Annual John Coltrane International Jazz & Blues Festival Features Dynamic Line-Up
High Point, NC – The Triad’s annual jazz festival returns with a dynamic line-up. Critically acclaimed, jazz singer-songwriter Gregory Porter will bring his mesmerizing vocal prowess to High Point, NC when he headlines the first day of the 8th Annual John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2018. On Sunday, Sept. 2nd, jazz vocalist and five-time Grammy Award winner Dianne Reeves, considered the pre-eminent jazz vocalist in the world as a result of her vocals and her unique jazz and R&B stylings, will headline.
Completing the Saturday night line-up are jazz guitar powerhouse Lee Ritenhour, vocalist Jazzmeia Horn, New Orleans-based Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and the Triad’s best jazz musicians, 2018 Coltrane Jazz All Stars. A tradition at the John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival each year, the Coltrane Youth Jazz Workshop, will open again this year.
Pete Escovedo returns, leading his orchestra and hosting his famous daughter, Sheila E as special guest. They will perform on Sunday, Sept. 2nd. The elder Escovedo performed with the Latin Jazz All Stars at the 2016 Coltrane Jazzfest. The other acts rounding out the second night are saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, guitarist Jackie Venson and vocalist Michelle Coltrane.
Tickets are available at CLICK HERE
Saturday September 1, 2018 Performers
Gregory Porter
One of the most successful jazz artists of his generation, Gregory Porter first appeared as a featured performer for the 2016 Coltrane Jazzfest. To this day, his performance is talked about by people in the area who were in attendance. He has won a second Grammy Award since then and has another chart topping album that’s sure to be
among next year’s nominees with Nat “King” Cole & Me, released October 2017.
Lee Ritenhour
Lee Ritenour, a jazz guitar powerhouse, has maintained a delicate balance since the beginning of his career between the individual creative vision and the group dynamic as a founding member of Fourplay, the most successful band in contemporary jazz. Growing up in L.A. in the 60’s, he received a rich cross section of exposure to jazz, rock and Brazilian music. From one of his first sessions at 16 with the Mamas and Papas (who dubbed him “Captain Fingers” for his incredible dexterity while still a teen) to accompanying Lena Horne and Tony Bennett at 18, his forty year eclectic and storied career is highlighted by a Grammy Award win for his 1986 collaboration with Dave Grusin, Harlequin. Ritenour has recorded more than 40 albums that have yielded 35 chart songs.
Jazzmeia Horn
Jazzmeia Horn is arguably the strongest vocalist to emerge on the jazz scene in some time. Horn’s 2017 debut release A Social Call was nominated
for a GRAMMY Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album. She gave an electrifying live performance of Art Blakey’s “Moanin” at the 2018 GRAMMY Award Premiere Ceremony, a pre-telecast event shown prior to the live award program, this past January. The CD spent almost eight weeks at the number one spot on the JazzWeek chart.
Dirty Dozen Brass Band
Celebrating 40 years since their founding in 1977, New Orleans-based Dirty Dozen Brass Band will give a featured performance on opening day of the 8th Annual John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival. The band with a world-wide reputation, took the traditional foundation of brass band music and incorporated it into a blend of genres including Bebop Jazz, Funk and R&B/Soul.
Forty years later, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band is a world famous music machine whose name is synonymous with genre-bending romps and high-octane performances. Current members include Roger Lewis, baritone sax and vocals; Kevin Harris, tenor sax and vocals; Gregory Davis, trumpet and vocals; Kirk Joseph, sousaphone; TJ Norris, trombone; Tekeshi Shimmura, guitar; and Julian Addison, drums and vocals.
The 2018 Coltrane Jazz All Stars
The Coltrane All Star Band is one of the signature features of the John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival. Each year, jazz musicians who call the Triad home come together to rehearse and perform Coltrane’s music and the music made popular by some of his contemporaries.
Mondre Moffett, director of the Jazz ensemble and Black Music Studies at North Carolina A&T State University, will lead the 2018 North Carolina Coltrane All-Star Band for the 8th Annual John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival.
This year The Coltrane All Star Band consists of:
Dan Hitchcock, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist with a deep love for swinging jazz music, is a recent graduate of the UNC-Greensboro and currently lives in the city.
Chris Thompson, vibraphonist and percussionist, uses his talents as a motivational performer who travels to churches and schools, to put on community programs, sharing his testimony and inspiring others to maximize their potential.
Lydia Salett Dudley sings with emotion, whether she’s belting a gospel tune or singing a jazz composition. Her musical journey began in the local Baptist church in Cleveland, OH. Her love for music led her to pursue a graduate degree in jazz composition from North Carolina Central University.
William “MoBetta” Ledbetter is one of the most in-demand bassist on the Piedmont Triad jazz scene. His work first emerged while enrolled in the North Carolina A&T State University Jazz Ensemble under Moffett’s direction and tutelage. Currently, he is a student of Steve Haines and attends the famous UNCG Miles Davis School of Music Jazz program.
Vocalist Knolan Johnson is Philadelphia, PA born and Fayetteville, NC raised, where she received her musical training. She graduated from North Carolina A&T State University last year where she was a featured performer with the A&T Jazz Ensemble under Moffett’s direction.
Drummer/percussionist Chrishawn Darby graduated from the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities in 2013. Darby received his undergraduate degree in Music Performance with a focus of jazz studies from the UNC-Greensboro.
Coltrane Youth Jazz Workshop
It’s a tradition! The group that opens the John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival each year is the Coltrane Youth Jazz Workshop. They will perform on Saturday, Sept.1, 2018 to kick of the 8th Annual Coltrane Jazz Festival in High Point, NC.
The performing group is a result of the Coltrane Jazz Workshop for Youth (JCJW), an annual summer camp sponsored each year by the High Point United Arts Council. It offers rising 7th through 12th graders an introduction to jazz history and jazz theory in the city where Coltrane grew up and learned to play, taught by educators and performers who are highly regarded as jazz specialists.
The workshop is led by Wally West, Administrative Director and member of the Piedmont Triad Jazz Orchestra and the Director of Jazz Studies at Gardner-Webb University. The faculty for the workshop includes musicians who teach and perform throughout the state.
Sunday September 2, 2018 Performers
Dianne Reeves
Five-time Grammy Award winner Dianne Reeves is considered the pre-eminent jazz vocalist in the world as a result of her vocal prowess and her unique jazz and R&B stylings. Her band, a quartet, is made up of some of the most incomparable musicians today; Pianist Peter Martin, guitar virtuoso Romero, bassist Reginald Veal, and Terreon Gully on drums. Reeves’ 2014 release A Beautiful Life won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album. With a total of nine nominations, she has won the Grammy’s Best Jazz Vocal category a total of five times.
Born in Chicago and raised in Denver, she studied classical voice at the University of Colorado for a time then moved to Los Angeles, where she sang with Stanley Turrentine and Lenny White. She became a member of the jazz fusion group Caldera (produced by Larry Dunn of Earth, Wind & Fire fame). Dianne Reeves moved to New York City and from 1983 to 1986 toured with Harry Belafonte. Reeves signed with Blue Note Records in 1987 and released her self-titled debut for the label which contained the smash hit single, “Better Days.”
In recent years Reeves has toured the world in a variety of contexts including “Sing the Truth,” a musical celebration of Nina Simone. She performed at the White House on multiple occasions including President Obama’s State Dinner for the President of China as well as the Governors’ Ball. Reeves is the recipient of honorary doctorates from the Berklee College of Music and the Juilliard School. In 2018 the National Endowment for the Arts will designate Reeves a Jazz Master – the highest honor the United States bestows on jazz artists.
Pete Escovedo & Sheila E
Legendary percussionist, Escovedo returns to the John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival, leading his orchestra and hosting his famous daughter, Sheila E as special guest. The elder Escovedo performed with the Latin Jazz All Stars at the 2016 Coltrane Jazzfest.
Pete Escovedo is an artist who broke down the barriers between Smooth Jazz, Salsa, Latin Jazz and contemporary music. His name has been synonymous with these genres for more than 50 years. Born in Pittsburg, CA, he discovered percussions at age 16 after initially starting to learn the saxophone. Escovedo and his brothers formed a Latin Jazz band in the1960s. He and his brother Coke formed the band Azteca in the 1970s. They toured with Stevie Wonder. He joined the Carlos Santana band in 1972.
Sheila E. was born into this rich heritage of Latin music in Oakland, CA. As a young girl, she was immersed in the diverse music scenes of the Bay Area—influenced and inspired by her percussionist father and musical uncles. She picked up drumsticks and started making music at the age of three while watching her father rehearse for his gigs with Tito Puente and Carlos Santana. She’s spent five decades making Latin and pop music– from Sheila E’s very first band when she was a teenager to her tours with Marvin Gaye, Lionel Richie, and Prince, to the launch of her own solo career. Father and daughter recorded two albums together in 1978; Solo Two and Happy Together.
Pete Escovedo’s released a new album Back To The Bay, at the end of March. Both he and daughter Sheila E have published memoirs; his titled “My Life in the Key of E,” and her’s titled “The Beat of My Own Drum.”
Ravi Coltrane
Three time Grammy Award nominee, saxophonist, composer, bandleader and record producer Ravi Coltrane released In Movement on ECM records in 2016, a collaborative effort working with legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette. He earned a 2017 Grammy Award nomination as Best Improvised Jazz Solo Performance for his work on that release. Born in Long Island, NY, the second son of John and Alice Coltrane, Ravi was raised in Los Angeles where his family moved after his father’s death in 1967. Ravi began studying music in 1986, focusing on the saxophone at the California Institute of the Arts. He paid his dues by performing as a sideman on more than 30 recordings before stepping out as a leader. Since then Ravi Coltrane then has recorded six CDs. Ravi Coltrane lives in Brooklyn, NY and maintains a fast paced touring, recording, composing and performance schedule. He leads the effort to restore the John Coltrane Home in Dix Hills, Long Island and presides over important reissues of his parents recordings.
Jackie Venson
Jackie Venson started playing the guitar when she was a senior at Berklee College of Music. Until then she had studied and trained as a classical pianist. Forming her own blues band in 2013, Venson has become a rising star for her vocal and playing ability as well as her songwriting. Grounded in the blues, the Austin, TX native who is the youngest of nine children, effortlessly intermingles soul, R&B and pop styles in her music. She’s been compared to another Austin native — Gary Clark, Jr. with whom she has been touring and making on stage appearances this year.
Michelle Coltrane
Playing at the jazz festival named for her step-father, vocalist Michelle Coltrane is the daughter of jazz pianist Alice Coltrane. The example her parents set as musicians and as people inspired their daughter to be her authentic self as an artist. The violin was Coltrane’s first instrument. Her mother taught her to play as a little girl and to read music when she was older. Michelle stuck with the violin through high school, but also learned to play the piano, viola and clarinet. A wide array of female vocalists have influenced Coltrane. Among the first were Minnie Riperton, Patti Austin, and Brenda Russell. She later developed an appreciation for Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and Shirley Horn. Of the vocalists of today, Coltrane cites Dianne Reeves, Liz Wright, DeeDee Bridgwater and Carmen Lundy as the current artists who capture her attention.Her first album I Think Of You, was released to critical acclaim in the early 90s. Coltrane took time off from her career to devote to her family. Now she returns to her career with the release of her second recording Awakening.
About John Coltrane
John Coltrane was born on September 23, 1926 in Hamlet, NC. He grew up and learned to play saxophone in High Point, NC, graduating from William Penn High School at the age of 16 in 1943. While in high school, Coltrane’s musical influences were Lester Young and Johnny Hodges prompting him to switch to alto saxophone.
He left High Point shortly after graduation, moving to Philadelphia, PA where he began a study of the saxophone in earnest. After a stint in the Navy during World War II (he was part of the band) Coltrane met, performed and recorded with Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Hodges, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and other jazz legends. Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of the free jazz movement.
He formed his own quartet in 1960 which included pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones. The “classic” John Coltrane Quartet created some of the most quintessential albums in Jazz history including: “My Favorite Things”, “Africa Brass”, “Impressions”, “Giant Steps” and his signature work “A Love Supreme”.
Sadly, Coltrane died of liver disease on July 15, 1967. The power and expressive eloquence of Coltrane’s music has influenced the generations of musician to follow.
History
In 2004 a group of visionaries formed the Downtown Improvement Committee for the purpose of erecting a statue commemorating the great saxophonist and composer John Coltrane as a High Point, NC native son. Coltrane was born in Hamlet, NC, came to embrace jazz in Philadelphia, PA, but, first learned to play the saxophone while growing up in High Point.
The statue was financed by grants from the Downtown Improvement Committee, the High Point Convention and Visitors Bureau, the High Point Museum, the City of High Point, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, the High Point Community Foundation and private donations.
The 8 foot tall, bronze statue was created by sculptor Thomas Jay Warren and dedicated on September 20, 2006. It is located at the Coltrane Plaza in downtown High Point. Legendary guitar icon, Carlos Santana wrote the words that were read at the dedication ceremony. Santana has cited Coltrane as a musical influence.
The Friends of John Coltrane officially formed in the summer of 2009 as an outgrowth of the group of individuals who worked to raise funds to commission the statue. In 2009 the group decided to focus their energies on the creation of an annual jazz festival. The very first John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival was held two years later.
Since its inception, the John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival has succeeded in bringing the very top names in jazz, paid homage to the blues, celebrated the life and musical legacy of the jazz genres greatest artists. The festival attracts a growing audience and enjoys burgeoning reputation as the destination for Labor Day weekend.
For more information, visit https://coltranejazzfest.com/