George W. Russell, Jr. Trio

Local Experts to Lead NEC-sponsored African-American Gospel Music Workshops Saturday, February 18th at Roland Hayes School of Music
New England Conservatory will present its 27th Annual Thomas A. Dorsey Gospel Jubilee, Sunday, February 19 at 4:00pm in NEC’s Jordan Hall. The concert features the George W. Russell, Jr. Trio, the Boston Children’s Chorus, the newly formed NEC Combined Youth Choir, the Massachusetts Liturgical Dance Network, Holy Tabernacle Church Choirs and the 200-voice NEC Millennium Gospel Choir. The Millennium Choir is directed by an ensemble of preeminent ministers of music and choir directors from area churches. Each musical director is a past recipient of NEC’s prestigious Gospel Music Award.
At the concert, NEC will also confer the 2006 Lifetime Gospel Achievement Award on Elta Garrett. A native of Louisiana and a graduate of Grambling State University, Ms. Garrett is a singer, teacher, and conductor. As a vocalist, she performed USO tours under the Kennedy Administration with the Grambling Orchestra and on several occasions met and sang for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Birmingham, Alabama. After a 35-year career in the Boston Public Schools, Ms. Garrett recently retired from the Martin Luther King Middle School where she impacted the lives of hundreds of talented singers and musicians during her 20 years at the school. A dedicated member for over 30 years of the historic Charles Street AME Church in Roxbury, Ms. Garrett sang there in several choirs and served as director the E.C. Knowles Gospel Ensemble. She continues to be a musical force in the community as founding member of the Ruth Hamilon/Elta Garrett Music and Arts Academy located at the Church.
Preceding the concert, NEC will present a series of Gospel Music Workshops Saturday, February 18, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Roland Hayes School of Music, 55 Malcolm X Blvd, near Dudley Square, Roxbury. Led by local gospel music directors, the workshops are designed to familiarize participants with characteristic gospel choral-music techniques, conducting, keyboard playing, vocal techniques, movement, and theory. Recordings and musical scores of gospel songs will be provided and serve as the learning materials for participants. Faculty include: Patricia Dance, James A. Early, Evelyn Lee-Jones, Renese King, Dennis Montgomery III, George W. Russell, Jr., Donnell L. Patterson, and Dennis L. Slaughter. For information on enrollment, contact: Calvin Hicks, Director of Community Collaborations at: 617-585-1136.
The Thomas A. Dorsey Gospel Jubilee and Workshops are co-produced by NEC’s Community Collaborations Department, Calvin Hicks, director, and Patricia Dance and Donnell L. Patterson of GNE PRODUCTIONS.
Tickets for the February 19 concert are $15.00; WGBH Members 2 for 1. For ticket information, please contact the Jordan Hall Box Office at: 617-585-1260.
For more information, call the NEC Concert Line at (617) 585-1122 or visit NEC on the web at www.newenglandconservatory.edu/concerts

- New England Conservatory

It may be dark and cold outside, but inside the musicians will be celebrating the light of the spirit and the warmth of love at New England Conservatory’s 26th Annual Thomas A. Dorsey Gospel Jubilee, February 19-20, 2005. Over two days and three concerts, voices will ring out in NEC’s Jordan Hall and Roxbury’s Eliot Church, praising God in musical selections drawn from the deepest rural traditions to the youngest urban expressions.

Vocal and instrumental ensembles will be drawn from NEC and Boston area churches, highlighted by NEC’s 200-voice Millennium Gospel Choir, which performs Sunday afternoon, February 20, at 3 p.m. in NEC’s Jordan Hall. A jazz orchestra composed of NEC instrumentalists will also collaborate with chorus in selections from Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts under the direction of Ken Schaphorst, NEC Jazz Studies and Improvisation chair, Sunday evening at 7:30 in Roxbury’s Eliot Church.
Founded in the year 2000, the NEC Millennium Gospel Choir was created to give praise and prayerful welcome to the coming of a new age. The 200 members, drawn from church choirs throughout the greater Boston area, were individually selected because of their superior dedication, vocal technique, range, and commitment to gospel music.

During its debut year, the choir shared the Jordan Hall stage with Richard Smallwood as part of NEC’s 21st Annual Thomas A. Dorsey Gospel Jubilee. The Boston Globe was captivated: “Always, the power of the choir was palpable, and its ability to sound reverent, even tender, was riveting.” That same weekend, an unprecedented performance took place at Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross, with support from the Archdiocese of Boston, the Boston Cultural Council, and Gillette.

The Millennium Choir is ministered to and directed by an ensemble of preeminent ministers of music/choir directors at churches across the city. Each musical director is a recipient of NEC’s prestigious Gospel Music Award. The directors are: Min. Freda Battle, James A. Early, Herb Jones, Renese King, Dennis Montgomery III, Donnell Patterson, George W. Russell, Jr., Dennis Slaughter, and Hobert S. Yates. Choir coordinators are Patricia Dance and Donnell Patterson.

Sponsored by New England Conservatory, the Thomas A. Dorsey Gospel Jubilee is a project of NEC’s Community Collaborations Thomas A. Dorsey Gospel Jubilee Planning Committee and GNE Productions: Freda Battle, Patricia Dance (GNE), James A. Early, Herb Jones, Renese King, Dennis Montgomery III, Donnell L. Patterson (GNE), Dennis L. Slaughter, and Hobert S. Yates. Calvin Hicks is NEC’s Director of Community Collaborations.

The schedule of performances follows:

New England Conservatory Gospel Jubilee
February 19-20, 2005

Saturday, February 19, 7pm
NEC’s Jordan Hall

Freda Battle and the Temple Worshippers
NEC Community Gospel Choir
Voices of Unity
George W. Russell Jr.
Children of the Light Dance Ministry, St. Paul AME Church
Just 4 Praize

Sunday, February 20, 3pm
NEC's Jordan Hall

New England Conservatory's 200-voice Millennium Gospel Choir
NEC String Ensemble
Renese King, soloist
Musical directors: Patricia Dance, James A. Early, Evelyn Lee Jones, Renese King, Dennis Montgomery III, Donnell L. Patterson, George W. Russell Jr., Dennis L. Slaughter, Hobert S. Yates

Frederick Hayes Dance Company, adult and children's companies
Phillips Academy Gospel Choir, Hobert S. Yates, director
Northeastern University Gospel Choir, Jonathan Singleton, director
George W. Russell Jr. Trio with spoken word artist Robyn Rease
New England Gospel Ensemble directed by pianist James A. Early

Tickets for events in NEC's Jordan Hall are $10 and may be purchased by calling the Jordan Hall Box Office at (617) 585-1260. NEC’s Jordan Hall is handicapped accessible. For more information on NEC Community Collaborations programming, including gospel activities, please visit NEC on the Web at www.newenglandconservatory.edu/partnerships/community_collaborations.html.
or call NEC Community Collaborations at (617) 585-1136 or GNE Productions at (781) 308-7962.

Sunday, February 20, 7:30pm
Eliot Church of Roxbury
56 Dale Street (near Washington Park)

Duke Ellington: Selections from Sacred Concerts
Chorus and NEC orchestra
Ken Schaphorst, director

$12 donation is requested at the door. - New England Conservatory

THE 30TH ANNUAL
JOHN COLTRANE MEMORIAL CONCERT

a full week of concerts, including a benefit concert for the JCMC Educational Outreach Program, and other community events

Featuring
Ravi Coltrane Quartet & Amiri Baraka
Bill Pierce Quartet with Mulgrew Miller
John Coltrane Memorial Ensemble
Your Neighborhood Saxophone Quartet
Rakalam Bob Moses, Cecil McBee, George Garzone & Jerry Bergonzi
Aardvark Jazz Orchestra (with guest artist Jerry Leake)

Officially declared
John Coltrane Memorial Concert Week
by both Boston and Cambridge

September 16-22

(Boston and Cambridge, MA) The John Coltrane Memorial Concert celebrates its 30th anniversary by expanding its annual programming to one full week of paying tribute to one of the most influential musicians of our time. From September 16-22, the 'Trane legacy will be granted the intense focus it very much deserves.

Both Boston and Cambridge have joined hands in declaring this week in September as the week to pay special attention to a man who long after his death continues to shape America's musical heritage, jazz and otherwise. Some may argue that his influence reaches far beyond the musical realm - since his works have more than once served as symbols for social causes and spiritual enlightenment, including the quest for world peace. No matter what the claim, John Coltrane, born on September 23, 1926 (only to die young on July 17, 1967), lives on in the hearts and minds of both musicians and listeners alike.

For its 30th year, the John Coltrane Memorial Concert has put together a week packed with programs, including 4 concerts (one a benefit for the JCMC Educational Outreach Program) and 3 other community events. For up-to-date information on the overall week call 617-373-4374. The week's events are as follows:

.....John Coltrane Memorial Ensemble (on September 22)
The John Coltrane Memorial Ensemble is made up of some of the most distinguished musicians based in the Boston-area. This year's 30th anniversary Ensemble will include:
Vocalist: Armsted Christian
Keyboards: George W. Russell, Jr., Rollins Ross & Frank Wilkins
Saxophones and flutes: Carl Atkins, Leonard Brown, Bill Pierce, Stan Strickland & Billy Thompson
Trumpets: Jason Palmer & Michael Peipman
Trombones/tuba: Bill Lowe, Larry McClellan & Gary Valente
Bass: Tim Ingles, John Lockwood & Cecil McBee
Drums & Percussion: Sa Davis, Keith Gibson & Syd Smart - Mary Curtin Productions

John Coltrane Memorial Concert, Blackman Theatre, September 22, 2007

Since its birth in the tiny Friends of Great Black Music Loft in Chinatown 30 years ago, the John Coltrane Memorial Concert has been a grass-roots event, dependent on musicians who volunteer their time and talent. The special guest at Northeastern’s Blackman Theatre last Saturday night (the concluding concert in a week of 30th-anniversary events) was Ravi Coltrane. An organization with greater resources might have commissioned original arrangements that incorporated John’s son, but this isn’t Lincoln Center Jazz. Working on the fly, the organizers created an odd layer cake: two sets of selections from the massive JCMC Ensemble in each half of the three-hour concert, with a crème filling in each from the Ravi Coltrane Quartet. (Poet Amiri Baraka offered a prelude remembrance of John.) Conventional performance hierarchy — one band opening for another — goes against the JCMC’s egalitarian grain. Instead, Ravi did his thing and the JCMC Ensemble did theirs, side by side.

After Baraka’s reading (it ended with him hearing about Coltrane’s death from a jail cell), a horn nonet played Coltrane’s “Welcome.” It was expansive, airy, led by arranger Leonard Brown’s soaring soprano. Another small group played Alice Coltrane’s “Gospel Trane,” with a crowd-pleasing, raucous three-trombone chorus and an arm-blurring George W. Russell Jr. piano solo. The full Ensemble (with three percussionists, three bassists, and three keyboardists) strained to make a unified statement of “India” amid collective improvisation that loosely followed Coltrane’s written scheme and arranger Bill Lowe’s conducting cues. Ravi’s group had an advantage: four players who work together year round. And it’s a great band, with a cohesive sound that joins John’s prayerful modal freedom to Ravi’s latter-day odd-metered forms. The evening’s finale was a majestic “Peace on Earth” played by the Ensemble, with arranger Stan Strickland’s bass clarinet and the bowed basses conjuring Tibetan horns, and Ravi soloing from the sax section. It was the kind of conceptual and musical unity John might have appreciated. - Jon Garelick, The Phoenix

Providence, RI – September 4, 2006 – The Providence Black Repertory Company is proud to announce the re-launch of its classic Jazz series, Equinox, at 7:00pm on September 8th at 276 Westminster Street.
The brainchild of The Black Repertory Company’s Artistic Director, Donald King, and acclaimed Boston saxophonist and professor of Music and African American Studies, Leonard Brown, Equinox began in 2004 with the goal of bringing high quality jazz to Providence and continued into the fall of 2005 with many more performances by artists who love playing to the intimate and receptive audiences in the Xxodus Café. This year musicians will not only be playing earlier sets, they will also be playing on our brand new baby grand Kawai piano.

“Equinox is a series that showcases a collective of jazz musicians who have come to call Black Rep home. By having our own piano, we are better able to create a venue and a home for these professional artists to hone their crafts,” says King. “Like a Providence Buena Vista Social Club, we provide a haven for talented artists to participate in residencies, experiment, and develop new and exciting music right here in Providence” King explains. “Equinox is a perfect example of our commitment to the creative autonomy and growth of our artists, the legacy of African-American musical traditions and to the music of the African Diaspora.”

This year’s series begins with an electrifying reprise performance by Leonard Brown himself, accompanied by George W. Russell, Jr. on piano, Alvin Terry on drums and Ron Madhi on acoustic bass. Traveling the nation with his group Joyful Noise, Dr. Brown has performed with nationally recognized artists including; Milt Jackson, Yusef Lateef, Frank Foster, Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Bill Barron, and Ed Blackwell. Dr. Brown and a Joyful Noise open this year’s Equinox Jazz Series on September 8, 2006.

Osmany Paredes, who returns to the Xxodus Café on September 15th, was born in Santa Clara, Cuba. A pianist, composer and arranger whose style blends jazz with his Afro-Cuban rhythmic heritage, Osmany uses techniques derived from years of classical education. He last delighted Xxodus Café audiences during three packed afternoon performances at Sound Session 2006 and will have just played Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola with Jane Bunnett at Lincoln Center the week of his performance.

A self-taught drummer, Alvin Terry’s music is rooted in Funk, R&B, Jazz and Gospel. After moving to the Boston area from North Carolina, Mr. Terry began playing in a band that included guitarists, Felix Carter and Darryl Hubbard as well as bassist, Avery Sharp. Today he plays regularly with the music ministry at Grant AME Church in Boston and employs over 200 musicians in his own company, Flamtop Enterprises. With his strong, vibrant sound, Terry is sure to make his 2006 Equinox appearance on September 22nd a night to remember.

Equinox 2006 begins Friday, September 8th at 7:00pm in Black Rep’s Xxodus Café at 276 Westminster St. Performances continue on Friday, September 15th, and Friday September 22nd. - Black Repertory Company

SUNDAY JAZZ ARTISTS SERIES

GEORGE W. RUSSELL, Jr. TRIO - Sun Oct 7, 6-9:30pm
LATE NIGHT JAM SESSION - Sun Oct 7, 10pm
Join us in our Sunday Supper club, where music is served up both as an Early Bird Special or a Late Night Snack. Either way, you'll get some goodness, as distinguished local pianist and educator George W. Russell, Jr brings his warm touch to the keyboard in the first part of the evening, and our jazz Jam Session fills the late night with some of the finest local performers, both veterans and newcomers. A cool way to end the weekend.
http://www.georgewrusselljr.com/ - The Beehive