Dates/times:
Saturday, May 02 2015 at 08:00 PM (Get Tickets)
Location:
BLU Jazz+
47 E. Market Street
Akron, OH 44308
Event Description:
Born in Cleveland, OH, fresh off a U.S. tour performing with Sting & Paul Simon, percussionist/drummer Jamey Haddad holds a unique position in the world of Jazz and Contemporary Music. Haddad's musical voice transcends styles and trends, and the universal quality of his playing has attracted many international collaborations.
Haddad was voted the top world Percussionist in "DRUM Magazine" and one of the top 4 world-percussionists by "Modern Drummer” ( 2015 - 2014 - 2007). Haddad is currently a professor at The Oberlin Conservatory and The Cleveland Institute of Music, previously 18 years at the Berklee School of Music.
Mr. Haddad collaborates regularly with Joe Lovano, Sting, Paul Simon, Esperanza Spalding, Elliot Goldenthal, Assad Brothers, Simon Shaheen, Steve Shehan, Paul Winter Consort, Nancy Wilson and Dave Liebman.
Jamey has been awarded Fulbright Fellowship. For more information, visit jameyhaddad.com.
Join us for this very special performance at BLU Jazz+ featuring some of the best jazz talent in the world, featuring Jamey Haddad (drums/percussion), Roberto Occhipinti (acoustic bass), Sullivan Fortner (piano), and Billy Drewes (reeds).
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About Billy Drewes
Billy Drewes has been creating music, composing, performing and recording since the mid 1970's. His main instruments include soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, clarinets, flutes, drums, percussion and piano. Featured on over 150 CD's, with performance credits worldwide, he continually searches out new avenues for creative expression.
He shares the stage with Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell, Paul Motian and Toninho Horta at venues from Egypt to Cuba, Israel to Africa, New York's Carnegie Hall to Albert Royal Hall in London.
In addition to his love of performing, he takes great interest in the education of college and high school students. Teaching music as a total art form, Billy participates in clinics and seminars around the world with the goal of extracting from gifted students their hidden talents for musical improvisation and composition.
It was clear from the early growth of this artists musical career that his serious commitment to music would be manifested in the form of improvisation, in both performance and compositional worlds. His creative imagery has been part of many concerts, recordings and multimedia projects throughout his career.
Billy Drewes was born in New York in 1952. After a wonderful period of development in his early years, he moved to Boston in 1970 where he earned his degree from Berklee College of Music and where new areas of musical possibilities were defined. His intense involvement with many different avenues of music molded him into the creative artist he is today. While in Boston he worked with Tony Bennett, The Boston Symphony and Gary Burton. He also lead a number of his own bands.
A big move back to New York City in 1975 propelled him into new musical acquaintances such as Kenny Werner, John Scofield and Joe Lovano. Upon arriving in New York, he immediately joined the bands of Lionel Hampton and Eddie Palmieri as well as other serious leaders. Soon after, he toured with Woody Herman doing concerts and clinics.
The creative energy of the late 70's was great for Billy and his wide circle of musical friends. This explosion of new ideas extended into the 80's at which time Billy joined Paul Motian's band. This band included Joe Lovano and Bill Frisell and toured Europe and the US, and recorded an album "PSALM" for ECM records. This period lead to a musical relationship with Lyle Mays (of Pat Metheny's Band) with whom Billy performed concerts and recorded albums. New and exciting projects were now becoming part of a daily groove for Billy. The eclectic range of work kept things fresh and uplifting.
Billy became involved with Brazilian and Indian Music, performed and recorded for dance troupes; Nikolais Dance Company and the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. In 1990 he joined the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. Billy wove classical music into a wide body of music that he composed and performed. He continued recording and touring with artists Herbie Hancock, Bill Frisell, Eddie Gomez, Randy Brecker, John Scofield, Toninho Horta, John Abercrombie, Fred Hersch and Peter Erskine.
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About Roberto Occhipinti
Roberto Occhipinti is diversity personified. He’s won awards and acclaim as a musician, composer and record producer. Throughout his career, the Toronto-born bassist has performed in classical orchestras, jazz ensembles, Latin groups, rhythm & blues outfits and rock bands. He has worked in theatre and opera, written for radio and television, played on film soundtracks and done more recording session jobs than he can remember. To call the hard-working musician versatile would be the height of understatement.
“I’ve always had very catholic tastes about my musical endeavors,” admits Occhipinti. “I don’t wait for the phone to ring. I’d rather make a call than hang around. I get involved with projects because I’m interested in doing lots of different things and you never know what they’re going to lead to.”
Occhipinti believes that his versatility is the direct result of his instrument. “The bass is the source of everything for me,” he says. “Unlike other instruments, it puts you in the centre of all sorts of situations. I play both double bass and electric bass, which creates a lot of opportunities. A guitar player can’t play in a symphony orchestra, for instance. I’m attracted to the social nature of music and the bass is the perfect instrument for that.”
From a young age, Occhipinti began straddling the worlds of jazz and classical music. His two earliest mentors, Joel Quarrington and Dave Young, represented that musical duality. Quarrington, a classical bassist with whom he grew up in the Toronto suburb of Don Mills, encouraged him to study with Peter Madgett and Thomas Monahan, while Young played bass with both orchestras and such jazz musicians as Oscar Peterson and Moe Koffman. “Dave was also doing studio work,” recalls Occhipinti, “basically all the kinds of things I wanted to do.”
After stints with the Winnipeg Symphony, the Hamilton Philharmonic and the Canadian Opera Company, Occhipinti fell under the spell of Latin music. Playing with Memo Acevedo’s Banda Brava led saxophonist Jane Bunnett to ask him to fill in for her bass player on a tour. Occhipinti wound up going to Cuba and playing on three of Bunnett’s albums, including the Juno Award-winning Ritmo and Soul and the Grammy-nominated Alma de Santiago. Through that association, he met Cuban-Canadian pianist Hilario Durán and produced three of Durán’s albums, including the Juno-winning New Danzon.
Throughout all of this, Occhipinti also worked in the field of contemporary music, acting as principal bassist with the Esprit Orchestra and as a longtime member of Arraymusic. At the same time, he wrote music for CBC radio dramas and scored the soundtrack for the animated hit children’s series George Shrinks, which earned him a SOCAN composer’s award.
But it has been on his own recordings that Occhipinti has best bridged his classical background with his deep love of jazz and world music. From his first album right up to last year’s A Bend in the River, he has forged a synthesis of symphonic strings, big-band horns with a rhythm section on a mix of original compositions and his interpretations of works by composers as varied as Giacomo Puccini, Thelonious Monk, Jimi Hendrix and Brazil’s Djavan. “I consider jazz to be the original world music,” says Occhipinti. “It’s an open platform—it can be whatever you want it to be.”
Roberto Occhipinti’s talent and adventurous tastes have taken him as far afield as West Africa, where he appeared with the Mali Music project of Damon Albarn, frontman of British rockers Blur (he’d previously toured with Albarn’s experimental hip-hop act Gorillaz). Since 1990, he has played electric bass with Soul Stew, his six-piece funk and r&b band that includes some of Toronto’s most accomplished studio musicians.
Yet another of his undertakings has deep familial roots. Born of Sicilian heritage, Occhipinti introduced his guitarist brother Michael to field recordings made by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, when he visited Sicily in the 1950s. The result was The Sicilian Jazz Project, a CD of reinterpretation of that traditional folk music with arrangements by Michael and production by Roberto. Recently, after Roberto completed a tour with his own jazz quartet, the two brothers traveled to their parents’ hometown of Modica in Sicily to receive an award from the local government for their work. It was a “bittersweet” experience, says Roberto, “because our parents are no longer alive and they didn’t get to see Michael and I working together on this. But I’m very happy we did it.”
Next up for the busy bass player are new albums that he’s produced for Durán, Cuban drummer Dafnis Prieto and Quarrington, now one of the world’s top classical bassists. Not surprisingly, Occhipinti credits his instrument with giving him steady production work. “Bass players make good producers,” he says, “because their job is to tie into the larger picture and they wind up with a more holistic view of the music that they’re playing. Ultimately,” he adds, “it all comes back to playing the bass.”
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About Sullivan Fortner
Sullivan Joseph Fortner Jr. is a native New Orleanian who has already made a significant foray into the jazz world that belies his young age. While touring with Stefon Harris & Blackout, Christian Scott Quintet, and the Roy Hargrove Quintet, Sullivan completed his Master’s degree in Jazz Performance at Manhattan School of Music under the tutorage of Jason Moran, and Phil Markowitz.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Jazz Performance from Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Sullivan began playing music by ear at the age of seven. Two years later, he was playing for church choirs throughout New Orleans. By the time he was 11 years old, Sullivan had won a Cox Cable “Amazing Kids Award”. At the age of 13, Sullivan furthered his formal education in piano by attending the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) and earned scholarships to several prestigious summer jazz programs, including the Vail Jazz Institute and the Skidmore Jazz Studies Summer Program. A standout on the stage and in the classroom, Sullivan was Valedictorian of his high school class while simultaneously graduating from NOCCA.
He has studied and performed with many great musicians, including The Marsalis Family, Donald Harrison, Nicholas Payton, Billy Hart, Gary Bartz, Marcus Belgrave, The Jordan Family, Irvin Mayfield, Peter Martin, Dave Liebman, and a host of others.