The Miller Theatre Concludes 2014-15 Jazz Series with the AARON DIEHL QUARTET Tonight

Miller Theatre at Columbia University School of the Arts presents the 2014-15 Jazz series finale: AARON DIEHL QUARTET featuring Aaron Diehl, piano, Peter Washington, bass, Pete Van Nostrand, drums, and Warren Wolf, vibes. Tonight, March 7, 2015, 8:00 p.m. at the Miller Theatre at Columbia University (2960 Broadway at 116th Street).

Tickets: $20-$30 • Students with valid ID: $15-$21

JAZZ

In a city so heavily steeped in jazz music, Miller Theatre remains a pillar of the uptown jazz scene with a diverse lineup that embraces great jazz artists, each with their own unique style. In the 2014-2015 season, the theatre welcomes back four groups that previously enchanted Miller audiences with their dazzling improvisations and infectious energy. These artists draw inspiration from a variety of sources-gospel and bebop, West Africa and Harlem-to make this uniquely American art form their own.

Jazz

Saturday, March 7, 2015, 8:00 p.m.
Aaron Diehl Quartet

Aaron Diehl, piano
Peter Washington, bass
Pete Van Nostrand, drums
Warren Wolf, vibes
Two of last season's biggest successes reunite for this performance, as electrifying vibraphonist Warren Wolf joins the Aaron Diehl Trio. Diehl's passion, technical mastery, and love of both jazz and classical music find a partner in Wolf, his friend and a fellow young bandleader with "firecracker assurance" (The New York Times). The quartet's dynamic sounds draws inspiration from John Lewis' Modern Jazz Quartet with vibraphonist Milt Jackson, an appreciation jazz lovers will recognize in the quartet's captivating mix of bebop and hard-swing with melodic precision.

Aaron Diehl

www.aarondiehl.com

Hailed by The New York Times as a "revelation" and the Chicago Tribune as "the most promising discovery that [Wynton] Marsalis has made since Eric Reed," Aaron Diehl is the 2011 Cole Porter Fellow in Jazz of the American Pianists Association. His distinctive interpretations of the music of Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Art Tatum, Duke Ellington, and other masters pay homage to the tradition while establishing an original voice. Mr. Diehl has performed with the Wynton Marsalis Septet, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Benny Golson, Hank Jones, Wycliffe Gordon, Victor Goines, Wessell Anderson, Loren Schoenberg, and has been featured on Marian McPartland's NPR radio show Piano Jazz. His international touring has included major European jazz festivals as well as performances in South America and Asia. In addition to the Mozart Jazz Trio album, he has recently released Live at Caramoor, from his solo performance at the prestigious festival in the summer of 2008. His latest trio CD is entitled Live at the Player.

A native of Columbus, Ohio, Mr. Diehl is a 2007 graduate of the Juilliard School, where his teachers included Kenny Barron, Eric Reed, and Oxana Yablonskaya. His honors include Lincoln Center's prestigious Martin E. Segal award in 2004, winning the 2003 Jazz Arts Group Hank Marr Jazz Competition, and Outstanding Soloist at Jazz at Lincoln Center's 2002 Essentially Ellington Competition. Immediately following graduation from high school he toured with the Wynton Marsalis Septet. Mr. Diehl currently resides in Manhattan where he serves as pianist for St. Joseph of the Holy Family Church in Harlem.

Peter Washington

Peter Washington initially played classical bass and played with the Westchester Community Symphony at the age of 14. Later he worked with electric bass and in rock bands. He went on to study English at the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley he became interested in jazz and began freelancing in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1986 he joined the Jazz Messengers and moved to New York City. Since then he has worked in the Tommy Flanagan trio and for Bill Charlap, and was a founding member of the collective hard bop sextet One for All. Additionally, he can be heard on Eastwood After Hours and on pianist Jon Weber's album Simple Complex.

In 2008, Washington became part of The Blue Note 7, a septet formed that year in honor of the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records. The group recorded an album in 2008, entitledMosaic, which was released in 2009 on Blue Note Records/EMI, and toured the United States in promotion of the album from January until April 2009. The group plays the music of Blue Note Records from various artists, with arrangements by members of the band and Renee Rosnes. He is currently performing with pianist Benny Green and drummer Kenny Washington.

Pete Van Nostrand

Drummer Pete Van Nostrand was born and raised in Binghamton, NY. A graduate of Rutgers University and The Juilliard School, he has been around New York since 2000 and has performed with Steve Davis, Jeremy Pelt, Eric Reed, Aaron Parks, Gerald Clayton, Chihiro Yamanaka, Dan Nimmer, Jeb Patton, Jim Rotundi, Mike LeDonne, Paula West, and Sachal Vasandani, among many others. More recently he has worked with Kenny Barron, Brian Lynch, Jimmy Heath, Kurt Elling, The Clayton Brothers, and Natalie Cole.

Currently Van Nostrand can be heard touring with the Aaron Diehl Quartet, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and the Gerald Clayton trio. A supportive sideman and young veteran of the New York City Jazz scene, he continues to keep busy in New York and on the road.

Warren Wolf

Warren Wolf is a multi-instrumentalist who lives in Baltimore. As a youth, Warren attended Peabody Preparatory of The John Hopkins Institute in Baltimore, where he studied with former Baltimore Symphony member Leo LePage. While at Peabody, Warren played many popular styles of music, including classical, jazz, and ragtime. After graduating from The Baltimore School for the Arts in the spring of 1997, Warren headed north and enrolled at Berklee College of Music. At Berklee, Warren studied with Caribbean Jazz Project vibraphonist Dave Samuels. At Berklee he began to experiment with many different music styles outside of jazz and classical, such as hip-hop, R&B, drum-n-bass, funk, rock, gospel, world music, Latin, and many others. After years of training at Berklee and sitting in with musicians at the legendary Wally's Café, Warren landed the weekend gig at the club for the next three years-playing drums, not the vibraphone. Warren also co-led a quintet with trumpeter Jason Palmer at Wally's.

Warren is a former faculty member at Berklee College of Music, where he had the chance to play and record with many of the worlds best musicians, including Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Nicholas Payton, Mulgrew Miller, Lewis Nash, Christian McBride, Terri-Lyne Carrington, Bobby Watson, Roy Hanynes, and Danilo Perez.

Warren has recorded five records as a leader: Incredible Jazz Vibes, featuring Mulgrew Miller on piano, Vicente Archer on bass, and Kendrick Scott on drums; Raw, featuring Darren Barrett on trumpet, Walter Smith on tenor saxophone, and Lawrence Fields on piano; Warren "Chano Pozo" Wolf; Black Wolf, featuring Mulgrew Miller on piano, Jeff "Tain" Watts on drums, Rodney Whitaker on bass, with Warren on vibes, drums, and piano; and Warren Wolf, released on the Mack Ave. label and featuring Christian McBride on bass, Peter Martin on piano, Greg Hutchinson on drums, Tim Green on alto/soprano sax, and Jeremy Pelt on trumpet. Warren can also be heard on recordings by drummer Adonis Rose (On The Verge), trumpeter Jeremy Pelt (Identity), and the new Bobby Watson group Live & Learn (From The Heart). Warren is featured on the Inside Straight recordKind of Brown. Warren is a Mack Ave. recording artist.

Photo Courtesy of the Miller Theatre