Big band jazz show at Blair this week starring Wycliffe Gordon
Posted 2/25/2008
Wycliffe Gordon
This will be a night of big band jazz with a heavy groove in the Martha Rivers Ingram Center for the Performing Arts at 8 p.m. A 17-piece edition of the NJO, led by Director Jim Williamson, will perform a set of Gordon's blues-based original compositions plus a few standards, and a classic or two from the Count Basie Orchestra.
Several of the concert pieces will feature Gordon with the NJO's own virtuoso trombone section of Barry Green, Roy Agee, Billy Huber, and Chris Dunn (bass trombone). An added feature will be vocalist, bassist Jim Ferguson performing some humorous duets with Gordon from Gordon's 2006 duet CD, This Rhythm on My Mind.
Admission is $15 general admission, $10 for seniors, VU faculty and staff, and $5 for students. Tickets are available from NJO at 615-889-6335, or at the Ingram Center box office the night of the performance.
Gordon, an acclaimed trombonist and music educator, is a former member of the Wynton Marsalis band and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. He currently enjoys an extraordinary career touring the world as a performer, conductor, composer, arranger, and educator, while receiving high praise from critics and from audiences ranging from heads of state to children.
Born in Waynesboro, Ga., Gordon was introduced to music by his late father, Lucius Gordon, a classical pianist and teacher, and to the trombone by his elder brother who played the instrument in his junior high school band. Sibling rivalry drove Gordon's plea to his parents to get him his first trombone. A year later, an aunt bequeathed Gordon her jazz record collection, and so began his passion for jazz music.
Since then, Gordon's talent as trombonist and composer have been captured on numerous recordings with Marsalis, Lincoln Center, plus nine solo CDs and three co-leader CDs. His latest solo effort Cone's Coup was released in 2006. He has been featured in movies and TV, including the PBS series Marsalis on Music, Swinging with the Duke, A Carnegie Hall Christmas Concert, and the Ken Burns documentary Jazz. Gordon received the Jazz Journalists Association 2002 and 2001 Award for Trombonist of the Year, the Jazz Journalists Association 2000 Critics' Choice Award for Best Trombone and has been nominated for the Jazzpar Award.
Gordon is also becoming one of America's most persuasive and committed music educators, and is author of several books and videos on trombone and jazz. He currently serves on the faculty of the Jazz Studies Program at The Juilliard School, a position he has held since the founding of the program. His work with young musicians and audiences from elementary schools to universities all over the world is extensive, and includes master classes, clinics, workshops, children's concerts and lectures - evidence of his unique ability to relate musically to people of all ages.
Gordon's appearance also includes a Feb. 28 rehearsal/Master Class for students of all ages at Blair's Ingram Hall at 8:00pm.
The Feb. 29 concert is the next event in the NJO's 2007/2008 concert season as "Artist in Residence" at Blair School of Music. Founded in 1996, the NJO is a 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit organization dedicated to perpetuating big band jazz. Director Jim Williamson re-organized the band to its current personnel in 2003, performing regularly at Café 123 and B.B. King's, where they recorded their first CD. With 17 of Nashville's top session and jazz players, they play clubs and jazz festivals, often with guest artists like Randy Brecker, Kirk Whalum, Lou Marini, Donald Brown, Raul Malo, Bob Kurnow, Annie Sellick, and Connye Florance.
Remaining concerts in the series include NJO's Third Annual Jazz Writer's Night on April 17. The orchestra regularly rehearses at Blair, providing a valuable practice and "master rehearsal" learning experience for jazz music students at the school. Musicians in the orchestra also arrange for one-on-one and group master classes for interested students. Their current CDs are Live at B.B. King's featuring Annie Sellick, and Legacy - First Annual Jazz Writer's Night. Both will be on sale at the concert.
The Martha Rivers Ingram Center for the Performing Arts is on the Blair campus at 2400 Blakemore Ave.
For tickets, call 615-889-6335
Contact: Cindy Steine, (615) 322-7651
cindy.steine@vanderbilt.edu
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