Friday January 14, 2022

VIRTUAL MARATHON NIGHT 1

WEEDIE BRAIMAH AND THE HANDS OF TIME

MELANIE CHARLES

J HOARD

DAVID BINNEY WITH LOGAN KANE AND LOUIS COLES

HELEN SUNG PRESENTS QUARTET +

CAMILLE THURMAN WITH THE DARREL GREEN TRIO

ADAM O’FARRILL’S STRANGER DAY

8PM EST BROADCAST BEGINS

ADAM O’FARRILl’S STRANGER DAY

Personnel:

Adam O'Farrill -Trumpet

Xavier Del Castillo - Sax

Walter Stinson - Bass

Zack O'Farrill - Drums

Winter Jazzfest at Loove Labs, Brooklyn

Brooklyn-bred Adam O'Farrill, 27, has emerged as a “rising star as a player and composer” (PopMatters) and “a blazing young trumpet talent” (The New York Times). Beginning his career in his teenage years performing with his father, the pianist and composer Arturo O'Farrill, Adam has gone on to work with a wide range of artists including Mary Halvorson, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Anna Webber, Mulatu Astatke, Sarah Kay, Kambui Olujimi, Brasstracks, and Samora Pinderhughes. 

O'Farrill's music is both abstract and personal, writing compositions that reflect subjects such as being mixed race, growing up in New York, family history, and spirituality. His primary band as a leader in the quartet, Stranger Days, featuring Xavier Del Castillo, Walter Stinson, and Zack O'Farrill. Their most recent album, Visions of Your Other, was released on Biophilia Records in November 2021, and was called “O’Farrill’s most melodically engaging effort yet”, by The New York Times. The album primarily features Adam’s original compositions, as well as an arrangement of a piece by Ryuichi Sakamoto, and a piece by Stinson. One of the album’s pieces, “Blackening Skies”, was set to animation by Elenor Kopka (Adult Swim, MTV). In 2018, Adam released El Maquech (Biophilia Records), comprised modern arrangements of Mexican folkloric music, as well as interpretations of Irving Berlin, Thelonious Monk, and Gabriel Garzon Montano. It received critical acclaim, including from the Wall Street Journal, who wrote that “the band presents rambunctious music that is equally rustic and modern,” as well as receiving Best of the Year mentions from The Boston Globe and the NPR Jazz Critics Poll.

Camille Thurman with the Darrell Green Trio

Personnel :

Camille Thurman - Sax & Voice

Darrell Green - Drums

Keith Brown - Piano

Tom DiCarlo - Bass 

Winter Jazzfest in Switzerland

Remember the name Camille Thurman. As a composer, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and unique interpreter of the jazz tradition, she is quickly becoming one of the standard bearers for the form, making a considerable and dynamic contribution to the legacy of jazz while paying tribute to its heroes.

Helen Sung Quartet+

Personnel:

Helen Sung - Piano

John Ellis - Sax & Flute

David Wong - Bass

Obed Calvaire - Drums

Sara Caswell - Violin

Winter Jazzfest at Yamaha Studios, Manhattan

Helen Sung is an acclaimed jazz pianist and composer, and a newly named 2021 Guggenheim Fellow. A native of Houston, Texas, and graduate of its High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA), she eschewed her classical piano upbringing after a jazz epiphany during undergraduate studies at UT Austin. Helen went on to become part of the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute (now the Herbie Hancock Institute) at the New England Conservatory of Music. Her recent releases Sung With Words (Stricker Street), a collaborative project with renowned poet Dana Gioia funded by a Chamber Music America New Jazz Works Grant, and Anthem For A New Day (Concord Jazz) topped the jazz charts. Helen and her band have performed at major American festivals and venues including Newport, Monterey, Disney Hall, SFJAZZ, and Carnegie Hall. Internationally, her “NuGenerations" Project toured southern Africa as a U.S. State Department Jazz Ambassador, and recent engagements include debuts at the London Jazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center Shanghai, Blue Note Beijing, and the Sydney International Women's Jazz Festival. She has performed with such luminaries as the late Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis (who named her as one of his "Who's Got Next: Jazz Musicians to Watch!"), MacArthur Fellow Regina Carter, and Grammy-winning artists including Terri Lyne Carrington, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and the Mingus Big Band. Helen is a Steinway Artist and has served on the jazz faculties at Berklee College of Music, the Juilliard School, and Columbia University, where she also was the inaugural jazz artist-in-residence at Columbia's prestigious Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute.

David Binney w/ Logan Kane and Louis Cole

Personnel:

David Binney - Sax

Logan Kane - Bass

Louis Cole - Drums 

Winter Jazzfest at Black Diamond Studio, Los Angeles

"...a strikingly original composer, leader, conceptualist."-DownBeat Magazine "David Binney possesses one of the most original minds in contemporary music."- Stereophile Acclaimed as a considerable and highly individual compositional talent, saxophonist, composer, producer David Binney is one of the most prolific musicians on the scene today. David has recorded 20+ albums as leader or co-leader and recorded on more than 300 other albums. David was born in Miami, Florida and raised in Southern California.
At the age of 19 moved to New York City and lived there for many years.
He now resides in Los Angeles. And Produces records and performs worldwide. He also mixes and masters records. Creator/Producer of the band that is David Bowie's Blackstar.

Performed/Recorded w Chrissie Hynde, Knower (Louis Cole, Genevieve Artadi), the big bands of Gil Evans and Maria Schneider, as well as with Jim Hall, Uri Caine, Vinicius Cantuaria, Carlinhos Brown, Norah Jones, Aretha Franklin, He has produced all of his own 25 albums, 7 Donny McCaslin releases, et al. 
 David started his record label, Mythology Records, in 1998. David also created the group the Donny McCaslin group that eventually became the group on David Bowie’s #1 record Blackstar. He has won the Downbeat Critics Poll 3 different times in the Alto Saxophone category.

J Hoard

Personnel:

J. Hoard - Vocals 

Dane Orr - Drums 

Winter Jazzfest at MoSounds, Brooklyn

J Hoard is a Brooklyn–based singer and songwriter on the Grammy Award–winning Coloring Book. Since moving to Brooklyn, he’s served as vocalist of the legendary curated hip-hop jam The Lesson in the Lower East Side. Over the last three years, J Hoard’s voice, lyrical genius, and fashion have become staples in the urban and traditional music scenes.

Melanie Charles

Personnel:

Melanie Charles - Lead/Vox

Axel Tosca - Keys 

Savannah Harris -Drums 

Jonthan Michel - Bass

Winter Jazzfest at The HighBreedMusic Recording Lounge, Brooklyn

Melanie Charles is a Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter, actress, and flutist of Haitian descent with creative fluidity spanning jazz, soul, experimental, and Haitian roots music. The Village Voice has described Charles’ myriad talents as “Collaging her musical DNA into jazz-studded multi-instrumentalism and dipping a toe into the experimental [...] There’s an uncanny cohesion to Charles’ music, her wandering threads braided into something strong as rope.” She is a graduate of The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and has worked with Jazz Giants; Herlin Riley, Ellis Marsalis, Pedrito Gonzales, ELEW, hip-hop legend Jean Grae, SZA, and Jussie Smollet of Fox’s EMPIRE, with appearances on Good Morning America and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In April 2017, Charles collaborated with the Gorillaz on their latest album, "Humanz.” Charles has strong ties to her Haitian culture, and has been acknowledged by author Ralph Boncy and the Haitian Jazz Foundation as one of the most important women in Haitian music. With all of these accolades under her belt, Charles, under the moniker D’flower, now embarks on a solo experience using Roland SPs, loop pedals, and the flute to create a Chaka Khan meets Badu-esque "sonic collage" fusing RnB, jazz, samples and Haitian folk songs. This project aims to blur the lines between social classes, cultures, genders, genres, and theories to create a world where opposing elements can co-exist.

Weedie Braimah & The Hands of Time

Personel:

Weedie Braimah - Djembe & Vocals

Shea Pierre - Piano

Courtney Smith - Organ 

Cheikh Ndoye - N'goni Bass 

Raja Kassis - Acoustic Guitar 

Sam Dickey - Acoustic Guitar & N'goni 

Luke Quaranta - Dunun Set 

Jawara Simon - Sangban 

Munir Zakee - Sangban Set 

Winter Jazzfest at Artisound, New Orleans
Presented by Winter Jazzfest and Future xSounds

Weedie Braimah is widely regarded as the premier voice of the Djembe. Born in Ghana and raised in East St. Louis with deep roots in New Orleans, he was first introduced to West African culture and drumming and began performing at the age of 2 years old. Braimah continued his lifelong quest and professional career in the study of African folklore and cultural music of the African diaspora. A maverick performer of the highest caliber, Braimah is endowed with an innate ability to draw entire audiences into his groove. Utilizing his amazing speed and dexterity, breathtaking skill, and breadth of knowledge, he ushers listeners through a rhythmic journey of Africa and the Diaspora. As Offbeat Magazine noted, his “skill at adapting to an array of styles” has made him an original and in-demand talent.

Braimah descends from a long lineage of drummers/composers, which includes his mother, Ann Morris, a respected Jazz drummer, his father, Oscar Sulley Braimah, a world-renowned composer and master drummer, and great-uncle, Jazz drumming icon, Idris Muhammad. Braimah honed skills learned through study with greats including Mamady Keita, Famadou Konate, Abdoul Doumbia, and Sylvester Sun Shine Lee among others. He excelled musically and became one of the leading exponents of the West African diasporic drum and dance world in his teenage years. For more than 25 years, Braimah has been a performer, teacher and preserver of African culture who continues to traverse new musical pathways.