The Creative Music Series proudly presents
World class, important & distinctive Jazz musicians from a-far and a-near converging in Boston
The Stephen Haynes Quartet:
Stephen Haynes, cornet
Royal Hartigan, drums, percussion
Bobby Zankel, alto
Rick Rozier, bass
A who’s who in Jazz musicianship and history
An expression of leading-edge and new traditions in playing, composition, improvisation, interplay and freedom
• Led by the Cornet (and other brass) of Stephen Haynes from Wethersfield, CT., a “disciple” of the late great Bill Dixon and deserving of wider (at least New England) recognition – and curator along with Joe Morris of Hartford’s wonderful Real Art Ways Jazz Improvisers Series. He’s also a graduate student at the Univ. of Connecticut concentrating on Community Organizing....
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The Creative Music Series proudly presents
World class, important & distinctive Jazz musicians from a-far and a-near converging in Boston
The Stephen Haynes Quartet:
Stephen Haynes, cornet
Royal Hartigan, drums, percussion
Bobby Zankel, alto
Rick Rozier, bass
A who’s who in Jazz musicianship and history
An expression of leading-edge and new traditions in playing, composition, improvisation, interplay and freedom
• Led by the Cornet (and other brass) of Stephen Haynes from Wethersfield, CT., a “disciple” of the late great Bill Dixon and deserving of wider (at least New England) recognition – and curator along with Joe Morris of Hartford’s wonderful Real Art Ways Jazz Improvisers Series. He’s also a graduate student at the Univ. of Connecticut concentrating on Community Organizing.
• From UMass Dartmouth, Percussionist/Drummer Royal Hartigan is also a pianist and tap dancer who has studied and performed the music’s indigenous West African drumming, dance, song, and highlife; Turkish bendir frame drum; Japanese taiko drumming; Philippine kulintang gong and drum ensembles; Chinese Beijing, Cantonese, and Kunqu opera percussion…(and so on, continued under his bio below). And of course the jazz traditions!
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• From Philadelphia, alto saxophonist Bobby Zankel. While not strictly speaking what is called a "post-Coltrane saxophonist," he has absorbed Coltrane's music into his own synthesis of traditional and avant-garde forms. This music is an extension of what Zankel himself had been breeding in his mind.
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• From Windsor, Connecticut, on Contra Bass Violin, Rick Rozier is also the principal of the bass section and the holder of the HSO (Hartford Symphony Orchestra) Claire and Millard Pryor Orchestra Committee Chair. His ancestor is Joseph Antonio Emidy, who was the first black classical music composer in Great Britain to emerge from the African diaspora. The former member of the Kansas City Philharmonic and the Philharmonica de las Americas in Mexico recalls that “in 1968, when I was hired to play in the orchestra in Kansas City, I was the first musician of color to be hired”.
STEPHEN HAYNES: Taylor, Bill and I opened for Sam Rivers and his trio at the Middle East in Cambridge, MA.”.
“Parrrhesia”, (meaning to speak boldly & freely) Stephens latest release in a trio with drummer Warren Smith and guitarist Joe Morris, (is) an adventurous mix of “voice” and Jazz. Abundant with melody, space, ands rhythm, Haynes debut as a leader is a singular experience that resonates with the continuum of tradition…When you hear Haynes trumpet speaking in tongues while Morris finger-taps African rhythms on detuned guitar on the tune Invocation, you are not listening to a typical free Jazz session…you’re (also) not in the Jazz equivalent of Kansas anymore” – Engine (recording label).
b.1/12/1955. “I am an improvising composer, teaching artist, arts organizer and advocate; a product of the historic and fertile Black Music Division at Bennington College, directed by Bill Dixon.
ROYAL HARTIGAN: “My music is inspired by the spirit of world cultures voiced through an African American idiom, as a symbol of the equality and worth of all peoples. As trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie said, ‘we are all different branches of the same tree’. As an artist, scholar, student, and human i cannot work among the peoples of the world as a distanced observer, blind to the daily inequities and suffering which infect most of our planet. I cannot gather information, record melodies, transcribe rhythms, and learn dance movements without seeing the villagers hunger, illness, and lack of clothing and shelter”.
Royal received a BA degree in African American music at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1981, studying with Roland Wiggins, Frederick Tillis, Reggie Workman, Archie Shepp, Max Roach, and Clifford Jarvis. Now Professor at UMass Dartmouth, of world music, area studies, African and African American traditions, ensembles; fall 2009 – present and leads the Drum Spirit Ensemble.
BOBBY ZANKEL:,: “The Soul of Jazz - Past, Present, and Future Tense”. All About Jazz. “As a performer, Zankel delivers intricate virtuoso bop playing with an intensely emotional core.” All Music. “Ceremonies of Forgiveness is all about an expression of complex emotions and a quest rather than a summons.” Jazz Review. Zankel is the founding leader of the Philadelphia-based avant-garde big band, Warriors of the Wonderful Sound, who has made his own composition based on Coltrane's masterpiece, A Love Supreme.
b. 21 December 1949, New York City, New York. ). In the early 70s, he attracted favorable attention during a spell with Cecil Taylor’s Unit Core Ensemble. Concurrently, Zankel’s reputation spread within the adventurous New York loft scene owing to performances with Ray Anderson, Sunny Murray, William Parker and others. From 1975, Zankel became resident in Philadelphia where he raised his family meanwhile becoming a respected and in-demand sideman with many artists,
RICK ROZIE. He returned to the Hart School, his alma mater, as Adjunct Professor at the famed Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz. Rick brought a depth of musical knowledge from the disciplined classical tradition that he loves when performing as principle bass with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, and more free flowing interpretive jazz conventions. Being of African roots, Rick likes to teach using the West African groits oral storyteller’s tradition combining a sense of history of the musical genre and his own example as a performer.
b 1944. At East Hartford High School in Connecticut the band director suggested that they needed a bass player. He gave it a try and was “hooked.” This was an inspirational outlet for the young Rozie who went on to study double bass with Bertram Turetzky, William Rhein, and Orin O’Brien. With his brother Lee Rozie and Rashied Ali, he formed the trio Afro Algonquin. In the following years he played.in the quartet by James Newton and Anthony Davis.
The Creative Music Series (CMS) was established in 1/ 2015, to showcase the work of adventurous jazz musicians from Out-of-State, presenting them in intimate venues in the Cambridge/Somerville area. My endeavor was a reaction to the apparent lack of invitations being extended to accomplished and even unknown musicians to Boston. CMS has now begun to zero in on Boston based musicians who are creating their own projects with these out-of-town guests and taking these musical risks to find an expression and gain a wider appreciation.
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