The Performers - The Journey of Jazz

CO-HOST

Marcus Miller's illustrious career spans over four decades, during which he has left an indelible imprint on jazz. Collaborating with some of the greatest names in jazz such as Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, George Benson, Joe Sample, Natalie Cole, David Sanborn, Grover Washington Jr and Bob James, it is Miller's pivotal role as the architect of Miles Davis' groundbreaking album "Tutu" that set new standards for contemporary jazz and cements Miller’s place in jazz music history. Additionally, Miller's solo career boasts ten Grammy-nominated albums and a win for Best Contemporary Jazz Album for his 2001 release "M2," further affirming his reputation as a masterful musician.

Over the course of a multifaceted career, Grammy and Tony Award-winner Dee Dee Bridgewater has ascended to the upper echelon of vocalists, uniquely spinning standards and taking intrepid leaps of faith re-envisioning jazz classics. Fearless pioneer and keeper of tradition, the three-time Grammy-winner’s most recent win was for Best Jazz Vocal Album - Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie With Love From Dee Dee. Bridging genres, her first professional experience was as a member of the legendary Thad Jones/Mel Louis Big Band. Throughout the 70’s, she performed with jazz notables Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon and Dizzy Gillespie, among others. Bridgewater began self-producing with 1993’s release, Keeping Tradition (Polydor/Verve). In 2006, she created DDB Records in 2006 under a Producer/Distribution agreement with Universal Music Group - releasing critically-acclaimed albums, including Dear Ella, a double Grammy-winning tribute to Ella Fitzgerald. She signed Theo Croker to DDB and released a project with the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (Dee Dee’s Feathers), with Sony/OKeh - all to critical acclaim. With a parallel career in musical theater, Bridgewater won a Tony Award for her role as “Glinda” in The Wiz (1975). Her other theatrical credits include, Sophisticated Ladies, Black Ballad, Carmen, Cabaret. She revived her Laurence Olivier nominated role as Billie Holiday in Lady Day (West End and Off-Broadway) and recently appeared in the Anna Deveare-Smith penned Ella Broadway workshop. With film, television and soundtrack credits, Bridgewater is an accomplished entertainment “polymath.” As a legacy Goodwill Ambassador to the UN FAO, Bridgewater champions global efforts in the fight against world hunger. A 2017 NEA Jazz Master, Bridgewater is an ASCAP Champion Awardee, Doris Duke Artist (2018), and Memphis Music Hall of Fame inductee (2019). She serves as co-Founder and co-Artistic Director of The Woodshed Network.

Ron Carter Quartet

Ron Carter is among the most original, prolific, and influential bassists in jazz. With more than 2,500 albums to his credit, he has recorded with many of music's greats: Tommy Flanagan, Gil Evans, Lena Horne, Bill Evans, B.B. King, the Kronos Quartet, Dexter Gordon, Wes Montgomery, and Bobby Timmons. In the early 1960s he performed throughout the United States in concert halls and nightclubs with Jaki Byard and Eric Dolphy. He later toured Europe with Cannonball Adderley. From 1963 to 1968, he was a member of the classic and acclaimed Miles Davis Quintet. He was named Outstanding Bassist of the Decade by the Detroit News, Jazz Bassist of the Year by Downbeat magazine, and Most Valuable Player by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. In 1993 Ron Carter earned a Grammy award for Best Jazz Instrumental Group, the Miles Davis Tribute Band and another Grammy in 1998 for Call 'Sheet Blues', an instrumental composition from the film 'Round Midnight. In addition to scoring and arranging music for many films, including some projects for Public Broadcasting System, Carter has composed music for A Gathering of Old Men, starring Lou Gosset Jr., The Passion of Beatrice directed by Bertrand Tavernier, and Blind Faith starring Courtney B. Vance. Carter shares his expertise in the series of books he authored, among which are Building Jazz Bass Lines and The Music of Ron Carter; the latter contains 130 of his published and recorded compositions. Carter earned a bachelor of music degree from the Eastman School in Rochester and a master's degree in double bass from the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. He has also received two honorary doctorates, from the New England Conservatory of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, and was the 2002 recipient of the prestigious Hutchinson Award from the Eastman School at the University of Rochester. Carter has lectured, conducted, and performed at clinics and master classes, instructing jazz ensembles and teaching the business of music at numerous universities. He was Artistic Director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Studies while it was located in Boston and, after 18 years on the faculty of the Music Department of The City College of New York, he is now Distinguished Professor Emeritus although, as a performer, he remains as active as ever. In 2010 Ron Carter received the order “Commandeur dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres” of the French Republic.

Cécile McLorin Salvant, is a composer, singer, and visual artist. The late Jessye Norman described Salvant as“a unique voice supported by an intelligence and full-fledged musicality, which light up every note she sings”. Salvant has developed a passion for storytelling and finding the connections between vaudeville, blues, theater, jazz, baroque and folkloric music. Salvant is an eclectic curator, unearthing rarely recorded, forgotten songs with strong narratives, interesting power dynamics, unexpected twists, and humor. Salvant won the Thelonious Monk competition in 2010. She has received three consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album for “The Window”, “Dreams and Daggers”, and “For One To Love”, and was nominated for the award in 2014 for her album “WomanChild”. In 2020, Salvant received the MacArthur fellowship and the Doris Duke Artist Award. Nonesuch Records released “Ghost Song” in March 2022, and has since gone onto receive two Grammy Nominations as well as appearing on a number of year end best lists for 2022. On March 24th, 2023 Nonesuch Records released the highly anticipated follow up - “Mélusine”, an album mostly sung in French, along with Occitan, English, and Haitian Kreyòl. Born and raised in Miami, Florida, of a French mother and Haitian father, she started classical piano studies at 5, sang in a children’s choir at 8, and started classical voice lessons as a teenager. Salvant received a bachelor’s in French law from the Université Pierre-Mendes France in Grenoble while also studying baroque music and jazz at the Darius Milhaud Music Conservatory in Aix-en-Provence, France. Salvant’s latest work, Ogresse, is a musical fable in the form of a cantata that blends genres (folk, baroque, jazz, country). Salvant wrote the story, lyrics, and music. It is arranged by Darcy James Argue for a thirteen-piece orchestra of multi-instrumentalists. Ogresse, both a biomythography and an homage to the Erzulie (as painted by Gerard Fortune) and Sara Baartman, explores fetishism, hunger, diaspora, cycles of appropriation, lies, othering, and ecology. It is in development to become an animated feature-length film, which Salvant will direct.

Brubeck Brothers

Drummer Dan Brubeck is the rhythmic force of the BBQ and has toured the international music circuit for more than two decades. He has led his own group, The Dolphins, in addition to performing with the legendary Dave Brubeck Quartet. Dan also plays with the Vancouver-based Dan Brubeck Quartet (DBQ), featuring vocalist/bassist Adam Thomas. The DBQ released Celebrating the Music and Lyrics of Dave and Iola Brubeck, which showcases his father’s music and little-known lyrics of his mother. The CD was named one of the Top 2015 CDs by Downbeat Magazine and was nominated for a Juno Award for Best Jazz Vocal album. As a featured soloist with many of the world’s top jazz artists, Dan's original drumming style and use of odd-time signatures have earned him international acclaim. A stylistically versatile musician, he’s toured with acts ranging from The Band and David Benoit to Gerry Mulligan and Paul Desmond. He’s recorded with jazz guitar legend Larry Coryell, singer~songwriter Livingston Taylor, jazz~pop singer Michael Franks, and pioneering blues guitarist Roy Buchanan. Dan and Chris were featured on the Dave Brubeck CD “Live with the London Symphony Orchestra.” Dan produced and played on “Trio Brubeck” a Music Masters CD with Dave & Chris Brubeck which received a Grammy Nomination. Dan has appeared on The Today Show, The Tonight Show, The Grammy Awards Show with an all-star jazz group including Dave Brubeck and Christian McBride, BBC specials and the nationally syndicated PBS series Jazz in America, as well as with Chris, Mike & Chuck on the Sierra Center Stage Concert Series broadcast on PBS. JazzTimes Magazine wrote about Dan: “Dan will cause your mouth to drop open when you hear him. To call his drum solos exciting is to sell him short, but it is awesome soloing like this that characterize the entire recording.” His original drumming style, distinctive polyrhythmic solos, and use of odd time signatures have earned him standing ovations worldwide, and the respect of the international jazz community.

By age 33, Emmy-nominated Trumpeter and Vocalist Benny Benack III has already become a leading voice in Jazz for his generation, headlining clubs and festivals around the world on the heels of his latest critically acclaimed album “Third Time’s the Charm” which ascended to #2 on the JazzWeek International Radio Charts in 2023. He is the rare talent who is just as formidable as a fiery trumpeter ranging from Freddie Hubbard to Louis Armstrong and everyone in between, while as a singer he delivers sly, mature, naturally expressive post-Sinatra vocal stylings. His sophomore album “A Lot of Livin’ to Do” (2020) featured the likes of bass luminary Christian McBride, achieving viral online fame w/his vocalese rendition of "Social Call" ft. Veronica Swift that's been transcribed and covered by singers around the world. He has crooned his way to millions of more listeners alongside groups such as the Grammy-winning “8-Bit Big Band” and YouTube sensation “Postmodern Jukebox”. His double-threat credentials were first apparent when he was a finalist in the 2014 Thelonius Monk Competition on trumpet, and then won Third Place in the 2021 Sarah Vaughan Vocal Competition. His resume for both was recently bolstered in Downbeat Magazine’s Critics Poll for 2023, where he appeared in two categories: The #2 Rising Star Male Vocalist and #15 Rising Star Trumpet. His global recognition has been bolstered by the recent advent of live-streaming concerts, both through his weekly residency at Smalls Jazz Club, as well as frequent appearances at fellow young lion Emmet Cohen’s “Emmet’s Place” online series. He has emerged from the pandemic as one of the most in-demand touring artists in the Jazz world, with a never-ending intercontinental schedule that reflects his indefatigable love for the music, with his smile and panache on full-display wherever it takes him next.

Ron Carter Quartet

The deluge of political divisiveness, horrific violence and hateful rhetoric that seem to have polluted our lives on a daily basis over the last few years have left many people across the country and around the world feeling angry, frustrated and hopeless. It would be more than understandable if that feeling was even more intense for Jimmy Greene, for whom the flood of outrageous headlines and social media missives play out against the backdrop of personal tragedy. Greene refuses to succumb to the negativity, however. On his heartfelt new album, While Looking Up, the saxophonist was guided by the inspirational words of his pastor: “If I’m not able to find strength or peace by looking inward,” he said, “or if I’m not able to do it by looking outward to my immediate surroundings, I have to look upward.” Having released two acclaimed volumes celebrating his daughter Ana’s life and spirit – the GRAMMY®-nominated Beautiful Life (Mack Avenue Records, 2014) and Flowers: Beautiful Life, Volume 2 (Mack Avenue Records, 2017) – Greene sought a change of pace, recalling his landmark 2009 release, Mission Statement. “That album was a turning point for me,” he recalled. “It was the first time that I really felt like all of the material was exactly what I wanted it to be. I wanted to have a group that could deliver something similar and was also reminded of a lot of musicians who I’ve played with over the years but haven’t recorded with in some time.” From Mission Statement, Greene reunited with guitarist Lage Lund, bassist Reuben Rogers and vibraphonist Stefon Harris. For the remainder of the ensemble he reached back even further: drummer Kendrick Scott last joined the saxophonist on 2008’s The Overcomer’s Suite, while pianist Aaron Goldberg returns after appearing on Greene’s debut album more than 20 years ago. A native of Connecticut, Greene is considered one of the most respected saxophonists of his generation. His previous solo releases, Flowers: Beautiful Life Vol. 2 (Mack Avenue), the GRAMMY®-nominated Beautiful Life (Mack Avenue), Live at Smalls (SmallsLive), Mission Statement (RazDaz/Sunnyside), The Overcomers Suite (NuJazz), Gifts and Givers (Criss Cross), True Life Stories (Criss Cross), Forever (Criss Cross), Brand New World (RCA Victor) and Introducing Jimmy Greene (Criss Cross) have been met with much critical acclaim. In fact, Tony Hall of Jazzwise Magazine (UK) calls Greene “ . . . . without doubt one of the most striking young tenors of recent years.” Greene and his groups perform regularly in jazz venues, festivals and clubs worldwide, including Jazz Standard (New York), Newport Jazz Festival (Rhode Island), Detroit Jazz Festival (Michigan), TD Winnipeg International Jazz Festival (Canada), Le Club (Moscow), Casa del Jazz (Rome), Sunside Jazz Club (Paris), Red Sea Jazz Festival (Israel), Lapataia Jazz Festival (Uruguay) and Amazonas Jazz Festival (Brazil). In one such appearance, Jim Macnie of the Village Voice said,"[Greene] is good for a couple of body chills every time you see him. He's got a big barrelhouse sound, and a way of negotiating changes that make academic moves seem natural." Greene's television performances in support of his recordings have included spots on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon (NBC-TV), CBS This Morning and The Meredith Vieira Show (Nationally Syndicated). Greene has also performed and presented in churches, faith-based conferences, mental health conferences and arts symposiums throughout the United States and Canada. In addition to his recordings and appearances as a leader, Greene appears on over 75 albums as a sideman, and has toured and/or recorded with Horace Silver, Ron Carter, Tom Harrell, Freddie Hubbard, Harry Connick, Jr., Avishai Cohen, Kenny Barron, Lewis Nash, Dee Dee Bridgewater, the New Jazz Composers Octet and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, among many others.

Julian “J3PO” Pollack is a Los Angeles-based pianist/keyboardist and producer described by Timeout New York as a musician who “deftly balances virtuosity with tenderness.” Julian is known for his innovative use of keyboards and synthesizers in jazz, fusion, hip-hop, and electronic styles of music. Julian has toured extensively with the legendary Marcus Miller, as well as Chris Botti, and has performed and/or recorded with Herbie Hancock, Santana, David Sanborn, Talib Kweli, Cindy Blackman, Joe Lovano, Mike Stern, Ledisi, David Foster, Lisa Fischer, Eric Harland, Marcus Gilmore, Casey Benjamin, Michael League, Bob Reynolds, Kamasi Washington, Jonathan Butler, Tierney Sutton and many others. In 2020, he completed his first feature film score for the movie The Sound of the Wind. When he was 18 years old, having just moved to New York City from his native California hometown of Berkeley, he was featured on Piano Jazz, hosted by Marianne McPartland—the syndicated NPR show. He attended New York University, obtaining a master’s degree in jazz performance and composition. In his early twenties he recorded two piano trio albums: Infinite Playground (2010 - Junebeat Records) and Waves of Albion (2013 - Berthold Records). He also wrote music for orchestra: Piano Concerto (2012) and Night Flower (2013). Shortly thereafter, he began hanging out in the Lower East Side’s music scene of the early 2010s where he went on to meet his peers in the jazz-fusion/hip-hop/electronic genres that would influence the sound he is known for today. He joined the unique experimental hip-hop/progressive-soul ensemble The Lesson GK, which hosted a sold-out weekly event at Arlene’s Grocery for almost a decade, consisting of all improvised music. In 2019 Julian released Small Plates under his moniker J3PO. The album is a collection of 12 compositions that range from simple lo-fi beats to complex jazztronica future house tracks. Inspired by analog synths and sample-based music, the album fuses Julian’s love for today's contemporary production styles with a nod to the jazz tradition and the spontaneity of live music and improvisation. In 2021, Julian released his follow-up album MAINS (2021 - Ropeadope) to much critical acclaim, and in 2023 he released a beat-tape called Sweet Treats.