East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania Music Department and
the ESU Regional Jazz
Coalition (funded by the Office of the President of ESU, Dr. Robert J. Dillman) present
Jazz Masters Seminar
VIII: Spring 2008 - Guest Speakers/Performers
Speaking/performing engagements are on selected Wednesdays from 5:15 to 6:30pm in the
Cohen Recital Hall of the
Jazz
Masters Seminar (MUS
404/504) is a 3-credit undergraduate- and graduate-level course developed and
taught by Patrick Dorian, ESU Associate Professor of Music. Students
study the lives, careers, and music of regional jazz
professionals. All of the presenters are extremely accomplished and some of
them are jazz icons around the world. Each artist is then a guest
speaker/performer, interacting with the class and the audience. Students of any
major concentrate on the successful career track of each presenter and how
their own future activities might be inspired by the highly effective career
habits of the artists. The textbook for the class is Self-Portrait
of a Jazz Artist (musical thoughts and realities) by David Liebman,
published by Advance Music in
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then scroll down and
click on the Jazz Masters Seminar VIII: Spring 2008 link. |
2007 National
Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Dr. Phil
Woods
will attend
selected seminars and provide illuminating commentary.
Phil Woods & Bill Charlap will perform at the Deer Head Inn on Saturday, March 8.
The piano accompanist
for some of the seminars will be the accomplished performer and arranger
Wolfgang Knittel.
Wolfgang Knittel will perform with The Gaptime
Ensemble at the Deer Head Inn on Friday,
March 7 from 7-11pm.
Opening Keynote Speaker: January 30 - Dr. Bob Dorough: Bob is the December 2007 recipient of an
honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from ESU. The university will continue to
honor him throughout the spring semester, including a seminar with Ben Tucker
on March 26 and a feature concert on March 27. He is an award-winning singer,
composer, and piano performer. Dr. Dorough has
performed and recorded with the likes of Miles Davis and was a producer and
composer for Spanky & Our Gang. His compositions
have been recorded by Miles Davis, Diana Krall, Mel Tormé, and Michael Bublé. For 35
years he has been the musical director of the iconic educational cartoon series
School House Rock!
(subtitled Knowledge Is Power!) and has composed and performed numerous
songs for this series. He was also the piano accompanist for extended time
periods for such diverse artists as Sugar Ray Robinson, Maya Angelou, and Lenny
Bruce. He will give an invigorating overview of this semester's offerings.
February 6
- Bill Mays presents "Mays at
the Movies":
Bill will introduce his
significant film soundtrack piano performances and soundtracks that he has
composed. He is on several Carter Burwell soundtracks for the Coen Brothers (including Fargo and The Hudsucker Proxy) and is a featured piano soloist on
Burwell's music for Steven Shainberg's Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of
Diane Arbus and other soundtracks such as Being
John Malkovich, Changing Lanes, and Consenting
Adults. His film compositions include a song used in Robert DeNiro's 1993 television pilot Tribeca
and additional films such as Hamlet, Looker, and Anamorph.
Bill's artistry is beyond category. With deep roots in jazz, gospel, pop, and
classical music, his eclectic, prolific career as pianist, composer, and
arranger spans four decades. Along with over 100 recordings (including 13 under
his own name), Bill's concert and studio credits include a who's who of modern
music, everyone from Frank Sinatra to Frank Zappa to Andrea Bocelli.
Bill Mays & the Inventions Trio,
featuring Marvin Stamm
(trumpet) & Alisa Horn (cello)
will perform at the Deer Head Inn on Saturday, March 29.
Please Note:
The
Richy Barz seminar,
originally scheduled for February 13,
has been rescheduled
to Wednesday, February 20 (5:15-6:30pm)
February
20 - Richy Barz
presents "Both Sides of the Desk - Life as a Musician and Artist
Manager": After
graduating from the Crane School of Music in SUNY Potsdam, Richy
toured the world as a woodwind performer and road manager for the Glenn Miller
Orchestra for several years and also with other name ensembles. He then worked
as a booking agent for the famed
February 27 - Mulgrew Miller & Bill Goodwin - Renown Artists/Teachers: They will discuss being active
performers and colleagues in a university environment and the process that will
lead up to tomorrow evening's feature concert. The featured performer at this
seminar and subsequent concert, Professor Mulgrew
Miller is a world-class piano performer and director of jazz studies at William
Paterson University (WPU). Bill Goodwin is one of the finest drummers in the
world and a WPU jazz studies faculty member, teaching drums and ensembles.
Professor Miller's
accomplishments include a discography that reveals he is undoubtedly the most
recorded pianist of his generation with well over 400 recordings as a leader
and sideman. He has emerged as a leader of vision and a significant composer.
In recent years he has appeared throughout Europe,
Professor Goodwin is an
almost completely self-taught drummer. He attributes his early interest in the
drums to Shelly Manne's playing on the movie
soundtrack of The Man with the Golden Arm. The element of music that he
always hears first is the form. From 1959 to the present, he has been a
professional drummer, playing with the likes of Bill Evans, Dexter Gordon, Art
Pepper, Jim Hall, George Shearing, and Bobby Hutcherson,
and singers June Christy, Joe Williams, Tony Bennett, and the Manhattan
Transfer. The drum chair with Gary Burton brought him to the East Coast in
1969. After a three-year stint with Burton's group,
Bill settled down in an old farmhouse in the Pocono Mountains and worked as a
musician in the resorts. Professor Goodwin is a charter member of The Phil Woods Quartet (now Quintet),
joining at its inception in February 1974. Phil Woods says, "Bill is the
magic ingredient in our all-acoustic group. Bill is one of the masters who
plays the song, not just the time. He shades and tints beautifully. He plays
the music." As a record producer, Bill Goodwin has produced all of the The Phil Woods Quartet/Quintet and Little Big Band
recordings since 1980, including the Grammy Award-winning albums More Live,
At the Vanguard, and the 1992 Grammy nominee All Bird’s Children, as
well as The Phil Woods Quintet Meets Dizzy Gillespie and Flowers for
Hodges by the duo of Phil Woods and Jim McNeely. In the 1970s and '80s he
was the Omnisound label’s main producer of jazz
product including Phil Woods/Lew Tabackin (soon to be re-released on the Evidence label)
and Dave Frishberg's Songbooks Volume I and Volume
II. His production efforts released in the 1990s include Keith Jarrett’s Live
at the Deer Head Inn, The Phil Woods Quartet/Quintet
20th Anniversary Album box/booklet set for Mosaic
Records, Phil Woods’s Astor & Elis, and The Phil Woods Quintet’s Mile High Jazz.
Bill Goodwin performs
3-4 times each month at the Deer Head Inn.
followed by
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The Mulgrew Miller (piano) & his William Paterson University jazz faculty colleagues: David Demsey (saxophone), Steve LaSpina (bass), and Bill Goodwin (drums)
Co-sponsored by the Office of Diversity & Equal Opportunity. |
March 5
- Bobby Avey & Matt
Vashlishan - Young Jazz Professionals Who Were
Raised in the Pocono Mountain Area: Bobby is a piano performer who received a scholarship to
attend SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music, in Purchase, NY, where he studied
jazz piano with Hal Galper, won the Presser Award
Scholarship (given annually to one student at Purchase), eventually graduating
in 2007. He has also studied with world-class Pocono residents Dave Liebman and Phil Markowitz, among
others. He is a past winner of the Downbeat Student Music Awards in the
Original Composition category and has also performed original music with Jon Faddis in Manhattan. Bobby’s first CD recording, Vienna Dialogues, is a remarkable duo CD in collaboration with Dave Liebman and was released on the ZOHO label in 2006. This
project features the songs of Mendelssohn, Brahms, Chopin, Mahler, and other
19th-century lieder composers. In 2006, he was named a Yamaha Young Performing
Artist on piano and performed on the Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship for
3½ months. Presently, he lives and performs in New York City.
Matt is a saxophonist and
woodwind performer who graduated from the Eastman School of Music in May 2005.
Upon graduation, he traveled extensively around the world, visiting Norway, the
UK, the Mediterranean Sea, Venezuela, and the Caribbean, while performing on
board two major cruise ships (the Queen Mary II-Cunard,
Queen Elizabeth II, and the Golden Princess-Princess Cruises).
Currently he is working on a graduate degree in music education and research
(jazz performance) at William Paterson University. He has performed with
Bobby & Matt will discuss
the history of their musical interactions, their conservatory training, their
current professional activities, and their future plans.
No Seminar on March 12 (ESU Spring Break Week)
March 19 - Dennis
Carrig, Mary Carrig, Bob
Mancuso, & Jason Wilson present "Owning & Operating the Deer Head Inn": These four passionate visionaries
acquired the venerable Delaware Water Gap jazz nightclub, the Deer Head Inn, in
autumn 2005. It has been the home of jazz in the Poconos
since the early 1950s. Denny, Mary, Bob, and Jason will present their thoughts
on why they obtained the Deer Head, how this business operates, and their
vision for the future.
March 26 - Dr. Bob Dorough
& Dr. Ben Tucker -Musical Partners for 50 Years: Robert and Benjamin met in 1958 in Los
Angeles and have collaborated on several important projects including Ben's
musical composition Comin' Home Baby
with Bob as the lyricist. It has been featured in several major films (Get Shorty, Two Weeks Notice, and Get Even with Dad).
The vocal version of this piece has been recorded by Teri Thornton, Mel Tormé, and most recently in 2007 by Michael Bublé in duet with Boyz II Men on
Bublé's multi-platinum, Grammy-nominated CD Call
Me Irresponsible. Bob & Ben's saga continued in 1972 when Ben
recommended that George Newell hire Bob to be the musical director for the new
cartoon series School House Rock! (subtitled Knowledge Is Power!).
An accomplished string
bassist who has performed and recorded all over the world with artists such as
Peggy Lee, Quincy Jones, Dexter Gordon, Herbie Mann,
Clark Terry, Phil Woods, and Oliver Nelson, Ben has also been involved in the
music publishing business for decades. He is responsible for publishing Bobby Hebb's 1966 hit Sunny, which is listed as number 25
on BMI's Top 100 Songs of the 20th Century. He formed his own television
commercial production company and was awarded a Clio for a Hartford Insurance
Company commercial. He also produced Multiplication Rock from School
House Rock! Upon purchasing WSOK radio station in Savannah, Georgia, in
1972 with Dr. Billy Taylor, Drs. Tucker and Taylor became the 15th black radio
station owners in the U.S. WSOK soon became the top AM station in the Savannah
market, a position it held for 13 years. Ben was appointed to the Selective
Service Board by President Carter (reappointed by President Reagan), appointed
to the Advisory Committee on the Arts for the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts by President Carter, and was awarded an Honorary Degree of
Doctor of Humanities from B. F. Lee Theological Seminary (a part of Edward
Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida) in 1976.
Bob & Ben's seminar will
be an overview of their successful relationship and a fine preparation for
tomorrow evening's concert.
followed by
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The Mentor Series: Concert XV Co-sponsored by the Office of Diversity & Equal Opportunity. Reception for the Art
Association Juried Student Art Exhibition from 5:30 to 7:45pm in the |
April 2 - Jim Daniels - Accomplished Bass Trombonist & Tuba Performer: Jim graduated from the Eastman School of Music and shortly thereafter toured the world with the Woody Herman Orchestra for 18 months (1976-1978), including recording several albums with Woody. Upon leaving the Herman Orchestra, Jim started a long performing/recording association with Chuck Mangione. In 1979, he toured and recorded with the Mel Lewis Orchestra and to this day performs with this ensemble (now called The Vanguard Orchestra) several Monday nights each year at the famed Village Vanguard jazz club in New York City's Greenwich Village. He has also toured with Engelbert and has performed hundreds of performances in the pit orchestras for Broadway shows. His versatility is remarkable, as he frequently performs with the New York City Ballet Orchestra as well as being a fine improvising tuba performer in "Trad"/Dixieland ensembles. Professor Daniels teaches several music courses in the ESU Music Department and directs ESU's University Jazz Ensemble.
No Seminar on April 9
Final
seminar: April 16 - Renowned author Ashley Kahn
presents his book "Kind of
Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece" (published in 2001): Mr. Kahn returns to ESU after his
impressive PowerPoint presentation in August 2007 about his book A
Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album (published
in 2002). He also authored The
House That Trane Built: The
Story of Impulse Records (published in 2006).
This presentation will be an
in-depth focus on the 1959 record album Kind of Blue, which most jazz
scholars and jazz lovers feel is one of the most important recordings of all
time. Mr. Kahn is an award-winning journalist, American music historian,
producer, and National
Public Radio essayist who lives in
For assistance or special accommodations,
please call 570/422-3759.
Direct
questions about the course, seminars, and concerts to: Patrick Dorian, Assoc. Prof. of Music
- ph: 570/422-3759
Last updated 02/27/2008.