For Immediate Release: Press Contacts: November 25, 2015 Eileen Chambers, 312-294-3092 Rachelle Roe, 312-294-3090
Photos Available By Request [email protected]
SCP JAZZ SERIES WELCOMES NEA JAZZ MASTER MCCOY TYNER BACK FOR UNIQUE TRIBUTE CONCERT—ECHOES WITH A FRIEND
Pianists Geri Allen and Danilo Pérez and Celebrate Tyner’s Influence and Artistry in Program that Culminates with Performance by the McCoy Tyner Trio
Friday, December 4, at 8 p.m.
CHICAGO—The 2015/16 Symphony Center Presents (SCP) Jazz series continues with a concert titled Echoes with a Friend on Friday, December 4 at 8 p.m. More than forty years ago, jazz pianist McCoy Tyner offered his own tribute to friend, bandmate and jazz legend John Coltrane in the 1972 landmark solo piano recording Echoes of a Friend. Now, Tyner’s powerhouse influence is the inspiration for this new tribute program which features pianists Geri Allen and Danilo Pérez solo and in trio sets alongside McCoy Tyner Trio members Gerald Cannon (bass) and Francisco Mela (drums). Tyner himself joins his Trio to close the program.
McCoy Tyner, hailed as “one of the most brilliant pianists and commanding leaders in modern music” (DownBeat), is the recipient of four Grammy® awards and was recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts as a Jazz Master in 2002. With nearly 80 albums to his name, Tyner still continues to record and perform, with recent appearances at San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre and a special appearance with the Stanley Clarke Band at New York’s Blue Note Jazz Club in November 2015. Tyner has made regular appearances on the SCP Jazz series since 1995 with his most recent performance with his Trio taking place in 2009.
Pianist Geri Allen is a formidable name in jazz piano. Allen has recorded 18 albums and collaborated with some of the most influential jazz artists of her generation, including saxophonist Steve Coleman, with whom she was a founding part of the cutting-edge M-Base Collective. She tours with a number of groups including her own all-female ACS Trio comprised of Allen, Terri Lyne Carrington (drums); and Esperanza Spalding (bass). Allen was also recognized in 2010 with the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Award. Allen, who considers Tyner one of her great influences, performed with the McCoy Tyner Trio earlier this year on the San Francisco Jazz series.
A native of Panama, pianist Danilo Pérez continues to forge his own path among a new generation of jazz artists with his Latin-inspired improvisations and fresh interpretations of jazz classics. Pérez frequently performs in the legendary Wayne Shorter Quartet and with his own Danilo Pérez Trio. A recipient of multiple Grammy® and Latin Grammy® award nominations, Pérez’s 2014 recording, Panama 500, is an exploration of the evolution of Latin American music. McCoy Tyner’s powerful influence on Perez led him and his quartet to perform a 2012 tribute concert to the legendary pianist at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia where Pérez served as artistic director for the Jazz Up Close series.
Tickets for all Symphony Center Presents Jazz series concerts can be purchased by phone at 800-223-7114 or 312-294-3000; online at cso.org, or at the Symphony Center box office: 220 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60604.
Discounted student tickets for select concerts can be purchased, subject to availability, online in advance or at the box office on the day of the concert. For group rates, please call 312-294- 3040.
Artists, programs and prices are subject to change.
Bank of America is the Global Sponsor of the CSO.
The Symphony Center Presents (SCP) Jazz Series is sponsored by Exelon.
# # #
Symphony Center Presents Friday, December 4, 2015, 8:00 p.m. Jazz Echoes with a Friend with Geri Allen, Danilo Pérez and the McCoy Tyner Trio
Geri Allen, piano Danilo Pérez, piano
McCoy Tyner Trio McCoy Tyner, piano Gerald Cannon, bass Francisco Mela, drums
Tickets: $28-$89
McCoy Tyner McCoy Tyner’s blues-based piano style, replete with sophisticated chords and an explosively percussive left hand has transcended conventional styles to become one of the most identifiable sounds in improvised music. His harmonic contributions and dramatic rhythmic devices form the vocabulary of a majority of jazz pianists. Born in 1938 in Philadelphia, he became a part of the fertile jazz and R&B scene of the early 50s. His parents imbued him with a love for music from an early age. His mother encouraged him to explore his musical interests through formal training.
At 17, he began a career-changing relationship with Miles Davis™ sideman saxophonist John Coltrane. Tyner joined Coltrane for the classic album My Favorite Things (1960), and remained at the core of what became one of the most seminal groups in jazz history, The John Coltrane Quartet. The band, which also included drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Jimmy Garrison, had an extraordinary chemistry, fostered in part by Tyner’s almost familial relationship with Coltrane.
From 1960 through 1965, Tyner’s name was propelled to international renown, as he developed a new vocabulary that transcended the piano styles of the time, providing a unique harmonic underpinning and rhythmic charge essential to the group’s sound. He performed on Coltrane’s classic recordings such as Live at the Village Vanguard, Impressions and Coltrane’s signature suite, A Love Supreme.
In 1965, after over five years with Coltrane’s quartet, Tyner left the group to explore his destiny as a composer and bandleader. Among his major projects is a 1967 album entitled The Real McCoy, on which he was joined by saxophonist Joe Henderson, bassist Ron Carter and fellow Coltrane alumnus Elvin Jones. His 1972 Grammy-award nomination album Sahara, broke new ground by the sounds and rhythms of Africa. Since 1980, he has also arranged his lavishly textured harmonies for a big band that performs and records when possible. In the late 1980s, he mainly focused on his piano trio featuring Avery Sharpe on bass and Aarron Scott on drums. Today, this trio is still in great demand. He returned to Impulse in 1995, with a superb album featuring Michael Brecker. In 1996 he recorded a special album with the music of Burt Bacharach. In 1998 he changed labels again and recorded an interesting Latin album and an album featuring Stanley Clarke for TelArc.
In the summer of 2005, Tyner joined forces with the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York and became the first client of Blue Note Management. That summer, Tyner began work on some unique projects, including performances with tap-dancer Savion Glover and the development of the Impulse! Septet featuring his trio with some of today’s top horn men.
Tyner’s partnership with the Blue Note has led to the formation of his own record label, aptly titled McCoy Tyner Music. The label is a subsidiary of the Blue Note’s In-House record label, Half Note Records. The label launched on September 11, 2007, upon the release of Tyner’s latest CD,Quartet featuring Joe Lovano, Christian McBride, and Jeff Tain Watts. Recorded live on New Year’s Eve 2006, the album features a working band at its finest with some of today’s legends in training. Additionally, the record shows that Tyner, who now carries the torch as the only surviving member of the John Coltrane Quartet, is still at the top of his game as a composer, performer, and bandleader.
In review of Tyner’s latest album “Quartet”, Thomas Conrad of JazzTimes wrote, “‘Quartet’ succeeds not only because everyone plays so well, but also because they play so well together. The pairing of Tyner and Lovano is synergistic. The McBride/Watts rhythm section, for intelligent propulsion, is state-of-the- art. Quartet succeeds once more because of its excellent sonic quality. It was recorded by engineer Phil Edwards at Yoshi’s in Oakland, Calif., over New Year’s Eve weekend 2006. Almost always, even the best-sounding jazz albums require you to make a choice. You can have the visceral in-the-moment reality of a live recording, or the full bandwidth resolution of a studio session. This one has both.
McCoy Tyner’s second release for the McCoy Tyner Music label, Guitars, features the stellar rhythm section of McCoy Tyner, Ron Carter, and Jack DeJohnette with four modern guitarists (and one banjo) of our time: Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot, John Scofield, Derek Trucks, and Bela Fleck. The package is a CD/DVD featuring state-of-the-art technology that allows the viewer to manually choose which musician(s) they would like to view in the studio at any time during each track. In 2009, Tyner released his third recording for McCoy Tyner Music, a solo piano performance recorded live in San Francisco during the summer of 2007.
Tyner has always expanded his vision of the musical landscape and incorporated new elements, whether from distant continents or diverse musical influences. More recently he has arranged for big bands, employed string arrangements, and even reinterpreted popular music. Today, Tyner has released nearly 80 albums under his name, earned four Grammys and was awarded Jazz Master from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2002. He continues to leave his mark on generations of improvisers, and yet remains a disarmingly modest and spiritually directed man.
Geri Allen An internationally renowned pianist, composer, and educator, Geri Allen was first exposed to jazz while listening to her father’s Charlie Parker records as a child growing up in Detroit. She received her early music education at Cass Technical High School and the Jazz Development Workshop, where she became skilled in composing and arranging.
At Howard University, Allen began to embrace ethnic music from all cultures and it has greatly influenced her work. She graduated from Howard in 1979 as one of the first to earn a bachelor’s degree in jazz studies. From there, she studied with the veteran bop pianist Kenny Barron in New York City.
It was jazz educator Nathan Davis who helped persuade Allen to attend the University of Pittsburgh, where he headed up the Jazz Studies Program. Allen earned her master’s degree in ethnomusicology at Pitt in 1982.
She went on to perform and collaborate with a long list of jazz greats, including Ornette Coleman, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Marcus Belgrave, Betty Carter, Billy Taylor, George Shirley, Charles Lloyd, Russell Malone, and many others.
She has toured with her own piano trio featuring Kenny Davis and Kassa Overall; the Tap Quartet Timeline, featuring Maurice Chestnut; ACS—a trio featuring Allen, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, and bassist Esperanza Spalding; and her own quartet featuring Ravi Coltrane, Jeff Watts, and James Genus.
Between 2008 and 2013, Allen released a series of solo piano driven recordings under the Motéma Music label—Flying Toward the Sound, A Child Is Born, and Grand River Crossings. The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra commissioned her to compose Stone and Streams, an original work to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech. It was performed in September 2013 as part of the orchestra’s Gala Celebration.
Allen contributed original music to the Peabody Award-winning documentary film Beah: A Black Woman Speaks, directed by Lisa Gay Hamilton. And her distinctive arrangements are on American Song by vocalist Andy Bey, which was nominated for a 2004 Grammy Award. Allen’s composition “Unconditional Love” appeared on Terri Lyne Carrington’s Mosaic, which won the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album of the Year.
Allen was the recipient of a 2008-2009 Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition, resulting in the album Refractions: Flying Toward the Sound as well as collaboration with photographer Carrie Mae Weems on three short art films.
The list of honors for Geri Allen is extensive, and includes the first ever Soul Train Lady of Soul Award for Jazz. She was the youngest person, and the first woman, to receive the Danish Jazz Par Prize. She also has received the 2010 Kennedy Center Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Award; Howard University’s Benny Golson Award; and Spelman College’s African Classical Music Award.
After a ten-year career teaching at the University of Michigan, Allen has returned to her alma mater and holds the position of Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, the post once occupied by her mentor Nathan Davis, who retired in 2013.
In March 2014, Allen spearheaded a project that united scholars and artists around the country in a two- hour cyber symposium on Pittsburgh pianist and jazz legend Mary Lou Williams. She also performed original music of her own and of Williams at “A Conversation with Mary Lou: Geri Allen Celebrates Mary Lou Williams” at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse in New York City, directed by Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor S. Epatha Merkerson. Danilo Pérez Pianist, composer, educator and social activist, Danilo Pérez is among the most influential and dynamic musicians of our time.
Born in Panama in 1965, Pérez started his musical studies when he was three years old with his father, a bandleader and singer. By age 10, he was studying the European classical piano repertoire at the National Conservatory in Panama. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in electronics in Panama, he studied jazz composition at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. While still a student, he performed with Jon Hendricks, Terence Blanchard, Slide Hampton, Claudio Roditi and Paquito D’Rivera. Quickly established as a young master, he soon toured and/or recorded with artists such as Dizzy Gillespie United Nations Orchestra from 1989-1992, Jack DeJohnette, Steve Lacy , Lee Konitz, Charlie Haden, Michael Brecker, Joe Lovano, Tito Puente, Wynton Marsalis, Tom Harrell, Gary Burton,and Roy Haynes. In 2000, Danilo joined Wayne Shorter to form Shorter’s great quartet with John Patitucci and Brian Blade.
In 1993, Pérez turned his focus to his own ensembles and recording projects, releasing eight albums as a leader, earning Grammy® and Latin Grammy® nominations for Central Avenue (1989), Motherland (2000), and Across The Crystal Sea (2008). In 1996 he was signed by producer Tommy Lipuma to join the Impulse label and recorded Panamonk, a tribute to Thelonious Monk which according to DownBeat magazine is one of the most important jazz piano albums in the history. Additionally, Pérez released Providencia, his debut for Mack Avenue Records, in August of 2010. The album was nominated for a 2011 Grammy® Award in the category of “Best Instrumental Jazz Album.” As a composer he has been commissioned by The Lincoln Center, Chicago Jazz Festival and Imani Winds Quintet among others. Last year Carnegie Hall commissioned him to write an octet for members of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. In May 2014 he was commissioned by The Banff Centre to write a piano quintet for the Cecilia String Quartet titled Camino de Cruces and he also composed the music for the Museum of Biodiversity in Panama, designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry.
Cultural Ambassador to the Republic of Panama, Pérez has received a variety of awards for his musical achievements, activism and social work efforts. He currently serves as UNESCO Artist for Peace, Founder and Artistic Director of the Panama Jazz Festival, and Artistic Director of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute in Boston’s Berklee College of Music.
Peréz’ latest album, Panama 500 (Mack Avenue Records) (an exploration of the evolution of Latin American musical traditions) was released on February 4, 2014. Peréz tours tirelessly in a trio with Ben Street and Adam Cruz, with his quintet presenting Panama 500, and with his musical soul mates, John Patitucci and Brian Blade. That trio comes together between tours with the historic Wayne Shorter Quartet to embrace the message of their guru with the name Children of the Light.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra: www.cso.org and www.csosoundsandstories.org Founded in 1891, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the greatest orchestras in the world. Since 2010, the preeminent conductor Riccardo Muti has served as its 10th music director. Pierre Boulez is the CSO’s Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus, Yo-Yo Ma is its Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant, and Samuel Adams and Elizabeth Ogonek are its Mead Composers-in-Residence.
From baroque through contemporary music, the CSO commands a vast repertoire. Its renowned musicians annually perform more than 150 concerts, most at Symphony Center in Chicago and, each summer, at the suburban Ravinia Festival. They regularly tour nationally and internationally. Since 1892, the CSO has made 58 international tours, performing in 29 countries on five continents.
People around the globe listen to weekly radio broadcasts of CSO concerts and recordings on the WFMT radio network and online at cso.org/radio . Recordings by the CSO have earned 62 Grammy Awards, including two in 2011 for Muti’s recording with the CSO and Chorus of Verdi's Messa da Requiem (Muti’s first of four releases with the CSO to date). Find details on these and many other CSO recordings at www.cso.org/resound. The CSO is part of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, which also includes the Chicago Symphony Chorus (Duain Wolfe, Director and Conductor) and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, a training ensemble for emerging professionals. Through its prestigious Symphony Center Presents series, the CSOA presents guest artists and ensembles from a variety of genres—classical, jazz, world, and contemporary.
The Negaunee Music Institute at the CSO offers community and education programs that annually engage more than 200,000 people of diverse ages and backgrounds. Through the Institute and other activities, including a free annual concert with Muti and the CSO, the CSO is committed to using the power of music to create connections and build community.
The CSO is supported by thousands of patrons, volunteers and institutional and individual donors. Bank of America is the Global Sponsor of the CSO. The CSO’s music director position is endowed in perpetuity by a generous gift from the Zell Family Foundation. The Negaunee Foundation provides generous support in perpetuity for the work of the Negaunee Music Institute.