On Sunday, the weekend concluded with the piano pyrotechnics of Dominican pianist and Westchester resident Michel Camilo. 81-year-old saxophonist, composer, band leader, and jazz legend, Jimmy Heath and his Big Band turned up the heat(h)! To start the afternoon, pianist Aaron Diehl, unleashed his brilliant technique and sensitive touch, showing why he is a new force on the jazz scene.
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Michel Camilo, piano ~ Michel Camilo is a native of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He studied for 13 years at the National Conservatory, and at the age of 16 became a member of the National Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic (NSODR). He moved to New York in 1979, where he studied at Mannes College and at The Juilliard School.
A pianist with a brilliant technique and a composer who flavors his tunes with Latin rhythms and jazz harmonies, his composition Why Not! titled an album by Paquito D'Rivera, and the Manhattan Transfer won a Grammy® Award (1983) for its vocal version of the piece. Mr. Camilo titled his own debut album Why Not! And followed it with Suntan/Michel Camilo In Trio.
He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1985 with his trio and toured Europe that same year. Back in Santo Domingo, he conducted the NSODR in a classical program that included his own Emmy® Award-winning The Goodwill Games Theme. He was also musical director of the Dominican Republic's Heineken Jazz Festival, a post he held for five years until 1992.
His first three albums, Michel Camilo, On Fire, and On the Other Hand reached the top of the nationwide jazz radio play charts. Since then his recordings on various labels have included Rendezvous, One More Once, Thru My Eyes, Spain-Michel Camilo & Tomatito, Triangulo, Live at the Blue Note, Solo, Rhapsody in Blue, Spain Again and Spirit of the Moment. As a composer, pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque and Dizzy Gillespie have recorded Mr. Camilo's Caribe. The Labèques premiered Rhapsody for Two Pianos and Orchestra, a commission by the Philharmonia Orchestra. He composed the score for the award winning European film Amo Tu Cama Rica, and for Los Peores Años de Nuestra Vida and Two Much. Mr. Camilo has been a featured soloist, arranger and composer with the Danish Radio Big Band, and he toured as part of a three-piano ensemble with the Labèque sisters.
He has appeared as soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO); Cleveland Orchestra; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Atlanta Symphony; Copenhagen Philharmonic; BBC Symphony Orchestra; National Symphony Orchestra (Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico, Queens, Long Island; Gran Canaria Philharmonic, Murcia, Málaga, RTVE, Bilbao, Cadaques, National Symphony Orchestra (Spain), Madrid and Barcelona symphonies, Gulbenkian Symphony, New Japan Symphony; and the Carnegie Hall Big Band. The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) selected him as co-artistic director (with Leonard Slatkin) of the first Latin-Caribbean Music Festival at the Kennedy Center, where he performed with his Trio and his Big Band and had the world premiere of his Concerto for Piano & Orchestra, commissioned by the NSO and conducted by Leonard Slatkin.
Mr. Camilo has also performed at the Royal Albert Hall (BBC Proms), Concertgebouw, Kennedy Center, Hollywood Bowl, Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, Wolftrap and Carnegie Hall and has appeared elsewhere in New York at the Blue Note, Beacon Theater, Radio City Music Hall, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall. He performed at the White House in an all-star program celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festival, broadcast nationwide by PBS as part of In Performance At The White House, and on NPR's A Jazz Piano Christmas, hosted by Tony Bennett.
Mr. Camilo regularly tours the Caribbean; Europe; South, Central and North America; Israel and Japan. He performed a series of solo piano recitals as part of Copenhagen's Cultural Capital of Europe festival, and has appeared on several occasions at the prestigious Klavier-Festival Ruhr in Germany. Besides his own works, Mr. Camilo has performed Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue and Piano Concerto in F, as well as Ravel's Piano Concerto in G on several occasions. He also gives duo concerts with Flamenco guitarist Tomatito, winning a Latin Grammy® Award (2000) for their album Spain.
Mr. Camilo is featured among the artists in Calle 54, a film about Latin jazz by Academy Award winning director Fernando Trueba. His Classical CD for DECCA features him with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin performing his Concerto for Piano & Orchestra and his Suite for Piano, Strings & Harp. In March 2002, TELARC released Triangulo his Grammy® Award nominated Jazz Trio recording. His album Live at the Blue Note became a Grammy® Award winner (2004), he was named JazzWeek® Artist of the Year, served as president of the jury at the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival Solo Piano competition and in December was voted among the Top 10 Jazz Pianists of the Year at the 69th Annual DownBeat® Readers Poll.
In January 2005, TELARC released Solo, Mr. Camilo’s highly acclaimed first solo piano recording. That same year Mr. Camilo performed his Piano Concerto with the Gulbenkian Symphony in Lisbon, as well as Gershwin’s Concerto in F with Spain’s National Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin; also gave Solo Piano recitals at the Rome, Lisbon and Barcelona Auditoriums. In February 2006, TELARC released Rhapsody in Blue which features Michel Camilo with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ernest Martinez-Izquierdo which was awarded the 2006 Latin Grammy® for “Best Classical Album”. In May 2006, Universal Music Int’l released Spain Again which celebrates the reunion of Michel Camilo & Tomatito with their unique blend of Jazz and Flamenco, the duo has performed 40 concerts in 15 countries as part of their world tour.
March and April 2007 included performances of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G in Barcelona as guest soloist with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ernest Martínez Izquierdo, and his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in Madrid and Seville with the Madrid Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jesús Lopez Cobos. On April 24, 2007, Camilo returned to the trio format with the critically acclaimed release of Spirit of the Moment. Last summer he appeared as Artist-in-Residence at the prestigious Klavier Festival Ruhr in Germany. In September he was featured at the Hollywood Bowl as guest soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Slatkin, and in November he toured Europe with his Trio and also appeared as guest soloist with the Seville and Asturias Symphony Orchestras.
Among Mr. Camilo’s honors are the Knight of the Heraldic Order of Christopher Columbus and the Silver Cross of the Order of Duarte, Sanchez & Mella from the Dominican Government, as well as honorary degrees from his alma mater, Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, and UTESA University of Santiago, Dominican Republic. The Duke Ellington School of the Arts created the “Michel Camilo Piano Scholarship” which helps talented inner-city students attend college. Berklee College of Music awarded Mr. Camilo an Honorary Doctorate in Music and also created the “Michel Camilo Scholarship,” which helps Dominican students come to the United States and study jazz.
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Aaron Diehl, piano ~ Hailed by The Chicago Tribune as “The most promising discovery that [Wynton] Marsalis has made since Eric Reed,” Aaron Diehl has been an upcoming force in jazz, dazzling audiences with his brilliant technique, sensitive touch, and interpretations of the music of such great composers as Scott Joplin, Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton, Art Tatum, and Duke Ellington, among others.
Mr. Diehl has performed with the Wynton Marsalis Septet, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Wycliffe Gordon, Wessell Anderson, Benny Golson, and Hank Jones. He has released his first CD as a leader entitled Mozart Jazz, on Pony Canyon, a major label in Japan. The Japanese television station NHK made a documentary on Mr. Diehl and Jazz at Juilliard, which was broadcast to over 5,000,000 people nationwide. In 2002 he was recognized as one of the outstanding soloists at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington Competition. The following year, Wynton Marsalis invited him to tour with his Septet on their summer European tour.
Mr. Diehl is the 2004 recipient of the Martin E. Segal award for Jazz at Lincoln Center. He will soon be featured on Marian McPartland’s NPR radio show Piano Jazz. Mr. Diehl studies at The Juilliard School under Eric Reed, and Oxana Yablonskaya in the classical division. He is presently the musical director of St. Joseph of the Holy Family Church in Central Harlem.
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Jimmy Heath Big Band ~ Jimmy Heath has long been recognized as a brilliant instrumentalist and a magnificent composer and arranger. Jimmy is the middle brother of the legendary Heath Brothers (Percy Heath/bass and Tootie Heath/drums), and is the father of Mtume. He has performed with nearly all the jazz greats of the last 50 years, from Howard McGhee, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis to Wynton Marsalis. In 1948 at the age of 21, he performed in the First International Jazz Festival in Paris with McGhee, sharing the stage with Coleman Hawkins, Slam Stewart, and Erroll Garner. One of Mr. Heath’s earliest big bands (1947-1948) in Philadelphia included John Coltrane, Benny Golson, Specs Wright, Cal Massey, Johnny Coles, Ray Bryant, and Nelson Boyd. Charlie Parker and Max Roach sat in on one occasion.
During his career, Jimmy Heath has performed on more than 100 record albums including seven with The Heath Brothers and twelve as a leader. Ha has also written more than 125 compositions, many of which have become jazz standards and have been recorded by other artists including Art Farmer, Cannonball Adderley, Clark Terry, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, James Moody, Milt Jackson, Ahmad Jamal, Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, J.J Johnson and Dexter Gordon. Mr. Heath has also composed extended works - seven suites and two string quartets - and he premiered his first symphonic work, Three Ears, in 1988 at Queens College (CUNY) with Maurice Peress conducting.
Having just concluded eleven years as Professor of Music at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, Mr. Heath maintains an extensive performance schedule and continues to conduct workshops and clinics throughout the United States, Europe, and Canada. He has also taught jazz studies at Jazzmobile, Housatonic College, City College of New York, and The New School for Social Research. In October 1997, two of his former students, trumpeters Darren Barrett and Diego Urcola, placed first and second in the Thelonious Monk Competition.
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