Featured Artists Concert Series
Jazz Drummer Myron Cohen: The Billy Higgins Legacy Band
Saturday July 5, 2014
8 - 9:30pm
Musically Minded Academy
5776 Broadway Oakland, Ca. 94618
$15.00
All Ages
Ticket purchase: https://www.
Musically
Minded Academy has two wheelchair accessible restrooms & is
friendly to those with disabilities. A childcare area is available for
parents to supervise tots during concerts.
ABOUT
MYRON COHEN:
The Billy Higgins Legacy Band -The Tradition Continues
Headed
up by renowned west coast jazz drummer, Myron Cohen, this concert
promises to deliver some Classic Jazz Tunes, maybe a few originals and
BOLDNESS will be served. Myron says, "For a portion of the audience
that is not familiar with Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter or McCoy Tyner,
hopefully our renditions will lead them to the source of this great Art
Form."
Debuting
at this concert is a recent configuration of the Billy Higgins Legacy
Band: a straight-up trio of Lee Bloom on piano, Gary Brown on double
bass and Myron Cohen on drums and -- in the spirit and tradition of the
BHLB -- a special guest vocalist will be featured towards the end.
That 'special guest vocalist'?
None other than the incomprable Mr. Kenny Washington!
ABOUT MYRON COHEN:
As
a baby sitting in a high chair, Myron Cohen astounded his mother by
tapping out syncopated rhythms with his spoon. Progressing to a field
drum by fourth grade, Cohen strapped on his drum daily and marched to
school–even through the snowy Wisconsin winters. This self taught innate
'enthusiasm' led Cohen at fourteen years old to be hired as the drummer
for The Mary Jay Trio, a very popular jazz group led by vocalist Mary Jaber who performed in clubs throughout Wisconsin in the 1950s and early 1960s. At fifteen, he spied an advertisement for the Slingerland Drum Co. sponsored Gene
Krupa’s National Amateur Swing Drummers’ Contest and persuaded his high
school buddy to ‘appropriate’ his aunt’s car to drive Cohen to
Chicago so that he could enter the drum contest. Louie Bellson was the
judge and Cohen ended up placing second out of about 300 drummers. What
was most significant about this event–other than the consequences of
taking the car–was the beginning of a lifelong friendship with Louie Bellson who recognized Cohen’s passion for the drums.
Moving on to his student years at University of Madison, Wisconsin, Cohen joined an R&B band, The Fabulous Imitations, featuring the renowned blues singer, Tracy Nelson. Nelson encouraged Cohen to move to San Francisco and from there he went on to play with such luminaries as Michael Bloomfield, John Lee Hooker, Otis Spann, Ron Stallings, Azar Lawrence, Ravi Coltrane, Donald 'Rafael' Garrett, Woody Shaw, Wayne Shorter, to name a few.
Major
influences for Myron were Whether in sessions, live performances,
recordings, or just informal jams, these musical experiences have given
Cohen a huge vocabulary to share on the bandstand.
About The Billy Higgins Legacy Band
The
BHLB was conceived by Myron Cohen in response to his own experience of
musical mentoring by master drummers Louie Bellson, Elvin Jones, Buddy
Rich, John Rae, Dave Black, Sonny Freeman, Buddy Miles, Subash Chandran,
Ed Thigpen, Billy Hart, George Brown, and most notably the late, great,
Billy Higgins. In addition to playing music, Cohen also has a disarming
talent as a raconteur and collector of jazz stories from his
friendships in the jazz community. In the last few years of his life,
drummer Billy Higgins gave a great deal to Cohen including some
fascinating stories of his life and music. Billy understood Cohen’s
commitment to mentoring young musicians–especially drummers–
Other Players:
KENNY WASHINGTON
"The
thing is, Washington slays 'em wherever he performs. Standing not quite
five-foot-two, he's an oversize talent who can scat with the harmonic
daring and rhythmic command of a bebop saxophonist, croon with the
simmering soul of Donny Hathaway, and interpret standards with such
intelligence and emotional commitment it's like Rodgers and Hart wrote
"I Didn't Know What Time It Was" with him in mind." -- Andrew Gilbert, eastbayexpress.com
Recently
dubbed “the Superman of the Bay Area jazz scene” by the San Francisco
Chronicle, Kenny Washington is a jazz virtuoso who thrills audiences
with his soulful interpretations, seemingly limitless range, and
rapid-fire scatting. Ravi Coltrane has declared Kenny his favorite male
vocalist, and Mark Murphy said in a Jazz Times interview that Kenny was
the only contemporary male vocalist carrying on the tradition.
LEE BLOOM
A San Francisco-based pianist, composer, arranger and producer, Lee has worked with a variety of creative artists in many genres including Ahmad Jamal, and Wayne Shorter to Modernist Architecture, Vaudeville, Floyd Cramer and TV sitcoms.
Listen to music samples and view performance calendar on MySpace www.myspace.com/
GARY BROWN
GARY BROWN
Born into a family of musicians Gary Brown's
inevitable musical career began at an early age. By his eleventh
birthday Gary was already performing in jazz bands with his two brothers
and his father, jazz trumpeter Wilbert Brown. In
the past 20 years Gary has toured extensively in the United States,
Europe, Asia , South America and the Middle East where he has recorded
and shared the stage with Flora Purim & Airto, Pharaoh Sanders Jeff Beal, Steve Winwood, Narada Michael Walden, Dianne Reeves, Lou Rawls ,Ernie Watts,John Lucien, Torninho Horta , Eddie Henderson ,Joyce, Alex Acuna, Dori Caymmi, George Duke, Roy Ayres ,Oscar Castro Neves , Lyle Mays, Giovanni
Hidalgo, Mike Shrieve, Paul McCandles, Alphonse Mouzon, Andy Narrell,
Pete and Sheila (Sheile E.) Escovedo, Jose Neto Quartet. Currently dividing his time perfoming with Flora Purim & Airto, Anamandara Trio and the Rebeca Mauleon Group, Gary continues to compose, perform and produce with various artists and is writing music for his first solo project.
No comments:
Post a Comment