SummerStage Announces The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival 8/27

Charlie Parker Jazz Festival featuring TOOTS THIELEMANS / James Carter TIA FULLER / CÉCILE McLORIN SALVANT set for Saturday, August 27 at Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan

Show at 3:00 pm
Artist Website: http://www.tootsthielemans.com
NEA Jazz Master Jean ‘Toots' Thielemans is the preeminent player of the jazz harmonica. With a musical career that has spanned nearly 70 years on both the radio as well as the big and small screen, Thielemans has taken a simple instrument and brought it into the contemporary jazz ensemble. From his collaborations with some of the biggest names in jazz such as MiLes Davis, Charlie Parker, Benny Goodman and Ella Fitzgerald and pop stars such as Paul Simon and Billy Joel, Thielemans has harnessed his ability to express both sweet and the bitter emotions with the harmonica, which has made him a favorite worldwide. In 1962, Thielemans recorded his most enduring composition, "Bluesette," which remains a jazz staple and has been recorded by scores of artists over the years.
Artist Website: http://jamescarterlive.com
James Carter is a powerhouse musician and one of the most admired saxophonists of his generation, garnering applause for his role in helping to propel jazz full tilt into the future over the past twenty-five years. As a master of numerous reed instruments, Carter has mesmerized the jazz world since his debut. Since then, he has released numerous albums to critical acclaim, including Layin' In The Cut and Chasin' The Gypsy which led Rolling Stone to assert that "...Carter is as near as jazz gets nowadays to a Young Turk-not some ironically avant-post-rock experimentalist but a cocky scene stealer with...a knack for coming up with noticeable records." Carter's most recent recording will be released in Spring 2011, and is titled, Caribbean Rhapsody.
Artist Website: http://www.tiafuller.com
When Tia Fuller picks up her saxophone to play, the notes and reverberations of her musical elixir fill the room. Fuller's artistic fearlessness filled by her agile, buoyant and elegant full-bodied sax lines effortlessly convey a number of moods and grooves. The dynamic saxophonist has maintained a blossoming career, with several albums including 2010's acclaimed release, Decisive Steps (Mack Avenue Records). In between recording and being a jazz educator, Fuller was also selected as a member of the all-female band touring with R&B star, Beyoncé. She is a featured soloist on the Beyoncé Experience DVD and has also appeared on number of major television shows, such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, and Today Show.
Artist Website: http://www.cecilemclorinsalvant.com
Hailed by The New York Times as a singer "who stamps out the lines with authority and power and a bit of outrageousness," Cécile McLorin Salvant is a French-American jazz singer that is being recognized as one of the brightest stars in the jazz world today. Growing critical acclaim highlights her unique interpretations of jazz and blues standards and her ability to tackle compositions rarely performed among today's jazz vocalists. Salvant enjoys popularity internationally, and has performed with renowned musicians such as Jean-François Bonnel and Dan Nimmer. During her first prize-winning performance at the prestigious 2010 Thelonious Monk International Vocal Jazz Competition, The New York Times states, "[she] zeroed in on notes, sang at crawling tempos more than once, made her voice into a creaking door, a fog, then a laser."
**NEA Jazz Masters Live is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest that celebrates the living legends who have made exceptional contributions to the advancement of jazz.**

Charlie Parker Jazz Festival featuring
Archie Shepp QUARTET / MADELEINE PEYROUX
Anat Cohen / THE GERALD CLAYTON TRIO
Sunday, August 28
Tompkins Square Park, Manhattan
Show at 3:00 pm
Artist Website: http://www.archieshepp.net/
Saxophone player, composer, pianist, singer, politically committed poet, playwright, Archie Shepp is a legend. He has entertained audiences around the world for nearly 50 years with his multi-instrumental talents. Shepp's music emulates the themes and stylistic elements provided by the greatest voices of jazz. His music highlights the juxtaposition of original black American music: blues and spirituals. At the head of the Avant-Garde Free Jazz movement, Shepp combines his own unique style with his inspirations: the wild raspiness of his attacks, his massive sound sculpted by a vibrato mastered in all ranges, his phrases carried to breathlessness, his abrupt level changes, and the intensity of his tempos, but also the velvety tenderness woven into a ballad.
Artist Website: http://www.madeleinepeyroux.com/
Inspired by the cornerstones of jazz, songstress Madeleine Peyroux began her music career as a teenage busker on the quaint, acoustic streets of Europe, where she enhanced her vocal and guitar skills. The New York Times said she "could inhabit Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf, doing the tragic, pinched-voIce Thing perfectly." Peyroux is best known by her fans for intimately arranged covers of the early American blues and jazz repertoire. With her latest album Bare Bones, she explores a different realm of expressing herself through a collection of self-penned compositions and collaborations.
Artist Website: http://www.anatcohen.com
An established bandleader and prolific composer, idiomatically conversant with modern and traditional jazz, classical music, Brazilian choro, Argentine tango, and an expansive timeline of Afro-Cuban styles, Anat Cohen has established herself as one of the primary voices of her generation on both the tenor saxophone and clarinet. The New York Times has said of her work, "In many ways she's an ideal: well prepared, passionately literate in music far outside her local circle, [and] an improviser with gusto."
Artist Website: http://www.geraldclayton.com/
Grammy nominated Gerald Clayton, born in the Netherlands to a musical family, was exposed to a variety of music styles at an early age. His passion and talent on the piano was immediate and allowed him to cultivate his dynamic sound with audiences nationally and internationally, while sharing the stage with numerous jazz greats. His sophisticated yet modern style has been praised by the Jazz Times and Los Angeles Times. Clayton's trio, with Justin Brown (drums) and Joe Sanders (bass), allows him to explore and expand his creativity in music. Their "arrangements, full of broken and stuttered rhythm, pinpoint dynamics and classically ordered introductions" give audiences an experience of "three dimensions...focused down to one," according to the New York Times.
The 2011 SummerStage festival is presented by AT&T.
This schedule of events and performers is subject to change without notice.
Admission to all free performances is based on a first come/first served basis.
No tickets required unless otherwise noted. Paid tickets are required for all Benefit Concerts.
All SummerStage shows go on RAIN OR SHINE
Shows will be canceled only in the event of dangerous lightning during a performance.
No professional camera gear, telephoto lenses, or flash photography is allowed unless expressly arranged in advance.
No video taping of any shows will be allowed.
Food and alcoholic/non-alcoholic beverages are available for purchase at all shows. Beer and wine are for on-site consumption only and may not be removed from the venue.
Please do not bring alcoholic beverages, glass, bottles, coolers, pets, bicycles, roller blades, folding chairs, beach umbrellas, video cameras or tape recorders to SummerStage shows.
All bags are subject to search.
The distribution or sale of unauthorized promotional materials is not permitted in the park or in the SummerStage staging area.

For the most up-to-date scheduling, directions to the stages for all SummerStage programming, visit us on the web at http://www.SummerStage.org

SummerStage is accessible to the mobility-impaired. For additional information please call 212.360.2756 and ask to speak with our Volunteer Coordinator. To obtain the Parks Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD), please call 800.281.5722.

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