system who plays clarinet and banjo in various Dixieland bands, put together the Stompers, who include Dave Stare on banjo, Rob Taylor on trumpet, Richard Bloom and Bill Byrne on clarinet, Louise Graves and Neil Herring on alto sax, Bill Badstubner and Dave Graves on trombone, Gerry Turner on tuba, Jim Cunningham on drums and Bob Ressue on piano.
SUNDAY 6/3
Freddy Cole Quartet
BARNDIVA
231 Center StreetTwo Shows: 4PM & 7PM
$45 | $65
Dedicated to the memory of David Dietz
www.freddycole.com
Freddy Cole Quartet
In a culture besotted with youth, some people haven't figured out that musicians only improve with age. It's not like sports, and in this, Freddy Cole's life offers an object lesson. As high schooler in Chicago, Cole was a football star. But when an injury sidelined him, he focused on the piano instead. Now, imagine if he had gone onto play pro football. His retirement would have commenced, well, 45 years ago. Now, at 80, he's just about hitting his prime. So, the lesson is, jazz isn't sports. In jazz, you just keep getting better with age.
Cole, of course, was a late bloomer. Part of that was the need to escape the long shadow of his older brother, Nat King Cole, who died in 1965. Not to mention that Nat's daughter and Freddy's niece, Natalie Cole, has staked a strong claim to the family franchise. Though there are some similarities between the vocal approach of Freddy and Nat, as would have to be the case with siblings, with Freddy you get a little less crystal and a lot more of the barrelhouse, a trait complemented by the way he digs deep into the piano, swinging it every which way. His 2010 album Freddy Cole Sings Mr. B (that's Billy Eckstein, natch) was nominated for a Grammy in the jazz vocal category, and on his latest disc, Talk to Me, he ups the sass and the class. It's been a long time coming for Freddie, but he has matured into one of jazz's pre-eminent singers. And if youth is really what you must have, then you won't believe his guitarist, Randy Napoleon. The rest of the band, Elias Bailey on bass and Curtis Boyd on drums, is merely ageless.
Financial investigative journalist David Dietz fell in love with Healdsburg in the 1980s. But it wasn’t until he and his wife, Joanne Derbort moved here from San Francisco in 2003 that he really understood why. In those years here, still working full-time at Bloomberg News, he helped on projects he believed in, like the Jazz Festival, and was active in the successful push to save the Healdsburg Memorial Bridge. David passed away on June 1, 2011. One of the things he loved most was listening to amazing jazz in Barndiva’s gorgeous back garden.
MONDAY 6/4
Jazz & Wine Dinner
Kai Devitt-Lee Trio with
Zach Ostroff & Jesse Simpson
DRY CREEK KITCHEN
317 Healdsburg Avenue7-10PM | Reservation Recommended
http://www.kaidevittlee.com
Kai Devitt-Lee Trio
There must be something in the Wine Country water that causes guitar prodigies to sprout. Julian Lage was the first – now meet Kai Devitt-Lee, 18, this Healdsburg-raised fret wonder is playing the Healdsburg Jazz Festival with his trio of young lions. Now living in NY and studying at the New School, fleet of finger and pure of tone, Kai has many prestigious accolades already including being selected as the one guitarist for National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts Youngarts week in Miami and Monterey Jazz Festival Next Generation Jazz Orchestra. His outstanding trio consists of two fellow Bay Area prodigies currently making waves in New York: Zach Ostroff, 19, on bass and Jesse Simpson, 22, on drums. Ostroff is highly melodic player who has shared stages with Julian Lage, George Cables, Howard Riley and Taylor Eigsti. Simpson’s volcanic playing has gotten him work with Benny Green, Cedar Walton and others.
TUESDAY 6/5
Azesu: Latin Rhythms, South American Folklorico & Jazz
HEALDSBURG PLAZA
6-8PM | Free
http://azesu.com
Azesu
Orestes Vilato has played with practically every Latin jazz or Latin rock artist of note – from Ray Barretto to Carlos Santana to Carlos “Patato” Valdez to Chico O'Farrill – not to mention he's lent his timbales skills to stars like Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis. So when the 67-year-old Cuban-born percussionist wanted to put together a new group, he made some unusual choices.
His group, Azesu, which is playing a dance concert at the Healdsburg Plaza, is neither salsa nor mambo or any traditional style you might expect someone from his background and generation to play. It's a polyglot group with a blended sound, created with an idea of chemistry that Vilato had in mind when he sought his personnel.
What they all share is a Bay Area connection. Vilato's been hereabouts since the early '80s, and his husky-voiced lead singer, Maria Marquez, was on her way to a music career in Venezuela when she left to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Then, moving to the Bay Area, she commenced work with percussion great John Santos and guitarist Joyce Cooling, among others. Her husky voice bears traces of Nina Simone and Edith Piaf – down to earth, simmering cool and as deep as she wants to take it.
Another Venezuelan, Omar Ledezma Jr. is like Vilato a master percussionist who got a law degree in Caracas, then traveled to Cuba to study with drum legend Chanquito before hitting the U.S. on scholarship at the Berklee school, while spending most of his time sitting in with Latin jazz stars all around the East Coast. Currently he's teaching at the Community Music Center in San Francisco. Bassist David Pinto, who was music director for Grammy winning singer Susana Baca, brings the folklorico of his country Peru into the mix, lending a cool undercurrent to the otherwise fiery nature of Azesu. Bay Area multi-reed man Sheldon Brown has the versatility to play big band jazz, klezmer and Afro-Cuban jazz with Omar Sosa, and pianist Jonathan Alford switched from being a classical recitalist and composer for stage and dance companies to playing in John Santos' Machete Ensemble, which also featured Vilato, and has worked with Santana, Pete Escovedo, Ray Obiedo, and many more.
Azesu has released a self-titled CD that lays down a new marker for hybrid Latin jazz – a marker you can dance on at the Plaza.