An interview with pianist #MarcusRoberts

An interview with pianist Marcus Roberts on the eve of the release of his latest album “Trio Crescent: Celebrating… https://t.co/bwjf32lOlC

— Jazz music view (@Jazzmusicview) 18 de novembro de 2017

#MarcusRoberts at Pompano Cultural Center

Florida’s First Major Jazz Concert of the 2017-18 Season - Marcus Roberts at Pompano Cultural Center

The Marcus Roberts Trio is known for its virtuosic style and entirely new approach to jazz trio performance.  While most jazz trios have the piano front and center, all members of the Marcus Roberts Trio share equally in shaping the direction of the music by changing its tempo, mood, texture, or form at any time. And they do this with lightning quick musical reflexes and creative imaginations. The trio is known for having almost telepathic communication on the stage.  And more than a few concert goers have been heard to say that it sounds like a lot more than three people up there on the stage!

The Pompano Cultural Center serves as a catalyst for economic growth, a cultural haven for artists and the destination for cutting-edge culture in Pompano Beach using the power of the arts to uplift, revitalize and build a stronger community. As the jewel of the triumvirate of new art spaces, the Cultural Center presents one-of-a-kind, revolutionary programming that stimulates artistic, economic and community development. Our diverse multi-disciplinary, inter-generational programs offer hands-on workshops that foster the development of inventive minds creating a thriving epicenter abuzz with music, arts and cultural activity for people of all backgrounds and ages. We inspire innovation in all artistic disciplines, making Pompano Beach a destination for cutting-edge culture in Broward County and beyond.

To celebrate #MarcusRoberts birthday ....

To celebrate #MarcusRoberts' birthday, watch Marcus Roberts & The Modern Jazz Generation At #Jazz At #LincolnCenter https://t.co/gk7dEbkQtM

— JazzatLincolnCenter (@jazzdotorg) August 7, 2016

Marcus Roberts

Marcus Roberts to return to 2013 Savannah Jazz Festival with new piano concerto

By Linda Sickler

While the Savannah Music Festival brings in many new acts every year, it also brings back some old favorites.

Marcus Roberts and the Marcus Roberts Trio fit into the latter category. Roberts has been involved with the music festival since 2004.

In 2013, he’ll bring a new piano concerto that he’ll perform with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

“It’s a pretty major piece with a lot of components to it,” Roberts says.

Co-commissioned by the Savannah Music Festival and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the concerto has been under consideration for some time.

“We finally decided last year to do it,” Roberts says.

“I had been studying a lot of classical pieces and repertoire even before that,” he says. “It’s been a two- or three-year process preparing to write it and I’m still not done, but at least now I can see the finish line.”

There’s another challenging component to the project.

“It’s difficult trying to bring classical form into a jazz environment,” Roberts says.

“It’s not impossible, but it’s very difficult. I guess artistic people like challenges. We like to solve a problem, not create one.”

The end result makes the effort worthwhile. “When people listen to it, they leave the problems in their own lives behind,” Roberts says.

Originally from Jacksonville, Fla., Roberts now lives in Tallahassee, where he is an assistant professor of jazz studies in the school of music at Florida State University.

At the 2013 Savannah Music Festival, Roberts will play several times, including the Swing Central finale on March 29 at the Lucas, a solo concert on March 30 at the Morris Center and with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on April 6 at the Johnny Mercer Theater. He will appear with his trio, which is himself on piano, Rodney Jordan on bass and Jason Marsalis on drums.

The Marcus Roberts Trio has performed with the Atlanta orchestra before. The trio played Gershwin’s “Concerto in F” both in Atlanta and at the 2009 Savannah Music Festival.

At a late-night jam session on the final night that same year, banjoist Bela Fleck sat in with the Marcus Roberts Trio, which resulted in the 2011 premiere of the Marcus Roberts Trio with Bela Fleck. That project toured all over the country from late 2011 through the summer of 2012.
Photo: Special to Savannah Morning News Marcus Roberts

Read more on: http://savannahnow.com/do/2012-11-15/marcus-roberts-return-2013-savannah-jazz-festival-new-piano-concerto#.UKT1vqUlYhQ

Marcus Roberts On Piano Jazz

With Guest Host Christian McBride
by Grant Jackson
Pianist Marcus Roberts joins guest host Christian McBride for a set including tunes by Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, as well as a few of Roberts' original compositions. Roberts hails from Jacksonville, Fla., and began studying piano shortly after losing his sight at the age of 5. Since then, he's developed command over a wide range of jazz styles, punctuated by his uniquely modern ability to swing on practically any tune.

Roberts kicks off this week's session with a solo take on Hoagy Carmichael's "Nearness of You." He puts a special sparkle on this well-known melody, playing lush chords as well as trilling notes in a ragtime feel with his right hand. McBride nails the description: "Absolutely gorgeous."

Jazz Fundamentals
Next, the pair discusses the importance of understanding the fundamentals of jazz. Roberts teaches in the Florida State University School of Music, and he describes the inherent difficulty in teaching jazz, which relies on improvisation rather than a codified set of exercises for beginners. "The music presumes that [the student] is already at an adult level of musical maturity," Roberts says. "We don't have a particular set of pieces for young folks with limited technical ability. But I think if we focus on teaching diligence and developing a codified system for students, we can use that to develop the imagination."

Roberts then reflects on getting in with Wynton Marsalis' band. Initially, the young Roberts was discouraged after seeing Marsalis and company at the Village Vanguard, but he was eventually invited to join in for a few gigs. "After the first week of hanging out, we became very close, because we do see things philosophically in very similar ways," Roberts says.

Admiring Duke
The session continues with Roberts' arrangement of the well-known Ellington tune "Mood Indigo." Roberts counts Ellington among his earliest influences, and has great admiration for Duke as a pianist. "Absolutely, Duke was a great pianist," Roberts says. "He always used the piano to set the mood and the tempo, and behind solos to keep band members in tune with the melody."

Roberts follows "Mood Indigo" with his original tune, "The Party's Over," which reveals his complexity as a composer with something unique to say. This 12-bar blues alternates between swift, swinging measures and brooding, impressionistic passages. Roberts manages to take the listener on a journey in the manner of McCoy Tyner or Randy Weston, but with Ellington-esque elegance. The ride is comfortable, but darkness lurks ever nearby; the effect is like sailing a plush ocean liner under gathering clouds.

Connecting Jazz And Classical
Roberts and McBride then get together for a fun duet in "Just Friends," followed by another Roberts original, "Hidden Hues" — a quiet, impressionistic tune that nods to the influence that classical music has had on jazz.
"Classical and jazz are both very sophisticated art forms," Roberts says. "Jazz has a much shorter history, but since we make stuff up on the spot, I think that's why we got so much done in 100 years' time.
"Today, we live in such a technological world where things happen in a split second, and jazz is the only music that matches that," he adds. "It's also a global music that draws from traditions all over the world. So I think classical music has to, at this time, draw from the influence of jazz to maintain its depth."

The session continues with a duet in "Bolivar Blues," by another influential composer, Thelonious Monk. The pair swings hard on this tune: Roberts' playing is technical and precise, yet powerful, and he comps McBride's bass solo beautifully. Monk's music provides the proper playground for any jazz duet, and the joyful exchange between the two musicians is impossible to miss. McBride sums it up: "You can never play enough Monk."
They get together for one more cooking duet — Roberts' driving "Country By Choice" — to end this Piano Jazz session.
Originally recorded July 23, 2009.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123884742&sc=nl&cc=jn-20100221

Marcus Roberts....

Marcus Roberts is a very talented -- if very raw -- young musician, whose good fortune it was to capture the attention and goodwill of the all-powerful Wynton Marsalis. Roberts is one of the generation of young African-American jazz musicians who seems bent on forging the future by reinventing the past; his infatuation with older forms renders his music a pastiche of obsolete styles. Roberts is a gifted mimic, though his adoption of his idols' surface mannerisms does not penetrate to the essence of their art.

Roberts is without sight; he attended a school for the blind near his childhood home of Jacksonville, FL. He began playing piano in his youth, and studied the instrument at Florida State University in the mid-'80s. Roberts replaced Kenny Kirkland as Marsalis's pianist in 1985. He recorded as a sideman with the trumpeter through the rest of the decade and into the '90s, while at the same time making records under his own name for Columbia. Roberts became Marsalis's aide de camp at Jazz at Lincoln Center, writing and arranging extensively for the house big band, and participating in most of the cultural center's activities variously as a composer, performer, or teacher. Roberts is an outspoken proponent of jazz traditionalism; he has little patience for styles of jazz that lie outside the narrow parameters set down by his mentors. His lack of interest in expanding jazz's creative possibilities causes his music to have a hermetic quality, which is unfortunate, because one gets the feeling by listening to his recent compositions that, were Roberts to broaden his horizons a bit, he might be capable of doing excellent work.
Chris Kelsey, All Music Guide

Marcus Roberts - Blue Monk