January 2021 The Jazz Gallery All-Stars Program Book

THE JAZZ GALLERY ALL-STARS JANUARY 22, 2021

2020/2021 Concert Season

2O14/2O15 CONCERT SERIES

Founded in 1943, UChicago Presents brings extraordinary artists from around the world for dynamic live performances, educational experiences, and community engagement through a diverse mix of chamber music and recitals, early, contemporary, jazz, and world music, including artist residencies, commissions, and premieres. Concerts feature pre- or post-event talks led by University of Chicago scholars and are performed in treasured campus venues such as Mandel Hall, Rockefeller Chapel, and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.

Heralded by the Chicago Tribune as “a model of what a classical concert series should be,” and “the city’s most important by a mile chamber music series” by the Chicago Sun-Times, UChicago Presents has been dedicated to presenting music on an intimate scale at the highest level since its inception. The pursuit of excellence is central to this mission, infusing not only UChicago Presents’ music but also its relationship with its audience and community. b

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St. Lawrence String Quartet

Click on any of the hyperlinks embedded throughout the program for more information from the UChicago Presents website.

Mariza

Axiom Brass

Seth Parker Woods

WINTER 2021 VIRTUAL EVENTS b FRI / JAN 15 / 7:00 PM

Ohrwurm: Tabea Debus, recorder, and Alon Sariel, lute

b FRI / JAN 22 / 7:00 PM

The Jazz Gallery All-Stars

b FRI / JAN 29 / 7:00 PM

Mariza Sings Amália

b FRI / FEB 5 / 7:00 PM

b FRI / FEB 19 / 7:00 PM

~NOIS

b FRI / FEB 26 / 7:00 PM

b FRI / MAR 5 / 7:00 PM

Haydn Discovery: St. Lawrence String Quartet

SOUND/SITES: Seth Parker Woods, cello

Axiom Brass

b FRI / DEC 12 / 7:00 PM

Miniatures: Members of the Grossman Ensemble

FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2021 / 7:00 PM / ONLINE

THE JAZZ GALLERY ALL-STARS Miguel Zenón, alto saxophone Morgan Guerin, tenor saxophone Joel Ross, vibraphone Charles Altura, guitar Julius Rodriguez, piano Ben Williams, bass Kendrick Scott, drums Renee Neufville, vocals

Program to be announced from the stage.

Presented with generous support from the REVADA Foundation.

b THE JAZZ GALLERY ALL-STARS Since its founding in 1995 by Roy Hargrove, Dale Fitzgerald, and Lezlie Harrison, the Jazz Gallery has been a key institution in New York City’s jazz and creative music scene. Known as “the most imaginatively booked jazz club in New York” (New York Times), the Jazz Gallery has welcomed and nurtured several generations of musicians from around the world, including many who have gone on to critical acclaim as Grammy award nominees and winners, MacArthur Fellows, Thelonious Monk Competition winners and finalists, Critics-Poll winners, and headliners at major international festivals.

of the finest young musicians, bandleaders, and composers with serious connections to the Jazz Gallery, including founding member, trumpeter Roy Hargrove, and MacArthur fellow Miguel Zenón. On the day of the venue’s 25th anniversary, the Jazz Gallery All-Stars made a triumphant return. Their first concert in January at the 2020 Winter Jazz Festival was a massive success. While their concerts were all but canceled for 2020, the Jazz Gallery All-Stars have reconvened to perform on the Jazz Gallery stage, propelling the vision and mission of the Jazz Gallery to the whole world.

The Jazz Gallery first introduced the All-Stars at the Newport Jazz Festival in 2010 for the club’s 15th anniversary. The group consisted of some

January 2021 | 1

PROFILES

b MIGUEL ZENÓN

b MORGAN GUERIN

Miguel Zenón is widely considered one of the most groundbreaking and influential saxophonists of his generation. Having developed a unique voice as a composer and as a conceptualist, Zenón has perfected a fine mix between Latin American folkloric music and jazz in his work.

Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Zenón has released twelve recordings as a leader, most recently including the Grammy–nominated Sonero: The Music of Ismael Rivera (2019). As a sideman, he has worked with jazz luminaries such as the SFJAZZ Collective, Charlie Haden, Fred Hersch, the Jeff Ballard Trio, and Steve Coleman. As a composer, he has been commissioned by Chamber Music America, the Logan Center for the Arts, the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, the Guggenheim Foundation, MIT, and many of his peers. In April 2008, Zenón received a fellowship from the prestigious Guggenheim Foundation, and later that year, was chosen to receive the coveted MacArthur Fellowship.

Dubbed a “wunderkind saxophonist and multiinstrumentalist” by the New York Times, New York City-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, and engineer Morgan Guerin has explored new and exciting ways to navigate sound throughout his burgeoning career. Born near New Orleans, Louisiana, to a musical family, Guerin began playing the saxophone when he was seven. Throughout his middle and high school years, he honed his skills in several instruments, including bass, electronic wind instrument (EWI), drums, and keys, as well as in music engineering and production, and relocated to New York City to study at The New School in 2016. Guerin’s notable collaborators include Terri Lyne Carrington, Kassa Overall, Esperanza Spalding, and Tyshawn Sorey. Both his debut album, The Saga (2016), and its followup, The Saga II (2017), have earned Guerin critical acclaim. His third album, The Saga III, was released on September 18, 2020.

Miguel Zenón most recently appeared on the UChicago Presents series with his quartet and “Identities” Big Band on May 26, 2016.

This concert marks Morgan Guerin’s UChicago Presents debut.

2 | UChicago Presents 77th Season

PROFILES

b JOEL ROSS

b CHARLES ALTURA

Vibraphone master and songwriter Joel Ross has adopted an entire ethos dependent on truthful, ongoing communication. A Blue Note artist of critically acclaimed releases KingMaker (2019) and Who Are You? (2020), he regularly tops the DownBeat Critics Poll for his work in the broad lineage of Black music that pulls from jazz, hiphop, church, and Chicago improvised music. Now based in Brooklyn, Ross has collaborated with Makaya McCraven, María Grand, Kassa Overall, Nicole Mitchell, Gerald Clayton, Melissa Aldana, Walter Smith III, Wynton Marsalis, and Marquis Hill, and performed as a leader at Smalls Jazz Club, Umbria Jazz Festival, Winter Jazz Fest, Newport Jazz Festival, Dizzy’s Club, the Blue Whale, North Sea Jazz Festival, and the Brubeck Institute.

Grammy–nominated guitarist Charles Altura hails from the San Francisco Bay Area. Having been called a “blazingly precise young guitarist” by the New York Times, he has put the international jazz world on notice with his unique blend of effortless lyricism and rich, atmospheric sound.

After graduating from Stanford University with a degree in anthropology, he quickly made a name for himself as an exciting new voice on guitar.

As a composer and bandleader, Altura blurs the lines between composition and improvisation.

He is known for his recent work as a member of the bands of Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Terence Blanchard, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Tom Harrell. He has also toured and/or recorded with Tigran Hamasyan, Christian McBride, Ravi Coltrane, Jeff Ballard, Aaron Parks, Dayna Stephens, and Thundercat, in addition to many others.

Joel Ross most recently appeared on the UChicago Prsents series with Marquis Hill on February 15, 2019.

This concert marks Charles Altura’s UChicago Presents debut.

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PROFILES

b JULIUS RODRIGUEZ

b BEN WILLIAMS

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Julius Rodriguez bonds a deep sense of history with an appetite for the unknown. A native of Westchester, New York, he has garnered critical praise from JAZZIZ magazine and the New York Times, and earned performance opportunities alongside Wynton Marsalis, Ben Williams, Jazzmeia Horn, A$AP Rocky, Braxton Cook, and the late Roy Hargrove. Rodriguez’s contributions on piano, drums, synthesizer, and electric bass appear on releases from Kassa Overall, Carmen Lundy, Morgan Guerin, J. D. Walter, and Damien Sneed. Since attending Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music, Rodriguez has performed at notable New York venues, including Dizzy’s, Smalls Jazz Club, Smoke Jazz and Supper Club, and the Jazz Gallery. He has appeared at clubs and festivals across the country and throughout the world, including the Blue Note, SFJAZZ, the Kennedy Center, and Monterey and North Sea Jazz festivals. An emerging leader and highly sought collaborator, Rodriguez issued his debut release, Blues at the Barn, in 2020.

Ben Williams is an acclaimed bassist, bandleader, performer, music educator, and composer. He has performed with such modern music legends as Wynton Marsalis, George Benson, Pat Metheny, David Sanborn, Chaka Kahn, Pharrell, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Terence Blanchard, Roy Hargrove, Benny Golson, and Stefon Harris. A two-time recipient of the DownBeat Critics Poll Rising Star Award for Bass in 2013 and 2015, Williams won the 2009 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Bass Competition Award, landing him a record deal with Concord Records. Thereafter, he recorded and released his debut album, State of Art, in 2011 with his band, Sound Effect, garnering an impressive 4.5-star review in DownBeat.

Williams won his first Grammy award in 2013 with the Pat Metheny Unity Band for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. Born in 1984 in Washington, D.C., Williams was educated at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts and holds degrees from Michigan State University and the Juilliard School.

This concert marks Julius Rodriguez’s UChicago Presents debut.

This concert marks Ben Williams’s UChicago Presents debut.

4 | UChicago Presents 77th Season

PROFILES

b KENDRICK SCOTT

b RENEE NEUFVILLE

Named a Rising Star by DownBeat magazine, Kendrick Scott is one of the premier drummers of his generation. Born in Houston, Texas, Scott grew up in a family of musicians and attended Houston’s renowned High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, a school which has produced an impressive array of musical talent, including Scott’s contemporaries Jason Moran and Robert Glasper, among many others.

He was later awarded a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music, where he majored in music education. Kendrick Scott has toured and recorded with a wide array of artists, including Herbie Hancock, Marcus Miller, Charles Lloyd, The Crusaders, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Kurt Elling, and Terence Blanchard. Scott is renowned as a bandleader, having released several albums with his band Oracle, including his most recent release for Blue Note Records, A Wall Becomes a Bridge (2019). In addition to composing and performing with Oracle worldwide, Scott continues to be an in-demand sideman.

Vocalist Renee Neufville first rose to prominence as one-half of the group Zhané alongside Jean Morris. The duo’s sweet and easy grooves, heard via the Motown label, were a significant ingredient of commercial R&B radio during the 1990s.

Upon Zhané’s split, Neufville became a valued collaborator with the likes of such artists as Next, Will Downing, and Heather Headley. More prominently, she became a recording and touring member of Roy Hargrove’s RH Factor project, as heard on the Verve releases Hard Groove (2003), Strength (2004), and Distractions (2006).

In 2015, following several years of additional lowkey collaborations, Neufville released her debut solo single, “Watching Me,” an uplifting song reminiscient of her late-‘70s/early-‘80s-inspired work with Zhané.

This concert marks Renee Neufville’s UChicago Presents debut.

This concert marks Kendrick Scott’s UChicago Presents debut.

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GIFTS UChicago Presents gratefully acknowledges the many friends who graciously support our programs. To contribute to the UCP Annual Fund, please call 773.702.8068 or visit give.uchicago.edu and select University of Chicago Presents.

UChicago Presents appreciates the support of the Office of the Provost and the Department of Music for its operations and the Logan Center for the Arts for its partnership on Jazz at the Logan and family and school programming. $10,000 AND ABOVE Hanna H. Gray National Endowment for the Arts Reva and David Logan Foundation Revada Foundation Illinois Arts Council Alan Cravitz and Shashi Caudill Adam M. Dubin and Wei-Jen Chen $5,000–$9,999 Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation James and Joan Shapiro $2,500–$4,999 Lois R. and Maurice J. Beznos in honor of Amy Iwano Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation Lynne F. and Ralph A. Schatz Dr. Elizabeth E. Sengupta* Louise K. Smith $1,000–$2,499 Anonymous Pamela Baker and Jay R. Franke Ann Bratton and John Partelow Howard and Elizabeth Helsinger Dr. and Mrs. Alan Leff Emilysue Pinnell and the Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation for the Howard Mayer Brown International Early Music Series Anne Walters Robertson and J. Robert Robertson Evelyn Brody and Jack Siegel Betty Vandenbosch Kathleen and Willem Weijer $500–$999 Anonymous R. Stephen and Carla F. Berry Teri Edelstein and Neil Harris Emlyn Eisenach and Eric Posner Paula A. Golden Raymond J. and Alma M. Kuby

Barbara Mirecki Bruce Oltman David and Kerstin Wellbery Howard Stanley White $250–$499 Anonymous Paul F. and Mary H. Anderson Mr. and Mrs. Spencer J. Bloch Mrs. Abraham Bookstein Phyllis B. Booth* Bradley A. Brickner and Cindy Shelhart Karen and Jon Cashen Paul E. and Susan S. Freehling William Hamilton William Jason Michel and Mark Botelho Kevin Oye and June Hsiao* Kenneth and Adair Small Ronald and Linda Thisted $100–$249 Anonymous Mr. and Mrs. Theodore N. Asner Ernestine and Ralph Austen Gary Childers Sonia V. Csaszar Geoffrey Flick* in honor of Jim and Marian Luke Mr. and Mrs. Howard Goldberg Dr. Sally Ann Hastings Lyra and Javad Hekmatpanah in memory of R. Stephen Berry Mark and Judy Jacobi Barbara Jurgens Neil and Diana King Eva Fishell Lichtenberg and Tobin Arnold Michael Licitra Corinne Lyon* Amy Mantrone Mitchell Dennis Marks Evelyn L. and Gerald E. Marsh* Gordon Marsh

Patrice Michaels and James Ginsburg Shankar and Katherine Nair Ruth O’Brien and Stuart A. Rice Harry Poffenbarger Shulamit Ran and Dr. Abraham M. Lotan Sidney Robinson Christine and Earl Ronneberg Bhooma and R.N. Sailappan Mr. and Mrs. Harold Sanders Anne Schaefer* Allen and Esther Schechter Arthur B. Schneider and Helen Sellin Alice and Julius Solomon Marshall Sparberg Nicholas Weingarten and Cynthia Winter Nicholas Yasillo $50–$99 Anonymous Dr. Diane and Robert Altkorn Lenora M. Austin Marjorie M. Benson Richard Hoskins in honor of Amy Iwano Dorothy Jeffries Lauren and John Kern in honor of Jim Kern Barbara S. Kirschner in memory of Robert H. Kirschner Ellen McGrew Melinda Ann Moore Robert Parsons Dr. and Mrs. Louis Philipson Kathleen Rundell Marjorie M. Stinespring MATCHING GIFTS IBM Corporation SPECIAL THANKS The Saints

We also thank the many individuals who make annual contributions under $50. Every gift we receive helps to bring the music to the stage.

This list reflects contributions received for the period between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020. We wish to acknowledge our donors accurately. If there is an error in your listing, please call us at 773.702.8068. * Denotes individuals who have sponsored a student. To learn more about the Sponsor-a-Student program, call the UCP main office.

6 | UChicago Presents 77th Season

UPCOMING EVENTS MARIZA SINGS AMÁLIA

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FRI / JAN 29 / 7:00 PM

ST. LAWRENCE STRING QUARTET: HAYDN DISCOVERY

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FRI / FEB 5 / 7:00 PM

A modern-day champion of the Portugese folk

The award-winning ensemble reveals the inner

tradition fado, singer Mariza celebrates the

workings of Haydn’s Op. 20, No. 3, one of the

centenary of her legendary predecessor,

works that would define the string quartet genre

Amália Rodrigues.

for generations of composers.

UCHICAGO PRESENTS NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT MORE THAN EVER! As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, musicians remain unable to perform for in-person audiences. With our fall events, we are working to help artists make their music and to connect you in interesting and inspiring ways with the music, while keeping events at low or no cost.

Please consider giving generously to keep the music playing. We would be so grateful!

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GIVE TODAY January 2021 | 7

UCHICAGO ARTS BOX OFFICE 915 E. 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637 773.702.ARTS (2787) tickets.uchicago.edu CONCERT OFFICE 5720 S. Woodlawn Avenue Chicago, IL 60637 773.702.8068 chicagopresents@uchicago.edu

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