The Monterey Jazz Festival has kicked off its 55th anniversary celebration. The showcase, featuring a famous lineup, will stop at the Madame Walker Theatre Center on March 26.
“The Walker will be the festival’s only stop in Indiana. What better place is there to host these jazz legends than at Indianapolis’ jazz home,” asked Malina Jeffers, director of marketing and community engagement at the Madame Walker Theatre Center. “The diva Dee Dee Bridgewater graced our historic stage just a couple of years ago and the audience loved her. We’re very excited to welcome here back.”
The celebration also includes vocalist Bridgewater, bassist and musical director Christian McBride, pianist Benny Green, drummer Lewis Nash, saxophonist Chris Potter and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire.
The Monterey Jazz Festival is the longest running jazz festival in the world. According to Jeffers, it’s the perfect fit for the theater.
“Those interested in music, those who love art, those who want to have a good time… that is who needs to be at this performance,” she said. “Not often do you get to experience the world’s best festival. The Walker is bringing this to Indianapolis as a once in a lifetime opportunity. Attendees can expect the best in jazz music.”
This spring festivity will be a 90-minute show starting at 7 p.m. JazzTimes reports the performance is “an unforgettable evening of great jazz.”
Discover more information about the band from the Monterey Jazz Festival.
Dee Dee Bridgewater
Bridgewater made her phenomenal New York debut in 1970 as the lead vocalist for the band led by Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, one of the premier jazz orchestras of the time. Few entertainers have ever commanded such depth of artistry in every medium as vocalist Bridgewater.
Her awards include Broadway’s coveted Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, “The Wiz.” She’s also won two Grammy Awards, 1998’s Best Jazz Vocal Performance and Best Arrangement Accompanying a Vocal for “Cottontail” Slide Hampton, arranger, from “Dear Ella.”
Christian McBride
A Grammy Award-winning bassist, McBride has been at the forefront of jazz since he emerged as part of the talented generation of players that took the genre by storm in the early 1990s. McBride began playing electric bass at age 9.
In New York, McBride began working with saxophonist Bobby Watson’s “Horizon” and started working at clubs with various artists. McBride then began a remarkable ascent to the top ranks of the music industry.
Benny Green
This musician is said to possess the history of jazz at his fingertips. He’s combined mastery of keyboard technique with decades of real world experience playing with no one less than the most celebrated artists of the last half-century.
Green has been hailed as perhaps the most exciting, hard-swinging, hard-bop, pianists to ever emerge from Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.
Lewis Nash
By the age of 18, Nash was a first-call sideman for visiting musicians, and received the call to move to New York and join Betty Carter’s band at the age of 22.
Nash became a highly in-demand sideman during this period, and since his tenure with Carter, has gone on to record and tour with some of the most important and highly regarded musicians of all time.
Chris Potter
A soloist, composer and saxophonist Potter has emerged as a leading light of his generation. DownBeat called him “one of the most studied (and copied) saxophonists on the planet,” while JazzTimes identified him as “a figure of international renown.”
Potter’s impressive discography includes 15 albums as a leader and sideman appearances on over 100 albums.
Ambrose Akinmusire
Trumpeter Akinmusire, was born in Oakland, Calif., and attended Berkeley High School. While still in the Berkeley High School Ensemble, he caught the attention of the visiting saxophonist Steve Coleman, who later hired Akinmusire as a member of his Five Elements band for an extensive European tour. Akinmusire was just 19-years-old. The Los Angeles Times named Akinmusire one of their 2011 “Faces to Watch.”
Tickets are on sale at Ticketmaster and at the Walker Box Office. Tickets are $30. Admission will be $45 the day of the show.For more information visit walkertheatre.com.
