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A review of Friday’s performances by Shauna Farnell The 23rd Annual Vail Jazz Party is off and running, the first two nights of performances thundering forth one barrage of talent and energy after another. The highlights thus far have twinkled in a blinding array of sparkles too numerous to name. Among them though, the unblinking, […]
Born in 1915 in Cotton Plant, Ark., Sister Rosetta Tharpe (as she became known) was the child of African American cotton pickers. Little is known about her father, but her mother, Katie Bell Nubin, was an extremely important figure in her life. Katie was a congregant of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), a […]
The Vail Jazz Party is a breeding ground for spontaneous and sometimes unlikely musical magic Howard Stone likens a jazz jam session to a fantastic conversation. Sometimes you fall into a vibrant discussion that surprises you. It not only makes you feel alive with cognitive and creative power, but introduces ideas and perspectives you’d never […]
Meet members of the 2017 Vail Jazz Workshop Growing up listening to his Caribbean mother’s Calypso music, Marvin Carter knew that music was his calling. The high school senior spends five to six hours a day playing the alto saxophone, and it never feels like a chore. “It’s a way of life, me playing the […]
From gigging with his father at age 5 to touring with Miles Davis as a teen, Joey DeFrancesco is maintaining his breakneck pace This is a story of love at first sight. From the moment Joey DeFrancesco first laid eyes on the Hammond B3 organ, he had hearts in his pupils. A Philadelphia native raised […]
Most of us associate a pipe organ with church, but well before the Ninth Century when pipe organs were first used in Western liturgical music, they were played while gladiators battled in the arenas of the Roman Empire. By the Middle Ages, large pipe organs were installed in important cathedrals in the West, but due […]
Grammy winner Eliane Elias shares song-inspired stories from fans Eliane Elias has been living out of a suitcase for nearly 40 years. Starting her career as a teenager in her native São Paulo, the Brazilian singer/pianist has been on a trajectory that’s ranged from steadily to steeply upward. “I work very hard at what I […]
Ask someone about Brazilian jazz and the likely response is bossa nova and “The Girl from Ipanema.” The 1964 recording was a smash hit for Brazilian vocalist Astrud Gilberto and American saxophonist Stan Getz and it propelled the bossa nova sound to world-wide popularity. Ipanema is a toney beach neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro and […]
The famed, 14-piece Cuban ensemble performs in Vail this Thursday Dr. Michael Davison has been to Cuba 40 times. Like Cubanismo frontman Jesús Alemañy, he is a mastermind on the trumpet and has played for decades. Professor of Music and Director of Jazz Ensemble at the University of Richmond, Davison can emulate just about any of history’s trumpet-playing […]
In 1917, Ramón Santamaría Rodriquez was born into poverty in a slum in Havana, Cuba. Nicknamed “Mongo” (a tribal chief in Senegal) by his father, he began to play the violin but switched to drums at an early age, settling on the conga drum as his primary instrument. As a teen, Mongo Santamaría (as he […]
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