Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival
Sponsored by Apollo Theater, Harlem Stage and Jazzmobile
Presents
Four Exciting Sessions at Minton's Playhouse featuring
T. S. Monk - May 9, 9:00 pm
Stanley Crouch - May 12, 7:00 pm
Jonathan Batiste - May 12, 9:00 pm
Revive Da Live - May 13, 10:00 pm
Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival Runs May 9 - 15
7 Days · 35 Events · 8 Venues
The prestige of the past. The pulse of the present.
All Tickets Just $10 or Free!
HARLEM, USA, April 20, 2011 - In 1938, tenor saxophonist Henry Minton
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| T. S. Monk |
opened a small club and bar on the first floor of the Cecil Hotel on 118th Street in Harlem. Musicians came there after hours from their main gigs to jam - especially on Monday nights - and talk about the music. The syncopations and sounds that merged and emerged from Minton's Playhouse gave birth to the r/evolutionary jazz genre called bebop; and the music had many fathers. Ralph Ellison wrote, "...some will tell you that it was here that Dizzy Gillespie found his own trumpet voice; that Kenny Clarke worked out the patterns of his drumming style; where Charlie Parker built the monument of his art; where Thelonious Monk formulated his contribution to the chordal progressions and hide-and-seek melodic methods of modern music."
The club closed in 1974, reopened in 2006, and closed again in 2010. Now, the Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival brings the historic club back to life at 206 West 118th Street when Jazzmobile re-creates Minton's legendary "cutting contests" with today's stellar jazz talents.
The four-night series kicks off with Monk at Minton's on Monday, May 9, at 9 pm, featuring a take-no-prisoners cutting contest with an all-star house band
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| Jonathan Batiste |
led by drummer T. S. Monk (son of Thelonious). Although he was born with bebop running through his veins, the younger Monk started his career with his eponymously named pop-R&B group in the seventies. He worked with his father, saxophonist Clifford Jordan and pianist Walter Davis, and recorded several critically-acclaimed jazz CDs as a leader, including his most recent recording, Higher Ground.
Next up is Inspired Innovations with Stanley Crouch and a Special Guest on Thursday, May 12,at 7 pm. Ever since he came to the big Apple from California in the seventies, writer/essayist/novelist/columnist Stanley Crouchhas reigned as the dean of jazz and social critics, thanks to his pioneering work with the Village Voice, his books including Notes of a Hanging Judge, his voluminous liner notes and his engaging columns in the New York Daily News. Listeners never know what Crouch has in store; but no doubt, jazz is ever present and always inspiring.
New York is where bebop was born, but New Orleans, aka The Crescent City,
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| Stanley Crouch |
is the birthplace of jazz, so it's no surprise that the Afrocentric Atlantis of cadence, color and cuisine continues to send forth young lions like pianistJonathan Batiste, who puts his touch on Inspired Innovations on Thursday, May 12, at 9 pm. Thenephew of the late clarinetist/educator Alvin Batiste, the younger Batiste is a graduate of the famed New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, grew up playing with Christian Scott and Trombone Shorty, attended Juilliard, and released four CDs, including his latest EP,The Amazing Jon Batiste! He'll front a quicksilver trio and will deliver a set of standards from Armstrong to Ellington to Monk, plus original riffs on his own Louisiana roots.
There's a revival going on at Minton's on Friday, May 13,at 10 pm with Revive da Live: Late Night Jam.Alto saxophonist Greg Osby emerged from the young lions period of the eighties as one of the most daring and distinctive saxophonists of his generation - from his genre-defying MBASE collabs with Steve Coleman to his beyond-category projects on his own Inner Circle Music imprint. Osby has handpicked the house band for an invigorating evening of non-stop music featuring the cream of the crop of today's brightest stars who will conjure up the spirit of the jazz tradition that forged the legacy of Minton's.
Ticketing information:
Tickets: $10; Cash Bar
Minton's Playhouse - 206 West 118th Street
Minton's Playhouse - 206 West 118th Street
Three esteemed Harlem cultural organizations - the Apollo Theater, Harlem Stage and Jazzmobile - have joined forces to present the first Harlem Jazz
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| Greg Osby |
Shrines Festival May 9-15, 2011. Celebrating the unique legacy of jazz in the uptown community, the Festival will bring both established and emerging artists to some of the famed venues where jazz flourished in Harlem: Lenox Lounge, Showman's Café, the Apollo Theater, Alhambra Ballroom, and Minton's Playhouse as well as at Harlem Stage Gatehouse, Columbia University and Nectar Wine Bar.
Other Harlem Jazz Shrines highlights include:
The Apollo Jazz Show: Wycliffe Gordon's Jazz à la Carte, 8pm at the Apollo. Famed artist and composer,Wycliffe Gordon presents a show featuring the music of the Temple University Big Band, with vocalists Carla Cook and Nikki Yanofsky; tap dancer Savion Glover; saxophonist Grace Kelly; and trombonist Corey Wilcox, Director/Choreographer Ken Roberson among others
Fats Waller Dance Party: Small's Paradise Tribute with Jason Moran & Meshell Ndegeocello - Harlem Stage presents two nights of Waller's music taken to new heights in a social mixing dance party featuring 2010 MacArthur Genius pianist Jason Moran & dynamic singer/bassist Meshell Ndegeocello.
Geri Allen Quartet Jam Session - During the 1940's and '50's, the Harlem jazz scene was famous for its after-hours "jam sessions." Jazz pianist and producer Geri Allen "jams" with her quartet and special guests at the Apollo Music Cafe.
Blazing Tongues: The Singers & Writers of Lenox Lounge - Harlem Stage, in partnership with Columbia University's Center for Jazz Studies and Institute for Research in African American Studies, curates two evenings of music and literature.
Battle of the Big Bands and Swing Dance Contest - Jazzmobile produces two nights of big bands featuring the George Gee Swing Orchestra and the Harlem Renaissance Orchestra at the Alhambra Ballroom. Swing dance enthusiasts from throughout New York City will hit the dance floor to show off their dance skills egged on by the crowd's cheers, shouts and applause. Best dancers walk away with a cash prize.
All tickets for Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival events are affordably priced at just $10 or free. For tickets and more information on the Festival and its partners, visit the organizations' websites at www.apollotheater.org, www.jazzmobile.organd www.harlemstage.org. Log on to www.harlemjazzshrines.com for updates and additional information.
Harlem Jazz Shrines is made possible by generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and The New York Community Trust - Elizabeth Meyer Lorentz Fund. This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Council Member Inez E. Dickens, and Speaker Christine Quinn.
Wycliffe Gordon's Jazz à la Carte was commissioned with partial support through Meet the Composer's National Commissioner's Network.
The Fats Waller Dance Party has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius.
About the Apollo Theater
The Apollo Theater is one of Harlem's, New York City's, and America's most iconic and enduring cultural institutions. Since introducing the first Amateur Night contests in 1934, the Apollo Theater has played a major role in cultivating artists and in the emergence of innovative musical genres including jazz, swing, bebop, R&B, gospel, blues, soul, and hip-hop. Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Sammy Davis, Jr., James Brown, Michael Jackson, Bill Cosby, Gladys Knight, Luther Vandross, D'Angelo, Lauryn Hill, and countless others began their road to stardom on the Apollo's stage. Based on its cultural significance and architecture, the Apollo Theater received state and city landmark designationin 1983 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This winter, the non-profit Theater will introduce new programming building on its rich legacy and supporting presentations of forward looking, contemporary music, dance, theater and performance art events.
About Harlem Stage
Since 1979, Harlem Stage has been one of the nation's leading arts organizations devoted to the creation and development of new works by performing artists of color. Harlem Stage supports artists and organizations around the corner and across the globe. And it provides children and adults with engaging and interactive education programs. Harlem Stage is a performing arts center that celebrates and perpetuates the unique and diverse artistic legacy of Harlem and the indelible impression it has made on American culture. It provides opportunity, commissioning and support for diverse artists, makes performances accessible to all audiences, and introduces children to the rich diversity, excitement and inspiration of the performing arts.
About Jazzmobile
Jazzmobile, Inc., America's oldest not-for- profit arts organization created just for jazz, was founded in 1964 by NEA Jazz Master Dr. Billy Taylor and Daphne Arnstein. Its mission is to present, preserve, promote, and propagate Jazz - "America's classical music." This mission is implemented through quality jazz education and performance programs: workshops, master classes, lecture demonstrations, arts enrichment programs, as well as out-of-doors mobile Jazz performances and those in clubs and major concert halls here and abroad. Jazzmobile serves approximately 100,000 people in New York City and its outlying areas each year.
Media Contact:
Carolyn McClair / CMPR
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