Juilliard Jazz Orchestra and Juilliard Jazz Ensembles

Season Opens with its Faculty Ensemble, Juilliard Jazz Quintet, on September 21

Guest Artists During 2010-2011 Season Include: Trumpeter Jon Faddis as Soloist with the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra in the Miles Davis/Gil Evans Arrangement of Porgy and Bess on February 25, Plus Bassist John Clayton Performing with the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra on October 19, and Trombonist Curtis Fuller with Juilliard Jazz Ensembles on November 2

Juilliard Jazz, under the direction of Artistic Director Carl Allen, celebrates its 10th season and announces its 2010-2011 schedule of concerts featuring the Juilliard Jazz Quintet, Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, and Juilliard Jazz Ensembles. Juilliard Jazz welcomes three special guest artists this season: bassist John Clayton, trumpeter Jon Faddis , and trombonist Curtis Fuller .

The season opens with the faculty Juilliard Jazz Quintet and Friends on Tuesday, September 21 at 8 PM in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater as part of the School's Daniel Saidenberg Faculty Recital Series.

The Juilliard Jazz Orchestra is joined by Grammy-winner and industry great, bassist John Clayton, on Thursday, October 19 at 8 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater. On Friday, February 25, Dizzy Gillespie protege, trumpeter Jon Faddis, is soloist in the rarely-performed Miles Davis/Gil Evans arrangement of Porgy and Bess. The Juilliard Jazz Orchestra performs alumni compositions on Thursday, March 31 at 8 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater. The season concludes on Tuesday, April 26 at 8 PM with student originals performed by the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall.

Juilliard Jazz Ensembles are featured in concerts taking place at 8 PM in Paul Hall on Tuesday, October 5 (Artist Diploma Ensemble featuring five of the most advanced Juilliard Jazz musicians); Tuesday, November 2 with trombonist Curtis Fuller; Monday, December 6 featuring masterpieces from 1958 through 1965 (classical songs by Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, The Jazz Messengers, Eric Dolphy, Bill Evans, Horace Silver, and others), Wednesday, January 19 (student original compositions), Monday, February 14 (Artist Diploma Ensemble), Monday, March 21 (student originals), and Monday, April 11 (Artist Diploma Ensemble).

FREE tickets to concerts in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater and Alice Tully Hall and limited FREE tickets for Paul Hall concerts will be available at the Janet and Leonard Kramer Box Office at Juilliard. For further information, call (212) 769-7406 visit juilliard.edu.
- All About Jazz

On a recent day October, the sloping lawn outside the office of Juilliard Jazz Studies Artistic Director Carl Allen was specked with students sunning themselves. But with less than a week to go before their season’s opening concert with John Clayton, the program’s big band was soldiering through a three-hour rehearsal.
“What’s ‘Evidence’ look like, trumpets?” Assistant Conductor and Juilliard Jazz alum Brandon Lee asked. “Better than ‘Eternal Triangle,’” mumbled a trumpet player from the back row. Lee offered some “nit picky” notes, and a student suggested a change to the way the horns shift from unison to harmony. Six days later, the same students, now in
suits and under Clayton’s direction, closed a nearperfect concert with the same tune that had given them so much trouble days before.
As the school’s Institute For Jazz Studies enters its 10th anniversary, it’s found a rhythm for its focus on performance. Students like these are
churning out memorable, professional-quality concerts each month, thanks to Juilliard’s formula for teaching students to become not only great artists, but employable players.
“Our students are performing all of the time,” said the program’s executive director, Laurie Carter, adding that the program strives “to replicate the tradition of younger musicians learning from older musicians” on the bandstand.
“When I was in school, a lot of the greats that I grew up reading about and listening to were still alive,” Allen said. “It’s incumbent on me and other players of my generation to be the conduit for those guys.” As such, the program boasts a litany of marquee names on its faculty and as guest artists or conductors, including Allen and Ron Carter.
Students in all three degree programs—undergrad, artist’s diploma and master’s—tour internationally, all while maintaining full course loads.
After completing the artist’s diploma and the master’s program at Juilliard Jazz, trombonist James Burton started his own jazz program at
Snow College, where he teaches a wide variety of courses and conducts two big bands. “There is no college music program quite like Juilliard,”he says. “It’s not college. Although you’re college age, it is truly a pre-professional program.”
In some ways the program is still finding its footing. Funding remains a major challenge, especially given that all of the jazz students receive
scholarship assistance. The implementation of the curriculum has also been somewhat in flux since the beginning.
Looking ahead, Allen believes that once people understand his team’s goals, they’ll see it was worth the wait.
“I’m glad to see that finally there’s some jazz in places [like Juilliard], because jazz deserves to be represented on a high level,” said Juilliard faculty member Kenny Washington. “At the end of the day, we all care about getting players out here to keep this music going.”
—Jennifer Odell - Downbeat Magazine

Jonathan Batiste On Piano Jazz
by Grant Jackson

January 28, 2011

Breakout young pianist, composer and bandleader Jonathan Batiste hails from one of Louisiana's most distinguished musical families. The 24-year-old Juilliard graduate has already played two of the most famous venues in the world — Carnegie Hall in New York and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam — and performed during the halftime show of the 2008 NBA All-Star Game alongside Louisiana legends Allen Toussaint, Harry Connick Jr., Dr. John, Ellis Marsalis, Art Neville and Ivan Neville. He has also worked with artists such as Cassandra Wilson, Abbey Lincoln, Roy Hargrove, Lenny Kravitz, Derek Trucks and Jimmy Buffett.

On this episode of Piano Jazz, Batiste brings his unique piano-voicing vocal cords to a set of standards and originals with guest host Jon Weber.

Batiste goes straight to the source in his first tune: Jelly Roll Morton's "New Orleans Blues." His left hand holds down the authentic stride rhythm, proof that young student Batiste wasn't sleeping on those early lessons back in Louisiana. He adds his own ornamentation and flavor through use of the sustain pedal.

"Yes, indeed," Batiste says. "The stride and ragtime guys had a strong sense of rhythm, harmony, time and melody — it's incredible to listen to and to play."

Batiste follows with a beautiful medley of Duke Ellington's "In My Solitude" and Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight." The delicate opening has a classical leaning that would do Duke proud. As "Round Midnight" kicks in, Batiste takes the tune into the upper register with a sparkling, impressionistic take on the melody. He clearly has absorbed not only late-19th-century ragtime, but also European Impressionist music of the time. Batiste's style is complex yet never overwrought, even understated; it's a very mature sound from a young man making a big splash on today's jazz scene; he forgoes youthful bravado in favor of focusing on the music. However, Batiste is an electric live performer — check out the Piano Jazz session at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, which aired earlier this year.

No stranger to composing and recording, Batiste released two albums by the time he was 17. Here, he performs two originals: "Township" and "Jen's Blues." The first tune is a contemporary groover, while "Jen's Blues" settles into a down-home mood with Batiste's subtle embellishment.

This session closes by circling back to where it began, with a tune from another preeminent figure in New Orleans jazz: Louis Armstrong. Batiste duets with Weber in "What a Wonderful World," and can't help but lend his own tender vocals to a tune that, along with "When the Saints," stands as the "Star Spangled Banner" of New Orleans music.

Originally recorded Nov. 12, 2010. Originally broadcast Jan. 25, 2011.
- NPR Music

Winding down his first set at Cornelia Street Café on Tuesday night, Jon Irabagon blew his tenor saxophone in blasts and gales, decelerating the tempo but hardly losing steam. Just under an hour earlier, he had lurched into a lesser-known standard, backed in spartan form by bass and drums. His set consisted solely of that single tune, which he subjected to the jazz equivalent of a brutal interrogation. The performance was trancelike, glowing with intellect, but the main impression it left was of pure physical expenditure.

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Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times
Jon Irabagon Trio, at Cornelia Street Café, led by Mr. Irabagon.
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.Mr. Irabagon (pronounced ear-AH-bu-gon) knew what he was doing here. Leading the same trio as on his new album, “Foxy” (Hot Cup) — with the drummer Barry Altschul, a seasoned elder, and the bassist Peter Brendler, a worthy peer — he had in mind a precise historical precedent. The inspiration was Sonny Rollins, and specifically his trios of the late 1950s, when he was making albums like “Way Out West,” the cover of which depicted him in a tongue-in-cheek gunslinger pose.

“Foxy,” which bears an even goofier approximation of that cover image — inflatable cactus, beach ball, bikini — lays out a marathon extemporization on the 16-bar form used by Mr. Rollins in “Doxy,” one of his signature themes. As if that weren’t clear enough, Mr. Irabagon has sometimes branded this format as the Sonny Rollins Tribute Trio. (He’ll be working in the same mode, with different partners, on Friday at Bar Next Door.)

Mr. Irabagon, 31, hasn’t always been this doggedly focused, and he still toggles between commitments. Since winning the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition two years ago, he has released a dutiful post-bop calling card, “The Observer” (Concord), and a rugged, free-improvised salvo, “I Don’t Hear Nothin’ but the Blues” (Loyal). He’s a member of Mostly Other People Do the Killing, a quartet with an insurrectionist but nontoxic take on the jazz tradition.

A similar balance of fondness and distance pervaded Mr. Irabagon’s set. He played the melody of his chosen standard abstrusely, but with enough distinguishing features to spark recognition. Still, what I heard through the storm as Sammy Cahn’s “You Taught My Heart to Sing” turned out to be Jerome Kern’s “I’ve Told Ev’ry Little Star.” (A bleating fillip between phrases should have been the giveaway, pointing to Mr. Rollins’s 1958 recording of the tune.)

There was a lot of Mr. Rollins in the expedition that Mr. Irabagon then undertook, pausing only for heaving intakes of air. Often when he landed on a felicitous turn of phrase, he repeated it, transposed or transmogrified, wringing out the idea. A few times he quoted some other melody in passing: somewhere around the 40-minute mark, it was a choppy, pixilated projection of “Everything Happens to Me.”

The rhythm section swung fast and hard, deviating from a rhythmic through-line only when the moment seemed to demand it. Against this steady chatter, Mr. Irabagon intermittently recalled other tenor saxophonists, from John Coltrane and Albert Ayler up through Branford Marsalis.

But the air of inexhaustibility in his playing was clearly in the Rollins descent. That it flattered the stamina more than the judgment of Mr. Irabagon was also obvious, and fairly innocuous. Next time he can play “Blame It on My Youth.”


Jon Irabagon appears on Friday at Bar Next Door, 129 Macdougal Street, Greenwich Village; (212) 529-5945, lalanternacaffe.com.


- New York Times

Musical Tribute to the Civil Rights Movement Blends Spoken Texts from Four Leading Figures of the Civil Rights Movement - Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - with Music Performed by the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra and Choir

Christian McBride and Brandon Lee, Conductors
J.D. Steele is Vocal Arranger, Soloist, and Choral Director

Juilliard Jazz presents the New York premiere of guest faculty member and Juilliard alumnus Christian McBride's The Movement Revisited, a musical tribute dedicated to civil rights icons Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 8 PM in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater (155 West 65th Street). The Movement Revisited is presented as part of Juilliard's and Lincoln Center's Black History Month Celebration. Its four sections are each dedicated to one of these influential figures in American history. Mr. McBride was moved by these heroes and felt compelled to write the work. He composed all of the musical selections for the piece, including the narrative and lyrical works. The Movement Revisited is for a 17-piece big band, narrators, and a gospel choir. Mr. McBride will alternate between performing and conducting and will be assisted by Juilliard Jazz Orchestra Conductor Brandon Lee. J.D. Steele is vocal arranger, soloist, and choral director for The Movement Revisited.

FREE tickets are available beginning January 19 at the Janet and Leonard Kramer Box Office at Juilliard. Box Office hours are Monday through Friday from 11 AM to 6 PM. For further information, call (212) 769-7460 or go to www.juilliard.edu.

The movement titles tell the story: Overture, Main Theme, Rosa Speaks, Sister Rosa, Malcolm Speaks, Brother Malcolm, Ali Speaks, Rumble in the Jungle, Soldiers/I Have a Dream, and A View from the Mountaintop.

The roster of the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra includes: Will Anderson, Jordan Pettay, Lucas Pino, Jeremy Viner, and Tony Lustig (saxophones); Robert Edwards, Melissa Jean, Willie Applewhite, Javier Nero (trombones); Mat Jodrell, Randall Haywood, Kyle Athayde, and Steven Fowler (trumpets); Joshua Richman, piano; Phil Kuehn, bass; and Reggie Quinerly, drums.



The members of the choir are: Julietta Currenton, Joaquina Kalukango, Gayle Rankin, Danielle Brooks, Maechi Aharanwa, Shelly Watson, Melanie Charles, Alicia Olatuja, La Frederick Coaxner, Michael Shaw, Corey Hawkins, and Djore Nance.

Grammy Award-winner Christian McBride is one of the most acclaimed acoustic and electric bassist to emerge from the jazz world in the 1990s. At Juilliard, he studied with Homer Mensch. He has worked with everyone from Chick Corea to Pat Metheny, from Kathleen Battle to D'Angelo, from Diana Krall to Bruce Hornsby, from Quincy Jones to Sting. His latest CD on the Mack Avenue label is entitled Kind of Brown and features his group Inside Straight - Christian McBride on bass, Steve Wilson on alto and soprano saxophones, Warren Wolf, Jr. on vibes, Eric Reed on piano, and Juilliard Jazz Artistic Director Carl Allen on drums. Mr. McBride is the artistic director at the Jazz Aspen Snowmass summer program and is the co-director of The Jazz Museum in Harlem. He was chosen as the artist-in-residence for the Monterey Jazz Festival and was a former artist-in-residence of the Detroit International Jazz Festival. Mr. McBride was the second creative chair for jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

J.D. Steele came onto the Minnesota music scene in the mid 1980s along with Prince, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Soul Asylum and The Steeles, putting Minnesota on the national music map forever. Mr. Steele began his career singing and arranging jingles for local and national spots. At Purdue University, where he majored in marketing, he also organized and directed the African American Cultural Center ensemble and began writing and arranging his compositions. Mr. Steele and his dynamic vocal siblings, The Steeles, have garnered every major music award and accolade the state has had to offer. They toured the hit show Gospel at Colonus with Morgan Freeman. Mr. Steele has been commissioned on ten original musicals and collaborated on a sixth. His most recent commissions were by the History Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota and by Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2006. He has also developed a youth performance group of 200 kids (ranging in ages from 10 - 21) at an orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya. The group, Shangilia, made its debut in Nairobi in January of 2005. He has taught and developed music workshop curricula across the country with K-12 students, as well as university music programs.

One of Juilliard's newest programs, Juilliard Jazz teaches at bachelor through master and artist diploma levels, with its most advanced artist diploma program a collaboration with Jazz at Lincoln Center, founded in 2001. Its alumni already have made their mark on jazz culture in NYC and beyond. Recent graduates include James Burton, Etienne Charles; Aaron Diehl and Marion Felder; and Jon Irabagon, Lage Lund, and Ben Williams (all Thelonious Monk Competition winners), among others. - All About Jazz