Program Notes: Ella Fitzgerald Tribute

PROGRAM (Selections to be announced from the stage.)

ELLA FITZGERALD

Saturday, November 25 | 8PM

THE FIRST LADY OF SONG: AN ELLA FITZGERALD TRIBUTE A Jazz @ the Jacobs Concert vocalist Mary Stallings vocalist Sara Gazarek vocalist Jazzmeia Horn trumpet Gilbert Castellanos tenor saxophone Rickey Woodard bass Darek "Oles" Oleszkiewicz percussion Tim Pleasant piano Mike Wofford The Jazz @ The Jacobs Series is sponsored by Doctor Bob and Mao Shillman.

Performance at the Jacobs Music Center's Copley Symphony Hall

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PERFORM A NCES MAGAZINE

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PROGRAM NOTES | THE FIRST LADY OF SONG: AN ELLA FITZGERALD TRIBUTE – NOVEMBER 25

ABOUT THE ARTISTS “On this special and poignant evening, the singer delivered a wonderful gift, making those present feel so much through her artistry. We can only hope that a new holiday tradition has begun in Prague: Jazz at the National Theater with greats like MARY STALLINGS.” These were the words of a Czech music critic reporting on Mary Stallings’ appearance at the Prague National Theater on December 23, 2011 – the first time any jazz artist has appeared at the iconic home of classical, opera and ballet since it was constructed in 1881! That the people of Prague would select Mary Stallings to bring jazz to their hallowed hall speaks volumes on Ms. Stallings’ voice and talent.

Mary Stallings is a classic example of how it takes time, musical seasoning and living a full life to mature as a vocalist and to address a lyric properly.

While youthful instrumentalists may have something to say, Stallings brings a lifetime of emotional intelligence that enables her to truly inhabit a lyric.

Born and raised in San Francisco, the middle child of 11 siblings, Ms. Stallings started performing professionally before the age of ten with her mother and two older sisters in a family gospel group. She got her first real taste of jazz at home, sitting in at rehearsals with her uncle, tenor saxophonist and bandleader Orlando Stallings. Ms. Stallings’ career got off to an early start in the late '50s, and her supple voice landed her in rarified air: performing with such luminaries as Ben Webster, Cal Tjader, Earl Hines, Red Mitchell, Teddy Edwards and the Montgomery brothers (Wes, Monk and Buddy) in Bay Area night clubs such as Hungry i, The Purple Onion and El Matador.

Perhaps Ms. Stallings’ best-known recording was the 1961 album Cal Tjader Plays, Mary Stallings Sings on Fantasy Records, which brought engagements in Tokyo, Manila and Bangkok along with work up and down the West Coast.

She spent a year in the late 1960s performing in Nevada with Billy Eckstine, and she toured South America with Gillespie's band in 1965 and 1966. She has shared the bill with such luminaries as Joe Williams, Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald. From 1969-72 she enjoyed a successful three-year residency in the Count Basie Orchestra. After touring with the Basie orchestra, she devoted her time to raising her only child, R&B singer Adriana Evans.

Ms. Stallings returned to full-time singing in the early 1980s and returned to the recording studio with the 1994 release of I Waited for You on Concord Jazz with pianist Gene Harris. The album Spectrum followed in 1995 with pianist Gerald Wiggins and trumpeter Harry "Sweets" Edison, while her next album featured Monty Alexander as the pianist (Manhattan Moods, 1997). 2005’s Remember Love was produced by Geri Allen, who played piano and organ and also provided all of the arrangements.

Mary Stallings has played at the legendary Monterey Jazz Festivals in 1965, 1995 and 2003, the San Francisco Jazz Festival 2001, 2004 and 2006, a 2005 appearance with Clark Terry at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York, the 2007 Savannah Music Festival and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s, “The Birth of Cool.” Most recently she has appeared with pianist Bill Charlap at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, with Eric Reed at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in New York City and with Kenny Barron at the San Francisco Jazz Center. Ms. Stallings also embarked on a European tour in the summer of 2014.

In 2010 Mary Stallings signed an exclusive agreement with New York-based HighNote Records, and her first recording, Dream (HCD 7212) was released in October of that year. 2012’s Don’t Look Back, (HCD 7224) had Christopher Loudon proclaiming in JazzTimes magazine, “Stallings and Eric Reed…achieving the same sort of rare, supreme simpatico as Ella and Louis, or Sinatra and Riddle.” 2013 saw the release of But Beautiful (HCD 7250), Ms. Stallings’ third outing for HighNote which again features pianist Eric Reed.

(Bio courtesy of HighNote Records) n S A N D I EG O SYMPHONY ORC HESTRA 2017-18 SE ASON N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 7

Championed by some of music’s most celebrated figures, SARA GAZAREK has emerged as a strikingly original artist with limitless potential.

With four highly acclaimed CD’s under her belt at the young age of 34, Sara has been hailed by the LA Times as “the next important jazz singer” and “impeccable” by the Winnipeg Free Press. Ms. Gazarek continues to seamlessly combine the intimacy of singer/songwriter stylings with the musical and improvisational elements of jazz. Blessed with a gorgeous, translucent voice, excellent pitch and supple sense of time, Ms. Gazarek is steeped in the jazz tradition, but is not afraid to embrace the music that moves her generation. Her newest album, Dream in the Blue (2016, Steel Bird Music) was released to rave reviews, as Dan Bilawsky of All About Jazz has noted: “…one of the best modern day piano-voice matches in action.”

Amongst a community teeming with startlingly gifted young singers, Ms. Gazarek stands out as a particularly extravagant artist. She won the prestigious Downbeat Student Music Award for Outstanding Collegiate Jazz Vocalist, a distinction that directly led to a spot on the Concord Jazz Festival Tour (with Oleta Adams, Karrin Allyson and Diane Schuur). Her first two albums introduced her singular sound and vision, steeped in the tradition of jazz but deeply informed by contemporary songwriters and performers. With Blossom & Bee, her 2012 debut release on the respected indie label Palmetto, Gazarek turned over an exciting, glistening new leaf. Working closely with the brilliant pianist/organist Larry Goldings, who produced the album, Gazarek and her band crafted a program of emotionally expansive standards, inspired contemporary fare, and uncommonly memorable originals, all delivered with her insouciant sense of artistry.

Sara Gazarek is currently on faculty at the University of Southern California, where when she was a student she was the only jazz studies vocal major in her class. She leads the award-winning vocal jazz ensemble at USC and teaches privately. n

Winner of the 2015 Thelonius Monk International Vocal Jazz Competition and 2013 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, JAZZMEIA HORN has a name that speaks for itself capturing her very essence. Hailing from Dallas, Texas, Ms. Horn has already earned a reputation in New York as a rising star. With the ambition to pursue a solo career, Ms. Horn graced the New York scene in 2009 and earned her degree at The New School for Jazz and contemporary Music. It wasn’t much later when she began to perform as a sideman with musicians Winard Harper, Junior Mance, Billy Harper, Lincoln Center Alumni Vincent Gardner, Delfeayo Marsalis, Mike LeDonne, Peter Bernstein, Johnny O’Neal, Vincent Herring, Kirk Lightsey, Frank Wess and Ellis Marsalis.

Ms. Horn then began to appear in world famous jazz festivals and legendary jazz clubs such as Lenox Lounge, Bill’s Place, The Apollo, The Blue Note, Dizzy’s Jazz Club Coca¬Cola, Minton’s, The Jazz Standard, Smalls Jazz Club, Zinc, Jazz Gallery, Birdland and The New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Her accolades include Downbeat Student Music Award Recipient in 2008 and 2009, and Best Vocal Jazz Soloist Winner in 2010, the 2013 Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Program at the Kennedy Center¬, the Rising Star Award for the 2012 Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Jazz Competition, Finalist for Mid-¬Atlantic Jazz Vocal Competition 2014 and the 2015 ¬16th Annual Central Brooklyn Jazz Consortium’s Young Lioness Award.

Currently, Jazzmeia Horn is a teaching artist in The NJPAC Well’s Fargo¬Jazz for Teens Program and Jazz In The Schools Program in Newark, New Jersey.

She appears in various clubs on the jazz scene nationally and internationally, leading her dynamic group “The Artistry of Jazz Horn.” Ms. Horn humbles her life and gift of music before God and says, “I am thankful for the opportunity to play music professionally and have a deep desire to uplift the souls of others in need through my artistry in the spirit of music.” n P ERFO RM AN C ES MAG A Z I N E

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