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XRIJF - Season Two
Discover more exciting sounds and scenes from the Rochester International Jazz Festival. Reaching an audience of more than three million people, the first season of the program offered viewers an unsurpassed look into one of the most popular and most respected jazz festivals in the country. Now Season Two of the ROCHESTER INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL captures the essence of the 2007 festival with spectacular performances by some of today's hottest musicians and legendary names in jazz.
Shot in breathtaking high-definition in historic Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music, each episode features one amazing concert from six distinctively different and talented artists.
Bill Frisell
Frisell’s career spans more than 25 years, and his projects have explored American music ranging from country to folk, blues to jazz, as well as Brazilian, Greek and Malian. The renowned guitarist was born in Baltimore, Maryland and raised in Denver, Colorado. He began playing the clarinet at age 9, and took his first guitar lesson at age 18. He studied music at the University of Northern Colorado, and then went on to Berklee School of Music to study with Jim Hall. Frisell’s big break came when Pat Metheny was unable to make a session and suggested him to Paul Motian who was playing for ECM Records. Frisell soon become ECM’s in-house guitar player and worked on several albums. He has also composed and performed soundtrack music for feature film, radio and television. Frisell has worked with many of the most respected names in improvised music and collaborations with non-jazz figures.
Geri Allen
The New York Times describes Geri Allen as “a jazz pianist who dares to follow an unmarked road.” A Detroit native, Allen received her early jazz education at the famous Cass Technical High School. She earned a degree in Jazz Studies from Howard University and went on for her master’s degree in ethnomusicology from the University of Pittsburgh. Her first U.S. major label release with Blue Note, The Nurturer was issued in 1992. In 1995 she was the first recipient of Soul Train’s Lady of Soul Award for jazz album of the year for Twenty-One, and in 1996 was the first woman to win the Danish Jazzpar prize. Allen is also Associate Professor of Jazz Piano & Improvisation Studies at Michigan University.
Harry Allen
Harry Allen was born in Washington D.C., and was raised in Los Angeles, CA and Burrillville, RI. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in music in 1988 from Rutgers University in New Jersey, and currently resides in New York City. As a Swing Bros. recording artist he has over thirty recordings to his name. Three of his CDs have won Gold Disc Awards from Japan's Swing Journal Magazine, and his CD Tenors Anyone? won both the Gold Disc Award and the New Star Award. The Harry Allen - Joe Cohn Quartet won the New York Nightlife Award for Outstanding Jazz Combo Performance of 2006 and was nominated for Best Jazz Combo by the Jazz Journalists Association for the same year. Allen has performed with Rosemary Clooney, Ray Brown, Hank Jones, Frank Wess, Flip Phillips, among others.
Christian Scott
Trumpeter Christian Scott is one of the brightest jazz stars to emerge in the last few years. Instead of retreading bebop the way so-called young lions did in the early 1990s, Scott delivers a smart, grooved and plugged-in set of tunes. The New York-based Berklee College of Music grad has both the tone and the conviction of the great players of his instrument. A New Orleans native, Scott represents the next generation of Crescent City horn blowers whose lineage started with the legendary King Oliver and Louis Armstrong and has continued with such marquee trumpeters as Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard and Nicholas Payton. Scott hooked up with Concord Music Group on the recommendation of a distributor who witnessed the trumpeter and his band packing the Virgin Megastore in Boston with standing-room-only crowds of excited young adults.
James Moody
Saxophone master James Moody has serenaded lovers for over six decades. Born in Savannah, Georgia, and raised in Newark, New Jersey, Moody took up the alto sax, a gift from his uncle, at the age of 16. In 1946, following service in the U.S. Air Force, Moody joined the seminal bebop big band of Dizzy Gillespie. He recorded with Milt Jackson for Dial Records in 1947 and one year later made his recording debut as a leader in James Moody and His Bop Men. He rejoined Gillespie in 1963 for the remainder of the decade. In 1973 Moody had a seven-year stint in the Las Vegas Hilton Orchestra. On April 3, 1989 Moody’s bride Linda walked down the isle to Sweet and Lovely, while Gillespie served as best man for his longtime friend. Moody's 2004 release of Homage is a tribute to him, featuring tunes specially written for him by the likes of Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, Kenny Barron,
and Herbie Hancock.
Don Byron
As clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, arranger, and social critic, Don Byron redefines every genre of music he plays. A singular voice in an astounding range of musical contexts, he continually strives for what he calls "a sound above genre." Born and raised in the Bronx, Byron was exposed to a wide variety of music by his father, who played bass in calypso bands, and his mother, a pianist. He studied classical clarinet with Joe Allard while playing and arranging salsa numbers for high school bands on the side. He later studied with George Russell in the Third Stream Department of the New England Conservatory of Music and, while in Boston, also performed with Latin and jazz ensembles. Named "Jazz Artist of the Year" by Down Beat in 1992, he is acclaimed as much for his restless creativity as for his unsurpassed virtuosity as a player.
