Generations of Jazz
WHEN: Sunday, January 6, 2019, 2 p.m. (In the event of hazardous travel conditions due to weather, it will be rescheduled for Sunday, January 13.)
WHERE: Donald B. Palmer Museum at the Springfield Free Public Library, 66 Mountain Ave, Springfield
ADMISSION: free
The presentation will be a musical introduction to jazz and jazz history featuring a live performance by a jazz quintet.
The participants will be Carrie Jackson (left), vocalist/narrator; Radam Schwartz (below, left), keyboardist; Gene Ghee, saxophonist; Takashi Otsuka, bassist; and Errold Lanier, Jr., drummer. Jackson has performed at such venues as the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), New York City’s Iridium jazz club and Shanghai Jazz and Trumpets in New Jersey. Cadence Magazine called her “a rich-voiced blues, ballads, and jazz standards singer who knows how to put a song across.” Schwartz has appeared with such jazz legends as tenor saxophonists Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and David “Fathead” Newman. He was director of the Jazz Institute of New Jersey for 15 years and is currently on the teaching staff of Jazz House Kids in Montclair.
Ghee, once a member of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, has also worked as a sideman for Stevie Wonder. Otsuka studied under vibraphonist Gary Burton at the Berklee College of Music and has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boys Choir of Harlem, and the Latin Jazz Orchestra. Lanier, Jr. studied jazz performance at William Paterson University in Wayne and has performed at such venues as Trumpets and Downstairs at the Cornelia Café in Greenwich Village.
The program will trace jazz history, both chronologically and stylistically; will sample jazz styles from its early origins through the big band era, bebop, Latin and modern jazz; and will review the various instruments, explaining how they are used.
The New Jersey Jazz Society (www.njjs.org) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the performance, promotion, and preservation of jazz. The Generations of Jazz program is presented in collaboration with the Wells Fargo Bank and Investors Bank Foundations and the Rea Charitable Trust.
