MAR 23 & 24 Houston Person & Emmet Cohen

Mon & Tue MAR 23 & 24 7:30 pm Page 12

Pavilion

Houston Person & Emmet Cohen

Just Friends Jazz Series

Sponsored by

We are pleased to partner with the Lied Center of Kansas to present the Just Friends Jazz Series.

There will be no intermission during this event.

HOUSTON PERSON, American jazz tenor saxophonist and record producer, knows the music business inside out. As eclectic as he is talented, Person has recorded everything from disco and gospel to pop and R&B, in addition to his trademark— soulful, hard bop. After years as producer and house tenor for HighNote Records and touring with the late Etta Jones, Person is now known as a master of popular songs played in a relaxed, highly accessible style reminiscent of the great Ben Webster. Person grew up in Florence, South Carolina, first playing piano before switching to the tenor sax at age 17. He went on to study music at South Carolina State College, where he’s included in the school’s Hall of Fame, and later pursued advanced studies at Hartt College of Music in Hartford, Connecticut. As a member of the U.S. Air Force Band stationed in Germany, he played with Eddie Harris, Cedar Walton and Don Ellis, later working as a sideman for organist Johnny “Hammond” Smith in the mid 1960s. Person built his reputation as a leader with a series of soulful recordings for Prestige in the 60s. However, for a large part of his career, he was best-known for his legendary partnership with the great vocalist Etta Jones, which lasted over 30 years until her death in 2001. Houston’s appearances as sideman are legion and include recordings with Etta Jones, Lena Horne, Lou Rawls, Dakota Staton, Horace Silver, Charles Earland, Joey DeFrancesco and many others. As a record producer, he has worked with many artists, including Etta Jones, Freddy Cole, Charles Brown, David ‘Fathead’ Newman, Dakota Staton and Ernie Andrews.

EMMET COHEN, multifaceted American jazz pianist and composer, is in the vanguard of his generation’s advancement of music and the related arts. A recognized prodigy, Cohen began Suzuki method piano instruction at age three, and his playing quickly became a mature melding of musicality, technique and concept. Cohen notes that performing jazz is “about communicating the deepest levels of humanity and individuality; it’s essentially about connections, both among musicians and with audiences.” He leads the Emmet Cohen Trio, is a vibrant solo performer and is in constant demand as a sideman. Possessing a fluid technique, an innovative tonal palette and an extensive repertoire, Cohen plays with the command and passion of an artist fully devoted to his medium. Cohen is committed to the intergenerational transfer of the knowledge, history and traditions of jazz. The Masters Legacy Series, for which he is the producer and pianist, is a celebratory set of recordings and interviews honoring legendary jazz musicians, providing musicians of multiple generations the means to share the unwritten folklore that is America’s unique artistic idiom. Cohen has observed that jazz “is enriched immeasurably by connecting and studying with jazz masters, forging backward to the very creation of the art form.”