“All Star” Jazz at Umbria Jazz 20 on Saturday, July 11 and Thursday, July 16
Two great jazz days at UJ20 on July 11 and 16 with Branford and Wynton Marsalis, Mood Swing with Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride & Brian Blade, and Joe Lovano, Joey Alexander, Veronica Swift.
Saturday 11 begins in the afternoon with Joey Alexander, no longer a surprise but now, just sixteen, already an international jazz star. Three years ago, at his debut at Umbria Jazz, the boy from Bali, Indonesia, surprised everyone. In actual fact, Joey presented himself with an important business card: two Grammy Award nominations for his first album, My Favorite Things. Meanwhile, his discography has been enriched by four other albums, the most recent of which, Warna, marks Joey’s debut for Verve, a label that has contributed in making jazz history. For a musician, of any age, a true consecration.
In the evening the Arena will see Veronica Swift on stage with the trio of Emmet Cohen, and Wynton Marsalis directing the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in an exclusive Italian event. Veronica Swift is a young singer in great ascent in the crowded and competitive scenario of jazz vocality. She made her debut at Umbria Jazz last summer in the cosier and more exclusive dimension of a club. Now she conquers the much more demanding stage of the Arena Santa Giuliana, opening with her trio for Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra where, for that matter, she debutted at the age of eleven in the Women in Jazz series.
Jazz at Lincoln Center is one of the most prestigious American cultural institutions. Its mission is the promotion of jazz at every level and with a variety of initiatives, from concerts to seminars, from conferences to radio and television programmes. The project took shape in the mid-eighties and among the promoters was Wynton Marsalis who is, now today, the artistic director.
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra is the main instrument and the heart of this vocation with thirty years of work behind it, a staff of fifteen among the most brilliant American jazz musicians and a repertoire which, over the years, has celebrated some of the key figures of twentieth century music, from Duke Ellington to Charles Mingus, from John Coltrane to John Lewis.
Thursday 16 can, without a doubt, be defined “Saxophone Day”: on the same day, Joe Lovano, Joshua Redman and Branford Marsalis will be on stage.
It begins in the afternoon with the U.S. Five, one of Joe Lovano’s more recent groups. The Cleveland saxophonist formed it about ten years ago and, between 2009 and 2013, has published three Blue Note albums under this name, one of which, entitled Bird Songs, is dedicated to themes written or performed by Charlie Parker.
The main stage at the Arena will then see the Mood Swing project, the title of the third album released by Joshua Redman in 1994. The quartet included another three brilliant jazz promises, Brad Mehldau on piano, Christian McBride on bass and Brian Blade on drums. The band was guest of both the winter edition (the first ever) of Umbria Jazz in Orvieto and the summer one in Perugia.
Today the quartet returns, in Italian exclusivity, in the same line-up as then, with the difference that it is now a real superband, because in the twenty-five years since the release of that album those young promises have become authentic stars of modern jazz.
The evening will close with the Branford Marsalis quartet, which remains the privileged instrument through which Marsalis can express at the highest levels his creativity and his idea of music. A quartet born in 1986 which has remained almost uninterruptedly active and stable in its line-up for over three decades, producing in this period a series of extraordinary albums. A quartet that has been for a long time and with increasing strength, thanks to continuous evolution, one of the most important themes of contemporary jazz.
Info on presales coming soon.
Saturday, July 11
Teatro Morlacchi, 5 pm
JOEY ALEXANDER
Arena Santa Giuliana, 9 pm
VERONICA SWIFT w/ Emmet Cohen Trio
WYNTON MARSALIS & JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA Italian exclusivity
Thursday, July 16
Teatro Morlacchi, 5 pm
JOE LOVANO US Five
Arena Santa Giuliana, 9 pm
MOOD SWING / JOSHUA REDMAN, BRAD MEHLDAU, CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE, BRIAN BLADE Italian exclusivity
BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET
