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The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, our city’s annual salute to the eponymous late saxophonist, will return in its 30th year for a three-day celebration of live jazz in the neighborhoods near where Parker worked and lived, including Harlem’s historic Marcus Garvey Park and Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. Additional jazz events will also be held across the city to celebrate the festival, more details to be announced.
Running August 26 to August 28, the 30th anniversary will bring together storied, veteran players and the next generation of jazz artists including jazz singer and her big band Jazzmeia and Her Noble Force, Brooklyn-born tap dancer Calvin Booker On Tap & Friends; American trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard featuring the E-Collective and Turtle Island Quartet, NEA Jazz Master bassist Buster Williams featuring his quartet Something More and others; and avant-garde jazz legendary saxophonist Archie Shepp with genre-bending pianist Jason Moran, multi-award winning saxophonist Melissa Aldana, world renowned trumpeter Bria Skonberg, and leader in the field and mentor guitarist Pasquale Grasso with his nostalgic sound.
JAZZMEIA HORN AND HER NOBLE FORCE / CALVIN BOOKER ON TAP & FRIENDS
In Association with Jazzmobile
Friday, August 26, 2022, 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Marcus Garvey Park, 18 Mt. Morris Park West, New York, NY 10027
A Grammy-nominated American jazz singer in the vein of Betty Carter and Sarah Vaughan, Jazzmeia Horn is one of the boldest voices in modern jazz. Her new album Dear Love is her third, but her first with Her Noble Force, a 15-piece ensemble that expands her sound and offers new challenges for her daring arrangements. She’s joined by Calvin Booker, a multi-disciplinary dancer and DJ born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn. An original member of the Broadway production of FELA!, he brings his unique style of tap-dancing to the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival for the first time.
TERENCE BLANCHARD FEATURING THE E-COLLECTIVE AND TURTLE ISLAND QUARTET / BUSTER WILLIAMS & SOMETHING MORE / NIKARA PRESENTS BLACK WALL STREET / VUYO SOTASHE
Saturday, August 27, 2022, 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Marcus Garvey Park, 18 Mt. Morris Park West, New York, NY 10027
Terence Blanchard isn’t your average jazz musician—the world-renowned trumpet player and festival alum is also a prolific Academy Award-nominated film composer and an exciting new voice in the opera world. For his latest album Absence, his electro-acoustic quintet E-Collective joins forces with violinist David Balakrishnan’s Turtle Island Quartet. Their Charlie Parker Jazz Festival performance will feature works from the Wayne Shorter tribute album, which features five compositions from the legendary saxophonist. They’re joined by the jazz bassist Buster Williams, who has played with a Who’s Who of jazz greats from Mary Lou Williams to Herbie Hancock, and is the subject of the JazzTimes Documentary Film of the Year, Bass to Infinity. Buster will play with his all-star quartet Something More. Vibraphonist Nikara Warren will perform her album Black Wall Street, which melds hip-hop, jazz, neo-soul, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms into an abstract sound-collage that “take pieces of black music and give it a platform to show black musical beauty.” Vuyo Sotashe, a South African jazz vocalist, is making his mark in the New York jazz scene.
This engagement of Buster Williams & Something More is made possible through the ArtsCONNECT program of Mid Atlantic Arts with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
ARCHIE SHEPP AND JASON MORAN FEATURING CECILE MCLORIN SALVANT / MELISSA ALDANA / BRIA SKONBERG / PASQUALE GRASSO
Sunday, August 28, 2022, 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Tompkins Square Park, E 10th St, New York, NY 10009
Archie Shepp and Jason Moran are two avant-garde jazz musicians from different generations that nonetheless share a penchant for pushing the envelope. Shepp is a veteran saxophonist who has been called both a musical firebrand and a cultural radical, standing out even amongst myriad talents in the free jazz generation. Moran is pianist 37 years Shepp’s junior, with an equal respect for tradition and trailblazing. Their 2021 collaboration Let My People Go is a warm and intimate collection of duets recorded live in 2017-2018, a pristine portrait of two masters at work. They’ll be joined by special guest Cécile McLorin Salvant, a once-in-a-generation vocalist known for transformative performances of well-traveled standards. The bill also includes the Grammy-nominated Chilean tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, who plays with a ferocious energy and deft musicality; Bria Skonberg, a Canadian jazz trumpeter and bandleader once described by The Wall Street Journal as one of the most versatile and imposing musicians of her generation; and Pasquale Grasso, a master be-bop guitarist known for elevating the instrument through his pianistic approach, showing the influence of Bud Powell and Art Tatum in a revolutionary hard-swinging way.
