Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Kimmel Center Jazz Up Close Series Continues with BENNY GOLSON Tribute, Dec. 3

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

Kimmel Center Presents 2011-12 Jazz Up Close Series, which this year honors Philadelphia Legends, continues Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 7:30pm with a tribute to bebop and hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, whose compositions such as “Whisper Not” and other jazz standards continue his jazz legacy.

 

The first half of the program includes Berklee Global Jazz Institute players, along with a few members of the Kimmel Center Youth Jazz Ensemble, performing new arrangements of Golson tunes, along with three veteran musicians: Robin Eubanks (trombone), Bill Pierce (saxophone), and Brian Lynch (trumpet).  In the second half, Eubanks, Pierce and Lynch team up with rising star, 22-year-old pianist and recent Julliard graduate, Kris Bowers, and his trio joining the horn section.  Bowers recently received the top award in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz’s 25th anniversary gala at Washington’s Kennedy Center.

 

Tickets for Jazz Up Close Celebrates Benny Golson are $35 and $40, and are available by calling 215-893-1999, online at kimmelcenter.org or at the Kimmel Center Box Office located on Broad and Spruce streets, Philadelphia, Pa. 19102 (open daily from 10am to 6pm, later on performance evenings).

 

This season’s Jazz Up Close series was inspired by the iconic 1958 photo, A Great Day in Harlem.  Originally featured in Esquire magazine, photographer Art Kane’s black and white image of 57 notable jazz musicians, taken on Harlem’s 126th Street is a haunting who’s who of jazz emissaries.  The importance of local history is the cornerstone of the Kimmel Center’s Jazz Up Close series, part of the 10th Anniversary season. Philadelphia is a city rich with jazz musicians both young and old, former clubs that made their mark in the American jazz touring circuit and endless tales of the extraordinary camaraderie that existed between the musicians and their fans.  This season honors just a few of Philly’s own sons of jazz, continuing to honor their traditions today.

 

For over 55 years, Philly native Benny Golson has enjoyed an illustrious career as a multitalented and internationally famous jazz legend, composer, arranger, lyricist, producer and tenor saxophonist of world note.   Golson has performed in the bands of world renowned Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Earl Bostic and Art Blakey. A trailblazer in his own right, he is the only living jazz artist to have written eight standards for jazz repertoire internationally recorded including Killer Joe, I Remember Clifford, Along Came Betty, Stablemates, Whisper Not, Blues March, Five Spot After Dark, Are you Real?  He has performed in the United States, Europe, South America, the Far East and Japan for decades.

 

He has also composed and arranged music for performing artists such as Count Basie, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sammy Davis Jr., Mama Cass Elliott, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Shirley Horn, David Jones and the Monkees, Quincy Jones, Itzhak Perlman, Diana Ross, The Animals (Eric Burden), as well as M*A*S*H, Mission Impossible, Mod Squad, Room 222, The Partridge Family, and national radio and television spots for some of the major advertising agencies in the country. Some of these commercials included Canada Dry, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Gillette, Heinz Foods, Jack in the Box, Pepsi Cola, Mattel Toys, and more.

 

Golson has lectured at Lincoln Center through a special series by Wynton Marsalis, to doctoral candidates at New York University and to faculty at National University at San Diego. In 1987 he was sent by the U.S. State Department on a cultural tour of Southeast Asia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma, and Singapore.  Later, Philip Morris International sent him on an assignment to Bangkok Thailand to write music for the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra. He is currently working on a major college textbook and his autobiography.

 

Saxophonist Bill Pierce started off his career in Boston playing R&B with such stars as Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. A hard bop player, he has also performed stints with James Williams (1979-1980 and 1984-1985) and a high–profile association with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers (1980-1982); when he shared the front line with Wynton Marsalis and Bobby Watson.  From 1986-1994, Pierce was a regular member of Tony Williams’ Quintet.  He has led several of his own dates for Sunnyside band.

 

Grammy Award winner and trumpeter Brian Lynch is a versatile, highly esteemed and influential musician who is as comfortable negotiating the complexities of clave with Afro-Caribbean pioneer Eddie Palmieri as he is swinging through advanced harmony with bebop maestro Phil Woods.  A honored graduate of two of the jazz world’s most distinguished academies, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and the Horace Silver Quintet, he has been a valued collaborator with jazz artists such as Benny Golson, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Charles McPherson; Latin music icons such as Hector LaVoe and Lila Downs; and pop luminaries such as Prince.  As a bandleader and recording artist, he has released a series of critically acclaimed CDs including Downbeat 5 star rated Unsung Heroes project; ConClave Vol. 2 with his Spheres of Influence group, the Grammy winning Simpático featuring Eddie Palmieri, and Bolero Nights for Billie Holiday. 

 

He currently is Professor of Jazz Trumpet at the Frost School of Music, University of Miami.  He has been recognized by Downbeat Critics Readers Polls (#3 Trumpet 2011 Critics Poll); highly rated reviews for his work in Downbeat, Jazziz and Jazz Times; three Grammy award nominations as well as a 2006 Grammy Award, and grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, Chamber Music America, and Meet the Composer.

 

Philly native and University of the Arts graduate, trombonist Robin Eubanks, is a prominent musician, composer and performer who was an original member of Holland Quintet and Big Band and has performed in his own bands, EB3 and Mental Images. He has recorded seven albums as a leader featuring his original music.  Musically fluent and stylistically multilingual, his compositions can be heard on recordings by several Dave Holland Quintet and Big Band albums. He has collaborated with notable artists such as Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, Eddie Palmieri, Sun Ra, Barbra Streisand, The Rolling Stones and Talking Heads, among others.  He has won Grammys for his performances on Michael Brecker’s Wide Angles and Dave Holland’s What Goes Around.  Robin is currently a tenured professor of jazz trombone at The Oberlin College Conservatory. Born into a musical family, his brother, Kevin Eubanks, was the music director for The Tonight Show and his other brother, Duane, plays trumpet in New York.

 

Recent 2010 Julliard School graduate Kris Bowers lives in New York and has shared the stage and/or recorded with artist such as Terell Stafford, Mulgrew Miller, Terence Blanchard, Clarence Penn, Carl Allen, Ben Wolfe, Ron Blake, Rodney Jones, Benny Green, Bobby Watson, Kurt Elling, Duane Eubanks, among others. He has also performed for notables such as Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and President Barack Obama.  

 

Berklee Global Jazz Institute is a performance program designed to foster creativity and musicianship through various musical disciplines, with pianist and composer Danilo Perez as its artistic director. It provides a comprehensive contemporary music environment where students are given opportunities to explore their creativity to the highest level possible, advance the power of music as a tool for the betterment of society, and connect musical creative thinking with the natural environment.

 

The next Jazz Up Close series concert is scheduled to take place on February 25 with a 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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