Sing and Swing – A Jazz at Lincoln Center Presents Production - Opening Nights

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

SING & SWING – A JAZZ

AT LINCOLN CENTER

PRESENTS PRODUCTION

MARCH 7, 2024

CHANGING THE LIVES THAT CHANGE THE WORLD

Carlos

PLATINUM

GOLD

ERIC

SILVER

MIKEY

BRONZE

Florida State University

Richard McCullough President

Opening Nights Staff

Allison Jordan Development Director

Grace Atkins Program & Operations Manager

Brad Lister Business & Patron Services Manager

Calla MacNamara Education & Engagement Manager

Noelle Enright Marketing & Communications Associate

Amanda Cole Senior Marketing Designer, University Marketing

Rodney H. Johnson Director of Digital Design & UX, University Marketing

Opening Nights Development Council

Eric Friall, Chair

Ron Sachs, Vice Chair

Gus Corbella, Immediate-Past Chair

Susan Stratton, Secretary

Kathleen Daly

Brooke Hallock

Heather Mitchell

Nan Nagy

Tom Nelson

Florida State University Partners

Office of the President

College of Fine Arts

College of Music

English Department

Challenger Learning Center

FAMU-FSU College of Engineering

University Relations

University Communications

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

MARCH

7 Sing and Swing – A Jazz at Lincoln Center Presents Production featuring Bria Skonberg and Benny Benack III Jazz, Swing

9 Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Being Alive with Adam Ben-David on Piano Broadway, Vocalist

18 Jesmyn Ward Author

21 Damn Tall Buildings Bluegrass

APRIL

5 Terence Blanchard featuring The E-Collective and Turtle Island Quartet Jazz

6 Dinosaur World Live! Family, Educational

18 Chain of Parks Art Festival Presenting Artist Dean Mitchell Visual Art

27 Rising Appalachia Rock, Blues

MAY 1 Indigo Girls Rock

Cover photo by Perry Bindelglass

THEATRE TCC! 2023-24 SEASON COME JOURNEY WITH US!

Something Wicked This Way Comes

By Ray Bradbury

When the carnival comes to town, two boys unearth the terrifying and horrible secrets that lurk within Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show and learn the consequences of wishes, as a sinister and evil force is at work in Green Town, Illinois.

October 12-14 at 8 p.m.

October 20 & 21 at 8 p.m.

October 22 at 2 p.m.

The Shape of Things

By Neil Labute

A young student drifts into an ever-changing relationship with an art major while his best friend’s engagement crumbles, unleashing a drama that peels back the skin of two modern-day relationships.

November 16-18 at 8 p.m.

December 1 & 2 at 8 p.m.

December 3 at 2 p.m.

Legally Blonde

Book by Heather Hach

Music and Lyrics By Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin

The ultimate tribute to girl power, Legally Blonde will take you from the UCLA sorority house to the Harvard halls of justice with the timely coming-of-age story of Broadway’s brightest heroine.

April 4-6 at 8 p.m.

April 12 & 13 at 8 p.m.

April 14 at 2 p.m.

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Baker

THURSDAY, MARCH 7

The Moon • 7:30 PM

Sing & Swing – A Jazz at Lincoln Center PRESENTS Production featuring

Bria Skonberg & Benny Benack

For over three decades, Jazz at Lincoln Center has been a leading advocate for jazz, culture, and arts education globally. Under the direction of Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center has brought the art form of jazz from the heart of New York City to over 446 cities in more than 40 countries. The JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER PRESENTS touring initiative provides an affordable opportunity to present great jazz programming, featuring up-and-coming musicians who have been identified as rising stars by JALC. The initiative also allows for expansion of the mission of JALC “to entertain, enrich and expand a global community for jazz through performance, education, and advocacy.”

Continued on pg. 17

III

“Enlightens as it entertains and grabs new listeners in the process.”

The New York Times

Photos by Shervin Lainez and Matt

Sing & Swing

Continued from pg. 15

After the success of JALC Presents Songs We Love tour, this new and highly anticipated touring project from Jazz at Lincoln Center Presents celebrates the Great American Songbook in all of its playful—and sophisticated glory—brought to life by two of this generation’s brightest stars.

Each armed with prodigious trumpet talent and vocal charm, Bria and Benny will re-live and re-imagine some of the classic partners in jazz and popular song, including Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland and Bing Crosby and Dean Martin and Peggy Lee. Featuring songs by Gershwin, Ellington, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and many more and joined by a who’s who of New York all-stars, this is an “unforgettable” evening of singin’ and swingin’ with Bria and Benny.

Approximately 150,000 students participate in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s education programs each year. Let Freedom Swing, from the renowned education department at JALC is being offered in conjunction with the tour. jazz.org/let-freedom-swing.

PERSONNEL

BRIA SKONBERG: Trumpet, Vocals, CoMusic Director

BENNY BENACK III: Trumpet, Vocals, CoMusic Director

JOCELYN GOULD: Guitar

MATHIS PICARD: piano Charles Goold: Drums

MARK LEWANDOWSKI: Bass

REPERTOIRE (subject to change)

Let Me Off Uptown (Earl Bostic)

Cheek To Cheek (Irving Berlin)

Our Love is Here To Stay (George Gershwin) And Then She Stopped (Dizzy Gillespie)

Change Partners (Irving Berlin)

I Wish I Hadn’t Forgotten (Bria Skonberg)

Mood Indigo (Duke Ellington)

Stompin’ At the Savoy (Duke Ellington)

Medley: I Can’t Get Started (Vernon Duke & Ira Gershwin) / Embraceable You (George Gershwin) The Nearness of You (Hoagy Carmichael)

Third Time’s the Charm (Benny Benack III)

Banana Split For My Baby (Louis Prima)

Comes Love (Sam Stept)

In a Mellow Tone (Duke Ellington)

BRIA SKONBERG (TRUMPET, VOCALS, CO-MUSIC DIRECTOR)

Born in British Columbia, Canada and now residing in New York City, Bria has been a featured artist at hundreds of festivals and stages the world over, including New Orleans Jazz & Heritage, Kobe, Monterey, Breda, Newport and Montreal Jazz Festivals. Described as “one of the most versatile and imposing musicians of her generation” (Wall Street Journal), she has performed with Jon Batiste, Wycliffe Gordon, Stephane Wrembel, Steven Bernstein, U2 & Sun Ra Arkestra, The American Pops and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras, The Blacksmiths “We Insist” Band, and once sang the “Star Spangled Banner” at Madison Square Garden for a NY Rangers game. The “shining hope of hot jazz” (NY Times) has been at the forefront of a revival of classic American music as both a performer and educator, programming concerts and workshops for students of all ages. A 3x Juno Award Nominee, Bria’s debut LP on Sony Masterworks won for Best Jazz Vocal Album and made the Top 5 on Billboard jazz charts. Bria has recorded on over 25 albums and recently released her sixth studio solo album Nothing Never Happens consisting of mostly original compositions; Her music has garnered over 13 million streams online and over 85,000 social media followers. A 6x Downbeat Rising Star, further accolades

PERINATAL

Dr. Adanna Amanze

Jonathan Brantley

Janet R. Thornton

include the Jazz at Lincoln Center Swing Award, Best Vocal and Best Trumpet from Hot House Jazz Magazine and Outstanding Jazz Artist at the Bistro Awards. She tours constantly bringing her own signature sounds of fiery trumpet playing, smoky vocals and storytelling together with adventurous concoctions of classic and new.

The daughter of teachers, Bria is passionate about education and the learning experience. She was introduced to jazz by a spirited public school band program and local festival in her hometown of Chilliwack. She earned her degree in Jazz Trumpet Performance from Capilano University in Vancouver where she studied with Kevin Elaschuk, Alan Matheson, and independently with Australian cornetist Simon Stribling, all while balancing a full road schedule and managing two bands. Following graduation, she performed for four years with Canada’s King of Swing, Dal Richards, and was taken under the wing of music producer Paul Airey who cultivated her love of song writing. She traveled extensively, performing in China, Japan and throughout Europe as a featured artist in traditional jazz circles. Seeking new challenges, Bria moved to New York in 2010 and studied privately with renowned trumpeter Warren Vache for two years. She now appears often as a guest faculty member and clinician, giving masterclasses and private instruction as well as directing and performing with student ensembles at all levels. Bria is a Co-Founder/ Director of the NY Hot Jazz Camp and has served as faculty at the Teagarden Jazz Camp (Sacramento Jazz Education Foundation), Centrum Jazz Camp, Geri Allen Jazz Camp and Junior Jazz Academy (JALC). She has performed hundreds of educational concerts and workshops for students of all ages, has led an ensemble for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s “Jazz for Young People” outreach program and is an Educational Advisor to the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens. She has been an Artist-in-Residence collaborating with Syracuse University,

Ball State University, UNC Greensboro, Jazz Arts Group in Columbus, Cape May Regional Schools, and more. In 2018 Lincoln Center sought out her leadership for a tribute to the first integrated all female big band, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, which launched her acclaimed group Sisterhood of Swing. In 2019 she was a featured member of Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour for 26 dates alongside Cecile McLorin Salvant, Christian Sands, Melissa Aldana and Jamison Ross. She is an active member of the Women in Jazz Organization, Jazz Education Network, a Bach Conn-Selmer artist, a board member of the International Trumpet Guild, and a new mother.

BENNY BENACK III (TRUMPET, VOCALS, CO-MUSIC DIRECTOR)

By age 31, Emmy-nominated trumpeter and singer Benny Benack III has proven to be that rarest of talents: not only a fiery trumpet player with a stirring command of the postbop trumpet vernacular in the vein of Kenny Dorham and Freddie Hubbard, but also a singer with a sly, mature, naturally expressive delivery in the post-Sinatra mold, performing standards and his own astute songs with a thrilling sense of showmanship. This dualthreat ability was recognized by the 2022 Downbeat Critics Poll where he appeared as not only the #2 Rising Star Male Vocalist, but a top Rising Star Trumpeter as well. His superb intonation and bracing virtuosity enable him to handle astounding feats of originally composed vocalese (complex solos with written lyrics). On top of it all, he’s a highly capable pianist as well.

Benny has performed internationally as an Emcee/Host for the YouTube sensation Postmodern Jukebox and achieved his own viral success amassing millions of views for his crooning alongside the GRAMMY®-award winning “8-Bit Big Band.” In early 2020 he released A Lot of Livin’ to Do, the follow-up to his well-received 2017 debut One of a Kind. This sophomore effort, richly varied in mood

and brimming with bop inflection, features bassist extraordinaire and jazz ambassador Christian McBride (whose Grammy-awardwinning Big Band frequently calls upon Benny in the trumpet section) and drummer/ producer Ulysses Owens, Jr., as well as the radiant Takeshi Ohbayashi on piano and Rhodes. His vocalese duet on “Social Call” from this album alongside fellow young star vocalist Veronica Swift became an instant smash hit single, being transcribed and learned by jazz vocalists around the world.

Alongside his global touring as a straightahead/contemporary bandleader, Benny has appeared as a trumpet soloist in more commercial circles alongside Josh Groban, Ben Folds, fashion icon Isaac Mizrahi, Ann Hampton Callaway and more. He’s been featured at Birdland, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Mezzrow, Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle and other leading New York venues and has also been a special guest with the Pittsburgh Symphony Pops Orchestra, the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, and the Minsk Philharmonic Orchestra. He made his television debut in NBC’s short-lived, SNL-inspired variety show Maya & Marty playing in the in-studio band led by acclaimed bassist and Broadway arranger Charlie Rosen. His global recognition has been bolstered by recent live-streaming concerts at Smalls Jazz Club, where he maintains a weekly residency, as well as frequent appearances on fellow young lion Emmet Cohen’s Emmet’s Place weekly show.

Third in a generational line of Pittsburgh jazz notables, Benny follows in the footsteps of his trumpeter/bandleader grandfather, Benny Benack, Sr. (1921-86), and his father Benny Benack, Jr., a saxophonist/ clarinetist who gave the young Benny his first professional experience. Benny, Sr. hailed from a Pittsburgh lineage that also produced Roy Eldridge, Earl Hines, Art Blakey, Billy Strayhorn and so many more. He recorded the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 1960 theme song “Beat ’Em Bucs” and toured with Tommy Dorsey

and Raymond Scott, among others. Benny III returns to Pittsburgh often to perform, saluting his family forebears and the jazz heritage as a whole, nonetheless staking his bold and highly individual artistic claim. He is an endorsing artist with Torpedo Bags cases, CarolBrass flugelhorns, as well as various menswear fashion lines including X-Suit, Alain Dupetit, Proper Cloth & Vittone.

MATHIS PICARD (PIANO)

Mathis Picard is a French-Malagasy pianist, composer, producer, and bandleader who currently resides in New York City. Rooted in the tradition of live acoustic performance while incorporating the latest technology, Mathis creates his own musical style influenced by his multi-national background. Mathis, who began playing the piano at the age of 3, was immediately passionate about music’s healing quality and now focuses on sharing that passion globally. Mathis currently leads a solo project, a trio project and his orchestra, The Sound Orchestra. Mathis has had the honor of working with artists such as Ron Carter, Lillias White, Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride, Lee Ritenour, Daniel J. Watts, DJ Kindness, Braxton Cook, Veronica Swift, Etienne Charles, and more.

JOCELYN GOULD (GUITAR)

2021 JUNO Award winner Jocelyn Gould has been called “a leader in the next generation of great mainstream jazz guitarists” by Howard Paul, CEO of Benedetto Guitars. Her joyful energy has captivated audiences around the world and her passion for music is as infectious as her unique ability to connect with audiences. Jocelyn has absorbed the influences of the jazz guitar greats and has woven them into an exciting personal sound, citing Wes Montgomery, Grant Green, Joe Pass and Kenny Burrell as primary influences on the guitar. Jocelyn has performed and recorded internationally as a leader and with Grammy-nominated vocalist Freddy Cole, JUNO-winning trumpeter and vocalist Bria

Herb & Mary Jervis

Congratulations Opening Nights for fostering the Arts in Tallahassee for the past 26 years.

The students, faculty, and staff of FSU and the citizens of north Florida have been enriched by your efforts.

We eagerly await what the next 26 years will bring.

Skonberg, Downbeat Rising Star trombonist

Michael Dease, Etienne Charles, Jon Gordon, Rodney Whitaker, Randy Napoleon and Diego Rivera. Jocelyn’s debut album, Elegant Traveler, won the 2021 JUNO Award for Jazz Album of the Year: Solo. Golden Hour, Jocelyn’s sophomore album, showcases her virtuosic guitar playing and dynamic compositions, and introduces her voice. It has received international critical acclaim and radio play including extensive play on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. Golden Hour reached #1 on Canadian and #9 on North American college radio jazz charts. Jocelyn’s Golden Hour Tour took place in June 2022 with performances at 11 Canadian Jazz Festivals. Jocelyn toured extensively in 2022, including a 6-week American tour featuring the music of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. She will begin 2023 with a twomonth North American tour from Florida to Alaska as one of four guitarists featured in a concert of solo guitar. Jocelyn is a Professor and Head of Guitar Department at Humber College in Toronto. She is a Benedettoendorsed artist.

MARK LEWANDOWSKI (BASS)

Award-winning New York City-based bassist and composer Mark Lewandowski originally hails from Nottingham, England. A graduate of the Guildhall School of Music in London and New York’s prestigious Juilliard School, he has earned the respect of his peers and elders alike as a creative, supportive and individual sideman and bandleader. Lewandowski has also performed frequently as a member of Pulitzer Prize winning trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ quartet including performances in such esteemed venues and festivals as London’s Barbican Hall, Cheltenham Festival and The Institute of Peace, Washington D.C. Mark’s work as a bandleader include two releases, Waller (2017), an exploration of the music of one of the early innovators of the jazz genre, Thomas ‘Fats’ Waller, and Under One Sky (2021), comprised of exclusively original material. Lewandowski’s unique and personal

compositional style is at the foreground of this album, which was described by the UK’s renowned critic, John Fordham (The Guardian, Jazzwise Magazine) as ‘a sublime confection on compositional class and individual improv skill.”

CHARLES GOOLD (DRUMS)

Charles Goold is one of New York City’s hardest-working jazz drummers of his generation. Born to an American jazz saxophonist father and a Haitian immigrant mother, Goold has used these influences to shape his voice and message in the jazz community. After a short-lived pursuance in collegiate track and field at Temple University, studying communications, Goold transferred to the Berklee College of Music where, unfortunately, after one semester, he had to withdraw for financial reasons. Deciding not to give up on his dream of becoming a jazz musician, Goold moved back to New York City at the age of 19 and began playing in any musical situation possible. Finding success after years of hard work through teaching and performing, Goold auditioned and received a full scholarship, subsequently graduating from the Juilliard School along with being awarded the JCAF grant. Goold has performed with a wide variety of acts across varying styles from Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, John Hendricks and Johnny O’neal to rap icons Cam’ron, Talib Kweli, and Ghostface Killah. Goold uses these experiences to propel the sound of his group Nubopcity, a blend of hard bop, hip hop, funk and Afro-Caribbean influences.

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