Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Kimmel Center’s 10th Anniversary October Jazz Line-Up: HERBIE HANCOCK, Oct. 8, ESPERANZA SPALDING, Oct. 14, and Philly Natives THE HEATH BROTHERS, Oct. 15

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011


Herbie Hancock

The Kimmel Center’s 10th Anniversary Season in October puts the spotlight on Jazz legends and one rising star, breaking the periphery of jazz music on the world’s stages:

 

  • Jazz legend Herbie Hancock embarks on first solo tour ever performing re-arranged and reinterpreted works from his canon of modern jazz, funk and electronic music, Oct. 8

  • 2011 Grammy Award-winner Esperanza Spalding makes her Kimmel Center debut performing works from Chamber Music Society, Oct. 14

  • Philly Jazz greats the Heath Brothers, Jimmy Heath and Albert “Tootie” Heath kick off the Jazz Up Close Series, a tribute to Philly’s Jazz Legends, Oct. 15

Tickets are available for purchase by calling 215-893-1999, online at kimmelcenter.org, or at the Kimmel Center box office, which is open daily from 10am to 6pm and later on performance evenings. (Additional fees may apply.)

 

Herbie Hancock

Saturday, October 8, 2011 at 8:30pm

Verizon Hall

Ticket price: $25 – $57

 

Recent double Grammy winner for “The Imagine Project” (Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, Best Improvised Jazz Solo), Herbie Hancock will embark on  a North American tour with a performance at the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall on October 8. This tour marks the first time in the genre-defying artist’s career that he will be touring solo. His performance reinterprets his contributions to the canon of modern jazz, funk and electronic music, accompanied by keyboards and his signature Fazioli Grand piano.

 

Hancock kicks off his North American Tour performing at the opening night gala of the Los Angeles Philharmonic with conductor Gustavo Dudamel at Walt Disney Hall on September 27, and thereafter will set out on his first solo tour.

 

Now in the fifth decade of his professional life, Herbie Hancock remains where he has always been: in the forefront of world culture, technology, business and music. A legendary pianist and composer, Hancock has been an integral part of every popular music movement since the 1960s. During his tenure as a member of the Miles Davis Quintet that pioneered a more groundbreaking, expansive sound and direction in jazz, he also developed new approaches to his own recordings. Hancock’s work in the 1970s—with record-breaking albums such as Headhunters—combined electric jazz with funk and rock in an innovative style that continues to influence contemporary music. Rockit and Future Shock marked Hancock’s foray into electronic dance music and included several chart-topping hits; during the same period he also continued to work in acoustic setting with V.S.O.P., which included ex-Miles Davis band mates Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams.

 

Hancock received an Academy Award for his Round Midnight film score and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album Of The Year for River: The Joni Letters, as well as receiving two Grammy Awards in 2011 for the recently released globally collaborative CD, The Imagine Project.  Many of his compositions, including “Cantaloupe Island,” “Maiden Voyage,” “Watermelon Man,” and “Chameleon,” are modern standards that have had a profound effect on all styles of contemporary music.

 

Recently appointed a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, Hancock is also Creative Chair for Jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, and serves as Institute Chairman of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, the foremost international organization devoted to the development of jazz performance and education worldwide. 

 

Esperanza Spalding

Chamber Music Society

Friday, October 14, 2011 at 8pm

Merriam Theater

Ticket price: $35 – $45

 

“Esperanza has got a lot: accomplished jazz improvisation, funk, scat singing, Brazilian vernacular rhythm and vocals in English, Portuguese and Spanish. At its center is a female bassist, singer and bandleader, one whose talent is beyond question.”—The New York Times

Rising star bassist, vocalist and composer Esperanza Spalding makes her Kimmel Center campus debut at the Merriam Theater on October 14, performing works from Chamber Music Society, her 2010 release that garnered the talented artist her first Grammy win in the Best New Artist category at the 2011 award ceremony.

The Portland, Oregon-based virtuoso, Esperanza Spalding, became a self taught violinist at the age of five, inspired by a TV performance of Yo-Yo Ma on an episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood. The classically trained artist received instruction for ten years with the Chamber Music Society of Oregon, a community orchestra that was open to both children and adult musicians, which then elevated her to concertmaster position within the ensemble at the age of 15.

During this period Esperanza discovered the bass, and all of the non-classical avenues that the instrument could open for her, including performances of blues, funk, hip-hop and a variety of other styles at the local club circuit. Her music studies continued: aided by a generous scholarship, she enrolled in the music program at Portland State University; she later transferred to Berklee College of Music, and graduated with a B.M. and an Instructor appointment at the age of 20 – an appointment that has made her the youngest faculty member in the history of the college. In 2005, she was the recipient of the prestigious Boston Jazz Society scholarship for outstanding musicianship.

The solo artist’s musical career began with the May 2008 debut release of Esperanza, which became the best selling album by a new jazz artist internationally in 2008.  Esperanza went straight to the top of Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz chart where it remained for over 70 weeks. In 2009, the Jazz Journalists Association named her the recipient of the 2009 Jazz Award for Up and Coming Artist of the Year and the 2009 Jazz Week Award for Record of the Year. A series of concert tours followed including the Newport Jazz Festival, and an invitation from President Obama to perform at the Nobel Prize Ceremony and Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway. Spalding was booked on the Late Show with David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel Live, the CBS Saturday Early Show, NPR, among others. She has been profiled in The New Yorker, and named one of The Oprah Magazine’s “Women on the Rise” in the May 2010 Anniversary issue of O.

Her 2010 release, Chamber Music Society, has set her on an upward trajectory to prominence. Inspired by the classical training of her younger years, Chamber Music Society combines the spontaneity and intrigue of improvisation with sweet and angular string trio arrangements. The result is a sound that weaves the innovative elements of jazz, folk and world music into the enduring foundations of classical chamber music traditions.

Jazz Up Close Celebrates Philly’s Jazz Legacy

Celebrating The Heath Brothers

Featuring Jimmy Heath and Albert “Tootie” Heath

Saturday, October 15, 2011 at 7:30pm

Ticket price: $38 - $45

 

“I had met Jimmy Heath, who- besides being a wonderful saxophonist—understood a lot about musical construction.  I joined his group in Philadelphia in 1948. We were very much alike in our feeling, phrasing and a whole lot of other ways. Our musical appetites were the same. We used to practice together, and he would write out some of the things we were interested in. We would take things from records and digest them.  In this way, we learned about the techniques being used by writers and arrangers.” –John Coltrane, Downbeat, 1960

 

Kimmel Center Presents 2011-12 Jazz Up Close Series, which this year honors Philadelphia Legends, kicks off Saturday, October 15 with a performance by The Heath Brothers, Jimmy Heath and Albert “Tootie” Heath. The Philly natives have had tremendous impact on the world of jazz as instrumentalists, composers, and arrangers—most notably with their genre-blending style that fuses hard-bop, big band, smooth jazz, and even hip-hop. The event features National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) Jazz Master Jimmy Heath, a prolific musician who has contributed to more than 100 albums, performed with nearly all the jazz legends of the past 50 years, composed a wide variety of works, and taught at the most prestigious music programs in the nation. Performing with him is his younger brother, Albert “Tootie” Heath, one of the jazz greats known for his jazz hard-bop drumming skills. 

 

The Heath Brothers—individually and collectively—have been an underappreciated Philadelphia treasure—so hearing even two-thirds of their masterful jazz legacy is reason to celebrate.  Jimmy Heath is the middle brother of the legendary Heath Brothers (Percy Heath, bass; and Tootie Heath, drums); back around 1945, their basement was the center of action, with Jimmy Heath’s band playing his charts and those by Tadd Dameron. Famed guests like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Coleman Hawkins stopped by when in town; though legends mention the additional lure of mom Arelithia’s cooking. Drummer Albert (Tootie) Heath, then only 10, was destined to become a supportive and dynamic drummer first recording with John Coltrane 12 years later and spending much time in Europe. From 1958 to 1974, before the formation of the Heath Brothers Band, he worked with such luminaries as Benny Golson, Art Farmer, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Herbie Hancock, Bennie Green, John Coltrane, Nina Simone and many others.

 

Older brother Jimmy Heath, known widely as “Little Bird” because of his diminutive size and great post-bebop chops, joined Dizzy Gillespie’s band in 1949, learning arranging from masters as John Lewis and Dameron. His first chart was “Mean To Me” for Gil Fuller, yet he had to wait 43 years for his first big-band album, the stirring Little Man, Big Band in 1992. Dropping the alto saxophone for tenor, and adding soprano and flute in later years, Jimmy also became one of the top arrangers around, writing for Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Art Blakey, Kenny Dorham and Gil Evans, while  producing  string of jazz classics: “C.T.A.,” “Gingerbread Boy” and “Gemini” among them. 

 

Jimmy’s autobiography, I Walked With Giants (2010) captures his memories as a jazz musician, whose family’s South Philadelphia home hosted musicians performing in the city’s then thriving jazz scene.  The late Percy Heath became most famous as a founding member of the hugely popular Modern Jazz Quartet from 1952 to 1974.   Jimmy’s tune dedicated to him, “Big P” demonstrated his ability to swing with a canny instinct for structure.

 

The next Jazz Up Close series concert is scheduled to take place on December 3, honoring saxophonist Benny Golson, artists to be announced soon; followed by February 25 performance honoring trumpeter Lee Morgan, by The Terell Stafford Quintet; and on April 14, Jazz Up Close series closes with Artistic Advisor Danilo Pérez and friends honoring McCoy Tyner.

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Kimmel Center, Inc., a charitable, not-for-profit organization, owns, manages, supports and maintains The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, which includes Verizon Hall, Perelman Theater, Innovation Studio and the Merck Arts Education Center.  Kimmel Center, Inc. also manages the Academy of Music, owned by the Philadelphia Orchestra Association, and the University of the Arts Merriam Theater. Kimmel Center, Inc.’s mission is to operate a world class performing arts center that engages and serves a broad audience which includes providing arts in education, community outreach and a rich diversity of programming.  The 2011/2012 season is sponsored by Citi.  For additional information, visit kimmelcenter.org. 

 

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