Jump to content

Adventure Music Concert Series, Grand Rapids


Lazaro Vega

Recommended Posts

Following our first concert held in October 2016 by Celestial Weather Midwest Duets,  Wadada Leo Smith and John Lindberg, here's the rest of the 2017 concert schedule:

 

For tickets to the Adventure Music Concert Series held at LaFontsee Galleries, 833 Lake Drive SE, Grand Rapids, see www.adventuremusic.org. For directions to the venue (616) 451 – 9820.

 

Sunday, February 19 at 3 p.m. The Andrew Rathbun Trio featuring bassist Robert Hurst. From www.andrewrathbun.com: Toronto native Andrew Rathbun is widely esteemed as one of the most creative and accomplished saxophonists, composers and bandleaders of his generation. On tenor and soprano saxophones he has achieved a rare depth of lyricism, authoritative swing and compositional intelligence. Recording steadily as a leader since the late 1990s, he has documented his stirring original music with an array of extraordinary lineups, featuring the talents of such greats as Kenny Wheeler, Billy Hart, George Garzone, Phil Markowitz and Bill Stewart. “Rathbun’s lines dance and glide,” writes David Whiteis of JazzTimes, “reflecting both childlike wonder and well-honed artistry.”  

 

Rathbun earned a Masters in Performance from Boston’s New England Conservatory, where he studied with George Garzone, Jimmy Giuffre and George Russell. After moving to Brooklyn in 1997 he became a fixture on the New York jazz scene, helping to shape the sound of the music in the new millennium as he earned a Doctorate in Jazz Arts from Manhattan School of Music. He has secured recognition and support from the Ontario Council for the Arts, the Canada Council and the American Music Center. He has also served as a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and an artist at the Banff Center for the Arts.

 

Following teaching stints at the University of Maine, Kingsborough College and the Amadeus Conservatory in northern Westchester County, New York, Rathbun took a position in 2012 as Professor of Saxophone and Jazz Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, where he now lives with his family. He continues to perform in New York and internationally. He is also a member of the Western Jazz Quartet, WMU’s resident faculty band, featuring fellow professors Jeremy Siskind (piano), Tom Knific (bass) and Keith Hall (drums). The quartet’s latest release is Free Fall(2014).

See www.andrewrathbun.com.

 

7 time Grammy Award winner, and 4 time Emmy Award Robert Hurst is at the forefront of instrumental music and music education. He’s currently an Associate Professor of Music and Director of Small Jazz Ensembles at The University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance. From www.roberthurst.com:

 

A Detroit native, Hurst has enjoyed a stellar career spanning 30 years, and is a highly respected and well recognized composer, electric and acoustic bassist, educator, recording artist, and business man. His cultivation into a membership of talented musicians from around the world was fostered by lengthy tours and GRAMMY® Award winning recordings featuring: Sir Paul McCartney, Charles Lloyd, Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Dave Brubeck, Harry Connick Jr., Terrence Blanchard, Tony Williams, Nicholas Payton, Sting, Carl Allen, the legendary Pharaoh Sanders, Barbara Streisand, Willie Nelson, Yo Yo Ma, Ravi Coltrane, Chris Botti and Diana Krall.

 

Robert Hurst has performed on over 150 diverse and critically acclaimed recordings.

 

Sunday, March 26 at 3 p.m. guitarist Randy Napoleon leads his trio, including drummer Keith Hall. From his Michigan State University Faculty profile, Born in Brooklyn and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Randy Napoleon began his journey in jazz immediately after finishing his studies at the University of Michigan. Jeff Hamilton of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra invited the young Napoleon to do a series of performances with them at the Hollywood Bowl. From there, Napoleon's career took off, first touring with pianist Benny Green nationally and internationally for a year, and then full time with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. A three-year stint with crooner Michael Buble followed; Napoleon is featured on Buble's Grammy-nominated CD “Caught in the Act.”

 

Guitarist George Benson calls Napoleon “sensational.” Detroit Free Press critic Mark Stryker says Napoleon “plays with a gentle, purring tone that makes you lean in close to hear its range of color and articulation.” Washington Post critic Mike Joyce praises his “exceptionally nimble finger-style technique.” Comparing him to Wes Montgomery, music critic Michael G. Nastos says, “he displays an even balance of swing, soul, and single-line or chord elements that mark an emerging voice dedicated to tradition and universally accessible jazz values.”

 

Napoleon currently tours with the legendary singer/pianist, Freddy Cole, and is featured on Cole’s 2009 album, “Live at Dizzy’s Club: The Dreamer in Me.“ He is the main arranger and the guitarist on “Freddy Cole Sings Mr. B,” a 2010 Grammy-nominated release from High Note that features songs from the Billy Eckstine song book, as well as on “Talk to Me,” Cole's 2011 album, and Cole's most recent album “This and That.”

 

Today, Napoleon is one of the most sought-after guitarists in New York, where he is known as a forward-thinking musician with a passion for the jazz guitar tradition. In addition to backing the best, he leads his own bands, an organ trio, a trombone trio, a quartet with piano, and a three-horn sextet that includes organ, drums, trumpet, tenor sax, and trombone. He joined the MSU College of Music faculty in fall 2014 as assistant professor of jazz guitar. - See more at: http://www.music.msu.edu/faculty/profile/randy1#sthash.PPpXApN3.dpuf.

 

Sunday, April 23, percussionist Adam Rudolph and Hamid Drake come together for their first tour as Karuna.

 

Karuna:  Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph Duet

Adam Rudolph (handrumset (kongos, djembe, tarija, zabumba) thumb pianos, sintir, multiphonic vocal, percussion) 

Hamid Drake (drum kit, vocal, frame drums, udu drums, tabla, percussion)  

The Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph duet traces it beginning to a chance encounter between two 14-year-old aspiring percussionists in a downtown Chicago drum shop. Their shared love for rhythms and music of the world and music’s’ relationship to matters of the spirit led to years of shared creative journeys.

 

In the mid-1970s they performed and recorded with AACM co-founder Fred Anderson, and in 1977 they joined Foday Musa Suso in founding Mandingo Griot Society, one of the first groups to combine African and American music. By 1978 they were touring Europe with the Don Cherry and since that time have performed together in projects with Yusef Lateef, Pharaoh Sanders, Hassan Hakmoun, Hu: Vibrational and Adam Rudolph’s Moving Pictures. Their shared Chicago roots and longtime global music research and performing experience have allowed them to forge a uniquely shared musical understanding and creative outlook.

 

After over 40 years of music making together, this will be their first tour as a duet. Featuring their unique and evolved rhythm languages, in concert they aspire to inspire any audience though spirited dialogue. As Drake reflected upon their influence upon each other,  “I have been developing a hand drum concept on the drum set while Adam says he is developing a drum set concept on his hand drums. We understand one another” 

 

The name Karuna reflects Drake and Rudolph’s ongoing research and dialogues into the connection of the inner life to musical expression. Karuna speaks to the idea of creative action as a gesture of compassion.

 

BIOGRAPHIES OF THE ARTISTS:

For the past four decades composer and percussionist ADAM RUDOLPH has performed extensively throughout North & South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. He has released over 30 recordings under his own name, featuring his compositions and percussion work. Rudolph composes for his ensembles Moving Pictures OctetHu Vibrational, and Go: Organic Orchestra, a 30-piece group for which he has developed an original music notation and conducting system. He has taught and conducted hundreds of musicians worldwide in his Go: Organic Orchestra concept. 

 

In 2015 Rudolph was artist in residence at the Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Illinois and received the prestigious Danish International Visiting Artist award from the Danish Government. During his residency he led master classes at universities and presented in concert his Go: Organic Orchestra concept with members of the Danish Radio Orchestra.

Rudolph has performed with Don Cherry, Sam Rivers, Pharaoh Sanders, Muhal Richard Abrams, Shankar, Wadada Leo SmithPhilip Glass, Jon Hassel, Omar Sosa and Fred Anderson. He toured extensively and recorded 15 albums with Yusef Lateef including duets and their large ensemble compositional collaborations.

Rudolph is known as one the early innovators of what is now called “World Music”. In 1978 he and Kora player Foday Musa Suso co-founded Mandingo Griot Society, one of the first groups to combine African and American music. In 1988, he recorded the first fusion of American and Gnawa music with Sintir player and singer Hassan HakmounIn 2006, Advance Music published Rudolph’s book, Pure Rhythm, now a classic rhythm repository used worldwide.

 

HAMID DRAKE was born in Monroe, Louisiana but for the most part was raised in Chicago. In 1974 he began what was to be a long-term musical relationship with Fred Anderson who introduced him to performing with many of the other artists in the AACM. In late 1977 Drake joined Adam Rudolph and Foday Musa Suso to form the Mandingo Griot society, one of the first groups in the United States to explore the relationship between traditional West African and American musical idioms. He met Don Cherry when the group recorded their first LP on Flying fish Records. Drake’s relationship with Cherry continued until Cherry’s passing in 1995 doing many tours throughout Europe, Japan and the United States with him. Don Cherry provided a major breakthrough for Drake not only musically but spiritually as well. Since 1987 Drake has recorded toured extensively in Europe and the US with German saxophonist Peter Brotzmann and also with bass player William Parker in several of his ensembles and with many other artists.

 

The list of the people that Drake has worked and recorded with includes David Murray, Pharaoh Sanders, Iva Bitova, Misha Mengelberg, AB Bars, Luc EX, Adam Rudolph, Bill Laswell, Archie Shepp, Napoleon Maddox(Iswhat),  DVK with Ken Vandermark and Kent Kessler, Nicole Mitchell, Punkt, Rob Wagner , Rob Brown, Cooper-Moore, Lewis Barnes, Kirk Knuffke, Fred Anderson, and  Kidd Jordan.

 

In 2005 Drake formed the group Bindu and a few years later Bindu Reggaeology both formed with the purpose of highlighting through music and spoken word the spiritual, cultural and social importance that the Divine Mother Tradition (Divine feminine) has played throughout world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...