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Joe Lovano

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Hailed by The New York Times as “one of the greatest musicians in jazz history,” Grammy Award winning saxophone titan Joe Lovano has distinguished himself as a prescient and pathfinding force in the arena of creative music.

US FIVE BIRD SONGS: CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF CHARLIE PARKER
In celebration of Charlie Parker’s centennial, Lovano and his Us Five band revisit modern arrangements of Parker originals from Lovano’s critically acclaimed album, Bird Songs. Released on Blue Note in 2011, Lovano did not approach Bird Songs as a tribute album, but instead pushed the boundaries of Bird’s material to “rethink and reinterpret the material in fresh, innovative ways” (BBC). Lovano says:

“Putting this recording together I kept wondering how Bird would have developed within these tunes, not just as the incredible soloist that he was but as an arranger and bandleader. From what we know about him, it is clear that he was into the world of music beyond so-called Jazz and Be Bop. I’m sure we would have all been surprised at every turn in his approach just as we were with Miles, Coltrane, Rollins, and Coleman, four of his most distinguished and celebrated disciples. At the young age of 34 Charlie Parker passed and left us with all of these questions about what would be. This recording is my humble attempt to answer some of those questions in my own way.”

Thrillingly adventurous, thoroughly modern, and uniquely personal, Bird Songs gives us a look at one of the most influential figures in jazz history by one of the most important voices in the genre today. NPR says, “These songs are slowed down, torn apart, reconfigured, mashed together, impressionistically meditated on and pried open for investigation. This isn’t done lightly: Bird’s music is iconic source material, at least for jazz musicians, if not for American culture at large. But Bird Songs proves that there’s plenty of space to imagine yourself in it.”

TRIO TAPESTRY
Grammy Award winning composer, saxophonist, and producer Joe Lovano makes his ECM debut with Trio Tapestry, featuring pianist Marilyn Crispell and Carmen Castaldi on drums. Longtime collaborators in various projects over the years, each member of the trio is a pillar in their respective industries: Lovano is a titan of jazz saxophone, The Guardian calls Marilyn Crispell “one of the most highly regarded pianists at the sharp end of contemporary jazz,” and Castaldi is a superb percussionist in the continuing legacy of Paul Motion. With innovative new compositions Lovano calls, “some of the most intimate, personal music” he’s recorded thus far, Lovano unfurls a tapestry of modal expressions interwoven with shimmering saxophone, passionate spirituality in the piano, and a range of exceptional percussive accents.

SPECIAL PROJECTS…

SOUND PRINTS
Grammy-winning saxophonist and composer Joe Lovano and two-time Grammy nominated trumpeter Dave Douglas are current masters on their respective instruments within the pantheon of modern jazz. They have shown that their distinct and robust voices can lead, blend and push the idiom forward both in composition and improvisation, while embracing the front-line masters of previous generations. Once co-leaders of the renowned SFJAZZ Collective, the group paid tribute to living icon Wayne Shorter by showcasing arrangements of Shorter originals alongside newly composed pieces influenced by Shorter’s compositional voice. The experience was a catalyst that lead the two instrumentalists to conceive the Joe Lovano & Dave Douglas Quintet, Sound Prints; an all-star ensemble including up and coming pianist Lawrence Fields, bassist Linda Oh, and drummer Joey Baron. The group’s latest album, Scandal, reveals them to be passionately adventurous band for whom no territory is off-limits. DownBeat praises Scandal for its “multiple layers of bright melody” and “dymanic group interplay.” Lovano says, “Sound Prints is a free-flowing, joyous expression of music in the social environment we live in today. We dare to improvise and create music within the music – in a democratic way each piece comes to life on its own.”

SYMPHONY
Grammy-winning saxophonist and composer Joe Lovano stands alone at the vanguard of large and small group jazz. From his Grammy-nominated work with the WDR Big Band & Rundfunk Orchestra, Symphonica, to his role as Gary Burton Chair of Jazz Performance at Berklee College of Music, the Cleveland native fearlessly challenges and pushes the conceptual and thematic choices he makes in a quest for new modes of artistic expression and new takes on what defines the jazz idiom. In 2014 Lovano won awards for Multi-reeds Player and Tenor Saxophonist of the Year from the Jazz Journalists Association and Tenor Saxophonist of the Year from Down Beat Magazine. He has released 23 celebrated albums on the Blue Note label; with the last three focusing on his quintet Us Five.