"The Harvard All-Stars" perform at "40 Years of Jazz at Harvard: A Celebration," 2011. l-r: Cecil McBee, Roy Haynes, Brian Lynch, Benny Golson. Photo by Eric Antoniou. (click on photo for larger version and an additional photo.)
Press release
Jazz performance and scholarship at Harvard were the focus of “40 Years of Jazz at Harvard: A Celebration,” April 7-10, 2011, sponsored by the Office for the Arts at Harvard (OFA) and the Department of Music. Events included an exhibition of Harvard’s new jazz archive, a public conversation, clinics with Brian Lynch and Don Braden, radio interviews, a Jazz Band alumni reunion, and a concert featuring the “Harvard All-Stars”: drummer Roy Haynes, saxophonist Benny Golson, bassist Cecil McBee, pianist Eddie Palmieri, and trumpeter Brian Lynch. Saxophonist Don Braden (Harvard ’85) also appeared.
Jazz programs at Harvard were initiated by Tom Everett in 1971 when he was appointed Director of Bands. With the appointment in 2001 of Ingrid Monson to the Department of Music as Quincy Jones Professor of African American Music, jazz scholarship at Harvard became fully recognized. Over the years a Jazz Master in Residence series, sponsored by the Jazz Bands and OFA, has featured such luminaries as Hank Jones, Jim Hall, J.J. Johnson, Benny Carter, Max Roach, and Randy Weston. New works have been commissioned from Steve Lacy, Andrew Hill, Steve Swallow and Anthony Braxton, among others.
On April 7 the celebration began with the opening of an exhibition drawn from The Tom Everett Collection of Jazz Manuscripts, a new archive at the Loeb Music Library. The collection, donated by the Harvard Jazz Bands and the OFA, features works commissioned from composers such as Benny Carter, Buck Clayton, J.J. Johnson, and Steve Lacy and includes materials from visiting artists including Clark Terry, Gerry Mulligan, Benny Golson and Jane Ira Bloom.
“We are thrilled to have this collection,” says Sarah Adams of the Library. “It documents the history of jazz performance at Harvard and will be a valuable resource for jazz scholars.” The exhibit is on view at the Richard F. French Gallery, Music Building. Exhibition hours, free and open to the public, are Mondays-Thursdays, 9 am-10 pm; Fridays, 9 am-5 pm; Saturdays, 1-5 pm; and Sundays, 1-10 pm; through September 30, 2011. Information: 617.496.3359.
A public conversation on April 8 with Tom Everett, moderated by Professor Monson, was presented by the OFA’s Learning From Performers program. The discussion of the development of jazz at Harvard spoke as well to the place of jazz generally in the academy. Guest artists Benny Golson, Cecil McBee, Eddie Palmieri, Brian Lynch and Don Braden ’85 observed from the audience.
Boston radio waves were filled with news, interviews and commentary about the celebration. Golson, Haynes, and Lynch were welcomed to local National Public Radio affiliate WGBH-FM by Steve Schwartz for his well-known show; excerpts can be heard at http://www.wgbh.org/programs/-285/episodes/-27199. Eddie Palmieri appeared on Jose Maso’s long-running WBUR “¡Con Salsa” and Don Braden ’85 was interviewed on Harvard’s own WHRB-FM for “The Jazz Spectrum.”
Undergraduates in the two bands had a private lunch with guest artists on April 9. That night, a sold-out concert in historic Sanders Theatre featured a program designed by Tom Everett to showcase his key approaches over the years—the literature of Basie, Ellington, and Mingus, tributes to past Jazz Masters in Residence, and works commissioned by the Bands and OFA. The Sunday Band, directed by Mark Olson, Assistant Director of Bands, began the evening with Basie’s “Flight of the Foo Birds,” followed by “Peedlum” by Hank Jones (which Jones had performed at Harvard as the 2005 Jazz Master). Tom Everett’s Monday Band appeared next with Strayhorn’s classic “A Train, ” Mingus’ “Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife” and a rendition of Benny Carter’s “Myra” (commissioned by the OFA in 2002). Don Braden and students performed his “Landing Zone” (his first arrangement for big band, commissioned in 1997 by the OFA for the Jazz Bands’ 25th Anniversary). “Flying Home” closed the first half and featured Braden’s rendition of the solo made famous by Illinois Jacquet (Braden’s mentor in the 1980s while a visiting artist at Harvard).
The second half opened with a video montage of past visiting artists, including Carla Bley (1986), Randy Weston (1999) and Jim Hall (2004). Eddie Palmieri then performed his “Elena, Elena” (also presented at Harvard in 2007 when Palmieri was that year’s Jazz Master) with Brian Lynch and the Monday Band. The “Harvard All-Stars” convened on stage for Golson’s “Whisper Not” and “Stablemates” (both performed at Harvard when Golson was 2008 Jazz Master) and Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie’s “Anthropology,” with Don Braden joining in on flute.
(More Harvard jazz history)
