Caramoor International Music Festival Presents The 2012 Caramoor Jazz Festival

July 25, 2012 - PRLog -- Press Contact: Lois Cohn Associates
Lois Cohn, 917.733.8252, lcohn@lcohnpr.com
Brittnee Walker, 412.601.2474, bwalker@lcohnpr.com

KATONAH, NY, July 3, 2012 – Caramoor International Music Festival’s annual weekend-long Jazz Festival has become a premiere destination for jazz music for artists and fans alike. The 2012 Jazz Festival – July 28 and 29 – welcomes some of the industry’s brightest talents and celebrated chart-toppers, demonstrating the breadth and diversity of the state of jazz.

On Saturday, the festival kicks off with Hard Bop icons Billy Harper and The Cookers and continues with a solo set of lyrical jazz by pianist Kenny Barron, followed by the rising star vocalist Gretchen Parlato in the Venetian Theater. Later in the evening, three-time Grammy® Award-winner Dee Dee Bridgewater will entertain the audience with a concert highlighting the different trends in jazz singing. As a dominant force on the jazz scene for several decades, legendary Roy Haynes will close the evening with his newly formed Fountain of Youth Band, featuring some of today’s most dynamic and virtuosic musicians.

Sunday brings 19 time-Grammy® Award-winner Pat Metheny to the stage with the Pat Metheny Unity Band featuring Monk Competition winner, bassist Ben Williams, Grammy® nominated saxophonist Chris Potter, and longtime collaborator and drummer Antonio Sanchez to round out the festival.

TICKETS
Tickets for July 28th are $15, $30, and $45. Tickets for July 29th are $15, $20, $37.50 and $52.50. Tickets are on sale now. To purchase, call the Caramoor Box Office at 914.232.1252 or visit www.caramoor.org. Groups of 16 or more may purchase discounted tickets by contacting Matthew Scarella at 914.232.5035 ext. 252 or matthew@caramoor.org.

PRESS TICKETS
For Press tickets, images, and/or artist information, contact Brittnee Walker at 412.601.2474 or bwalker@lcohnpr.com or Fiona Zwieb at 903.780.6978 or fzwieb@lcohnpr.com.

PROGRAMS
SATURDAY, JULY 28 IN THE VENETIAN THEATER
CARAMOOR JAZZ FESTIVAL (I)
$15, $30, $45
3:00pm – The Cookers
Eddie Henderson, David Weiss, trumpets
Billy Harper, Craig Handy, tenor saxophones
George Cables, piano
Cecil McBee, bass
Victor Lewis, drums

4:15pm – Gretchen Parlato

5:30pm – Kenny Barron

Dinner Break

8:00pm – Dee Dee Bridgewater

9:00pm – Roy Haynes’ Fountain of Youth Band
Jaleel Shaw, saxophones
Martin Bejerano, piano
David Wong, bass
Roy Haynes, drums

SUNDAY, JULY 29 IN THE VENETIAN THEATER
CARAMOOR JAZZ FESTIVAL (II)
$15, $20, $37.50, $52.50
4:00pm – Pat Metheny Unity Band with Chris Potter, Antonio Sanchez, and Ben Williams

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Pat Metheny first burst onto the international jazz scene in 1974 and with the release of his first album, Bright Size Life (1975), he reinvented the traditional "jazz guitar" sound for a new generation of players. Over the years, he has performed with artists as diverse as Steve Reich to Ornette Coleman to Herbie Hancock to Jim Hall to Milton Nascimento to David Bowie. He has been part of a writing team with keyboardist Lyle Mays for more than twenty years - an association that has been compared to the Lennon/McCartney and Ellington/Strayhorn partnerships by critics and listeners alike. Metheny's body of work includes compositions for solo guitar, small ensembles, electric and acoustic instruments, large orchestras, and ballet pieces, with settings ranging from modern jazz to rock to classical. Metheny has won countless polls as "Best Jazz Guitarist" and awards, including three gold records for (Still Life) Talking, Letter from Home, and Secret Story. He has also won 19 Grammy Awards spread out over a variety of different categories including Best Rock Instrumental, Best Contemporary Jazz Recording, Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, and Best Instrumental Composition. The Pat Metheny Group won an unprecedented seven consecutive Grammies for seven consecutive albums.

Roy Haynes has been “hard swinging” since 1944, when he made his professional debut at the age of seventeen in his native Boston. Haynes extracted the rhythmic qualities from melodies and created unique new drum and cymbal patterns in an idiosyncratic, now instantly recognizable style. He has recorded or performed with Gary Burton, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Henry Grimes, Christian McBride, Jackie McLean, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Gerry Mulligan, Art Pepper, Sonny Rollins, Horace Tapscott and many others.

Dee Dee Bridgewater is one of few entertainers to have ever commanded such depth of artistry in every medium. Fewer still have been rewarded with Broadway’s coveted Tony Award (Best Featured Actress in a Musical The Wiz), nominated for the London theater’s West End equivalent, the Laurence Oliver Award (Best Actress in a Musical Lady Day), won two Grammy® Awards and France’s 1998 top honor Victoire de la Musique (Best Jazz Vocal Album). She 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. Performing the lead in equally demanding roles as Sophisticated Ladies, Cosmopolitan Greetings, and the musical Cabaret (the first black actress to star as Sally Bowles), she secured her reputation as a consummate entertainer. For her latest recording, Eleanora Fagan To Billie With Love From Dee Dee, Bridgewater honors an iconic jazz figure, Billie Holiday.

Kenny Barron’s unmatched ability to mesmerize audiences with his elegant playing, sensitive melodies and infectious rhythms is what inspired The Los Angeles Times to name him "one of the top jazz pianists in the world” and Jazz Weekly to call him “the most lyrical piano player of our time.” Kenny Barron’s own recordings for Verve have earned him nine Grammy nominations beginning in 1992 with “People Time” an outstanding duet with Stan Getz followed by the Brazilian influenced “Sambao and most recently for “Freefall” in 2002. Mr. Barron consistently wins the jazz critics and readers polls, including Downbeat, Jazz Times and Jazziz magazines. In 2005 he was inducted into the American Jazz Hall of Fame and won a MAC Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a six-time recipient of Best Pianist by the Jazz Journalists Association and was as a finalist in the prestigious 2001 Jazz Par International Jazz Award.

The Cookers draws its inspiration from the possibilities of such incendiary nights by combining some of the greatest musicians from the hard-bop era, with some of this generation’s more fiery players. No single album captures the mystique of this era better than The Night, recorded for the Blue Note label in 1965, a memorable septet performance recorded before a beautifully responsive audience at Brooklyn's Club La Marchal where Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan engage in a trumpet battle for the ages. While giants in their own right, the members of this ensemble have performed and/or recorded with pretty much every jazz great of the past 40 years including Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Jackie McLean, Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Lee Morgan, Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, and Roy Haynes, among others.

Gretchen Parlato's 2009 sophomore breakthrough, In a Dream, signaled the arrival of an incredibly inventive modern jazz singer. Her follow-up, The Lost and Found, demonstrates that she has staying power.  An alumna of the Thelonious Monk Institute, Parlato has been turning heads ever since she won the 2004 Thelonious Monk Institute International Vocal Competition with which she displayed a musical individuality loaded with paradoxical powers. Since then she has toured worldwide to sold-out audiences with BBC Radio proclaiming, "Star over London...A star is born!" Her originality captivates musicians as well, prompting invitations to appear on over 50 recordings with the likes of Terence Blanchard, Kenny Barron, Terri Lynn Carrington and Esperanza Spalding.