a Tribute to ed Blackwell Featuring Joe Lovano at Bowker Auditorium

This concert is a tribute to Ed Blackwell, one of the most important and unsung drummers in jazz history. Blackwell, who first came to national prominence in 1960 with Ornette Coleman, performed in the 1992 Magic Triangle Series. Known as one of the great innovators of the 1960s, Blackwell fused the second line parade music of his native New Orleans with African rhythms and bebop. In the 1970s and 80s, Blackwell toured and recorded extensively with fellow Ornette Coleman veterans Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Dewey Redman in the quartet Old and New Dreams. After years of kidney problems, Blackwell died in 1992. The following year he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame....

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This concert is a tribute to Ed Blackwell, one of the most important and unsung drummers in jazz history. Blackwell, who first came to national prominence in 1960 with Ornette Coleman, performed in the 1992 Magic Triangle Series. Known as one of the great innovators of the 1960s, Blackwell fused the second line parade music of his native New Orleans with African rhythms and bebop. In the 1970s and 80s, Blackwell toured and recorded extensively with fellow Ornette Coleman veterans Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Dewey Redman in the quartet Old and New Dreams. After years of kidney problems, Blackwell died in 1992. The following year he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.

The concert will feature drummer and UMass Music Department faculty, Tom Gianpietro, along with tenor saxophone giant Joe Lovano and bassist Mark Helias. Both Lovano and Helias had extensive playing experience with Blackwell.

Tom Gianpietro, an original member of Grammy-winning saxophonist Jeff Coffin's eclectic jazz group the Mu-tet, has performed with Scott Robinson, Lee Konitz and Tom Harrell, among others.

Since the late 1980s, Joe Lovano has been one of the world's premiere tenor saxophone players, earning a Grammy Award and several critics' and readers' polls awards. “After 30 albums as a leader and at least 25 years in the spotlight, it’s clear Joe Lovano is more than a dominant figure in jazz,” writes The Wall Street Journal. “He’s jazz’s answer to George Clooney or Jeff Bridges, a vibrant player who delivers an award-worthy performance every time out.”

"The skill of the bassist Mark Helias,” said Downbeat, “as it was for his mentor, the drummer Edward Blackwell--lies in transforming the simple into something much greater.” Mark Helias has performed at the highest levels for over three decades with Ray Anderson, Abbey Lincoln, Dewey Redman and many others. The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD says, “Helias is moving out into new territory, refining his own sound quite considerably. He is capable of boiling intensity or an almost desolate abstraction.”

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